Prologue: Approach of War

Being a warrior does not come naturally to everyone. To become one you have to train hard, fight on a regular basis and develop your fighting skills beyond those of others around you. But more importantly, you have to be able to kill without thought, throw yourself into the middle of a battle for everything you stand for, sometimes even if that means suicide. But there are exceptions to those rules. Being a member of the Mantrin species, Niy'tan was one of them. He could feel his warrior's blood saturated with adrenaline rushing through his veins at the moment. He could hear it rushing through his ears accompanied by the rhythmic beat of both his hearts, that pumped like two big war drums.

The plains of Sogowa Prime were most peaceful at any time of the year but not this day. The sounds of twittering birds were now drowned out by the massive machines of war that marched the open grass-covered fields surrounding the city of Chereon. The engine-droning of assault gunships flying overhead made him wish Kirliya hadn't given them such sensitive ears. The heavy thumping of the metal claws from battlewalkers shook the planet to its core. These Hiron battlemechs were huge heavily armed warmachines featuring dual heavy railguns, rapid-fire plasma cannons and powerful anti-air missile launchers. They hadn't been used on their own soil for dozens of years but this situation required a little more than just a group of regular soldiers. But this was not the time for distracting thoughts like that. The city where he and his family lived was threatened by an outside force much more powerful than anticipated at first. They had come without warning in the middle of the night, forcing some kind of drop ship through the atmosphere that landed in a more isolated area of the planet. The quake that followed could be felt all the way to the place where he lived and that was still almost a hundred kilometers from the impact area. The explosion shook the inhabitants awake but no serious damage was done to the city. No one knew what happened after that as the whole area became a black spot on the radar shortly after the rough landing of the huge pod. But Niy'tan had some idea about who they were, who had dared to set its filthy foot on Imperial soil. Rumors told that they were from another universe, another realm normal beings weren't able to set foot in. No one knew what they were doing here and what they wanted but the fact that a significant force was now on its way to the closest settlement was enough to make clear that they weren't exactly on friendly terms.

Niy'tan was just another soldier dispatched to defend the city to whatever it was the unknown enemy was sending in. But he knew that this was one of those orders. Chances of winning were a little too low for comfort as the only intel they had on their opponents proved that they were technologically far superior and their numbers greater than theirs. His superiors ensured him and his fellow warriors that support was on its way and that they needed to hold out until they arrived. Nowhere near possible. If the reports were accurate he could be joining his ancestors together with the rest of the city's inhabitants in the next couple of minutes.

Thoughts like that were dangerous on the battlefield so he blocked them out and instead prepared for the battle ahead, focusing on the incoming data on his eyepiece and the orders from his superiors coming in via a small loudspeaker.

"Enemy forces detected. Range: two-thousand meters. Gunship squadrons Bravo and Charlie, standby to provide support. Enemy interceptors have been spotted. Altitude: Five-hundred meters. Mech battalions, arm anti-air missiles launchers and prepare to shoot them out of the sky."

Niy'tan watched as the four-engined gunships moved out ahead of the group to try and turn as many enemies as possible to scrap metal before they reached their ground forces. Missile pods on the Hirons activated their tracking systems and railguns and plasma cannons were charged to full power. Niy'tan could feel the cold sweat running down from his armpits as he kept up with the rest of his squad. Sweating however had nothing to do with the temperature, his heavy body armor or their steady pace. Biting his teeth and clamping his weapon, a powerful pulse rifle, with both his clawed hands. He didn't like the way things were going. They would be fighting out in the open. The outstretched plains that formed this part of Sogowa's surface were surrounded by forests and a few scattered trees interrupted the endless grass fields home to many grazing animals. The landscape offered practically no places for cover and the enemy air units would be able to pick them off one by one from the sky.

Holding position near one of those large trees he followed the instructions of his squad leader. Squinting against the bright afternoon sun he spotted the first enemies coming in dead ahead.

"What the?-"

He swallowed the rest of it, his mind trying to process what his eyes were seeing. Enormous tanks rolled over the battlefield, their energy cannons locked on potential target. Fast and agile walkers that were even bigger flanked these rolling behemoths from the sides and huge transports unloaded their deadly cargo by dropping them off directly on the battlefield. But it was the look of these machines that captured the attention of him and his fellow warriors. The sun casting its shine on the shimmering silvery black armor, patterned by yellowish veins had a most intriguing effect. It appeared like the dark metal didn't have any solid form but acted like a liquid shell, almost like a metallic skin. What was even more unusual was that some of these machines featured an elegant asymmetric design like they were grown instead of built. Niy'tan's beak dropped open as he wondered what kind of race could be piloting these machines and what their reasons were for attacking his homeworld with such ferocity. Were they even operated by a pilot at all? His brief moment of astonishment turned into anger when his squad leader made him realize why they were here. This race had invaded Sogowa without a clear reason and they were going to pay for it.

"All right this is it!" his squad leader, a large cranky Goureg missing an ear yelled.

His eyes flashed with anger and the eagerness to teach these incoming aliens a rather painful lesson. Niy'tan knew he was a tough one and would stop at nothing in order to prevent them from destroying the city.

"Here they come! Are we going to let them take our city?"

"No sir!" Niy'tan and his fellow soldiers yelled, their fists hitting the sky.

"Then let's teach them a lesson they'll never forget! For the Empire!"

The rest of the squad repeated his yell and dropped to their first set of knees, aiming for the incoming enemy units, their rifles at the highest power setting. At two-hundred meters from their position, the enemy tanks stopped rolling and the walkers held position beside them, the sun casting a bright glare off their armor that almost seemed to glow. They just stood there, holding position.

"What is this?" Niy'tan thought.

There was something about this small army of massive machines that bothered him. Is this some kind of threat display? Where are their soldiers?Perhaps that was an even greater reason for concern. He could very well remember the Machines from another universe that used mechanical armies and fleets in combat. But this weren't the Machines for sure. The race behind this unprovoked attack was an even greater mystery than their sinister looking weaponry. But another more important question was: How did they manage to build up forces so quickly? There had only been one pod. Suddenly one of the asymmetrically-shaped tanks on the front row aimed its weapon on one of the Hiron's and fired. A crackling white burst of energy left the muzzle of the turret located on the left side of the tank and penetrated the smaller mech's body with ease. The explosion that followed instantly killed the pilot and reduced the entire machine to a smoldering heap. One shot from that huge tank instantly destroyed one of the Imperial Army's most powerful warmachines. Just one shot. The shocked faces of the Mantrin warriors turned from the smoking remains of the mech to the machine that had fired the shot. Niy'tan laid his ears in his neck as a low-pitched growl escaped his beak just like the other soldiers. They didn't care that they were outgunned. They were going to feel the wrath of the Imperial Army's finest soldiers.

They held their fire until the small loudspeaker crackled in his right ear.

"No response to our hails. All units are cleared to engage the enemy at will."

That was the moment they'd been waiting for.

"Die you (ugly curse in Mantrin language)!" Niy'tan hissed.

He aimed his weapon at a spot on the target that seemed vulnerable and fired. The discharge of his weapon echoed over the plains until it struck the target directly and accurately, not even a centimeter off from where he aimed. His shot was followed by hundreds of others as his brothers in arms followed his example and scored direct hits too. But as Niy'tan analyzed the data coming in on his eyepiece he couldn't believe his eyes. Not even a scratch? His shot was well-targeted and the enemy wasn't using shields to protect its units. What was going on here? Probably just tough armor. The hovering gunships started to provide their much needed support and began harassing the enemy with a missile and laser barrage from above. The sound of the dual heavy railguns of a Hiron droned out the discharges of the pulse rifles as the high-powered solid slugs found their way to the target. The slugs penetrated the shiny armor with ease, ripping through the interior until an explosion followed by a small shockwave blew the massive tank apart. Inky black smoke bellowed out of the carcass of the machine as its companions still stood there, motionless.

"They're testing us out" Niy'tan thought as he targeted the legs from one of the more than twenty meters tall walkers.

This was insane. They were nothing more but ants to them. They could crush them with ease yet they didn't return fire. But their armor was extremely resistant, deflecting and absorbing most of their good shots.

But eventually the inevitable happened. The enemy army started to move again, slowly pressing towards them as their targeting sensors found what they were looking for. Playtime was over. One of the monstrous mechs aimed its dual energy cannons somewhere in his direction. Niy'tan instinctively dropped to his belly in the grass as the bolts passed over his head and slammed into the ground with devastating force, leaving a deaf feeling in both his ears. After that, everything around him started to fade. At first he had thought they had the enemy outnumbered but it had been the other way around all along. They had more units coming in than anticipated at first. The shots fired in his direction had blown craters into the ground, a rain of dirt falling down on him and his fellow soldiers. The noise was deafening. The whining of shots, the explosions and the yelling and screaming of the soldiers. Mechs exploded, sending sharp and deadly debris in all directions and gunships crashed to the ground due to anti-air fire from several units in the back of the enemy formation. The tree was cut down by enemy fire, the trunk completely disintegrating, sending splinters in all directions. It temporarily provided the soldiers with some cover but it wouldn't stop the enemy force. One of the Hirons was crushed under the remains of the massive tree together with some of the unfortunate soldiers that didn't manage to get away fast enough. They managed to destroy five more of the enemy's units but it was nowhere near enough to make a difference. One moment he was lying in the grass, trying to stay in the cover of the fallen tree. The other he was running for his life as fast as his large triple-jointed legs could carry him. He could vaguely hear squad leaders yelling in his right ear.

"We're getting hammered! We need support! Now!"

When Niy'tan craned his head into the direction of the city for a brief moment he spotted a detachment of bombers taking off from the airfield outside the city. Chereon had one small active military base on the edge of the city but they needed something drastic if the enemy had more on the way. The bombers assumed an arrow formation and were straight on course for the enemy, on the look-out for the anti-air.

"Copy that squad leader. Pressing the target. Dropping payload."

The bombers kept up their speed to avoid taking hits from the ground while dropping their carpet of heavy plasma incendiary bombs on the enemy forces. The heat for those on the ground was unbearable but fortunately that was also the case for the enemy's machines as multiple explosions indicated the end of those that were hit directly. The ground was scorched, red glowing molten metal forming small pools between the remaining enemy force. But a yell over the frequency Niy'tan was monitoring while continuing to return fire with the other retreating soldiers told him a new threat had arrived. The bombers that headed back to base were shot in the back by those interceptors they had warned about. Those oddly-shaped fighters featured a similar elegant asymmetrical design but their Gatling weapons made short work of the retreating bombers which crashed to the ground. Niy'tan watched this with anger boiling in his chest. A growl escaped his beak as he fired back at the remaining enemy forces in blind rage. But that turned out to be a mistake on his part.

An explosion at less than a meter in front of him temporarily rendered him blind and send him sailing through the air. He screamed when he hit the ground, losing his weapon, crawling on his belly to find cover. He tossed the shattered eyepiece into the grass and scrambled back to his feet but for some reason he couldn't. His left foot kept slipping away. But when he looked down to find the reason for that his face twisted into horror. His left leg… was gone. His lower and middle leg segment were torn off by the explosion. His upper left leg segment ended in a bloody stump, the bone sticking out. He sucked in a few ragged breaths when he tried to get away from the approaching tanks in vain. One of his fellow warriors noticed his mutilated brother and grabbed his arm.

"C'mon hurry!" the Logri yelled.

"Safe yourself!" Niy'tan coughed.

He was rapidly losing blood and wouldn't make it unless he received immediate help yet the Logri was determined to help him. He pulled Niy'tan back on his one leg and supported his left arm.

"C'mon!" he snarled.

But it was of no use. Another explosion knocked them both of their feet sending them to the ground.

"I told you to go. Leave me" Niy'tan almost begged.

The Logri stared back at him, willing to save him.

"Go!"

After on last hesitation and a look at the approaching warmachines he ran, leaving him. Feeling his life slipping away he watched a small pod trailing white smoke making its way to the city. What was that? When it was directly above the settlement it started to descend vertically, the distance between it and the ground rapidly shrinking. The city where he lived. Where his family lived. He had failed them. Or at least he felt like he had failed them. Watching the pod or whatever it was make contact with the ground in the middle of Chereon his last thoughts were with his family. Only for a moment, until everything around him dissolved into a blinding bright light.

Authors note: Music track 1

Ten days earlier…

Captain Robert Ibanez sat in his ready room, enjoying a warm cup of strong coffee. He was in command of the RSS Nepenthe, the first science and exploration vessel in the Republican fleet and a vessel truly outfitted for that job. It was equipped with the latest in sensor technology and the half a dozen science labs that were aboard didn't have only the standard stuff aboard. In addition, among his crew were scientists from a dozen different worlds, all part of an exchange program run by the Republic. Indeed he had to admit, some of these aliens were truly masterminds, sometimes coming up with things only a non-human could come up with. He didn't mind working with aliens. In fact, he loved working with them. He had always loved to talk to people who spend their time, exploring and discovering new things. And this time, they were about to make such a discovery.

"Captain's log, March 2nd, 3044. It's now one week ago since I took command of the Nepenthe and I must say I'm glad I took the job. In one week we've already made three major discoveries, ranging from new forms radiation and a set of asteroids containing a large quantity of deuterium isotopes to a whole new form of non-corporeal life. Never thought a cloud of gas could hold a form of conscience but I think we proved that it can. Anyway, I've ordered a change of course that will take us near the Iridana nebula in a few minutes. My chief science officer, I can't remember how to pronounce that guy's name. Was it Kyriin or Kyrian? Well he's an Indarian and it doesn't really matter but he detected an unusual energy spike inside the nebula that sparked my interest. We're gonna take a look as this could very well be our fourth major discovery. And it's still practically in our own backyard. I believe that the farther we travel into the space, the more the cosmos will amaze us and reveal some of its many secrets to those interested enough to go and take a look. Computer save recording."

The computer gave a series of beeps to confirm and Ibanez leaned back in his chair, listening to the soft humming of the warp engines pushing his ship forward at velocities far faster than the speed of light. Closing his eyes and sipping from his cup of coffee, envisioning that it was made of freshly grinded coffee beans instead of the synthetic stuff that it actually was his thoughts drifted away to the original Earth. Whenever he talked about it with his fellow Captains they all had feelings of homesickness. Admitted, New Earth was a little paradise on its own but it still wasn't the same. Sometimes it was a little too perfect for his taste. But as long as it wasn't going to be blown up beneath his butt he didn't care. At least they had a homeworld again.

"Bridge to Captain Ibanez."

Slowly opening one eye he put his cup down on his desk and answered the communiqué. To be honest, he had rather taken a little nap but duty called as always.

"Go ahead?"

"Captain we are approaching the nebula. Preparing to drop out of warp."

"I'm on my way."

He emptied the cup and stared at the picture of his father on his desk. The face of an explorer and when he looked at that picture it was like looking into a mirror. A mirror that showed him the future. The person he could be. Blake Ibanez had been the Captain of a deep space explorer too. But his father had been an unfortunate man. His ship had been brutally attacked and destroyed by Drej stingers while conducting research on stellar anomalies. His ship was only lightly armed, unable to defend itself. The thought alone made him grind his teeth in a sudden anger. At least they found his body and those of his fellow officers in the floating wreckage that once had been the Endeavour, one of Earth's most advanced science vessels at that time. He had always wanted to be like his father. And now that he was he was proud of himself. He had been even more proud if his father would have been able to see him right now. He took a deep breath and burrowed the memories of his past again before he left the room.

"They would only get in the way" he thought.

Upon entering the command deck his crew was ready to receive their next orders, their faces, both human and alien, shining of eagerness to find out about that mysterious energy reading. His female First Officer, a Denali which was rather unusual, greeted him and informed him about their current status. Denali rarely left their matriarchal society as they were a very private humanoid species but since the birth of the alliance that was slowly changing. Her name was Iuyana and that was one of the easier ones. She was beautiful in some way, her blue skin, purple-colored eyes and the two sharp horns on her head, but most likely not interested in a simple human being. The main viewer currently displayed what was ahead of the ship. Twenty million kilometers in front of them the Iridana nebula stretched itself out in all directions. A sinister cloud of whirling gases, patches of radiation and deadly obstacles in the form of asteroids and other space junk from vessels that didn't make it through the gas cloud. It was nothing more than a death trap for those navigators and helm officers who didn't take their work serious. But Ibanez knew he could trust on the skills of his helmsman, a Fauldran, because he had honed them at his own homeworld: Fauldro Flight Academy, the top-ranking flight school in the spiral arm.

Taking place in the Captain's chair, Ibanez answered the alien's unspoken question with a nod.

"All right, take us in. Raise shields and slow down to half impulse as soon as we enter. I don't wanna take risks in this thing. It could be dangerous."

The ship began to move again on his command, the distance to the nebula gradually shrinking until the outer hull touched the first layers of gas.

"Let's see what's in there" Ibanez mumbled.

"How's it with that energy reading mister?... What was your name again?"

The Indarian chief science officer, wearing the same navy-blue uniform replied with a smirk.

"Just call me Kyriin sir" the fox-like creature replied.

"I know your kind is having trouble with some of our names. I understand."

"Please excuse me for that. What about the reading?"

The alien turned to his console and tapped few buttons to refresh the sensor readings, compensating for the particle flux of the nebula around them to collect more accurate readings.

"It is definitely getting stronger Captain. And I think I can say for certain now that it's a form of energy of some kind. Something that doesn't match anything in our database."

Robert's enthusiasm was on the rise now, becoming stronger the deeper they headed inside the nebula. What was it that it was hiding? Some kind of anomaly no one has ever witnessed before? Or maybe the gascloud had become home to a new form of life? He was in for a pleasant surprise.

"Status?"

"Our systems don't seem to have any trouble with the environment sir, we can increase speed at your command."

"No keep it steady. No need to rush."

As he knew, that could only lead to a lethal encounter with an asteroid or other floating junk. His helmsman was skillfully evading the larger pieces of rock and the smaller ones were pulverized against the energy barriers protecting his ship from all sides sending small barely tangible trembles throughout the ship's superstructure. If they proceeded too fast they would be the ones being pulverized. It would also put a bigger strain on the engines as the intake manifolds would have to handle more space dust.

"Anything?" Robert asked, moving towards the tip of his chair looking for something interesting in the endless soup of purple-blue gases.

"Signal is getting weaker the longer we maintain our present course" Kyriin replied.

"Adjust our course" his Denali First Officer ordered.

Robert could almost feel his ship turn as his helmsman slowly adjusted course to intercept the signal that got stronger as he did. They were closing in on whatever it was that was using this nebula as its hiding place.

"I think I've got something" Kyriin said, bowing over his console to verify the readings.

A melody of soft beeps reached Ibanez's ears as his alien science officer tried to make sense out of all the telemetry coming in simultaneously.

"It's a structure of some kind, I think" he said slowly.

There was a pause.

"Yes it's definitely artificial and there's a lot of energy coming from that direction. It must be their power source. Whoever this race is, they must be quite advanced as the energy signature is completely unknown but very powerful."

Carefully listening to everything the Indarian said, Robert gazed into the distance on the main viewer. There, near that asteroid. Is that a station? The layers of gas became thinner and now his eyes confirmed what the scanners had picked up earlier. It was indeed a station, but not just one. This first structure was connected to others of its kind by tubes. It was only one small part of a massive complex spanning dozens of kilometers in every direction. The larger asteroids that had once been floating around now made part of this complex too, odd-looking mining installations build on their surfaces. Robert however had the feeling someone just walked over his grave.

"Who are they? Where do they come from" he thought trying if he could spot something familiar.

He ordered the ship to a halt. He didn't want to come any closer unless he knew what their intentions were. The complex looked ominous. Everything was made from a silvery black sort of metal alloy, Kyriin had trouble identifying too. Yellow veins drew patterns over the surfaces of every structure. Even those mining structures looked bizarre to say the least. Three droplet-shaped thingies were collecting and refining any raw materials on site. They appeared to be moving all by themselves but Robert figured that they were likely propelled by some kind of energy field.

"There is certainly a lot of energy being produced in there."

"Can you detect any kind of weapon systems?"

Kyriin shook his head, flicking his fox ears.

"Our scanners are having trouble penetrating the outer hull. I'm trying to compensate but-"

A powerful crackling white energy burst collided with the shields at high velocity knocking crewmembers all over the ship off their feet. Ibanez grabbed the armrests of his chair as his body was pushed to the left by the sudden blow. They were lucky the shields had been up all the time cause it would have caused a lot of damage if that thing had hit the bare hull. Red Alert status had been automatically engaged, an acoustic alarm blaring over the bridge for a short moment.

"Report!"

"I think we just found out what their intentions are! They don't seem to like visitors!" Iuyana responded with fierce as more bursts of volatile energy collided with their weakening right shields.

The alien woman growled softly and revealed her sharp fangs making Robert realize once more that she wasn't a woman of the type he was used to. Females were dominant in their society so they also made up most of their warriors.

"Back us off!" Ibanez yelled as a rain of sparks showered down on the deckplating.

With engines pushed to full power the ship made a sharp hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and made a run for it. But the complex was not just using defensive batteries to keep any intruders out.

"Interceptors! They are going for our engines!"

Fast attack interceptors with high-powered energy autocannons began attacking the Nepenthe with the ferocity of a group of sharks. The fighters featured an asymmetrical design, sleek and elegant but their attacks were devastating as their numbers were greater than anything the Nepenthe could handle.

"Return fire!" Robert shouted, his bridge exploding around him.

The ship trembled violently, the enemy weapon systems draining the shields much faster than anticipated.

"They're pretty fast! Our weapons are having trouble getting a lock!"

A support beam from the ceiling collapsed creating an obstruction on the bridge. Fires started near blown conduits and smoke and other gases began filling the bridge with a thick layer of mist. Robert stumbled towards one of the nearby consoles, coughing because of the smoke burning in his lungs. He couldn't determine if his injured officer operating the flickering panel was dead or only unconscious but he surely wasn't able to carry out an order. Hastily tapping the blinking buttons on the panel to send a distress signal he realized it was over. His ship was surrounded, damaged beyond repair, leaking atmosphere and about to explode. This is how my father must have felt when the Drej attacked his ship.

"Another hull breach, decks seven and eight! The ion matrix is going critical!"

The only thing that flashed through his mind was to send this one message. He rammed on the 'send' button but nothing happened.

"No, no no! Damn it!"

He rammed his fist on the console, the glass breaking, splinters cutting into his skin. Blood trickled from his hand that was still balled into a fist. The sound of an overload in the console reached his ears and he instinctively dropped himself to the deck, the heat stroking his back as the panel exploded. The bang left a deaf feeling in his right ear. He cursed. He cursed the alien race that was about to end their lives in such a miserable way. His life passed by in front of him. His father, the man he wanted to equal and maybe even surpass. And his mother who had left his father when he was still a boy because she didn't want a husband who was never there to share life with her. It was so unfair. The irony was that he was going to die the same death as his father. Brutally slaughtered by aliens that didn't care about a few thousand deaths more or less even if they were of no threat to them. He kept the faces of his parents with him till the last moments before he died, trying to block out the noise of the explosions, the shouts of the remaining members of his crew and the alarm blaring over the bridge, announcing a core breach. Until the invisible timer reached zero and the blinding light took everything away, reuniting him with the man he admired so much.