I suppose I should start with an explanation of my people, our fellow sapients on Teris Prime, and our neighbors on Teris B-er... Givid.
I am a Gud'Ari. For a description, this world has things called "bears." Imagine a bear shaped more like, well, a human. That is a rough approximation.
We are large, powerful, furry and bristling with sharp teeth and claws. We would be the dominant species of Teris Prime if not for one thing: our large mass makes us clumsy with finer tools and weaponry.
So, that brings me to the other sapient species of Teris, the Tuf'Ari. Smaller than us, more nimble... For time immemorial, we have had a symbiotic relationship with them. We would protect them from larger predators and they would aid us as we underwent the rigors of a burgeoning civilization. If it weren't for the Tuf'Ari, we would never have been able to produce the finer materials and tools necessary to continue progressing on our path through technological development.
For both of our species, our fur coloring usually ranges from blacks to browns to whites. Gud'Ari fur is usually coarser, a testament to our rough history, while the Tuf'Ari usually sport softer or sleeker fur.
A few decades ago, we made first contact. With Givid. Our telecommunications were broadcasting when our two worlds were close to each other and we wound up with scrambling, feedback, and eventually conversation.
It took a long time to learn the Givid's unusual languages. They seem descended from avian creatures, much like your planet's eagles and hawks. From what I've seen, no two Givid look similar. Their physiology apparently has them evolving at a rabid pace, often undergoing several life-altering mutations within a lifetime, all designed to adapt to the current environmental situations the bird man is dealing with.
Apparently, the surface of their world has very few "stable" spots. Much of the rest is cracking, exploding, shifting, moving... It's startling.
Roughly a decade after meeting the Givid, we met humanity. Not through the same method, mind you, but through an accident that was the result of experimentation in wormhole technology. They arrived suddenly, and with great surprise. Members of the United States Military and some scientists.
Fortunately, we had been experiencing the better part of a century of peaceful relationships across the planet. We were able to learn much from the scientists and soldiers, including the location of Earth (we kind of had to in order to help them return home). We promised to ramp up our space exploration... One of the scientists, one "Hector Wallace," explained that there was a good chance we would be needed soon.
That was all in my father's time. As an Honored Guardian, he was integral to the investigations and as his Alpha cub, I was able to sit in and listen. I remember the basics... Some specifics come to me from time to time... But there was so much happening in those days, and I was young.
I strove to live up to my father's name. As an Honored Guardian, he had saved countless lives, won many territorial duels... He was a great Gudatta...
Before I could enter my Naming Trials, my first duels, they came. The Xenog Swarm.
Alerts came to us from Givid. The avians were under attack from bug-like creatures. They had abilities like that which we could deploy through the use of our technology, came in all shapes and sizes, bristling with spikes, radiating energies... And apparently devouring whatever they could get in their grasp.
That was the last the Givid got to us before contact was cut off. We set to preparing for war. Trials and land-earning tournaments were cancelled so we could turn all of our efforts toward the war to come.
Two weeks later, many burning ships of the Xenog crashed into our world. It turned out the Givid weren't as simple a meal as the bugs had expected. We commenced the counterattack immediately, joining forces with the Givid commandoes, a group we came to call the Red Wings, who had stowed aboard the ships to continue the fight with the swarm's flight crews.
The shock troops were unable to stand against us. We are powerful, we Gud'Ari, even those who are merely Hunters. They were even less effective against the Honored Guardians.
After a month of vicious combat, though, the Hive Queen had dug in to one of our largest cities, Hurrok. The wreckage of her ship was converted into a massive spired palace, spewing clouds and hordes of the chitinous monstrosities.
We did not like to think of how they fed such numbers.
My father and Battlemaster Grar insisted upon us liberating the city. I did not understand why at the time.
We did not (and indeed, DO not) have the sort of weapons that would allow us to level an entire city. Such destruction... We never had need of it before.
We did not feel we needed it that day.
The Honored Guardians, one thousand strong, supplemented with the remaining forces of the Red Wings and the Hunters, bringing us up to almost seven thousand, stormed the city. We would reclaim Hurrok or we would die, every last one of us.
The bugs would have to earn their meal.
It was that day we learned of the Hive Queen's personal guards. Monstrous beetle-beings, radiating electricity, breathing fire, spitting poison... The beasts were as tough as five Honored Guardians, and there were more still... More bigger...
My father told me to regroup with Battlemaster Grar. We continued to push through while he battled the Xenog Titan, a hideous monstrosity that spewed noxious gasses and radiated lightning. Its hooked claws rent stone and sundered even the God Metal (you call it "Impervium" here) Armor.
Three warriors stood against the beast that night. My father, a Red Wing named Blood Talon, and a Tuf'Ari named Marrin Hvarr. They kept the beast distracted while we battled the rest of the Hive Queen's forces, even striking against her own Royal Soldiers as we reached the gates of her palace ship.
I should have wondered why he gave me his sword.
I met Marrin in the aftermath, while we were on our way here... He told me how my father died. They had harried the beast, drawn it into a central intersection. Marrin had been placing blast charges... Blood Talon had been kicked into a wall and was lying still... The beast had wrenched my father's arm out of its socket...
My father did not let that stop him. Using the God Metal Sword that he had taken from me in exchange for his, he leaped onto the beast's back and plunged the blade deep into its shell. Marrin fired on the creature to distract it.
In the end, he did not know how it happened, but my father must have punctured whatever strange organs within the monster created its hideous chemicals. Exposed to the biolectric field wreathed around the beast, the chemicals ignited, blasting the district in an explosion the likes of which we had never seen outside of the Xenog ships crashing to Teris.
Marrin did not know how he survived. Considering what we had to do to him to enable his survival, he's probably better off not knowing. The pain... The pain had to have been indescribable.
I have a lot to live up to before I can earn my name.
Sadly... We were unable to stop the Hive Queen. As we breached her warrens, we felt the floors tremble beneath us. Slaying one of her generals, we fled. The ship was joined by many others, hurtling into the sky and arcing toward the distant stars as rapidly as possible.
We had succeeded! We had won! We had driven the ravenous horde from our worlds! This single victory united us in a way we had never expected. A gutteral roar of triumph rose to the heavens...
Only to be shouted down by Battlemaster Grar. Even with only one arm and gray fur, he was imposing. Somberly, he explained why it had been so important to liberate Hurrok.
Hurrok was where we kept the information about the location of Earth. This swarm of tregins (Earth has "locusts" for a similar reputation) was on its way to an ally that had no idea, and likely no defense against it.
With a throaty squawk, the Givid commander set his troops to work, pulling whatever able-bodied Tuf'Ari and Gud'Ari along with them.
At the end of the month, we had salvaged and modified the Xenog ships. Lots had been drawn. Volunteers had been taken. We built an army, and we set out on the greatest Hunt in the history of Teris.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Space travel...
Honestly, we hadn't given much thought to the consequences. We didn't know if half our technology would actually work, or if we would be able to catch up with the Xenog Swarm's ships.
We trusted the Givid to guide the way, to find the trail, to operate this bizarre architecture.
The ships themselves... If I were to be more sympathetic, the machinations were basically abominations. The original hulls were once alive... I don't know if they still were when the Xenog operated them, but I've never seen metal fit together the way these hulls essentially "flowed" together... Like they were growing.
Even the engineering the Givid and Tuf'Ari installed was out of place, though they tried to make it smooth and curved to fit better.
I hope the things weren't alive when we began this endeavor...
We started hyper jumping as soon as possible. I don't know the engineering of it, but the Givids explained we had to get away from the gravity of our worlds or our star or something. The jump itself was... Strange. Like we were in another... Space? I don't know how to describe it. The few windows we had on the ships were always... Bright. Amazingly bright...
The first few jumps yielded no results on our hunt. Dark void greeted us the first time... There was a sensation of the ship moving... Turning? Then we were in hyperspace again. I expected there to be some kind of pull... Like we were being yanked backwards... But... Nothing.
On the third or fourth jump, we found them. Their ships were... Eating an asteroid field, I guess. I don't know the mechanics of it... All I know is that Battlemaster Grar immediately called for the attack.
Warrik Greenfeather, one of the Givid assigned to this post with me, has often wondered at human science and technology. He doesn't understand why humanity has to painstakingly learn the science behind their invention before building the device.
I don't think he remembers this battle clearly.
We fired weapons... The projectiles were launched with pinpoint accuracy, connecting with devastating force... But we were thrown wild.
Two ships crashed into each other. We lost their crews... I... I don't like to think about the friends we lost. It took so much time for us to get our bearings, to correct our course and locate the remaining Xenog vessels.
They were fleeing. They were shattered. Still, they moved with singular purpose.
The ships too heavily damaged to continue the flight turned on us and started firing. Energy beams, explosive incandescent gasses and what I can only describe as "spore pods" were deployed against us. Our ships were scarred and burned... The spore pods deployed batches of Xenog warriors that we had to battle in the close quarters.
I was still enraged by the loss of my father... The recent loss of friends...
We painted the walls with their ichor.
By the time we finished destroying the vanguard forces, firing one cannon at a time instead of full volleys, we had to catch up again. We gave chase, but the Xenog had jumped to hyperspace again...
We didn't find them for another five or six jumps. Always, we found evidence of their passage. Forest moons with patches on fire and consumed. Metal bits floating in the void where stations from other extraterrestrial civilizations must have been.
On the sixth jump, we found them outside a gas giant. With a vicious roar, we engaged them again. The Xenog had only six or seven ships left. We only had five, but we'd built ours for war. We'd built ours to destroy the Hive Queen's fleet.
One ship charged us. Battle Master Grar positioned his ship so the attacker was between us and the gas giant. Firing a broadside volley, his ship was blasted off course, but the Xenog were hurtled into the giant. We watched their hull crumple and disintegrate under the pressure as it plummeted into the heart of a massive, roiling storm.
While Battlemaster Grar's ship tried to rejoin us, we gave chase. The Xenog fled through another asteroid field... They were hurtling through space at a speed that made them unable to maneuver around the rocks... The ships clustered close, the outer ones forming a shell to protect the Hive Queen.
We took a more pragmatic approach, slowing down to properly maneuver. It was still too narrow at times, and we were still struck. The Givid engineers explained that the hulls could take the impacts, as they were fibrous and able to bend and possibly deflect the relatively gentle impacts.
Still, we wound up with holes in our outer hulls. Once we made it through the field, we were able to resume the pursuit and our engineers set to repairing the damage. We received a message from the Battlemaster as we breached a speed just under hyperspeed, but couldn't make sense of what he was saying. Something had him excited, and, sadly, Battlemaster Grar was really only good for simple phrases when he was like this.
Eventually, his assistant, the Tuf'Ari commander who was one of the few who could understand his excited, broken rants, got on the line and interpreted. It was too late to learn the awful truth...
We should have tried harder to stop them at the asteroid field. This was Sol. The Xenog had reached their destination and were hurtling toward Earth. Their ships were devastated by the repeated puncturing of their hulls after trying to speed through the asteroid field, but they didn't need to survive much longer.
Like on Teris Prime, they would be able to crash land and begin devouring humanity. The engineers calculated that was the most likely course of action, considering how rapidly they were hurtling toward the planet.
We closed with them, firing... We only destroyed one ship, though, scattering its wreckage across one of the northern landmasses...
The other ships hurtled straight into the northern landmass. We couldn't stop them.
Battlemaster Grar took council... It didn't last long. All the ship captains had the same thought he did. We had to stop the bugs, and we had to stop them fast.
We set course for the surface. We didn't know how humanity would see us... But we had to try, even if they wouldn't understand most of us.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Landing on Earth was... Strangely familiar. The vegetation, the trees, the...
You know, I just realized that all of this isn't really making sense. How can what I'm saying sound like it's coming from off-world if I'm using the same language you are?
Well, let's try it untranslated...
Rrr... RRRR! Grar! Hmmmm. Lup. Lup. Hhhnyaaah!
...Nevermind. The translator is writing out the closest approximations. Our languages sound like animals roaring or grunting or squawking to humans. If it weren't for meeting those humans before, we wouldn't have even come up with THIS translator.
I just wish they were more prevalent when we landed.
We were already stunned by the similarities between our world's environment and Earth's. The air was similar... A bit rich in -Nitrogen-, but since it doesn't do anything harmful to us, that's not a problem.
Still... We were in for more shocks.
In our history, we were warlike. We battled for territory, for resources, for... Mates...
Some of our wars were brutal. Monstrous. It was in the aftermath of a great and terrible conflict over a hundred revolutionary cycles ago that we converted to dueling for territory.
Humanity apparently never adopted such a method. I've read some of Earth's history... It's... It's startling how similar to our old times they have been throughout much of their history. In many aspects, the barbarism continues to this day.
I guess what startles me is how on the edge of the same thing we are. At the first chance we had, we embraced our bloodlust to pursue and exterminate an entire species that had dared to try to consume us.
I don't have any regrets about our decision to destroy the Xenog Swarm, but it's still a little surprising how quickly we reached the agreement. Then there are the lives we've lost trying to pursue this course of action...
Did we jump into the outer reaches of space too early in our civilization?
In any case, we found how humanity dealt with the Xenog who had consumed towns and villages. On our world, we didn't have the means of burning large patches of Earth the way humanity does. We never had a need for it. Humanity, it seems, is more than ready.
Considering the conditions in which we found some of the corpses, I'm still scratching my head over whether or not the action was unwarranted. The Xenog weren't wasting any time in trying to consume the populace, and the militaries weren't wasting any time trying to save the unfortunate people who had become food.
Depressing, but some things have to be done...
But this was how we met the heroes...
My ship came in too fast. It hit the ground at an angle and slid across the ground, tearing a fissure into the earth and slamming into the wreckage of one of the Xenog ships. The town around us was already firebombed into oblivion by the military (we found later it was the United States), trying to contain the monsters.
As we emerged, we found soldiers moving in, firing combustion propulsion weapons to put down the Xenog Blood Bugs. Blood Bugs breed quickly and are born hungry. They feed while fighting. I wouldn't be surprised if they cannibalized their fellow Xenog when there wasn't enough food.
The gas-powered projectile weapons killed them quickly enough, though.
Unfortunately, there was that issue with "the Coming Storm" that we only learned of after this conflict was over. The humans thought we were part of it...
Naturally, they started shooting us.
Thank goodness the projectiles weren't nearly as effective against our hides and God Metal armor.
Still... We lost a few more friends to the opening volley.
We had no way to talk to them, to tell them we were trying to help. We tried to deflect the assault, but this only made many of the humans press the attack harder. Stranger, still, were the other groups of humans arriving.
Strangely dressed and bizarrely colored humans, humanoids... We would later learn these were this world's "heroes." They debilitated our defenses and broke through our ranks. It didn't help that the Xenog were still pouring out of the ship we had just crashed into.
Finally, a group of Rampagers burst out of the Xenog ship. These couldn't be defeated as easily as the Blood Bugs. They were bigger, tougher, stronger and HUNGRIER. One picked up a cape-wearing hero and bit him in half.
This caused shock to reverberate throughout the human forces. One of their own had been unceremoniously slaughtered by one of these monsters.
It also sent a shock through me. I don't know why, but seeing the Xenog monsters feed wantonly made my blood run hot. It was like hearing the story of my father again.
Perhaps this was me, finally getting a chance at some personal revenge.
I gave a mighty bellow, shrugged off the white-and-red clad human who had earlier inexplicably dragged me to the ground, hefted my war blade and drove into the creature. My blade pierced its side and black blood spewed out. I twisted my weapon, further opening the Rampage Beetle's side.
I was roaring, but when I paused to breathe, I could hear others roaring, too. My fellow Honored Guardians, Hunters, Givid warriors and Red Wings, and even the humans were joining into the fray.
It seems we found the common ground.
The last of the Xenog in that scorched pit were dead within the day.
Afterward, Grar got in contact with Earth's military, clarifying the issue. Certain authorities explained that we certainly weren't this "Coming Storm" problem that the heroes were worried about, too.
With that, an alliance was drummed up quickly, and we set to exterminating the last of the Xenog. Battlemaster Grar commissioned some heroes, myself, a Givid Red Wing named Scarlet Dawn, and a Tuf'Ari named Karra Shaleen.
Together, we strove to do battle with the Hive Queen and her minions. I lost one of my war blades in the fighting, but I proved my strength, regardless. Still, the heroes of this world... They proved surprisingly capable at defeating the threats to their world.
One-by-one, they defeated the four guardians that protected her. Each was a bizarrely transformed version of a lesser form of Xenog bug. The massive Skrash, for instance, was a bulked-up, electrically-charged Rampage Beetle. The disgusting Skraz used to be one of her Swarm Leaders, one of the few kinds of male Xenog (at least, I was told they were males). Perhaps most disturbing of all was Krr-Shnakt, a transformed Blood Bug who adorned the skulls of his prior conquests about his body.
We battled them, we smashed them, we burned and blasted them. Eventually, the Hive Queen herself was cornered. She was smaller than I expected... In fact, she was tiny, smaller than even most Tuf'Ari, Givid and humans... Then I realized she had disengaged from her ovular sack, a hideous, pulsing monstrosity that was woven into the very fiber of the surrounding ship. Not many things make me feel nausea, but that realization was one of them. She had tricks, to be sure, but she was without guardians. She attempted to twist our minds against each other, but the heroes were able to push us through.
Suffice it to say, we crushed her. In her death, a wild, keening cry went out and the remaining Xenog throughout the world simply slumped to the ground. At least, that's what the reports said. Soldiers said they heard a high-pitched cry, almost like it was inside their minds, and then the bugs just died.
That wasn't the end of the mission, however.
The red-and-white clad soldiers, a hero organization called "Longbow," came in to clean up the wreckage. Their leader, a pink-skinned woman with a cape, assured us she would ensure the remains of the Xenog were properly destroyed after they'd been studied. I protested that they should just destroy the bodies, but Scarlet Dawn and Karra Shaleen pulled me aside, informing me that it's better to know and understand the enemy, even after defeating it.
I agree that they are right, but in this instance, I was right as well.
We do not know how, but it seems the Hive Queen continues to exist. Her corpse somehow bonded to the leader of the Longbow troops, twisting and mutating her. In the laboratories, the Xenog rose again, devouring and bonding with Longbow Soldiers.
At Grar's request, the heroes dove into the base. They found her again, they defeated her...
But they did not kill her.
There is still a part of that abomination that is an ally of theirs. They have the new Hybrid Hive Queen in detention while they try to find a cure...
I still think they should have killed her and incinerated the body... But they have cut her off from her swarm and she has been unable to produce anymore spawn in her prison. I feel sorry for the human heroine who became the Hive Queen's host, and I hope they find a way to free her, but I still feel it would be best to simply eradicate her.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
I am a little out of my element as of writing this. I suppose the best I can do is write what I know.
I, Gundis Alpha, son of Gundis the Battlebane, have taken the position of the Chief of Operations and Security for the Teris Prime Embassy. It is a unique and novel honor, one I hope not to disgrace.
I suppose this log will help me to find the proper course.
Now, this does not place me in charge of all of the Teris Alliance forces who stayed behind. It is my job to maintain security and engage in "heroism" to help engender a positive relationship between the Teris Alliance and this planet, called "Earth" by the indigenous sapient species known as "humanity."
At first, when we arrived at this blue world hot on the heels of the Xenog, I worried we had made a mistake. Not a mistake in having to rely on humanity or the heroes who protected it, but a mistake in our tactics. While we harried the Hive Queen and her Swarm as best as we could, she was still able to bombard the planet with a sizeable force.
I regret that our failure to stop her caused many to be devoured.
Despite this, the ensuing war only really lasted a a few light cycles, with the final cleanup lasting only a couple more after that. Apparently, humanity had worried that we were part of some massive "Coming Storm," a major battle of sorts that they had been warned about by time travellers (Is that even possible?). As such, the heroes brought their best to bear against the Xenog Swarm...
Actually, now that I think about it, I should start from even further back...
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.