I still remember every detail of the day the world ended the war with the humans was the longest and bitterest we'd ever fought by the time it was over our fleets were all but wiped out and half our colonies were devastated but we didn't see any of that on our H World our Beloved tys the fighting was always somewhere Far Far Away across the vast reaches of the Galaxy we saw the trade with the outer colonies dropping off we saw the mess mesages of condolence being delivered to families of soldiers serving at the front but
that was war and that had always been War we were a marshall people and we had defended our interests across the known Galaxy the fighting never reached tyrax itself never and we went about our lives as we always had confident in the knowledge that the war would always be somewhere Beyond the Horizon true the trade ships dwindled until nine out of 10 births in the orbit oral docks were empty and The Grieving families multiplied until it seemed like everyone knew someone who'd been killed or captured or who'd simply disappeared into the void it seemed stupid
in hindsight but still it never even crossed our minds that we might lose there were often tough times during war but that was when we tarians were at our best when things were darkest that was when we shined if the enemy hit us hard then we'd get up again and hit them back twice as hard and in the end the only difference it would make would be that we'd find Victory all the sweeter tyian never backed down we never gave up and we certainly didn't make peace with the likes of humans so it was a
shock to say the least when our government told us we were going to surrender everyone's first reaction was that it couldn't be true it must be a mistake someone had accidentally released a classified worst case scenario on the main government Channel or some lowly functionary had made typo and it was actually the humans who were surrendering or the humans had somehow infiltrated and sabotaged our communication systems however over the next day more and more confirmations were released until it was no longer possible to pretend that it was just a misunderstanding they were serious our government
had come to the conclusion that we had lost the war and we had no choice but to surrender to the humans the following hours were surreal almost dreamlike everyone stopped what they were doing no one went to work or school and there were many people just wandering through the streets in a days with no idea what to do with themselves how could this happen we never surrendered not in a thousand years and a hundred Wars our military was the best in the galaxy and the conflict with the humans had started so well our first attack
had wiped out an entire human Fleet and we'd overrun their nearest colonies before they'd had time to gather more forces we had every strategic advantage on our side besides no matter what the Strategic situation the humans were our mortal enemies they had sent weapons and other supplies to the Reven during our war with them and their colonies were encroaching further and further into our sphere of influence they were an evil species endlessly rapacious taking anything they could get their hands on and given to torturing and murdering any who opposed them this couldn't be happening it
couldn't be and yet it was as that truth slowly began to Dawn on us the fear set in the government was talking about the arrival of human occupation forces we all knew what that meant we'd all heard the stories that had made it back to tys as they overran our outlying colonies Mass executions purging anyone who could possibly offer resistance forced labor of the entire population beatings and torture a daily occurrence and worse things that weren't even mentioned on government channels yet still spread in whispered rumor more than a few people committed suicide before the
first human even set foot on tyrax better to go out cleanly with honor than be tortured to death in a slave Camp the government prohibited such actions and urged us to endure the unendurable for the sake of future Generations being good citizens most of us listened although a few of us questioned why we should even bother to follow the government's orders anymore it was a mark of how bad things were that such people were immediately imprisoned across the whole planet there was the sense that things were unraveling there were a few sporadic protests some from
soldiers some from civilians demanding that we continue the war whatever the cost the government had had the foresight to realize that people wouldn't react well to the surrender announcement and had stationed troops whose loyalty could be relied upon at Key installations the most serious disturbances were quickly broken up the rest fizzled out when they saw no one was joining them the vast majority of the populace was too stunned to do much of anything we could only sit and watch and wait for the humans to arrive it was what maybe a month after the proclamation the
day the world ended the day we surrendered the government told us nothing perhaps hoping to prevent a panic then one evening it was announced that the human Fleet would arrive in orbit tomorrow there was no Panic only resignation if this was the end then we would meet it bravely as txian always did many said goodbye to their friends and family then locked themselves away in their Apartments to contemplate the sum of their lives before the human death squads began Landing some of us watched through telescopes as the occupation Force arrived in orbit around tys their
battleships weren't any bigger than ours but by the Ancients there were a lot of them I counted more than double the number our largest Fleet had fielded at the start of the war and this was what the humans had after 4 years of fighting I knew they still had other fleets too scattered across txian space garrisoning captured worlds and hunting down the last remnants of our once Mighty military forces at least now we knew how we had lost although that did US little good at this point the official surrender took place in the empty fighter
Bay of the human flag ship and was broadcast live on every screen on tys we expected to watch as our leaders were marched out in front of the enemy commanders and forced to apologize for daring to wage war against a superior species admit the justness and rightness of the enemy's cause then swear Eternal falty to the conquerors that was the way we did these things depending on how vindictive the victors were feeling the conquered leaders might then be executed instead they were given a pen and told to to write their names on a piece of
parchment the live transmission was interrupted briefly here by a government announcer who explained that the parchment was a written list of the surrender terms and that by writing their names on it the government officials and by extension the entire tyian empire were recognizing their legality strange custom but that's aliens for you after the signing our leaders did give the customary oath of fty and apology but it was far less elaborate than expected as if the humans regarded it as an unimportant postcript to the real Act of surrender and then that was it there were no
executions and no torture a few of us began to Hope most of us held our breath waiting within hours the first drop ships began landing and the occupation forces began moving to take control of the Cities I debated with myself whether to hide away or whether to watch the troops moving through the street outside my apartment I decided that it was better to stay away from the window maybe offering myself a little protection against random acts of violence but in the end I couldn't help myself first came the tanks hovering on suspensor fields an inch
above the street Paving we had the similar technology but these ones looked at least twice as heavy as anything we could build then came armored personnel carriers again on suspensor fields then in the middle of the column marched the Infantry rank after rank after rank of powered armor fully enclosed almost like walking tanks themselves we only used powered exoskeletons that were only strong enough to carry the weight of someone light body armor I can remember every detail as vividly as if it were yesterday down to the emblems on their shoulders all this time I'd had
no idea what we were actually fighting nor had my neighbors clearly who I saw gopping from their Windows just like me if we had we might might have thought twice about starting a war with the humans although then again before we were so confident that our military was the best in the Galaxy we wouldn't have hesitated to fight anyone it was almost comforting in a way when I realized that we deserved this we hadn't been betrayed or lost to a dirty trick or a twist of fate we had simply been profoundly overwhelmingly arrogant overconfident in
our own abilities and totally ignorant of our enemies a disastrous combination that inevitably led us to this fate almost like one of the ancient Parables if I was about to die then at least I could do so knowing there was still some sense to the universe I was lost in my own thoughts for a while watching the seried ranks of the occupying Army march past in perfect synchronization almost hypnotic apparently I wasn't the only one one of my neighbors must have been so preoccupied staring at the parade of alien soldiers than they weren't paying to
their offspring because to my horror I saw a child a very young infant still given to Randomness wander out from the atrium of a building opposite right into the path of the armored infantry I have the clearest most vivid memory of seeing her white dress catching the breeze as she came out of the Lee of the building I expected to see her get shot down as she approached the column or at the very least crushed beneath the heavy metal boots of the marching infantry instead one one of the soldiers broke off from the column and
picked the child up you wouldn't believe anything that big and that powerful could be so delicate but the child didn't even cry out as she was whisked off the ground and carried back under the building's Portico the armored Soldier set her down on one of the benches then got something out of a pouch and gave it to her with his back to me I couldn't see what it was but a moment later he was jogging back to retake his place in the column heavy suit thundering on the p Paving so loud I could hear it
with the window closed and the child was watching him go curious but not afraid then she started eating from the small packet he'd given her it was food the human had given her food a moment later someone darted out from the atrium and snatched the child back inside and the humans continued marching utterly unconcerned with us that was my first inkling that this might not be the summit of our worst fears before the Landing I'd been debating with myself whether it would be better to be executed in the first wave of purges or live to
see the oppression that followed the lack of executions at the surrender ceremony had been a positive sign that the humans weren't planning on an outright genocide but surely the enforcement of the occupation would be as harsh as it had been in the outer colonies but the way one soldier treated one little girl well you couldn't always understand the motives of aliens but at the very least maybe it was worth living long enough to see how things turned out maybe having seen just how much they outclassed our forces it was time to start questioning what our
government had told us maybe maybe the information which had supposedly been reported from the occupied colonies wasn't reliable after all as the sun set on surrender day the day everything was supposed to end I had only one thought going round and round in my head maybe we'd been wrong about the humans the occupation forces took control of all the government buildings in my city and set up checkpoints on major traffic routes I still had a job as far as I knew and as a very minor government functionary I would be have to report to the
local occupation overseers I turned up to work the day after the surrender having braved the security checkpoints still not entirely sure I wasn't going to be arrested or executed on the spot instead I was told by my line manager to go to my office office and proceed with my work as normal and expect to be summoned to a briefing by the human official in charge of our department at some point during the day those were the most intense 5 hours of accounting and payroll I had ever done in my life shortly after midday we were
told to go to a meeting room on the fourth floor I passed several human soldiers on my way in their less bulky light body armor my hearts were racing trying to determine if any of them looked like they were there to participate in a firing squad along with around two dozen of my colleagues I took a seat in the meeting room and waited after a few minutes a human came in he introduced himself as Doug it took me a while to work out whether this was a title or a name either way it was unpronouncable
he explained that he was now responsible for supervising all the clerical departments in our City's local government and then launched into an explanation of the new formatting guidelines that we would be implementing to bring our work into line with the occupation government's standardization it was long and it included many graphs and diagrams he did say that we should file any documents with political implications in triplicate one for our own records one for the local censors and one for the planetary government but he didn't expect accounting and Personnel to see many of those and for the
time being Staffing levels would remain as they had been before although that would be reviewed on a quarterly basis he finished by saying that he was looking forward to having a productive working relationship with us and that he hoped that together we would be able to rebuild Tyra back into a prosperous Society there wasn't any mention of governmental purges at all and he didn't even bring up punishments for failure I don't know when I started to relax it wasn't immediate for a while there was still a part of me that expected the humans to show
their true brutal nature but there were no purges no torture no forced labor and as weeks then months passed I realized there wasn't going to be there were a few arrests and trials of people who had committed specific crimes against the humans during the war and when the evidence presented during the trials was broadcast we couldn't pretend they didn't deserve it but the general reign of terror failed to materialize it was surreal just how ordinary everything was surrender day was supposed to be the end and everything was just still going I got to know Doug
quite well I was even able to pronounce his name after a couple of months he was an amiable yet competent person occasionally given to Randomness but within tolerable limits for an alien and he showed me more consideration than my txian managers ever had as far as I could see most of the humans in the occupation government were like him and after a while of working together I would even say I was friends with some of them one day I realized what I had already known on some level for for a while the surrender hadn't been
the end it was a hard thing to admit all those millions of lives lost in the war all that destruction and the years of hardship admitting that it was all for nothing for a pointless war of imperialistic greed didn't come easily but I was surrounded by the proof of it every day and I couldn't deny what I could see quite plainly all around me the day the humans arrived wasn't the end of the world well I say that maybe it was the end the end of the old tys but there would be a new one
in its place and maybe working with the humans we could make it a better one
