Chapter 13

“This is Sergeant Kipexo of the 3rd Veil. I am currently on the Lifreet homeworld, Dradaheirn, which I traveled to willingly in order to deliver this message to you all today.

“The Lifreet ask for peace between their people and ours. They have called upon the Veil in good faith to request negotiations to end the war that has waged between our races for hundreds of solar cycles. So far, their request has been met with silence.

“We recently saw the consequences of silencing a race we consider lesser than ourselves. Humans suffered needlessly at our hands, and that is not a sin I wish to see my people repeat. We are Raugon. We pride ourselves in our strength, but annihilating a race that wants no fight with us is not something we should find pride in.

“The Veil will not answer the Lifreet’s requests for negotiations, which goes against our own laws of warfare. That is why I am now officially requesting these negotiations instead. As a current and active member of the Galacorp, I am well within my rights to send this request up my chain of command to the very top, but that does not guarantee they will answer, which is why I need your help.

“If you feel as I do that honor should come before pride, I ask that you comm our leadership and encourage them to accept my request. I know my people. I fought the Lifreet for you for many solar cycles because I thought that was the right thing to do. I no longer believe that. And, knowing all the facts, I don’t believe you will either.

“Together, we can move into a future free of bloodshed. I am honored to lead that charge. I await the Veil’s reply.”

Kipexo watched himself give the first of his pre-written speeches on one of the monitors. The hologram showed him standing in a shuttle bay in front of a Raugon battlecruiser, which Sovereign Luxtetana said was the perfect backdrop since Kipexo was still dressed in his armor. This particular message would be targeted to military individuals specifically in the city of Ipsyla. Anyone with any level of clearance to the Galacorp base as well as all active duty members currently in the city would receive this message at around dinnertime this evening.

“Your thoughts?” Sovereign Luxtetana requested.

Kipexo pulled a face. “If I got this message during my time in active service, I would’ve been skeptical if not downright angry hearing a high-ranking soldier say these things. You expect my respect with my fellow service members to sway their opinions, but I fear it may have the opposite effect.

“Not many in the Galacorp adopted humans. Few of them will understand why those of us who did were so outraged by their mistreatment; therefore, mentioning them will not have the emotional impact you think it will.

“The part about honor, though, that carries significant weight. My father would’ve rather died than disregard a direct order or break the laws of warfare. It will disgust them to hear the Veil is breaking rules that were beaten into them during their training.”

The sovereign nodded slowly. “Do you feel this message would do better delivered to the general public?”

“I think it’s fine overall, but I would cut the part about the humans and save those words for a different audience.”

“Understood, Commander. We will edit the message before sending. I thank you for your candor.”

“Are we done already?” Ethan asked.

“For today,” the sovereign replied. “The broken ship has been moved to our maintenance bays. Come. I will escort you.”

They followed Sovereign Luxtetana out of the room and down the walkway in the opposite direction from where they came from. At first, Kipexo allowed Ethan to walk at his side, but the further they went, the more Lifreet they encountered. It eventually got so busy Kipexo got nervous and picked Ethan up again. Ethan didn’t object, and Kipexo was grateful.

They eventually came to a room much like the one they arrived in with the same metal archway stationed at the end of a long walkway.

“We will call for you tomorrow, Commander,” the sovereign said with a bow. “Until then.” He promptly turned and left the room without waiting for a reply.

The Anamafrid was parked in a large, open port, and when Kipexo passed through the arch and started down the walkway, he could see dozens of Lifreet below, bustling in and out of the cargo hold carrying tools and parts.

“I bet Reethis is having a fit right now,” Kipexo commented. He checked back over his shoulder one final time, but they weren’t being followed. His databand flashed and beeped to indicate it had been reactivated when they passed through the arch as well, just as the Lifreet said it would. So far, they’d kept their word, but Kipexo wasn’t fool enough to let his guard down just yet.

“Did you already know about all of that?” Ethan asked. “The stuff about what made the Raugon and the Lifreet go to war?”

“Not really,” Kipexo admitted. “The war was already waging by the time I was born. My father was a soldier before me, and he taught me the Lifreet were our mortal enemies. It didn’t matter why the war started, all that mattered was the fight. When it came to the Lifreet, it was either kill or be killed. That’s what I was taught, anyway, first by my father then by my chain of command. I always just assumed that hatred was mutual.”

“I don’t hate them, Kipexo,” Ethan said softly. “I know I probably should after everything you went through in your past, but…”

“My past is not your burden to bear. Don’t make enemies on my account. Friends and allies are safer.”

They entered the Anamafrid, and Kipexo set Ethan on his feet at his side once the doors closed behind them. The occasional Lifreet bustled passed them as they made their way through the ship toward the common area, but none of them paid Kipexo and Ethan any mind.

“I said don’t touch that, damn you!” shouted a familiar voice that made Kipexo groan. They rounded the corner and approached the cockpit, where they found half a dozen Lifreet scattered about the room opening panels, removing sections of the walls, and tearing apart broken machinery. Reethis stood in the middle of the room with two arms crossed, a scowl on his face, and his pipe stuck in his teeth, puffing away as his eyes darted madly around the room, trying to watch all of the work being done at once. Natalie stood a short distance away with an equally irritated look on her face, but she was glowering at the captain instead of the Lifreet around her.

“You put that down!” Reethis yelled at one of the Lifreet, who froze, half bent over with a bundle of wires in his hand. “Those don’t go over there. They belong to this panel… that’s missin’ its projector chip! Where in the underworld is—”

“Reethis,” Kipexo called, his tone far sterner than he usually used with the aging captain. “Perhaps you should wait in your quarters while repairs are made.”

“I already tried that,” Natalie spat. “He’s too damn stubborn to listen.”

“I’m just supposed to let these… people,” he said with a sneer, “just crawl all over my cockpit unchecked?”

“Do you want your ship back or not?” Ethan asked with a shrug.

“The boy is right,” Kipexo said. “They can’t do their work with you breathing down their necks. Either trust them to do their jobs or tell them to leave, and I’ll tell their sovereign the deal is off.”

Ethan glanced up at Kipexo in alarm, but Kipexo held Reethis’ eyes and didn’t budge. Every Lifreet in the room had stopped working and was watching this exchange with interest.

Reethis curled his lips back over both his fangs and snarled at Kipexo, but then he dropped his arms and stormed out of the room, smashing his shoulder plate against Kipexo’s as he passed. Kipexo took the blow without reacting, and Reethis stomped down the hall to his quarters, grumbling the whole way.

The Lifreet all nodded their thanks at Kipexo and promptly went back to work as the tension in the room melted away.

“Thank you,” Natalie said as she joined them in the doorway. “I was afraid he’d give himself a stroke if he continued on like that.”

“Was that a bluff?” Ethan asked Kipexo. “You wouldn’t really call off the deal for him, would you?”

“I won’t have to,” Kipexo replied. “He would never leave the Anamafrid behind. He’ll behave to keep his ship, but don’t expect him to be happy about it.”

“Is he ever happy about anything?” Natalie griped. “He’s about as cuddly as a damn cactus and twice as prickly.”

Kipexo snorted. “Want to get on his good side? Show up with a bottle of sireeg and ask him how he lost his arm. Be prepared to sit there for a good few hours, though. He won’t skip a single detail.”

“I know. He already told me that story.”

“He did?”

“He’s told me lots of things.” Natalie looked at Kipexo with a cocked brow. “Why do you sound surprised?”

“Because I am. Reethis is notoriously hard to get close to. It took me weeks to drag that story out of him.”

Natalie shrugged with a grunt and turned back to the room full of Lifreet, but her eyes soon glazed over in deep thought. Kipexo left her to it and put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder, ushering him down the corridor again.

They were greeted with the usual dull roar of conversation as they turned into the common area, but there were more than a few audible gasps and sighs of relief as well. Sara came bounding up to Ethan with Andrew following close behind her holding Teagan in his arms.

“We were worried but hopeful,” Sara said.

Grolpre stood up from one of the tables nearby with a smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “There, you see,” she said loudly so the whole room could hear. “I told you all they were perfectly fine.”

“When they moved the ship shortly after you left, it made the others nervous,” Andrew explained. “But not a single Lifreet has bothered us in here. How did it go?”

To Kipexo’s surprise, Ethan launched into excited speech and started telling them all about Dradaheirn, the buildings suspended in the trees, the hologram, everything he’d seen. He, Sara, Andrew, and Sam eventually wandered away as others started to gather one by one to hear about this strange new planet they’d suddenly found themselves on.

Grolpre came and touched Kipexo on the arm. “Can you help me with something? It’ll only take a moment.”

Kipexo nodded and followed her out into the corridor, but he was taken aback when she stopped as soon as they were alone, turned, and hugged him tightly.

“I didn’t want to scare the others, but… I was one of the worried ones,” she admitted.

This wasn’t the first time she’d hugged Kipexo, but unlike when she crawled up out of that stinking sewer back on Raug, he didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around her too and hold her just as tightly as she held him.

“I thought you wanted me to go,” Kipexo said.

“I did. That’s what I couldn’t stop thinking about. If anything had happened to you or Ethan, I could never forgive myself for encouraging you to go.” She let him go but only took a half step back, keeping her hands on his arms as she looked into his face. “Everything truly went alright?”

“It did,” he said with a nod. “Their campaign is underway, though it’s a bit more complicated than I anticipated.” He gave her a breakdown of the Lifreet’s plan, and as he talked, she slowly let him go and stepped back out of his arms. It surprised him to realize he wished she’d stayed where she was. When he was done explaining everything, she had a confused little wrinkle in her brow Kipexo had to resist the urge to smooth away with his thumb.

“That’s quite a strategic plan,” she said. “Where did they get so much intel on our lands and people?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“I suppose it says something about this sovereign’s character that he chose to use what he knows to seek peace when he no doubt could’ve used it to destroy us instead.”

Kipexo grunted. “I’m doing this for us and the humans, but getting involved in this feels… not wrong exactly, but it makes me anxious. I feel like I’ve put something into motion that I can’t stop and will likely drag me along with it.”

“So what if it does?”

“This isn’t my fight. I’m only in it this far out of necessity and have no desire to take it further.”

She considered him with a tilt of her head then asked, “Do you remember when I asked you what you could see yourself doing with your life if you were no longer a Commander?”

“I do.”

“What did you tell me?”

“I said I’d work to make the lives of the humans on Raug better.”

“And punish the ones who mistreat them,” she said with a nod. “You had the right idea, Kipexo, but why stop there? You saw a species in need and chose to help them. Now others reach out to you for aid. But this time, it’s a species that has wronged you in the past. So what will you do? Will you help again, or will you let your past as a soldier shape the choices you make now that you’re no longer one?”

“You know it’s more complicated than that. The Lifreet killed my entire squad.”

“A squad full of Raugon who signed up for a war we maybe shouldn’t be fighting at all.”

“They didn’t know that,” Kipexo barked defensively.

“No, they didn’t. And ghosts can’t make or accept apologies… but you can. I don’t know about you, but I think ending the war that got those soldiers killed sounds like the perfect way to finally put those ghosts to rest.” She took his hand. “Think about it?”

He narrowed his eyes in annoyance but nodded anyway. “You know, at some point, you’ll have to stop treating me like your patient.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. The day I stop helping you heal will be the day I stop caring about you.”

She finally took back her hand and walked away, leaving Kipexo alone in the hall, his irritation with her forgotten as he flexed the hand she just let go of.

*****

Over the next week, the Lifreet had Kipexo record multiple messages a day that they then sent down to Raug via their various communication channels, more of which they were constantly creating as the Raugon promptly deactivated each one after a single transmission. The messages were sent not only to Ipsyla but to every major city across all of Raug, and they were transmitted during precise times of day when the Lifreet calculated the most Raugon would see them. Kipexo almost wished he could see the reactions each message caused, but a much larger part of him was grateful he never would. He didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of that chaos, but he had no problems causing it.

Though his words felt awkward and fumbling at first, with each new recording, he gained confidence and passion he hoped carried through in his messages. At the end of each transmission, he extended an invitation for the Veil to contact him so that a peaceful resolution between the Raugon and the Lifreet could be negotiated.

The Veil’s silence that whole week didn’t worry Kipexo. It took them hundreds of solar cycles to reach the level of hate and resentment they carried in their hearts for the Lifreet, and it would take much longer than a few days of unrest to convince them to even consider putting all of that aside in favor of peace. After all, look how much it had taken to convince Kipexo to agree to this, and he was just a soldier, just another pawn with a gun. The Veil would be quite another beast entirely.

But they would come around, Kipexo had no doubts. The Veil might be in charge, but they answered directly to the people, and even after everything that had happened with the humans, Kipexo still had faith in the Raugon race. The people would see reason and force the Veil into action, but exactly what the Veil would demand in exchange for peace was what concerned him.

The price would be high. Too high. The Veil would make demands the Lifreet could never fulfil. Even though that technically wasn’t Kipexo’s problem—he was doing his part just by recording the messages—he found himself mulling over how to approach negotiations when the time came. Every time he told himself he should discuss strategies with Sovereign Luxtetana, he would shake his head and mutter to himself to keep his head on straight.

Give the Lifreet what he promised, no more, no less, then get the humans safely back to Earth. That was his goal. He wouldn’t get involved beyond that, no matter how much Grolpre nagged him or how enthralled Ethan became with the Lifreet and their homeworld.