Their Darkest Hour

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The senior officers of the Conquest Force rose to their feet as the Command Triad entered the briefing room. Ju’tro Oheghizh bowed his head in submission as they took their three seats, each one representing and commanding an element of the fleet. Together, they would oversee the conquest — and pose no threat to the state, back home. They’d be too suspicious of one another to ever plot treachery together.

“We have been observing Earth for the past five of its rotations,” Va’tro Nak’tak said. Years, Oheghizh reminded himself, careful to think in the language of the prey. “The humans are a curious race. They may well be more unlike us than the Uteck.”

A rustle ran around the compartment as his words sank in. The Uteck, unlike most known races, didn’t possess two arms, two legs and one head. They were utterly alien — which hadn’t stopped them fighting the Eridiani to a standstill in fifty years of bloody warfare. The State still believed that they could defeat the Uteck and occupy their worlds, but it would be a long time before anyone saw fit to resume the war. It had simply been too costly.

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