Gronth Ch. 09 Gronth Civil War

"Can I help? I'll be careful," Hoshino begged.

Zhao shook his head, indicating that all of the fighting should remain Gronth on Gronth at this point.

"You were right, the infighting has already started," Matt told Zhao.

"Another few days like this and they'll kill each other off," Cruz commented.

"And it just took a little help from us to get it started," Matt said mischievously.

Once Paku and Ganoot had shown their intentions, other leaders sent their aircraft and landers into action. Whether they were loyal to the new Emperor, Paku, Kankree or themselves didn't matter. They were mostly against Karak and his huge Armada..

Only a fool would eject his own troops to free up landers. Only a fool would ground all his aircraft to have his pilots shift through dirt to find and pick up gold. There wasn't enough gold to go around as it was. To the winner goes the spoils. Every Commander, whether or not they had committed to Karak or not, was fighting the others for the gold.

Over the next few days, other Gronth Commanders showed up on Zandor. Some attacked Kankree, Paku and Ganoot's troops, some attacked Karak's troops. Mostly though, they fought for the side that appeared to be winning at the time. There was no rhyme or reason to the fighting on Zandor.

Karak had finally awakened his warriors and sent them down to protect the already overloaded landers. The air cover supposed to protect them from other fighters finally appeared in the sky above them to protect them from energy weapons on enemy fighters. What in the Destroyers name was going on?

Forced to defend themselves from other claw wielding warriors. No food to speak of except for dead Gronth soldiers, attacked from above, enemies coming in from all sides and not just the front. The world that Karak had brought them into was a crazy one.

Six days later the planet was covered in dead Gronth and destroyed vehicles, mostly Karak's. Dead Gronth, landers, aircraft, and even many large orbiting ships littered the battlespace. Impromptu burials were performed for the dead that couldn't be eaten, just to clear space for more fighting. Gronth warriors ducked for cover whenever an aircraft appeared overhead. Was it there to protect them or was it going to rain down death upon them. Thank the Demons that there weren't nearly as many aircraft as there had been before.

There were rumors among the soldiers that Karak had lost his title of Lord Claw and had even left the planet. Careful control of their warriors was slipping away from their Commanders. The differing shield designs of the various armies meant nothing anymore. With very few remaining aircraft, individual clawyers had formed their own fighting groups. Some defended the overloaded landers and others attacked them. There were no more pro-Karak or anti-Karak troops. It was all about the gold now.

Zhao had carefully watched the fighting. Nearly all of the landers were on the ground now and there were only a few aircraft left to defend the ships. The remaining troops were becoming complacent. They had all but decided to split the gold among themselves. Now, they just needed to get back on the ships and head to the Earth to fulfill their mission.

The only winners in this situation were the Terrans. How had he let all of this happen? Kankree had seen all of this before. With all of his attention on surviving the battles at hand, Kankree had forgotten all about the Terrans. It had been their gold after all. The damned Terrans.

Finally coming to his senses, Kankree contacted Paku and told him of his experiences with the Terrans. Even though the experienced Groth Commander was still suffering from gold fever.