Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.

So, this chapter is going to introduce a plot device and a story mechanic that is crucial to the storyline of this story. I'll explain more about why it's so important in my author's note at the end of the chapter. Hopefully, it'll pique your interest.

Let's get to it.

Rico: No, such a thing did not happen, because the world, and by extension the US, is not so divided in this universe as it is in reality. And I do not have someone in mind as to who succeeded Putin, especially since it's not really going to make a difference in this series, given the timeframe we're now in. Also, I have no plans to include any anime characters, especially as I don't watch anime.

Banzai Bill 28: China is still communist, but is not quite so autocratic and authoritarian as it is in reality, and Russia has moved back towards democracy

Guest: Yes, as you'll see in this chapter.

Guest: I may show those ships. I don't know what my plans are for Jaina regarding a possible romance, and I don't plan to include Mara Jade at all. No, the Imperial Remnant will not be joining against the First Order.

Chapter 4- The War

(April 2, 2049)

A series of massive explosions rock the landscape. A platoon of Terran soldiers dive for cover, avoiding rocky shrapnel flying out in all directions.

One of the soldiers, a young 1st Lieutenant by the name of Gabe Whitworth, pops up out of the shallow trench he had just jumped into. He fires his carbine into the smoke ahead of him before a bolt of electricity arcs back at him and he ducks down to avoid it.

"This is Lieutenant Whitworth! Marking my position with orange smoke grenades! Lay down covering artillery fire 120 yards north of my position," Whitworth shouts.

All around him, his fellow soldiers pull out orange smoke grenades and toss them out of the trench to mark their position. All of them, Whitworth and his fellow soldiers, are men of the 4th Armored Division of the US Army. They and the rest of their division had been deployed to take part in this battle alongside several others.

A short distance behind the front lines, a platoon of M1A4 AbramsX main battle tanks and several M1299 howitzers fire their cannons. A volley of 120mm and 155mm artillery shells streak through the clouds of smoke, impacting at the distance indicated by Whitworth. Whitworth and his fellows can see the explosions through the smoke and can hear several death cries.

"Think we got 'em?" one of the other soldiers calls out.

"No. They're too strong for that. We killed a few, sure, but there are always some to keep coming," Whitworth mutters.

The soldiers keep watch on the smoke. Then, a little off to the right and up ahead, Whitworth sees a series of figures coming through the smoke. As they emerge, he can see their forms. Tall, taller than a human. Greyish skin, deep set eyes, angled brow ridges, wide shoulders, a tapered skull, and no hair. Clad in armor of a curious make, wielding various weapons.

"There! Grysk!" Whitworth shouts.

Everyone in the platoon turns their weapons on the aliens and open fire, pouring a storm of lead towards them. Dozens of bullets tear into the aliens, but only one of them falls dead. The others keep coming, wounded but still ready to fight.

One of the aliens fixes its gaze on the American troops. As it does, two of the troops suddenly drop their weapons and drop down into the trench, shaking and holding their heads, muttering nervously. Some of the other troops manage to hold their own, despite the anxiety creeping into them.

"Flamethrowers!" Whitworth shouts. In this was, flamethrowers had begun to see a resurgence in popularity. Two of the men in Whitworth's platoon are armed with new M15 flamethrowers, which have a burn time of 10 seconds and a range of about 45 yards. The men armed with the flamethrowers pop up slightly, aim their weapons, and squeeze the triggers. Streams of flame jet out from their weapons and envelop several of the aliens. Two are roasted alive quickly, while a third is set on fire, going running away trying to quench the flames.

The last two aliens charge at the platoon. One of them raises its gun and fires a bolt of electricity, hitting one of the troops and sending him flying back, his body fried from the electricity. However, a soldier manning an M240 machine gun lets rip with his machine gun, sending dozens of rounds into the alien, finally killing it.

The last alien charges at the American lines. However, as the alien is charging, it doesn't realize that one of the AbramsX tanks has moved forward to better cover the platoon. As the alien approaches the platoon, the tank levels its main gun at the charging alien. The gunner centers his gunsight on the alien before pulling the trigger. The 120mm gun discharges a HEAT round, which impacts the alien right in the center of its chest. To the view of the soldiers, most of whom have to duck to avoid shrapnel, it looks as if the alien's body implodes in front of them.

The platoon peaks their heads up a second later, seeing that there is no sign of the alien that had been there a moment ago. A second later, the tank fires another HEAT round into the smoke, holding off another charge for a few moments.

"We hold this position boys!" Whitworth shouts. His fellows shout their assent.

(Miles away)

Far behind the front lines, in a bunker hastily built into the side of a rocky hill, a pair of American two-star generals are looking intently at several maps. One of the maps is of the planet they are currently on: a previously uninhabited planet called Theseus-4 that is rich in uranium ore. Other maps are showing certain areas of the planet that are currently battlefields. Each of those maps has little pegs and pins, showing the locations of their forces and those of their enemy.

One of the generals, Major General Frank Richards, is the commander of the 4th Armored. The other, Major General Alfonso Santos, is the commander of the 29th Infantry Division. They comprise about half of the force currently deployed to Theseus-4. The other forces are those of the Korean III Corps, which comprise an armored division, an artillery brigade, and two infantry divisions.

As the two generals are staring intently at the maps, they hear a rumbling overhead. They look up at the ceiling, listening as they hear the sounds of fighters engaging in their deadly dances of death overhead.

"At least we have the overall advantage in fighters," Richards says.

"True, but that won't mean too much if we can't hold on on the ground," Santos says.

"Any word on the reinforcements?" Richards says.

"I spoke with General Somner the other day. Those two Lortirian divisions should be arriving in the next 36 hours," Santos says.

"We're going to need them. The Grysk have pushed us back 5 miles in the last 24 hours, and we've taken heavier casualties than we expected. We need heavy support if we're going to hold this planet," Richards says. Santos nods, a grim look on his face.

This battle, the battle for Theseus-4, is just the latest battle in a wider war that has enveloped the Milky Way galaxy. The so-called Grysk War, a war that has been raging for almost 8 years.

The war had begun back in late 2041. Back then, the Alliance was expanding at a good pace across the Milky Way, and already numbered hundreds of member worlds and hundreds more uninhabited worlds as territories. As they expanded further into the region of the galaxy they had termed Sector 5 (they had divided the Milky Way into 6 sectors to make it easier to classify location), they had encountered a formerly unknown empire of an alien race known as the Grysk. The Grysk were a species of large, very formidable alien species that ruled an empire within the confine of space designated as Sector 5.

However, the Alliance did not initially find them a problem, despite their imposing appearance. They did not believe that the Grysk were a threat at first, and wanted to either invite them into the Alliance or propose a treaty of alliance and peace between the two powers.

However, the Grysk had proven far more aggressive than they expected. They attacked on sight the first terran fleet that attempted to make contact. The Alliance tried to sue for peace and insist that they did not mean harm to the Grysk, and tried to send an envoy to negotiate. Instead, the Grysk attacked again, destroying the ships and destroying the envoy. This had a terrible effect, as one of the destroyed ships actually crashed on the world the skirmish had taken place over relatively intact. Although most of its systems were wiped, the Grysk had managed to recover a lot of data on hyperspace lanes from its computers. This combined with their own hyperspace technology meant they now had the ability to expand outwards.

The Alliance discovered this the hard way when the Grysk suddenly launched an attack on the planet Ashgalar, one of the members worlds of the Alliance within Sector 4. The Grysk had captured Ashgalar, and it had taken a massive battle to retake it. As the Grysk empire continued its attacks, it became clear that peace with the Grysk was not possible, and if the integrity of the Alliance's borders and security was to be preserved, let alone any thoughts of expanding further, it was clear that the Alliance could not try to ignore the Grysk or sue for peace. So, the Alliance declared war on the Grysk and launched an all out war against the Grysk.

It quickly became clear after the war began that the Alliance was in trouble. Although the Grysk empire, formally known as the Grysk Hegemony, was relatively small in size, especially compared to the Galactic Empire the Alliance had fought decades earlier when they were smaller, the Grysk proved formidable opponents in war. Despite their small size, they had a massive fleet of very advanced ships and wielded advanced starfighters, which was easily big enough to challenge the Terran Starfleet. In addition, the Grysk foot soldiers wielded very advanced weapons, some even more advanced than those wielded by the Alliance, and proved very resilient to wounds. A single Grysk was known to take enough bullets to kill half a dozen very strong humans and keep fighting. The Grysk were also very intelligent, and quickly adapted to learn how to fight the Alliance.

However, something was quickly discovered about the Grysk proved to be a game changer and gave the Grysk a major advantage, winning them many major victories early in the war. The Alliance discovered that the Grysk had an innate ability that seemed to be common in their species, if not universal, where they could prey on the fears of their enemies. They could use their enemies' fear to increase their strength and competency in combat. Not only that, but they could stoke fear in their enemies. The more fear an individual felt, the worse the effect became, sometimes paralyzing an enemy with fear.

This ability had allowed the Grysk to win major victories and inflict serious casualties on the Alliance's armies. The Alliance had been driven back extensively, forced to surrender territory to the Grysk to pull back and tighten the lines.

The first two years of the war were the worst, with the Grysk having the upper hand and driving the Alliance back across the galaxy. However, eventually, after 2 years, the Alliance was able to tighten their defenses and stop the Grysk advance. The following three years had seen mostly a stalemate and a series of back and forths, with both sides making minor gains and taking small losses, going back and forth repeatedly.

Eventually, after a little more than 5 years, the war began to turn in favor of the Alliance. More Jedi were committed to the fight, new weapons sytems came online, and ways were found to lessen the effects of the Grysk's fear based powers. The Alliance had also been able to devise certain tactics that gave them a better fighting chance against the Grysk on the ground.

With the introduction of new strategies, including wider use of weapons of mass destruction, the Alliance finally began to gain ground against the Grysk. Over the last two and a half years, the Alliance has slowly been retaking territory captured by the Grysk while trying to whittle down their forces.

The current status of the war was still somewhat in question. Although the Alliance was slowly gaining ground, the Grysk were still very formidable opponents, and as the Grysk were pushed back, it would be easier to defend their remaining territory, and they were still extracting heavy losses from the Alliance, so heavy that the Alliance had had to resort to using divisions of battle droids in their army in order to keep their casualties from getting too high.

The war tied up massive amounts of Terran resources. Around 70 percent of their military was tied down fighting the war at any given time, leaving few resources to continue exploration or to maintain the Alliance's presence in the Andromeda Galaxy, which had become an even more critical problem in recent years.

Right now, the battle for Theseus-4 is one of eight ongoing battles between the Grysk and the Alliance, and is one of the most critical. Theseus-4 has massive deposits of uranium ore, which the Grysk have been harvesting for fuel purposes for their starships. If the Alliance can capture the planet, not only will it deny the Grysk a major uranium supply, but it will greatly increase the Alliance's nuclear power capacity and its ability to make depleted uranium weapons, which have proven the most effective way of dealing with Grysk heavy armor capabilities. On top of that, the position of Theseus-4 will give the winner of the battle a good position to launch devastating attacks in multiple directions into the other's territory.

As Richards and Santos look at the map, and all the symbols showing the positions of friendly and enemy forces, they realize all too well what's at stake. If they can capture and hold this planet, it could shorten the war. And the sooner this drawn out war ends, the better.

And, I'll end the chapter there. Hope you liked this one.

So, some of you know the Grysk from the new canon. The Grysk are kind of canon's alternatives to the Yuuzhan Vong. Not quite so strong, but similarly in dangerous in part because of their ability to enslave the minds of others based on fear. Now, I changed some details about the Grysk for my work, including the fact that they come from the Milky Way and not the Star Wars galaxy, for my purposes, but the Grysk are still very similar to what we know from the canon. Now, that's not to say the Yuuzhan Vong may not make an appearance in my planned final story of this series. They may yet, but I decided to use modified Grysk here.

So, I came up with the Grysk War as a crucial plot device, for one simple reason. As we saw in the Terran Alliance Strikes Back, the Alliance, which was just made of 10 worlds and a small fleet, stood very well against the Empire, taking several planets from the Empire and causing heavy damage to the Imperial fleet. With the First Order military being a fraction of the size of the Imperial military, I had to figure out how to make it so the Alliance didn't just totally overpower the First Order at the start of the war with the help of the Resistance and remnants of the New Republic. So, i figured the best way was to tie most of the Alliance's military down in a major war in the Milky Way.

So, the Grysk War is what I've been hinting at in the last few chapters as to what's happening in the Milky Way. It will continue throughout the story all the way to just before the end. I won't show much of it, but I will mention it periodically, and it will continue to have a major effect on the story. I'll also try and include a few more details on the Grysk War when I eventually make a wiki article about it.

Also, from now on, I'd also recommend paying attention to the Timeline page on the wiki, as it will explain events I will only briefly mention or not mention at all in the story.

Alright, that's the end of this chapter and explanation. Next chapter will take us back to Earth, and some old faces. It'll be up soon. Until it's up, please leave a review, and stay tuned!