"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distant." - John Sedgwick


Aboard the bannership 127th Emperor Hetto, in orbit around Tosev 5 (Jupiter), October 2011.

Fleetlord Atvar stared gloomily at the projector; something he had taken to lately ever since he had been informed of the signals received from Tosev 3. The holographic image projected by the device revealed a Tosevite warrior, clad in a suit of rusted armor. His head was protected by a pointed iron helmet and gripped in his hands was a blade of some sort. Attached to his back by means of a belt was a shield with a cross painted on it.

Atvar moodily tapped upon the projector console with a claw, replacing the warrior with an image of yet another one of Tosev 3's natives; albeit a native with darker skin and with distinctively less armor.

With a hiss, the fleetlord could only wish that this was the opposition he was to expect on that miserable, cold planet. Instead, he was rudely enlightened nearly two years ago (or rather, one of Tosev 3's year) that this was not to be. Atvar could still recall with perfect clarity how he had been awakened from cold sleep and dully informed by Kirel that the fleet had intercepted radio signals of alien origin emanating from Tosev 3; and that several of those signals had evidently been aimed towards the fleet.

Atvar had responded with nothing less than outright skepticism. Could it be that the natives had advanced so much in such a short time span? By the standards of the Race, sixteen-hundred years wasn't much. It certainly wasn't enough time to jump from a pre-industrial society to one that had mastered radio technology.

But mastered it they had...and that wasn't the best of it. Several probes launched from the Conquest Fleet had detected what seemed to be artificial satellites orbiting around Tosev 3. Which meant that the Tosevites were a space faring race...and that could only mean nothing but trouble.

The Fleetlord was broken from his reverie when his door buzzer squawked. His eye-stalks swiveled towards the door apprehensively. Could there possibly be any more bad news?

"Enter," he said wearily.

Kirel, his second-in-command, entered the fleetlord's personal suite warily.

"I hope I am not intruding Fleetlord," Kirel began. "But I must inform you that the other Shiplords have been awoken and are awaiting to hear of your plans against the Tosevites."

"No, not at all," replied Atvar. "The shiplords have been awakened? Good..."

With that, he hissed wearily. "Tell me Kirel, what should we do? Had you asked me whether the conquest fleet of 35 million males would suffice against the Tosev 3 of sixteen-hundred years ago, I would have not only said yes, but I also would have called it an overkill. Now...from what our probes have revealed, the Tosevites have technology that may not only match; but also surpass us. I presume you have heard that our communications sector intercepted radio messages that somehow contains more information and uses less power?"

Kirel replied with an affirmative gesture. "Yes Fleetlord. And our engineers are perplexed by the technology behind it."

Seeing that this did little to cheer Atvar, Kirel continued. "However, the situation is not as bad as what we may think. The Tosevites do not appear to have a military that matches ours in terms of numbers. Given the millions of males we have, we can easily overwhelm them. Also, Tosev 3 appears to be shared between many other factions. This lack of unity can work to our advantage"

"Truth," Atavr agreed. "Provided we can achieve victory quickly." Still, this did hearten him somewhat. "I shall now address the Shiplords. Let us not tarry further."

35 minutes later

The assembled shiplords chatted freely amongst themselves, discussing about the unprecedented discovery on Tosev 3, while waiting for Atvar to appear.

"They have space flight."

"This is impossible."

"Then what does this do to our invasion?"

The briefing room's door open as the fleetlord strode onto the command platform with Kirel at his side, and everyone fell silent and stiffened to attention.

"As you may have been informed by now, the natives are more...technologically advanced than originally anticipated," Atvar announced, his eye-stalks turning this way and that to examine the reactions of the shiplords.

The Shiplords dipped their heads in assent. Several muttered "Truth" under their breath.

Atvar continued. "The Emperor (at this word, everyone's eyes were cast down to the floor) has ordered that we take Tosev 3 and prepare it for colonization. The task will be difficult; this I admit, but we are males of the Race! Our intelligence have shown that we outnumber the natives by at least six folds! Victory can still be attained if we strike hard and without mercy. And so I say, we do not retreat, we do not give way, we proceed." For good measure, he added an emphatic cough.

At this, the shiplords hissed and thumped their tail stumps upon the floor in approval. Though Atvar himself was steeped with doubt about the outcome of the invasion, on the exterior, he was the embodiment of calm and confidence. Still, he was privately pleased he could at least rouse the last thing he needed aboard his bannership.

Unfortunately, not all the shiplords were so easily convinced.

"But what of their military technology Fleetlord? Our probes have also shown quite clearly they have landcruisers and killercrafts that could match those that we have. Are you certain we have the supplies to overwhelm a planet that is armed with such weaponry? We only have a limited stockpile of munitions," Straha retorted smugly.

Kirel scowled. He never did like his rival, not one bit, who ranked the next highest among the shiplords after Kirel. He assumed the stooping posture of respect towards Atvar; a request for the permission to reply. Atvar dipped his head in assent, relieved that his adjutant had an answer.

"They have the weapons, yes. But haven't our probes also revealed that the Tosevites are sorely outnumbered? They are now at peace. Their industries churn out only consumer goods. And based on computer predictions, it will take one or two Tosevite years for them to produce troops that can match ours in quantity, by then which we would have defeated them."

"Or we can always batter them into submission with atomic weapons," replied Straha coolly. "They are too much of a threat to allow conventional warfare. We must utterly destroy their capacity to resist if we wish to assure ourselves a victory."

"Thereby reducing the planet to radiated ruin? That defeats the entire purpose of the task," Kirel said stubbornly. He glared at his rival with all the menace he could muster.

"If I may interrupt Shiplord," uttered Horrep (yet another one of Straha's supporters). "Perhaps we can consider...negotiations? These Tosevites; from what their attempts at communicating with us have revealed, prove that they harbor the presumption we come in peace... and that we have the upper hand. Our translators presume they are privately wary of our prowess. Why else would they use a tone of utmost respect in their messages?"

"If so, they might be willing to surrender. Or at least, the smaller factions might. This would save the lives of many males."

"Our translators presume too much," snapped Kirel. "This would merely harden their resolve; knowing that we come to relieve them of their planet. Is that a risk you are willing to take?"

"But the final decision is for the Fleetlord to make," Kirel finished. With that, he took a step back and gave Atvar a tentative glance.

All eye-stalks now convened upon Atvar.

The Fleetlord cleared his throat. "The decision holds," he said sternly. "We proceed."


Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. November 13th, 2011.

Private Charles Cunningham sat near the television with the rest of the men from the barracks. They were all listening intently to the reports of nuclear explosions in the skies above Earth, as well as the first alien casualties of the war. Several of the other soldiers whooped as CNN showed the video footage of the pitched duel between US and Mexican fighters with the alien fighters. It certainly was interesting to watch, but that wasn't on his mind as he stared past the TV.

Barely an adult at the age of 20, he stood at about an average height of five feet eight. With bright blue eyes and blonde hair so dirty that he himself thought of it as brown, Cunningham wasn't a typical young man. For one thing, he didn't tend to worry or care about the same things that most young adults worried about. He didn't worry about a job, he never worried about girls (even if he thought about them), and he certainly wasn't a fan of the social lifes some of his friends led. Instead, he worried about greater things.

He'd been called a natural born politician, but he didn't have much tolerance for those in D.C., or even his home state's capital of Indianapolis. He was always thinking about the affairs of other countries, and had always been curious about the outside world. It marked him as being vastly different from most people in his hometown, but he didn't mind. It was this way of thinking that had led him to join the Army in the first place.

"Hey Charlie!"

Cunningham frowned at the voice that interrupted his thoughts. It took him a moment to come back to reality, and when he did he found one of his friend's faces only a few inches away from his own. James Pertucci waved his hand in front of him and asked, "Earth to Charlie, anybody home?"

Cunningham grimaced as he swatted James's hand away, leaning further back in his chair as James laughed. They had met during basic training, and despite how annoying James was, they had formed a deep friendship.

"Where were ya just now? Already bagging aliens in your mind huh? Me, I can't wait to shoot one. I think I'll put the head above our fireplace back home..." James commented, turning his eyes to the TV screen, which was now showing the air battle over Egypt.

Cunningham shook his head and stood up. He'd been hearing conversations like this all week, and they had increased dramatically since word about the dogfights had reached the media. His fellow soldiers's optimism wasn't a bad thing, but he had knack for looking ahead and realizing how bad things could be.

"Yeah, you just have to make sure that it's not the alien doing that to you." He fired back as he turned to make his way out of the room. All the naive optimism they were showing was starting to bother him, and he was desperately wanting fresh air.

James frowned as Cunningham walked away, and called out to him before he could leave the room. "Hey man, where are ya going?"

"I just need some fresh air." Cunningham replied before exiting the room. James simply shrugged and sat down with the rest of their unit to here more about the fights.

Cunningham didn't bump into many people as he made his way outside. Most of the soldiers in the base seemed to be glued to any working screen available on the base. They all wanted to hear the first human victories against the invaders.

Victories...hmph. He thought as he took a step outside. He glanced around, noticing that some of the base's lights were still out. Sighing, he headed for a nearby tower, wanting to see what he knew was up there.

He was surprised that someone was in the tower, and it wasn't until he was standing next to he person that he realized who it was.

"Sir!" He said, giving a brisk salute to his commanding officer, Sergeant Bradly Williams. Bradly nodded after a moment before saying, "At ease Private." After Cunningham had done so, he asked. "So, any particular reason your out here rather than in there?"

Cunningham shook his head as he asked, "Permission to speak freely sir?" Getting a nod, he replied. "To be frank sir, I find their optimism a bit stifling. It hasn't even been an actual day yet, and they seem like we've won the war."

Bradly was silent for a moment, gazing upwards at what they had both come to see. Even now, there was still the cloud left from the explosion was visible, and it was an eerie companion alongside the moonlit sky.

Cunningham nodded, but gazed down as he said. "But you know as well as I do that this is only the beginning You wanna know what I think we should all be doing?" Bradly didn't answer, but Cunningham said, "I think we should all be expecting the worst...and be hoping for the best."

With that, Cunningham gave the cloud in the sky one last glance before he turned and went back down the ladder, his mind still thinking about what was coming. Bradly watched Cunningham's retreating form for a moment before he gazed up at the scattered clouds above them.

Left alone in the tower, with only the moon and the clouds for company, Bradly quietly said, "You know...you may be right."


Over the skies of Chernigov, Ukraine. November 14th, 2011.

As he flew over the sickly green pastures bellow, Flightleader Dreek could only think about killing. He had strafed a column of vehicles leaving the city, shot down a tiny white prop driven aircraft and lobbed a bomb against a building without giving it much thought. When he saw the rounds flying to their targets, a savage glee invaded him.

"Have you heard about the Squadron that didn't return, the ones in the lesser continent mass?" Asked Muzzel, one of his wingmates.

"I have. Whomever believe that story is addled, it just not possible that five killercrafts broke down in their very first mission. Those things just don't happen." Dreek answered.

"That's the strangest part. They say they were shot down by Tosevites." Muzzel replied. "But we haven't seen anything here that could oppose us. Maybe the maintenance males are inventing excuses for their failures?"

"I had say that. If so, they're in trouble."

Dreek remembered the holographic projection of an alleged Tosevite killercraft. He laughed at the memory. Yes, the thing looked like a killercraft, but it was a crude design, all straight lines and flat surfaces. The thing was only good for ceremonial roles, if it could fly at all.

"Even if they do have aircraft, they're hopelessly outmatched. They can't design a properly streamlined killercraft to save their lives." He commented the flaws in the designs of the Tosevite killecraft to Muzzel.

"Why would they do such a thing to their aircraft? Do they design their planes so they are as difficult to maneuver as possible?"

"Maybe they just rushed the design a few decades. Fools." The noise of bombs exploding could be heard through the comm speaker.

A few minutes later a blip appeared on his radar. Five Tosevite aircraft, heading towards the Race landing zone. They were big, but slow. Dreek decided that he would have some fun with this beasts, shooting them with the cannon.

When he was within visual range, his jaw dropped in laughter. Just how primitive were these Tosevites? Was all the fuss about some prop driven aircrafts? They were big, with swept wings, and very noisy, but they were easy pickings. A stream of bullets tore the wing of one of the aircraft. His wingmate shot another with a missile.

He dismissed a brief blip in his radar, a thing that was only there for a second or two. He was concentrated in destroying the remaining Tosevites. Then he saw one of his wingmates maneuvering desperately. A second later he saw the missile trail. Despite all the maneuvering, the missile struck, producing an ugly, smoky fireball. Another missile appeared out of nowhere, and another of his wingmates went down.

"Flightleader Dreek, I have something locked on me. My radar can't see what, but I'm- Another missile, it's coming for me!"

"Evade, Muzzel, evade now!"

"I can't shake i-" The communication broke, replaced by static and a flash of light. Muzzel was dead.

The radar responded by locking on the bombers. It was working, alright. How could he see a killercraft that was invisible to his advanced radar? The enemy killercraft shot a few rounds, but missed entirely and intersected, Dreek's flightpath. It was then that Dreek saw it. Flat surfaces and straight lines, not streamlined like those of the Race. That box couldn't possibly match the maneuverability of a proper killercraft, and even with all its tricks it was going down by cannon fire.

Sweeping the skies with one of his eye turrets, he caught a glimpse, a speck, of something moving towards him. It was agile, and fast, unlike the aircraft he so gleefully shot down minutes ago. He turned to face it, whatever it was, it was going down. Missiles for this thing, it was the only way to be sure. He selected his weapon and locked on the target. Except it didn't want to lock on, as if the killercraft wasn't there. He just had it on its sight when the thing went up, trying to escape. The foolish Tosevite pilot pulled way too hard, and the killercraft didn't went up, but lost speed instead. Dreek's killercraft passed ahead of it. Scanning the air bellow to see the stalling aircraft falling to its doom, but he saw nothing. With horror, he drew one eye turret backwards.

That's not fair.

He saw the killercraft, he saw a flash of light, and nothing else. The first shell went through his eye turret, many more slammed through his killercraft. He pushed the eject button, and felt the winds crushing him before passing out.