I crouched in the cramped cockpit of the Strakha stealth fighter, my fur damp with cold sweat. Outside the canopy, an endless starfield stretched in silent vigil. I had cut the engines and engaged the cloak—now I was little more than a shadow, a phantom drifting in darkness. Through the void, my eyes tracked two Kilrathi Dralthi fighters sweeping methodically across the sector. They were hunting me.

My heart thudded in my chest as one of the Dralthi screamed past uncomfortably close to my position. Even cloaked, I dared not move or breathe too loudly (absurd as that instinct was in the vacuum of space). My claws flexed tensely over the control yoke but I held position, drifting, silent, invisible. Please, Sivar, let them not detect me, I thought—then immediately chastised myself for invoking the war god who had abandoned me long ago.

In the darkness, I waited. Seconds stretched into eternities. The enemy—no, my former comrades—knew roughly where I had vanished, but not my exact position. I was relying entirely on the Strakha’s cloaking device and the hope that none would stumble blindly into me. The stealth field made me a ghost, hidden from their scanners. Still, if one flew too close, a keen eye might notice the faint shimmer of starlight bending strangely around my hull.

I watched as the pair of fighters finished their sweep and banked away. A long breath escaped my throat, and I realized I had been baring my fangs. My body was coiled like a spring, every muscle ready to explode into action—or into terror.

I was not used to feeling fear like this. Once, I had been the hunter: a proud pilot of the Kilrathi Empire, flying this very craft on countless deadly missions. Once, the sight of a cloaked Strakha stalking human prey had filled me with predatory exhilaration. Now I was the prey, and my hunters wore the same emblem I had borne all my life.

How did it come to this? I wondered for perhaps the hundredth time. Just days ago, I had been one of them. One of the Emperor’s chosen warriors, an ace of the Imperial Fleet entrusted with our most advanced weapon. Now I was a traitor to my people, a fugitive to be shot on sight. A week ago I could not have imagined myself in this position. But a week ago, Sharrlah was still alive.

Sharrlah. Her name was a blade in my heart. My amber eyes burned at the memory, and I squeezed them shut as the ache washed over me. Floating alone in the void, I could not escape her ghost. And I did not want to.

I remembered her laugh first—that rare, soft purr of a laugh I only ever heard when we were safely alone, far from the rigid hierarchies of war. In private she allowed herself small rebellions: a playful swat of her tail, a gentle teasing of my formal habits. To most others, Sharrlah had been a model officer—fierce, dutiful, as sharp as her scarlet-tinged fangs. To me, she was warmth and wisdom in a cold universe.

It was her wisdom that had planted the first seeds of doubt in me. She saw things in a way few Kilrathi did—certainly not I, back then. I had been bred for battle, raised on the mantras of Kilrah’s warrior faith: Ek’rah skabak erg Thrak’Kilrah maks Rag’nith! (For the glory of Kilrah, the Emperor and the Empire!) From cubhood I had known nothing but loyalty and honor in service to that cause. And I believed humans were our mortal enemies—weak creatures fit only to be conquered or destroyed.

Sharrlah had challenged those beliefs, gently, in late-night whispers. “Are we so sure of our righteousness?” she had asked me once as we lay entwined in the darkness of her berth, daring to voice thoughts that bordered on heresy. “We spill so much blood, Kilrathi and Terran alike. Where is the honor in slaughtering until nothing’s left?” I had no answer then beyond the usual platitudes drilled into me as a cadet. Those not of the blood must have their blood spilt, our priests taught. Yet even as I quoted the old war sayings to her, I felt a tremor of uncertainty.

I brushed the memory aside. At the time, I couldn’t afford doubt. We were at war—terrible, endless war. Doubt got warriors killed. I pushed it down, as I always did, and redoubled my zeal in the Empire’s service to silence the questions in my heart.

Then came that day. The day my world cracked apart, when I could no longer deny the truth.

It was three days ago, aboard the Imperial carrier KIS Vraxan. We had been on patrol in the Yakhtu system, hunting a reported Terran supply convoy. I led a wing of Strakha fighters—Sharrlah flew at my side. We found only stragglers: a single Terran medical transport straying behind the rest. An easy kill. We decloaked around the hapless vessel like a pack of jak-tu hunters springing a trap. I still recall the flash of our laser cannons lighting up the void, raking the transport’s shields.

The transport was sluggish, desperate to escape. Within moments we had gutted its engines. It drifted, helpless. Our wing leader—Kalresh nar Kiranka, a distant cousin of the Emperor himself—ordered the kill. The transport hung in space, venting atmosphere, its crew surely scrambling in panic.

And Sharrlah refused to fire.

“They are beaten,” she said over the comm in a low, steady voice. “No honor in murdering the helpless.”

I heard stunned silence on the comm line. My heart pounded because I knew her words were outright insubordination—dangerous heresy to Kilrathi ears. I saw the Terran transport limping away, smoke pluming from its hull, and I saw Sharrlah’s fighter simply hold position, guns quiet.

“Finish them, Strakha Two,” Kalresh snarled, his tone laced with warning. His own fighter swung around for a firing pass. “That is an order.”

Seconds ticked by. Sharrlah’s fighter remained still.

In those seconds, I could have intervened. I could have taken the shot myself and spared her the moral burden, or I could have stood with her and refused as well. Instead I froze, caught between duty and conscience. I could only watch, breathless, as events unfolded.