Chapter 5

There is a very old saying; it goes something like this: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend!'

We had yet to determine that we both had enemies however. The attacks had seemed to stop for a while. Well, they did stop. Now we were seeing 'sabotage'. We had no idea how or why our enemy had changed their tactics. They were winning, so why the sudden change?

One of the 'defence' teams came up with something very interesting. They had discovered a lone person planting a bomb. He was taken captive and brought to Galixi headquarters. Since the attacks had stopped, we had expected something new to occur. What we did not expect was the discovery of an entire new species. In no way were these things who or what we had been at war with; they were something new.

In a hastily called meeting, we determined that... , that,... ! That we now were confused, very confused. We needed information and quickly. Threats, torture, captivity all seemed to have no affect on our prisoner. We tried something new. New to us at least. We marched him out to the outskirts of Hinton. We secured him, then left him for our enemy to do our job for us. We did not have long to wait.

Three days later, approaching Central City were a group of our black armoured foes. This time they came under a flag of truce. Although communication was somewhat difficult, what we determined was that there was a sense of confusion with them too.

The prisoner we had left for them was of a species from their old planet. One of the two their ancestors had fought for. They could not make any sense of why they would be here on Gaia, nor why we would just give him up to them.

What transpired then was like the proverbial light bulb coming on, for both sides. We explained, ad best we could, under what conditions he had been captured. We also were quite interested why they had changed their tactics in favour of sabotage. We were informed that no new strategy had been used. The Klax were incapable of such actions. They were warriors and would, could never be so cowardly as to hide in the shadows.

What the Klax had learned, utilizing a few methods or persuasion we did not use, was that scouts had been sent all over to find any new colonies of the former fighters. Their orders were to find and report so an eradication fleet could exterminate them. These scouts took that a step further. By careful manipulation and leaking information to both sides, it was hoped we would destroy each other even before the fleet arrived.

That strategy, in the case of the Klax, almost worked. Yes they were strong, very strong, but so many had perished and so much time would be required to regenerate that the war was practically over for them.

The anticipation of an invasion force was the new primary concern now. It might have seemed foolish, but I for one would prefer the Klax on our side, fighting with us, instead of against us. In no uncertain terms we asked what they wanted.

"To live here in peace!" was the answer. In that Human, Vampyre and Klax had the same ambition. Hinton was to be rebuilt. This time Human, Vampyre and Klax would be housed together. It would be a learning experience for us all. One burning question was what would the invasion fleet consist of and when could we expect them to arrive.

Our Klax friend now said. "Soon. very soon!" I later got a more definitive reply. In 129 or so of our years they would start to arrive. Space platforms, beam, pulse and plasma weapons as well as a number of missiles I had no way to reference would be prepared first. Then their troops would follow and an attack begun.

To us, even if we had to build every defence new and mine every place around our planet, it would be done. I wondered how we might undertake this endeavor?