Kepler was scrambling to get to his position, as they could see an army on the horizon. Zosk was with him, but he hadn’t gotten a weapon. In the frenzy no one had paid him any attention. The human army was in between them, and he wondered how it would play out. He hadn’t ever been in a real combat, military speaking.

The humans were maneuvering around the base as to not be sandwiched, but they kept their distance. If he could still sweat, Kepler probably would be right now. He was fidgeting with the weapon in his hands, looking over the wall. He wasn’t the only one.

The army was coming closer and closer, rows upon rows of reptiles. It was intimidating even if he knew they would probably not lose. But the sheer weight and presence was impressive. He hadn’t seen anything like it.

The rows split for a bit, and what was probably their general walked forwards.

“Surrender now, and we might let you crawl back to your King!” He bellowed, full of confidence. They had the numbers.

General Carter could be seen on the walls.

“Surrender? You’ll have to bring a bigger army to scare us. Leave this land now, or suffer the consequences.” Both generals stared at each other, not wanting to back down. Kepler knew it was a gamble on the generals part. They didn’t have much information on armies in this world, even if they felt confident.

Finally, the reptilian general broke eye contact.

“You have chosen death then.” He said loud enough to be heard as he was turning around.

Kepler saw Zosk moving out of cover and over the wall, he tried to stop him, but too late.

“General!” Zosk’s voice could be heard, albeit not as loudly.

“I urge you to turn back, I know what this looks like, but, you can’t attack these humans.” He sounded pleading.

“And why should I let these scum on our lands?” He asked, skeptical. Clearly, Zosk was trying to find the right words, to defuse the situation. But what could he say that would stop this? How did you stop an army from slaughter. But Zosk wasn’t a diplomat, and said what he thought.

“You will be slaughtered, general, and I don’t want to see my kin slaughtered for nothing. You have to trust me. I beg you.” And it wasn’t the right thing to say. As the enemy general clearly took it as a challenge.

“Slaughtered?! HA, we’ll see about that.” The general was at the very front of his army, he raised his spear, and yelled.

“CHARGE!”

Suddenly the whole world was in motion. Kepler could see the humans trying to flank the Reptiles in order to lessen the burden on the defenders. The reptiles were splitting up, as to threaten to flank the humans should they charge their frontline. A huge wall of shields was all one could see from the fortress now. A sea of raised shields and spears rushing at them.

Thousands of arrows soared towards them, some fireballs mixed in. But Zosk was still standing outside, looking lost. The army was still some hundreds of meters away. Still, he didn’t move. He was just starring, unable to make a decision.

Kepler jumped over the wall, and rushed towards him. The army was coming closer, and he heard the order to fire. There was a moment, the arrows and fireballs in the air. Everything seemed to slow down. When, suddenly, all hell broke loose. Arrows bouncing of the walls, fireballs landing around them, and gunfire making you deaf.

Kepler was running towards Zosk, a fireball landed in front of him, but he continued through. He barely felt the heat, but he had lost sight of Zosk for a moment. As he ran through the smoke, he saw Zosk on the ground, he had been hit by a fireball. His armor badly burnt, but otherwise he seemed fine, all things considered.

Kepler hauled him on his shoulder, he was heavy now, but it wasn’t an issue. Arrows were hitting them to little effect. But he knew that if they started to use skills, or enchanted arrows, it wouldn’t be as harmless. He quickly ran towards the wall, the army was close behind them now, charging.

He saw the walls taking blast after blast of fireballs, it didn’t seem to be effective at all. The arrows all clattered after hitting the wall, and no one seemed to be injured. He was close now, and jumped over the small wall. He lay Zosk down, and quickly drew up his weapon.

The army was surprisingly okay. He thought they would be slaughtered by the gunfire, but their heavy metal shields did block the bullets. Some were still hit, either through the smaller gaps, or even ricochets, but it didn’t slow them down enough.

Part of the army was engaged with the human one, and it was bloody. But Kepler quickly refocused on their own problems. The first wave was on them now, and everyone switched to their melee weapons. He saw a spear coming at him and cut it straight off before beheading the enemy. It had been reflexes, and horror started to fill him.

Before he could think about it, another two were trying to skewer him from the other side, a few others climbing over the wall. It wasn’t meant to stop more than long range spells and arrows. He slashed at them with his energy sword, and they tried to block. The sword went through their armor and shields like they weren’t even there, cutting them in half. Despite this, they kept coming.

Dodge a spear, slash back, block with the offhand, pull him in, slash. He wasn’t thinking about anything. There was no time. As he slaughtered the soldiers coming at him, he soon met someone who dodged all of his blows. They had seen that their swords couldn’t be stopped and were adapting. He even heard some skills being used around him. [Piercing thrust], [Twofold attack] and other such things, but they couldn’t penetrate their armor.

However, he saw to his left, someone went down. A reptile with an enchanted spear, electricity buzzing around it’s tip, standing over someone. The reptile looked straight at him, but before he charged, a loud explosion was heard. The railgun had fired, and there was a trench of bodies where it had hit. One of their enemies shouted something about lightning, and soon, no more fireballs were flying at them, but lightning bolts.

Soldiers started going down, but it wasn’t easy to hit them while they were engaged in melee. Blood was everywhere, the reptiles didn’t back down, most were slaughtered without a chance to fight back, but still, some of their own were going down. More and more of the enemies had lightning enchanted weapons now, and they were being pushed back.

The railgun went off again, but hit something in the distance. Kepler continued to fight for his life. He had been hit with lightning enchanted weapons, but he resisted better than the others. Slowly, they were being beat back towards the dome proper. He looked back as he was retreating, when the door to the dome opened, and a three-meter-high mech walked out.

It was strange to see a mech out here. Its main use was breaching spaceships, but this one had been heavily modified. The mech was two legged, with big arms riddled with weapons. The general stomped forwards and fired off several of the bigger guns. They punched right through the metal shields that were desperately trying to save their wielders. Missiles fire of into the air, before exploding in the enemy ranks.

Slowly they were pushing back the swarm of enemies. They slaughtered ten, or even twenty for each one of their own. But still, they outnumbered them. Kepler was fighting one of the more slippy enemies. He couldn’t get a good hit in, and was being poked by the lightning enchanted tip.

Suddenly his enemy exploded in gored. He looked back and saw the general had shot him down. There were less and less lightning enchanted weapons, and barely any lightning bolts flying towards them. They were gaining more and more ground, as they were impervious to their mundane weapons.

Suddenly, the reptiles started to retreat. It was clear they were loosing. And in the blink of an eye, there were only the blood and bodies left, all of their enemies gone. Kepler felt like retching, but couldn’t. Zosk ! He had forgotten about him.

Looking around he didn’t see the friendly reptile. As he walked around the hellscape their base had become, he heard loud voices. There he was.

“Let me go!” Zosk yelled out. Two soldiers were holding him. He was trashing as much as he could under the restraints, he was as strong as them now.

“Zosk! Let him go.” He told the soldiers. They released him, and he sagged on the ground.

“All gone.” Kepler could hear him whisper.

“They are all GONE Kepler!” He yelled at him. There were no tears in his eyes. Water was precious for Martians, but he was definitely crying.

“Why did you have to slaughter them?” He asked him accusingly.

“I…” At a loss for words, he finally tried to help Zosk up.

“Don’t TOUCH me.” He swatted away his hand violently.

“What were we supposed to do then Zosk? Tell me.” He said, angry.

“I don’t know… I… It’s just… “ He fell silent for a moment.

Zosk sat on the ground. Kepler was looking at him, some soldiers were watching, unsure. And he knew he didn’t have the right words for him. Words were so… weak. Easy to say but without impact. He couldn’t show him how he felt either, and he wished he could.

“Zosk, I wish it hadn’t come to this. I do. And I am sorry.” It was all he could say, in the end. He sat there, not looking at anything. He looked so torn. They had slaughtered his people, in self-defense, but still.

“I am useless. I couldn’t even think of something. I could have done something, anything. I SHOULD have tried at least.” The pain was audible in his voice.

Kepler tried to put a hand on his shoulder, to help, somehow. But Zosk clearly didn’t want his help, or pity. He shrugged away his hand.

“Just leave me alone Kepler.” He said, head hung low. He walked away, as he was close to get out of the base perimeter, some soldiers stopped him. Kepler couldn’t hear what they said, but Zosk walked back, head hung lower still, defeated. He walked past him, ignoring him completely.

Kepler and the soldiers still had some work, and silently they began the gruesome cleanup. Some robots where helping them, but it was still a lot of work. He felt, number to it all now. Disgusted somewhat, at himself for getting used to it, even if it was only a little.

The troops were silent as they cleaned everything up, the adrenaline from the battle, and the victory behind them. It took hours. There were thousands of corpses. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. It was a brand-new world! Full of possibilities, of mysteries, and instead, they slaughtered its inhabitants. They had barely been here more than a week.

After hours of gruesome work, Kepler finally walked back to Mars. He felt, empty. The thought of going back repulsed him. Forgotten were his dreams of adventure. As he walked back to his room, he saw Zosk sitting on his bed. They were the only ones using it, it was his dad’s home after all.

Zosk didn’t react at all, seeing him, he was lost in his own world. And Kepler didn’t feel like talking either, so he just sat there, in silence. In the past days, they had been talking a lot. About Zosk’s world, about Mars, science, magic, everything had seemed… so interesting, new.

Now? That magic had disappeared, and gloom had settled instead.

After a while, Zosk picked up an empty battery they had brought, and tried to charge it with magic. It was an experiment they had been working on. It had been meant so that they could explore the land without a need to come back. Try to make connections, maybe even find traders, or other such things.

It worked, but it wasn’t perfect. The battery was charging, but it still damaged it a bit. Zosk had been talking about it with fascination just yesterday, and how he was sure he could get it to work perfectly, and he was getting better at it.

Kepler looked at nothing, he was surfing on the internet, and was using his internal view to look at things, but it all felt, meaningless. After a while he stopped, and saw Zosk still mechanically trying to recharge yet another battery.

Kepler, for his part, soon went to sleep, but as morning came, he saw a pile of batteries on the ground, and no Zosk in sight.