Chapter One: The Earth's Volta
"ArcAngel what the hell are you doing?" A ship flies by at high speed. The ship's mine; I am Lt. ArcAngel51, EIC (Earth Industries Cooperation, FIB squadron. I was supposed to be escorting a couple of Bigboy bombers, round really unoriginal ships with four guns, one on each wing root. We were bombing a couple of Sibs; these were like some kind of mother ship for what we called "peskies". Over Earth these idiots would hope to crash into the ground in Kamikaze like attacks while others escorted the kamikazes… seem familiar?
I broke off the bomber formation in my Vengeance fighter with an upside-down u-turn. My sleek aircraft easily cuts through the Earth's atmosphere and I go on the offensive. As cocky as I was, I wasn't all that bad. I had made ace a couple of weeks ago and earned the rank lieutenant just a couple of hours after that. I almost effortlessly get to the six of a Streuner, easy little pesky and shoot that bitch up.
"ArcAngel, I'm gonna get you demoted you haul ass back here NOW!" yelled my Colonel, Phremaxus. I respected the guy so of course I flew back to the hanger. Standing there was not only a general, but THE general of the EIC. Nobody knew his name, since he was surrounded by the name "sir". I smartly saluted (surprise, surprise) and he just stared at me with his white hair and piercing green hazel eyes. "Lieutenant," he said, "let's go to your bunker, have a chat." Oh god, what have I done, I thought, and nervously walked to the bunker.
"Sit down 'leftenant'" he was British and the accents were strong when he said our ranks. "You ever heard of Cerinia?" he asked. I replied with a head shake and a "no sir". He explained it to me like a business offer. "Listen the EIC's got its eyes set on this thing, it's a planet, not too big not too small," he continued. "We've made contact with the locals thanks to some MMO (Mars Mining Operations) and VRU (Venus Resources Unlimited) guys well… mining. A VRU sergeant made first contact, only this one fox girl…" "Fox girl?" I asked "Oh yeah, they're fox human things… oh and they're blue." You must imagine my 'what the hell' phrase going on in my head over and over again. "Ok, calm down now." The General looked at me as if I had gone insane. "There has been an invasion by some forces from Venom." "…Venom sir? ... How come nobody tells me this crap?" My head hurt with all these phrases and odd names and all that good stuff. "Now the VRU, MMO and EIC don't want to assist them too much… but we want to help them… that's where you come in Arc." "Huh?" "Listen I'm willing to pay you… ten million uridium (the currency used by all three companies and taken practically every location light years from here). With my eyes wide open with a thirst to make an awe-inspiring fortune.
"DEAL! No questions asked!" I yelled eyes still wide. "Now… here's the trick," he added with a smile on his face. "Oh god no…" I muttered. "You must get a member from each company. I want both of them to be lower than the rank of lieutenant, so you're in charge capiche?" "..Capiche.. sir…" I knew exactly who to get…