Chapter 4

Heads turned and wandering gazes soared to the heavens as the human armada descended into Palemalon airspace. Hailstorms of nuclear warheads were let loose from various star cruisers, hammering into the nearby defense cannons that were doing their best to prevent the unpredicted invasion. The sky was light up with brilliant hues of red as the particle beams ground themselves aggressively into the human vessels. One lucky beam severed part of the long thin shaft that held together the front and rear of a carrier craft. When it tried to accelerate afterwards, the whole thing snapped in two and the rear plummeted headfirst into the front - A minor victory. Unfortunately, it was still not enough. There were too many ships in the vicinity and the cannons were taking too long to recharge. The defensive weapons had been originally designed to eliminate unwanted trespassers, not to fend off entire armadas.

Drop zones were established by human strategists and City Center Two soon found themselves under attack from falling drop pods which started raining from the sky like black meteorites. These were shortly followed by parachuting support vehicles such as tanks and armored jeeps which had the likes of turret mounted metal storm guns with uranium tipped ammunition attached to the rears. The hatches of the drop pods blew away and squadrons of hesitant marines piled out and secured their designated areas. The soldiers were jumpy and fearful, spraying randomly at anything that moved. They were fresh recruits, just out from training and had never encountered extra-terrestrial beings before. The sight of four armed, four eyed bipeds scared them shitless. The fact that they were also unarmoured and poorly equipped on an alien home world didn't help much either.

The palemalites held off the sudden assault fairly well using masses of congregated guerilla groups. But these gradually became unsuccessful when they found themselves far too heavily outnumbered at every turn. The human numbers were rising at an alarming rate as more and more reinforcements piled in. It was as if the Humans were a disease which was spreading across the city like wildfire. When one human was struck down, another two came from nowhere to take its place. Though the human bodies piled up the palemalite's count remained quite low, it seemed that those statistics were having no impression on the tides of war whatsoever. Whether the marines died in battle or not was of no importance to the higher officials. Heavy numbers was one of the strategists' battle plans, for there were millions more men still waiting elsewhere to be thrown into the grinder. Human politicians had this operation worked out long in advance.

Sex and overpopulation had always been an issue on planet Earth. In the past one hundred years with the discovery of superior space flight and exploration technology, contraception had been banned in an attempt to overpopulate the planet even further and breed what they called "expendable cannon fodder". These were conscripted all over the globe to become brainwashed and trained as doomed space soldiers. The Fleet Admiral of the human armada had approximately two billion meat bags at his disposal, and he didn't give a damn for a single one.

Those few corrupted megalomaniacs who had absolute control over the entire human race strived for only one thing - more power! And they'd sacrifice anything or anyone to get whatever it was they wanted.

Palemalites were tossed into the air as the walls of Andromeda Defense HQ were blown to smithereens by a salvo of giant tank shells. An assault squad charged in immediately after with guns blazing, taking their enemy completely by surprise. Palemalite limbs were ripped off and torsos were torn to shreds as the relentless human onslaught swept through the entire building mowing down all sentient life that stood in its way.

Fleet Admiral Caesar strolled boldly through the crumbling wall of debris with a triumphant look printed upon his features. Bones crushed underfoot as he passed by the saluting soldiers that were standing to attention while making sure to step on every palemalite skull that was along the way. A dozen shock troops filed in after him, sprinting down the hallway and picking off any struggling survivors that were moaning for help. The shock troops soon came across a barred door and a laser specialist was radioed in to help. After a short but precise process, a perfect ring was carved into the door and kicked out by somebody's massive boot. With a sharp clatter the metal disc fell to the floor and four rifles soon found themselves poking their heads through the open hole. There was a small burst of gunfire and a couple of short stifled screams. After that, one of the marines clambered into the room and reported its contents to the Fleet Admiral.

'Sir, it's some kind of forensic science lab... and one of them aliens is still alive. It's some kind of weird ass squid thing. I'm going to kill it.'

The reporting soldier placed the point of his handgun to the creatures head and was about to fire when his superior ordered him to halt. Fleet Admiral Caesar climbed on through and took the gun roughly from the soldier's hands.

'Take this as well Sir, ' said the soldier as he handed over a translator module.

Nodding in appreciating to the soldier, Caesar bent over and crouched by the wounded squid, putting the gun firmly to its head. 'I know you can understand me alien, and if you co-operate I'm sure we can get along just fine. So tell me squid, what is your name? Or don't you miserable life forms possess anything like that?'