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By Emparra.
When we came across them, the humans were a soft and sweet race to us, gentle and emotional, little, frail, and easy to care for. They soon became the “pet” people of the galaxies, and I say “pet” as an endearment, not to say we possessed them. Such a thing must surely be impossible, after all we have seen of them! They were more as a sweet clan-member, beloved and protected by all. Small and helpless they were, with their tiny bodies and frail limbs; only four per body! The tiny appendages they grew on the ends of their limbs instead of claws could not possibly be decent protection! When we found them roaming their system of planets, and when they discovered us so quickly (a “gut feeling” they said, that they just knew they were being watched) and eagerly invited us to come and see their beloved Earth, which in our Standard is called Terra, or documented as Sol 3 if one wished to be scientifically technical. But we ought have taken our clues from that planet.
Such a harsh and unforgiving place, the whole planet! Even their "paradises" were made of molten rock-spewing vents in the crust! They eagerly showed us their great cities and unsettled mountains, their under-water settlements and plains of growing food. Last of all, they showed us their slug-throwers, their ships powered by fire, and their libraries. Their most precious possession was their history, and most beloved were their clans, their "families" in their tongue. Especially the young. It should not have surprised us so greatly, what happened later.
A war-mongering race called the Pahl'al'di attacked a Terran-staffed outpost, utterly decimating it. We allied races came together to see justice done for the poor little race so dear to us, as these Pahl'al'di would not cease their hostilities, and so we made war against them. The humans asked to be part of this effort and we could not bring ourselves to put them in the line of fire. They strategized and patrolled safely away from harm. The enemy would not cease, however, bent on destroying this inferior race they likened to vermin. Humanity had spread with us, boarding our ships, living in our cities, making new homes for themselves across the galaxy as their ships and outposts followed as quickly as they could manage. We superior races, with our ships and far advanced weaponry, we could not even deter our own well-known enemy, and we took grievous losses.
Then, the Pahl'al'di did a deed so terrible, so despicable, it shocked us all. They found Eras II, a human colony world that had become as a second Terra to them, so close it was to the dangerous climates of that place. The whole planet was vaporized in the attack, a cloud of dust and rock where a planet once spun. In the aftermath we watched a great and terrible change come over the Terrans we loved so. They became hard. They demanded to set upon the Pahl'al'di the retribution deserved, to avenge their kin. With little choice, our own fleets and resources greatly diminished in the fight against this ruthless foe, the people of Earth moved into the "front line." These creatures were not the soft and gentle beings we had known, but a race of warriors, stiff-spined and grim. These were a people well versed in war and violence, in doing justice against evil-doers. They were cold and hard, unstoppable and terrible in their kindled wrath. Before this horrible act, they had insisted always on offering surrender, a way to avoid violence. We thought them foolish and naive. Now, we saw that they were wise, desiring to end the horrors of war, but willing to fight to the last if they must. They did not extend that mercy anymore. To touch their women, their children, and their elders was beyond their willingness to forgive; they introduced to us this word for it in their tongue- "anathema."
We learned then of what humanity made of War.
We watched from our immense Titan Class ships as humanity surged forward in their Destroyers and their Battleships, Light and Heavy Cruisers, Carriers with hundreds of small craft named after the wicked creatures native to their planet, fast things that stung and bit and clawed a being to death… that is what humanity did to their enemies.
Their ships were not very large, compared to the rest of the galaxy, but they were small and fast, and they tore ships to pieces. We learned very quickly that our sweet human friends made a very frightful enemy. Their aggressive offensive thrusts routed the Nightmare of the Galaxy; the Pahl-al-di had no idea what to do with the tiny fighter craft that swarmed out of these little craft, firing devastating incendiaries that their emergency systems couldn’t compensate for. Our friends tore into the black with their rocket-propelled ships, with their atomic matter and anti-matter fuled engines, their nuclear powered cruisers, and they chased their enemy into a route. They were Hunters, and for the first time, the Pahl-al-di were prey.
They system-hopped, establishing bases and medical facilities, repair facilities that they called “dry docks” for their warships, munitions stations, and supply lines, before jumping off to conquer another. The rest of us, in our battered Alliance, settled in to hold the human-won posts as they surged ahead. We watched from behind when the first ground-battle commenced, when the Terran armies made battle with their enormous cannons, their blasters, and their tanks.
Primitive though we thought their weaponry, armaments, and tactics to be, the destruction they wreaked was absolute. To the last crevice of the most remote planet of the Pahl’ Empire, the humans chased them down. There was no hiding, only waiting, for the Hunter and the Warrior had been wakened from the bones of the Terran peoples, and they demanded Justice be done.
At long last, the Pahl-al-di were reduced to two armies out of hundreds and thousands that once terrorized the systems, all their power broken at the hand of Humanity. The leaders of Free Men, as they were called by their people, marched on the last stronghold of the Pahl-al-di and demanded surrender; complete and unconditional surrender.
I tremble to think of what might have been had they not.
Later, we learned more of the history of Earth, of Sol 3 where Humans were birthed. We learned of their primitive wars and strife, of the deplorable crimes they had committed against their own people. They told us of their failures and lessons learned, and they defined for us their term “humanity” and compared it to “inhumanity” to show us their nature. By then, the memory of the soft sweetness of Humans was almost lost in the grimness of their countenance, the power under their small hands, and the dark shadows that haunted the steps of their warriors. When the last accord of peace was signed, all the dead collected and put at rest, we finally saw them mourn, which had been put off for the many cycles of battling and strife. We mourned for them too, and with them, so deep were their losses felt to them.
Then, they did a thing that shocked us all, so much greater than any thing we had seen in the galaxies before: Terran freighters began landing on every war-torn planet they had touched down on, carrying building materials and medical supplies, rations of all sorts, for every species they had met, and their engineers and medics and scientists stepped out in droves to rebuild what had been blown apart… even the last settlement of the Pahl-al-di.
Finess.