Ellis Forward Operating Base, Eastern Front.

Lieutenant Deondre Wilkins - Delta Company.

Deondre's breathing had gone hard and sharp, ragged gasps of air that scraped along his throat. Behind him, thunderous explosions tilted the ground violently beneath his feet.

Gotta go! Run, run, run...

Icy dread squeezed his heart in a skeletal fist. Fear drove his legs into flashing pistons that had his boots floating over the ground.

Have..to...run!

Up ahead, a burning tank lay on its side in the middle of the road. It was the Lieutenant's destination. Distant screams amplified the terror shooting up and down his spine, tracer rounds flashed in the dark, artillery boomed and quaked, and the fear in his heart drove him on.

Faster, run, don't look back!

He could hear the terrible creatures pursuing him, their rapid, deep breathing clawing across his eardrums.

There, just ahead. The small space between the tank's armor and the cracked asphalt beneath it.

He would be safe there. Yes, sheltered from the eyes!

He heard the crackling hiss of enemy weapons fire, followed by the blood-curdling screams of his fellow soldiers. Someone who wasn't fast enough...

Better them than me. Better, yes it is, run run...

He risked a furtive glance over his shoulder, quickly regretted it.

Nek'var soldiers were slaughtering the remnants of Bravo company - his company.

Pfc Voevoda, she had dreams of exploring the stars one day, dangled purple-faced within the grip of a towering Nek'var commando.

The evil creature leaned in close and appeared to smell Voevoda's swollen face, savoring the kill. Then threw its head back with a mighty roar and crushed its grip shut, and Voevoda's legs struggled no more.

So many others died in a storm of plasma rockets, withering disruptor fire and gunships that tore into their ranks, sending clusters of soldiers rag-dolling into the darkness like human glowsticks.

An earth-shattering explosion vibrated his teeth, disruptor rounds whistled past his head, tracing after images through the darkness. A thick blanket of smoke fell over the carnage, and Deondre stomped on.

Run! He had to run! Run now, fast, hurry. Have to get away...

Too many of them. Disruptors everywhere and black faceted eyes glittering in the firelight, horrible smells of burning flesh and drooling gray faces with human mouths, no he had to go! Right now, before it was too late!

Bravo Company had rotated to the eastern front two days ago to relieve the decimated ranks of Alpha company. And were fighting defensive from the moment their boots crunched into the charred sandy soil leading away from the eastern gate.

Deondre flashed past tactical defense screens fizzling and sparking, their energy cells drained completely.

Newly installed wall cannons thundered in the distance, they were the only reason the base hadn't been wholly overrun yet.

Chaos reigned across a deep perimeter of plexcrete redoubts encircling the base; cracked, cratered, littered with burning war machines, and embattled soldiers desperately trying to fall back to a more defensible position.

Bravo company's retreat had quickly escalated into an all-out rout, and they spent their lives dearly to hold back the Nek'var offensive. It cost five human soldiers, for every Nek'var warrior they brought down. An absolutely crushing defeat.

Jesus, don't look back! Just run, God, please, I'll do whatever you ask!

His boot caught on something, and his arms flailed toward the ground.

Oh shit, was that a body back there? Carlos? That fucking looked like Carlos! Fuck. Shit. Gotta get up. Get up, god damn it! Get up! Now! NOW!

Deondre was back on his feet in an instant. He frantically looked around for his rifle. Where was it? Oh, fuck it! It doesn't matter! Not using it anyway. Just run! RUN!

Deondre heard the heavy footsteps behind him, and his legs flashed wildly beneath him, terror consuming him.

The world streaked past like it was being processed through a psychotropic lens. Strange oozing lights, muffled sounds, and the smells!

Run!

Maybe it's all a dream! A terrified voice babbled madly in his thoughts. Yes! A dream!

Oh God, please let this be a dream! I want to wake up! Please, God, help me wake up! The tank! Yes, the tank! Gotta get to the tank!

He was almost there. The acrid fumes from the antimatter flames scorched his lungs.

Yes, he'd be safe under the armor. Sheltered from the black eyes and horrible spikes and friends blood all over the green armor, and the hounds, the terrible gnashing teeth and red eyes roaring and snarling and ripping and tearing God it was so horrible! Gotta go, almost there.

The tank loomed before him, ice-blue flames snapping and writhing over the top of its armored chassis. His safe spot, yes, he would be safe there.

Explosions tilted the world around him, heaving the ground up wildly beneath his boots.

Hypersonic fighters snapped past overhead, dragging crashing sonic booms behind them. An instant later, bone-rattling missile concussions stamped fiery craters into the ground all across the swarming Nek'var lines. Blazing fireballs rose and swirled with black smoke that coiled toward the sky.

But there were so many!

Endless, boiling mass of the black eyes. Blasting disruptors and kicking and stabbing and roaring. And the monsters were there too!

Can't win, have to getaway!

Nek'var rockets punched dents into the plasteel wall surrounding the base, and a blinding overhead light flared to life, bathing the area in its clinical brilliance.

Behind Deondre, the heavy footsteps were upon him. He could feel the creature's hot breath on the back of his neck, razor-lined maw barely an inch from his boot.

He dove for the burrow under the tank headfirst and landed in a slide that carried him skidding and scraping under its armor.

The thundering steps galloped up to the armor and unleashed a blood-curdling roar that froze the marrow in his bones.

Huge black-taloned paws tore furiously at the asphalt, carving jagged rents into its surface. Spatters of foaming yellow drool accompanied unearthly howls of rage that echoed off the crumbling pavement sending splinters of ice shooting up and down his spine.

Deondre closed his eyes and prayed like he'd never prayed before. He groveled. He begged. He pleaded with the almighty, and any other deity that might hear him. Promising to do whatever was necessary for them to get him out of this alive.

Sweat trickled down his forehead and pooled in the crinkles where his eyes were squeezed shut. But he didn't notice its liquid sting, didn't much care. Just kept sending prayers up to the stars.

The black talons abruptly stopped digging, and for a brief moment, a surge of hope thawed the ice around Deondre's heart. Perhaps, God had heard his pleas after all, and in his infinite wisdom, decided to graciously answer Deondre's prayers.

He was going to live!

Deondre wept with joy but kept his eyes sealed shut, afraid it would dispel the miracle of his good fortune. He told himself to breathe, breathe. Calming--calming. Calming the thunder in his chest.

Beads of sweat glistened on his face, running in rivulets down his fear-taut cheeks, collecting in the cracks and crevices between his neck and collar bones. He prayed furiously, so so righteously, holding his breath, not daring to breathe for fear of shattering the fragile spell which held his liberation in suspense and filled his heart with the hope of salvation.

Ok, ok, breathe, breathe. You got this.

Deondre cracked a tentative lid and recoiled in horror from a huge malevolent eye mere inches from his face. His heart froze into a chunk of black ice so cold it burned within his flesh, and his gut abruptly felt weightless under the impossible strength of that livid, evil gaze. A blood-red glare where it should have been white, with a spiky black-ring circling a cats-eye pupil that homed in on him laser-precise, dilating wide in the gloom.

Deondre gasped and fell back, his legs kicking mindlessly away from the terrible eye. He couldn't breathe, his lungs felt like they were wrapped in steel cables, heightening the terror.

His rifle, where is.... oh shit, dropped it back there, stupid! So stupid. God, please help me!

Something pressed into his hand painfully, wedging his flesh between itself and the sandy ground. His bloodshot eyes found the hilt of a combat knife resting in a case on his hip. A trembling hand tore it free from its sheath and sank the blade up to its guard in that wicked red orb.

The beast roared so that he thought his ears would rupture, and the hideous scarlet eye snapped back toward the opening like a recoiling spring, thrashing about on the ground pawing at it's ruined eye.

A deep, guttural voice stomped up to where Deondre cowered under the tank and skidded to a halt.

"ICK'TOK BREX'TZZ CHOK CHOK TAR'KLIZZ XXIT QIX'TZZ!! It roared wickedly, so so horribly. Followed by additional pounding feet that surrounded him on all sides.

The beast continued to thrash about making the most appalling noises Deondre had ever heard.

The tank abruptly lurched and began to shake. The Nek'var soldiers were attempting to flip it upright so they could get at Deondre.

Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh shit! God, please help me. I'm sorry for cussing, but God damn it help me!

The tank lifted away from the asphalt tantalizingly slow, almost dreamlike. So quiet, like they were forcing him to marinate in the horror of his coming death.

Then the tank abruptly stopped halfway up, hovering there for a brief moment, before thundering back to the asphalt.

Deafening explosions quaked the area around the tank, along with a discord of roaring and screaming and pounding footsteps that stomped up over the tank, and then it was there, a dark blur of armored death. An angel of death!

Black and huge, it flashed past so fast he could barely make out details. A fusion of flesh and steel.

It crashed into the Nek'var soldiers like a runaway heavy freighter and went to work with a huge wicked blade that glowed like fire.

Deondre suddenly realized that his lungs were burning, he couldn't breathe, his safe spot wasn't safe at all! Coughing and wheezing, no oxygen! The fire had spread beneath the tank when the Nek'var lifted it off the asphalt.

He tried to crawl out from under the tank, but his vision swam with black motes, and his arms and legs were suddenly made of rubber. His lungs burned. Can't breathe.

Darkness swirled down over him. He fell forever.

Galactic Union Territory

Somewhere on Cronus Prime

Shadows stretched across the land. The shadows of an orbiting Nek'var fleet.

Smoke rose from countless fires still burning across the surface, coiling up in thick, inky columns that infiltrated the puffy white clouds drifting overhead. The sun's warming rays were broken and filtered through this sooty gray haze.

Somewhere below that scorched sky, a Zavaki shadow operative slipped through a debris choked alleyway, past a once-bustling skyplex, now a crumbling ruin, to a cracked, pitted cross street devoid of all life. An apocalyptic snapshot in time.

Senator Teek of the Alsion Federation, huddled nervously within her hooded robe, quickly scurried after her.

The alley was, save for the two of them, completely deserted.

One of many thousands just like it all over Cronus Prime. An intricate web of building gaps spanning what was once the proud capital city of the Union's seat of power. A glittering city of light towering in the warm rays of the sun. A beacon of liberty shining across the Galactic Union.

Operative Ceki To'ah peered around each corner and into the coiling shadows across the street, cautiously, ever so carefully, and the scene of utter devastation, which she'd witnessed so many times before, still stole her breath.

Stretching out wide as far as the eye could see, in every direction, was a crumbling cityscape of utter ruin.

Light help us.

Flitters were crashed randomly throughout the streets, small fires still burning here or there. The fetid stench of decay blended with the acrid odor of smoldering buildings to cloy in the oppressive heat. Storefronts and office buildings were shattered, looted. Monuments that once stood the test of time, some centuries-old, now lie crumbling around their ancient foundations.

Both of her hearts ached painfully in her chest at the sight of the ruined metropolis. The veteran operative had been to many places, seen more than her share of atrocities over the long, long years of her service, but nothing approaching this level of wanton destruction.

There was no sign of life anywhere, save for the occasional enemy patrol. A flicker of parchment tumbling through the street or loose debris swirled up in hazy little funnels by the wind, which keened with sorrow at the death of its city, were the only things that moved.

"Quickly, Senator," Ceki motioned for the Senator to hurry across the street, but the frightened creature just stood frozen in place like a marble statue. "I assure you, the way is clear. But we dare not tarry for long, that could change in an instant."

A series of chirps and clicks issued from the oval shadow of the figure's hood, a melodic chitter that was quickly carried away on a gust of wind. Operative To'ah was fluent in the Alsionist language, but her mouth was entirely incapable of reproducing the intricate sounds of the avian language, so she relied on the galactic standard.

"No, I have never lost anyone to the enemy."

Ceki glanced up and down the street, her delicate whiskers twitching nervously, expecting a roving Nek'var patrol to appear at any moment. Wary, but not afraid. Fear had been burned out of her centuries ago.

"Senator, please," She implored the skittish politician. "For your own safety, we must move now."

The faceless black hood inched closer and stared up at Ceki for another moment, before inclining her head slightly and shuffling forward. With a final glance back at Ceki, the Senator shot across the street with the shadow following silently.

Ceki slipped past piles of refuse and rubble, the sky churned, shadows oozed over the alley, time passed, and they eventually stood before the hidden entrance of a secret underground bunker where the interim council chamber had been established.

So skillful were its builders, so clever was its design, that it was nearly impossible to distinguish from its surroundings unless you knew precisely where and what you were looking for. And even then, an experienced eye could miss it.

A series of security checks got them through the rising entryway to a long set of stairs descending into a subterranean corridor filled with edgy guards who fingered their sonic rifles warily.

More security checks, facial recognition, and DNA scans confirmed their identities, and then they were past the final checkpoint, winding their way through a maze of hallways that terminated in a cramped little culdesac leading into the new council chamber.

More guards, this pair not so nervous, but they still required identity verification despite seeing the operative escort various Senators many times before. She shrugged mentally. They had a job to do, as did she.

When the guards were satisfied, they stepped aside and keyed a recessed panel nestled within the stones arching around the doorway, and the doors silently swung open.

Ceki stepped through into the noisy gloom of the council hall, motioning for the Alsionist Senator to pass into the darkened chamber.

"But, I say again. Why should we risk everything?!" Senator Byjorgg of the Thrull systems was saying, somehow managing to sound incredulous even through the electronically modulated voice of the translation vocab sitting on his podium. "Just because they fight our enemy, does not make them our friend. Or friendly, for that matter."

The stuffy council chamber murmured with the muffled voices of debating Senators. The purpose of today's meeting; a motion to decide whether resistance forces should initiate contact with the newcomers who were effectively fighting off the Nek'var Empire in the outer systems. Of the Senators present, few actually supported this motion.

Most, like Senator Byjorgg, were fearful of the newcomers' disposition toward strangers, for a good reason, and vehemently opposed contacting them.

"What if they attack us, hmm??" Senator Byjorgg continued, the popping, gurgling sounds of his native tongue flowing smoothly out of the vocabulator. "Or worse, join forces with the Nek'var Empire!"

Those last words set the chamber of Senators back in their collective seats. An alliance between the Nek'var Empire and the newcomers was something none of them had considered before.

It was unthinkable.

It was such a preposterous notion to suggest that these newcomers would throw in with the likes of the very Empire that had launched a brutal, unprovoked attack on their colonies that no one had even entertained the idea.

But, what if...

The Thrull people are an Asexual species, neither he nor she, but both. With a firestorm of hormones surging through their system, they are, by council standards, exceedingly temperamental creatures prone to skewed theories and volatile outbursts. Most council Senators learned to discount their wild notions many years ago.

But, again, what if...

"Even if they are friendly, and I stress if, how are we to communicate with them? None in the Union even speak their language!" Senator Byjorgg cried out, his ancestral gills flaring out wide in agitation. "There is little hope of securing their aid in our plight as things sit. They have been at war with the Nek'var Empire far too long to trust us. Those xenophobic savages are more likely to launch a preemptive strike against our already crippled forces than to entertain the idea of talking with us. Their suspicion for any creature not of their kind has to be burning brightly within their minds. They cannot be trusted!"

The council hall erupted in chaos, loud voices all clamoring over each other at once. Old arguments were rekindled, bitter rivals glared across the stuffy chamber at each other. Lines were drawn. The same petty foolishness that had been undermining council proceedings for decades raged to a fever pitch.

"We have to try!" Senator Reshkaz of the Skreel systems interjected loudly, silencing the room. "What do we have to lose??"

She stood and took the floor from the blinking Thrull Senator.

"Our homeworlds lie in ruins, conquered by a ruthless enemy," she spat into her vocab. "The Union and its people hover on the brink of extinction! And yet here you are, squabbling over your silly grievances from the past."

She glared around the room with flames flickering in her solitary eye.

"Our armies have been crushed!" She continued after a moment spent to gather her composure. "The hopes and dreams of billions burned to ash in the evil fires of the Nek'var Empire. Our fleets mauled, their tattered remains cower in hiding for fear of annihilation!"

She fixed her single, piercing eye on each Senator in turn, lingering pointedly for just a moment on Senator Byjorrg.

"So, I ask you again, what do we really have to lose??" Her gaze narrowed. "A few ships? Our wretched lives?"

She frowned down at her gnarly hands clenched into trembling fists of rage to either side of the vocab.

"I don't know about the rest of you," her voice was utterly devoid of emotion when she spoke, dead as the city outside. "But I would rather die trying than go on living like this," she swept her massive arm around the room in a gesture of disgust. "Like a scurrying rat trapped within the walls of the Nek'var construct, waiting to be exterminated."

She emphasized her words with one of her scaled fists crashing down violently onto the podium, skipping the vocab out of its cradle, before she turned to take her seat.

"We should seek out an alliance with these newcomers!" She continued from her seat. "Enlist their aid in this terrible battle. And with their strength, we might finally end the Nek'var threat to the galaxy once and for all. We must fight!"

Senator Skaalt nodded his huge mottled head in agreement and stood up, adjusting shimmering council robes with a hand that could crush stone, gently running the massive three-fingered paw through a thick mane of white hair that flowed down his back.

He was Hathorian.

Bipedal, towering, intimidating, massive creatures, with enough strength in their arms to crush steel. You'd never guess that these fearsome giants were actually gentle herbivores with not a single word for war in their native tongue. But when Senator Skaalt spoke, a thunderstorm rumbled dangerously.

"I agree and support Senator Reshkaz in her proposal to contact the strangers," his deep voice boomed throughout the chamber, looking over at the Skreel Senator and inclining his head in respect. "But more importantly, we must do all that we can to ensure the Unions future. Explore every avenue, discount nothing!"

When he rested his large padded hands on the podium, it creaked in protest.

"We must earn their respect and trust if we are to secure their assistance as an ally in the future," he went on, his glittering eyes tracking around the chamber. "There can be no more waiting and watching from the shadows. The time to act is now."

"Here, here!" Senator Reeni of the Rev systems shouted to his feet. "I've never supported skulking about in the shadows! I agree the time for action is now!"

"But, our forces are nearly depleted!" The Senator from the Vesta systems cried out. "What can such feeble numbers hope to accomplish against the might of the Nek'var?"

"Nothing if they don't try!" Senator Reshkaz shot back, rage simmering in her single golden eye. "We are at war!"

Her sharp words sliced through the darkened chamber like a Soldarian lava blade.

"Or have you forgotten that?" She continued in a calmer voice. "Because I can guarantee you that the Nek'var have not. They may be preoccupied with these newcomers, but they haven't forgotten about us, and one day they will return to finish the job."

"You have my vote Senator Reshkaz," Senator Tok of the Soldarian systems stepped forward and announced. "This is the only way."

And the council chamber went berserk with debate.

Ceki sat and listened with growing despair to the back and forth bickering, and thought, we aren't going to make it.

She stood and silently slipped from the chamber.