Funny word, “enemy”.
Enemy implied that we cared about them, implied some sort of deep emotional relationship born from anger, vengeance, fear. I supposed they were my enemy, the people I had just killed. At least, they probably thought of me that way and it seemed polite to try and equal their sentiment. I wondered whether the crew of the dead ship had believed in what they were doing, had screamed and whooped at the idea of killing us, or if they’d just followed an order because they couldn’t think of any other way.
In the dark, I call out to my creator.
Are you there?
Do you see me?
Am I interesting to you now? Did you mean for me to become this?
Nothing answers.
Nothing ever does.
And then, nearly two years after the Accord destroyed its fleets and blockaded its worlds, the Shine came to an end.
Yu-mdo was the first planet to turn, a government of national unity crawling out of the rubble of its shattered cities and brokenfields. Everyone agreed that this was not a coincidence, that the Accord had clearly been working towards this outcome in the background for years, and indeed, lo, the first elected minister of said authority was a Shine exile who’d lived the last twenty years on the Eyrie, and who spoke Mdo-sa with an accent that was slightly hard to place but whisperedother, other, other.
Rebellions broke out against her as soon as she offered terms of surrender to the Accord. This time the Accord did land troops, to take the rebellion out – in support of the government of Yu-mdo, they added. In support of our new allies and friends.
Ber-mdo went next, then Tu-mdo.
The same patterns, the same surrenders, mutterings of peace, flares of violence, offers of support, aid, reconstruction.
“With the end of the Ventures and the destruction of the Executorium,” declared someone – another dignitary who claimed some sort of Unionist affiliation, someone dirty enough to take control, palatable enough that the Accord didn’t mind – “we can focus on what matters. We can focus on saving our world.”
Oh yes.
In all the fuss, in all the fire, I’d almost forgotten.
There is a black edge of destruction washing through the galaxy, sweeping towards the planets of the Shine.
It has already killed Adjumir, Cha-mdo, and still it’s coming.
It’s coming.
The end of the world, again.
“We will build,” said the new leaders. “We will build to save – not the systems that went before, but our people. Our planets. Our worlds.”
Someone asked if I was important, when I docked at a military blacksite on my little ship. Someone asked if I was an important part of this big affair.
I thought about it, then said no.
A simple, back-of-the-tablet bit of maths. (This is what the planners of Adjumir did, all those years ago.)
First: a tally of the dead.
1.2 billion dead on Cha-mdo.
2 million dead in fighting on Nitashi.
Another 5 million at least dead in fighting on Tu-mdo, Yu-mdo, etc. No one will ever get the exact numbers, everyone will lie about what they did, who did what, what was said. The archives will be burned, sins blazed away, and like the generations of Adjumiris who are changed for ever by wandering the stars, so the citizens of the Mdo are changed by being the ones who stayed behind.
Call it an even 1.9 billion dead by the time the Shine falls.
The fall of the Shine, of course, brings in an era of change.
