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(c) Paul Hodgkinson. ( [RunningWolf] )
This text is from the process of original creation and may not be sold or published without written legal permission.

First the memory is always black, void, clear and free of any pain. Then you begin to get the details, begin to remember something of substance and something worthwhile. What is the first thing you remember? I remember the enemy of that black hope, I remember torment. My life, my substance robbed, replaced by a single memory of the torment of us all; this is what I am now, my past is dead.

A clean and modern, functional home within a city, its inside gray walls pure of markings. A labour of love well looked after, decorated with practical furniture and paintings hung. Pictures upon a shelf, a shelf framed by tall indoor plants and upon this shelf are those images proudly displayed in small frames. Pictures of family, pictures of a husband and wife protectively holding their daughter - their future; all are smiling.

"Weerrrp, weerrrp... Weerrp, weerrrp."
"Attention, attention, all citizens of Adromaw world wide, this is an emergency alert. Planet wide evacuation is required. This is not a drill! Invasion immanent, evacuate Adromaw. This is not a drill, evacuate Adromaw." Loud speakers pleaded far and wide across the globe and outside it began. Soldiers marched at a jog pace down the streets in formation and split into groups at each house ushering and directing the populace to the transports waiting to take them to the ships. To the metal coffins and the only chance for the species survival. It's future rested on the needless slaughter of billions of the innocent. Of a once proud and respected race, torturous legacies will remain for hundreds of years. The transports carried streets worth of people and basic supplies out of the civilian designations and into the military and emergency platforms. In huge man made flat regions almost a third of the total cities size itself, large below ground hanger doors opened to reveal the ships waiting for launch hiding below the horizon. Silos for the coffins of the innocent, futureless children and the saved of the to be New Adromaw.

Most of the people were silent, knowing the seriousness of the situation and knowing that no amount of noise could save them. Only the determination of the Adromaw Guard and the pilots of the evac. craft could give them hope now. The people, all of them like flowing rivers scored the manufactured landscape in the pointless hope to keep breathing, to escape the lingering doom. Walking through the soldiers that dotted the outside of the thick lines like black, armed roadway markers. A young girl tripped and a soldier ran to her side picking her up and immediately without hesitation moved her on her way again with the crowd. Her family huddled her as they moved along, "Thank you." shouted her mother, but the soldier didn't say anything back to her. He just looked as they moved along and thought to himself, 'There is nothing to thank me for this day, only death.'

In a command centre far away, "Sir, the tech divisions have made some makeshift improvements to the shielding manipulators; it'll buy our boys a few minutes at best." said an officer,
"Refit NOW!" his superior immediately ordered.
"Yes sir!" snapping on to a comm. channel "Repair and factory bays, scramble refit on the defence fleet, shielding systems."
After a moments pause the response came through. "Acknowledged, production pipeline busy."

The commanders eyes were ever focused depressingly on a tactical screen showing the inevitable. The front line forever shrinking and approaching them across the systems until the home world would be next. The battle chatter raged on continuously across the realm. "Station Feron lost! The Kreder cruiser has been hit. Carrier Emerald is destroyed. Battle group Reason is lost. We lost another planet, Fort Divider was overrun!" And so it rambled on and on. Across the room a nervous recent recruit sought moral from the commander, getting only a slight hope and a certain resignation. "Sir, what... what do we do?"
"We do what the Alpha tells us to do, ensure the race survives; that is all that matters now. Focus on your station." the commander demanded; "What's the evacuation report?"
a terminal officer passed on "Evac. Transports One through Six are full and undergoing the checklist, Twenty Three and Twenty Four also. This regions evac. is twenty seven percent underway, sir."
Momentarily the commander bowed his head and closed his eyes, before tilting his head above his clasped hands again and ordering with calm and cold sight. "Scramble the refitted defence fleet thus far, they are here."
"Wha... what? Here? Already? Ugh, YES SIR, RIGHT AWAY SIR." flicking a virtual switch, "SCRAMBLE ALERT, SCRAMBLE ALERT. INCURSION INTO PLANET SPACE. DEFENCE SCRAMBLE, EVACUATION PREPARE FOR SCRAMBLE ORDERS."

Anti Air defences suddenly came to life with manning soldiers and supply support crews. Tanks, ranks of men, ballistic missile crews, fighters, carriers, cruisers and dreadnaughts patrolling the skies. The last defensive screen against the relentless and indiscriminate foe. The people picked up the pace both from desperation and order coupled with physical help from the soldiers at the lines. "The jumped a forward strike force behind the now forward defence line. This is it." the commander calmly stated. The missile batteries opened up and sent payloads into the sky at immense speed and determination at a foe yet unseen. The streaks painting lines to both the salvation and elimination one and the same. The spears of the future. Missiles continued to flow and follow the same paths splitting the previous exhaust and dispersing it before it had time to clear. The alarm sounds droned on continuously and in long beats.

[EDITING - stay tuned more to come. Announcement pending.]