Chapter 1

Ben got up with a whine, climbing from his bed, smashing the alarm clock with his fist to no effect. It took three more punches to the poor clock to stop the thing from buzzing its alarm. Ben was your average eighteen year old, with short bowl shaped black hair, blue eyes, and a slightly overbuilt frame, although he wasn't fat... but he was plenty lethargic. He walked groggily downstairs from his attic bedroom, wanting to kill the person that had invented the horrible institution that people liked to call school. His mom waved him over to her, standing in front of the television, and looking borderline excited and frightened. She had the news on, and was staring intensely at it.

"Today, the Interstellar Defense League has met with President Kimberly Thomas, requesting that she join the United States into the IDL. The IDL also met with several other world leaders, who all had pretty much the same reaction as President Thomas; they had to give it some consideration, but doubted it. President Thomas said that she would put it before Congress for a vote though, and doubts that they will agree to join. When asked why, President Thomas said only this: 'We only found out about the existence of other sentient life forms other than ourselves two months ago, and now we are expected to join in some defensive league? We need much more time to consider this.' The President declined to comment further on the situation." Ben's mom flipped off the channel.

"Honestly," she declared as though exasperated with the situation, "why would we need to join some kind of defense league? I mean, its not like we are being attacked or anything. Does anyone know what the league is even about?"

Ben rolled his eyes at how narrow minded his mom had proved to be once again. "Mom, have you even been listening to all the other news besides just what the President has said on the matter? The Interstellar Defense League is a league of governments from about forty different systems, founded by the Ghalerans, which is waging war against the forces of the Liodammians, or some weird name like that; that's the shortened version of the name, as it's supposedly unpronounceable by humans. Anyway, these Liodammians have a combined force of genetically engineered warriors and awesome machines, and is attempting to gain control of the galaxy. They breed so fast that they can expand without limits, and their natural instincts drive them to do so."

"You know," Ben's mom responded, "I think I might have been wrong to sign you up for that Interstellar Politics course... after all, the subject has only been around for a few weeks, and it's already filling you with images of heroic wars between good guys and bad guys."

Ben rolled his eyes once again, and set about making breakfast, as he normally did. He had remembered how the world had seemed to change just two months ago, when the discovery had been made of other intelligent life out there. It seemed everything had become smaller since then... everyone realized just how tiny they were in the galactic scheme of things. Now, alien leagues were already petitioning for them to join up with them in a massive war.

He had been one of the few people that was disappointed that someone had found life out there though. He had always hoped that in a couple of years, he would have been the one there, an officer aboard one of the great cruisers in the International Exploration Forces, that he would have made the discovery. But he could still hope that he was involved in alien relations or something when he joined up with the fleet tomorrow; today was his last day at high school, and he wanted to go directly into the Exploration Forces from there.