The rock clattered to the ground with a cracking thud. Captain Vir dusted off his hands, "Cane would be proud." He muttered, shoving General's Cosma's unconscious body to the side with a distasteful foot, kicking her into the dirt a few feet to the left where she was no longer in contact with Sunny. He kneeled then, supporting Sunny's head and shoulders in his arms, "You big..... idiot." He scolded breathlessly, reaching down, and ripping a strip of cloth from his torn pant leg holding it to her face.

Her blood quickly wetted the rag, but there was nothing more he could do than apply pressure to the wound. She lolled heavily in his arms, barely conscious. Her mouth trembled softly voice barely audible past other echoing noises.

"You.... Shouldn't have..... Interfered."

"Shut up, Sunny. I wasn't just going to let you die, you know me better than that." He tried to keep his voice light, though, when he looked up, he found himself alone and exposed in a slowly encroaching circle of Drev soldiers. Their eyes were narrowed with anger, and their weapons were held at the ready.

"It'll be alright, Sunny. Everything's going to be fine, we won, you and me." He kept talking as the circle grew smaller. Sunny's eyes were closed, but he allowed a tail of the rag to rest over her remaining eye. He didn't want the possibility of her seeing what was going to happen next. He knew what he had done, now they were probably both going to die. Him for interfering, and once General Cosma regained consciousness, she would finish what she had started and Kill Sunny too.

It was a real pity, for a moment there he had almost hoped that they would make it out, but who was he kidding. He had been lucky for years now he had had a great and supportive family, he had gotten his dream job, made first contact, participated in peace talks, survived the war, lost a leg but not his life, mostly recovered from post-traumatic stress, lost an eye, but avoided major brain damage, met one of his best friends; Krill, then his other best friend; Sunny somehow having run into the only Drev who would have been willing to befriend him, he had avoided a court-martial and then execution; if only for a few minutes, He was Captain of a SPACE SHIP for crying out loud, everyone dreamed of doing that.

Honestly, it seemed only fair he should die here, in his lifetime, he had received and undue amount of Luck, a disproportional amount compared to others. Now that he thought about it, it seemed sort of unfair. He pulled Sunny closer, "You're going to be alright Sunny, when we're all done with this, I promise we can get you a new eye, like mine. There are a lot of choices, they have ones with targeting systems I think you'd like it. Maybe we can get you one that can see infrared too." The Drev circle was tight now, almost shoulder to shoulder standing around them in a grim, aggressive line.

They looked around at each other before one of the creatures raised his weapon.... It was not dissimilar in style and shape to a human sword, accept cut form volcanic stone and glass. He was sure it would shatter against stone, but against the soft flesh of his throat.... There was no reason to hope.

He closed his eyes, "We'll splurge, my paycheck for a year, how does that sound?"

Something swished softly through the air, cutting towards his throat.

"STOP!"

The blow never landed, Captain Vir opened an eye, his only eye, and glanced upwards. The Drev soldiers had turned away, their circle breaking slowly as they milled in confusion. Beyond them, just outside the village, a large, dark shuttle sat docked still settling into the dust. The ramp had been lowered into the strange, soft moss, and another group of Drev soldiers had spilled outwards watching them all with intent gazes. Their weapons weren't held aggressively, but their posture was cautious.

One of the Drev soldiers surrounding Sunny, and Vir, stepped forward and a bit to the side, opening up his view a little more to reveal a large shape limping towards them. The figure was nine or ten feet tall, with thick plated red armor, and a set of familiar golden eyes.

"Cannon!" Vir exclaimed in shock. Below, Sunny had clawed her way from the edges of unconsciousness and blearily opened an eye, she seemed surprised too, as surprised as she could be in her current state, "You.... Know my.... Brother?"

The massive shape limped is way forward, pushing the other soldiers out of the way, "Step back, give them some air."

The soldiers milled around for a moment in clear confusion, "Cannon? Aren't you supposed to be...."

"Dead?" The Drev asked, turning his cold golden eyes onto the other soldier, "Wouldn't that be convenient for you."

"But, the rules." The Drev sputtered.

Captain Vir looked up to the Ex Drev officer, "Cannon, what are they on about?"

"An ancient Drev custom, human, if you are crippled in battle and can no longer fight, you are encouraged, no.... expected, to rid the clan of your presence, so that you don't waist valuable resources. In the past, it has been tradition to toss yourself into the fire as an offering to the gods."

Captain Vir spluttered in surprise, "They wanted you to kill yourself!"

"It is not a custom that we use greatly anymore, but you understand that our family was very traditional, and tended to uphold any and all of the old traditions. Only Sunny knew what I had done in leaving this planet for the stars, everyone else thought I had gone through with my mother's wishes."

Captain Vir glanced towards General Cosma still sprawled in the dirt, "One sick puppy."

Cannon took another few steps forward, but was blocked by one of the other soldiers, "This ends now, Cannon, you no longer have influence here. Your rank was stripped, and once the General learns what you have done, you will be disowned." He pointed towards Captain Vir, "This one interfered with the laws of the duel, and will be put to death accordingly."

Cannon looked on in bemusement, "Now remind me, I've been away for a while, but what is the law regarding duels?"

The Drev opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again, "Well, I don't know the exact wording, but I know what he did was illegal, against principal."

Cannon tapped his claws against his arm musingly. The posture, and the gestures were surprisingly human, "That's interesting because I've been involved in a lot of duels in my time, and I seem to remember that they were supposed to be overseen by the village's reconciler who would then make a writ of the terms of the duel. Furthermore, each duel was supposed to be held to specific stipulations. Did mother mention this was to be a one on one fight?"

The soldier remained silent.

Cannon grunted, "Well, that seems to be a problem then. Without a formal writ, and no witnesses, I can assume that my mother was not following protocol, which makes this an illegal duel. Sunny is not experienced enough to know the rules, so it couldn't have been her fault. And in any case," He motioned to the human's leg, "I see some of Sunny's armor there, and if that's Sunny's armor, than by way of the rules, he IS Sunny to an extent." He looked on one set of arms crossed the other resting on his hips, "But of course, I am just the crippled disgraced son who didn't throw himself into a volcano, so what would I know about the rules of dueling."

The square was quiet, but after a moment, the Drev soldiers backed down bowing their heads as Cannon moved forward ordering his men to detain General Cosma. By then, Sunny had lulled back into unconsciousness, blood still welling from her eye socket and onto the hard packed dirt below. Captain Vir tried to hold pressure on the wound, but it didn't seem to be helping as much as he might have wished.

After he was done ordering the soldiers around, Cannon knelt across from Vir, and looked down at Sunny. You couldn't tell by way of skin color that Sunny wasn't doing well, but she was growing cold, and that didn't seem to be a good sign, "What do we do?" Cannon asked, it was clear he had no more idea of what to do that Sunny did. The Drev weren't known for their great medical skill. It seemed that their response to illness and injury amounted to, if you are strong you will survive, and if you die than you were probably not worthy of living anyway.

Captain Vir looked up at the sky, "I have a medic aboard my ship.... If he's still alive. If anyone can help her it's him."

Cannon nodded, and slowly moved to his feet ordering some of the soldiers forward to help. Captian Vir stepped back as one of them picked Sunny up off the ground and carried her back to the shuttle. She lolled, a dead weight in their arms, with two of her hands dangling limply from the side of her body. Blood trailed on the ground behind her. Captian Vir stayed close by trying to staunch the blood with the already saturated cloth. Aboard the shuttle, he removed his overshirt discarding the rag on the floor as he knelt over her.

A few of the soldiers were left behind to deal with general Cosma, but Cannon joined them aboard the shuttle forced to sit as the craft rattled into the air. Captian Vir clenched his teeth. He didn't like riding in aircraft that he wasn't flying. He knew it was petty to think so highly of himself, but he hadn't yet met someone who could outfly him. This particular pilot had a habit of fighting against the controls, white knuckling against the natural roll and yaw of the craft as it moved through the atmosphere. The result was a rather rattling, jarring ascent.

He looked up again, from his blood stained shirt and upwards at Sunnys Brother, Cannon. He was, in fact, the first Drev Captain Vir had ever met personally. In fact, he was probably the first Drev that most people had ever met. He had been a real mess when they had first encountered each other. It had been a while after the war, after Vir had finally started recovering from his PTSD, and while he was still in the probationary stages of being a Captain.

He had been working at one of the Oxyclinics near the Galactic Assembly homeward getting himself used to being around aliens again, getting used to trusting them again after the war. It was during this time, Cannon had turned up, crippled, in chronic pain, and showing nearly all the symptoms of a major depressive episode. It's rather interesting to note that humans have the highest rate of mental illness in the galaxy, they seem more susceptible to it, in most of its forms. In other species, mental illness is rather rare. The Drev, for instance don't seem to experience post-traumatic stress like humans. Though they had not been studying the Drev for very long, the rates of PTSD remained at 0%.

For this reason, It's a general rule in the clinic that if an alien is showing symptoms similar and almost equal to human mental illness, than there is something horribly, horribly wrong. At first, Captain Vir hadn't been able to stand in the same room as Cannon without devolving into a full blown PTSD attack, but a desire to recover had driven him to change that. Cannon had been his mountain, and he had been desperate to help both of them.

It took months of trying on both of their parts before they were functioning again.

Captain Vir shifted Sunny into a more comfortable position cradling her head on his lap as Cannon watched head tilted, "You've come a long way." He commented wryly

"I could say the same for you." He glanced down at Sunny and then back up at Cannon, "Small universe."

Cannon nodded looking down sadly at his sister, but he didn't say anything and the captain didn't ask, silent as they approached the Drev ship, and its magnetic claws gripping around the U.S.S Stabby. The rest of the Drev soldiers that had come along with them moved towards the docking station ready to make entry aboard the ship. Captian Vir stayed where he was, more worried about Sunny than he was about making entry. He hoped that they would manage to do something.... He hoped that his crew wasn't dead. The shuttle pulled into the docking station with a rattle and grinding noise that set Vir's teeth on edge. It was a terrible noise. Whoever was piloting this hunk of steel really should not be piloting.

They ground to a halt, and Cannon stood staying towards the back of his soldiers as he gave the order. One of them slapped the opening button and the doors released a pressurized hiss. A gust of wind blew through the compartment as the pressure equalized. Captain Vir readied himself for whatever might be behind those doors.

And was surprised to find, a rather scruffy group of marines standing over the unconscious bodies of the Drev soldiers. Two of them were holding wrenches, one of them brandished a crowbar, and all of them were mostly undressed. Two of the marines were wearing only their boxers, and one of the marines was conspicuously garbed in only a towel, one about her body and the other wrapped around her hair. She tossed a hammer up and down in one hand.

"They glanced over at the docking bay and like a group of wolves, they formed up on each other stalking forward. The Drev pulled back at the sight pulling aside to put the Captain in View. The marines perked up, "CF! You're alive."

Captain Vir stood in time as the marines pushed their way into the shuttle thumping him on the back, "We were just on our way to rescue you."

The other marines nodded, "Yeah captain, these big beetles didn't stand a chance." The marine glanced over at Cannon, "No offence, of course."

The captain responded with a weak grin, "You crazy bastards...." He paused, "Tell me, is Krill still alive?"

***

"I have a theory that the number of missing body parts is directly related to Idiocy." Krill glowered at the captain, who sat on the edge of one of the cots, "First it's you, and then it's Sunny." He waved his arms in front of the two of them, "You see this, it's called having all of your limbs. It's what happens when you are intelligent enough to be cautious, but no, the two of you can't help but mount insurrections, challenge duels, and charge blindly into situations that will eventually get you dead.

Captain Vir glanced over at the bed on his left where Waffles was lying with her head resting on one of her paws ears up tail dangling off the side of the cot wagging slowly. He was immensely grateful the dog had survived with only minor injuries. She had been knocked out coming out of warp, and injured her paw, but otherwise, she was ok.

Krill had moved over to Sunny's bedside where she lay bandaged, heavily drugged, and healing.

"I swear, the two of you give me palpitations. If we sewed the two of you together, we might end up with the correct number of eyes and limbs." Krill grumbled bustling about the infirmary with help from one of the marines. He had injured some of his legs coming out of warp. If he floated, he didn't have to use his legs, but movement wasn't so fast, so he had commandeered one of the marines to pull him around the infirmary to help the injured.

Captain Vir sighed and rested back against the bed. He wasn't really injured aside form a mild concussion and some bruising about the neck and wrists, but he was immensely exhausted. This past month or two had been exhausting. He just wanted to sleep, just for five minutes without their being antagonized by yet another problem.

He just wanted to sleep.

***

The Galactic Assembly stood as the Drev representative stepped into the room. The chamber was mostly quiet as the Drev's silver armor sparkled in the light. Behind him Captain Vir, mediator to the Drev, stood with a group of other delegates including Sunny, and Cannon. The chosen Drev representative was General Magnus from one of the neighboring Drev tribes. For a Drev he was known for being open minded, cautious and astute.

As he sat, the assembly sat.

The chairwoman of the assembly stood, "The Galactic Assembly welcomes the Drev representatives on this historic day. Is there anything you wish to say before we begin peace talks?"

The room grew silent as Genderal Magnus stood once again. His voice was deep and slow echoing about the chamber with a stately power, "We, the Drev only wish to extend our hand to galactic peace, and our armies for the protection of all. But we especially thank the members of the human race for helping us to put aside our differences. The war has taught us much, and we are eager to learn.... Let us waist o further time, and begin."