Admiral Mafe; eldan head of the First Galactic Flotilla.
"Today, I found myself feeling real fear. Not because of The Empire, though their might is unquestionable and their tactics well thought out and executed. No, the object of my fear is my own soldiers..."
"When I was put in charge of the human fleet I thought very little of the hairless apes. Honestly, they had very little in the way of weaponry, being a technological backwater on the edge of the galaxy."
"I was wrong."
"The battle began and it was one I knew I could not win. Though I would do my duty and hold off The Empire 'till help arrived. I sent the humans' smaller ships to hold them off. Their plasma cannons were barely enough to get through the enemy shields but they would annoy the larger flagships of The Empire, letting the more powerful ships be spared until the end."
"The humans did not do as I planned."
"I wanted them to skirmish, to shoot and move back quickly; to harass. The humans instead, put everything into their guns and fired again and again, bombarding the enemy with everything. Even as their ships continued taking damage, they refused to retreat. One ship was blown in half and the crew still continued to shoot, the front end listing through space with the force of their cannons. Even the enemy destroyers had to run back from the blistering fire as the void lit up with bursts of energy. Then the flagship appeared. It was bigger than any I'd ever encountered; a monster the size of a city. None of our ships could hope to stand against it. Our position was lost. "
"The apes charged it, boarding the ship from a thousand different points. Those without a boarding crew ran alongside it at point blank range, firing where the enemy guns could not reach them. This was no honorable battle, this was a brutal affair. The humans did not wish to win, they merely wished to kill The Empire... and they were succeeding. The fight on board the vessel was the worst. The humans did not go through clearing each room in succession or even target the enemy strong points. No, they swept through, killing all they found. Their plasma rifles ran out of ammunition after the first deck, then the true brutality began... They charged the enemies, clubbing them down with their rifles, helmets, cleaning equipment, anything they could find. some using their primitive knives to cut open their foes and painting themselves with the blood of the fallen to scare the rest. Many of my officers were sick at this point. We had to turn off the monitors..."
"The Empire surrendered in five more battles. Two that did not involve humans, where The Empire's superior tactics won them the day. Three where humans did their work and destroyed the enemy with brutality and pure, unadulterated violence. After these battles, word of the humans spread through The Empire. Soldiers refused to fight if they saw human ships. They called the humans "Gaaxore", demons devoted to death and destruction. I cannot fault their logic, for what kind of creature other than a demon would do such things?"
"I will live in fear of these creatures or all my days"
"Admiral mafe eldan head of the first galactic flotilla"
Excerpt from the journal of pvt. Jamieson.
"Our new allies don't seem to like us much. Even now after the battles we've won for them, they look down on us. What can we do? We just need to fight harder, surely then they'll accept humans as more than just the newest primitive to join the federation. Truth be told I'm scared... Many of us die in our fights, so far the enemy has fled before us but our higher ups think this is just because their troops are green and unused to combat. Part of me hopes to see these veterans so I can prove myself. Another part fears the day that we face them. Human history is filled with war and violence and the one thing we've learned is that the will to fight is the most important thing. Sure it matters who has the biggest stick and it always will, but it matters a lot more who's swinging it. We've managed to live this long by ignoring the human parts of ourselves and by scaring the enemy, but how much longer will this work?
I miss home.
Pvt. jamieson; first human volunteers.