Yeah...so this is a reupload because I accidentally deleted the first because I'm a fucking retard.

My bad!

Anyway, let us begin.


He came from Space

December 30th, 2128

Unknown star system (unlisted)

Private Star Vessel Freedom

Citizen Marcus James Calaway

Prologue

Future

"This is mondo fucking dangerous" lamented Mark Calaway as he flied through an unlisted star system, keeping an eye on his instruments for any sign of hostiles.

All sorts of things can hide out in an unlisted star system; pirates, raiders.

Aliens.

That last prospect made Mark chuckle; no aliens had ever been discovered but Earth had been experiencing an increase of encrypted messages from outer space. Aliens were out there, but no one had found them yet.

"Hmph, maybe I'll be the first one" Mark said as he banked his star-ship around an asteroid, a rogue one as there were no asteroid belts or even any other space debris in the system.

Marcus could see that there was only one planet in this system, and it seemed to be Earth-sized. Though his scanners had deduced it was slightly smaller than Earth. The unknown planet had a single moon, and was close enough to the sun to provide life. Whether it had atmosphere or not was another thing.

Mark banked his craft toward the planet but stopped his ship, keeping the engines warm in case he needed to escape quickly. Calaway exited the control room and headed down to the hangar bay, checking his land vehicle.

"What would I do without you?" Marcus asked, looking over the vehicle. It was a Hummer HX; first introduced way back in 2008 Hummer produced the HX when public reaction reached favorable levels. The HX eventually replaced the M1026 Humvee as the United States military's primary land vehicle; with the same designation.

Of course Mark's wasn't by any means a military model; it had equivalent armor but had no offensive capabilities by default.

Marcus had changed this.

Mounted on the roof was a GAU-19/A Gatling-type triple-barreled machine gun; firing a .50 caliber BMG round at around one thousand rounds per minute. While it was slower than the M61 Vulcan's six-thousand rounds per minute it was considerably more manageable.

As for personal weapons Marcus carried with him a black Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN. A lightweight polymer handgun designed and manufactured by FN Herstal in the country of Belgium, back on Earth. The Five-seveN is named such for its 5.7x28mm round.

Originally designed for FN's P90 sub-machine gun the 5.7 round was designed to penetrate advanced body armor suits being developed by other countries.

But all of his personal and land-vehicle-mounted weaponry were phooey compared to his ship's armaments. Due to the dangerous task of charting new star systems Mark had outfitted his private ship with current state-of-the-art defensive and offensive systems.

While not as potent as a naval starship Mark's Mass Accelerating Gun could launch a five-hundred ton projectile to half the speed of light. Naval ships fired at the very least a thousand-ton projectile at 9/10s the speed of light.

In both cases it could gut another starship from bow to stern. While the larger projectiles could pass through multiple ships even if they travelled the length of each ship every time.

In addition to the MAG Marcus's ship was outfitted with forty-one Avenger-class missile pods. Each pod held nine missiles and each missile carried a one-thousand pound payload.

However his Ace up the sleeve was a weapon that none of the military officials who checked his ship knew about. Mounted in a direct launch cannon, attached to the top of his ship, was a moon-cracker; a 120-megaton nuclear warhead.

Enough power to turn Earth's moon into dust.

How Marcus had this was beyond anyone's knowledge, he simply added the massive weapon in case he came across a hostile alien ship with some kind of energy shield.

Mark was sure he wouldn't need the nuke to search a planet, however.

Calaway made his way back up to the control room of his ship and took another look at the planet set before him, wondering if he should just tag it or search it.

Before he could make up his mind, however, his scanners picked up that there was intelligent life on the surface. Furthermore the profiles did not match human signatures.

He couldn't just tag the planet and have a human military fleet come investigate; it could cause an intergalactic incident or worse: war.

With his mind made up Mark increased power flow to the engines and his ship dove for the surface of the unknown planet. Calaway was ready for anything.

Nothing would ever prepare him for what he would find.