Ant Tensei Redux Prologue Terra Arc in segmented format for easier reading and viewer enjoyability.

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Terra Arc, Part 3 - The Savior of Mankind Stands

As it would turn out, our satellite network had detected several ‘mega’-classed masses suddenly breaking through the thermosphere.

Well, the general fall back idea most officials ended up having was that they were asteroids. After all, each of them were miles long and were entering at high speeds. Visual contact was impossible due to the intense flames from their entry. Rock and other such debris were being vaporised and cloaking the mass. I, however, knew better than that. How would it have been possible for asteroids to get so close to the planet without us detecting them until they were right on top of us.

Whereas most nations were preparing doomsday shelters, I had other plans and mobilized the military. The highest security level was activated and troops around the nation were beginning to gather together. All reserves were called in and a mass call to arms was launched. I knew what was coming, I had to be prepared. The human instinct to run and hide was paralysed after I had made a different move compared to other national governments. If it was anyone other than me who made such a demand when it was assumed asteroids were about to crash into the surface, i’m sure they would have been ignored. Well, looking back, if I had been wrong, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

With every second seeming like minutes and every minute became akin to hours before our eyes, we continued to mobilize. A heightened level of military efficiency and discipline forged through years of high devoted loyalty from unbelievable progress and success. In the past, such reforms would be impossible given the standard resistance of conservative individuals, though through consistent success, such voices narrowed to only a few unimportant souls.

After several hours, the various nations of the world began to take notice. There was no doomsday impact, no blackening of the sky, no explosive earthquake. There was nothing. As humanity began to crawl out of their holes, they finally took notice of what truly breached our atmosphere. Why I had, instead of hiding, forced my national army into mobilization.

The reports that came in that day answered one of the most ancient questions mankind has ever asked itself.

What remained in the sky above was, for a lack of better words, cruisers.

Yep, massive spaceships several miles long with one in particular being far larger than the others. If I remember, we estimated that it was roughly… four or five times larger than the rest. The thing had to have been between eighteen and twenty miles long and nine or ten miles wide. The depth of the darn thing alone was hard to gauge, but it had to have been at least five miles. We never did figure out how those things few in the air, even the smallest one was larger than a mile long.

I had no real clue as to what the difference between the ships were, but what I DID know was that the standard ‘We come in peace’ thing was going to be BULL.

As the ships entered from orbit, they chose a particular Island, or well, an ‘official’ continent, as their entry location. Now, I say chose, but who the hell really knows how a different form of life processes things and thinks. Hell, who really knew if they even had a concept of thought. All I know is that the human side ended up being the side to shoot first.

Hah… just thinking about what those idiots over there did still gives me a headache… Those idiots… well, I suppose calling them government officials of two nations would be more accurate… That stupid ‘Anti-Me’ faction that developed over the few officials that were highly against any form of territorial expansion, or technological growth, or GDP increase, or any such change that was against their platforms. Even in politics, those of of such narrow mindedness that you could describe their entire being on a single piece of paper do exist after all… It’s just a shame that THEY were the ones in charge when this was all going on. When I sent over a warning to not engage first, all I got was:

“We do not serve your dictatorship!”

“We will not heed the words of a traitor to mankind!”

“You’re not human, you must be one of their creations!”

And so on. In all honesty, I should have removed them earlier. When such weeds develop in countries, especially democracies, the nation’s going to suffer from their stupidity. Adapting from your original platform for the benefit of the economical and societal development of a nation when the need arises is the job of a politician.

Even I changed the medical focus after the human lifespan was estimated to be able to start reaching two hundred or more years of age. Humanity isn’t capable of living that long. Surely, the body can be prolonged for however long, so long as technology advances. It is the mind that isn’t meant to continue. The minds of humankind were forged to live short lives, between forty to fifty years. As we progressed, getting to one hundred wouldn’t be so much of a problem. It’s after that, into the two or three hundreds that their capacity for being ‘human’ errodes. If you live for over a thousand, there’s the risk the human mind will have become nothing more than a shell, a living death. There would be some that would be able to go longer and probably many that would end up losing their minds before then, but in the end, there’s too much to risk by allowing humanity to live for too long. Living just enough is the limit of how much I planned to allow within my life span. I knew i’d live for a great deal of time, perhaps hundreds of years given my body. Just attempting to copy me more than doubled the human lifespan. I’d walk the path to near brain death by the time i’d expire. Who knows, I might have been able to do so much more in that time if that didn’t happen… If only I had known…

At any rate, those officials sure showed me what for… yep… showed me really good…

As their various rockets and the sort neared the cruisers in descent, they were all shot down from the use of some form of laser technology.

Maaaan… I really wish it didn’t happen… some of those weapons we saw the aliens use would make the si-fi lovers drool… wait… what happened after that… what… happened… errgg… why can’t I...

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Ah… that’s right…

No… I don’t need to remind myself of that…

The final result of my failure is so great that this weight will burn itself upon my very soul… This sight before me will pull me down, beyond the depths of hell that the gods of old and new had dug, forging a path beyond any form of redemption…

This… this is all my fault…

No…

Let me remember the rush of life just a little more. It’s my path to reaching here that matters more than anything else. In the end, I wish to remember the last of my light before the depths of the darkness that I deserve…

Hmmm… that’s right… what happened next was… ah… after the lasers…

Well, the spaceships weren’t pacifists by a long shot. The very instant after the rockets were shot down, their response also came…

My personal headache for the next few days… those blasted pods…

Now, when they first landed, nothing happened.

But, I certainly don’t need to go and remind myself of what they did shortly after they landed. Of course they were time delay weapons…

The various gases those weapons released killed millions. From one type, a black mist turned flesh and bone to slag, from others, buildings vanished from sight, and others were unbelievable toxins that contaminated entire areas and turning them into dead zones. All of them, every last one of them, served to end human lives, and the effectiveness was frightening to say the least. If they had the capacity to launch those worldwide, there would have been no chance to resist. Luckily enough, it seemed that they couldn’t launch them, but rather had to drop them. The reason behind it, I suppose i’ll never really know.

In just two days, the entire continent had turned into a dead zone in on itself. Not a single response was received from the entire continent. While we could track some survivors here or there, the majority were assumed dead after we lost the ability to track anything within that continent...

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As for their government’s various responses, they all were generally calls for help or demands in various ways or forms. For the people, for the sake of mankind, for their sake, for favors, for money, to join my union, to submit to my control, as well as other such excuses were used. All in all, almost every politician adopted a ‘Every man for themselves’ policy and abandoned their people in a time of extreme crisis.

Not that I can put any real blame on them, the time of heroic leaders full of charisma on the battlefield has been a thing of the past for hundreds of years. If one were to consider it, I might have been one of the last leaders of a human nation that would take to the field myself for any reason.

Well, regardless, my adopted policy for the continent was more or less a “You reap what you sow”. Don’t get me wrong, this had nothing to do with their hypocrisy after having defaced me and slandered me for over a decade, there was merit in my decision. There would be no grudge when they are the ones that caused this mess. Since it came down to this, I had to come up with a plan, and it just so happened that those people could redeem themselves through their sacrifice.

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Hmm, I wonder if I could have been faster though…

No, there was simply no way to move any faster given the sudden nature of this attack. They had to just resist pointlessly and perish for the sake of the one resource we were in the greatest need of.

Time.

What I needed the most was time. Since the situation had become so dire, I had to gather my forces from around the world, I had to rally the people, I had to establish a defense network, I had to prepare for a last ditch total war front, I had to prepare for their better technology, I had to be prepared…

There were so many… so many things I had to do… There was simply no way I could afford to charge into that zone of slaughter without being prepared. If I had… there’s no way we would survive.

Those two days, built upon the lives of over several hundred million people, was a, no, it was the most vital part of our survival. For our counter attack.

Upon the second day, the one hundred and seventy four nations of our world now stood under a single banner to face off against the greatest threat of our history.

My banner.

One air force.

One army.

One nation.

One people.

One goal.

One leader.

For the sake of our survival, for the sake of the future of our race, the children and those that would follow us, for the sake of each path that we would dare to follow, humanity had cast its final lot under a single gambit.

Me.

It was my decision to wait.

To wait and see what our visitors would do next.

In just two days, they had nearly eliminated all life on an entire continent through their terror weapons of supreme destruction.

We had no choice but to wait.

An entire continent had been abandoned to the depths of hell for the sake of just two days, and a single plan.

To wait.

That was all we could do.

It was upon the third day, the very day that would serve as an answer to our question.

The day that the silence that would herald the coming of the storm, was broken.

Even now, I can recall every detail of that moment with vivid clarity. Who could not in all honesty, for such a sight to any man under the heavens would never fail to be the same.

It was the moment that the alien fleet had departed from the dead zone. Their course, was headed straight towards a certain capital, or rather, towards a certain person.

Right, to me.

I can’t really describe how I felt during that moment, but I do remember what my decision was.

We would meet them at the sea.

We would challenge this mighty foe with the full force of humanity.

We would push back death’s greatest advance.

We would deny ourselves the final dawn.

That day, humanity resolved itself to make its final stand.

Upon the dawn of a new year, a new path into the heavens, the forces of man and beast would meet under the judgement of the gods of old and new, their blood boiled by the midday sun.

Upon nothing other than my own gambit, the naval and air forces of humanity’s greatest and smallest nations alike had gathered.

Upon the oceans lay the greatest militarial gathering of all time.

Nine hundred and forty-two battleships.

Two hundred and ten cataclysm-classed cruiser ships.

The capital ships of fifty-two naval nations.

And,

The key to our entire plan, and the central lynchpin of our entire fighting force.

Two thousand and ninety-four carrier ships.

They would serve as the main supply base of our main fighting force.

Our air force.

One hundred and ten thousand airships, planes, and dropships had been gathered from the entire planet.

While we hadn’t been able to gather every ship, it was possible for us to gather nearly every plane, private or government owned, across the planet within those three days.

A majority of these ships had actually come from my own nation, who had the military focused towards the sky already. Of the naval and aerial capacity of the coalition force, roughly sixty percent came from my nation alone. Eighty percent of the air force’s combat ships came from us as well.

Upon the land, most ships were based in a general perimeter of fifty miles from the coastline, allowing them to be deployed as need be for the battle that would come.

We had positioned ourselves right in front of the alien fleet’s current path. They showed no signs of turning back.

From highways to small streets, planes and airships littered miles of open ground, ready to set off and join the fight.

On land, nearly a million personnel had been gathered and were on the move. From ammunition to fuel, supply teams and trucks were gathered and continued to gather constantly.

Replacement pilots in the number capable to replace nearly a third of the pilots of the entire air force had also been gathered. As time would go on, hundreds, perhaps thousands were constantly streaming in from across the many nations of the world.

These preparations were all accomplished with only two days of time.

In just two days, we had assembled the fighting power to allow us to fight for a week straight without any supplies delivered to us. It was within my calculations that we might not receive any help once the battle had begun, so enough resources had to be gathered to give us a fighting chance.

Our planes and ships would be able to continuously fight, being able to land on carriers and switch out with replacement pilots. Of whom could be switched out from land or other carriers.

The supply network would be able to function no matter where we were attacked so long as an entire group had not been wiped out entirely. Even if everyone on land were destroyed in a terror attack from our invaders, we would still be able to hold out for a week until help could be organized.

That was the purpose of my formation.

While large, the number of enemy cruisers thus far only numbered twelve. The variety of formations they could execute, or the number of fronts they could form with their numbers was extremely limited.

Yet, they had yet to break the very formation they had been in since they arrived to our world. I don’t believe we ever figured out the reason.

Well, given that our fighting force was never routed, we could near indefinitely reinforce just about any front. A plane destroyed would be replaced with one in the carrier fleet, which would be replaced with one on land.

A damaged plane or ship could be repaired on land and replaced.

A lost ship or plane could be replaced with the dozens of new planes, ships, and transports flooding in from various industries across the human front.

Taking into a hopeful consideration that our enemy wouldn’t be capable of gaining reinforcements for at least one week, we could take them into a battle of pure attrition.

To drain their manpower and will to fight to such an extent that they would no longer be able to fight against us and be defeated.

My entire gambit was to assemble such a number as to allow us to forge a grand meat grinder, and in such a way, force thousands of lives to sacrifice themselves to defeat our superior foe.

In history, if the opponent was technologically superior, with greater weapons, armor, or discipline, one could always overtake them in an extended battle of attrition with superior numbers.

They would grow tired, hungry, and lose their will to fight over the drawn out days of continuous fighting.

We couldn’t say that our opponent now would follow the same principles, but then again, we had no choice but to hope that this could be the case. At the very least, if we were able to cause continuous casualties, no matter how small, we would be able to defeat them through sheer manpower.

A game of several ships against a planet of nearly 10 billion people.

Well, just as it was planned, predicted, and prayed for.

The enemy fleet of just twelve ships broke the horizon.

We would meet just twenty miles off shore. At that period in time, our battle lines had stretched out twenty-three miles across and eight more miles deep. The carrier lines extended the rest of the distance to shore, going as far as just a little under a mile off shore. More than half the fleet could still be visible to those on shore, the massive ships of the invaders even more clearly visible.

Our greatest stand would be one visible to all those present. A clash between two powers in a final stretch for survival.

There was nothing left to plan.

The aliens were coming for us en-masse.

The air force launched, the battleships opened fire, and the battle for survival began.

[Part 3:  The Savior of Mankind Stands - END]