Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000

(Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000)

About 1000 years ago, a race of extraterrestrial, called the "Psychlos", giants with the pace brutish lout, has invaded the Earth. It will have taken only 9 days for these conquerors equipped with a technology more sophisticated to acquire the Earth and like many other planets, to make a mining colony out of it.

In the dawn of the third millenium, humanity made up of the survivors of this terrible invasion became tribale, uncultivated, and dedicate its existence to Gods, those who built the cities now in ruins, that the daemons ransacked.

But all are not likely to live free and a great number of human live as slaves and work in mines such as animals as the Psychlos name them "human animals". Greener, one of the free human, left his girlfriend and his village in order to try to change this

destiny of his people full with mercy, famished and mourrant. By acting so, he perhaps also wants to show that the Gods do not exist and to try to discover the truth. Whereas he wanders in what was formerly a advanced megapole, a Psychlos hunter passing by captures the human with other individuals. Greener is brought under an immense dome, in a human preparation center. He understands now that the daemons his tribe was talking about are the Psychlos.

But Greener is a nasty piece of work man and he is not kind to surrender without fighting. Thus, he even manages to escape while succeeding in using a Psychlos weapon he turns toward one of his guard, that impresses Terl enormously, the head of the security on Earth. This one waits for his route order to come back to his planet after a few years of services. But the answer he receives is very different. Indeed, the Psychlos consulting orders him to remain on Earth during an unspecified time. Finding that unjust, and facing the commands, he decides to increase at any costs the profits of the mine to be able to set out as fast as possible. Best of all, him and Ker, his aide-de-camp, work out a plan which will enable them to extract gold from a mine out of the Psychlos camp. But because of radiations present on the seam, it is impossible to send Psychlos workmen over there.

Terl decides then, despite all warning, to teach in the greatest secret a group of human animals, the language and the technology of the Psychlos in order to teach them drilling. Initially, Terl chooses Greener then personally forms him with the use of weapons, with the piloting of spacecraft and teaches him the language of his people.

To his greater astonishment, that functions. The head of the security is very impressed, not thinking that a human animal is capable of such a training. But the determination and the intelligence of Greener will play a nasty trick to Terl. Greener will benefit from the situation to try to give back the humans their freedom and to drive out the invader forever...

 Spoiler ! the end of the story is revealed below…

Greener benefits from his insulation during 2 week on the irradiated mine to prepare a powerful stratagem. Rather than working in the gold mine, the humans leave with some men to steal Fort Knox bank abandonned since the alien invasion. Piling up sufficient gold to obtain the confidence of Terl, he can now put at profit the time given him to train his comrades with the handling of weapons, explosives and piloting.

Whereas Terl receives his gold in bar shapes, finding it anyway quiet curious, Greener manages to negotiate with Ker the release of humans in captivity under the dome. The human animal now will pass to the offensive. Their plane consist in exploding the dome covering the Psychlos camp. Oxygen that will penetrate there, should kill Psychlos, incompetents to live in the Earth's atmosphere. But to obtain a complete victory, it is also necessary to kill the enemy at the source. Greener then decides to use the teleport system of the Psychlos to deposit on their planet an atomic bomb which should create sufficient radiations to exterminate these people of non-believers.

The plan is executed. It is necessary to hurry before the enemy reinforcements arrive on Earth. After a hard battle, and many losses, the humans manage to take over the Psychlos and to destroy their planet. As Greener had wished, the humans are free again and time has come to rebuilt.