Zhou sat with his mighty fleet, lining up perfectly, just out of range of The Gryph and Human Ship's weapons, all his ships had been painted different colours, he was not risking his enemies identify his commanders again, red, purple, green, yellow and even pink ships had lined up. "Ready the weapon, Doctor. Prove you are worth what you cost me" said Zhou with a slick and slimy voice "ok boys! let's have some fun! Everyone, stay behind me." he called into a ceiling mounted drop down microphone he had fitted. Bush saw them advance. And ordered everybody forward, The Gryph obliged, the main fleet was two hours away, all they had to do, was hold off until then. Zhou smiled gleefully, showing his many missing teeth. "Just a few more... just a little bit more.... ha! Fire the weapon!" he laughed. A blinding blue flash erupted from the front of his ship and everything in front of Zhou's ship died. Lights flickering, as they began drifting. It had taken Adrian a few minutes to realise that they had been hit with an EMP device. "Get life support back online, shields, weapons! Anything!" he cried desperately. They were all sitting ducks. Bracing for an impact that never seemed to come. Zhou's ships still advancing had not yet fired any other weapon, they approached closer and closer. Getting so close to finish them with a well aimed shot thought Bush. It was only when The Pirate fleet passed the drifting ships did Bush question everything. "Get life support back online!" he cried again. The Pirates ignored the human and Gryph ships and headed straight for the planet behind them. This was an invasion.
Zhou Smile grew even larger, showing more and more rotting gum. His ship was now just above Merriden IV, "Doctor, it is time." he said softly into his microphone and a weapon fired a single shuttle at the planet, towards the Red Sector, a shuttle that will bypass all the defences.
Broom had his soldiers stationed all around the perimeter and everywhere else, arming most of them with anti-air weapons, expecting some pirate small craft to break through, causing enough damage on the ground, to distract the defending fleet, make them fight on two fronts. Broom was no fool, he knew what was coming, he had the experience of planetary defence before. The enemy would attack the fleet, and also send down some attacks to the planet to cause confusion. He was going to make every pirate that broke through sorry that they had even been born. He stood in his glass office, eyes straight up at the sky, every single one of his wall monitors were active, and at them stood an able officer, controlling orders to a company somewhere around the sector. That, was when Broom saw the falling object that he took as part of a ship from above. The flaming object was in fact a shuttle containing his very doom. "It's heading straight for the eastern wall!" cried Broom "Sir! It's registered as a shuttle from The Judgement! She must have taken damage as some broke through!" he spoke just before it pummelled into the defence wall of the eastern side turning the once strong wall of metal and dirt into nothing put a hundred meter crater with smoke and fire billowing forth from it's gaping wound. Broom stared at the smoke through his glass room, rising into the air, he called a fire team to contain the blaze and a medical team to tend to any wounded.
"Sir! We have twenty seven wounded, nine dead of ours, however, there seems to be ten bodies inside the debris, they are dead, mangled and burned!" came a voice over the comms of the medical team leader "wait." he came again. "Hold on, they're not dead! Somebody get stretchers over here! These people need he-" Broom raised his eye brows in disbelief, whoever it was, they came down like a meteorite, there is no chance of survival! "why did they cut off?" asked Broom rubbing his temples, "Try and raise them again." Broom's eyes hurt against the sun that constantly fired through his glass room. "Sir, no contact. It's strange.." said his secretary who had control of one of the consoles. Before Broom could give another order, every console fired into life with radio chatter. "Contact! Contact!" came cries over the radios, "What the hell are they!? Open fire!" came another voice, "Kill it! Kill it! Argh, No!" cried another, within fifteen minutes, he had lost contact with three companies, but no enemy contacts coming from the sky. They had penetrated past him somehow. "Bring up a Helmet Cam for anyone still alive on the ground, near the combat! I want eyes on the enemy!" spat Broom. It took a few minutes to find the Helmet Cam feed of a young private Sanders, they could hear his heavy breathing, pure fear was clearly dominating his mind, he had begun muttering to himself, asking to be saved by some god he surely had just made up and hoped existed. The glass room held their breaths, they had tried to contact Sanders to no avail. It seems he had been separated from his unit, or simply become the only survivor. He entered a room, dusty and dark, it was a barracks, he ran straight to an ammunition crate at the other end of the dark room, opening it and filled his pockets and rifle and suddenly stopped breathing. Turning frantically towards a hissing noise that had suddenly appeared. A tall slender frame of a form that resembled more of a skeleton than a body, long thin arms with long blades for fingers, its skin a pale orange colour, it's pale eyes fixed upon Sanders, needle teeth glistened wet as it drooled, sniffing its prey. Sanders fired two rounds before his screams filled the glass room. The Helmet Cam had soon been terminated at Sanders' end. The room knew he was dead. "What the hell was that thing!?" demanded Broom. The Officers blinked stupidly, all of their experiences drained from the shocking image they had just witnessed. They could not think of what to do. Broom's secretary cast her eyes across their blank stupid faces in disbelief, "You idiots! Form a secondary defence perimeter and start evacuating The Gryph Citizens!" she cried and the commanders stumbled to their controls to fulfil their orders. "Sir! we have a breach in the command building! They're pouring in!" came a voice over the console. Broom walked back to his desk and opened the top drawer, pulling out an assault rifle. "Ladies and Gentlemen, let us today, earn our pay cheque." with a loud loading of the rifle, Broom shouldered his weapon with a curt smile. He missed this. He missed Combat.