Betrayal of Beauty

This isn't really an AAR, it's a short story depicting an event possibly more horrifying than the destruction of a system by a Terror Star. No, there's no gore or anything in it that could give you bad dreams.

For the entire length of our written history we had thought to be alone in this universe. We had not wandered far from our planet; the furthest any of our species has ever gone was to one of the moons orbiting our planet.

Our planet, a lush and green planet with more room than we could probably fill within a thousand years. We had known peace for dozens of years and our society prospered technologically. There was minimal pollution and crime was as low as it ever would be. A true paradise in our eyes.

One day, astronomers observed something that would change our world; a large spaceship of unknown origin arrived at the edge of our system. We knew, that we were no longer alone, but were they friendly or were they to be feared? A question that kept our entire species busy for several months. And in the meantime, the spaceship just sat there, as if it was waiting for something.

Plans were made to contact the spaceship. We first tried to contact them through conventional means, but there was no reply. Countless other ways were tried to contact them, all to no avail. Our last effort to make first contact was to send a crewed spaceship of our own to see if that would draw their attention.

After several years of construction our spaceship was ready, while the spaceship of unknown origin just stayed where it was. Able persons were selected and after a grand ceremony they boarded our spaceship, named the 'New Dawn' and took of to the stars. Having no means of propulsion that came close to the speed of light, the journey would take several years, years in which that spaceship of unknown origin still did not move.

Several years went by and when the moment was finally there, when the crew of the 'New Dawn' would make contact, nothing happened. All that was observed by astronomers was a bright flash, and then nothing. But the spaceship of unknown origin was still there.

Years of waiting for contact turned into several decades and nobody seemed to care much anymore for 'the spaceship of unknown origin at the edge of our system'. Then one day it started to move, towards our planet. A lot of people panicked, others celebrated in joy.

It was evening, the star coloured our sky in wonderful colours and somehow it was more beautifull than ever before. It was the evening on which the spaceship of unknown origin arrived in orbit of our planet. Attempts were made again to try and make contact with it, but there was still no response.

All of a sudden the spaceship seemed to 'activate'; lights started blinking and hatches opened. It dispersed clouds of various colours; aquamarine, azure, crimson, cyan, turquoise, magenta, mauve and many more. It was more beautifull than a thousand of that evening's skies put together.

The clouds covered the entire sky and descended upon us. Beauty however, was soon followed by agony and horror. People fell ill and died horrible deaths soon afterwards. In a weeks time, our population had been decimated to insignificant numbers. This was no spaceship of beauty, this was a spaceship that was designed for the extermination of entire species.