Saloa Winger snapped into her war suit. She looked at the rest of her crew and shuddered. They were down to sixteen sets of battle armour where two hundred units once stood.
They were going to die.
Death was coming from the sky, and she could see the shadows moving over the last bit of daylight streaming from the heavens. The ships were here.
“Gentlemen, it has been an honour serving with you. We bought enough time for the others to escape, but now, we have to face our doom. Death is coming, let’s make him work for it!”
A roar came from the few colony guards that were left.
The first thud of the attack ships sent a low rumble of unease through the ranks, but they had to fight. There was nowhere to go.
Two days earlier, the last generation ship left, full to capacity with the other one hundred and eighty-four armoured guards. Everyone left had remained voluntarily to give a position to a guard with family.
Saloa had done what she could. She was a junior officer but the highest rank of those standing with her. They were going to defend a patch of empty dirt so that the Death Bringers would have blood on the ground and not seek out the fleeing colonists.
She started a steady pace that would put her and the rest of the guard out in the open. Hopefully, they would take a few of the Death Bringers with them before they died, but with limited armament, it was not likely.
Saloa couldn’t help but think back to the probe that landed six months earlier.
They had gathered around as their techs prepared to crack the first contact with an alien probe landing next to their colony.
It didn’t take much. One touch of a tech’s hand and the probe cracked open. The tech was scanned, and suddenly, a voice came through every com unit in the fifty-mile radius of the colony.
“Intruders on Laksiira. You have ignored our attempts to communicate, so this is our final warning. In six months, the Death Bringers will arrive to cleanse the surface of our world. You were warned, and you have put down roots on our soil. That will not be tolerated. Leave or die.”
A projection lit up, and a helmeted head was in the centre of a glow. “You bypassed our satellites, you ignored our ground beacons, and now, you will pay the price. Leave or die. You have six months, and then the Death Bringers come to cleanse the surface of our world.”
The beacon had turned off, and then, it was time for the shocked population to get answers.
The organizers were pinned, but they admitted that yes, they had been warned. Yes, there had been beacons, but the first landing party had been ordered to destroy them. No one knew where the species was that had planted them, so perhaps they would never come. It was a chance that they were willing to take.
It was not a chance that the colonists would have chosen, and Saloa’s parents had been horrified. She had spent the last ten years of her life on that world, and to have it pulled out from under them was not something that they had planned for.
Saloa marched forward, and when she reached the centre of the plain, she stopped. Death would have to come to her. She was done making it easy.
The other fifteen guards lined up behind her and took up a battle stance.
The battleship dropped on the far end of the flat plain, and a wave of armoured warriors marched toward them.
* * * *
General Hinlior stepped out with his troops, and he paused. There were just over a dozen warriors facing him.
“Recon, do a life-sign check. Something isn’t right.”
He was used to fighting a ferocious population. Sixteen warriors were not even worth the sweat.
“General. The sixteen warriors before you is the complete complement of the colonists.”
He raised his fist, and his warriors returned to the vessel without saying a word.
“Send out an EMP. We don’t need to destroy this handful. They can be sent to the mines.”
“Understood, General. EMP deployed.”
The shielded ship sealed before
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