Why Humans Make Bad Pets!

I’ve found a new family IV

The moment our dropship shot out of the launch bay, I could immediately tell this battle was different from the others I had fought in. The scale was just so much more grand. Ours wasn’t the only troopship. 20 other monstrosities poured a steam of dropships to fall to the planet. The Armada accompanying the troopships was larger than I’d ever seen. Before, it had always been our one troopship, supported by two or three cruisers. In this battle, cruisers were the little dogs.

Behemoths I could only assume were battleships launched plasma bolts several times larger than our dropship at each other, which were somehow deflected by powerful shields. Carriers spewed endless ropes of energy from their turrets, attempting to destroy the small fighters that bit at their sides. Weaving in between the mayhem cruisers and destroyers chased each other, firing furious barrages of pulses and explosive projectiles alike, battering each other’s shields or bloodying the flanks of battleships. Even as I watched, an enemy cruiser got too close to a battleship. A port cannon charged and fired a bolt of plasma the size of a 747. It slammed into the cruiser with a terrible force, cracking the hull with the power of its impact, the heat of the plasma cutting the ship completely in two.

With the appearance of the dropships, the enemy fighters refocused their attention, abandoning the troopships and carriers, determined to make sure not one of us reached the ground. That’s when I noticed the addition our dropship had that the others I had been in before had lacked. A turret. Cresh, one of the heavies, was in the gunner seat, and soon our hull reverberated as the whump of heavy weapons fire emanated from a massive turret on our roof.

Cresh, it seemed, had deadly aim in space as well as on the ground. I counted no less than 5 enemy fighters fall to the precision marksmanship of our veteran heavy; an impressive number considering the speed with which the nimble fighters dodged the majority of the death that was flung their way. As impressive as Cresh’s aim had been, it had no effect on the number of enemy fighters who numbered in the hundreds. That’s when our fighters entered the fray.

Our dropship shook violently as explosion that were far too close for comfort detonated outside the window, whether they were fighters or dropships we often couldn’t tell. A stray shot from a battleship flew into the midst of the minnow fight that was the dropship convoy, destroying everything in its wake, leaving a stream of small explosions until it smashed against the hull of a troopship. The troopship was made to take a beating, even on that magnitude, and its shields held.

When our dropship miraculously hit the atmosphere, the roar of the ship entering the stratosphere was drowned out by the chaos around us. While the cruisers and destroyers couldn’t follow us down to the planet, the fighters weren’t about to let a little air stop them. They harried the convoy’s flanks all the way to the surface, only breaking off when the turrets from dropships that had already landed were able to shoot them from the ground.

Our dropship had been towards the end of the convoy, and many had already disembarked upon the battlefield before us. If anything, the chaos of the ground topped that above. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. First of all, there were vehicles. There were a lot of vehicles. Quick nimble hovercrafts toting two massive guns, one on each side, zipped about the battlefield, chasing each other and squadrons of men who were foolish enough to engage one in a formation. Their massive weapons discharging shots a ghastly shade of red which exploded wherever they hit, causing colossal gouts of dirt and earth and anything else that happened to be it way to erupt as though from a geyser.

Tanks, heavy, though still hovering above the ground, roamed around the battlefield, destroying anything in their wake. Bristling with weapons, they launched volley after volley of devastating fire into anything nearby, sending anything without the armor of a dragon into the void. Actually, dragons were included in the mix as well, and there were quite a few of those. Entire clutches (herd? crapload? flock? fuckton?) roamed around the battlefield, killing indiscriminately among the troops, although I guess the majority of the ones they killed were ours.

A particular group I saw were interrupted in their hunting by an equally angry herd of tanks. The ensuing fight was a sight to remember. The lead tank drew a bead upon one of the dragons with its main cannon, announcing it and its brothers presence by engulfing the unfortunate lizard in an explosion of fire and gristle. The drakes immediately disengaged from the soldiers they had been massacring, leaping at the tanks. The herd fired as one, reducing an entire wave of dragons to ash. Then the lines met. Tanks in the front were completely flipped, smashed into each other, the sound of shrieking metal punctuated by the roars of beasts.

The tanks weren’t dying easily. Unloading everything, every tank that died went out in a blaze of glory as every cannon simultaneously fired, engulfing its aggressor in the light from four ray pulses, two death rays (the ones that fire the red lights), and a flamethrower. More often than not, the ferocity of the attack would leave the victorious dragon dazed and bleeding. The tanks gained reinforcements, and the drakes were incinerated unless they ran.

Similar fights had left the battlefield blackened with ash as the burning husks of tanks and dragon remains lit the area with a choking light. Similar battles raged, adding their own luminance with their various firearms, voicing cries of hatred and despair as they locked in mortal combat for this once flourishing land now made barren.

shout-gestured Turkey, and we dived into the fray. We were noticed almost immediately by one of the light Hover-Humvees, which whipped around to face us, raining down the fire of hell upon us from its side mounted cannons. Unfortunately for it, I had seen it as well. I jump-flew. I shot an astounding eight meters! The gravity here was so minimal! I was even more powerful than I’d ever been, and reached the Hover-Humvee before it had been able to loose more than one shot from each of its cannons. It may have been shielded, but unless it had a force field it wasn’t stopping my lava scimitar. Apparently it didn’t have one. The vehicle may have been strong, but the driver was weak, and as both of my scimitars cut through the windshield as though it were butter, into the driver, and out the back of his seat, I could hear the shock and dismay from the enemies within.

Throwing myself at the window, I destroyed it with my lava sword, bursting into the Hover-Humvee’s cabin where two turret operators and an auxiliary manned anti-tank kinetic-pulse turrets on the roof. It was a small space and I was a small guy. We went well together. Too bad I’m not very good at sharing personal space. The hostiles who only moments before had thought to be our executors soon found themselves on the receiving end of their own devices, and were found equally lacking in stamina. Bereft of its driver and crew, the Hover-Humvee slowed to stop, sliding several extra meters to stop in front of Turkey’s stunned face.

“Please tell me you know how to drive one of these things. I don’t want to have to keep you guys alive this entire time.” Turns out, Cresh did. That guy was just chock full of surprises. Only four guys could fit into the Hover-Humvee’s, and we had 17 guys in total including myself. My squad’s personal shields wouldn’t stand a chance to half of the shots flying around. I had to get each of them behind some stronger shields. That meant I had to commandeer more vehicles. Another Hover-Humvee, having noticed my rather less than peaceful takeover of the last one, eagerly offered itself up to become the next on in my fleet, although I guess it didn’t see it that way.

It suffered the same fate as its brother, however, with my scimitars piercing its driver, then moving on to the beings within. A third fell in a similar manner. As my squad piled into the newest addition, I chose my last victim. The fourth Hover-Humvee was a little beaten up, but that described the majority of the vehicles kicking up dust on the battlefield. It would work though, and became the final member of our flotilla. Now our squad could do some damage. Moving in a tight formation, the simultaneous fire from eight death rays annihilated tank shields in a single shot, destroying them on the next. Dragons foolish enough to approach on their own were quickly destroyed, and any infantry who attempted a rush were gunned down by the withering anti-tank ray pulse fire from the turrets mounted above.

I didn’t need a Hover-Humvee. I had two lava scimitars. Giving Manthlel, who was driving the third Humvee, the thumbs up, I charged with my usual battle cry. There was a long way to go.