Humans are weird: The Venshi War
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Extract from the personal journal Jevin Thrice
âWhen the Venshi government announced they were going to war with humanity I remember the celebrations that were held in the streets.
Banners were unfurled, cheers and adorations made from every street corner, massive military parades held with each soldier proudly displaying their family crest as they marched through the streets of every Venshi city in the empire; one could be forgiven for mistaking it to be a cultural holiday rather than a declaration of war.
I was part of the 95th infantry and we were proudly marching through the capital city of the entire empire, Vento. The day had been clear of cloud and both suns shun proudly in the sky as if to bear witness to our march of heroes. I had enlisted only a few cycles earlier and my uniform still felt like a tight glove around me. I originally thought it was because I was too fat but the older members of the 95th told me that they always made them too small and thatâd itâd stretch in time.
As we marched through the curving streets I saw thousands of faces watching me, cheering me and thrusting praise upon me with every step. My face turned a shade purple from embracement when some of the females in the crowd promised to wed those of us that returned but thankfully we marched on passed them until reaching the government quarter.
Along the street a massive platform had been erected to overlook the parade and as we came closer I saw the king himself standing at attention with his family sitting behind him. As we passed the platform we each turned to him and saluted like clockwork.
When it was my turn to salute him I caught the briefest of glances at his face. He was much older than the holo portraits made him out to be; the hair around his beard a rustic red rather than the crimson I had seen since I was a child. Though it was for but a moment the most interesting quality I saw that day was the look of his face. Instead of proud patriotic zeal or a show of fatherly love, I remember his face was hardened and almost sad looking. He looked at us as if we were already in our coffins, and it frightened me.
Not long after passing the platform we arrived at the military mustering grounds and boarded our ships. They took us up to the waiting fleet in orbit and from the view ports I saw a truly marvelous sight. A hundred Veshi ships of all makes and sizes were arrayed before us with the kingâs personal flagship, the Dominix Prime, at the head. It was a mammoth of a vessel easily three times the size of any other craft in the fleet and armed from bow to stern with weapon ports.
When I had been a child my father had told me that should you ever see the Dominix Prime hovering above your planet every day afterward would be a blessing. For only the king ever commanded the vessel, and should he ever be displeased with the planet below it held enough firepower to crack a planet in two.
We left orbit two days later as we made our way to human border, each world we stopped at in the Veshi Empire contributing ships, soldiers, or war material to the effort. By the time we arrived at the border our fleet had grown to some three hundred ships and over twenty million soldiers.
The first days of the war had been uneventful as our armada carved into human controlled space. Several colony systems were located and attacked as we carved into human territory but each time the fierce fight we had been expecting never came.
Each system was often devoid of any space faring craft and the few orbital stations that were found were miniscule and easily taken over. When ground forces landed on the inhabited planets they found what sparse population centers abandoned. In a month we had taken eight systems from the humans and claimed almost twenty worlds without losing a single ship.
Things began to change shortly after we passed the Houton Nebula and our first signs of organized resistance began manifesting themselves.
Arriving at a system the humans called âCaylenâ we had our first naval engagement of the war. Thirteen human craft waited in the asteroid belt surrounding the system, powered down to avoid our initial scans. When the main body of the navy had entered the system they attacked. Striking the rear of our navy they target three troop transports and their escorts.
Navy captains had been informed of the ineffectiveness of human weapons against Venshi shields so they did not bother to scatter. The human ships lined up their attack runs on the transports, their small designs allowing them to easily dodge the return fire from our escorts. They flew their ships right at them and just as they were about to crash into the Venshi shields they broke off, flying right passed them without firing a single shot. As our escorts began to turn and line up new firing vectors the first of the transports exploded.
I was on the food deck when the transports were destroyed. The navy had been broadcasting the engagement fleet wide figuring it would boost morale to see how helpless the humans were against us; but when that ship exploded I swear you could have heard a thumper rodent squeak. The feeds went dead a hairs breath after that and sirens began ringing out across the ship. The navy boys that were there suddenly became more tense and alert while the rest of us shuffled back to our waiting areas. It wasnât till after the war I learned that humans had developed a special material that could carve through shields but was highly unstable. If it had been attached to a rocket or fired from a rail gun the material would degrade and lose its capabilities. So their engineers designed a special lance like rod equipped with a plasma warhead that would be flung like a spear from ships using the kinetic energy it had built up to launch it rather than thrusters.
Some 800 thousand soldiers died between those three transports and five escort ships of what was to be the first of many raids; and as I was to find out first-hand the army did not fare any better.
When we reached the only inhabited planet in the system the 95th was chosen to be the ones to spearhead the invasion. I boarded out assault shuttle and took my seat as the engines ignited and the gravity harnesses engaged.
My seat was near the window and I watched the midnight black of space slowly fade away into an ocean like blue as we entered the atmosphere. Iâd never set foot on another world before and despite going into what was an active warzone I couldnât help but be somewhat excited. I looked out the window with that hopeless optimism right up until the first enemy rocket hit the assault shuttle besides ours.
The rocket streaked up from the surface like a shooting star and hit the cockpit in a blinding flash leaving nothing but falling debris. I would have watched more were it not for the sudden jerk of my own shuttle swerving to the left and then right. No doubt our pilot had been trying to avoid the same fate but these shuttles while armored were not built for evasive maneuvers.
I saw soldier beside me clutching their guns until their fingers turned a bright red while other new recruits like me began sobbing and crying out for their loved ones as the shuttle continued dodging the intensifying ground fire. The noise became so unbearable I closed my eyes as tight as they would go and waited for the moment the rocket would destroy our shuttle.
An eternity of noise passed before I felt the shuttle jerk violently and the gravity harnesses disengage.
The voice over the loud speaker cut through the noise and I leapt from my seat. Moving on pure muscle memory rather than personal direction I piled out of the craft no sooner had the boarding ramp hit the ground with a loud thud.
We had landed in what appeared to be a city square of some sort, each side of the open space surrounded by several storied buildings. At the center of the square stood a tall statue of a human woman who appeared blindfolded and holding a strange set of scales in one hand and a book in the other.
As I exited off the ramp I took cover behind a nearby stone bench with several others and trained my weapon on the surrounding buildings. The engines of the shuttle roared back to life and I turned to see the craft rising back out of the square in such a hurry that the pilot had not even waited for the boarding ramp to fully close. A misstep that cost the pilot their life as just as they were about to crest the tallest building in the square a rocket was fired from a nearby window straight into the exposed interior.
The back of the shuttle exploded outwards like a fireball and the shuttle came crashing down to the square nearly crushing me in the process had I not leaped out of the way. The comrades I had been with at the bench were not so lucky and screamed as the burning remains landed on them.
As I stood to my feet gunfire erupted from every corner of the square. From every window now appeared a muzzle flash as we were systematically gunned down in the exposed square. I stood to my feet and rushed to cover behind the statue of the human woman and returned fire.
Chips of stone were blown off by the human weapons and the shards sliced my face to pieces as those around me were cut down. I had no idea if any of my shots were actually hitting the enemy but by then all I could do is fire and scream as I poured plasma round after plasma round into every window I saw a flash.
It was after my third clip I realized that there were only a handful of us left and we were being slaughtered one by one. I desperately sought a way to escape the square but every street leading out of the square would require me to make a mad dash across open ground.
Another stone shard cut my face deep and I felt my face going numb and drove me to further crouch behind the statue. Had it not happened I doubt I would have realized my only escape was through the burning remains of the shuttle craft.
Looking behind me I saw the ramp was still down and the back of the craft had been blown out by the rocket, turning it into a burning tunnel to freedom. I tapped the soldiers next to me and pointed at the craft but they merely shrugged me off and continued firing at the windows. It was only when I saw a massive mechanical vehicle slowly drive into the opposite end of the square that I knew it was no or never.
Dashing from the cover of the statue I sprinted across the square back towards the burning shuttle just as the mechanical vehicle fired from its massive turret. I was thrown forward several feet as the blast annihilated the base of the statue I had previously been covering in. Rising to my feet unsteadily I turned to see the blast had turned my comrades who had remained there into nothing but red mush. When I looked up and saw the turret slowly adjusting in my direction I turned back to the shuttle and sprinted into the flames.
The heat was unbearable and I could feel my skin beginning to peel off as I pushed my way through the wreckage. No sooner had I made it through the flaming remains and darted around the corner had the mechanical vehicle fired again and obliterated what was left of the shuttle craft.
I ran for more than five blocks before I dove into a side street to catch my breath. I slouched against a nearby wall and looked up at the sky as I gasped for air.
Dozens of landing shuttle like my own were descending from orbit and were being met with a blizzard of enemy fire. Rockets streaked across the sky and heavy anti air cannons roared to life like the drums of the ancients.
It was not I realized what it meant to go to war with humanity and the mountains of dead we would leave behind to achieve our victory.
