--Archaeus-- To the Ground Below [i]Chapter 3 -[/i] Engagement \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ It's been weeks since our first confrontation with the aliens. Ever since, things were quiet, with the occasionally air battle between the two forces. But one thing that has failed to appear in this war, is a ground combat between these things. Nobody knew what they looked like, and they never removed themselves from their ships. There have been a few reported sightings of them scavenging through wreckages of each others' fallen ships, but the reports came in from random survivors peppering the land, so they're not too reliable. It wasn't until the Betas raided a capital ship of the Alphas that there wasn't ground combat. About a month after our encounter, the Betas sent a Destroyer and fighter ships to invade an Alpha capital ship. The capital ship was absolutely enormous. It was about double the size of their war machines, and it simply loomed over the surface. The capital ships weren't special looking. They were simply much larger pyramidal ships but with red markings on its sides and more superior armor and fire power. But, if I understand the meaning of capital ship correctly, there is probably an important Alpha figure of some kind who's commanding the vessels. I wouldn't doubt it. The Alphas released their fighter ships in response through a hole that opened on the side of the capital ship and an air battle started. We figured the Alphas could mutilate the Betas. We've seen them do it, first hand. But we were wrong. The Betas, with their fighter ships and Destroyer, dominated the battle field and annihilated the second out of the three capital ships of the Alphas. That is when the personal encounter happened. The capital ship came down hard and fast, and crashed quite far away from us. Even still, we still wanted to make the journey to go check out the crash zone. The crash itself was so loud and forceful, that it sent a shockwave across the ground and knocked some of us off of our feet. Once we arrived, we immediately saw some Alphas struggling to get out of the burning ship, and some on the ground, dead or wounded. They looked so...odd. Some of them had a kind of armor on, but a lot didn't. They were about seven feet in height, and were fairly similar in weight to average humans of that height. Their heads were shaped almost reptilian-like, with a medium sized snout, and had some strange strands of what seemed to be hair sticking from the back of their heads, and drooping over their backs. They had two mandibles on each side of their mouths, connected to their jaw, that jutted our slightly, then came back in towards the mouth. They seemed to move with the mouths of the creatures when they attempted to speak or groan. Their backs were arched slightly upwards, and they had sharp spikes all over their reptilian-like necks, their backs, and down the fronts of their arms and legs. From inspecting the bodies, it looks like the spikes only come out when the alien feels scared or threatened, or even when attempting to scare something else. It seemed like they could intimidate a lot of creatures or intelligent life just by looking at them, but now, they were weak and fearful. They were the ones being intimidated, even by inferior beings, such as ourselves. As we walked around them, those that could move would back away from us, and those that were trapped would simply put their heads down. They knew they were fighting a losing war, and they didn't seem to care at that point. I made the decision then to try and help free some of the Alphas from their entrapment. At first, the rest of my squad looked oddly at me, but soon started to help. The Alphas, once freed, just stared in fear and suspense at us, as if they were waiting for us to kill them. The awkward silence was soon broken by the sound of Beta fighters flying over head, as well as a Destroyer flying down from orbit to presumably drop ground troops off. A Destroyer was easily the size of a football field, and owned powerful armor and weaponry. But I guess it can be a troop transporter as well. The Alphas ran away from the site in fear while we stayed to examine and possibly even take on the Betas in the first ground battle. Once the Betas hopped down from the back of the Destroyer, it flew up and began to hover about its troops, aiming directly at us. Being so close to one of these Destroyers was terrifying. It made a faint humming sound as it hovered. It hummed almost like a tune that was very distinct. You could hear the sounds of the machinery inside of it as the ship began to activate its weapons, changing the shape of the exterior as these armaments revealed themselves. As we were observing the Destroyer, the Alphas who left us came back with their alien weapons in hand. They didn't seem to want to hurt us. They rushed ahead of us and got into cover, almost as if they were about to attack the Betas. They WERE going to help us fight the Betas! I couldn't believe my eyes. We actually made another alliance. But this one wasn't accidental. They wanted to help us this time...and we wanted to help them.