The remnant times

" Why are we going to the backwater planet anyway, it would be easier to just use the Tiash Lukius on them," Xhuli said, covering her obsidian coloured eyes with protective lenses. We had been warned that the sun in this particular solar system wouldn't be friendly to our eyes, not that we were supposed to stay there for long. The orders were to destroy all signs of remnant life and request for the Tiash Lukius if they even dared to put up a fight.

"I've seen what the Tiash Lukius could do, and being blown to pieces was not a fate I would wish upon any planet," I said, pulling on my suit. It was made of the same gleaming silver coloured material that everyone wore.

Xhula scowled. It was as close as we could get to emotion as a specie, The Amati were not known for their emotions. With shiny grey skin, obsidian eyes and an imposing height, intimidation came too easily. "Be careful who you say that around."

I bit my tongue, aware that someone could have heard me. The Supremacy gave orders and our species followed, that was the end of it. No one ever knew what humans did to fall out of favour with the Supremacy, but for all leaders of the galaxies to agree to their destruction, they had to have made a major mistake.

Earth zoomed into focus on the main screen, appearing in different shades of grey. Even though the lenses, I could see the great rift that almost divided the pale grey planet into half.

" Not a pretty one, is it?" Xhuli asked as our spaceship approached the wreckage of a planet. As the Law keepers, we had seen planets and planets in our world-destroying endeavours. A few were prettier than others but it was difficult to say because all planets we had ever seen were grey. Even our spaceship and everything inside it was grey.

" I can't complain, a knife barely has an opinion in the beauty of the flesh it stabs," I said. Her parted lips and her furrowed brows were indications enough that she had an objection but a low, sharp sound tore through the entire ship. It was a command for all soldiers.

The mothership stopped but it was a while later before the pods were ready for launch. The pods were miniature machines, designed to carry a single entity at a time but with enough food supply for years in case of accidents. A single fleet could hold hundreds of pods.

 I got into my pod, bracing myself for the string of blaring commands that followed. The commands were barked in the fleet commander's voice but unmistakably the words were the supremacy's. Where one would have expected a motivational speaker for the peril that lay ahead, a short statement is all we got. "Eliminate all forms of life and report to the commander in case of any resistance."

I had seen planets by the dozen, but nothing could prepare me or any of the other dozen souldiers for the planet. The place was an expanse of emptiness that stretched on for as far as the eye could see. Nothing was standing except for a few dead shrubs. Even the air itself was heavy with a thickness that made walking feel like wading through water.

Drones were far from being a rarity in the mothership, but there were even fewer that could last a few hours in the poisoned air of the planet before rust set in, eating up at the metal parts of the drones. Only the very old versions survived where the new versions crumbled almost instantly.

I was about to ask what the humans had done to deserve such a fate when Xhuli spoke over the telepod. "Poor species. Probably didn't see this coming. Beautiful species but full of imperfections, not that they also lacked in pride and conceited, the Supremacy always buries such planets." She didn't finish her last sentence before one of the detection drones started blaring.

All the soldiers were quick to move to the direction of the blaring noise, mostly because it signalled that the drone had found a heat signature. Hurriedly producing my laser guns and atomic set of bombs, I prayed.

The humans had to have been a determined species for even a few of them to have survived an invasion of the Amaya.

It was supposed to be an ambush, or at least that's how it started when we launched ourselves into the crumbled city where the remnants were supposed to be. The command was to let a few scouts check it out before the entire army was called. The plan could have worked if I didn't run into a crowd of humans, standing still in the middle of the city.

Their rugged clothing did little to tell us how the group of almost a hundred had survived. Calculating it as a sneak attack, I went to launch the laser grenade from afar but it grew to concern when even after the first dozens scattered with broken bones and singed fresh. The rest of the unaffected population did not seem to notice it even as their companions fell. All their eyes were stubbornly fixed ahead, into a ruined window of a building. It felt sad to even report what I was seeing but orders were orders.

"Xhota Amartisan. Reporting the state of the survivors. May I continue?" I said into my telepod after changing it into a general broadcast.

"You may continue." The voice of the commander said almost lazily.

I took a deep breath into my mask before speaking. "They are no sign of brain activity or any form of response to stimuli. We might be looking at zombies, what are the orders, sir?"

There was silence for a moment before the commander spoke, probably receiving a command from his superiors too. "Destroy all form of life and return to the mothership." That's how the Amaya command chain was, a hierarchy of increased and decreased powers. The soldiers like me knew our place at the very bottom of the pile for many reasons, especially that insubordination was not fitting of an Amaya.

I hoped, really hoped that the Supremacy had not sent My species to destroy the humans, but again, the Supremacy was not known for using other species especially for this brand of dirty work. Even the soil stayed charred and barren. I adjusted my inter-galactic language translating device to understand and reproduce human language. Not that the zombies would ever speak.

It must have been hard for humans. Many species feared the Supremacy but it was not because they could destroy entire planets at will. It was because they could choose not to kill, dragging out a body's death until the brain was gone and rot had set in. That was what I thought as I launched the remaining grenades at the zombies.

I noticed the buzz of static electricity in the air too late when it's hum had spread into the ground beneath my feet. "Retreat," I warned even as the ground beneath my feet started to warp and distort. It was too late to scramble for cover when an explosion rang in the air.

" This one's still breathing,Ma." I child's voice said, waking me from my unconsciousness.

I closed my eyes again, as I sunk into the feeling of being wheeled by some crude vehicle.

When I woke again, I was amazed at the sight of the blue sky. It was so vivid that it had little else to compare to, not that the mothership I had grown up in had much in the way of colours. I was lying in a field with bright yellow flowers and green grass.

The gentle breeze carried the smell of pollen into my nose as it drifted past. I scrambled to find my weapons from my pocket as the voice of the same child broke the silence, bringing all the memories of what I was doing on the planet.

The child was young and slim, with dark skin and a gentle smile. His short hair was cut close to the scalp, as well kept as his clothes.

Instead of weapons, my hands landed on only my broken lenses. I hurriedly covered my eyes, not wanting them to melt from the planets solar but the dark-skinned child was quick to stop me by holding my hand.

"The sun won't burn your eyes out. Why did you attack the fallen city? No one lives there anymore except the zombies." The child said softly, his voice with a wistful quality to it.

My voice cracked from lack of use when I spoke to the child. "What is your name?"

"Azula," the boy replied automatically. "It means blue."

"Take me to your parents, Azula," I said as I stood. The boy nodded, encasing two of my fingers with his entire palm as he led me through the grass into what looked like the front of a waterfall.

Even in my black and white vision, the place would have been breathtaking. We were afront what looked like a waterfall with creeping plants and undergrowth. The small hills rolled gently into the horizon where the green cover of the forest disappeared giving way to heath and moorland.

The stones in the water lead us to a cave behind the waterfall. The interior of the cave looked cosy and pretty even in the semi-darkness. The walls were lined with stone art and paintings and writings in a language I could not read. I had not realized that I had stopped to read it until someone spoke.

"It's a history of our people from before the invasion." A voice said behind me and I jumped. I turned to face the Raven hair woman with bright blue eyes that seemed to glitter like jewels even in the semi-darkness of the cave.

" Who are you? Where am I?" I asked, keenly aware that I had no weapons but there was no hint of malice in those bright blue eyes, just amusement.

"We are the remnants, the last humans in existence." she gestured with a sweeping motion towards the various other people seated at the far end of the cave. "Our prophets said that a friendly stranger would come to save us."

I chuckled as the realisation came. "I'm a soldier, I receive orders from the Supremacy, it's not the other way around. My species and I are more likely to do the contrary to that."

"Then you will allow us to show you what was destroyed. You will see that even though you are warriors of Justice, you serve something else." She said, taking out a gadget and switching it on.

The gadget was big enough that she couldn't carry it, but it came to life at the press of a button. At first, the colours were too bright for me to perceive much but my eyes grew accustomed to them enough that I could see that the device showed children playing.

"What is this?" I asked as the vision changed into the view of a glittering town of spires and giant glass buildings. It was busy with people walking or driving up and down the streets.

The sorrow passed in her eyes so quickly I couldn't tell if it had even been there in the first place. "That was the city we found you in. New Ravens. "

Finally, I saw the entire picture. The Supremacy had destroyed the planet on a whim and had gone to very extreme lengths to cover it up, but you couldn't veil an entire planet thus it was left there, hollowed out and exposed for everyone to see.

"How did you survive the invasion?" I asked as she switched off the device. Most of our grandparents were engineers, working in an underground plant at the time of the invasion. The waterfall protected us from the zombies as they can't get past the water."

"I know how I can help you," I said after a long pause. " Bit I will need my lenses back."

"Why do you wear lenses?" The child from before asked me. What could have been a simple answer turned into a battle in my mind before I could speak? I would have said that they prevented the sun from melting our eyes off but we all knew that was a lie. Thanks, Supremacy felt the need to deny us vision so that we wouldn't be able to see life like it was. If it had been up to me, I would have never put on the lenses again but there was too much at stake because they were probably setting up the Tiash Lukius as we spoke.

"They are going to turn the planet to dust unless I do something," I said, calculating what I was about to do in my mind.

"Do you know why?" the bright-eyed woman asked. "Do you know why they killed us?" She paused and when I shook my head, she spoke again. "They killed us because we refused to surrender our population to them. They are building an army and they are taking all the species they can get. Those that resist fair as we do. You have to stop them."

It wasn't hard to sneak into the camp, heading straight to the control room. The monitors controlling the exact location and coordinates of the next strike were on. It was not hard to change the direction but the look on the commander's face was priceless when the Missile-like Tiash Lukius headed straight in the direction of the Homeworld, headquarters of the supremacy. If the had done that much damage to the planet Earth, I sincerely doubted the planets we had destroyed before had been the bad ones.

I didn't put up a fight when I was sized and taken to the commander's office. The man was a giant, even for my species. He was an imposing sight behind the silicon desk. "You have a lot of explaining to do." He said.

"I do." I thought.