The Alliance had come together long ago because of the threat of the cognisant eaters known as Thranityr. More specifically, the Vorax. With the befriending of humans, the danger was slowly fading away. But you know what they say of "There's always a bigger fish?" On the horizon, heading fast toward them, another enemy appeared. Hard scutes, large teeth, cranky, also cognisant eaters, and were not all that interested in covo. Worst part was? Their weapons were pretty bloody advanced, they were intelligent, and didn't believe in "rules" or "fair play". Of any kind. -- Fighting Fit
[AN: You don't get a civilisation without rules. Just like you don't get cool weapons without physics, and you don't get physics without education and mathematics. So thinking this over, these guys are ape-level critters who stole everything from someone else]
The Alliance called them The Devastation. They entered a solar system, took everything they could grab, ate everything they could bite, and left. There were more of them when they hit the next installation. At first, they wiped out planets, then they learned that stations, too, held life. Then they came for the ships.
There was no communication from them. No warning but the sightings of the alien vessels. The Devastation didn't stop even if one of their ships was 'eaten' by a Hungry Caterpillar. No matter how many perished in the counter-attacks, there were always more of them. Some swarmed into, and kept, ships they encountered. Some tried to tow space stations, cutting them free when there was nothing worth taking from them any more.
They left no bodies in their wake.
The post-mortem would eventually find out why. But that was after the Alliance scrambled to stop The Devastation.
It was difficult, to say the least. The Alliance had initially began as a trading organisation, then a protectorate of all members, and finally a political conglomerate interested in peace between all cogniscent species. Thus, the old motto of "Hail and Well Meet" had to at least be attempted.
All efforts at communucation failed. Attempts to stop the vessels by disabling the engines would only stop the vessels. Boarding parties quickly learned that The Devastation was a group of cusp-cogniscent creatures that had barely learned how to handle weapons. They were perpetually hungry. They would eat anything organic. They were highly territorial and recognised beings in livesuits as canned food.
It was a hard fight, but the Vorax and the Humans were what the Alliance needed most.
They could kill for the greater good.
In the end, there was one thing that preserved life on all sides.
An all-purpose de-wormer and parasiticide, thrown into the vessels in large enough baits. After that, they were happy on a big enough Havenworld.
[Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash]
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