We should never have started a war against the Galactic Assembly. We thought our superior strength and weaponry would give us a tactical advantage against our enemies. And, maybe... if we had gone through with our plan only 20 cycles previously, we may have been right.
But the galactic assembly had something we did not.
Humans.
We had only heard stories about them, originating from a single planet around a main-sequence star in an exceptionally average solar system. Compared to us, the humans were nothing. They were soft and breakable with thin endoskeletons and skin thin enough to puncture with ease.
They were bipedal, not particularly strong or smart. Their weapons were fine enough, we gave them that, but even with the help of this supposed "death world species" we were sure to win.
We, the Drev. we're truly indestructible, ten feet tall six limbs, and an exoskeleton that required armor-piercing weaponry.
When the galactic assembly threatened to send human units., we laughed, for we truly understood war like no other race before us. We were raised in war, shaped by war, and we died in the glory of war.
And oh did we die.
But we weren't wrong, at first, we cut through the humans. we parted them like a fleshy wave. We spilled their blood on the ground until the valleys ran red with their blood and their cries boiled into the sky. Sure they were a worthy foe. they had tactics and they had bravery, and their weapons were damaging, but they weren't as strong.
But then, they came back, and they were stronger.
THEY DIDN'T DIE!
We tore their limbs from their bodies and their organs from their insides. We painted the rocks with their blood and saturated the sky with their screams, but they didn't die.
I remember seeing the first creature walking up the rise. He marched with the sound of clattering metal, and his eyes burned with a false light. we tried to destroy him, but his body wouldn't break. What once would have been torn into bits, deflected our weaponry. Limbs that were once so weak had been built up with steel and titanium.
Oh, we didn't kill them, we gave them permission to evolve.
In other wars, we had known that removing a limb was enough to remove a soldier from the battle, but this.... this was new.... this was horror.
The humans were not crippled, they were improved, and we led the way for them to do so.
They did not die, they replaced their limbs with iron stronger and faster. When their eyes were gone, they replaced them with thermal, infrared, and ultraviolet. They wired targeting systems directly into their brains. When their ears were gone they replaced those too. When their hearts failed they pumped their blood with machines. When their lungs deflated, they created bags for that too.
Feet gone, they replaced them with rockets.
No species from one side of the galaxy to the other had ever stood against us, but these, they took their defeat and adapted. Never had any race thought to mesh flesh with the machine, it was preposterous, it was insane.
But they did it, they wired electrical impulses into their own nerves, they ripped themselves openly and replaced what was inside. They unmade their humanity, and still remained human.... we could not understand it.
And they swept through us like a wave. They took us to our knees and then to our graves.
We had only one option left, an option never before taken by the Drev... We surrendered.
I remember the moment on my knees before the creature: One leg no arm no eyes staring into my soul.
And then he offered me his hand and smiled.
Here was a creature we had ripped apart until he was barely flesh, but still he smiled and said, "You guys are some tough bastards, you know that?"
Honestly, we didn't know anything about tough