Star Year 3156.

4 Years before Chapter 1.

“Troy,” I answered.

“Family name,” the bald-headed man asked me.

“Well that one doesn’t matter anymore does it,” I replied with a pinch of frustration.

Without even flinching the man said, “Ok, next.”  

As I walked past him I soaked in the landscape around me. 

When will all of this be destroyed? 

The spaceship I was in eclipsed anything else I had ever seen. With such foreign technology, I wondered how much sacrifice it took to achieve all of this. Sacrifices that would all eventually be in vain.

They were coming. I didn’t know their names, nor their motives, but I knew they were coming. They had already taken everything from me once. Then when I thought I might get revenge, they shattered all of my confidence. They say the third time's a charm but I wasn’t necessarily convinced. Fate was a bitch, and she loved to mess with me.

As I reached the commons area, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of grief and anger. Of the initial 10,000 survivors from my home planet of Earth, now, after 8 long years of continuous fighting and planet-hopping, we have been reduced to a measly population of 500 battered souls.  

Most of us left were from North America as our countries were among the most powerful on the planet. However, there were a few from other continents. 

All 500 of us had, to put it simply, been through the pits of hell, twice. The first time those monsters came was when we had almost no knowledge about space or other life forms. 

It was a massacre. Over half of the 8 Billion population had been exterminated in the first day. By the third day, only a few hideouts remained. Even Earth’s most powerful militaries couldn’t scratch the swarm.

Then, Earth’s remaining survivors were beamed away by some other humanoid species. They were much more advanced, hell they probably even rivaled the monsters that wiped us out.

Seeing this technology, the few of us that remained built up a little bit of hope in avenging our loved ones. However, when our foes appeared with even more advanced technology, we were butchered again. We lasted much longer than before, we even took a few thousand of them down with us, but in the end, we lost. 

All the confidence and will we possessed had been shattered in a mere month's worth of conflict.

Now, us few remaining were faced with a similar situation. But this time, none of us were naive enough to believe we had a chance. We were all destined to die the same way our loved ones did, like mere bugs. 

The sound of a mans muffled crying drew me back to reality. No children played in the room, nor did any wisdom leave the mouths of elders. All that remained were young adults who were unfortunate enough to survive. 

We had all been gathered into a terminal near the end of a spaceship. After the last of us took our seats, I saw a young woman beginning to enter. I knew she wasn’t one of us, her face was way too innocent. Her turquoise eyes gleamed with youth that I hadn’t seen in a long time. She wasn’t a child, if I had to guess I’d say a few years younger than me, about 24. 

The lady had long ebony hair and was dressed in a grey sweater with black stockings that led to her short black skirt. Placed along the chest of her sweater were the words HAOF.

Humanities Alliance of Freedom-or HAOF-were the ones who “saved” us this time. From what I read, they are one of the last remnants of resistance in the entire galaxy. 

Or I guess now, this was the only resistance. HAOF and the Liberty Fighters-as they called themselves-had been the two major groups. The LF-Liberty Fighters-had been the ones who originally saved me. But now with them gone, HAOF was indeed humanity's last hope.

They had state-of-the-art weapons and gear. With ships that could rival that of the swarm. But, that was until the swarm defeated the Liberty Fighters. Now, with the absorption of a few more billion lives as well as a planet, they would be much stronger than they previously were. That’s why these monsters were so damn hard to beat.

They were a snowball of death that just got bigger and bigger as they rolled throughout the galaxy.

If its leaders hadn’t been so short-sighted, the two groups could have joined together and possibly defeated “death”. However, human greed did not fail to intervene.

Thus humanity had now been confined to an unsettled planet and a small-albeit capable fleet of ships. 

Now standing in the middle of the room, with a big smile and a sweet voice she said, “Hello everyone, my name is Annora Croix and I can’t wait to meet each and everyone of you.”