Tora had been invited into a separate room where Captain Sandback usually held meetings with his officers.
Tora, along with the Captain, Vice-Captain and a handful of scientists, had been chosen to watch footage of seven Limited Travel Class HU military spaceships, each of which was two hundred meters long and shaped like matte grey javelins,
They descended into the Earth's atmosphere, which, while mostly clear to the ten thousand soldiers in the vessels, was distorted to anyone who was watching the footage.
After a week of observation by countless drones and ships, even the Council wasn't able to figure out what kept signals from bouncing back after reaching the Earth.
Everything on the electromagnetic spectrum was distorted just enough that it made no sense to most receivers.
That said, something had allowed Tora's group to capture footage on the surface and, surely enough, as soon as the seven ships descended beneath the clouds, the footage cleared, revealing that it was a rather stormy evening.
The only people who were able to see this footage were high-ranking government officials, certain military personnel, and select scientists, including Tora, who crossed his arms as he stood with a stiffened face and a low brow.
Part of him wished Anoona would just let the soldiers land and begin talks of cohabitation, but a much larger part of him knew better.
The communications between the soldiers weren't provided to Tora's group, but they had footage from sensors attached to their helmets, giving Tora's group different angles on the descent.
The soldiers were landing in the same area where Tora had made contact with Anoona.
Regardless of how she reacted, the soldiers were going to leave sensors and drones on the surface, which would gather information for the Council.
The ships made landfall and immediately opened their large doors, allowing the soldiers and field researchers to march out just as it began to rain heavily.
However, as a single bolt of lightning lit up the dimming sky, something suddenly appeared about a hundred meters in front of the ships and soldiers, and it had moved with so much speed that the air screamed louder than anyone had ever heard.
Storm-force winds further tore the skies asunder, inciting the wrath of the gathering storm.
Tora's eyes immediately widened upon recognising it as one of Anoona's Beta Class children.
Thunder had told him that they were the warrior caste among Anoona's brood, and while this one was shorter than Thunder, standing at only two meters tall, it matched him in its biological ferocity, having a somewhat sleeker dark carapace and curved claws that were thirty centimetres long.
[I am 999 999 Scalpel and I have come to issue Mother's final warnings: Leave this place, return to the stars and forever live as the gods each of you could be. Let this garden drift in peace.]
This one's voice was different from Thunder's.
Scalpel's voice was the stalled rev of a single chainsaw. Low, guttural and waiting.
His bright cyan coloured eyes watched as the soldiers all raised their various weapons, and even the turrets on their ships turned to him.
It was then that Tora's group was allowed to hear the audio from the soldiers.
"Get on your knees and place your hands behind your head!" One of the soldiers yelled, but Scalpel didn't move as the rain washed over his jagged form.
"I said get on your—"
The air screamed for an agonising moment, and before Tora could blink, the soldier was missing his torso.
The remaining pair of legs fell to the ground, and the soldiers immediately opened fire on Scalpel, who didn't move as a wave of Super Velocity Projectiles struck his carapace, along with plasma beams and lasers. Each of which filled the air with the sounds of conflict.
Scalpel looked up, as if eyeing the ships, and began walking forward, shrugging off canon fire and explosives.
"What is that thing?"
"Why isn't it dying?"
"Keep shooting!"
Such things were said by the soldierly as Scalpel jumped onto one of the ships.
What followed were the twisted cries of metal as he somehow dug his claws into several layers of hardened metals and composites, tearing off one of the four turrets that was mounted on the spacecraft.
The monster then threw the weapon, which weighed no less than a ton, at the other ships, knocking two of them over and forcing the soldiers to move away from the ships.
The panicked cries of the soldiers joined the cacophony of gunfire and explosions as Scalpel disabled four of the ship's cannons with terrifying ease.
The violence that followed bore no resemblance to any of the wars Tora had ever witnessed as a single entity tore through men and machines as if they were paper.
Scalpel almost seemed to be measuring the durability of both as he fought, stripping limbs from bodies and parts from ships with a patience that terrified Tora, who was four hundred thousand kilometres away in orbit.
The monster grabbed one of the soldiers who was recording this carnage, and it picked him as he shot at it.
[So soft… You were not designed for combat.] Scalpel growled as the soldier desperately tried bashing at the monster's face with his hands, but Scalpel didn't move even an inch.
The remaining soldiers stopped shooting so as not to hit their comrade, meaning they had to watch as Scalpel opened his mouth and bit off a chunk of the soldier's face.
The soldier screamed and desperately thrashed as he was slowly devoured by the monster, which eventually dropped him, turning to the others who were now desperately trying to flee.
The clap of thunder signalled Scalpel's next move as he sprang into a sprint that allowed him to tear through almost all ten thousand men and women, some of whom had tried escaping via the battered ships.
The pilots tried taking off with whoever managed to get in, and it was here, as four of the relatively undamaged ships ascended, that Scalpel unfolded his wings, which were three, six meters wide and bore a vivid array of blacks and oranges.
He flapped them once, launching himself dozens of meters into the air, allowing him to land on the windscreen of one of the ships, where he glared at the pair of pilots within.
Scalpel tore off the windscreen before throwing out the pilots and destroying their control consoles, something he proceeded to do with the other three, letting the spaceships crash in thunderous impacts that not even the rain could silence.
The jagged creature hung in the air for a moment before dropping to the ground, where he folded his wings and stood, surrounded by the dead, the writhing and the petrified.
Scalpel turned to one of the other soldiers who were recording this massacre and took slow, heavy steps as his form was draped in the newborn darkness of the moonless night.
His eyes, four small pools of cyan, were burnt into the minds of all who had the misfortune of invoking their scorn, and the soldier was one of them.
His guts spilt from his open belly after having been clawed by the walking tower of malice that was approaching him.
Scalpel knelt to face the dying soldier and gently placed one of his hands on the soldier's cheek.
The creature seemed to be observing the very process of death, and all the few unharmed soldiers could do was watch as well, fearing what might follow if they raised their weapons again.
Scalpel then raised his right hand, snapped his claw-tipped fingers once and like that, all the footage from the surface ended.
Tora and company stood frozen for a moment, and it was Captain Sandback who broke the stomach-knotting silence.
"I don't know what just happened, but I can tell you one thing: none of my men are setting foot down there again."
Tora took several deep breaths, trying to collect himself.
He then ran his hands through his hair and bent forward a little as his diffusers failed to suppress his terror.
He rested his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath.
He was scared so deeply, so completely, because Thunder had laughed when he said that he was the strongest among the siblings of his that were awake.
Scalpel was most likely weaker than Thunder, and there were possibly others who were stronger than both of them.
Tora's vision blurred, and he felt the urge to vomit, but his diffusers kept him from completely losing himself.
He took a few hard-fought breaths and stood upright, facing Captain Sandback, Vice-Captain Persephone and the other scientists with a sweaty brow.
"If it comes to pass that the Earth is burnt whole to rid it of those things, then let it be so."
.
..
Tora collapsed onto bed, joining Phymn, who was already beneath the sheets.
"How did it go?" She asked, and her nature reminded him that, among the soldiers, were Artimen who were designed specifically for combat. They were given bones and skin made from extremely complex carbon matrices, muscles that allowed them to lift five hundred kilograms easily and could run faster than a cheetah.
And yet they were killed just as easily.
Tora flinched as Phymn gently placed her hand on his.
She had been going over all the data from the samples he brought back and, without needing to turn to him, she gently held his hand.
"Of the many sayings during the era of Many Wars, one said that anything ever worth doing wasn't easy. If you want to see this through, if you want to confront and crush what may very well be the greatest threat mankind will ever face, then you will have to be braver than any man has ever had to be."
Tora's eyes widened at Phymn's soft, but powerful words.
He knew she was designed to be as supportive of Newman efforts as possible, but his cowering heart swelled a little.
He nodded, holding her hand just as tight before letting out a shaking sigh.
"What have you learnt?" His voice reclaimed its usual calm as he sat up.
He wasn't fully out of it, but it was never about not being afraid; it was facing that fear with a level head and dignity.
"Amazing wouldn't be enough to describe half of the findings that are coming in from every department. The Biologist found that every single cell that was brought up is one hundred per cent genetically unique from species to species… yet somehow human."
"What?" Tora's brow furrowed.
"The gene maps showed that, at least some part of every cell's DNA, was 99% similar to that of your root species, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Whether it was plant tissue or single-celled organisms, they all had that genetic root along with additional genetic data that filled their nuclei."
Tora weakly nodded as he tried his best to digest what he had learnt.
"Go on."
"Setting aside the organic discoveries, samples from the Spires, as you said, Anoona called them, are made from strange but extremely complex carbon-metallic matrices that rival our own advancements in material science. The air of the planet was found to be 99% breathable, barring the innumerable spores and microscopic life that are flying around down there. Water samples were able to be cleaned relatively easily, and apart from Anoona, the general population has taken a liking to footage showing the individual known as Thunder." Phymn detailed, making Tora scoff.
The people had yet to learn that Thunder could possibly split mountains in two.
"What did our scans learn about him and his mother?" He groaned.
"Thunder is an extremely advanced organism that far surpasses any Newman-made creation. Durable, strong and fast, even by what little we've measured. He stands at a pinnacle that we didn't even know existed."
"And his mother?"
Phymn's eyes flashed briefly.
"I saved the greatest discovery for last. Anoona's cells are perhaps the most advanced forms of life we have seen or will ever see for a long time."