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  Date 3021 LT

  Data file / Tartessus / Blaidd

  When I remember that time, I can always hear the screams in my head. The fear in my wife's eyes still gives me goose bumps. But I digress, let's start at the beginning. I remember a hot day very well. I think it was the hottest day of the month. I was newly married to my wife and we spent our honeymoon on a beautiful island called Tartessus. I can't think of any other island on our planet as innocent as Tartessus. After all, it hasn't changed in decades. The trail of wars passed by this peaceful island. There was nothing here but ruins, tourists and nature reserves. The only military facilities were limited to an old air-raid shelter and an aging communication station. Maybe that was the reason for the attack...

  Anyway, it was just late afternoon. My wife and I were still lying on the beach and enjoying the blazing sun. It must have been shortly after twelve o'clock when we heard a tremendous bang. I got a fright and saw a shadow above us standing in front of the midday sun. At first I thought of a meteorite that had hit the island. I learned in advance from other tourists that there had been repeated impacts of this kind weeks before. But for a meteorite the arriving object was too slow, I could see a metallic shining structure. I did not suspect anything good when I saw this spaceship-like thing flying towards us. An unpleasant feeling ran through my stomach, I knew that something is not right here. A series unknown to me, maybe a new prototype in the middle of the tourist stronghold Tartessus? Rather unlikely, I thought. I grabbed my wife and told her to come with me immediately, but she wanted to see the spectacle. I dragged her to me and told her they weren't our guys. Whatever it is, it wouldn't bode well. Slowly and reluctantly, I managed to drag her off the beach.

  I remembered a tinny sound of the unknown spaceship. As I looked up I saw fractions of it coming loose from the underside of the spaceship and falling down on us. I could not see at first glance what exactly it was. I suspected that this unknown spaceship, which had not survived the re-entry into the atmosphere and was now falling apart. I wish retrospectively that it had been like that. But I was wrong, because it was not fractions of a spaceship that fell down on us. They were strange landing capsules, which hung like bombs under the ship and came loose little by little.

  Full of panic I made my way through the crowded and narrow streets of Tartessus. I could have warned the others but my wife and unborn child were more important to me at that moment. It was only when we made it across the street that I called out to the many gawpers to follow us, otherwise they would be in bad shape.

  But most ignored my words and continued to watch the spectacle.

  Reflexively I looked while running, one last time to the beach, although I knew what was going to happen, I knew that I would never see this beautiful sandy beach like this again. The island would never again be the paradisiacal and harmonious place for me, as it had been for the last hundred years. I thought about what I had seen out of the corner of my eye in that brief moment. There was something on the horizon, were there other spaceships? If so, we were not only witnessing an attack on Tartessus, we were witnessing an invasion. But I didn't have time to think about it, because the bunker was still several streets away.

  On our way to the bunker we had to pass many tourists who celebrated this invasion like a party. They took pictures with their smartphones, laughed and marveled at the meanwhile three spaceships hovering above them. None of them seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. It frustrates me even today when I think of this ignorance and naivety. I just can't understand how complacent they stood there. Like a lamb being led to slaughter. How they ignored the danger and turned off all their senses and just let it happen.

  It had been more than one hundred years since the last great war ended on Andora. The fact that now, on a remote and paradisiacal island, dozens of spaceships, armed to the teeth, appeared out of nowhere, which also carried out a ground offensive, did not seem to bother these Lupains. The joy of the gawpers changed into suddenly pure fear when the spaceships opened fire on them. Now even the last of them knew that this was not a military manoeuvre. We had almost reached the air-raid shelter when we were thrown to the ground by a huge shock wave. Apparently one of the spaceships had fired on the bunker. I must have been unconscious for several minutes, I need a few minutes after waking up to realize what had happened. I had a loud beeping in my ears, mine looked up quickly, I wanted to see the attacker, but there was nobody there. The spaceships were at the hotel facilities and destroying half the island. Was it a spaceship that had moved on? Was it an orbital attack? I wondered. I was sure that this bunker would have withstood an attack from an orbital battle cruiser. I concluded that it was not an attack from outside the facility, but that someone had placed explosives inside the bunker and detonated them just before we arrived. As I thought about who would be able to sabotage the only protection against an attack, I realized I was missing the most important thing in my life. It was my wife and my unborn cub to whom I now gave my full attention. They and other civilians lay motionless on the ground. I noticed someone coming towards us, hoping he would help me up and take care of the other one.

  But I was wrong, when I looked up I saw something that no one had reported in over a hundred space flights.

  An alien species stood right in front of me. At eye level we stared at each other. These yellow eyes pierced me. Its green colored scaly skin told me that it was a cold-blooded creature. It was the first contact with a humanoid-looking alien life form. It was a precarious situation I found myself in, I wish I had had my service weapon with me at that time.

  But it was locked in a safe, I only had it with me for the biggest emergency and I never thought about using it.

  For a long moment the cold-blooded thing stared me before he pointed a kind of shotgun in his cold scaly claws at me. I understood immediately that if I do nothing now, I will not live to see the birth of my cub. I pushed myself off the ground and tried to rip the gun out of the creature's claws, firing a shot that just missed me.

  The lizard grabbed me by the neck with one hand and lifted me up. I was amazed at the enormous power of this cold-blooded creature. While trying to free me, he squeezed my neck. Not only the fear to suffocate me worried me, I could feel his claws slowly boring into my flesh. The pain was almost unbearable and I decided to free myself from the beasts' claws. But it was impossible, the lizard had a firm grip on me, even with my last ounce of strength I could not free myself. It would be easy for the cold-blooded creature to break my neck, but he kept on making me fidget. He proudly showed me a knife that was attached to his weapon like a bayonet. I'm not sure if the Kukamia can show any feelings or emotions. But if they did, I could see a kind of grin on his face. Just killing me would not be enough for this creature, I should bleed to death, maybe just to watch him kill my wife and my unborn child.

  I was discouraged and didn't know what to do, the cold-blooded man was a heartbeat away from sticking his knife into my stomach, that's when I realized my last chance.

  With all my last strength I turned to the right, so that I managed to rip the weapon out of the cold-blooded man's claws with my right leg. This was hurled several meters forward and on impact a shot was released. The cold-blooded man seemed to be very angry about my action. He hurled me to the ground with full force, I could hardly believe that I was given a second chance. I coughed and started breathing again for a fraction of a second, the lizard grabbed his weapon and fired at me again. I could barely dodge the shot, but one of the many shotgun shells hit my leg. It was only a graze shot, but these bullets really hurt. I had to try to dodge the shots until the lizard would reload. Even though the lizard was physically superior to me, its armored body seemed to be very cumbersome. I just had to be faster to gain an advantage. My trick worked, the lizard didn't manage to catch up with me and shot past me again and again. Just as I was about to dodge another shot, instead of a loud shot I only heard a short click. My plan worked out. The cold-blooded man had emptied his magazine on me and now he tried to reload Panisch. I took my chance and looked down. Within a second I picked up a pole and stormed towards the lizard. With all my strength I knocked down the attacker before he realized what was happening. I don't know how long I hit the lizard, I only know that when I came to, the lizard was covered with blood and lay motionless on the ground. My whole body was shaking I had never killed a living being in my life, even in my military service. Now I stood there in front of a destroyed air-raid shelter and trembled with fear. I could feel the blood on my fur, I did not know if it was my blood or the blood of the enemy. A look at my trembling hands told me more about this alien race. Not only were they the exact opposite of us on the outside, their blood also shimmered blue. Blue blood, I had never seen anything like it and no one would believe such a thing. When I turned my gaze back to the most important thing in my life, I heard my heart beating so loudly that I would have liked to tear it out of my chest. My wife and several Lupains were still lying motionless on the ground, I hoped so much that she was well and that nothing had happened to my unborn cub. But even before I could walk to them I was dragged to the ground. It was the lizard that still had a spark of life in him. The cold-blooded man would not let me see my wife. I thought the lizard was dead and could not understand where it got this energy from. At that time I could have just broke free and left the lizard to die. But not now, not for what they did to us. My wife might even be dead and my son? I could and did not want to ignore it, I had so much hate in me and I knew exactly how I would get rid of it. I grabbed the empty shotgun and I pushed the knife into this Kukamia. It was almost impossible for me to penetrate the thick Armored skin, but my hatred drove me on. The lizard tried to free himself, but the knife penetrated centimeter by centimeter deeper and deeper into the flesh. I didn't know the anatomy of the Kukamia, I hoped that at least the heart would be in the same place as ours and I was right. With a strong thrust I penetrated the scaly skin and thrust the blade right into the monster's heart. He twitched for a few more seconds then the monster was finally defeated. It was a small victory for me because the island was still full of cold-blooded animals. I searched the corpse for ammunition and appropriated the strange weapon. The last time I had seen such a bullet weapon was in a museum. I wondered for a moment how such a primitive race had managed to trick our sensors.

  But later I could ask myself all these questions, now the most important thing was to look after my wife.

  As I stood before her, I felt terrible. The love of my life lay motionless in the street. I would not know what to do without her, but I did not know if she was really dead. My hands trembled when I tried to feel her pulse. When I noticed the first heartbeat, a stone fell from my heart. She was alive, the rest was not important for me at that moment.

  But since the bomb shelter was destroyed, we had to go back to the hotel. Not only my service weapon was there, also most of the hotels had a security lock that should withstand these creatures for at least a few hours. I tried to wake up my wife and she slowly came to. She told me something was wrong, she was in pain. Her ankle was twisted and she could no longer walk. I knew I could not carry my wife alone and protect her at the same time. We needed help to get safely to the hotel. My wife and I took care of the others, but unfortunately some of them did not survive the explosion and the shock wave. While I led the group through the back streets, some others helped my wife walk. As I passed the first side street I took a short and humble look at the main street, I will never forget what the Kukamia did to my people. The lizards were not to be seen, but their actions spoke for themselves. I have already witnessed a massacre, but what I saw there exceeded all my worst fears.

  Many Lupains were simply shot by the Kukamia, but the fate of some could hardly be put into words. I had seen a lot in many missions but this senseless cruelty was hard to believe. Beside the many executed tourists, blood-drenched Lupains crawled towards us. Their fur had been professionally removed from their bodies. Just to see these endless torments alone hurt my soul. I could not hold back my tears. My wife and the other survivors joined my emotions. We simply did not know how to deal with this situation.

  But we had to go further, far away from this massacre. The hotel was not far away and I turned my back on this crime. There was no trace of the perpetrators. I don't know where these cold-blooded men disappeared to, but I knew it was not safe on the streets. In every corner one of these creatures could be lurking for us. I ran ahead and finally led us to the hotel.