Eden Solaris: Colonial Marines: Part 1

Date: August 27th, 1587 AC.

Location: Tisilius, fourth moon of Orion VII.

  My name is Avery Saturn; I am a private in the Colonial Marines. The Thallatites are in open revolt across the entire star cluster. After centuries of basically being enslaved by humanity they have finally struck back at us. The High Queens have somehow organized a revolt that has put the Colonies in a state of anarchy. Me, and my fellow Marines were tasked with an important mission that could end this war. I am currently onboard the Colonial Navel cruiser Titan. “Okay listen up men!” Said the leader of my squad, her name was Anya O’Riley, Sargent Anya O’Riley. A beautiful women to say the least, her hair is as red as the Tracka grass of Ulysses Delta, and her eyes as green as the emerald sun of New Ireland.

  “Our squad is going to be assigned to General Ivan Typhon, and we are going to be assigned to a fort in the northern regions of the moon.” She said, I listened to her every word, but I don’t think the rest of the squad really bothered to listen. “So whata we gona do? Sit around? Do some pushups? Drinks some beers?” Said Private Vinnie ‘Da Mook’ Vendreti. “Don’t be stupid, you joined this army to fight for the Colonies. You want to do that sort of thing? Then you should have stayed home.” Anya said as we sat down in the Normandy-class dropship. “So keep the jokes down, if things go alright then the whole lot of you should come back alive, if not, well your families will at least be invited to nice funerals.” She said, everyone but me laughed, the only thing I don’t like about her is her sense of humor.

  The shuttle rocked as it flew out of the hanger, several minutes passed before the shuttle landed in the fort. “Lieutenant Johnson, my squad and I are ready for combat.” Anya said to a man in a navel uniform. “At ease Sergeant, you and your men are to report to Barracks-Delta.” Said Lieutenant Johnson, several days passed, me and my squad were just doing drills for the entire time, and frankly I was at least hoping to shot something. But this?... we were sent to this planet to cut the Thallatite rebellion off at the head, and here we are just exercising, doing general labor, and me trying to work up the nerve to talk to Sargent O’Riley of how I feel about her... and failing miserably when she goes off to do her duties… or when she goes to do some of her very odd hobbies. (Among them was making up absurd mathematic problems involving animals, Greek letters, and vegetables… or fish I never really see what she’s writing)

  I was going mad from the fact that we had not faced any Thallatites since we had arrived; I mean what was the point of being here if we weren’t going to attack them? Did the war stop by the time we got here, and were just here to make sure that they don’t try anything? Then one day, I went to ask Sargent O’Riley about the lack of activity. “Well, I’ll give it to you for paying attention to things.” Anya said. “I’ve been wondering that myself since about a week in, nobody has gone on any patrols, I haven’t seen neither hide nor hair of the general that should be here. You know, that you mention, something seems wrong about this whole setup.” Anya said.

  “Like what Sarge?” I asked. “Well, only way to find out, we sneak into the command center after dark, and figure out what’s really going on here.” Anya said, though that was easier said than done, as day on this moon lasts for a good eighteen hours. By the time night fell we snuck into the command center, several minutes later of avoiding the night guards, and crawling through air ducts we arrived at the main hub of the command center. “Sarge? Wouldn’t this place be heavily guarded, I mean there’s nobody in here.” I pointed out. “Well just call it luck then, or trap either way.” Anya said as she typed something into the console. “Okay, I’m the system and… I don’t believe this.” Anya said. “What Sarge?” I asked. “You’re not going to believe this Private, the entire base has just been a testing ground for some kind of suppressing field that keeps Thallatites at bay.” Anya said. “And what’s worse, everyone at the base was assigned to this one specifically because of our views on the government.”

  “Like what?”

  “Basically, the fact that apparently nobody here really likes it, not anything like we’ve participated against the government, well except for Vinnie who just organized one man protests against the government for not giving tax cuts to people named Vinnie Vendreti.” Anya said; I couldn’t believe it myself, that Vinnie was apparently the sort of guy who would raise a stink over nothing. And apparently we were just sent here to test some kind of field technology. “What’s worse, the base commander, AKA some brat whose daddy just happened to be a Senator and at the same time friends with the President was in on this.” She said bitterly. “Well… is there some kind of time limit for how long this field can last?” I asked. “Let’s see here, the field is due to shut down as part of some kind of project called, ‘get rid of the annoying plebians that just hate us but don’t really do anything about’ at midnight tomorrow.” She said, then the base commander, the self-proclaimed Brigadier General Herman Irving Quincy. “What is the meaning of this? How did you two get in here?” He asked, then Anya pinned him to a table. “I’ll be asking the questions here ‘General’.” She said with a mix of venom and sarcasm in her voice.

  “First of all, did you know anything about a shield that keeps Thallatites at bay?” She asked. “Yes! I was told that I was just supposed to record what the shield did to the Thallatites!” Herman said, seemingly on the verge of wetting himself. “And what’s this about dropping the shield and getting us all killed?” She said not relenting on keeping him in pain. “It was just an experiment! I just know that right before the shield goes down I would already be off world! And this base would be overrun with Thallatites!” Herman bellowed. “I still can’t believe this. There is a war going on, and not only did you send us to this planet just to die for some science experiment. But… this is the Thallatite home world! If we have actually done something other than sit on our laurels and wait to be slaughtered we would have won, pacified the Queens and been home by now! Is there any way to keep the shield from going down?”

  “There isn’t! It’s going to be disabled remotely!” Herman cried out. “Private! We have to put the base on high alert!” She ordered, it took me a while but I found the red alert button. “You’ll pay for this! You have my word as Brigadier General Herman Irving Quincy!” He shouted as Anya let go of him. “Whatever, and change your pants while you’re at it.” She said, and I noticed that he had a massive dark stain on his pants and a big dark brown patch between his legs. We went out of the command center to inform the rest of the Marines of the betrayal by Herman. (I’d refer to him by rank, but frankly anyone that gets that high in the military just from personal connections and no real experience doesn’t deserve it)

  Over the course of the next day we got the entire base properly organized, everyone was scarred by the fact that the government would betray us all like this (though not surprised) but we got everything together for an effective defense when the anti-Thallatite shield was to come down. The following day a large spherical sparks went off that can be assumed to be the shield turning off. The air was tense for several minutes before everyone in the base heard the distinct sound of a Thallatite Warrior’s shriek. “Get ready men, there coming.” Anya said, holding her assault rifle at the main gate. Eventually the sound of the loud stampeding could be heard along with the shrieking and roars of various Thallatite creatures. Then, a Thallatite Titan burst through the gate, flowed by Warriors, Assassins, Hulks, and various other species. “OPEN FIRE!” Anya shouted, followed by every other Marine in the base firing at the Thallatites

  The battle itself was brutal, bullets flying at anything that wasn’t distinctly human, mortars pounded on the Bugs, fires breaking out seemingly at random, the battle itself lasted for several hours. By the end we only had about several dozen wounded, but the entire base and the surrounding area was filled with Thallatite corpses. “So… what do we do now?” I asked Anya as we both stood over a dead Titan. “We find the Thallatite High Queens, and capture or kill them.” Anya said. “But first, we’ve got to make our CO answer for nearly having us all slaughtered.” She said, then as if on cue a shuttle lifted off, and sped off into the sky. “Should we contact someone and tell them about this?” I asked. “No, at best we would just be ignored, and at worse Herman would just have everyone here court-martialed for ‘treason’.” Anya explained. “Then where do we go?” I asked. “We go and find any other Marine bases, gather up as many Marines and equipment as possible. Then we go and hunt down the High Queens.” Anya said.

  That was how the Battle of Tisillius started, we were sold out by command and we were forced to wander the moons north pole for several weeks, as we found out we weren’t the only ones who had been given shield generators that could repel Thallatites, and were subsequently many bases were either deserted, or had managed to pull together some manner of defense. By the time we got to all forty-two bases, we found only twenty-one with any survivors, another seven were completely destroyed and reduced to ruins or craters, we never found the rest of those poor war dogs. But that is the price of war I suppose… though I suppose that it isn’t war if you’re betrayed by the people that are supposed to be calling the shots.

  But I suppose that doesn’t matter now. Our mission still stands, but we aren’t doing this for the politicians that sold us out to die on this planet. We’re doing this to protect our family and friends from these ransacking bugs.

  I’ll update this journal when we get closer to the queens… that might be a while though.