Humanity Endures

Part 5 - War is Politics With Bloodshed | Chapter 5

Rescue operations soon began system-wide, searching for the numerous survivors clinging onto fragments of human ships, or crippled wrecks; an ocean of missile-like escape pods, deployed from now-destroyed or crippled ships, swarmed towards still intact craft, civilian stations, or the planet below, where their crews could safely disembark now that the immediate battle had ceased. Those alien warships that had been crippled were given no quarter: after being thoroughly nuked or cracked open with gauss rounds, and only after this, robotic probes were sent to explore and study them in the not-so-vain hope that the ships could contain items of scientific value for the human race. If there was anything that the recent battle had made clear, it was that this human navy was in desperate need of adaptation and knowledge, both of which were easily acquired from the wrecks of disabled alien vessels. Nevertheless, if these robotic human probes uncovered any living aliens, then the entire ship was destroyed moments later — science was important, but the security of her planet was more so. The shattered wrecks of countless fighters, human warships, and stations that got in the way — among them, the EWCC — drifted harmlessly throughout the void, many of them being thoroughly searched for survivors, though rescuers were not optimistic. The battle had been among the costliest ones waged in humanity's recent memory, but at least it had been won. Tehkria remained a strong planet, Tehkria's navy remained a strong navy, and Lassarha had survived — the worst thing to come of the battle was the loss of the EWCC, but Lassarha had succeeded, for the most part, in protecting her people. No matter what trials came next, with Lassarha at its helm, Tehkria would be prepared.

The system — at least, the parts of it that weren't still on edge from having been dosed with MECS — let loose a collective sigh at the conclusion of the day's hostilities. Lassarha's hearts, which had been intensely pounding for the past hour or so, began to calm down, as the lack of conflict, and the calming influence of whatever MECS lingered in her system, both eased her frayed nerves.

Exhaling deeply, Lassarha's thoughts turned from rest and relief to remorse: billions of human beings had been callously butchered by aliens, each other, and her, over the course of the climactic battle. So much death would have reduced lesser people to grief-filled wrecks, but not Lassarha: though she mourned her billions of dead, with every ounce of grief that tore at her hearts of steel, her fury grew. All of this needless loss was either due to inane political machinations of the despicable Heralax Tekran, or due to the arcane, monstrous whims of a genocidal alien species — a species that deserved to be subjected to the same cruelty it had wrought, and a species Lassarha planned to eradicate, immediately after she wiped Heralax and whoever supported him off the once-proud face of the galaxy. What made her sick to her stomach, aside from all the needless death that she had just witnessed and delivered, was the fact that she considered a human being — nay, a Tekran, the supposed paragons of the human galaxy — to be on the same ethical level as the genocidal monstrosities which now threatened humanity itself. If the Empire had fallen so low, Lassarha asked herself, did it deserve to survive?

She quickly pushed such a stupid question out of her thoughts: of course it did.

The fact that Earth had fallen under attack from just over a million alien vessels, and that immediately afterwards Tehkria had been besieged by another massive inhuman force, implied that the alien menace was now perfectly capable of launching large-scale attacks with impunity. The surface of Tehkria below, though the planet's tranquil appearance had been shattered the moment it started pouring millions of tonnes of ordinance into orbit, appeared even more chaotic than it had during the battle; wherever alien ships had crash-landed on the planet's surface there now lay a battlefield. The aliens were contained, and affairs under control, but by no means were they peaceful: Tehkrian forces, some of the most elite in the galaxy, had quarantined the alien menace and were pushing them back to the cores of their corrupted footholds, indiscriminately slaughtering alien-looking aliens, human-looking aliens, and, tragically, even a few human-looking humans, all for the sake of the greater good. Sporadic revelry took place in the wake of the victory, though the underlying mood was one of sorrow for the dead, and fear for the lives of those who remained; no one doubted that the aliens would be back, and some even suspected that the Nahmatiixers would return in due time.