The dust settled across the Glamseere Valley. The valley was once the most lush and fertile landscape on the entire Aa’shari Penninsula on the world of Skanadir. Lor’l Ken’ak, Supreme Commander of the Great Alliance Military surveyed the now scarred and burnt landscape he spent his child hood in. The Terrans had descended on them like a plague, bleeding his world dry – slowly killing it. In the distance the sun rose towards high noon, casting a dull orange glow across everything in sight as it tried to shine through the immense clouds of smoke. He sighed before turning back to his charts and maps on the table behind him. In the distance the sounds of war and death throbbed through the thick hot air.

As he surveyed the charts, the sound of Terran star fighters blasted by his command bunker, depositing ordnance onto the battlefield in the distance. They hooked up and screamed towards the upper atmosphere leaving only the distant crump of bombs in their wake. Ken’ak shuddered momentarily, the air superiority of the Terrans had been established early in the war, and every day felt like another step towards utter destruction and total defeat. The aliens were relentless, and seemed only too willing to obliterate Skanadir and all its people. 

The death toll had reached a number so high that no one dared mention it anymore. 

Ken’ak turned back to his charts and maps, looking through a magnifying glass at a circled section of map indicating what was being called only, “the site”. There, it had been discovered, an exceedingly rare mineral existed. If weaponized; it could unleash an explosive force that eclipsed even the most heavily armed battlecruisers hanging in orbit. If they could get to it….

The Terran lines marched steadily forward, and now they had gone right past the prize. But how long before they discovered it? How long before they realized what they had access to and wiped out the rest of the Ken’ak’s people?

Ken’ak supposed he would have to risk the lives of the most dedicated of his warriors, the only alternative was annihilation. As he sat down to draft his orders, he heard in the distance the sound of air folding out of the way of fast moving air craft entering the atmosphere.  Another two star fighter wings, Ken’ak thought to himself. He looked out the window at the charred and ruined landscape beyond his bunker again and remembered the first message the aliens had sent before wreaking all this havoc, the message that read simply: “We come in peace…."

Story line by Mike Shumate