On April 12 1961, Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Garagin became the first human in space. On July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon. He said the historic words, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." A camera in the Lunar Module provided live television coverage as Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder to the surface of the moon. Since then man has done amazing things. One-man shuttles gave way to space fighter jets, cargo and convoy ships, until earth had its own legion of mother ships. Many had only ever thought such things could be only achieved through movies, but now it was a reality. It took many years, but the space program of the peoples of earth progressed, and expanded. As did the population. In 2203, it became apparent that the population was multiplying at a rate that would cause the natural resources of the world to diminish to unfathomable levels. The leaders of the eleven superpowers, the reigning nations, made the world-first decision, to expand the space program to include intergalactic world colonization. Establishments had already been set up upon the inhabitable planets of the immediate solar system. Both the moon’s and Mars’ biodomes and man-made environments were already being overcrowded.

Scientists, doctors, and the best and brightest minds of mankind where loaded into cargo shuttles, and sent out into space. As a habitable planet was found, an establishment was organized, and a civilization built. Communication and travel was slow, ships and messages took years to travel the distances covered. If a planet were attacked, it would be hopeless to send aid to them. But over time, new solar systems were discovered, and planets were colonized. Convoys of mother ships were sent out, transporting ordinary citizens to far distant planets.

It proved many years that humans simply wandered out, stretched forth their reign of the galaxy, populating planets left, right and centre. All of which were governed by a ruling body, which took orders directly from the eleven leaders of the original super nations. As humankind spread further out, communications were forced to improve, and messages that needed to travel hundreds of light years were sent and received instantly due to specialized satellites situated half way between each and every colonized planet and its closest colonized neighbor. Travel took only years, sometimes months, not decades, and a comfortable empire was built. It was only a matter of time before humans encountered other races of beings, which like mankind had once been, oblivious to any possibility of life outside their own. In many cases, humans and the alien species, could manage to share a planet in harmony, and become allies. Though, as with all cases, some races refused to share land, or had no space to spare. Ignorant humans waged wars to no avail, and in the exceptions where they did manage to conquer, destroy or enslave the original inhabitants of the world, they were essentially declared exiled from the other colonies. The human race and their technologically able allies moved forth into the galaxy and dispersed, creating new worlds, and through interbreeding, new subspecies of races. Humanoids became just as many as the original human populace, and also spread themselves out over the known universe.

It was not until the humans, the humanoids and their allied worlds explored further into the galaxy system of Ida, that they alerted a sentient race, far more advanced than they were, to their presence. The result came as a drastic change for the connected worlds. For almost a full century, humans were the dominant race of people in the majority of colonized worlds, being the most technologically advanced and civilized. The race they encountered had far surpassed that of which the humans had created, and were on a level so advanced, their seemed no end to their vast knowledge of the universe and technology. Their coming was swift. Armed with mother ships and war vessels, they came upon the colonized worlds like the humans had once done, and swiftly and easily assumed command. Planets and peoples were attacked from orbit. No one stood a chance. Before the peoples could even mobilize fighter craft to counter, the world was in ruin and the atmosphere contaminated. Hundreds of worlds were lost, before troops were mobilized from the original home world, and the rest of the colonized and allied worlds soon received their orders. The enemy was kept at bay, bordering the system of Ida and Orena. The territory was lost. None knew what had become of the worlds, but frantic and last minute messages suggested that the people had been enslaved, forced to work and harvest raw materials available to the planet, to aid the alien race in their manufacture of craft and weapons. Some people had said that the alien race had decided to conquer the worlds because of the raw materials the worlds boasted. Others speculated they wanted slaves. The majority believed they only wanted power, and the reason they had not gained all they craved was because of the valiant efforts of the fighting men and woman, positioned at the forefront of various battle stations, each manned and armed to the teeth, sporting thousands of attack vessels and fighter jets.

Not much was known of this new foe, for none had seen what the race had actually looked like. In their ships they stayed, maintaining control over what they had consumed so rapidly, occasionally testing the barriers placed on the border by the humanoid allied forces. They had the power, the technology to break through, and continue their ravaging of the now dubbed ‘free worlds’, but the ever imposing threat of the ships simply waiting, was more than enough to ensure no fighter pilot or missionary dared to venture into the captured territory to test them.

It was not until an abandoned escape pod was found drifting through the barrier that the allied forces learnt about the enemy. Contained within was a small child, cramped and unconscious from a failing life support system. Clothes ragged, parched lips and dusty hair indicated he had come from one of the remote planets, transformed from lush forest world, to desert, by the fierce and chemically unstable warfare of the alien race. A human slave, from a controlled world, had some how broken free, and could now provide the allied forces with the information they needed to know.

The child was dark haired, and olive skinned. If not for startling lavender eyes, it would have been easy to determine he was a pure human child. The humanoid recovered remarkably quickly, too quickly for modern medicines to counter for. Doctors speculated the atmospheric changes, were not all that the alien race had done, and possibly tampered with genetics to ensure their slaves healed fast, so they could work harder. The silent youth said nothing to contrast the speculation, and the doctors didn’t press the matter further. The child, obviously shell shocked and scared, bore no physical injuries or markings, except a rather large calloused scar on the nape of his neck, which seemed as though it had been there many years. No one even speculated that the scar, had more to do with his escape and the information he could provide, than anyone cared to admit, or that he even dared. In his lonely silence, the youth only communicated to one man, who took it upon himself to ensure his health. With a voice so void of emotion it was hollow, the child retold his story and details of his escape. For a young one, who had observed much, he had many valuable things to say.

The race controlling them called themselves the Arentai. They were tall and white skinned, lithe, serpent like creatures. Their eyes were small, like slits in their facial features, flattened noses, with a widespread horizontal mouth full of tiny sharp teeth, which seemed to take up most of their face. Physically, they were brittle, weak. They relied on their superior intellect and technology to protect them. Like insects, they had four stages of life. The first stage was a larval form, inside the thin belly of a female. Here they resembled maggots, and the female was never left unguarded. Inside her belly she could carry up to a thousand infants. The second stage required the help of the human slaves. The unwilling help. As a large, more snake like larval form, the soft bodied infant could not live on its own, nor fit still in the mother. Here, young larvas were implanted into slaves, who served as hosts. The painful process involved the larva eating its way into the host, and working its way up the spinal column, embedding its head into the brain of the host, wrapping the rest of its body in the vertebra of the spine, therefore assuming sole function of the body, and ensuring it could not be removed without killing the host. Then, with the peculiar antibodies of their species, the larva could heal the entrance wound they had made, leaving only a calloused scar. From then on, a body could be easily maintained, and life extended. Here, the larva had a body to reside in, until they felt it was time to mature. This peculiar stage of their growth allowed the larva to have a choice. It could continue living within the host, as a larval form, or it could grow into a fully independent adult. Those who chose to grow, which all did, at various times, would continue to swell, until eventually bursting from the human host as a partially formed adult Arentai. Although appearing like a newborn baby, this stage was adolescence, until eventually growing into the common adult. Humans were not just slaves in the captured worlds, they were incubators for the young.

He hadn’t been born a slave. The aliens had come down upon them when he was young. From even that age they were to mine the earth for some kind of mineral. The mineral dust was toxic to the humans and humanoids. Beautiful children were kept away from hard work, and were kept as hosts, or were allowed to grow to become breeders, to create more beautiful children to become hosts. They thought the humans were hopeless for only being able to bear one child at a time. His mother had stolen him away from the mines, and kept him safe for as long as she could. It was she who had placed him into the escape pod, and set the coordinates for the free worlds.

This news was most distressing to both common citizens and government officials. Civilians didn’t want to forfeit their body to an alien child, and the army and officials now found the problem of detecting the larva from inside a human, in case the alien, in the human host, came to gather intelligence, or sabotage anything. As a precaution, all incoming vessels, escape pods and floating debris coming from the captured worlds, were shot into oblivion before crossing the border. There was no mercy. This threat could not get out of hand.

Turning off the recording device, the doctor breathed a troubled sigh, removing his glasses to wipe his brow.

“Can you keep a secret?” The child suddenly spoke up, knowing now only one man would ever hear this. The elderly man swore on the safety of the free worlds he could, upon seeing the child’s hesitance to talk more.

“My name is Ves.” He spoke softly.

“The one inside me is called Tarek.”