March 25th, 2278

149 days remain

Under the light of the dim orange dwarf that lit the Enrique system, a fleet of Ivo ships appeared. In a battle station orbiting above the system's primary colony, Cornucopia, Rear Admiral Naomi Winters held command of its defenses. Her tactical officer was speaking.

"Prior reports confirmed, ma'am. Enemy fleet contains six hundred contacts." His voice was hollowed out. The voice of someone who knew they were already dead.

Admiral Winters smiled sadly at the young man. "Thank you, lieutenant."

She was a woman of short height and slight build. With her grey hair done up in a bun, laugh lines, and gentle voice, one could be forgiven for mistaking her for someone's kindly grandmother rather than a battle-hardened veteran of the Diln War. She was technically too old for service now. However, like many others she had been dragged out of retirement by the Space Force and sent to handle rear-line duties, the idea being that they could free up the younger officers for frontline duties. Many of her peers had grumbled and complained, but she'd been happy to receive the call. Sitting around knitting scarves while human civilization burned was not the way she wanted to spend her twilight years. When word of the crushing defeat in Dark Space had reached home, the Rear Admiral was grateful she had been assigned to Cornucopia. It was the closest Outer Colony to the Ivos, and thus the most likely target for the enemy's first incursion beyond the frontier of human space. Naomi Winters had never imagined she'd live to see the fall of Man.

Now she wouldn't have to.

Tired old bones creaked as she stood up straight. She looked around her command deck, taking in the sight before her. Tears welled in her eyes as she gazed upon all of the bright young lives that were about to be snuffed out. Then she thought of the millions more below her, the billions more beyond her, and she really did begin to cry. Despite the tears she was openly shedding, her voice still held the same steel it had held when she'd commanded her frigate against the Diln a lifetime ago.

"Open all silos and prep for launch."

---

The Ivo fleet drifted past the broken corpses of the orbital defenses. Terrestrial silos on the planet below launched their missiles, but they were like so many pebbles thrown at a battle tank. Six hundred overlapping Ivo point defense grids formed an impenetrable wall of light that no missile could hope to pierce.

The Ivo fleet lowered its orbit, and Cornucopia's surface-to-orbit laser batteries opened up. By firing they revealed their positions, and they were swatted aside by a few lazy torpedoes sent their way. When all the defenses fell silent, the Ivo fleet began to spread out. As they did so, they began firing their beam weapons at the population centers of the colony. Cities were incinerated, mountains were melted, and the atmosphere was filled with debris. After days of abusing the planet like this, the Ivos were finally finished. They remade their formation and broke orbit, leaving nothing but molten rock and smoldering ruins behind.

---

April 19th, 2278

124 days remain

Ikfitett felt hollow as he watched the footage of Pacifica, the latest human world to fall to the Ivos. Ivo beam cannons fell upon it's sulfurous waters, and its oceans boiled. The Ivos had sent out communications probes to all corners of civilization in the Orion Arm, bearing footage of their devastation of humanity. There was never any caption or comment left by the aliens. They seemed to think the footage spoke for itself.

If their goal was intimidation, they succeeded. Ikfitett thought with a low hissing growl of anger. Ikfitett was a Tlassiopei. Like all of his kind, he looked like someone had blown a velociraptor up to be seven feet tall, given it a new set of more dexterous arms, and then covered it in hair. They were born warriors, a terror in battle.

And they had rolled over meekly for the Ivos just like everyone else.

It was a fact that made Ikfitett's blood boil. To a few select races, the Ivos had begun to send fleets, not mere probes, to deliver their footage of humanity's ongoing demise. These races had only one thing in common: they had humans living in their boarders. In the earlier days of the war, there had been talk amongst those species who had a good relationship with the humans. Talk of intervening. Then the Ivos sent word of the fleets they would be sending to their space. Fleets that were coming to round up the stray humans. Fleets that were each equal in size to the one rampaging through humanity's space.

The talk had died then.

The Ivos had, surprisingly, held true to their word. The species handed over the humans within their borders, and in exchange no harm came to them. The Ivo fleet that had gone through Tlassiopei space had not fired a single shot, or uttered a single communication. They simply showed up to a colony, took the humans away to an unknown (but easily guessed) fate, and then moved on. They made their way silently through Tlassiopei territory in this manor, and now they had come to Ikfitett's little corner of the world, the industrial colony of Frranteel. Ikfitett commanded a small logistical station in orbit of this colony, and he watched his viewscreen and growl-hissed in disgust at the site of transports full of humans docking with the Ivo fleet.

"So, this is us. The mighty Tlassiopei. Our 'Proud Warrior Race', reduced to mewling whelps at the sight of a powerful foe. It makes me ill to watch it." the massive alien turned to his companion beside him.

"I won't let them take you." he said, steel in his voice.

The human looked up at his friend and gave him a sad, empty smile. "Yes, you will."

The human, Lewis, had been serving as a logistical expert on the station for three years. In the wake of the Diln war, the Tlassiopei had been impressed by the martial spirit shown by the humans, and had reached out to them diplomatically. Many skilled human workers had found jobs in Tlassiopei space in the decades since, Lewis being one of them. Ikfitett had found a friend in the alien, and now he was faced with the prospect of abandoning that friend.

"I can't let you get dragged off to be murdered, gassed in a cage like an animal." Ikfitett said in a rare emotional outburst.

"I'm from Sapphire, Ikfitett. My entire family was vaporized. I'm already dead. Have been for months now." the human's expression was empty.

"It's not right! You know it's not right!"

"Yes. I do."

"Then...scream! Shout, fight them and take as many of the bastards with you as you can. I can help you, I'll fight too!"

"To what end, Ikfitett? I've been stuck here on this godforsaken station, watching my people go extinct, all because there's no passenger transport willing to take me to human space. I've been watching it all. Every clip they send us. I've long run dry of anger. I could lash out, swallow a bomb, do something, but what would that accomplish? Other than dragging your people into this war, dragging you down into hell with us?"

Ikfitett was beside himself with anger. "So that's it? You just give up? I can't believe you're part of the same species that fought the Diln to a standstill. All that struggle, all that fighting, and now you just throw it aside. You'd let every sacrifice go to waste?"

Ikfitett was surprised to get a punch to the gut from Lewis. It didn't particularly hurt the massive creature, but it definitely got his attention.

"Don't you ever talk to me about sacrifice. Or stuggle, or fighting. All my people have done since this war started is sacrifice, struggle, and fight. God, have we fought. To the last man. We're still fighting. And what has it gotten us? Nothing. Whether you're a meek coward who rolls over and dies, or a brave warrior who dies with a weapon in his hand, you end up the same way. Dead. I could go out with a bang, drag you along with me, get your people tangled up in this nightmare. Or, I could get on that shuttle and go off to die. Either way, I'm just as dead. The difference is, if I fight, I drag them-" he pointed out the view port to the colony below "with me. All eighty million of them. You too. If I choose not to fight, then I spare eighty million innocent people from meeting the same fate."

Lewis looked up at Ikfitett, tears in his eyes. "We've tried fighting. It didn't work. I've got to try something different." He turned to leave.

He walked away, out of the command center, heading towards the shuttle. Ikfitett watched the human go. He thought of his mate, of the litter in her belly. Of the millions of others who could likely meet a fiery end if he tried to stop the human. He swallowed his pride, shunned his honor, and steeled himself to abandon his friend.

Several minutes later, he watched the shuttle leave, heading towards the Ivo fleet. When the last human had been taken, the Ivo fleet abruptly transitioned into Dark Space, off to their next destination. They took with them thousands of humans, and the pride of the Tlassiopei species.

---

May 15th 2278

98 days remaining

Tau Ceti Colony

Wan-Tou was a part of the wave of humanity that was currently scrambling for the civilian shelters. He flinched as a flight of Grizzly drop ships shrieked overhead, transporting soldiers and equipment to some unknown location. Wan-Tou wanted desperately to be with them. He would have enlisted at the start of the war, but his father had talked him down. Finish school and become an officer instead. That was the plan. He wished he'd listened to his gut back then. Then maybe he'd be out there facing death on his feet with a weapon in his hand instead of cowering in a shelter and waiting for it.

The newly elected government had drawn a line in the sand at Tau Ceti. For whatever reason, the Ivos wanted this planet. It was why they'd started this whole nightmare to begin with. That meant that they'd be trying to take the planet by force instead of burning it into molten rock with their beam weapons. In anticipation of this, the government had loaded the planet with troops and fortifications. The greater part of the Ranger Corps, the Tau Ceti Defense Force, and several expeditionary forces from the militaries of Earth, were dug in and waiting for a massive ground battle.

Wan-Tou looked up at the sky and had to wince at the flashes of light. Anti-matter explosions. What was left of the orbital defenses was being finished off by Ivo torpedoes. Wan-Tou joined the rest of the crowd in their panicked run to the shelter. A powerful, roaring sound could be heard in the distance. When Wan-Tou turned to look, he saw the exhaust trails of missiles, heading for what was almost certainly incoming Ivo ships.

An incredibly bright flash was followed by a deafening crack of thunder. Just when Wan-Tou was blinking his eyes back open, the same flash and thunderclap forced him to shut them again. Must be the terrestrial laser artillery opening up on the Ivos.

As he continued his mad dash for the shelter, Wan-Tou heard another roaring sound, similar to the missiles from earlier, but distinct in its sound. A bright flash and a deafening blast of sound followed the roar, and a mushroom cloud could be seen in the distance. No more laser fire came after that.

The scramble was growing desperate now, with people pushing, shoving, kicking, and biting their way past each other in their desperation to get to safety. It abruptly stopped as the crowd noticed they were being bathed in a searing white light. A beam of pure energy had descended from the sky and carved an incinerating path through the city. Just as suddenly, the beam dissipated.

They said they were invading the planet. That they weren't just going to incinerate it like all of the others!

The next beam came down and blinded anyone unfortunate enough to be looking directly at it. It carved its path through the city, and began to dissipate just as the shockwave from the previous beam hit, breaking windows and setting off car alarms.

"WHY? WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF IT ALL?" Wan-Tou screamed at the sky.

"WASN'T THIS THE ONE YOU WANTED? THE REASON FOR ALL OF THIS?" another beam fell and the shockwave of the second beam struck.

"IT MAKES NO SENSE!" Wan-Tou screamed, hoarse now.

"It makes no sense..." he whispered.

His voice was but one of thousands, and it was drowned out by the screams and the sobs. Then a fourth beam fell, and there was silence.