The Return to Terra

Book 1: Chapter 2

He reached into a personal compartment to his right side and relaxed into the back of this seat. Popping it open he pulled out a nutrient bar. Tearing apart its wrapper he ate its contents. The tasteless substance filled his hungering belly. One bar could keep a man full and hydrated for a whole day but Godfrey smirked as he contemplated there being an excessive amount of these bars in Luke's craft.

"It's oh-six-hundred prepare for the task force's arrival!" Ordered Godfrey.

"Aye, sir!" Came the reply of his officers.

In response, his men spread out evenly around the omega gate ready to welcome the United Forces of Reclamation. Any minute now they would pour through this hole and lay claim to the land far below. It was planned that Godfrey and his men would arrive ahead of the main force to scout and secure the location and wait for the rest to arrive.

Godfrey had imagined giant monsters to fly out and attack them from the hole or strange anomalies to reap havoc with his instruments. In reality, however, this was nothing of the sort, just the ominous presence of planet earth hanging in the vast emptiness of space. Minutes passed by without any sign of the UFR.

"Ugh, Where are they?" asked Luke.

An unresponsive Godfrey viewed the monitors on the front of him as they displayed the gate as minutes turned into hours. It was but a comparatively small patch of clear space in an ocean of lightning storms with a diameter no more than a few dozen miles wide. By now the force was several hours late and Godfrey grew restless within the confines of his cuirassier.

"You don't think the truce had broken down already do you?" asked Luke over a private channel.

"Crazier things have happened before" Godfrey answered.

"Ha! You ought to know Captain Martelis, Celestial Slayer!" Luke boasted.

Godfrey frowned.

"Tell me something, Luke. How can you like those mutants after all they've done?"

Luke paused reflecting on his thoughts.

"Well... Well, I... I admit that I do admire them in some morbid fashion... Like how one can admire the beauty and ferocity of a beast. Besides even, you have to admit they are utterly beautiful creatures."

"Just remember they are more beast and mutant than human. No creature that powerful can b trusted... Besides if it's beasts you love? Then return home! I'm sure you'll grow a bountiful admiration for the megascorpios in the undercities. I'm sure you'll have all you need as their pincers tear you from limb to limb while their tail fires acid at you."

"Ha! Not if I get a place to live here! Anything's better than returning to the red rock."

"I doubt this reclamation of earth will do anything but make it a new battlefield"

Just as he finished three celestial knights blasted into the area at the head of a column of both Venusian and Martian ships. The polished like grey of the streamlined Venusian ships making them stand out against the deep black of the blocky Martian.

Godfrey's screen flickered as it updated with new runes depicting friend or foe signatures. Around him and new information displayed on his screen explaining what it all meant. Red for Martian, blue for Venusian and yellow for Celestial. The ancients have come to reclaim their homeland.

Through clouds of mist coloured peach by the distortion of light the hulking mass of the three celestial knights flowed through the air. They seemed ethereal as they smoothly slowed to a halt hundreds of meters from the ground. With Godfrey and his fifty-man strong company swarming around them like birds at a breeding ground.