Sci-Fi Short Story Contest(CLOSED)

I'd just like to point out that this takes place in an alternate future of Project One Man War Saga, and so there are a few minor background points one should know:

The story is told from a man known as 'Red Eye 0137', formerly Legion General Third Class Ocean Seven, the commander of the entire Global Defense Army has been protecting Earth- known as Pure Planet 14 to those educated in the workings of the now-dead Imperial BioAndronian Empire- since before Ocean Seven was born in the year 1993, Earth Standard Time. The GDA was officially called the GDA, however, as a result of Ocean Seven joining- it was the BAEDF, the BioAndronian Earth Defense Force, beforehand- and so the story revolves around the GDA Navy's (GDAN) short-lived but heroic defense of PP14. (Which actually happened much closer to the 2,000th anniversary of the conclusion of the Third Great Defensive War, and lasted less than two days, not three weeks.)

The opposing forces are the remnants of the United Universal Government formed in the wake of the fall of the IBAE, and decimated around 2864 at a bunker world named Hope, by Ocean Seven and the fleet formed around Earth to keep people away- the loss of Legion General Second Class Snpr Mk.VII in 2014 was still fresh in the minds of the surviving GDA forces then, and remains so even as far as 4014. A thousand years of rebuilding and discovering completely ignored worlds gave the UUG remnants enough firepower to take on Remembrance Fleet (the fleet Ocean Seven used to destroy the UUG in what is informally known as the Fourth Great Defensive War, but usually called the Pit Stop War on account of how fast it ended)

It may not seem that there are really aliens in this at all, but if you hold the opinion that people of different nationalities are technically aliens (Not ‘aliens’ with regards to immigration, but aliens in the sense that they have a different mental and physical makeup than those of other countries.) and you take into consideration Red Eye’s changing reactions to the invasion- from feeling guilty to chasing after the complete eradication of the UUG- how can you really tell if there are no aliens, or if everyone is an alien? From my point of view- following Snpr and Ocean Seven’s lives- the UUG are the aliens, but from the UUG’s point of view, the GDA is. The GDA tried to wipe the UUG out, creating a shift to viewing the UUG as victims, and the GDA as aliens. Then the UUG returns and flips the situation around. Which side is good and should be considered ‘non’ alien?

I say that because I’m not experienced with aliens in the theatrical sense- little green men, the countless species of Star Wars, but rather with viewing aliens as more of a matter of birth or allegiance. Snpr defected from the IBAE, making him an alien to the IBAE but a naturally born member of the DHO (later the GDA.) At the same time, Ocean Seven is a naturally born Earth Human, but it is hard to find him just one ‘natural’ place: while he distances himself from Earth, he still supports it, but is entrenched in the GDA. Earth may sometimes see him as an alien, but he sees himself as an Earth-born Human; who is to judge that he is an alien (not an ally) from Earth, or that he is not? (Snpr could say he isn’t an alien to the IBAE, but the IBAE would say otherwise. The difference here is the IBAE sees him as a threat, whereas Earth sees Ocean Seven an alien through his detachment; they don’t hate him like the IBAE does of Snpr.)

In so many words, I guess I'm asking people: what is an alien, really?

By our traditional definitions, we've only seen them in fiction. But would that fiction even come close to comparing to reality, if indeed there is other life in this vast expanse?