chapter 61: The Liberation of Tamaran

Tamaran, a planet located on the edge of Perseus' Arm, was inhabited by a species of feline-descended humanoids. Despite looking a lot like humans aside from their skin and eye color, they were closer to kryptonians (who were more or less human themselves) in physiology: flight, super strength, and even the capacity to generate spheres of energy, all thanks to a quirk in their biology that allowed their bodies to absorb solar energy.

The tamaranean people weren't competely peaceful, what with their somewhat passion-driven culture, but they weren't exactly warlike like many other species either, despite being among the most powerful in the known universe. They had what earthlings called a live and let live mentality: you didn't bother them, they didn't bother you, helped by the aforementioned powers. Indeed, they didn't have a true concept of war, the last one having ended three hundred years prior.

Naturally, this lack of violence meant they weren't proficient in combat. For obvious reasons, though, most pirates and slavers still steered away from the system, not wanting to anger the superpowerful natives capable of flying to their ships and tear through their hulls.

But unfortunately for everyone, this would soon change.

It was an enormous vessel, bigger than any the tamaraneans had ever seen, very angular and black with glowing lines across its hull, a giant cylinder in the shape of a missile, but other than that it didn't seem to have weapons on it. The foreboding shape of the vessel should have raised flags on the mind of the queen, but after she and her guard went to it and received nothing resembling a response, they left it alone, thinking it was a derelict.

It wasn't.

It approached Tamaran's orbit, but rather than going on it actually stopped after a couple of days of rotating around the planet, then entered its atmosphere. Other than giving the natives a spook, though, the ship didn't do anything. A couple braves even dared to tap the hull, but even this drew no reaction from the crew, if it even had one.

Since the ship had gone straight towards the planet, Komand'r thought it probably had to be some sort of trading vessel, due to its sheer size and lack of apparent weapons. She was confident she, Koriand'r, and the Tamaranean Royal Guard would be able to deal with the strangers in case they were hostile, but again, she decided for whoever was inside to give signs of life before acting.

Given where the ship came from, and who exactly commandeered it, though, her actions would had been for naught.

Eventually, a hole opened in the underside of the ship, from which came a bright light, but again, no living creature. Komand'r sent a couple of envoys. The worst thing that could happen would be a kidnapping or the death of a couple plebeians she didn't particularly care about.

They didn't expect the envoys' heads to be dropped onto the royal palace, followed by a literal swarm of armored monsters, with someone more akin to a beast than a man at the lead, a mace in his hands and bloodthirsty savagery in his eyes.

Just a week later, after doing their best to fight and after the queen and her sister left for help, the entire planet and its inhabitants fell under the invaders. When it came to it, however it wasn't like the tamaraneans could have done more.

After all, only one single planet had ever resisted the will of Apokolips, and only when its strongest champion managed to defeat the overlord... at a heavy price.

The tamaraneans, unaccustomed to combat as a whole and without their leaders to guide them, quickly submitted to this man-shaped monster, only to eventually regretting their decision when their new masters began to put them to work, but not for the usual reasons.

The leader was called Kalibak, the Cruel. Apparently the son of the leader the ship came from, he had invaded Tamaran in search of glory for his people, glory he wanted to earn by enslaving the tamaranean people and inflicting suffering upon their flesh and spirit. The thought of someone even worse than the brute only occurred to a few, though, for the rest were more preoccupied with staying alive at the hands of Kalibak, who after proclaiming the planet his began a campaign of subjugation across Tamaran to stamp out resistance fighters, and prove why and how did he earned his epiphet. Soon, however, it became obvious he wasn't doing it to consolidate his power; Kalibak simply wanted an excuse to burn entire cities down and put the survivors to either the sword, or the 'tender' touch of his army of monsters, if he didn't do the deed himself

Those who never resisted didn't have it any better, and in fact they probably had it worse, being forced to menial works that didn't yield anything but pain and suffering, with one particular area standing above all the others... or rather, below: the Quarry.

The Quarry, again, yielded no minerals, nor anything that could be used in any way; its real purpose was to crush the populace, to kill their wills, their souls, and sometimes their lives too. Those who either refused to submit completely or couldn't work were sent there to spend the rest of their short lives being forced to mine rock with their bare hands, usually a trivial task if not for the permanently clouded skies, with chains designed to cause discomfort at best and agony at worst, and being whipped by the guards, for no real reason sans the invaders' amusement... or at least, those who could feel amusement, which in the army numbering millions meant only Kalibak and his lieutenants, for the 'rank and file' had no will, no intelligence, nothing that could really separate them from actual machines aside from being completely organic under their armor.

Parademons. Not the strongest, nor the smartest, nor the most skilled of Apokolips' forces, but they were fierce, fearless, and legion. Now matter how many died in battle, hundreds awaited behind to take their arms and finish the fight. The bright people were strong, very strong, but they found out that the space-borne demons were limitless, and their weapons were still more than able to kill them despite their powers.

And then one day, on a particularly hectic 'mining session' (if killing more slaves in a single day than any previous day can be considered hectic), a large, blue swirl of light opened right in the middle of the open mine, and another, and a third one, the smoky sky above them parting.

And from the vortices, came mechanical monsters. They had two legs and two arms, but that was the extent of their tamaraneanoid form: their forearms ended in barrels, their heads were little more than sensors, and the machines themselves were the size of small houses.

The parademons knew only two things: serve their master, his progeny and Apokolips' elite, and kill their enemies. Energy cannon fire sweeped the area the robots were in, lasting for a good ten seconds. When the dust cleared out, however, they saw something they had rarely seen before: the target of their wrath standing safe and sound... and aiming their cannons at them.

And then the robots retaliated.

Parademons were tough, their armor tougher still, and could go on as long as their major organs were intact, but the robots' weaponry had been designed to deal with even stronger, harder targets, and aimed by incredibly advanced guiding systems.

Guns blazing and feet marching, the machines didn't bother to stop, shooting at the parademons as they moved. Armor and even physiology designed to withstand a surprising amount of damage might as well have been paper against the robots' cannons, doing nothing to stop the heavy caliber rounds tearing them to pieces. In the rare case they didn't fire, their arms were more than enough to crush the winged beasts to a pulp.

Claw, gun, fang, numbers... Nothing, nothing could damage the metal beasts! Had the parademons been actually sapient, at least a couple of them might have felt what humans called 'déjávu', what with being on the receiving end of an alien invasion. The slaves definitely did, wondering where did the robots come from among many other things, at least until it became clear that the machines had come to rescue them when several began to break their chains.

One parademon managed to survive the onslaught and approach one of the machines, taking advantage of its smaller size providing it with some protection. With no way of damaging the machines directly, it chose a different approach: try to rip its head off, try to render it blind or deaf.

What the parademon didn't count on, however, was that the arms were not only capable of reaching any section of the bot's upper body, but also capable of extend a couple feet. That meant the robot the parademon tried to attack didn't even let it touch its chassis, literally slapping the beast downwards... and like its companion, not stopping.

The last thing the parademon ever saw was the foot of the metal monster flying towards its head, with nothing in between to stop it.

I know it's short, but does it have the proper drama of having your home invaded by an ork warboss wannabe and his pseudo-demon army, or maybe it's not enough?