- Return

Opening the door to their floor in the shared house, Gus could hear the muffled sounds of an intense conversation. As he drew closer, the voices behind the door became clearer. Judging from the artificial lighting he saw outside the building, it was getting later into the afternoon. He had expected at least someone to be there, so he was not surprised by the voices.

"I get the need to fight, to defend our species. But it does not mean that I want to. I despise the thought of purposely inflicting harm on another living being," Krista said. "What if they do not have a choice?"

"They started this war," Teala countered. "They made that choice, not us. We only fight because we were forced to. It was either that or we lose our freedoms as we know them."

"I get that, and I am not saying it is the wrong choice. I just think that we should actively seek out peaceful options where available. There is already too much suffering that we face as a species, from things like natural occurrences."

"If you ask me," Joel said. "We're only responsible for fighting, for holding that thin line between the civilisation of man and the alien hordes of the Bloody Dawn. We can leave the debates about peace and the morality of the war to the politicians."

"I think you can be on both sides at the same time, as odd as it sounds," Claire said. "Like, I want for there to be peace. I hate seeing people dying for what amounts to no reason. At some point in the future, I could be put in that same position of having family out there in harms way, just like I know you two are familiar with," she said, looking at Joel and Teala. "But, at the same time if we do not fight then it will never stop for us. Our children are dying out in the frontier at the hands of the aliens. They kill us indiscriminately and without a second thought, as if we were bugs that they tread on. We have to fight on, while looking for peace as much as we possibly can."

"They're not even the biggest threat to our species, not by a long shot," Gus said, entering the room. "But it's nice to see you all actually thinking about the ideas behind our missions."

He was met with exclamations of surprise and happiness at his return.

"What happened to you down there?" Joel asked.

"Some glass, mostly. Slashed my back up pretty bad, and then I had to deal with this guy that looked like he was trying to become some kind of machine animal or something. In all honestly, it was pretty weird. I could have easily died if it wasn't for those others from the squad."

"We saw them rushing you to their shuttle and bringing you back without us," Claire said. "That was the last time we saw you, and we were not allowed down to come and visit."

"When I said that thing about siblings to you I meant about fighting for us, not going on a suicide run," Krista said to Gus.

"What were the third years like? How did they fight?" Teala enthusiastically asked.

"They knew what they were doing, at least. There somehow wasn't a firefight when they showed up, but their leader could have easily killed what I think was the mercenary's leader. He fired out some kind of ball at the mercenary, but I'm not too sure what it actually was. My vision was a bit off when it happened. But, there is something a lot more important that that."

Raising his wrist, he ordered everyone to join them in the kitchen immediately.

After about a dozen minutes of waiting, they were all gathered in the room.

"As it turns out, we know who hired the mercenaries," Gus began. "The one who was likely the leader of the Corsairs told the third years."

"Are you sure the leader told them?" Anten asked. "Because, that's kind of illegal."

"Illegal?" Gus asked.

"The Client Confidentiality law? Ever heard of it?"

"Not that I can remember," Gus responded.

"It's one of the most well known laws, like murder laws and things like that. How you've lived your life without knowing it is amazing to me. It basically states that a mercenary will take on all of the consequences of an attack. As a result, the identity of the person who hired the mercenary is required to be kept secret. It gets a little complicated after that, with other laws that protect the rights of the mercenaries after they carry out those missions being added," Anten explained.

"And obviously this system is typically stricter than the others, so you tend to see less of them here than you would out in the other systems, and even less again there than in the frontier," Joel added. "Which begs the question, who hired them? They must have had some serious wealth for them to justify coming here and taking a swing at Aliti."

"Apparently, the money came from a General Ammadeus Dean. And we're fairly familiar with his son from the entrance exam."

"You don't mean…" Teala began.

"I do mean," Gus said. "Pretty much, there was a disagreement in our entrance exam, I'm not sure if you were told about it," he explained to Claire and Emmy. "He was the one on the other side of the argument, and now it looks like he might have just tried to kill a politician."

"What are we going to do?" Connor asked.

"Nothing. Not unless we're forced to act."

***

"It seems like your gambit failed, Dean. So tell me, why should us four lend you the support of our squads? Not only did you fail to take your revenge and humiliate him, but you are now on the verge of having your scheme exposed. You're not fit to lead a line, much less the ambition of our platoon!"