The native militia rushed desperately from the treeline as the forest behind them was consumed by fire. Human-like in appearance but still desperately below galactic-standard tech, the soldiers could have been a local reserve unit whose training had spiraled out of control. What they didn’t look like was their world’s last protectors. Unfortunately, two days of horrific warfare had made it so.

After a while, the fear of being burned to death was outweighed by the soldier’s curiosity, and they began to slow in their route. Gathering a few hundred meters from the forest, they turned and silently watched the conflagration spread.

“Are they gone?” whimpered one man, his face blackened by soot.

“Don’t count on it,” growled another. He checked the clip on his rifle and saw he hadn’t fired a single round in the panic. “Remember the burning of Zolt? They came charging out of the refinery explosion like nothing’d happened.”

Even with that recent example in their minds the men couldn’t help but stand and stare, some even taking a few cautious footsteps forwards. Surely this was the end for the mysterious alien invaders?

A wrenching crackle tore through the air as a burning tree-trunk rolled out of the forest. In its’ wake a gigantic black form stormed out of the smoke and fire.

“Mandalorians!” Kale roared, axes raised. “Charge!”

The forest’s edge came alive with armoured figures barely singed by the blaze at their backs. Axes, blades, spears, chains, and weapons too varied and exotic to identify were wielded by beings too strange to describe. The militia took one look at the tide approaching them and fled.

They didn’t get far. Some of the fleetest runners reached the stragglers in seconds, dragging them down beneath the Mandalorian horde. The natives were overrun, firing their rifles desperately into the night as they were slaughtered.

Kale, who approached with a stately slowness, spotted one man break free from the massacre. A Mandalorian split off from his companions to kill the loner, but he was fierce - the native struck out with his rifle butt, catching the warrior in his arm. Momentarily stunned, the warrior was brought down and the two wrestled on the ground before the militia-man beat his opponant’s head against a rock. The warrior went limp.

In moments the other Mandalorians were upon him, blades poised to strike. “Wait!” Kale commanded, and without hesitation they complied.

The Mandalore marched to the side of the panting native, staring up from his knees at the armoured giant. “What is your name, soldier?”

“Harcus,” the man replied through deep gasps and disgusted looks.

Kale pointed to the downed warrior at his feet, the blue armour beginning to stain red with the blood leaking out. “You slew this man in fair combat. That means you’re strong enough to join us - become a warrior of the Mandalorians, and we won’t kill you.”

Harcus seemed puzzled. “What, just like that?”

“Why not?” said Kale, kicking the dead man’s sword towards the soldier. “Now that he’s dead I’ll need a replacement warrior, and you’ve proven you have the skills.”

The corpses of his companions were still cooling in gory heaps all around them. The cities of his people lay in ruins, brought down in mere days. Though men of conviction would be swayed by such events, the instinct of self-preservation is often the most persuasive, and Harcus lifted the blade. Kale, satisfied, turned away to watch the end of their invasion.

“The pickings are slim,” remarked a grizzled old Mandalorian at Kale’s side. “Few recruits, little plunder of value... even the slaves are barely earning their keep. These past few weeks have been inglorious.”

“Palestar said to burn the galaxy,” Kale recited, bones crunching under his armoured feet as they marched. “Glory and bloodshed will come. For now, we will make do.”

The two warriors reached the edge of the cliff. Looking down, they could see the last city of... Kale realized he couldn’t remember the planet’s name. They all began to run together after a while. Block towers, city streets, throngs of terrified people... all sights he had seen before. “Mr. Ridley knows what he’s doing. The Alliance must be purged to teach the galaxy what foolishness it is to stand before us. For every great slaughter like Ukitan, we must slog through ten joyless massacres like... where are we?”

“Frandor,” replied the warrior, who scratched at his stubble. “Should be a good one.”

Kale nodded and raised a comm. “We’re finished here. Destroy them.” While the worlds he visited ran together in his minds, the images of their destruction were always unique. It would indeed be a good one.

In orbit, the ramshackle Mandalorian fleet brought countless heavy guns to bear. They protruded from every odd angle the warrior savages could lash a weapon, and their design lacked for subtlety. No subtlety was required, however, when these guns rocked back and sent red fire streaming down towards the last city of Frandor.

For a glorious moment, the fire at their back was dwarfed by the inferno before them as the city was razed in massive explosions. Towers shattered and exploded, sending huge chunks of shrapnel in every direction. Roads cracked and split. Whole crowds disintegrated into ashes. The screams of the dying mingled with the screech of tearing architecture and the pounding of space-born ordnance.

Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over. The city was nothing but ash and ruins, craters holding the remains of whole city blocks. Kale turned away.

“Another glorious victory for the Mandalorians,” the grizzled old warrior declared with satisfaction. “Let’s get out of here.”

Maybe the next world would provide him a challenge, Kale pondered, as the warriors of Mandalore wound their way back to their ships. Failing that, perhaps he would shed enough blood to satisfy his thirst.



The humans of Dexis V arrived at their world - like humans are wont to do - by getting lost, crash landing, and forgetting their past. It’s a surprisingly common tale in a galaxy so large, but for the common nature of their origins, the Dexans were finding themselves in an increasingly complicated situation.

They had rushed forwards technologically over the last few months after besting a Lazik pirate raid, and they had provided troops and supplies for the failed Alliance stand at Ukitan. None had returned, but from the few whispers they received from fellow Alliance members, things had apparently gone bad.

And so, with no recourse, the Dexans prepared for war against an unknown enemy. The planet was inhospitable to begin with, it was merely a matter of making the Dexans’ spire-cities equally unwelcoming.

The task fell to Supreme Commander Argus, who lived at the very tip of one of those spire cities. Perhaps the closest Dexan to the invaders. Needless to say, he had the proper motivation.



“Ten-HUP!”

The Dexan troops cracked to sharp attention at the command. Looking out from his balcony at the assembled units, Argus felt relieved to see their sharp military discipline. Hopefully, it would hold.

“At ease, gentlemen,” said the Supreme Commander. A big, bearded bear of a man, he didn’t need the balcony to tower over his troops, but it helped. “As you’ve no doubt heard, our primary task for today will be the installation and priming of our heavy guns on the outer surface of the city. These anti-air guns will be critical in repelling any space-bourn invasion force.

“I’ll want the First and the Fifth covering the Eastern quadrant, the Second and Sixth covering the Northern quadrant, the Third and Seventh covering the Western quadrant, and the... where’s the Eighth?”

“Riot duty, sir,” explained an officer at his side. “Uprisings from the lower levels again.”

Argus cursed, slamming his fist into the railing. “Damn undercity scum. They’ll get us all killed at this rate - if the city would just let me clear those floors with an armoured division we’d never have to deal with these riots again!”

“Your request was turned down again, sir,” the officer relayed.

“Of course it was,” Argus growled. “Scum or not, someone’s got to do the dirty work around here. If they’d just learn their place, we could get on with things. Anyways, order the Fourth onto double-duty to get their guns into place on-schedule. We don’t know when this attack’ll start, so there’s no time to waste.”

What handful of ships would normally be found in orbit around Dexis were long since fled by the time the Mandalorians arrived in all their scruffy splendour. With total uncontested space superiority, some invaders would have been content to bombard their enemies into submission. Needless to say, this was not Kale’s approach.

Kale looked down on Dexis V with growing glee, his mind already taking him across dunes and through craggy badlands where vestiges of civilization awaited him. “So this city center... this ‘hive cluster’? That’s the heart of the Dexans?”

“Yes, Mandalore,” reported a blue-suited warrior with a sharp salute. “Eighty percent of their population is spread along the interconnected spires. Preliminary scouting indicates a heavy industrial base and a great deal of armour and heavy guns. We expect their tech level to be substandard, but-”

“Don’t complicate a good thing,” Mandalore remarked with a dismissive wave of his hand. “We know where they are and we know we’ll win. That’s all that matters. Tell the clans to follow my lead - glory and bloodshed await!”

“As you command, Mandalore,” the warrior replied, bowing before taking his place at a command console. The business of operating the Mandalorian’s ships was mostly left to slaves, but the few warriors in charge brought great honour to their people by bringing them to battle.

Not that that much interested Kale any more - any job that kept him away from the front lines was agony. Even on his own ship he was but a passenger, staring out the front viewscreen with a barely-pacified hunger. “Whenever you’re ready, pilot.”

The lead Mandalorian ship dived towards the planet below, hurtling in the manner of a rogue asteroid - and not much more controlled. In its’ wake the others fell, creating a locust-like swarm of the most haphazard warships ever assembled. Assembled was the correct word for it in some cases. Indeed, not all of them would last ‘till planetfall, but no true Mandalorian ever worried about such things - at least, not unless it was their craft burning up on reentry.



“Faster, you dogs!” the commissar snapped, lash cracking through the air as gunnery crews struggled to pull another turret into place. “The supreme commander’s orders are to have the network operational by sundown, and for every minute you tarry I’ll flay the skin from your backs! Now work!”

The huge, crude turrets that lined the outer surface of the hive-city had at last been dragged into place, albeit at high cost to the lower orders. The air was thick with fear, both for the invaders streaking towards them at the whips cracking and snapping. Yet still, Argus knew that it was necessary. Only the harshest discipline would allow the Dexans to survive. It’d worked against their barren planet, it would work against their enemy.

“The outer defenses are prepared, supreme commander,” a lieutenant reported with a curt bow. “All is as you command.”

“Then let the foe assail us with all they have,” Argus replied. “Tell the men to remember their place and take not one step back. We give no ground to invaders, or mercy to cowards.”

“Immediately, sir,” the officer replied before quickly excusing himself. Argus, from his commanding position at the top of the grand spire, couldn’t help but feel a shudder of joy as he looked down at their preparations. Everything was as it should be, moving in perfect synergy, like one being dedicated to one purpose. So long as the ruling council were afraid of alien invasion, that purpose would remain his.

Argus wondered briefly how long the war could be made to last.



The Mandalorian hordes came screaming through the atmosphere, their ships trailing steam, smoke, and in a few cases fire. Their junker weaponry was already glowing from the heat of reentry, but was given no time to cool as turbolasers were primed for destruction.

“This is it!” Kale roared, braced on his command deck as though he meant to leap out at the approaching city. “Bring us in hard and fast! I want to be past those big guns and inside the city walls as soon as possible!”

“Aye, Mandalore,” the captain replied, sounding a bit distressed. “Uh, the defensive guns are a little heavier caliber than we were expecting. Maybe we should-”

“The only thing we should be doing is going faster!” howled the Mandalore, snarling behind his black war mask. “Damn the defenses! Overrun them!”

Despite Kale’s bravado, the Dexans really were better prepared. Ranks of heavy guns turned skywards, rocking back one after the other as the first salvo was fired. The sky filled with red death, streaking forwards towards the oncoming Mandalorians. A shot came straight for Kale’s ship-

-And suddenly they were falling, tumbling through the air, fire and smoke blazing in their wake. The lead Mandalorian ship crashed in a tremendous mess, and suddenly the invading fleet was without a leader. Confused, uncertain, and stunned, the Mandalorian ships pulled back.

Against all expectations, the battle was brought to a premature conclusion.