ByronArnold

When Earth was destroyed, Humanity lost all hope. Hope in ever being a force upon the Galactic scene. Hope of an united Humanity. Even the hope of survival.
We lost our hope, and now we wait to die. Sure, we reproduce, we give birth the next generation. But our will to live on as a species is gone. Only our damned sex drive keeps bringing a new generation of Humanity into a merciless existence of slavery.
“Gui’nokh!”
Gwen hated being called by that name. It sounded so… alien!
“That’s because it is!” She told herself as she closed her small diary and placed it in her bosom- the only place the Masters wouldn’t think of looking for it!
“Coming!” She shouted in the Master’s language, and started running in that direction.
“Where have you been, my little slave?” Chuve’anokh asked her when she prostrated herself at its feet.
“In my room, sleeping.”
“Well, my scrub is a half hour late!” Chuve’anokh roared.
Gwen hadn’t realized it was so late! Time always flew when she wrote.
“Will my master forgive me?”
“If you do a good enough job with my scrub, then I shall consider it!
The Masters shed little patches of skin every few hours, so that they shed an entire layer of skin about every couple days. They found it very undignifying to scrape their own skin, so they had always had slaves. Before their space age had begun many millennia ago, they had made slaves of their own species. Then they discovered the alien race of the Elgiers, enslaved many of them, and freed all of their own kind. They subsequently enslaved many races that they later came into contact with, including the humans.
"Just remember what happened to your parent when she was no longer useful to me!”
Gwen shuddered just thinking about it. She still could see her mother’s head lying on the table, surrounded by different meats that she knew had been the flesh she had so often clung to as a little girl when she was frightened by the monstrous looking Masters.
That night, Gwen was exhausted. But as always, she used up the very last bit of streangth to write the ending of her diary entry she had thought up while scrubbing dead skin cells off a humongous monster.
Then she crawled onto the mat she slept on, and fell asleep. Or tried to, at least. Philosophical thoughts filled her head, thoughts of the immorality of slavery, how Humanity must have had a low level of species Karma, how there must be some way to end this nightmare Humanity found itself in… But she could think of no way. Eventually, she fell into a restless sleep. One in which she dreamed of some day bearing a child that would someday watch as she met the fate that all slaves met, of being place on the Masters dinner table.

There is an old legend, the legend of Thomas Adamson. He was a child on Earth on its final day. He was playing in front of his house in the noon sun when suddenly it got dark.
“Momma, momma!” he shouted as he ran inside, “Something is covering the sun!”
His mother hushed him, for she was watching the television. Out of it was coming a voice so hideous, so monstrous, so alien, that it was terrifying.
A translation was running in subtitles under a picture of an alien spacecraft. “We are tired of playing games with you primitive humans. We have given your species chance after chance to surrender to us, but you refuse. So this is your death day!”
“Momma, what is death?”
“It is an eternal darkness, a sleep that never ends.”
“Do we dream?”
His mother couldn’t answer, for there was a shuddering of the ground. A giant earthquake engulfed the entire world.
Then, there was nothing left of Earth, except for a field of debris that was the only remains of the world once called Earth…

Gwen heard something outside her door, so she slammed her diary shut and threw it into her bosom. She lied down onto her mat as fast as she could and shut her eyes.
“Gui’nokh!” came the voice from outside her door.
It was Chuve’anokh, with what appeared to be sincere concern in it’s voice.
Gwen put on a tired look, and slowly opened the door.
“Yes, what is it, Master?”
“I heard little scratching on something in here?” the alien said, “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a liovit!”
A liovit was a legendary creature within the Master’s folk lore which was the size of, and looked a lot like, a mouse, but possessed great intelligence.
Chuve’anokh must have heard me writing in my diary, Gwen thought to herself, That must have been the “scratching” that it heard.
“I didn’t hear anything, Master.”
“Well, my skin is all flakey again. While you’re awake, you can give me a scrubbing.”
“Yes, Master.”

ByronArnold

The Masters’ legends say that there is a race of small, furry beings that once raged war against them, and almost defeated the Masters. But mysteriously, the liovit ceased their war, and disappeared from history. The parents threaten their children constantly that, if they are not good, they will be eaten by the liovit.
Back in the days before Humanity’s enslavement, Human scientists had declared that the existence of the liovit was a physical impossibility. They said that an intelligent brain fitting into such a small brain cavity was impossible. So we know that it is impossible. However, the Masters, with their “higher intelligence”, somehow still believe it is possible. Some of my dearest friends, before they ended up as meat on Chuve’anokh’s table, used to joke about releasing a dozen mice into Chuve’anokh’s room. Of course, finding any mice on this alien world was just as impossible as the existence of the liovit.
Gwen closed her diary, placed it in her bosom, and lay down on her pillow. She closed her eyes, and drifted off too sleep. She had a dream of escaping Chuve’anokh and finding a planet of free humans that offered her asylum.. But Chuve’anokh followed her with a gigantic fleet. They knocked out all of the planet’s space defenses, and made a landing on the surface.
Chuve’anokh started rounding up the citizens of this new world, declaring it would become rich by selling them all on the slave market.
Chuve’anokh found Gwen, and forced her to watch as Chuve’anokh had one, and then another, of the humans slaughtered, and then cooked. Then Chuve’anokh grabbed the slaughtering knife, and looked at Gwen. “You have served me well, up till you escaped. Now you will pay by becoming my food!”
Gwen awoke with a start, and realized it was morning. She had to go make Gwen’s breakfast.
She got up, and jumped when she saw a mouse.
|I am not a mouse!|
The thought forced itself into Gwen’s mind.
Upon closer examination, she realized that, indeed, it wasn’t a mouse. It’s shape was all wrong.
“It’s a liovit!” She whispered.
|No, I am the Liovit.|
Gwen was confused. The tiny being must have sensed her confusion.
|This “body” you see is only a small part of me. I have trillions of such “bodies” across the galaxy. We all share a telepathic link that allows each body’s brain be a small part of a much larger collective brain.|
“What do you want with me?”
|I have seen that your master is very much attached to you. I have also seen that you resent your slavery, and would love to be free!|
“Why, yes, I do want to be free. More than anything else. Can you help me?”
|At this very moment, I am communicating with millions of other slaves across the galaxy who are in the same situation, living under the rule of slave owners. I feel that if we all unite, we can form a grand army to destroy the institute of slavery within this galaxy forevermore.|
“An army. That means war. But war is what doomed Humanity to begin with.”
|Having no homeworld does not mean you have no hope. My homeworld, too, was destroyed many long centuries ago. But I still pushed on, and I thrive on thousands of worlds galactic wide! Most mistake me for one rodentoid or another, not suspecting that I am sentient. Humanity, too, can thrive. There are worlds out there that are only inhabited by me. You can adopt one of those worlds as your homeworld, if you wish. It does not matter. Slavery is wrong, and must be stopped!|
“I need to go make go make my master’s breakfast, please visit me tonight,” Gwen whispered.
|If you wish to remain a slave for another day, go ahead. But this is a one time offer. I leave in a couple minutes, with or without you!|
Gwen didn’t know what to do. There was no place on this world that she could hide from the Masters. If she ran away, they would surely find her before she could run away. And the dream she had had last night, it scared to death.
On the other hand, she did not feel like spending another morning cooking the flesh of other humans. She had thought about running away many times, but had never been able to work up the courage to do so.
|The Time of Choices is now! Choose!|
“Let’s go!”
|Good, good! Follow me!|
The small rodent jumped down from the edge of Gwen’s bed and ran up the wall to the window, and hopped out of it. Gwen followed Liovit out the window. They ran into the woods, and to a stream. The stream ran down the mountain Chuve’anokh lived on, and disappeared into the side of another mountain. They followed the stream to the foot of this mountain.
|Under the water, you will find a tunnel that leads into the mountain. Follow it, and this tunnel leads to a lake inside the mountain. You will find another one of my “bodies” inside the cavern, as well as your mode of leaving this world.|
“And what will you do?”
|I assume you mean what will this body do? I will lead it to some find some nourishment. That way, it will not die.|
Gwen nodded, and jumped into the stream. It was deeper than it looked, and just as Liovit had said, there was an underwater tunnel leading into the mountain. She followed it, trying to hold her breath as long as she could. Just when she thought she couldn’t hold it any longer, she noticed the tunnel going up. She gave herself a quick push off the bottom of the tunnel, and came up to air just in time to catch a breath before she would have run out of breath.
She got out of the water, and noticed several beings. There were a few other humans, and several beings of different races. The only thing they all had in common was that they all belonged to slave races.
A rodentoid (a being resembling a rodent), about twice the size of the one that had brought Gwen here, stood in the midst of the creatures.
|There are thirty-seven of you here. Gwen here is the last one of you that is going to go offworld today. Today, you all are no longer slaves, but free soldiers in an army that will abolish slavery, once and for all!
|On the eastern wall, you will see a huge metal ring that is propped up on its side. It is big enough that a being from any known race in the Galaxy will fit through it. When this thing is activated, it will form a wormhole that will connect this ring to another ring like it to a ring that is on the world of Regujis. On Regujis, there is an army forming. You will be trained there, and be assigned to a squadron. After that, your squadron will be assigned to a front in the war that will soon start.
|Before you leave for Regujis, however, you will eat. On the northern wall is several cooling units. Open them, and you will find several containers. Each person may have one. In each container is a complete meal.|
As Gwen ate, she studied the ring. It was large and metallic. There were 24 small circular buttons at the bottom of the ring, where the ring touched the floor. Equally spaced out on the ring were 12 spheres. What they were for, Gwen could not guess.
When they were all finished, the rodentoid went to the ring and with its nose typed in a sequence of six buttons. What appeared to be a laser beam came from each of the 12 spheres, heading for the center of the ring. Where they met, a small circular disc of light-energy formed. The disc steadily grew till the inside of the ring was filled with the light-energy.
|Everyone walk into the light, and you will come out of a similar ring on Regujis. Good luck, and may the Cosmic Force be in your favor!|
Gwen did as instructed. When she reached the ring, she walked right through. It was kinda like walking through a door. When she got to the other side, she was outside, in a clearing with buildings on all sides. She was met by a gruff looking alien she had never seen before. It was reptilian, complete with blue scales, eyes on the sides of its heads, and a large tail. But it walked upright like a human.
“Hello! How was your first trip through the WormRing?” The alien said in the Masters’ language, the only language that all the slaves that had just come through the ring would know.
“I find that it has no sensation, but rather feels like one would feel like walking through a door,” the gruff alien said, “I am Gusols. My mission is to teach you the language of this Army. It was constructed by the Liovit, and is a complete synthesis of many different languages across the galaxy. It is a relatively easy language to learn, and you will be speaking it fluently within a few months. During that time, you will also be going through a program that will tune you both mentally and physically, as well as teach each of you the special abilities your species offers that will benefit this Army.
“After this time, you will be divided into squadrons of 24, and will go through further training. After the war starts, you will be assigned to a planet, where you will fight the various species of slave owners under a Commander. Any questions? Good, follow me and I will show you to your living quarters.”
As they walked, Gusols gave them further information.
“There are millions of soldiers being trained on this world. From your guys’ world alone, a group of about 50 come here every few days. There is only one WormRing, which is short for Wormhole Ring, on this world, but there are thousands of these training camps across this planet. I will take you to one of these cities which is about a hundred kilometers from here. We will be taking my personal jet.
“The WormRing is a technology that is as yet unknown to anyone in the Galaxy except the Liovit and members of our Army. However, the only one who knows enough about it to be able to construct one, or to use one, is the Liovit. This is to ensure that the technology doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, since the Liovit can release any of it’s bodies at any moment, so it whithers away and dies almost instantly.”
Suddenly Gusols stopped, and Gwen saw that they were in front of a huge vehicle that sort of resembled a huge bird. Must be a jet, thought Gwen.
They got in the jet, and in a matter of minutes after take off, were landing again. They got out and were in a training camp that actually looked like a training camp instead of a humongous city.

ByronArnold

Six months later, Gwen was a killing machine. She had been taught to not repress her anger and disgust towards slavery, but to channel it to the cause of destroying that institution. The strategies for the upcoming war was direct and straight forward- capture worlds that had substantial slave populations, free the slaves, and recruit any ex-slaves that wished to join the Army of Liberation.
She had been taught her natural capabilities as a Human, and how to best utilize those capabilities to bring down enemies of several different races. Above all, she had been taught the weaknesses of each of the slave owning races. She had been given an intermediate course in military strategy. She had been placed in a squadron of 22 other ex-slaves, about half from Dezithin, the world that Gwen had been bred and trained as a slave, and had first met Liovit, and escaped.
Today was the day she had been looking forward to ever since that day she had been taken from her world. It was the day she would once again walk through the WormRing, and then be thrust into combat to free the dozens of races that were enslaved.
Gusols was the Commander of her squadron, the elite of her training class. These were the ones that showed the most promise, and were placed under the best commander.
“Together, freedom is ours!” He declared, and struck his breast three times with a closed fist, which was the salute a commander gave during a pep-talk.
Each of the 23 soldiers struck their breasts twice and then held their fist (or equivalent) to their breast, the standard salute a soldier gives to a superior.
“The world we go to is Dezithin. About half of you are already familiar with this world and its language, culture, and climate. These soldiers will be great assets to this mission. You will be briefed further when our HQ Commander brief the other squadrons that will be involved in the mission. Ready? Let’s move!”
A small Liovit (what the Army called a “Ring Operator”) pressed several buttons with its nose, and the lasers fired and formed the wormhole. One by one the soldiers stepped through, and Gwen marveled that with one step she could traverse hundreds of lightyears, and she didn’t even feel a sensation.
She found herself in the cavern, which she now noticed was big enough to fit hundreds of soldiers comfortably.
|Everyone get ready to prepare for sleep. As you will notice, there are several tunnels that lead out of here. Each one leads to a cave room big enough for a squadron. Those will be the Squadron habitations when they are not out on a mission. You will each sleep for seven hours, then I will awake you and you will be briefed. The meals are still on the eastern wall. Please, enjoy your meal before you go to sleep.|
Gwen did as she was told, ate and then followed her commander to their quarters. She was asleep within 10 minutes of laying her head down.
That night, Gwen dreamed of her squadron being captured by the masters along with several other squadrons. They were all herded into stalls, with Chuve’anokh laughing that it would make a fortune off these escaped slaves. When Chuve’anokh saw Gwen, she stopped laughing. A hatred Gwen had never before seen filled the alien’s eyes. Chuve’anokh grabbed a slaughtering knife, and looked at Gwen. “You had served me well, up till you escaped. Now you will pay for your insolence by becoming my food!”
The beast stepped towards Gwen and stabbed at Gwen with the knife. But Gwen dodged it easily. She then kicked the beasts feet from underneath it, and Chuve’anokh fell to the ground. The knife dropped to the floor.
“No, you will pay for your insolence! You will pay for the death of my mother and my most beloved friends! You will pay for everything!”
Gwen brought her fist down roughly on the Master’s collarbone, the place she had been taught would temporarily paralyze a Master if given enough pressure.
Chuve’anokh started laughing, and flung her across the room. She rose, and sneered, “You can’t kill me! You are nothing but a slave. You may be fighting for your freedom, but it is a vain fight. Slavery has always existed in this Galaxy, and it always will!”
Chuve’anokh started towards Gwen. It picked up it’s knife as it passed the spot on the floor the knife was laying at. When it got to Gwen, it lifted the knife above its head and brought it down to Gwen. Everything went into slow motion. The knife descended towards Gwen’s chest centimeter by centimeter.
“No!” She shouted, and awoke in a cold sweat.
Her heart was pounding ferociously.
Commander Gusols, she suddenly realized, was awake and staring at her.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, just a nightmare,” Gwen turned over and faced the wall. Tears started to well up in her eyes.
“You know it no longer has any power over you, right?”
“What?” She asked, still facing the wall.
“Your former owner, it has no power over you. You are a Free Being now.”
Gwen turned around and looked at her Commander. “How did you know- Can you read dreams?”
“No, but I can sense strong emotions. And the emotions you were feeling while you were dreaming led me to infer that you were having a nightmare about your previous owner.”
“I am sorry for my- for my unsoldier-like behavior,” Gwen apologized, “I am supposed to be a killing machine, and here I am balling my eyes out!”
“Since my people can sense emotion, we learned how to control our emotions, so that we are not open books to everyone we meet. But it has come at a severe price.”
“Like what?”
“For one, we do not know joy. We see other races become overwhelmed with joy. We are envious of you.”
“But you don’t have to worry about grief. I think it is by far a more than fair trade-off for you to experience grief as long as you get to experience joy!”
“Joy, like the joy I felt when I saw my mother eaten by monsters? Or the joy I felt the day I found out my race is a doomed one? Or the joy I experienced when- when- when-”
She could hold it in no longer. She began to sob uncontrollably.
“You have known much grief in your life, I do not doubt this. But you have experienced joy. I have seen it. The joy you felt when you realized there is hope for your race’s freedom. Or the joy you experienced when you realized the advantages humans have over other races. And someday, you will know the joy of love. Someday, you will know the joy of motherhood. These are the things my race gave up millennia ago.”
For the next couple hours, the commander spoke soothing words to her, and she eventually feel back to sleep. But this time, it wasn’t a restless sleep, but a peaceful sleep, filled with dreams of a free humanity in the distant future.

ByronArnold

The next morning, it was at breakfast time that a sudden curiosity about the Liovit hit Gwen like a brick.
“The legends of the Masters speak of a previous war between the Liovit and them. In this war, the Liovit stopped just short of utter victory over the Masters. I wonder what the war was over, and why they stopped.”
Gusols spoke up for the first time that morning.
“The Liovit has a concept of a Cosmic Force that sees to all wrongs being righted. To it, the greatest evil is to bring something to extinction, because the Liovit believes that the there is a great beauty in diversity, and to bring a species of any kind to extinction is to limit that diversity. When the Liovit saw that if it continued it’s war, the Masters would go extinct, the Liovit relented.”
“But what was the war about? What go it started in the first place?” Joseph, another human in Gwen’s squadron, asked.
“The Masters tried to enslave the Liovit. They wanted to use it’s bodies to perform experiments on. They didn’t understand the Liovit was a single being, not a race.”
“How did a group of such small rodentoids fight a war against a race of such monstrous beings?” Gwen asked.
“The Liovit has a great intelligence. Intelligence can work wonders.”
|Attention, all soldiers. The time for this war to begin is upon us. Each of the squadron leaders has been given an objective. They will explain that objective to you before you leave this cave. Then you will be given your communicators, and you will be sent on your way.
|I’m sure the majority of you have already realized that two thirds of this army is human. So let me explain the importance of this world to humanity. This world has three suns, I’m sure you all know that. What you don’t know is that star system was called by ancient Humanity Alpha Centauri. This world was the first world colonized by Humans outside their own solar system. This world is the closest thing to a homeworld humanity has left! So let’s fight for it as if it is your homeworld. This world, is my gift to the Humans. Once this world is free of all slaves, Humans will have control of this world. This will be your new homeworld!|
Gusols handed out small devices, and placed one on his temple.
“They decipher your brain waves to transmit your thoughts. It is so sophisticated, that to start and stop transmitting only requires a thought! As you are thinking the thoughts you wanted transmitted, simply imagine of them being transmitted.
“Now our main objective for this squadron, along with several other squadrons, is a plantation several hundred kilometers south of here. We capture the plantation before the slave owners notify the military. We free the slaves, and then we bring them back here. Those who wish to join our fight will be sent back to Regujis for training. The others will be sent halfway across the galaxy to a world unknown to all except the Liovit. There the former slaves can create a new life, one of Freedom! Of the squadrons heading for that plantation, we will be the last to leave. The first squadron will be leaving in about half an hour. We will be leaving in about six. Now put on your communicators. I don’t want to hear another single word from anyone for the rest of the day. Instead, I want everyone to practice communicating with these. When transmitting, first state your name so that everyone can learn to identify the ‘voices’ of everyone else’s thoughts.”
|Commander Gusols. I will call each name, and I want you to state your name, and then say a short message.|
When he called Gwen’s name, she gave it a try.
|Gwen Eriost. I love Freedom, and will die fighting to give it to every sentient being in the Galaxy!|
|Commander Gusols. Good job. Next is Fulios Gerteoise.|
After they had finished their roll call, Commander Gusols started a conversation:
|Commander Gusols. What do you think of the Liovit giving this world to the humans?|
|Fulios Gerteoise. Being an Amzert, I find it very unfair that we non-humans must fight for a world that we won’t be able to live on.|
|Gwen Eriost. You forget, there are non-Amzerts, among them human, fighting to liberate your homeworld as we speak.|
|Fulios Gerteoise. You are right. I didn’t think of that.|
|Sija’eros. There is one major difference. That world once thrived as the capital of the Amzert Empire. However, the Amzerts aren’t receiving their second colonized world back. It will be what the Liovit calls an interracial planet, free for all races to live on and share. The same should go for this world.|
|Joseph Deraggio. What needs to be brought to your attention is what the Liovit said earlier. This is the closest thing to a homeworld my race has. Of course it should be given to the humans!|
The argument raged on, full of passion from both sides. And it wasn’t a battle of Humans vs. nonhumans. There were some humans arguing for this world to be an interracial world. Then there were also some nonhumans who were arguing for this world to be given to the humans. And quite a few had switched sides by the end of the discussion.
|Commander Gusols. This is what you all need to learn to do. When each of you leave the military life and enter the civilian life, most of you will be going to a democratic world. You will need to learn to argue your viewpoints with logic and reason, and learn to give consideration to other’s view points. True, this topic is not available to be changed. The Liovit has decided the fate of this world. But this has given you the taste of debate!|
A far more powerful “voice” broke in, what that wasn’t from a piece of technology, but rather was from a natural telepathy: |And an interesting debate it is! But there is a third option that as of yet no one has considered or even brought up: There is a slight possibility that the humans could decide that diversity is indeed a great blessing; they could welcome all species to this world!|
This thought was much stronger than the others were; it was clear that it was from the Liovit. This thought sparked a whole new series of discussion, comments, and critiques to this viewpoint.
After a while, the thought of the Liovit once again broke into their discussion:
|It is time for your squadron to be dispatched, Commander Gusols. As you know, your target lies to the south of here. May the Cosmic Force be in your favor!|
|Commander Gusols. Everyone to the lake! It is time to fulfill our destinies!|

ByronArnold

|Commander Gusols. Gwen, Jospeh, Fulios, and Sijaeros will cover the rest of us as we make our way to the those buildings over there. Then we shall cover for you guys. Get ready, set, GO!|
Gwen stared at the forest line that lie at the edge of the clearing, looking for snipers. At the opposite end of the clearing from where they were were the slaves’ quarters.
She spotted something flash off of something in the forest. Sure enough, a gunshot was heard coming from the forest. She pointed her gun in the direction of the flash and looked through the scope of the gun. Sure enough, there was a Master. Gwen knocked him off, and use the scope to examine the rest of the forest line. She saw a couple others, and knocked each of them off. She could tell her comrades were having similar success getting rid of the snipers, one by one.
|Commander Gusols. We have you covered, you four may now join us. Come on!!!|
She passed four bodies of her fallen comrades as she passed the clearing. They must have gotten all the snipers in the forest line, for not a single gun shot was heard as they crossed the clearing. Gusols busted the door in on one of the slaves quarters, and found 20 to 30 slaves.
“I am Commander Gusols of the Army of Liberation. My squadron will escort you all to freedom! Pack anything you can carry that won’t slow you down. We leave in 15 minutes!”
Commander Gusols left a few soldiers with the slaves, and took the rest of the soldiers to the next slave quarters. He gave the same speech there, left a few soldiers, and went on to the next slave quarters. In 15 minutes, he had all the slaves gathered.
|Commander Gusols speaking. I have all the slaves. Keep the enemy engaged for a little while longer, and my squadron will lead the slaves back to base.|
They slipped into the woods, and started heading towards the caves. Then Commander Gusols gave another order.
|When we get to the stream, I want Gwen, Joseph, Fulios, and Sijaeros to each find a spot to hide in the area. I want you to be snipers, knocking off any of those monsters that foolishly decided to follow us.|
Gwen hid behind a tree, Joseph ducked under a boulder, Fulios actually climbed a tree, and camouflaged her skin, and Sijaeros just turned himself invisible, as invisibility was one of the defense mechanisms here species had evolved early on!
A pack of Masters suddenly appeared on the horizon. Gwen suddenly had an idea, so she shared it:
|Don’t fire or give away your position until they are a little closer. That way we have the element of surprise!|
Early in her training, Gusols had realized that Gwen was had a talent for tactical thinking, so everyone knew that when she had an idea, it was usually a good one. That’s why Sijaeros replied:
|Just give us the word when its good to fire!|
Gwen watched them as they got closer.
“Those fools left a trail so easy to follow, you can tell they are amateur soldiers!” one of the Masters declared when they were close enough to be heard.
Joseph thought: |No, we just wanted to spring this little trap on you!|
Fulios said: |Gwen, they are getting pretty close… Shouldn’t we be firing now?|
|No, just wait a few more seconds… NOW! FIRE AT WILL!|
There were four gunshots heard almost simultaneously, and four of the beasts were down. The Masters looked around in confusion, and before they could locate anyone, six more were down. The Masters started firing in random directions since they couldn’t see anyone, hoping to get lucky and take out the snipers. But they more often hit another master than one of the snipers. The battle was over in 20 minutes, the Masters were all dead. They had numbered 23.
Joseph said: |How did everyone fair?|
Fulios and Sijaeros were well to do. But Gwen thought: |I have been shot. I am losing a lot of blood!|
All three of the other soldiers ran to Gwen, and Joseph saw immediately that this could be a fatal situation.
|Fulios and Sijaeros, go back to base and get help! I’ll stay with Gwen and do what I can! She is an asset we cannot afford to lose!|
|Agreed! Come on, Fulios, we must hurry!|
After they left, Joseph examined her wound. It was on her calf, and it looked pretty deep.
“I am going to try to dig out the bullet,” he whispered.
He got his first aid kit that was strapped onto his upper arm, and pulled out the miniature knife and tweezers. He cut the wound open a little bit more, and he felt Gwen’s grip on his arm tighten. He used the pliers, and felt around a little bit.
|GOD… DAMN!| Gwen broadcasted loud and clear.
“Sorry, I’m trying to be as gentle as possible while simultaneously trying to hurry up!” Joseph whispered.
“Aha! Here it is!” He held the bullet up for Gwen to see.
“Oh god, that feels a little bit better.”
Joseph took off his jacket, and with his knife, he turned it into shreds of cloth. He bandaged her wound up.
“There, that should minimize the bleeding. Now all we have to do is wait for those two bozos to get back with help!”
Then they heard Fulios say: |You guys may want to move to another spot! We have just been captured, and these beasts will go right through where you are to get back to their camp at the plantation!|

ByronArnold

Joseph hefted Gwen upon his shoulder. |Looks like its time to get out of here.|
|You’ll never be able to get out of here with me slowing you down! Leave me!|
|I can’t leave you! You’re too important to me!|
|What?|
|To all of us! You are a genius, and this army needs you!|
Gwen’s thoughts were in a whirlwind. Could he have meant, “You are too important to me?”
And more importantly, did she feel the same way?
No, it would never work out! Her life was meant to be the soldier’s life! To free her race from slavery was her destiny!
Or was it? Could her destiny be that she find Joseph, and fall in love?
Sure, he was older, but only by a few years. Sure she was young, but girls on their late adolescence had fallen in love before.
Joseph laid her down beside a boulder. She realized that he had been carrying her for about half an hour. He took great care to remove all traces of them several hundred meters away.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Better. I think I am beginning to regain my strength.”
“That’s good. Just make me a promise, if you see a light, don’t go towards it?”
He started to chuckle quietly. She joined him.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. The Slave Owners of this galaxy can’t get rid of me that easily!”
He stared down at her, with deep concern written all over his face.
Could he actually be in love with me? She thought to herself, I do know, now, that I am in love with him!
She had the sudden desire to know what it would feel like to have their lips meet. She started to lift her face towards his when suddenly he jerked his head up, then ducked behind the boulder.
|Don’t move a muscle, Gwen!|
A master’s voice came from several hundred meters away. “We need to find this human! It’s tracks just seem to stop here!”
“Well, there was only one set of tracks, and apparently it’s wounded because there is a trail of blood following the tracks.”
“An easy kill!”
Gwen noticed that Joseph had blood all over his clothes. Her blood!
“Well, let’s do a thorough search of thearea!”
|You need to stay here, Gwen!|
He took off running towards the beasts! “I surrender!”
|What are you doing, Joseph?!?|
|Saving you! After we are out of sight, and you have regained your strength, head back to camp!|
|No, don’t leave me! I need you… I love you!|
|I love you too. Never forget that!|
Gwen did some quick thinking. After they had chained Joseph, they started heading away. She peeked above the boulder, and saw there were only four of them.
She fingered her gun, and took careful aim at the one closest to Joseph, and then fired four shots. She only missed one, and when that beast turned around to look for the shooter, she got it in the forehead before it could spot her.
She awkwardly stood on her leg for the first time since getting shot. She slowly made her way to Joseph, and released him from the chains. After that, he picked her up.
|Come on, Gwen. We need to get back to camp ASAP!|
|It’s almost dark. Maybe we should lie low until then.|
|That will make it harder for us to be followed. You’re a genius!|
She smiled.
|I’m going to climb this tree and gather some fruit so that we can have something to eat. Just stay here and let you leg rest, and heal a little bit!|
By the time they finished eating, it was dark. Joseph once again hefted her onto his shoulder. He whispered, “It’s time to go home!”

ByronArnold

Several years later, Gwen was cooking some dinner when Joseph came through the door.
“Hey, babe, welcome home!”
“Yeah, the Liovit finally let me come home.”
“Are you on leave, or did the Liovit finally approve your retirement?”
“I’m retired now. The Liovit told me that it was sorry to see me go, that I was one of the best Commanders the Army has. But it understands.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to have you home.”
“I’m glad to be home. Since you were discharged, the Army has been a little boring. I mean, I couldn’t make any more midnight trips into the forest on scouting trips without you there!”
She smiled, remembering the passion…
“Well, I need you home. For the same reason that I was discharged. Which is all your fault anyway!”
She put her hands on her swollen stomach and chuckled. He joined her with the laugh that she loved so much.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have missed the birth of our daughter for anything! She and you are the two most important things in the Galaxy, you know!”
“I wish! So how was the news from the war front?”
“Well, the war is far from over. But another empire has signed a treaty with the Liovit in exchange for outlawing slavery. And our intelligence says that there are a couple more empires that are close to that point.”
“Well, I only have one thing to say. It’s a saying our ancestors had, before our space era had even begun. I discovered it while excavating the library just outside of Dezithin City. It that will was very popular in those day. I’m sure it will ring true, one day.”
“Well, what’s the saying?”
“Let freedom ring!”

Rahvin

Good. Well plotted, and Gwen's charcters is well established. Some (but not many) parts were a little clumsily written, but that's just me being awkward...

If I were to point out anything that needed improving, I would probably say the whole love scene wants reqorking slightly. It just seems too rushed and abrupt. (well, I think it does anyway...)

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ByronArnold

I thought about introducing Joseph sooner, I just don't know where. Perhaps she run into him in the cave the first time, when she escapes Chuve'anokh? Or maybe when she first gets to Regujis? I don't know...

Besides this, I don't know how I could rework the love scene. I'm at a loss, to be honest...

This story is actually written as a gift to my fiancee. Most of my stories are tragedies, in which one of the main characters (or more) ends up dying. I just think a tragedy is more powerful of a story. However, my fiancee gets upset at me because I kill off all my characters. SO I decided to write one that wasn't a tragedy for a change.

What other parts do you think are clumsily written? I do want to revise this, improve it as much as possible, and make this the first "great" story I have written, and also by recognizing what is clumsily written, I might be able to avoid writing such clumsy scenes in the future (I hope).

Much appreciation to your comment. I am also welcoming any comments from anyone else!

And I will contemplate on how to rewrite the love scene for a couple days, and then give a go at it, and then you guys can tell me what you think! If you have any suggestions on how to make it better, I will surely consider utilizing them!!!

Peace,
Byron Arnold

Rahvin

The change from horror at her mother's death to the description of the Masters' shedding seems too abrupt. Maybe it should be the other way around. Have the description of the shedding, then Chuve'anokh threatening her, then the mother bit?

Seems a little too Lion King-y...

Should be "Its". "It's" would be "It is shape was all wrong"...

Should this be "Chuve'anokh's breakfast"?


Should really be "thirty-seven"

Squadrons are usually vehicles of some sort (I think...). Squad would be more appropriate.

Should be "you guys' world". The way it is, it sounds as if the guys are a possession, not the subject.

Aside from it being supper awesome, this detracts from the story. It stops the grim outlook of war, and makes it more farcial. Which may have been what you intended, but if it was, maybe find a different way of doing it. It almost destroys Gusol's character early on.

The exclamation mark kind of ruins the effect of the whole nightmare thing.

It is hard to discern when the commander stops speaking and the Liovit starts...

This seems abrupt. We get no inkling that Gwen is anything other than of average intelligence, then we are told she is genus. I'd suggest changing the genius part, or maybe just making it a "tactical genius" or that she ad "a gift for tactics" or warfare, or something like that...

The first sentence is too emotionless. If that was the effect you wanted, then you maight want to change the second sentence instead. Either way, the two don't really fit with the punctuation they've got.


The scene where she realises she loves Joseph needs reworking. She realises her love too soon, considering it hasn't even been hinted at before. Either drop some hints earlier on in the story, or lengthen this part. Apart from that though, the scene's not that bad at all.

I realise this is for effect, and to explain the title, but it doesn't fit the pacing of the section. The way it's written, it's as if she's shouting it, which wouldn't really fit.


There you go, all I could find in one read through. There may be more, and Iknow there are a few typos I haven't quoted, but apart from that...

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ByronArnold

I made a lot of the corrections to the bestI could think of. You can reread those sections if you want. I took out the "Circle of life" lines.

I am still contemplating on how to rewrite the love scene. That will be a rewritten in a couple of day, when I can figure out how to bestrewrite it. Barring a better idea comes along, I'll probably just introduce Joseph a little sooner in the story, have a short scene of their meeting, then update the love scene itself.

Peace,
Byron