Heartless

Deployments

Colton didn't know what he was getting himself into. Well, that was a lie, he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Him and a group of friends had volunteered to serve in the 'Sphile Army' after they'd finished their studies. He sat next to Drake, a friend from the year prior, as their instructor gave out their orders.

"Alright you newbies! I'm sure you've heard this before but I'll be giving you the rundown of what will happen when we get to earth." A man in his mid fifties yelled to the group of 50 people between the ages of 20-30. "Before you even look out the window you put on your helmet!" He yelled as he stood at attention to the group. "Now, can anyone tell me why?" He said in a harsh tone.

One of the people in the front raised their hand. "So that we can talk to each other but not hear the humans." They said with an audible groan. Everyone knew what they were doing already, it had been drilled into their heads since day one of boot camp.

"Exactly." He said as he got up in their face. "And if you feel that this is too boring if just love to see your head explode on the battlefield, if that's what you want." He growled.

"No sir!" They said as they sat straight up.

"I didn't think so." He said. Everyone knew that the humans vocal cords were much stronger than one would expect from such a tiny creature. It was said that just five of them making their high pitched screeched was enough to make someone's ears bleed. Twenty and it would be fatal, so they'd developed special helmeted so they could talk with the commander. More actually the commander could bark orders at the soldiers so they would do as they were told.

"Can't we just go already?" Colton whispered to Drake.

"What, eager to get yourself killed?" He asked as he rolled his eyes.

"Oh come on. You know hardly anyone ever dies on these missions" Colton said in a bit of a harsh tone. The 'hardly' was the key word there. His father had been killed on a mission by the humans when he'd volunteered. Shortly after his mother shot herself, leading him to live in an orphanage until 17 years of age once he finally inherited his own place. It was handed down from his father and mother to him once he would turn 17. The house was nice, a four bedroom two story home that had been well taken care of. In the back there was a large spacious yard with forests surrounding it. It was declined but he could make it to town within a 15 minutes timespan if he hurried.

"Yeah well we'll see about that" he shrugged as they continued to listen to the rambled warnings of their superior officer.

"Now, I understand some of you may be uncomfortable while exterminating the humans, due to their uncanny resemblance to us." He stated. He got a few nods and glances from the people in the room. "Well I'm here to tell you that though they look like us, their intelligence is akin to that of a rodent. Their skills of mimicry come from the same place of evolution as parrots, making them extremely close to us when it comes to expressions. There able to mimic over 120 different facial shapes and expressions, some even know how to mimic basic words on the battle field. Though I'm sure as you all know, this is simply a trick of the mind. These beings kill without mercy, even to their own species," he said. A few people gasped. The instructor scoffed at this. "Their main priority is to protect themself, that is all." He said sternly. "They attack in packs of over 50, which is why there are so many of you. Usually a mission only has 10 to 15 people on it, however, recently they've started to appear more rapidly and we have been tasked to rid the planet of them so we can harvest the un-utilize magic core stored around the planet. As you all know we've began to run low and this may well be the only solution for the time being." He nodded to himself. "We'll be deploying near an army of around 2,000." He stated mater of factory.