Operation: Phoenix, Turning Point Battle, Part 15 by CyberPyro (cybrpyro@iac.net) [Our curiosity is satisfied] stated the Empress. "What do you mean?" asked J-Rock, too tired to act hostile to the white clad X'hirjq. [You triumphed in the Challenge of X'hiouluq'x and our purpose here is dissolved.] "What? Try that again," said an exhausted J. FoxGlov. "Yeah, what the hell did that mean?" demanded Owsen. [I will explain, as will my peers] thought the Empress, drawing everyone's attention to a growing number of brightly clad X'hirjq standing around the platform and floating in the sky above Des Moines. ... [place: The Ohio River Valley, near the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana border] "Dammit, Commander! I said _HOLD_ the battle line until we can get there," snapped Vice Admiral Svartalf, as his battalion of BattleArmored TRES Marines thundered across the landscape. Four platoons were trying to hold a ridge from X'hirjq advance, but were quickly dying. Commander Smith was losing focus, panicking, as the enemy closed in on them. Could he really blame them though? The combined forces of TRES Corps, the Doberman Empire, M.A.U.L., the Maenads, and the Legion of Doom had met here to make a stand against the millions-strong X'hirjq invasion from the East, but to little avail. "It doesn't really matter," said a darkly cynical Svartalf, closing down his connection to the TacNet where screams of dying soldiers countermanded every order, pop, and noise of the channels. Nothing the Jihad had thrown at the X'hirjq made a damn bit of difference. All the engineering, training, R&D, hardware, troops, weapons, et. al. proved completely useless and irrelevant to stopping the X'hirjq. They just kept coming, kept coming, and kept coming, literally ripping everything in their way apart as they sang their alien battle hymns. The Jihad's space fleet had been crumpled up and tossed aside on their relentless approach. At the TRES HQ, Corps and DE forces had managed to eke out a Pyrrhic victory. Countless Jihaddi had died and more left this world every second. The Jihad forces around the globe had either imploded under the raw power of the X'hirjq invasion forces, or were engaged in a vicious fight for survival. With a heavy sigh, Svartalf switched his comm back on, ordering his troops into attack formation before they met the X'hirjq over the next ridge. ... [place: Des Moines, Iowa on top of the blasted 801 Grand Building] The Jihaddi looked around, the night becoming darker than any they'd ever experienced. In contrast, the X'hirjqs' robes shone brighter, giving off their own eerie light. Soon every X'hirjq but Empress surrounded herself in a soft veil of light the shade of her robes. The effect was uncanny, disorienting everyone on the platform. Most Holy looked down, happy gravity still held him to the ground. Samhain smiled, remembering his long conversations with the Empress in one of the MotherShip's crystalline observation spheres, the dark beauty of space, and the glimmering light. "The stars," named the DE Fleet Commander with a broad grin. A complex, rhythmic beat met the ears of everyone present as tens of thousand of X'hirjq lifted their voices in a song of their native language. The sounds pulsed through the Jihaddi as if they were inside the aliens' music, their bodies and minds existing for no purpose but to make the song. A new consciousness opened itself before the Jihaddi, their minds everywhere and nowhere at once in the mass of aliens. Their souls intermingled with everyone else's', blurred and become the same, and remained unchanged at once. [This is why we are here] thought the Empress, her thoughts sharply distinct from the music, but doing nothing to detract from it. [X'hirjq exist to pursue the Hunt Mistress, X'hiouluq'x, across time, space, and lives.] [Every action, thought, and deed by every X'hirjq for the past 400,000 of your years has served this one purpose without error. It is religion, as humans understand it, the base of our culture and reason for our survival. It is what defines us, give us purpose, and demands our actions.] [To triumph in the Challenge of X'hiouluq'x, to face and defeat the self, is the greatest task any being can accomplish. Your will to survive and prey has been proven.] "Still wondering why you came here, I am" asked Windigo, her faltering English blending seamlessly into the music. [This] thought the Empress, every star becoming dark except for a rotating constellation of six above her upheld claw, [is why we came.] "Uuuhhhh" stared Shardik, not getting it at all, as he looked the yellow star the other five rotated around. [This constellation represents the gift of X'hiouluq'x. It is She who used these stars to teach the First X'hirjq to hunt and make purpose of her existence.] [Your planet orbits the yellow star. X'hiouluq'x demanded we determine the Right of Survival for the humans living here.] "Why didn't you attack earlier? Your technology is millennia beyond ours, why not earlier?" asked CyberPyro. [Honor does not allow the X'hirjq at attack a non-hostile race. Knowledge of Earth has existed in our culture for over 320,000 of your years, but we observed from our home dimension and waited for a Reason to hunt.] "YOU'VE USED ME AS A PAWN?!?" shrieked b'harnii, true understanding of his allies final coming. [An allegiance with the Jihad's enemy granted the right to test this world for Rite of Survival. Your schemes, b'harnii, against this planet's hatchlings are of no concern.] "What if we'd have failed at the 'Challenge' we just went through?" asked Morgenna. [Then humanity would have become prey to the X'hirjq.] "What?" stammered J-Rock. [We would have cleansed your species from this planet, marking your extinction.] ... [place: The Ohio River Valley, near the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana border] "All guns at full power," ordered Svartalf as BattleArmored TRES Marines pounded up the slopes towards the top of the ridge. "No prisoners." The reinforcements sprang onto the battlefield to loud, rolling cheers. "SIR!!!" boomed the Commander's voice into Svartalf's headset. "THEY'RE GONE!!! Every last f**king one of those scaly bitches is gone!!" "What do you mean," asked Svartalf as he swept the distance battle fields with sensors. "They stopped shooting all at the same time and retreated. A few moments later and our scans spotted X'hirjq simply disappearing in a shimmer of light, sir." "Are you out of your..." stopped Svartalf as his JihadNet account beeped angrily at him. What the hell? This was supposed to be bombed out of existence!! "*WHAT* is going on?!?" ... [Our time here is finished] motioned the Empress, her fellow immortals disappearing in shimmers of light. "Can I kill them all before you leave?" asked b'harnii as it fingered his sword, eyeing the massively weakened Jihaddi. [Be gone] thought the Empress, the Unholy Trio becoming pastel blurs and then nothing as her will forced them back to their home dimension. "I..." stammered Owsen. [We now return to our own worlds. We shall not meet again if you remain strong.] CP To be concluded in Op: Phoenix, the Turning Point Battle, Part 16 Copyright, Pyrokinetic Productions, Inc. (1996)