Angela's Assassins
The sentinels had been waiting at the edge of the system, monitoring and protecting the colony, since the seeding. Forty thousand cycles they had waited, watching the initial deployment, the failure of technology, the fall to barbarism, and the climb from almost failure back to the beginnings of technology once again.
The inhabitants of the third planet in this system called themselves humans. Now in their nuclear age, still unstable from the onslaught of technology, they were beginning to act as a community, though there were still rebel elements among them. These humans were reaching for the stars, though the effort was still sporadic and suffering from the limitations of their independent governments. And they were noisy. Little known to them, something apart from their parents' civilization had now taken notice because of that noise. Something malevolent. Sentinel 9 broke its orbit just after the alien probe left the system. It folded space and went home, bringing news of the colony's discovery by their ancient enemy.
Angela and the humans were unaware of the sentinel's departure, as were the rest of the humans on the planet Earth. She and her squadron of F-15 fighter jockeys had been flying training missions for the new graduates who were looking for a home as fighter pilots at the many airbases in the United States and around the world. The missions kept her sharp, as her role would change from aggressor to defender daily while training the newbies. It was nighttime at the Mountain Home Combined airbase; a cold, clear night, one of the types that you see the stars and planets of the Sol system in the black-velvet background of the canvas of the heavens.
Taking a seat beside one of the pilots of her squadron on the grass, she took the beer he offered in friendship. Bernard, call sign "Buster", Keaton, was one of her squadron-mates, a friend she had known from her time in Iraq and Afghanistan. They kept the silence, staring off into the night sky, sipping the beers. They both saw the flashes, deep in the firmament.
"What the hell was that?" asked Angie, to no one in particular.
"I saw it too, Angie. That's out there beyond Mars at least, maybe close to Jupiter "
"Whatever it was didn't look natural to me, Buster. Look, there is another one "
The two of them dumped the rest of their beers and started for the barracks at a run just as the emergency alert sounded.
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