This one is a little ham-handed; I blame the typing and half the writing being done at this ungodly hour in the morning. Bad John!
—
The rumours are probably already out of control, so I’ll say this as fast as I can before I lock down the hatch: we didn’t mean any harm. I have no idea if this message will get to anybody before I launch, and in this system I’m not sure there’s anyone who’d care to listen anyway. Still, I’ve got nothing better to do while I wait for the engine to warm up, and I feel I should at least try to set the record straight.
First and foremost, our crew didn’t come to Earth looking to hurt anybody. We’re not proud about what happened to the pilots of the Makos pursuing us, but I want to set the record straight: we didn’t start this. Your government broke the arrangement and tried to arrest us when we’d done nothing wrong. Needless to say, that’s not something we were willing to put up with. I won’t mince words: the next ship that comes after us is going to be reduced to vapour. I am not making this threat lightly, and I take no pleasure in threatening to kill people who I am sure are simply doing their jobs. Nevertheless, the principle of our independence from planetary authority is not something we will lightly discard, and we are willing to fight to prove it. If the government of Earth considers us to be a threat, then there is obviously little I can do to discourage such notions, beyond saying that we do not intend to remain in the Sol system any longer than absolutely necessary. Our crew’s business here is concluded, and we would be able to leave far faster if left unmolested.
Interstellar law is not complicated, so it should be abundantly obvious that Earth’s politicians don’t have even the beginnings of a case against us: we never aligned ourselves with local politics, we never threatened the planet’s biosphere, and at no point in time did we attempt to disseminate alien technology within the system. I do not pretend to know what we are wanted for, but our business on Earth was private and personal. That may not carry much emotional weight these days, but the force of law is behind it: planetary governments have no jurisdiction over unaligned individuals unless a crime has been committed within their sphere of influence.
Since our best AIs have been unable to find any publicly filed charges against any members of our crew – or even any criminal investigations requiring these crew members as witnesses – we can only conclude that the government of Earth has an ulterior motive in harrying us. As such, we can only appeal to the ordinary citizens of the solar system: we mean you no harm. In a matter of weeks or even days we will be well outside your sphere of influence – if nothing else we stand to gain very little from skulking around in the Kuiper belt. We know that travellers from elsewhere in space are not common here, and we hope that our visit will not have coloured your opinion of future arrivals; but our first priority is survival, and we will not hesitate to destroy any ship, drone, or AI infiltrator that is sent to hunt us down.
Terribly sorry if we’ve caused you any inconvenience.