Joli 'Mdama

Shock, horror, anger, rage.

I think everyone knew someone who died during Black Harvest. Some races might have been hurt worse but everyone lost someone. It hit the outer worlds, the worlds used for recruitment, the hardest. I remember feeling anger too, and sadness because I had grown to have some amount of affection for the troops who died during Black Harvest. Still, despite being a disaster, there were a few survivors. Some were people who played dead or people who were able to fly out and transport off but most of the survivors were people who fled and hid planet-side and were able to escape later. Out of the uncounted numbers only around 100,000 survived and the survivors were sent home.

It was part shame, part mercy, and part worries about bad luck. Anyone who survived was given a desk job far away from the combat. We promised revenge and threw ourselves into it but we lost pretty much all of our capable military commanders while the Prophets didn't really get war and were in a full rage.

Our shipping had been gutted by Black Harvest, the price of imported goods went up as civilian pilots were pressed into service. Taxes went up and things that had been untaxed, like food, were now taxed and everything was more expensive. The draft, something that had been rare, was now more common.

At first I had hope that we would win, that this would all turn around, but as I said the most respected commanders were dead and they were the only people with enough experience and clout to tell the Prophets no. Without them around ships were sent out as soon as they were built. There was no build-up, not really, just an enraged sending out of ships and men. If there was a plan behind this... I couldn't see it.

We were fumbling in the dark, screaming into the void, and while we did this we were oblivious to the cost. We were giving up an entire generation of men, throwing an increasingly large amount of ships and supplies at the enemy, and the enemy was not static. Their commoners were reverse engineering our tech as the war sputtered on. Where before it took three ships to destroy one of ours soon it became two, then they became equal. How much longer until their ships were better than ours?

How much longer can we keep this up, keep paying larger and larger taxes, losing more and more people. I don't know but this war... I think this war is already lost.

Thel 'Vadam

My brother died in the Black Harvest. My father died during Black Harvest. When the time came I joined the military to avenge them to restore our family honor. What I found however was incompetence. The Empire decided to give the Jiralhanae, the Brutes, more authority. Despite the fact that their leadership got us slaughtered they were given more authority.

Much of our military, our leadership, was dead, killed in the harvest and the brutes took over the war effort. The warrior caste, the one that founded the empire and held it together, was sidelined. The Brutes decided to get their digs in, they were incompetent officers who believed that if they sent out enough men to die that victory would be insured.

Idiots! I was determined to move up the ranks to provide decent leadership.

I looked at the list, a solo mission, a traitor who had to die. A traitor who was sending out messages of treason to the troops while playing music, the traitor known only as Radioman.

"We finally tracked the signal."

"It will be an honor."

I moved in a solo ship, far outside of the system, making sure to avoid the human's growing network of traps. My ship killed its engines and I moved in bursts to avoid detection as much as possible, moving through the atmosphere and finally landing near the city I detected. I prepared myself to fight the humans or sneak around them. The ground was dark and many of the buildings were destroyed or even melted.

It was then I began hearing a haunting sound, an unfamiliar instrument.

"I used to live in New York City
Everything there was dark and dirty
Outside my window was a steeple
With a clock that always said 12:30."

I readied my gun and walked through the empty city, waiting for an ambush.

"Young girls are coming to the canyon
And in the mornings I can see them walkin'
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn
And I can't keep myself from talkin'."

This had to be an attempt to break me but I was strong and I would win.

"At first so strange to feel so friendly
To say "Good morning" and really mean it
To feel these changes happenin' in me."

I moved forward and the music got louder.

"But not to notice 'til I feel it
Young girls are coming to the canyon
And in the mornings I can see them walkin'
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn
And I can't keep myself from talkin'"

I felt my breath get heavy and my heart beat faster. I knew combat would be coming soon, a fight.

"Cloudy waters cast no reflection
Images of beauty lie there stagnant
Vibrations bounce in no direction
But lie there shattered into fragments."

I sat a building somehow still intact, with a human man on a stick. I opened the doors.

"Young girls are coming to the canyon (Young girls are coming in the canyon)
And in the mornings I can see them walkin' (In the mornings I can see them walkin')
I can no longer keep my blinds drawn (Can no longer keep my blinds drawn)
And I can't keep myself from talkin'."

My gun was ready as the song died. A single grunt stared at me, I saw electronic equipment and I froze.

"I was wondering when the empire would try to kill me."

The grunts were a cowardly race, but I heard no fear in his voice.

"Where are the humans? Where are the enemy you collaborated with?"

He looked around, sitting under the man on a stick.

"Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy."

"Are you going to ask me to forgive you?"

The grunt looked at me.

"Not you. The people we killed here, the people we murdered here."

He sounded like he was at peace.

"Where are the humans?"

"Dead... we killed every human on this world, glassed it like so many others, and then we were destroyed in orbit when their fleet came in to avenge them. I was trapped here, sole survivor of my ship."

Why was he so calm? His people were never calm, they always jittered and moved and were full of fear.

"What happened here was a sin."

"What happened here was duty."

He looked at me with pity and I felt angry.

"We are JUSTICE! WE SERVE THE GODS THEMSELVES!"

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"

Why was he so calm?

"I was the only survivor on my ship and I came here looking for supplies. I saw the bodies of the people we murdered, men, women and children. I couldn't escape it anymore, looking into their dead eyes. I ended up here, in this holy place, and in time I was able to translate their holy book."

He closed his eyes.

"I've been trying to atone for what we did here, what I helped with. I buried the bodies of each human, tried to give them the last rites of their faith, and when I was finished... I was still here."

"You could have called for help."

"Why? I didn't deserve it not after what I did, after what we did. This is a fitting punishment for our crimes."

"This is a just war."

"This war is wrong, we are sending good men to die so they can kill other good people. No one has been made better off by this war. We need to leave. We need to go home. We need to have peace."

I aimed my gun.

"How did you do it?"

"I cannibalized the ship. I found copies of human music, translated it with the best software I could."

"Your people are not capable of such things."

"People surprise you."

He looked at me with sadness.

"I thought maybe music could bridge the gap between our peoples, that maybe I could convince people to just stop fighting."

I looked at him.

"You thought wrong."

I shot him, in that holy place. I should have left but then I looked up at that figure on a stick. I walked over to his body and saw a music player. I don't know why I did it but I took it and, for some strange reason, I felt guilty. I picked up the body of the radioman and buried him alongside the same humans he had buried, after taking a photo to confirm the kill.

They gave me a promotion for it, for killing him, but sometimes, on bad days, I play the music in secret and think about the radioman.