Jasper sprang forward, tucking his body into an awkward somersault. He tumbled forwards, bounced about by Valle's freakishly tough flora.

It had been an awkward performance, but an effective one. Not even a dozen feet behind him, a copse of trees blew apart in a fantastic display of power, prompting Jasper to drop flat to the ground in an effort to avoid the spray of debris.

The tough, razor sharp shards of bark that whizzed over his head were made of scalewood, a material unlike any other plant material known to the galaxy. Flexible, yet extremely durable, the wood was a lavish alternative to the carbon-fiber materials most commonly used in construction. It also boasted the properties of a great insulator, which helped it serve as a potent defense against low-energy projectiles.

It was the latter details that had brought Jasper, and the rest of the King's Regiment to the moon-planet. The material was perfect for making lightweight infantry armor, something that was in sore demand after long years of the aptly named War.

Jasper allowed himself a moment to catch his breath, leaning against a scalewood tree for support. As a backline medic, there was no reason he should have been running for his life. But the Rete's sudden bombardment of the precious forest they were fighting over had been completely unexpected.

It was also counterintuitive; the Saiseki forces had been expecting a surface-level battlefront, since neither side wanted to risk destroying the resource they were both fighting so hard for. But it seemed as though the Rete, who had been occupying the moon-planet, deemed it worth sacrificing so no one could have it. Normally, the regiment's commander would have made short work of an enemy ground base, but the air support had been unexpected.

How did they miss this? Jasper wailed to himself as he stared at the smoldering remains of the trees. We should have been warned if the Rete had an additional fleet here on Valle!

Ignoring the bruises brought on by the stone-hard ferns and lesser plants about his feet, Jasper stumbled into motion again, moving away from where the Rete fighters had attacked last. His feed was a blaring, confusing mess of orders, but it seemed the gist of it was for the foot soldiers to make a hasty retreat, and allow their own fighters to engage the enemy.

Switching it off, Jasper sought the large, indistinct shape that rose in the distance through the trees. It was a Saisekan troop carrier, the closest one to his current location. If he could reach it without being blown to bits, he stood a chance of escaping the moon-planet.

Dimly, he was aware of the shouts of men and women who fought their way through the forest around him. The odd clatter of the stone-plants, the smell of sweat, the harsh glare of Valle's twin suns - all of it faded in lieu of Jasper's single mindedness to survive, to put one throbbing foot in front of another.

He'd had a squad with him, a team of soldiers stationed to protect them. But the Rete's bombardment had scattered their forces throughout the forest, and careful planning had devolved into a scrambled retreat.

If the fighters above weren't bad enough, Jasper had to take care to avoid an ambush from the Rete field scouts as well. Valle had been Independant at the start of the war, but had quickly been absorbed into the Rete, under claims of 'protection.' It meant that they had much more time to understand the landscape of the moon-planet, and develop effective strategies in defending it.

Saiseki had been expecting these guerilla-style tactics in these dense forests, but it was one thing to predict, and another to actually overcome it. Jasper was grateful he wasn't an infantryman, trying to push his way to the Rete base as energy projectiles were flung at him from the shadows.

Jasper kept moving, weaving between the trees, but the attacks had slowed. Glancing up, he could see the slim, tapered shapes of Saiseki fighters as they engaged the Rete forces.

Useless, he thought to himself, pushing through a stubborn clump of weeds. What was the point of fighting if you were just going to destroy the prize? The Rete liked to lord itself better, more just, but hadn't it claimed Valle for itself in the first place? And now it was going to ravage the planet, just so they couldn't tap into its resources.

With a sudden pang, he thought of Valle - the Planatae, not the physical moon-planet. With multiple, long-standing settlements, some almost millennia old, Valle had long-past achieved Awakening. Self-aware and active, he wondered how it felt about the fighting, and if it was taking an active role in the conflict. It was different for every Awakened Planatae; in the Rete, he'd heard stories of their avatars serving as judges of the law. In other cases, like Saiseki itself, it was a mysterious, unknowable thing, meant for worship and respect.

Most likely, the Rete were holding its avatar in custody, leverage against the Vallenites themselves. They needed something to keep the formerly-Independent world in check. That wouldn't kill Valle - that was impossible - but it would take years for it to acquire an avatar again, effectively taking it out of play.

Boom. Another burst of deadly scalewood tore through the forest, drawing Jasper back into the moment.

Unlike the soldiers, he didn't have the aeroboots that provided enhanced jumping power, or the armored protection of carbon-fiber or scalewood itself. As a medic, he shouldn't have even been caught out in the open like this, but the bombardment had drawn him out to tend to the wounded. Light and burdenless, he was expected to wield nothing but his Factor, and trust the squadron assigned to him to take care of the rest.

Clearly, that didn't nearly work out this time around. Either someone had done a poor job scouting out the Rete forces, or the enemy had predicted their attack, and had hidden the fighter fleet in preparation.

And if that were the case, the only reason they'd be willing to destroy the scalewood was if they deemed a tactical win more valuable. If they somehow knew they had engaged the Knight's regiment...

It would be their chance to take out a major piece in play.

Jasper skidded to a stop at the edge of a clearing, gasping for breath. Spread out before him was the dark, squat shape of the troop carrier. Despite him being much closer than before, its details were still hazy, a side effect of the shield barrier. It rose, dome-shaped over the area, designed to surround and protect their arriving and departing troops. He took a step forwards, passing without resistance through the wavering fold of air, and things snapped into focus. The barrier, which was still held against the fighters, would analyze, then recognize the DNA of any enlisted member, and allow them to pass through.

Now he could clearly see the rows and rows of soldiers that crowded around the base of the carrier. Even as he watched, figures, alone or in small groups, trickled in through the edges of the forest, and added themselves to the newest column.

They were all retreating - fleeing - the fight, just like Jasper was. He picked his way across the uneven field to join the loosely organized ranks.

Scattered throughout the group were figures in white uniform, moving from soldier to soldier. They were the Knight's medic squad, of which Jasper himself was a member.

Despite his recent brushes with death and panicked flight through the forest, Jasper was expected to exude calmness, a sense of dependability. Like the others, his duty was to make sure the soldiers that escaped could live to fight another day.

He balled-up his raging emotions like a set of dirty clothes, wadding them up and shoving them away to be dealt with later. For now, he needed to do his job.

For a while, Jasper ignored the shouts of pain from his fellow around him, the thick cloying stench of cauterized flesh from energy-induced wounds. The battle meant nothing to him now - that was for their flight forces to deal with now.

No, what Jasper focused on was the wounds that were offered to him; abdominal holes that hadn't fully sealed, broken, twisted limbs from poorly-timed aeroboot jumps or other collisions, and even the occasional head trauma, physical or otherwise.

He handled them all, pushing his Factor to knit together muscle and sinew until there was nothing left, until his insides felt dry and hollow.

Not everyone could be saved. There were wounds that were too severe, bodies that had been drained off too much blood to recover. But if his training deemed a person had even a sliver of a chance, then he'd give it all.

Every time Jasper's knees grew too weak to support him, a fellow medic would shove a fac-boost into his hand, and nervous, jittery energy would fill him, and he'd throw himself right back into the chaos.

"Soldiers!" A booming voice called out, near enough to break Jasper's concentration. He looked up, vision swimming with exhaustion, but easily made out the distinctive shape of the Knight as he called down to his regiment. He stood atop the troop carrier; his mech suit provided more than enough extra power for him to have made the leap.

"The airspace has been cleared!" he continued, raising a black-plated gauntlet. "We have fallen back, but we'll live to see another day!"

As the troops around him gave a ragged cheer, Jasper glanced up at the skies, at the Rete fighters that drifted close. A few were able to take potshots at their barrier, but with the Saisekan force rallying, they were too harried by their flying counterparts to do much else.

That was what these battles had come to, after years and years of fighting: a war of resources meant surface battles, in which soldiers fought each other to gain the upper hand. When it came to cases of political or pure territorial control, the battles were far more crude, with ships and bots engaging each other across land and space alike.

It made Jasper uneasy, to be so close to a case of the latter. It was rare for resource battles to extend into something more destructive - usually, the retreating force would lick its wounds, hoping for a chance to capture it in the future.

He had no donut that the soldiers, and his fellow medics, shared his same anxieties, but none could show it. Not in front of the Knight of Saiseki himself.

With a roar of approval, the knight raised his other arm to match the first. Jasper could see the tension in the Knight's body, the way his mech suit seemed to vibrate with it.

With a sudden crack, a nearby chuck of earth lifted itself from the ground. There was a collective hush as the regiment watched, only broken by the sound of splintering wood as trees were ripped apart in the process.

"Let's leave them with a parting gift!" The Knight shouted to them all. "Let's make sure they remember who they were playing dirty with!"

"The Knight's Regiment!" Came the cheer, always on cue. This was nothing new to these soldiers. Being a part of the gem of the Saisekan Forces, the Knights' Regiment - it meant that insane feats of Factor-usage were commonplace.

Jasper watched as the huge chunk of earth went soaring into the sky, as though lifted by a massive, invisible hand. It was shockingly fast, features blurring into streaks of shadow, its trail of displaced air strong enough to vibrate their barrier.

Most of the Rete fighters spotted the approaching meteor in time, curving out of the way. But one craft, harried by a Saisekan pilot, had no choice but to fly into its path.

There were more cheers as both fighter and rock crumbled, sending dust and debris scattered across the sky to eventually drop back down to the forest canopy.

Jasper's muscles began to relax, the tension ebbing from his limbs. He watched as the first few squads began to board the carrier, the Knight standing tall, directing from above. The surrounding sky had gone quiet; Rete fighters seemed to have been pushed away by the timely arrival of the Saisekan craft.

Centuries of myth and legend had shrouded the figure in mystery. So much so, in fact, that sometimes it was hard to acclimate the image of the Knight as something so mundane as a soldier, or that he was a living, breathing person.

Of course, that was only half-true. Like the avatars of the Planatae, the 'Knight of Saiseki' as a title was passed down, generation after generation, to the next person deemed worthy.

Being chosen as the Knight meant being gifted with power - awe-inspiring amounts of it. It offered anyone an automatic position of nobility in the Saisekan hierarchy, but even more stark: it meant becoming an icon.

Jasper was an educated, well-trained medic. He was no stranger to Saisekan academic circles. And yet sometimes, folktale and superstition from the soldiers felt more fitting than some scraps of clinical description. There was something indelible about the Knight, a strange, heavy aura. It didn't help that any real information about the Knight was heavily classified.

Jasper's gaze drifted to away, towards the hazy cloud that marked the crash site of the unfortunate fighter. With a shiver, he wondered what power like that truly felt like.

But no - this wasn't the time for idle thought. As a well-abled member of the Regiment, he needed to be aiding the retreat. He turned away from the sight and jogged towards the carrier, where he began helping those who were still in critical condition board the craft. There, a medical bot could hopefully complete the task that Jasper and the other medics had tried to do.

Soon, most of the Regiment had boarded, leaving only the Knight, Jasper, and about a dozen of his fellows who also helped facilitate.

The Knight leapt up, landing heavily upon the ground. Jasper's breath caught - he was only a league or two away from the figure.

No matter how long he spent as part of the Knights' Regiment, he would never get used to that prescience.

The Knight lumbered around to face them.

"Get inside," he said. Now that he wasn't bellowing, Jasper could hear the distortion in his voice from the mech suit. "I'm going to lower the barrier for takeoff."

The soldiers, Jasper included, saluted the man, and filed inside the carrier. As he followed, however, Jasper paused on the landing ramp, glancing over his shoulder. As a medic, it was his job to support every soldier - including the Knight himself. He hadn't seen anyone else from his squad approach the man, and he wondered if he was hiding any wounds beneath that suit.

The Knight's hunched posture suggested concentration, and so Jasper waited until the man had accessed the barrier controls.

A flash of movement, from above, suddenly caught his attention, and Jasper craned his neck to see. Shadows suddenly dotted the field as an entirely new wave of Rete fighters swarmed into sight.

Jasper stumbled back, mind struggling to make sense of what he saw. Hadn't their own forces driven off their air forces already?

Then he saw it: the fighters sported the same rounded forms as the ones he saw earlier, but the coloration on their hulls was distinctly different. They did not boast the forest-green hulls of the Rete's Valle defense force, but a hard, glinting slate-gray instead.

Auxiliary forces? Here?

But Jasper had no time to ponder the fact. A sudden realization had him twisting back towards the Knight, who was only just lifting his head, his task completed. Even as he registered the threat above them, there was a sudden emptiness of sound as the ever-pervasive buzz of the barrier cut out. Their wavering view beyond the clearing dropped out, and Jasper could see the surrounding woods and the fighters above in stark detail again.

"Turn it on!" Jasper screamed. "Turn the barrier back on!"

If the Knight responded, Jasper didn't hear it over the sounds of the explosions.

...

It took the Rete's second, hidden fighter force mere minutes to tear the carrier apart. Again and again, missiles bombarded the ship, tearing apart its engines even as the carrier clawed itself into the air. It managed only a few leagues before the firepower tore it apart, and it fell, shredded, back down to the forest floor.

The Rete's fixation on the carrier had given Jasper a precious extra second to act. It's tough hull had absorbed the first few shots, and so he wasn't immediately beneath the sheer bulk of the craft.

But even as the first shots landed, Jasper was already moving, throwing himself clear of the craft. He was cognizant enough to know that the further away he got from the Rete's target, the safer he'd be.

There was an issue, however: the clearing that the Regiment had carved out of the forest was too efficiently made - there was simply no cover for him to protect himself with.

But no - Jasper adjusted his perception. There was one option. He gave into his body's instincts, which were screaming at him to find safety whatever the cost. Mid-stride, he adjusted his course, barreled towards the Knight, and dove forwards so as to land at the man's metal-clad feet.

He must have looked absolutely ridiculous huddled there, clutching the Knight's legs like some frantic creature, but Jasper didn't care. Even if the blast didn't get him, the debris surely would, and the mech suit was the only thing strong enough to shield him.

Above him, the Knight had finally spring into action. He flexed his power, and shelves of earth rose to the craft's defense, layers of stone crawling up its sides. But the Rete continued to blast away, shearing off the makeshift armor like it was nothing.

Then the Knight suddenly crouched, and Jasper scrambled out of the way for fear of being crushed. He threw out a hand, but instead of defending the carrier, a dome of earth clamped shut around them instead, throwing the pair into darkeness. For a moment, Jasper was struck by the sheer speed of the Knights abilities, but then a bone-shaking impact bombarded their shell.

His brain rattled inside his skull; his senses were momentarily overwhelmed by the brutal wash of stimuli.

But it passed, and Jasper opened his tender eyes to find that he was, in fact, still alive, although he felt a great weight placed upon him. Testing his limbs, Jasper found that the Knight had secured him to the ground in a sort of half-coffin made of stone, which had prevented his body from being tossed like a leaf. The other, exposed half of his body was pressed under the Light itself, who had his arms pressed against the ground, one on either side. If the man wasn't bearing most of his own weight, Jasper would have been crushed under the man's massive bulk.

"...you okay?" The Knight asked him, another dome already forming above them. "Stones, man! What were you doing still out here?"

Jasper groaned as another fighter shot at their defenses, earth spraying everywhere.

"Wanted to check... if you were injured," Jasper wheezed. Every time a shot was fired, the Knight sank a little lower, putting even more pressure on his body.

"They're targeting us," he managed to choke out, but the Knight simply nodded.

"I know," he said with a growl. "They knew I was coming, lured us here with the scalewood."

"Hidden forces," Jasper said, realization dawning.

"It was an ambush. They don't care about this planet nearly as much as they care about me-"

The Knight was cut off by another explosion. It was undeniable that they were being directly targeted now.

"You're crazy!" The Knight said, after the ground settled. "How could I have been touched inside this?" Then he let out a laugh, a low, wheezing sound.

The Knight raised another shield around them, but the earth was sluggish now, less prone to jump at his command.

Jasper's eyes flickered between the crumbling stone and the opaque glass that covered the Knight's expression. If the man was showing any fear, there was no way to tell - but his draining powers were terrifying to consider.

Again and again, the fighters passed, unharried by defenders. They simply had to swoop close and aim, and there was nothing that the Knight or Jasper could do to stop them.

Jasper's world narrowed to a single point; the awful rhythm of blasting artillery, groaning, shifting rock, and deep pounding of his own terrified heart.

It was him, Jasper thought with a burst of lucid terror. He was their target the entire time.

For the Rete, sacrificing two entire fighter battalions and their precious scalewood would be a worthy trade for taking down the Knight of Saiseki.

Even while pressed beneath the Knight's suit, Jasper could smell the sharp, acrid smell of burning, taste a thick tang of smoke in the air.

Around them, the forest was burning, adding its own layer of chaos to the cacophony.

Then the Knight groaned suddenly, a long grating sound, and Jasper's reflexes took over. He grasped the ropes of power that comprised his Factor and reached into the Knight, assessing the damage. He gasped; the man's entire back was a bloody, scorched mess, and although he couldn't see it, Jasper had no doubt that the layer of mech had been completely ripped away.

"Don't bother," the Knight mumbled, as Jasper flexed his power. "I can feel you trying to fix me - there's no point."

Rock all around them was crumbling, falling apart to the blasts. Around him, Jasper could feel more and more of the soil and sediment around him harden, tucking him snugly into the earth.

"You crazy doctor - you need to live," the Knight wheezed out as another blast fell close by; a near-miss. "They cannot take the Knight from us."

Jasper tried healing the man again, but he pushed back, rebuffing him with a strange, heavy block of intention that Jasper's senses couldn't push through.

"Save it for yourself - get out of this-!"

The next projectile had struck home, pressing Jasper down into the ground. The Knight's mech suit - at least, what remained of it - was a measure of protection. At the same time, layers of rock rose to envelope him, even as the Knight was blasted apart by the force.

It still wasn't enough.

Jasper screamed, but his voice was drowned out by the cacophony of cracking stone and roaring fire.

There was pain. Terrible spikes of agony spiked through him; he felt both shattered and scorched in equal measure.

He knew, suddenly, that he was going to die.

His Factor, however, didn't seem to get the message, and his power flared of its own accord, trying in vain to repair the extensive damage. All he could do was lay there, broken, and await the final blow.

But another projectile didn't land. Instead, he could hear a steadily growing drone - the engines from an approaching fighter. It grew deafening, until it suddenly cut out.

A few moments later, Jasper heard the crunch of footsteps approaching. Barely conscious, he didn't even have the wherewithal to be alarmed by this. Buried under a mound of loose earth and shards of his mech suit shield, he had barely enough space to breathe, let alone see who was approaching.

The footsteps came to a stop, and some of the debris above him was shifted as the pilot began to rummage through the rubble.

Don't dig deeper.

Jasper plead to anyone or anything listening - begged the great Saiseki itself for a favor. Once, being captured by the enemy wasn't the worst thing to happen, but as years went by, and the conflict went stagnant, the Rete would not be kind to him.

The pilot was getting closer, and now Jasper could hear a harsh scrape as the pilot shifted shards of the man's mech suit. Then he heard a low, masculine voice curse in Standard; likely, he'd come across what remained of the Knight.

What remained... the thought made Jasper both sick and ashamed. The Knight had suffered a dozen hits before going down. He would easily been able to reach the carrier in time, even with the barrier down, if he hadn't been forced to protect Jasper.

But no - Jasper pushed away thoughts that threatened to debilitate him. The carrier was doomed from the start, thanks to the ambush. He needed to focus on getting away first - coming to terms with what needed to happen after.

He kept very still, hoping that the pilot would see that Knight had been taken out, then retreat.

It won't be so simple, his thoughts said. They'll likely scan for life, make sure that the Knight is really dead.

Jasper agreed, suddenly resigned to his fate. They would want to make sure...

Wait, what?

Confusion overtook him, even as the pilot dug ever closer. The voice in his head... it was like someone had been whispering into his ear.

An apt, if boring metaphor for what I do.

Jasper flinched, hard enough that he threatened to reveal himself. The voice was low, yet somehow pitched with a feminine cadence.

Am I going insane? He asked himself.

No, the voice answered. I needed another vessel - and you are a convenient solution.

Jasper's attempts to respond to the not-voice were cut short by a sudden exclamation from the man above. The scraping, grating sounds intensified, and Jasper knew he'd been found.

Do not tell them about me, the voice floated into his awareness again. Show them that you are useful, and they will keep you alive.

Then they - she? - fell silent again, and a burst of light cracked through Jasper's cocoon. The pilot had lifted up the last remnants of the mech suit, revealing Jasper, curled up in his hole like one of Valle's native small, burrowing creatures.

"What in Ferrus-" the man recoiled, pulling away from his view.

"I'm not the Knight!" Jasper shouted, fearing that the man would try to finish him off. "I'm a medic! Non-combatant!"

There was a pause, and the pilot's head appeared over the edge again. He stared at Jasper for a long moment, then said, "you're a lucky bastard, you know. Only survivor. Or unlucky, I guess."

Only survivor. No witnesses.

"I've got a healing Factor!" Jasper blurted out. And a dead Knight and a crazy voice on my hands, too.

The pilot titled his head. Jasper couldn't read his expression; his flight mask was too opaque.

"Prove it," he said.

In response, Jasper lifted one of his arms, revealing the deep lacerations that scored his skin from the blasts. Even as they watched, these wounds were closing, their angry red coloration fading.

The pilot was so surprised he took a step back.

Jasper too, was taken aback by the speed of his healing. He'd always been good... but this was uncanny. In fact, the odds of him surviving the last blast should have been negligible. The sheer concussive power alone should have crumpled his internal organs, and yet Jasper's injuries were not life-threatening - and shrinking by the second.

"You're pretty good," the pilot said, cocking his head. "Really good. Makes sense that the Knight would have the best in his own regiment."

The pilot held out a hand. Jasper blinked, then belatedly realized the man was offering to help him up.

He took the help gratefully, his body still not fully cooperating. But when Jasper found his footing, he backed up a couple steps, putting distance between them. The pilot simply watched him, arms folded, silent.

Jasper thought about running for it, but quickly banished the thought. There was just... nowhere for him to go.

The pilot stepped forward, suddenly, and Jasper flinched, cringing. He came to a stop, sighed.

"You're no soldier, are you?"

"I said I was a medic!"

The pilot nodded to himself. "Can't fault a man for healing, can you?" Then he laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "I bet I know what you're thinking. The two of us - alone out here."

He jerked his head upwards, towards the wheeling fighters. "Those folks wouldn't say a word, even if they saw."

Jasper tried to make himself even smaller, if possible.

But then the pilot sighed. "But you.... you're not even from Saiseki, are you? Not with that Factor. Probably press-ganged into it, like most of us."

Jasper didn't know what to make of that. All of his experiences in the military had stank of patriotism - even Jasper felt a touch affronted by this man's conclusion.

"Doesn't matter what planet I'm front," he grunted, and the pilot paused.

"You really wanna die on that hill?" He asked quietly.

Jasper didn't respond, and after a moment the pilot sighed and turned away.

"I'd be disciplined, regardless - you're too useful," he jerked his arm, "can I trust you to walk to the ship without bindings?"

Jasper blinked, surprised once again. But he nodded, and began to trudge towards the waiting fighter.

Pushing his battered, still-healing body forwards, navigating the now-ravaged clearing were his goals right now. He didn't think about what his future would look like now, or what the loss of the Knight meant-

You know that the Knight isn't gone.

He shook his head, as if the physical movement would shake the delusions right out of him.

Of course, he'd heard stories... tidbits leaked from higher classified military, myths and folktales that still circulated the Walled City on Saiseki.

They told of something greater than a single human, ancient challenges and triumphs achieved by an entire lineage - divinity passed down to each new hero.

Ignoring me won't help, said the voice, floating back into his awareness. You must acknowledge for us to succeed.

Jasper stumbled over something dark and jagged, and pulled himself back into the moment. It would do him no good to lose concentration now and accidentally impale himself on some wreckage. Jasper needed to show to the Rete that he was sound of mind and useful. That was the task he should cling to. Revealing a case of potential insanity to this pilot felt like a death sentence.

It took only a minute or two to reach the fighter, but for Jasper it had felt like an eternity. He stood uncertainly before the craft, waiting for further direction. Above him, the other Rete fighters were still wheeling in the sky. He was buffeted by an occasional wind whenever they dipped low for a shallow pass.

They're watching us, he reminded himself. Or were they? The pilot had obviously come down to confirm the death of the Knight. It made sense for the other craft to keep a close eye on any prisoners the pilot may have recovered.

Were the stories true? Even now, was there a new Knight appearing back on Saiseki? Or was it a conscious transfer between people? The Rete seemed to think so - if the goal of their strike really was to take out the Knight, then they wouldn't have risked it unless they thought it would be a permanent blow.

The pilot gestured to the cockpit and Jasper clambered in without complaint.

Was it information they wanted? He dismissed that almost immediately. The Rete knew by now that the vast majority of Saisekans knew next to nothing about the factual workings of the Knight. The latest incarnation had existed for decades, but even if his ascendance had been recent, the transfer - and method - of Knighthood hadn't been witnessed by the public in recent history.

Therefore, he could only conclude that the pilot was being honest - that his role as a medic was what had spared him.

"I'm not the Knight. You know this, correct?" Jasper raised the question during the pilot's air check.

"I'm not an idiot," the pilot engaged the engines with a low thrum. "There was enough left of him to figure that out. Crazy, to think he was just a man on the inside, like the rest of us,"

"Where are we going?" Jasper asked.

"To Osmoa," was the answer, and Jasper nodded. That made sense; the city was the center of the Rete occupation on the planet.

The fighter rose into the air, and the two of them sat in relative silence for a while as the pilot maneuvered to join the rest of his squad. Jasper peered out through the windows, but didn't feel the resentment, or anger he was expecting. Maybe it was the surprising treatment from the pilot, or the fact that he wasn't truly a soldier, but Jasper didn't feel particularly antagonistic towards the Rete. Most people understood the war as a clash over resources - and while he did rejoice in the success of his nation, he'd never enjoyed the violence.

It was hard to think on what had happened. His memories throbbed like a jagged wound, and he was forced to retreat into the clinical perspective of a working doctor to function at the moment.

"I'm Sashah, by the way."

It was a classic Rete name. No doubt the man was from a world within the central territory of the Rete. Likely a space station.

With this in mind, Jasper was once again struck by the relative mercy he'd been offered. The soldiers' stories painted a horrid picture of these enemy units, and the terrible, law-above-all mentality that these people believed in. For his many misgivings about Saiseki and the war, he shuddered to think about living in a society where passion and feeling weren't valued as important. \

"My name is Jasper," he said eventually. "I would say it's a pleasure to meet you, but..."

Despite his best effort, the joke fell flat. Still, Sashah let out a short, amused sound. But then, after a moment, he seemed to shrink a little, shoulders bunched close.

"Ferrus, man... you must hate us, for doing this to your squad."

Jasper looked down at his unbound hands, and was sure the pilot was thinking of the same thing.

"I appreciate your treatment of me," Jasper said carefully. "I won't cause trouble - I'm no soldier, after all."

Keeping this man placated would be to his benefit, Jasper realized. He doubted every soldier was this friendly, and so he needed to take advantage.

Yes, the Rete had struck his team down - people he had worked, slept, and eaten alongside for months. They had taken advantage of lax defenses and a long stalemate to land a surprise blow and potentially end one of the greatest symbols of Saiseki.

And yet, truthfully, the rage he should have been feeling was a cold, shriveled thing. Instead, Jasper could only feel terrible relief.

Relief that he was alive, and had survived where others hadn't. That the enemy hadn't killed him on sight, and given him a change. Pathetically, he was even glad for Sashah, for the way he had taken Jasper away from that terrible scene.

Do not think these things. That strange, disconnected voice suddenly burst into his awareness. These men and women killed the Knight like a coward, taking advantage of his refusal to leave you behind. You will repay this debt, and carry on the plan.

"Who are you?" Jasper asked aloud, his voice little more than a whisper.

I am the Knight of Saiseki, it answered, and you have been chosen to carry on my name.