"I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood."

—John Brown's last words, written on a note handed to a guard just before his hanging

April 25th, 2410 AD - Thor System, Mindoir

Flowers were one of Anette's favorite things. So it was no surprise to her mother and father that when they brought several bouquets that she was immediately drawn to them and nearly pleaded to be allowed to help them arrange them. It was normal for her family to make arrangements with earthborn flowers for Easter celebrations, their neighbors would complement their beauty every year. So that was what Anette was doing when the sky began falling.

It started with a far-off siren. A completely unknown noise to the young girl, but she felt goosebumps crawl up her neck as she heard the noise. Looking up she saw no storm clouds, the sky was clear and blue. She around and saw some of her neighbors acting strangely, scrambling to pack up their cars. She watched the strange actions for a bit before her mother grabbed her by the arm. She was also acting strangely, pulling Anette into their home.

After they were inside, Anette's mother began giving orders. "Grab your doll and get in the car sweetie."

Normally Anette would ask why or complain. But even her six year old mind was able to hear the fear in her mother's voice. So she ran up the stairs and grabbed her doll then ran back down the stairs and into her mother's car.

Her mother got in a few seconds after and started the car. "Where's daddy?" Anette asked.

Her mother didn't answer for a few seconds, she was breathing heavily. Anette realized that she was panicked, and so was everyone else, it must have been that siren. Finally, her mother answered as the car left her driveway. "We forgot milk earlier. He's in town. We'll see him there."

Anette decided that now was a good time to find out what was happening. "Why are we going to town?"

Her mother didn't answer for a second. "The raid siren went off, we need to get to the shelter."

Not understanding, Anette continued. "What's a raid?"

Her mother looked back at her, looking into her daughter's eyes for a moment and put her hand on the girl's cheek. "Don't worry about it sweetie, everything will be fine."

Accepting the answer, Anette looked out the car window. The road was jammed full of other cars. Suddenly, there was a loud boom. Anette screamed and hid her head in her arms. She wasn't the only one, others got out of their cars and began to run away. Her mother drove off the road and speed to town. Anette looked back out the window to see pieces of a spaceship falling from the sky. She curled up again and tried to make herself as small as possible.

The car bounced along the uneven ground for a while until it took a bad bounce and crashed into a tree. Luckily, neither passenger was hurt. After a few seconds, her mother spoke again. "Get out of the car sweetie." She obeyed in mute terror.

Anette's mother grabbed her daughter's hand again before running. For a good while, they ran down the treeline next to the road, the sky falling above them.

A loud bang rang out behind them. Someone unknown screamed. In agony or terror, Anette didn't know. It terrified her all the same. More bangs, more screams. Her mother began running faster and Anette found it hard to keep up. She didn't complain, she was entirely mute from terror.

The town came into view, just a few more minutes and they'd be safe! Her mother nearly carried her over the plain. Then the distant booms appeared in front of them. A small store vanished into a blaze Anette had never dreamed could exist. Pieces of metal and wood fell around them as she screamed.

A skycar she had never seen before flew overhead. Landing where the store used to be, strange figures covered in metal exited the car. Her mother turned and carried her into an alley and into a building. Before they got out the other side the door swung open, a four eyed monster with a large and scary looking piece of metal in its hands. Her mother turned again and ran through a kitchen as the wall behind them gained several holes as the monster let out a guttural shout and used the tool in its hands to make more loud booms. They got out through another door and continued down the road before taking another turn, zig-zagging to avoid the monster behind them. More booms and screams surrounded them as they dashed through the town, desperately trying to reach the center.

The town courtyard came into view, several police officers surrounding it. One stood from the barrier he was behind and waved them on. Her mother ran impossibly faster, Anette nearly flying behind her. But it didn't matter, they were almost safe.

Then the ground erupted. Pain coursed through her body. She screamed but couldn't hear it. The world went black.

June 3rd, 2410 AD - Thor System, Mindoir

Martin stood in the breadline. Numb. It had been over a month since the attack, but the devastation was still present. Numb. He had been in the line for over an hour, and there was an hour more to stand. Numb. It was the same every day, wake up, get in line, get food, help find survivors, get in line, get food, go to bed. Numb. He waited, got his food, and sat down. Numb.

He didn't notice the new arrivals. Two quarians were escorted by a police officer through the warehouse of broken humans, taking notes on their omni-tools. They approached Martin, who was looking down to his food, and the officer sat across from him.

Martin didn't look up until the officer spoke. "Martin, we need to ask you some questions."

Martin looked up, glanced at the aliens and back to the officer. The officer nodded slowly, keeping eye contact. Martin put the food down and stood up, the officer following. The officer then took the lead and brought them to a small poorly lit office.

One of the quarians gestured for Martin to sit down, which he did. She took the seat on the other side of a desk before beginning her questioning. "Do you know who I am?" Martin said nothing. "I'll take that as a no. I am Admiral Daro'Xen of the Rannoch Intelligence Agency. We are here to determine what happened last month." Martin did not react, so she just continued. "My understanding is that you saw some of the attackers." Martin blinked and the quarian admiral took that as confirmation. "Can you describe them for me?"

Martin blinked again. His hands began to tremble, tears welling in his eyes. "I lost… I lost… my wife and daughter and you want me to remember the attack?" He was becoming delirious.

The quarian did not seem to care. "We need to know who did it to get those captured back."

Martin laughed incredulously. "Get back? I don't get anything back! My wife and daughter were fucking blown up and the only reason I'm even alive is because I forgot to grab fucking milk!" Tears flowed freely from the young man's eyes.

The officer came forward. "Marty, I know it's hard on you. But we need your help. We need to get them back. Ms. Greensburg was taken, and too many others. In the Ghazw the patriots foresaw the war before it happened by identifying the enemy. We need to know who did this." Martin stared at him for a moment before collapsing onto the table, sobbing. The officer looked at the Admiral and nodded.

The Admiral waited for a few seconds before resuming her questioning as Martin picked his head back up. "How many eyes did the attackers have?"

Martin responded immediately. "Four." His voice hoarse and quiet.

The Admiral wrote down his response. "What color was their skin?"

Another immediate response. "Brown, or red. Something like that."

She wrote that down too. "Can you describe their nose?"

"Ugly." He paused. "Like four were stacked together."

"Did they have hair?"

"None that I could tell."

"Anything else about their face?"

He paused for a moment, trying to remember. "Ugly slug looking things on their face."

The Admiral put it onto her omni-tool. "That will do nicely. Now, what about their armor? What color was it? Did it have any markings or insignia?"

Martin leaned back, sweat mixing with tears on his face. "A dark red color, like blood." He paused for a moment, staring at the ceiling. "Some of them had something that looked like a bunch of branches with a snake like thing holding them together."

The quarian paused for a moment, typed something into her omni-tool before nodding and typing into her omni-tool again. "Were there any other aliens involved?"

"There was some dog like creature, wasn't very smart, but was fast and brutal."

The Admiral nodded as she noted it into her omni-tool. She paused for a second as she looked at the small computer, muttering something to herself. "Thank you for your time." Getting up and turning to the police officer, she continued. "I believe I know who was responsible." The officer looked at her expectantly. "An independent batarian world in the Terminus called Anhur. The Na'Hesit run the system and make frequent raids to far away territory, the descriptions match batarians and their symbolism."

The officer nodded. "I'll call it in. Thank you for your assistance Admiral, all of Norway owes you now."

Turning off her omni-tool, the Admiral shook her head. "It is part of our agreement with the Americans, you owe us nothing."

The officer looked at her oddly for a second. "That may be true, but we appreciate it all the same."

Ignoring the officer, she turned to her assistant. Nodding they both left the room.

The officer watched them leave before turning to Martin. "You've done more good than you know Martin, thank you. We'll get our people back." Then he too left the room, leaving Martin alone in his misery and anguish.

Excerpt from Brinkmanship: The Anhur War by Lieutenant Colonel Jean Dubois (Ret).

And so we were off. Off to slay the dragon and save the princess. Except this dragon was no dragon, he was a bastard. An army of bastards armed to the teeth with machine guns and explosives. Though this difference didn't much matter to the Marines. They were ready to deliver justice, we all were. I remember clearly what I felt as we neared the dragon's lair, nothing but red hot furry and hate. Some might call that childish, and it was. But if we were to go again, we'd be children all the same. That's because even a mere child could see clearly that this dragon deserved such sinful emotions to be directed upon him, and then to be put to Ascalon. We were Ascalon for the bastards, and we were so red hot we'd cut through him like butter.
My transport arrived a bit early, which wasn't so bad. The men and I got the pleasure of witnessing the Navy bring down a cruiser only a few thousand kilometers in front of us. I know, sounds like a lot, but space is big and that distance is a front row seat. Too bad we didn't have popcorn, a real masterpiece that show was. As it was, totally worth the chewing out I got for it.
When the rest of the transports arrived, we began the invasion. The First, Third, and Fourth Divisions were deployed to Anhur while the Second was deployed to the satellites around the other planets in the system. My Company was the first into the fray, which gave some of the men a fright. But they were on the bounce all the same and they did their job.
The first thing we needed to do was establish our company headquarters. We landed next to an abandoned industrial area, or at least that's what we thought when we arrived. The company fanned out and swept the area, my headquarters squad took a small office and set up our communications equipment.
I had just updated the battalion headquarters on our location and status when Lieutenant Perkins from informed me that they had found something… disturbing. I was whisked away from my newly acquired desk and to the abandoned factory on the other side of the compound. What was there, what I saw is still hard to put into words. We knew that the bastards were slavers, but our briefings were woefully inadequate for what was before me. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of living corpses of many races I had never seen. It is a sight that I could never truly explain. But I can give some measure. The turians looked like something out of a poorly made horror film, their metal bones jutting through their skin. There were several asari some of them looked like small children, I would learn later that they were all several times my age but by God they didn't look it. Their lack of proper clothing did not help ease my stomach. The few salarians that were there looked awful, salarians as amphibians should have slimy or wet skin, these salarians had skin as dry as you or I. Most shocking, though, was the batarian slaves. Coming into the operation, we were lead to believe that the bastards enslaved other races in some form of master race weltanschauung, this was not true at all. The bastards enslaved anyone they could.
Many of the critics of our foreign policy say that we kill many innocent batarians and slaves in our military operations. I say that we're stopping a holocaust. It's the only way to describe what I saw that day, and it's the only way to describe what some of the freed slaves told us. Many told me that when new slaves arrived, they would be forced to carry large stones from one end of the manor, which was several dozen miles wide, to the other just to be forced to take the same material back to where they started. Ripped straight from the Nazi handbook. The loss of innocent life is a tragedy, the enslavement of people is barbaric. It is our duty, as free men, to liberate those who are not.
In the campaign my company saw no fighting, but we left with the same scars.

AN

I'm fairly certain that I can't write an invasion properly. I had at least three different completed versions of this chapter but never felt that they were good enough. Hope that this works alright.

I also decided to put in a book excerpt instead of a codex entry this time, tell me what you think about it.

I'm also considering changing the rating to M so I can go into a bit more detail, but I don't think it's entirely necessary. If someone more familiar with the rules than I could tell me I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for reading and your patience, see you next time.