by Clarence Lamberth

Created on: August 02, 2008   Last Updated: July 17, 2009

Hostium

War. What a load of crap forced into the mouths and down the throats of humanity! However inevitable, and no matter the root cause, humanity's ingrained predisposition for conflict is an absolute load of purest, grade triple a, sterling stamped bull shit! Yet, every bit as necessary to life as oxygen. Oxymoronic yet didactic. But, with all due respect, and the luxury of hind sight, I must point out that we really didn't want this one. We, for once, didn't even deserve it!

Suddenly, and savagely we were attacked by a fearsome race we didn't even know existed. They gave no warning, and made no attempt at even basic contact or dialogue beyond brutal conflict. Refusing to this day to so much as acknowledge any and all efforts we make to communicate with them on any level, they've taken blind savagery to a whole new strata. They, without fail, fight to the death, and take no prisoners. We have no understanding whatsoever of this enemy outside a meager, rudimentary knowledge of their biologics and technology. In fact, we don't even know what to call them, or what they call themselves. We, humankind, simply call them, the Enemy.

We've heard so little of his voice (Hazarding that the hissing and grunting, punctuated by occasional hoots and clicks is speech.) that we've gleaned less than a handful of units of what we think is his equivalent of speech; we have no idea where he's from, and not an inkling as to his motivation in this particularly vicious and all out war. He simply appeared one day in our systems and initiated an unrelieved cataclysm of murder and destruction!

Embroiled for eight years now in this fight for our very lives, with no end in sight, we have learned that our enemy is, if nothing else, tenacious. Fierce, cunning, and above all, frightfully tenacious. We destroy his fleets and slaughter him by the hundreds of thousands, and still he comes; day after terrible day, year after year. Of course, the slaughter is not one sided by any stretch of the imagination. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around our death toll now in excess of twenty two million and counting and four times that number unaccounted for, and, in any case, refuse to dwell on it. Thank God, they've yet to reach our inner systems and Sol itself! Also, the Herculean efforts of the Terran Navy and her indomitable Marines have played no small part in holding them to the vacuous confines of the outer systems. God grant that we may keep them away, is my fervent prayer!

I am Star

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