A concise history of the H'kraxk-Human War

Note: The image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their prompt 'The Infestation'

"Humanity had spent eons watching the stars. In our distant past, we used them to keep time, to know when to travel, to plant, and to harvest. As we devised separate tools to serve those functions, we came to remember another use, that of divination. We used them to gauge and judge others, but over time, many stepped away from those beliefs, and we began to look closer, tilting and tweaking microscopes to look closer than we dared imagine we could ever reach.

We saw then the processes that shaped those stars, distant taunting lights holding the secrets of the universe within. We studied them for centuries, making grander tools to see them by, charting their courses, predicting phenomena sometimes centuries in advance, much as our ancestors had. Eventually, touching the very stars came to be less a mad dream and a distinct possibility in our grasp, if we only dared to do it. For a time, only robots visited planets beyond ours, roving and teaching us what they had been designed to measure: temperature, atmospheric pressure, the hours of the days, and the counting of years on each new planet, among other concerns.

We looked beyond our own system, beyond our own galaxy, sent messages into the void, tugging at the universe, desperate to know if we were alone, if we were the only part of the universe that could look upon it in wonder.

Now we know.

And we should be afraid."

- Excerpt from the speech of Anatoly Abdumov, the supposed lone survivor of the First Contact Team, one of 49 military personnel selected to escort the FCT from the United Nations' newly formed Extraterrestrial Affairs Division.

That was 3 years ago. And hell had reined on Earth since. Anatoly had not, in fact, survived first contact. His body, however, was sufficiently intact to serve as a host for the dread beasts that had decimated the best and brightest of us. As his words were heard at the UN, the trick was revealed, his skin sloughing off what little of his body remained as our skies filled with meteors, dropping out of controlled wormholes from every angle around Earth.

We think that about half the 12 billion souls on Earth were dead in mere hours, both from the meteor strikes themselves and the grinning abominations aboard them. Our only saving grace was our enemy's ignorance of Earth's delicate balance of ecology and ecosystems. Their meteors landed everywhere, including the ice caps, and I hardly need to tell you what happens when you rapidly melt ice. What wasn't sublimated into the air became 1000-foot-tall tsunamis crashing against the shores of every continent, and soon after came the month-long storms, drowning the world like the mythical floods of nearly every faith the world over.

We don't know how many of our enemies died in those storms, but it gave those of us inland time to prepare. We fortified every town still standing, digging trenches that swiftly became moats, even as the ground became marsh and swamp. Disease and wetness became a fact of life; only the highest mountain ranges stayed dry. Colder climates became death traps in the fast-approaching winter. Ice was everywhere, hail the size of babies became standard, and the storms became gales of swirling knives. Earth went from a zoo with no cages to an actively malicious hellscape bent on killing whatever dared walk her surface. Estimates currently say another 1 or 2 billion died during that winter.

As spring came, so too did what remained of our invaders. Weakened and, we hope, demoralized, the first attacks were scattered. Hunting parties failed to return, and communications, what little we had maintained, became scattered and rare. Then we heard them. Some brave soul in the Rocky Mountains of Western North America got a signal out. Our enemy had pulled itself together and was attacking in earnest. The town held for less than an hour, but we heard their story and learned how to harm our foe.

Of course, bullets and edged weapons did work, but far too slowly against these Horrors from the Stars (HftS). They could bleed, if you can call what they have blood, as we had discovered it was a mix of Copper and Butane. In short, any flame, explosive, or even a Taser is your best friend against an HftS. Thankfully, no confirmed attacks or sightings have been reported in the last 6 months.

After 27 months of hard fighting, we appear to have won for now, but we must not forget that we are not alone and cannot afford to be caught unawares again. Now, to the issue before us today.

There are colleagues of mine who say we must withdraw from the wider universe, that we should cower on our little planet, praying to whatever God or Gods allowed the HftS to exist in this universe, that we are not found again.

I say, we must attack. Find whatever hostile star they came from and erase it from the sky. Not for revenge, not even in recompense for the lives lost, but to protect our future from their encroachment. We know there is no reasoning with this foe, and they know where we live. There is no choice but to destroy or be destroyed. While we rebuild our home, we cannot forget who defiled it, and that they may still be out there. We must prepare, not for war, but for extinction, be it theirs or our own.

Transcript from Earth, 382 years After First Human Contact (AFHC), approximately 2246 AD Earth time, on the Case for Extermination of the HftS, now commonly known as The Declaration of Human Intent to the Universal Council, in response to the quarantine violation by the H'kraxk pirates. The Council chose not to interfere at that time and allowed Humanity to attack the H'kraxk homeworld before stepping in to prevent a wholesale genocide. Peaceful relations have since been established, and Humanity has joined the broader universe with no further incidents.