November 21, 2018 – Rithenal Outpost, 20 miles outside Wichita, Kansas

Standing at the top of the observation tower at this outpost in what the locals called ‘Kansas’, Sub-Leader Krex decided that he truly hated Earth. He was a Silexian warrior, from the desert planet of Silex 4. This pitiful planet of mostly water was far too moist and cold for his liking. The locals were soft, mammalian types. None of them had the lovely scales of the females back home. And this backwater world had never even heard of most of the common forms of entertainment in the galaxy! The system wasn’t the source of any rare minerals either.

Of course, he knew why Earth was so important to the Rithenal Empire. This system (called Sol by the locals) was a strategic nexus of warp nodes, located in a critical space between the Rithenal Empire and the Kuprulu Alliance. It was also, due to a quirk of interstellar mechanics, the single jump point connecting to several resource-rich worlds that were either uninhabited, or at least unaffiliated with any of the major galactic powers. Whoever could take and hold Sol would have a strategic advantage over the entire arm of the galaxy.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time someone had tried to take the Sol system. But prior attempts to take the system had always failed, primarily because the Asguard always took such an interest in the species covering Earth. Supposedly they were some long lost branch of the Asguard race, or something like that, and they listed the system as a Protectorate. Because of them, all prior attempts to take the system had failed. That didn’t stop others from trying, though.

A little over a hundred cycles ago, the Krax Imperium had brought a fleet of their warships to the system, in an attempt to annex it, and the Asguard responded in force. The battle was a massacre, with the Krax fleet being utterly wiped out, while the Asguard lost only one of their four ships. The Krax flagship had tried to crash-land on the planet, but was destroyed in the atmosphere over a place the humans called Tunguska.

And only forty cycles later, the damned Ross’ell decided to try and set up a research station on the planet. Fortunately, the Asguard came and wiped the disgusting grey aliens out before they could set up one of their damned gravity weapons on the planet. Krex had no love for the Asguard, but he didn’t want to be within ten light-cycles of anyone crazy enough to use point singularity weapons!

Of course, the Asguard were busy with other problems right now. Krex didn’t understand all of it, but it seemed they were fighting a machine empire in another arm of the galaxy. Whatever the case, this meant the Rithenal Empire had a chance to take and hold the system, and use it to dominate their neighbors.

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The invasion had been swift and brutal. Their ships took out military and government installations around the world, allowing them to take over in the chaos. But within a tenth of a cycle, the local populace had already begun fighting back. Unknown to any, save perhaps the Asguard, the explosion of the Krax warship had unleashed unstable particles in the atmosphere of Earth, sparking mutations that gave people powerful abilities, not unlike the Krax warriors themselves had. But while the rigid Krax breeding programs kept their powers stable and predictable, the humans were chaos personified, with no two being quite the same.

With their superior abilities and weapons, the Empire’s forces had managed to maintain control, for the most part, but the death toll was staggering. The people of Earth used what prisoners called ‘guerilla tactics’. Instead of facing the Empire’s legions in honorable combat, they ambushed patrols, poisoned food supplies, and did everything possible to make life unbearable for the soldiers posted to this void-spawned rock.

But recently, things had gone from bad to worse. It had started with isolated patrols, complaining of an unnatural mist rising up around them, before all contact was lost. When the search teams went to look for them, all they found were the bodies, brutally maimed, with looks of terror on the soldiers’ faces. That was four tenths of a cycle ago. The attacks had continued since then, with an entire outpost falling just a tenday ago to this enemy the troops began calling ‘Mistwalker’. The bodies had actually been mutilated after death, the heads of the fallen piled in a disgusting cairn with a single message, written in Rithenal Standard: “All will die.”

A yell from the soldier next to him brought him out of his reverie. An icy mist had begun to form outside the outpost, and was rapidly moving their way. Sub-Leader Krex drew a deep breath, and said, “Sound the alarm. And pass the word that I’ll pay fifty credits to whoever brings me the head of this Mistwalker.” As the sirens went off, the Sub-Leader turned, and went to his quarters to gather his best weapons. Time to show this mammal that the soldiers of Silex weren’t like those pathetic Kratuans or Brakthels that had fallen to the Mistwalker before.