Orbiting
above the dead planet that was once one of the
most proud and prosperous civilizations in the
Union, the Enlar were jubilant in the aftermath
of their success. They readily convinced
themselves that the Ignus threat had been
forthright eliminated, as they could detect no
life on the “sterilized” world below: it had
been leveled to dust by the immolating fires of
their explosive weapons.
They
mocked and scorned Mandrala as he left their
vessel to return to his homeworld. Calling him a
false prophet, they spoke amongst themselves:
“If he had had his way, had we armed the
Mandralor vessels—and had they attacked instead
of fled the external colonies of our Union’s
territory—untold numbers of his own kind would
have perished needlessly, and to no avail…It is
only through the administration of our superior
intellect that his pitiful species even exists
to this day!”
But as
the Enlar stared down with glaring eyes to the
now hideously scarred face of the world that was
once their home, their exuberance over the
committed deed slowly waned unto nervous
excitement. They began to doubt the accuracy of
their own technologies, and there came to be an
ever-increasing need for reassurance that no
living creature still remained upon the
devastated planet below.
Not much
more time passed before the tenuous equanimity
of the Enlar aboard that infamous vessel slowly
broke into a sort of semi-frantic terror. The
refugees contained within the starship began to
stir, while their electrically charged tendrils
writhed and sparkled in anxious turmoil.
Repeatedly scanning for any signs of biology
upon the annihilated surface of their world,
they tried neurotically to convince themselves
that the deadly serpentine monsters had all been
vanquished—until, finally, when no absolute
certainty could be further accepted amongst
themselves, fear overwhelmed them into fate….
After
being hastily accumulated from the fleets of
regularly returning messengers and cargo
vessels, the first and most easily accessible
Mandralor starships that entered the system were
forcibly conscripted into the Enlar’s schemes.
Several expendable Mandralor spacecraft were
selected to scout out the planet for a closer,
“hand’s on” scrutiny of its surface. In this
fashion, the craven Enlar had hoped to once
again reestablish their confidence in the
situation: that the Ignus were, indeed, all
dead.
Overwhelmed by the command of their
freedom-giving benefactors of spaceflight, the
naive Mandralor descended upon the shattered
planet, while their Enlar masters remained in
the safety of orbit. At first, the transmissions
that transpired between those condemned vessels
(the startled crews of which were all terrified
at their first glance of the devastated world)
and the Enlar mother ship were nothing other
than what would be expected: the planet was
lifeless, and absolutely nothing—no vestige of
ecology nor civilization whatsoever—existed upon
its entire barren vastness. But as the doomed
Mandralor troupe began to walk out from their
landed starships, into the scarred expanse of
destroyed world that was once home to a mighty
and fruitful civilization, a dreadful and sudden
change occurred….
An
abrupt, inexplicable profusion of life erupted
upon the surface of the “sterilized” world for
just a few short moments. At once, the
transmissions from the Mandralor scouting
mission grew startled and terrified, as their
gurgling cries reverberated loudly through the
air. The terrible, dying screams of those
unprepared Mandralor on the planet below blasted
from the Enlar vessel’s loudspeakers, while
their scanning systems blared wildly in sudden
alarm—until, just as quickly as it began, all
became silent once again.
Of the
dozen or so Mandralor vessels that had descended
to the planet, only a single ship managed to
limp away from the carnage. The damage it had
endured was so great that its structure was now
hardly space-worthy—threatening to implode at
any moment, and kill all of the few, remaining
inhabitants inside. Those aboard, as they were
quick to proclaim to the Enlar in orbit, were
either dead or dying, and begged for emergency
medical assistance.
But,
though their desperate pleas were so loud and
pitiful that they rattled like incomprehensible
static throughout the volumes of the Enlar’s
well-equipped and hearty spaceship, the
Mandralor refugees were provided with absolutely
no help. The Enlar minds, cold and calculating,
quickly concluded that the decrepit vessel
before them was a threat….
They
destroyed the ship, blasting it to a thousand
pieces the very moment that it came within range
of their overpowering weapons. In their
paranoia, the Enlar killed whatever wretched
creatures that managed to survive the holocaust
of their own selfish expedition by fleeing
onboard the vessel, eliminating any potential
for allowing the Ignus a chance to escape. They
did this “quarantine”, so it was rationalized
amongst them, to prevent what they feared most:
the “spreading of the disease.”
More and
more of the Mandralor harbingers began to return
with the shocking news of what happened on those
infested planets on the periphery of Union
space, sharing their gruesome tales of the
ravaged frontier worlds that had fallen to the
Ignus Scourge. Their vessels, having been
terribly slow, outdated and overused, took years
to return to their homeward destinations—but
they were of the few, lucky survivors who had
lived through the hazardous journey.
Word of
what happened at the decimated outer worlds
proliferated like wildfire throughout the Union;
and at once, the Enlar was set into a state of
mass hysteria. They became aware that, everyday,
the Ignus conflagration raged closer to the
heart of Union space; and so the Enlar, having
no other options available at their disposal,
were forced to elicit more duplicitous means of
ruthless cunning to protect themselves…
Thousands of newly ordained “priests” began to
spring up like weeds throughout Mandralor
civilization. Preaching to widespread throngs of
Mandralor eager to receive any news about what
had happened upon the Union’s ravaged frontier
worlds, they wove half-truth tales that depicted
the suffering that their kind had endured while
simply defending themselves against the “wicked
servants of Chaos” Their fiery words and
relentless passions caused all those who
listened to reject the long-honored sanctity of
non-violence that had been imposed by Mandrala
thousands of years ago, cleansing their minds
from the voice of rational thought while
twisting their religious zeal into an instable
lust for vengeance.
Mandrala
did everything within his power to denounce
these “false prophets.” He tried to reveal their
true intentions, but many of his people simply
lost faith in his words. Only the truest of
believers truly listened, while millions of
others readily filled the vast volumes of the
Enlar’s interstellar transports vessels—endless
legions of carnage-bound fanatics ready to be
sacrificed for “the Preservation of Order.”
Hauled away like sentient chattel to the
slaughter, the brainwashed minds of the
Mandralor recruits had no comprehension of the
sheer magnitude of the horrors that awaited
them….
The
makeshift armies soon landed upon the surface of
their destination, intending to easily retake
the Ignus infested world, and set it free from
the clutches of Chaos without much effort or
bloodshed. But as they departed from their
grounded vessels, taking their first steps upon
the planet’s ashen ground, which had long since
assumed the corpselike color of consumed
charcoal, the Enlar driven transports that had
brought them there suddenly blasted off to the
safety of space—taking refuge from the hostile
world below.
And as
the retreated Enlar transports shone like
brilliantly glowing stars in orbit above the
condemned, the forsaken Mandralor looked about
their surroundings to see a planet utterly
ravaged by the effects of war. They had been
duped into expecting a recently conquered world
that still bore the full splendors of Union
civilization. Instead, what they saw was a
lifeless rock covered in countless unnatural
canyons and craters that stretched across the
vastness of its barren expanse for as far as the
eye could see.
And this
is when the unsuspecting army of Mandralor was
sent crashing to its knees, as the very ground
beneath its myriad feet began to rattle and
quake. The Ignus then erupted from upon the
horizon, blasting into the heavens in twisting,
billowing geysers that rained down upon the
broken landscape. Like oozing liquid gushing
onto the face of the planet, the fluidic Ignus
hoards spread outward to encompass everything
beneath its writhing, oceanic mass.
The
serpents shook the very earth with their
undulating movements while they slithered across
the landscape, traveling faster than the deadly
waves of a tsunami, as if guided directly toward
the Mandralor by some unseen hand. Mere moments
passed before their bodies, having grown to
gargantuan sizes and lengths from feasting upon
the planet’s previous inhabitants, let out a
noisome bellow before they reared up upon their
back segments, with heads arching ominously
through the clouds in the sky to loom over the
frightened army of six-limbed creatures like
some towering forest of nightmarish monsters.
Thousands of fidgeting talons protruded from
each of their scaly underbellies, methodically
clenching and slashing in grisly anticipation of
the feast before them. They had awakened from
their slumber, at the beckoning call of fresh
meat….
Though
the Mandralor were, of course, terrified at
their first sight of the Ignus, they held their
ground. The overhead canopy of serpents cast a
pall of darkness upon them, strangling out the
light of day as Ignus’ gaping mouths glistened
with drooling saliva and countless razor-sharp
fangs.
But the
unabated Mandralor ranks then let cry an
almighty cry of war to the heavens, which boomed
like thunder through the twisting maze of snakes
around them. They dashed toward the nearest
Ignus within their sights, sinking their
primitive, dagger-like weapons into its armored
carapace. They swarmed upon its sinewy body like
ants scaling some enormous tree—crawling over
one another and slashing in every direction with
fiery eyes and a hell-borne lust for the
creature’s blood.
Little
is known of what happened that day, as there
were no survivors of the battle itself to tell
the tale; the few, tattered accounts later
recounted by the Enlar vessels watching in orbit
over the mayhem depict a scene of the a most
senseless carnage. Though every one of the
death-bound Mandralor fanatics fought with the
utmost courage, attempting to bring down the
colossal serpent with nothing but a small
metallic blade in each of his four hands, it is
said that the beast went entirely undaunted by
the miniscule creatures’ valiant efforts.
Flailing
its enormous length about in every direction,
the serpent easily disposed of the engulfing
Mandralor blanket, sending many to their deaths
as they were simply hurled to the unforgiving
stone floor of the planet. Those few, frightened
and unprepared troops who managed to survive the
great fall were left to a far more hideous fate,
as they were helpless to do anything but watch
while their ranks disappeared like dust in the
wind. And soon, the Mandralors’ battle roar had
become completely overwhelmed by the screaming
cries of their dying brethren, as the air became
rancid with the stench of death, and the very
earth was stained unto the dark, crimson color
of blood.
Having
few leaders, very little military discipline,
and absolutely no organization whatsoever, the
scattered remnants of the Mandralor army became
easy prey to the ravenous horde of surrounding
Ignus. The mammoth serpents, gnashing and
clawing at one another like hounds bickering
over scraps of flesh, flayed and slaughtered the
Mandralor with their lacerating talons, and
swallowed them by the dozen in their gnashing
jaws. Many of the Mandralor, it is said, were
still screaming as they were forcibly shoved
down and into the black abyss of an insatiable
Ignus’s belly, to be eaten alive while their
bodies slowly dissolved in a torturous pool of
digestive acids.
Those
unfortunate wretches who were not immediately
killed faced a far worse and more terrifying
fate. After rounding the remaining Mandralor
into condensed masses, the Ignus herded into the
numerous cave-like openings that littered the
surface of the infested world.
After
crossing the threshold into the very mouth of
hell itself, their fates became sealed, as the
Mandralor were then driven further underground
into the subterranean network of the Ignus’
burrowed tunnels: deep into the heart of the
serpents’ lair. Separated and in total darkness,
they had nothing but their own horrid screams to
accompany them into the afterlife, as their
nutritious bodies were slowly torn asunder to be
nibbled upon by the smaller Ignus yearlings that
had not earlier risen to the surface.
And that
is when the Enlar, hovering in orbit and
watching the battle below from the safety of
their transport vessels, opened the storage bays
to the vast arsenals of incinerating weapons at
their disposal. Though, they realized, that even
the valiant efforts of the Mandralor would not
be enough to stop the Ignus, their mere presence
on the planet below had been enough to lure them
away from the protection of their underground
lairs. The prospect of food had awakened the
serpents from their state of metabolic
hibernation, bringing them to the surface and
exposing them to attack. The Enlar then, seeing
their moment of opportunity, bombarded the
entire globe with powerful explosives until
every square inch of its entirety had been
charred unto lifeless ash and fiery
brimstone—killing all who remained below, Ignus
or otherwise, for the “good of the Union.”
And so
it came to pass that the Union begat its
systematic “sterilization” of every planet
within its boundaries. Repeating this process
over and over again to any world deemed to have
even the remotest possibility of Ignus
infestation, the art of slaughter was practiced
to perfection.
If too
few Mandralor were sent to lure the Ignus out
from their subterranean dens on any given
operation, then some of the deadly serpents
would simply linger beneath the surface out of
harms way, apparently not awakened by a strong
enough presence of life. And though countless
Mandralor died with every successful cleansing,
the Union took great pride in the care that they
took to not squander their “living resources.”
And so
it is said that Mandrala, having heard the cries
of his people, became enflamed with anger.
Though greatly saddened to see such senseless
devastation done by the Enlar, the Prophet was
enraged to learn that they had been lying to his
people for centuries. The brainy administrators
of the Union had always stockpiled their own
starships with a plethora of devastatingly
powerful warheads, while the Mandralor were
denied any arms aboard their largely outdated
fleet of dilapidated vessels.
Mandrala
knew that his own people could have prevented
the Ignus from spreading beyond its insipient
stages whilst their reconnaissance vessels
happened upon the very first infestations of the
outer worlds. Because of this, he realized, the
Enlar could no longer be trusted to take care of
the Ignus conflagration; and that, if they were
left to their own barbarisms, the entire
universe would soon be engulfed in its
ever-consuming flames. He came to the conclusion
that He, personally, would have to put an end to
this dire threat, if the now weak and dying
Union were to have a chance at survival… |