ONE: Epilogue of Hermesh

24. For the Treaty

All the respect and admiration that only moments ago seemed to have been eviscerated, gushed back into Nole; with a healthy mixture of bewilderment.

"Commodore, as much as I appreciate what you are doing," Nole said, tentatively, "I must ask. If all this started a hundred years ago then..."

"I knowingly violated the spirit of the Valree Declaration," Erra replied. "Believe it or not, this was the cost of peace."

"I don't understand."

"Allow me to explain. After the end of the second Amarthian-Helmeshi War, both sides worked on ways to circumvent the Mashaho Treaty. Your side found the loopholes before we did. But they also paid the price by inadvertently dragging themselves into the Xacreth War."

"Is that what, Shanoke Baakin was talking about?" Nole asked, indignantly, "Do you actually believe him, Commodore?"

Without offering a direct answer, Erra opened his hand and revealed a floating multi-layered document, written in Helmeshi and Manwatu languages and translated into Amarthian. What it said stunned Nole into silence.

The document was nothing short of an admission of guilt by the Manwatus and the top Helmeshi leadership, who led the delegation from Oun'ek to Valree, to attend the peace talks. Both the Helmeshi and the Manwatus admitted to signing a clandestine agreement where the Manwatus agreed the transfer of advanced weapons technology to the Helmeshi, in exchange for their support in the Xacreth wars.

"Why would the Manwatus need our help?"

"Originally it was only a breakaway faction of the Manwatus who perceived the Xacreths as a threat. This rogue faction considered the Xacreths such a significant threat that as a final solution, they wanted to exterminate the entire species.

At some point after the end of our second war, there was a political upheaval or its equivalent amongst the Manwatus. Those who came to power, reneged on the Manwatu promise to the Xacreths to help them integrate into the rest of Hermesh. Instead they plotted to eliminate the the entire species.

Because of the superiority of Manwatu's technology, they never really needed to keep a large force to defend their space. But against the Xacreths, whom they had given their own technology to, the Manwatus needed help.

They approached us Amarthians first. When we declined, they reached an agreement with a section of the ruling coalition of the Helmeshi, who offered them bases and facilities to build the war machine needed to take out the Xacreths. These were war machines to be manned by both the Manwatus and the Helmeshi. In exchange, the Helmeshi were allowed to keep all the advanced technology after the war ended."

"Unfortunately, some Manwatus who were against the idea of eradicating an entire race had already informed Xacreths about what was going to happen. These Xacreth sympathisers also intercepted a key message transmitted from the Manwatu home world of Andor to the Helmeshi, which gave away the exact location from where the invasion was going to start. It was Ya'kanto. Receiving this information, the Xacreths struck first."

Nole was trying to both read and listen to Erra simultaneously. The Helmeshi now realised why the Xacreth named Shanoke Baakin looked so surprised.

"But we never knew anything about it," Nole said, clearly outraged.

"Why admit their culpability when it is much easier to portray the Xacreths as an embodiment of evil and project themselves as the saviour of all Helmeshi instead?" was Erra's immediate response. He was not mincing words today.

They used us. They actually used our anger, sorrow and outrage to convince us that we had no choice but to fight and get slaughtered in a conflict that they had started to begin with?" Nole screeched out indignantly.