He reached into a personal compartment to his right side and relaxed into the back of this seat. Popping it open he pulled out a nutrient bar. Tearing apart its wrapper he ate its contents. The tasteless substance filled his hungering belly. One bar could keep a man full and hydrated for a whole day but Godfrey smirked as he contemplated there being an excessive amount of these bars in Luke's craft.

"It's oh-six-hundred prepare for the task force's arrival!" Ordered Godfrey.

"Aye, sir!" Came the reply of his officers.

In response, his men spread out evenly around the omega gate ready to welcome the United Forces of Reclamation. Any minute now they would pour through this hole and lay claim to the land far below. It was planned that Godfrey and his men would arrive ahead of the main force to scout and secure the location and wait for the rest to arrive.

Godfrey had imagined giant monsters to fly out and attack them from the hole or strange anomalies to reap havoc with his instruments. In reality, however, this was nothing of the sort, just the ominous presence of planet earth hanging in the vast emptiness of space. Minutes passed by without any sign of the UFR.

"Ugh, Where are they?" asked Luke.

An unresponsive Godfrey viewed the monitors on the front of him as they displayed the gate as minutes turned into hours. It was but a comparatively small patch of clear space in an ocean of lightning storms with a diameter no more than a few dozen miles wide. By now the force was several hours late and Godfrey grew restless within the confines of his cuirassier.

"You don't think the truce had broken down already do you?" asked Luke over a private channel.

"Crazier things have happened before" Godfrey answered.

"Ha! You ought to know Captain Martelis, Celestial Slayer!" Luke boasted.

Godfrey frowned.

"Tell me something, Luke. How can you like those mutants after all they've done?"

Luke paused reflecting on his thoughts.

"Well... Well, I... I admit that I do admire them in some morbid fashion... Like how one can admire the beauty and ferocity of a beast. Besides even, you have to admit they are utterly beautiful creatures."

"Just remember they are more beast and mutant than human. No creature that powerful can b trusted... Besides if it's beasts you love? Then return home! I'm sure you'll grow a bountiful admiration for the megascorpios in the undercities. I'm sure you'll have all you need as their pincers tear you from limb to limb while their tail fires acid at you."

"Ha! Not if I get a place to live here! Anything's better than returning to the red rock."

"I doubt this reclamation of earth will do anything but make it a new battlefield"

Just as he finished three celestial knights blasted into the area at the head of a column of both Venusian and Martian ships. The polished like grey of the streamlined Venusian ships making them stand out against the deep black of the blocky Martian.

Godfrey's screen flickered as it updated with new runes depicting friend or foe signatures. Around him and new information displayed on his screen explaining what it all meant. Red for Martian, blue for Venusian and yellow for Celestial. The ancients have come to reclaim their homeland.

Through clouds of mist coloured peach by the distortion of light the hulking mass of the three celestial knights flowed through the air. They seemed ethereal as they smoothly slowed to a halt hundreds of meters from the ground. With Godfrey and his fifty-man strong company swarming around them like birds at a breeding ground.

Godfrey saw the ground far below and gasped at its unparalleled beauty. He waited for his image displays to clear and then he saw paradise. He was awestruck as he viewed endless oceans of pink and white crystalline plant life carpeting the land for miles in all directions.

Lively animals of vibrant colours of reds, yellows, blues and innumerable other colours populated the area. They swam in rivers that glowed a fiery orange, they grazed on silver land and they flew through the peach air.

He was awestruck; never before had he seen so much life nor had he seen it in so much variety. A curious beast flew in close to his Cuirassier, a four-winged pterosaur by the looks of it. It was no small creature with a wingspan of almost three meters and equally long six long thin tails spread out with some transparent membrane connecting each tail.

It dived down as if to land on some chosen destination. The sun shone upon its back revealing wondrous rainbow colours as crystalline scales refracted the sun's light. The earth seemed to sparkle in the sunrise like a wall of precious gems.

"Bloody gorgeous!" Cried Luke through the radio chatter.

"Yes... Indeed it is... and to think that this is our home?" Uttered Godfrey.

"By god, this shall be my home!" boasted Luke with a trembling voice.

"Luke? Are you crying?"

"Tears of joy sir. I hope this is what they say it is"

"It better... or they'll pay." Godfrey muttered to himself as Luke spoke out.

It was not long before the colony ships came roaring through the omega gates. Their huge bulks screamed through pillars of fire and smoke. As they fell through the atmosphere swung away from the floor travelling parallel to the ground at high speeds.

The world shook as Godfrey watched one titanic spacecraft after another make for the mountains in the distance. They ground to a halt above a titanic plateau. All four of them lined up in a row before gently touching down on the desert floor. It wasn't long before the final part of the force arrived.

A further nine more celestial knights slipped through the atmosphere to join the three above the forest. They flowed through the air as silent and effortlessly as ever. They rose high up in the air to hide amidst the clouds.

Without a moment's delay, the industrious hopefuls flowed from their ships in droves. Below them, an army of colonists and soldiers, thousands of them, marched out to establish the groundwork for what is to come.

Among the troops was one Thomas Branson, First Lieutenant of the Venusian Alliance Marine Corps. He was a tall thin man with Arian features. Encased within his plated armour he felt safe as he breathed the purified air provided by his suit as he jogged onward to his objective. The crystal tree line lay just ahead by a few hundred meters.

"Okay, people spread out and keep your eyes peeled. We don't know what could be in those trees."

His troops spread out into a line with the black armoured Martians at their backs.

"Sir? Aren't you at least worried about the Martians? They can't be trusted." Whispered Second Lieutenant Alice over a private channel.

"They haven't wronged us thus far... Nevertheless just keep an eye on them."

"Aye, sir."

They advanced into the tree line and took cover among the undergrowth. Soon after the Martians took up positions among them. With every footfall, their heavy black power armour crushed crystalline biomass into crackling powder.

"We're in position. All clear." Declared Alice.

"Thermals? Motion trackers?" Asked Thomas.

"In a forest?" snapped Alice.

"Right. Be on guard."

Alice ventured on ahead and ventured further into the forest than the others. Took something caught her eye and she froze raising her fist. They all froze with their weapons raised. The Martian commander drew a sword from his thigh and raised it above his head. The whole thirty-man strong contingent froze scanning the forest.

"Alice! What do you see?" Asked Thomas through the coms.

She gave no response as she aimed her rifle at something rising in the shadows. The thing was huge, at least twelve feet tall with immense bulk and digitigrade legs. Its bull-like face became visible as it crossed a ray of sunlight.

It took in a deep breath and roared as it smashed its way through a fallen tree to charge Alice. In a panic Alice opened fire, a stream of blue plasma bolts flew through the air and hit home. The very liquid with the beast's body boiled instantly.

Organs ruptured and muscles snapped as its body tore itself apart in a plum of blood and gore upon impact. Whatever was left collapsed to the forest floor in a heap of charred flesh and bronze. Thomas jogged up to it and studied the head. He recognised it from books of humanity's early mythology.

"A Minotaur?"

From what he could see the creature was clad in grey and white fur.

"Central Command. This is Platoon four. We have the first contact. Please Advise." Reported Thomas.

While Thomas communicated with his superiors Alice scanned the woods with her rifle at the ready.

"Understood Central Command. Platoon four out." Thomas said.

He breathed in readying himself to convey Central Command's orders.

"There are more of them! Pull back!" Alice cried out as she fired into the forest's depths.

Roars of anger and pain echoed throughout the forest as plasma bolts burned through flesh and blew bodies apart. The entire forest seemed to explode with a wall of raging Minotaurs. The air rumbled with their war cries and the thunder of their charging hooves. As one the allied troops let fly the fury of their guns.

Flashes of bright blue light flickered through the dimly lit world of the forest as plasma bolted into its murky depths. One roaring beast after another would follow those ahead if it unto its death. They flowed from the fleeting darkness like an endless flood of bodies.

"There's too many. Pull back!" Thomas ordered.

Obedient and disciplined his men rose from their positions and slowly walked backwards while maintaining their fire. The Martians, however, stood their ground. One by one they twisted the barrels of their guns and pulled them off. They had turned their rifles into oversized pistols and drew swords from scabbards at their hips. Over the comms, Thomas roared.

"Sergeant Barbarossa! This is no time for bravados! Pull your men back!" Thomas roared over the coms.

A few frightening moments went by as the storm of battle raged on within the crystal forest.

"Ha! That is the difference between you and me..." Barbarossa said quoting a prior debate between the two of them "...We'll hold them off. Return with reinforcements. We are no-."

Thomas cut the com-link as he and his remaining men fired away at the forest unable to stop the full encirclement of the Martians. It wasn't long before the horde turned its attention on the Venusians.

En masse they poured from the forest wielding bronze axes and clad in crude bronze armour. A disordered lot they bellowed their war cry into the heavens as they waded into the desert plains of the plateau. They crumbled to the ground in messy piles of scorched flesh and bone as plasma bolts ruptured their very bodies.

They died in their dozens by the second. It mattered little because they had the numbers to buy victory. The ordered withdrawal of the Venusian had turned into a hastened retreat. Facing the horde panic crept up from his gut as he fired away.

"Command! Command! This is Platoon four! We're under heavy assault! Respond!" Thomas barked frantically into his public com-channel.

As he finished a blinding flash of light forced him to shut his eyes as a great force blasted wind into this visor. When he regained vision he saw what was his saviour. Where once stood an oncoming storm of death raging without end stood a female celestial amidst a field of charred corpses.

Those few surviving Minotaurs fled the scene only to be cut down by the celestial's lashing tendrils of energy. She used one of her many tendrils grab one Minotaur by the neck and another tendril to strike its forehead.

The creature spasmed and convulsed uncontrollably for a while before the celestial withdrew her tendril. Then she tightened her grip decapitating the beast. She then turned to face Thomas as great wings of golden energy sprouted from her back. She nodded then launched herself into the clouds far above.

"Sir! Look!" urged Alice as she pointed to the forest.

The Martians emerged from the forest with two of them were wounded. Their armour was slick with blood and riddled with superficial battle damage.

"You think yourselves gods?" Thomas uttered.