Chak stood staring out over the quiet city of Tir being basked in the red light of the sunrise. Not a soul in sight at this time in the morning. Which suited him fine. He turned, and winced involuntarily, as the un-mended ribs on his right side shifted under the tape. A being on the brink had taken a swing at him as he ran for the safety of the gardens after an expedition into Inferno to look for healing technology from the ancients. No such luck, just the wild laughter of an apparent madman from another clan faction, who pushed him down the hill and stole the precious tech he had found, and left him for dead amongst a pride of Mortiigs and Devourers of Light. They didn’t even notice him until he came to and tried to sit up. Then the fangs and claws… And the sprint for safety and the enormous heckler…Tinos…hitting him in the side and sending him flying through the air, landing many meters away. Which probably saved his life, he thought in retrospect, as Tinos was not alone. Oh well, he was sitting on his old rock outside the Happy Rebel, safe, and healing and he got a trinket to show for it too… A nanoprogram, Touch of Kindness, which would help many down here on Rubi-Ka…if there just had been a less…painful way to help people. He chuckled to himself, winced as the pain lanced up and down his side, and sat down with beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

And now his old employer Omni-Tek had gone on the offensive, hitting a multitude of bases all over clan-held territory, and beating back the clans like never before… He limped over to the com-panel just inside the door from the porch and punched in the numbers he hadn’t used for so long… “Hi mom, how are you?” Silence… “Dillon?” More silence. A sob. “Edvard! It’s Dillon on the com-link! Pick up the extension!” An eerie silence was ended by the automated voice informing Chak that his father had joined the conversation. “Dillon, my boy…where have you been?” his father asked with a throaty voice. “I’ve been around…you know..doing my part to keep people patched up…” Chak answered selfconciously. Damn…why did his father always make him feel so…small. “That’s what you get for having a professor in xeno-biology as a father”, a voice answered him from somewhere. “Are you still…?” his mother asked. “Yes mom, I’m still on the wrong side of the fence”. “If it makes you happy, honey, I’ll support whatever you do, remember when I said that?” his mother asked him.

Yeah…it was 20 years ago to the day, he suddenly realized, that his mother had said those words… He had been heading out with a patrol of Omni-Pol troopers, and then later on, when he had killed the same troopers for trying to massacre a village… And…he wept quietly while his parents talked to him, told him of his aunt and uncle, of his niece having a baby…and everything he had left behind… He told them he loved them and missed them, his dad told him the charges against him was dropped a long time ago, and he could come home if he wanted…and on and on…until…

“Dillon…there’s something you have to know…” his father suddenly said in an unsure voice. Chak became alert instantly. His father was unsure of something…when was the last time…? Never… This was big…and he was committing a crime by telling the enemy. “We found something on a dig a while ago...tissue from an unknown race…” his father continued. “You mean in the shadowlands?” Chak replied. “Yes, there too…” his father said. “You have to listen to me…you have to make everyone listen Dillon. Something is not right. The tissue sample is growing in my lab. It’s developing without any outside stimuli. It’s the same with the one we found outside the terraformed zone, buried in what we thought were rock formations…they weren’t…” “What do you mean, developing without outside stimuli? Ancient tissue samples don’t come back to life for pete’s sake.” Chak answered his father incredulously. “This one does…and it all started after that night they killed that thing in shadowlands…when we all heard the scream…that horrible scream… It sends me images…I know it sounds strange, but you have to believe me…it’s waiting for something, and it’s not good…”

Chak was thunderstruck. Had his father lost his mind? Had it been anyone else he’d say yes in an instant, but not his father…something was terribly wrong. “What can I do? I’m on the wrong side, remember?” Chak finally answered. “Get the clans to stop the war. We have to stand together again, like we did just a few years ago.” His father replied in a heated voice. “Hey…we didn’t go on the…” “THAT’S NOT THE POINT DAMNIT!” He’s father screamed through the com-panel. “They’re going to be coming and they’re here to wipe us from the face of the planet! We have no chance against these monsters if we don’t band together!”

Chak was dumbfounded. His father had only lost his temper once, when Chak was caught toying with a centrifuge, while it was on, sticking his hand in to feel the breeze. It cost him 6 months of house arrest. He never did it again.

“You want me to talk to the Council and have them proclaim a ceasefire?” Chak finally whispered. “Yes…I’ve been trying to talk to mr Ross, but he’s been turning me down. I’m going to talk to some of the faction leaders tonight, but if we can stop the fighting people might just listen.”, his father said. “I’ll tell them, but I’m just a footman dad, I don’t think they’ll even let me in the door of the building... Can you send me something I can use to convince them?”, he said as he considered how to get into the Council building. “Yes, just give me…” <Call disconnected at place of origin>

Damn…damn damn damn! Damn this war, which has left me with people I care about on both sides! Damn the Dust Brigade and it’s backer Sol Banking Corp who thought they could force everyone to hate Omni-Tek. And most of all, damn the bigots and knuckleheads who thought the Clans were about killing Omni soldiers, instead of freedom. Or the idiots who thought that being part of Omni-Tek ment killing your kin because they didn’t want to be employed. Maybe they’d see the light one day..? Not likely…

Chak walked out again on the porch, just in time to hear another call to arms, to defend Clan honor. What a joke… War was never honorable…just a bloody clash of bodies where people like himself had to pick up the pieces and bring home the dead. Tell the wives and parents that their kinfolk had gone to war without paying their insurance, because war leaders told them it was honorable... Honor…what an abuse of such a fine word…

He just hoped his father was ok, and that the disconnect wasn’t Omni-Pol’s doing, but one of the usual glitches in the system…