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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Real_Nectarine_7986 on 2025-07-01 16:01:29+00:00.

“A thousand they came, ships armoured and fast,

A military, strong, with purpose steadfast.

From Arcturus they travelled, to aid us, their friends,

To join in the struggle, where hope seemed to end.

  With engines that roared and weapons that blazed,

They answered the call, their spirits unphased.

To the frontlines they charged, hearts bound as one,

Warriors and kin, their mission relentless, now gone.

  The price they paid, a toll too high,

The planet they hailed from, it did die.

In the void of space, their home turned to dust,

Fallen but glorious, their sacrifice just.

  Yet in our hearts, their memory remains,

A flame in the dark, through all of our pains.

The humans who came, so gallant, so true,

Rest now in peace, their mission through.

  In our skies, their souls will forever gleam,

A legacy forged from hope’s purest beam.

The 7th Crusade, their victory, our song,

Their sacrifice lives, though they’ve long been gone.”

*              *              *

High Admiral Xellon stood on the command deck of the GUV Resurgence, a towering flagship that now served as the spearhead of the new campaign. The old memorial poem had been broadcast across all systems in Union space, reaching the outer fringes where scattered resistance still festered. Millions had tuned in – citizens, soldiers, and diplomats alike – each feeling the weight of the words he had spoken. The story of the 7th Crusade was more than just history. It was Union legend. It was doctrine. It was a sacred wound, and a guiding star.

But for Xellon, it was personal.

He turned toward the viewport, hands behind his back, eyes fixed on the swirling void beyond the ship’s transparent shielding. Just beyond the nebula ahead was the border zone. Former Dominion space. Now ruled in fragments by warlords and pirates claiming heritage from a once-glorious regime.

The Dominion.

Even the name tasted like soda ash.

Though the original five species had long since fractured, their legacy endured. The Cruval, the Vezzari, the Yiloth, the Drenik, and the silent Macharii. Five distinct cultures. Five tyrannies united in exploitation. Their inter-galaxy-spanning empire had swept into the Milky Way like a tidal wave of fire, enslaving systems, stripping planets, and erasing civilisations.

Until the Union was formed.

And until Humanity came.

They weren’t like the others. While many species relied on psionics, biotech, or advanced AI collectivism, Humanity had brought with them an uncompromising doctrine: adaptability and sacrifice. Their strategies were unpredictable, their morale unshakable, their mettle unyielding. Even in the face of extinction, they advanced.

And when they saw that the Dominion’s 7th Crusade was preparing to shatter the Union’s central systems, it was humanity who volunteered the first, and only, full-system commitment in the Union’s history, before or since.

No one had expected what followed.

A thousand ships had arrived at the Karron Expanse – where the Dominion fleet had amassed. The humans called it “The Last Stand.” In Union strategy meetings, it was “Operation Breakline.”

In Dominion records, it was "The Butcher’s Trap."

Every ship bore names – some proud and thunderous like Spirit of Liberty, others soft and haunting like Candle for Earth. One-by-one they dove into the fire. Fleets of Dominion Dreadnoughts fell beneath the human onslaught.

But it had come at a price.

A price the humans knew they would pay.

Xellon could still see the footage: a kaleidoscope of plasma, rail fire, and ruptured hulls. Human ships colliding head-on with Dominion cruisers. Boarding parties sealing their own airlocks and detonating from within. The soundless fury of the final moment – the detonation of the Dominion flagship’s core. It was so massive, it lit up the void like a new sun.

Then silence.

Then sorrow.

The Union cheered their victory. Worlds erupted in celebration.

Until Arcturus went silent.

The Dominion had sent their backup fleet, late to the battle, but fueled by vengeance. They struck fast. Precise. Calculated.

Arcturus Prime, the human jewel-world – green continents, blue oceans, their capital of glass towers and rivers – was reduced to floating wreckage. Every colony station, every moonbase, every outpost. Gone. Reduced to rubble floating amongst the asteroid belts.

And the Union had arrived…too late.

*              *              *

The command deck door hissed open behind Xellon. Vice Admiral Yerin stepped forward. One of the younger ones. Drenik-blooded but loyal to the Union. She saluted sharply.

“High Admiral. The fleet is in position. Awaiting your orders.”

Xellon nodded once. “And the volunteers?”

“Every world sent their best,” she said, eyes flicking toward the glowing starmap. “Thirty thousand vessels. Six hundred thousand fighters. Seventeen million ground troops.”

“And the remembrance protocols?”

“All ships bear the seal, sir. Every pilot and marine is required to recite the Arcturus Vow before engagement.”

Xellon took a deep breath.

The Arcturus Vow. Penned in the days after the fall. Required of all who took up arms. It was simple, and it read:

I fight not for glory, not for conquest,

But for those who gave all they had to give.

I fight to honour the fallen,

So that we may never forget their names,

Nor the fire that bought us freedom.

Even children knew it by heart.

“Then let them remember what unity forged,” Xellon said. “Let them remember what humanity bought us with their blood.”

He turned to the announcement channel.

 “All Fleets, commence operation ‘Enduring Freedom’.”

And the war began anew…

*              *              *

The invasion was swift.

The Union fleet struck across five sectors simultaneously. Former Dominion systems – once enslaved – now saw liberation in blue ion trails and roaring engines. Flags of the Union replaced the skull-spires of the warlords. For the first time in over half a century, freedom surged forward.

In the heart of the Crusade, the planet B’revak fell.

It had once been a Dominion frontier breeding world – a vile planet where entire species had been bio-engineered for conquest. Now it bore the symbol of Arcturus: a silver starburst on black, each with twelve human names engraved on its ring.

Names that echoed across the fleet. Soldiers, friends, heroes.

Private Lianne Hart – who boarded a Dominion supercarrier alone with a backpack of explosives.

Commander Rauf Patel – who ordered his crew to abandon ship while he remained behind to pilot the Spearhead into the enemy mothership.

Doctor Helena Royce – a medic who refused evacuation to tend to wounded Drenik marines until her field hospital was atomized.

Captain Saul Reiner – who led the final orbital descent on Arcturus Prime, buying precious hours before the defense grid fell.

President Sam Mitchell – who lead humanity in this perilous time of war.

Each name was carved into war memorials on newly liberated worlds.

But not all humans were gone.

*              *              *

The discovery was accidental.

A recon vessel scanning the fringes of the Arcturus Nebula picked up a faint signal. A repeating SOS, encrypted in an old human military code.

Inside a forgotten asteroid base – shielded and powered by geothermal vents – was a cryogenic vault.

Seventeen survivors.

Mostly children.

The last vestige of Arcturus.

Xellon himself led the recovery team. As the cryo-units were thawed, and the children slowly revived, doctors noted something peculiar.

They weren’t just survivors.

They were trained.

Each child had been implanted with neural enhancement chips. Taught via dream-education. Polyglots. Strategists. Engineers. Fighters.

One child, a girl named Asha Reiner – direct descendant of Captain Saul Reiner and former close friend to the admiral – asked Xellon a question that would ripple across Union high command:

“Are we needed again?”

*              *              *

Fifty years after humanity vanished from the stars, their legacy had not ended.

It had evolved.

The “Arcturus Initiative” was born. The seventeen survivors became founders of a new program – a Union-wide training academy based on human doctrines: sacrifice, tactics, survival, ingenuity.

Species who once distrusted each other began training side by side.

Instructors taught human history alongside galactic affairs. The stories of Earth's wars, Earth's peace treaties, Earth's fallen cities and unyielding rise. How a species with no natural psionics, weak gravity-tolerance, and fragile physiology had still managed to turn the tide of a galaxy-wide war.

The children of Arcturus, now young adults, were not only teachers.

They were leaders.

*              *              *

As the campaign entered its second year, Dominion resistance fractured entirely.

But amid the ruins, rumours stirred.

That a Macharii arch-lord – one of the original five species – had disappeared before the Dominion fell. That he was gathering remnants. That he had learned from humanity too.

Adaptation.

Sacrifice.

And vengeance.

The war was not over. Not yet.

But the Union was no longer the fractured coalition it had once been.

Now, it was a united force built on the example of a fallen species.

A thousand ships had gone. But in their wake, millions now rose.

*              *              *

On the anniversary of Arcturus’s fall, Xellon stood on...

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