The Legend

“What if the Voisters came back? They won’t survive on their own.” Kelek said to the Knight Ruler Jashen as a final plea. Jashen said, looking over the horizon towards the vast northern sea ,“We have served our purpose now Kelek. The last Voister sighting was 200 years ago. We cannot wait here forever. They will be on their own from here”. Jashen disappeared. Kelek wanted to make another plea but he knew it won’t matter. They have established peace on earth, their job is done.

But he hesitated leaving them on their own. He left his Excalibur, hiding it away in a deep cave. The weapon will find it’s bearer by itself when the time is right. Saying his last goodbye to the mighty sword reading the words inscribed on it.

Protect, not destroy, chosen one.

— —

4500 years later

— —

Fleet commander Matt Murdock monitored Andrezans fleets. The humans have been driven to the edge. They have moved from cities to bunkers. They had no answer against the superior power of the Andrezans. The best bet was to hide away and hope they leave. But Matt wasn’t gonna leave this one unfinished.

The young soldier who brought the message awaited Matt’s response. Most messages reached him via comms but this one was different. They have picked up the mention of a powerful weapon from human comms, Excalibur. Matt had done his homework. He knew about the legend of this mighty sword which could turn the tides of this invasion. But it was not part of any recorded history, only folklore, like many others.

Matt finally said, “Thank operation Leader Halberd for his services, but let him know this information is of no consequence in this war.”

The soldier waited, too stunned to move. He was about to make another plea, “But it is important — ”. Matt interrupted him with a signal of hand and a stern look, the soldier left without making any further attempt.

Mat could feel the victory already in his grasp. He could use the minutes when lives weren’t on the line to bask in the success that he had brought to the Empire. A generation without the human blight. Suddenly warning flags erupted on the display screen, a red flash from the front lines approaching the edge of the Mars orbit, which the Andrezans had been using as a frontline to their base. Matt swore under his breath; they must have run into a scouting party or a remote comet station they’d missed in initial scans. He was needed in the war room immediately.

The war room was a massive cavern in the center of the Hive ship, a single tunnel away from Matt’s office. That said, hell had broken loose in the breath it had taken for him to move from his quarters to that Centre of command.

“Fleet Commander!” one of the Generals called to him as he emerged from his tunnel on the ceiling. “We’re doomed now!”

Matt’s first instinct was to yell, but that wouldn’t have been becoming of his station; Instead, he took a moment to collect his thoughts before speaking calmly but loud enough to overcome the chaos, “Situation report, General?”

“We’ve lost the right piercing fleet.”

Matt dropped to the floor, fluttering his wings to slow his descent. He landed in front of the General and stared down at the man. “What was that?”

“The piercing fleet heading for the Human’s Moon station,” the General clarified, “we lost them.”

“Lost contact?”

“No sir, we maintained contact the entire time.”

“Show me,” the Fleet Commander Matt hissed. At the moment, no fleets were engaged in combat, so he had time to get caught up. An entire piercing fleet couldn’t be destroyed in his thirty-second walk. It must have been a glitch in the tracking systems.

“This is the last visual we have,” an aide from one of the communications consoles announced, having overheard the order. “From the Striker Alpha.”

The screen lit up with action. The frontal cameras on the Alotinia pointed through flames and shrapnel. A piercing beam of light cut through the void of space, and the Alpha striker shook.

“Was that a dark ray blaster?” the General asked, looking up at Matt. Humans were decades away from that kind of weaponry breakthrough. They barely had access to proper accelerant shielding.

The Alpha striker’s camera adjusted to the new light, focusing on the hole blown through the vision-consuming debris field. There was a gleaming ship, there for a moment and then gone the next, as if it shattered the barriers of light itself.

“Get me a visual on that vessel,” Fleet Commander Matt barked. If another species intervened in the human’s last moment, he would have them hung at the trial. He didn’t want to lose this one.

The screen rewound, pausing on the single hundredth second the vessel was in view. There were symbols on the side, written in beautiful gold, all outlined by cannons so innumerable that the thing shouldn’t have been able to fly.

“What language is that?” Matt bellowed, asking everyone in the room at once. It must have been those traitorous Fotuans. They were the only ones who could construct a ship so specialized-

“Human English,” an aide called, “it reads Protect, not destroy, chosen one.”

…