Before the war, on every star chart in the known galaxy there was a star system sized hole named XX-1300. A place that nobody had ever been able to chart or explore. Probes and manned missions alike had all disappeared upon reaching the boundary of this piece of uncharted space. This is where they came from. The fleet swept through almost a dozen systems before word spread of the invasion. Out of forty-five known systems that contained sentient life the advancing enemy captured fifteen in the first year with very little resistance. They were well prepared, and while their attacks were brutally efficient, they also seemed to be an honorable species, only pressing an attack until victory was claimed and showing a concerted effort to avoid civilian casualties. It became obvious to military leaders from several systems that this was an invasion of expansion and not one of destruction. A mere few people were able to escape the initial waves and reported that, as they were entering the system, the enemy sent a looping communication of only one sentence, “We are Volmagari, we will save you”. This name immediately spread like wildfire, including to navigational chart updates that changed XX-1300 to “The Volmag System”.

Despite the size of their fleet and the quickness with which they had begun the invasion, not much intelligence could be gathered on them. The scarce information coming out of controlled systems left little to plan for. They would not leave their ships until they have deactivated or destroyed any kind of surveillance. Communications intercepted from them appear to be some sort of cyclic binary language, and no two transmissions have ever had much in common. Their technology appeared to be on par with what the most advanced civilizations in the galaxy have, it was sheer surprise that got them so far in such a short time. Jorya itself was situated in a star system that stood right in the path of the invasion as it was about two thirds of the way between the outlying systems and the core. The war had been raging for two years when the Volmagari set their sights on Jorya.

The Volma, as they had come to be known, would quickly find out that Jorya was the galaxies most advanced and well-armed planet. When the Volma attacked they ran into several setbacks. First problem for the Volma was that, either through poor intelligence gathering or very good deception on the part of the Joryan military, Jorya had a planetary defense grid operational which negated any orbital bombardment. Second issue was one of pure size. It’s unclear if the ease at which the Volma had been rampaging through the galaxy made them overconfident, but the Joryan Navy outnumbered the flotilla that was sent at least four to one. Finally, the Volma were simply ignorant to the pure skill of every crew member of every ship they faced, especially the fighter pilots.

Following the battle of Jorya the remaining systems that had not fallen to the Volma created the Alliance of Free Systems. This Alliance brought individual military components from each star system that had a military, and organized them into a single military force dedicated to the protection of less technologically evolved sentient species, and the recapture of lost star systems. It was at this point that the conflict turned from repelling an invasion, to a war of attrition. Neither side thought it would be tactically sound to commit all its forces on a single decisive battle, so for the next three years it dragged on. Skirmish here, sneak attack there.

The AFS Command council, which consisted of a representative from each world in the Alliance, attempted time and again to negotiate with the Volma, each time being denied so much as an audience. After ten years of attrition the Alliance began to buckle. Star systems were tired and weary of constantly wondering if they would be attacked next and when. They wanted an end to the war, and some would try anything to bring that about. As the war raged on, a group of pilots and infantry that were not part of the alliance formed a battle group that would become unofficially known as the Privateers. This group specialized in guerilla tactics. Sabotaging fuel and weapons depots, splinter squads capturing enemy officers and other assorted jabs at the Volma.

The Privateers were the first to arrive when all communication from the Dalbundi system stopped. This was the first system taken in the invasion. When the battle group arrived, they found a system devoid of all sentient life. Not a single intelligent being was left, but there were no signs that they had been slaughtered. It was assumed that the Volma were not simply being honorable warriors all this time, but that they took everyone alive either as a hostage or some type of slave. Nobody knew for certain. On every captured planet over the last five years the Volma have been slowly and methodically loading surviving civilians into transports and shipping them back into the Volmag system. While it is not uncommon in wartime for prisoners of war to be taken, over a billion galactic citizens going missing over the course of the war was the last straw. This revelation cemented the resolve of the Alliance which was on the verge of internal collapse. The Privateers were brought out of the shadows and made an official special forces unit which gave them access to the full array of military resources, some of which they had no access to before. With this official sanctioning the unit was given the highest priority of missions. Journey to the Volmag System and find the Volmag home world, and hopefully the missing citizens of the occupied planets.