• “Honey!” a middle-aged woman called from the porch of the farmhouse, “Dinner’s ready!”

    Thirty-year-old Nathan Gredski briefly paused from chopping down the twenty-foot tall rimweed plant that had taken over much of the south field. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, Sarah.” He said.

    “Alright, but don’t take too long. his wife replied, “Olan meat isn’t really tasty when it’s cold.”

    Nathan grinned and chuckled as he gave the thick rimweed stem another chop with his axe. In the time before he purchased this fifteen-acre property on the lush forest planet of Tavor, he had been a Secret Intelligence officer for the Domoran Empire Army. After watching his close friends and comrades get slaughtered in a Federal Galactic Empire ambush, he resigned and took up farming. It wasn’t long after that he met his wife of five years, Sarah Lodestone, who was a single mother with a three-year-old son named Jared.

    A sudden, violent ground tremor knocked Nathan to the ground. As soon as it subsided, he bolted to his feet and sprinted for the house. He burst through the door and found Sarah and Jared huddled together underneath the kitchen table, shaken, but alive. “You two okay?” Nathan asked as he joined them.

    Sarah nodded, “I thought the quake season ended months ago.”

    “It did.” Nathan confirmed. A slight scent caught his nose, “Do you smell smoke?”

    “Yeah.”

    After making sure that his wife and son were safe, Nathan rushed to the window, and what he saw made him speechless. Aeor, a small town just a few miles from Nathan’s farm, was in flames. Several once-elegant buildings were massive towers of fire, dwarfed by the plume of smoke that rose high into the nighttime sky. Nathan turned away from the epic scene and quickly strode over to a closet, unlocked the deadbolt, and drew out a military- issue CS-6 Assault Rifle. “What do you think you’re doing?” Sarah asked.

    “Aeor’s on fire.” Nathan replied as he slid a fresh clip into the rifle, “No Fed weapon that I know of can cause destruction like that so quickly. Something crashed.”

    “You don’t know that.” His wife told him, “It could have been a hovercraft malfunction for all we know.”

    Nathan glanced at her, “That wouldn’t explain the earthquake. I have to go see if there’s anything that I can do to help.”

    Sarah reached out and kissed him on the lips. “You be careful, okay?” she said.

    “You know I will.” Nathan said to her with a smirk, “There’s a pistol under the mattress in our bedroom. Use it if you need to.”

    Sarah nodded and Nathan, after saying goodbye to his son, jogged out the door and mounted his hoverbike. He revved the engine and roared into the night.



    Twenty-eight-year-old Sergeant Orion, commander of the Domoran Army’s 82nd Armored Battalion, grabbed the guardrail of a nearby TX-260 Tank to steady himself as the ground trembled beneath his feet. Ever since he and his battalion had been transferred to this planet from the jungle world of Delta Nine, Orion had more that his share of violent earthquakes during the infamous quake season. This tremor, however, was different.

    As soon as the ground stopped moving, he keyed his helmet-mounted comlink onto the command base channel. “Command, this is Orion, over.” He said.

    “We read you, Sergeant.” A man replied.

    “I just felt a pretty big quake here.” Orion reported, “What’s going on?”

    “Planetary scanners indicate that something crash-landed in Aeor. Nearly half the town is in flames, over.”

    “Are there any fire units headed over there?” Orion asked.

    “Not at the moment.” Came the answer, “Our main concern right now is securing the crash site. Whatever landed there was obviously not F.G.E., Uruni, or Domoran. Local firefighters are handling the fires for now, over.”

    “Acknowledged.” Orion responded, “Request permission to join the crash site team.”

    “Permission granted, Orion. Good luck.”

    “Thanks.” Orion said as he climbed into a TC-520 Armored Personnel Carrier. He then switched to the battalion’s channel, “Calling all members of the 82nd Armored Battalion: this is Sergeant Orion. Prepare to move out.”
    He then switched to the battalion’s channel, “Calling all members of the 82nd Armored Battalion: this is Sergeant Orion. Prepare to move out.”