The Dark War

Theriopolis

I look outside and see the once beautiful land of Theriopolis now turned into ruins cause of the wars. As I look out I see something in the distance. I pull my binoculars from my belt and look at the object. I saw a wounded soldier trying to get back to base.

I gesture to my good friend and partner Kee Endarvin to come look at it. As he looks I call for a rescue vehicle to go get him.

He says to me, "How can this man be injured? There hasn't been any DA troops in Theriopolis for over 5 years."

I respond, "I'll have a patrol sent to make sure that there hasn't been DA hiding from us all these years...Looks like he's in the base I'll go question him after his wounds have been treated."

"Good idea"

After I radio for a patrol to go look for any hiding DA I head to the infirmary and have word with that soldier.

The doctor approaches me and says, Hi I am doctor Klein. You can all me Jack. He'll be fine. Just a couple of minor wounds from a ion pulse rifle."

"Is he able to awnser a few questions?"

"I guess a few. But make it short."

"Thanks Jack"

I walk into the room and introduces himself to me. "Hello I am Gambitt."

I say, "Nice to meet you I am Lord FIshbone. Just how did you get injured?"

"My patrol ship crashed a little bit to the east." He says," I was the only survivor. The DA captured me. There they did some experiments on me. I don't know what but they did. When I escaped they shot at me and hit me. They thought I was too hurt to survive so they let me go."

"Can you give me the exact coordinates?"

"85 degrees north 30 east"

"Good work."

"Thank you" He says, "Oh and I stole this from them"

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small metal tube.

He says, "This was in there command center I imagine it's important."

Just as he finishes that sentence he begins to cough wildly. His heart rate drops and at that moment the doctors push me out of the way and get to work on him. Thirty seconds later Jack turns to me and says, "I'm sorry we lost him. There was nothing we could do. We just detected a poison that they implanted that we didn't detect before. I'm sorry."

I start to head to my quarters and them I hear on the intercom, "Lord Fishbone. Report to Cass' office immediately."

When I arrive he says, "Have a seat"

"You wanted to see me?" I say.

"Yes it's regarding that patrol you sent out..."

"About that sir before Gambitt died he told the exact coordinates of a DA base. Along with this metal tube he gave me."

"A DA base? Why there hasn't been a DA sited in Theriopolis for over 5 years! Let me see that tube...hmmmm..report to battle stations...NOW!" He picks up the mic at his desk and presses a button on his desk. Then he yells into it "Battle stations everyone! This is not a Drill! I repeat this is not a Drill!"

I run from his office and to the armory. I grab my armor and an Ion Pulse Rifle. Then I run to the main door with my fellow troops and look as I see an enormous army of DA troops armed to the teeth. Their army had tanks planes everything you could imagine. I then look back at my troops and yelled, "Get in formation! Now!"

They out numbered us. They out gunned us. And I knew we had almost no chance of winning. But I wasn't about to tell them that. So I led the charge into battle as I watched my men...my friends die before my eyes. I see in the distance Cass laying and Kee laying on the ground...dead. I yell out then my adrenaline rushes to my brain and I go berserk. I was actually starting to do really good until I felt something pierce me in the back. I fall to the ground blood dripping from my lower lip. I fall to the ground and everything turns black. As I woke I saw that i was in a small cell with an electronic field around it. As far as I knew I was the only survivor and it was up to me to escape and somehow destroy this base.

I rotted in that miserable cell for almost a month before I actually got some help in escaping. A young woman who obviously also survived the attack was found and captured by the DA was put in a cell with me. Her name was Lynnea. As we rotted in that small cell together my feelings for her grew stronger and stronger. I cannot say that she loved me back though. She regarded me as a cell mate not a potential friend.

For a week we put together an escape plan that was mostly her idea. There were no guards just cameras and a laser field, not very sophisticated. For some odd reason they let her keep a mirror that could be used to deflect the lasers if broken in two. But then we'd have to get past the cameras. That was the hard part. We found a small spot where the cams could not see. And every once and awhile two guards would come in and make sure everything was okay. So when they came in we'd steal their armor, which was full body with helmet. Then just steal a jet and get the hell out of there. We'd decided to put our plan into action in 3 days.

The following day The guards come in and move her to a separate cell. But before they took her she broke her mirror in two and gave me half. I could tell she wanted the plan to still go through. Then she says, "Wait for me."

Two days later the plan goes under way. I go through the lasers and kill the guards and take their uniforms. Then I go to the port where a plane lies waiting for me to steal it. But I wait even though I could leave right then, I wait. I wait for over and hour and she never comes. I wait another hour and still no sign. I go to the prison wing and hear pulse rifle shots and a scream. I run to where I heard the scream coming from. I see a guard walking out of her cell and we both raise our weapons. Then I ask, "Is it you?".

Then she takes off her helmet and says, "Yes, of course its me."

"What took you so long? I've been waiting for hours!" I say.

"Well, sorry let's get going OK?"

"Fine by me lets go"

We both run as fast as we can to the plane and throw the pilot out. I sit in the pilots' seat and she says, "You know how to fly this thing?"

Then I say, "No, but it's never too late to learn."

I randomly press some buttons till I get the hang of it and take us back to my base. Surprisingly it's still standing. We quickly land and run to the armory because we know the DA bastards are on our tail. There is nothing left in the armory. But then I open a hidden safe with a self destruct sequence for the base and a lot of explosives in it. I activate the self destruct sequence.

Then I see the DA ship landing and sneak past them as they unload into the base as they land.

I load the explosives on my ship and right after take off the base explodes and then I back to the DA base. I load the explosives into one of the missiles to give it an extra boost. As I put the ship in auto-pilot I realize that we don't know how to penetrate the bases shields. Then Lynnea says, "If we put the missile at the same modulation as their shields we should be able to fire the missile right through their shields."

"But we don't know their modulation." I respond.

At that moment we hear a sound coming from the back of the ship. I draw my gun and look back to where the sound came from. Then I see something move.

"Oh it's only a mouse. Nothing to get frightened about." I say.

Then I notice the tube that Gambitt gave me is lying on the ground. Then I realize that this was Cass' ship. I open the tube and look at it. At the bottom I see odd symbols. Then I say, "Maybe this is it. When I was in prison I saw these same symbols on keypads and such. Well let's try it and hope. We have no other choice."

I then press those symbols into the modulation for the missile just as were arriving at the base. Then I yell, "As soon as you get a clean shot FIRE!"

Soon after she fires the missile. It hits ands destroys the base. The explosion to me was like the 4 of July for a young child. It was the most glorious thing I ever saw. The end of those DA bastards had finally came. We land near a small part of the remainder of the base that's still livable. There we wait for over a week until a rescue squad finally comes to save us. The leader of the squad tells me that we are losing the war in Meovanni. But the news of this victory on mars has lifted the spirits for many. I turn to Lynnea and say, "You know as soon as we get to earth we'll have to fight again don't you?"

"I know. But lets not think about that now"

At that moment she looks deep into my eyes and we got locked in a deep embrace. Then I say, "When this is all you over...could you...would you marry me?"

"Yes" she says.

Then I grab her in my arms wrap my tail around her and kiss her again. Two days later we arrive in Meovanni.

Meovanni

After the victory in Therio the spirits of the forces in Meovanni were greatly improved. That was until the DA kept on winning. The morale on earth became depleted and poor. Almost everyone feared of a horrible loss to the DA. We learned that the only way we could win would be to destroy the DA home world. That was plainly obvious but we had almost no chance of winning on their heavily defended base.

The DA base was probably the most heavily defended place in the entire galaxy. It was reported that the weakest part of their defenses could still easily destroy the entire Duelist army. Their defenses consisted of only an eight of their entire army; but it still had over 1000 troops, and a net of mines surrounding the entire base. The only good thing about it is that if we could somehow penetrate their outer defenses then there would be hardly any inner defenses to defeat.

Then here we are back in Meovanni, still fighting, still having our friends die around us. Jessica and I fought side by side, our love for one another was the only thing that kept us alive and going. If we didn't have each other we would most likely be long dead.

One day we were assigned to an exploration team. There had been reports of the DA armies mysteriously disappearing and more casualties on their side than we had killed. Our job was to figure out what was killing them and somehow harness or ally with it or them. There were many theories on to what was happening; virus, another guild, and so on. I personally hoped it was a virus because if it was another guild they might not like us either, then attack us as well as the DA.

We were to start searching on old battle fields in Meovanni. We studied bodies, weapons, the soil on the planet and so on. We searched for a month and didn't find anything. Absolutely nothing...until we found a weapon that was not on any other body or soldier. We though it could be one of the commanders weapons but the markings didn't match anything else of the DA. Then we thought it could be from part of the language we didn't know about, but the symbols didn't even come close to a match. We saw some spots of blood on the weapon which we nicknamed "snake" because of its odd and snakelike shape.

We tested the blood and it did not even get close to matching any members of the DA or Duelist DNA. It was then obvious it had to be another guild.

My only prayer was that they would not be hostile like the DA. I hoped that they were fighting the DA for the same reason as us. That they could live peacefully with us.

We were soon after assigned to track down this guild and ally with them. Me and Lynnea would both rather have gone back to combat but we obeyed our orders and set out past jigsaw joint. until we contacted an unknown ship. To my suprise the hailed us. Our predictions were almost completely accurate. They immediately said, "Greetings I am Kantar Leader of The White Lances. We know of your troubles with the DA. We are experiencing those same problems and we are also losing. So we would like to ally. In exchange we offer you this sword called the Magebane. It is indestructible and is worth more than you can imagine. We are in dire need of assistance and we can promise that after the war we will leave you be. If you leave us be. So do you accept?"

I said, "We will contact you in 5 minutes please be patient"

He nodded then cut communications.

I contacted command and said, "We have contacted the creatures and they have offered an alliance . How should I respond?"

The commander then replied, "Doesn't look like we have much of a choice. Tell Them we accept."

I then raised contact again and said that we accepted.

The following day we arranged a jointed assault on the DA base.

When we arrived I looked at the massive army defending the base. I promised to myself that this would avenge the death of Cass, Kee and any other duelist that died in battle. We attacked and the battle raged on for hours. explosions, fire, death all surrounded me. Out of the smoke we emerged victorious. There was cheering and celebration for weeks. We mourned the deaths of all the valiant soldiers who died in battle. But i did not let that get me down. Now me and Lynnea could settle down and get married. Then here I am now five years later. Lynnea and I have a daughter now named Jessica.

The White Lances have kept up on their side of the bargain and we live together peacefully and in harmony.

THE END

Special Thanks To all who let me use their names in my story.