Return of the Terran Alliance

Chapter 42- Home Defense

Chapter 42- Home Defense

(April 29, 2050)

A series of violent explosions rock the land outside the Torfan capitol of Tallonari. In fortifications built around the capitol, Torfan artillery crews fire back against the invaders. A handful of Grysk warriors are killed by the volley, but not many.

In a command center deeper in the city, outside the range of any Grysk weapons, a number of controllers are listening intely to radio messages coming in from all defending units. Most are Torfans, but there are a few Lortirians and humans mixed in as well.

One of the officers calls out, "General! Grysk warriors are advancing on the northern quadrant, supported by armored vehicles and their artillery. They are approaching within a mile of the outer walls!"

The chief of staff, a brigadier general, turns to look at his commanding officer. "General Alsakan, shall we commit the tank reserve?" he asks.

Across the threat board, General Alsakan considers this. His duties as commander of Torfa's armies are a far cry from his old duties as a Zulu Force commando, and it sometimes seems a task his mindset as a warrior is not as accustomed for. But he knows his people depend on him.

"Yes. Commit the tank reserve. This is where we will break them," Alsakan orders.

The Grysk War has begun to pick up in recent months, even as the war with the First Order had stalemated. The Grysk had begun to make some advances into Terran territory, but the Alliance was resisting them with everything they had.

Torfa had previously been thought safe, as it was far enough within Terran territory that it was thought the Grysk would not yet attempt an attack on it. However, that changed after a recent Grysk defeat that had cost them the most casualties they had ever sustained in a single battle. The Alliance had been fighting the Grysk for control of a star system codenamed the Kukulkan System, which had followed a tradition of naming significant star systems without sentient inhabitants after deities. The system was home to some very vital resources, and the Grysk had thrown serious effort into trying to take the system. They had taken the outer planets, but the Alliance still held the third planet, the most important.

However, when the Grysk had begun committing vast armies to finally take the planet, the Alliance begun detecting serious seismic activity on the planet, centered around a large mountain in the northern hemisphere. The mountain dwarfed anything on Earth, but was only about half the size of the famed Olympus Mons on Mars. The mountain was an ancient volcano, as evidenced by the massive caldera at its peak, but was believed to be long extinct. However, the tremors, which grew in strength and frequency over the course of several weeks, gave the Alliance a clear image of what was about to happen, and so the Joint Command had ordered a complete evacuation. The Starfleet evacuated all remaining Alliance troops, which numbered over 1.5 million at this point, and left the system. The Grysk, which did not realize the dangers of what was happening on the planet, moved more forces in to crush any remaining Alliance forces, not yet certain if the Alliance had completely left the planet.

The Grysk were caught completely off guard when, just three days after the Alliance finished pulling out, the massive volcano erupted in a massive supereruption so big and so violent it completely blew the mountain apart. The massive eruption was so large some scientists proposed that it deserved to be called something more than a supereruption, with some calling it a "hypereruption" or "megaeruption". The eruption was multiple times bigger than the infamous Toba eruption, ejecting an estimated 16,000 cubic kilometers of volcanic material. The ash and debris cloud was so massive it actually rose out of the atmosphere and into orbit. The blast was so powerful it killed any living thing within a hundred miles of the mountain almost instantly. The Grysk were completely unprepared for an event of this magnitude, and the aftereffects hampered rescue efforts. By the time the Grysk were able to evacuate their armies, over 2 million Grysk had been killed by the eruption, and more were injured or suffered damage to their respiratory systems.