the beginning because of them landing here?" I couldn't help the curiosity; I had never heard how it all started but only that it was happening. Colonists on other planets had begun to deem Shaviro a loss cause with it not having enough valuable exports, but Lyle Grain seemed hell bent on exploring to find one.
Dracon’s eyes averted, looking just at the map as he sat down. He leaned back in the chair, arms folding behind his head. “You probably know better than I do. My father was alive at the time and wanted my mother, sisters, and I to stay out of the human affairs. Saying that if anything happened he wanted us out of harm’s way. He went for a meeting with the humans with a small group of a couple of elders and some warriors. None of them ever returned, so none of our people know what happened. Humans started the war before we even knew we were at war.”
Wait, what? So none of the Navani knew what they were at war about? That didn't seem logical to me. Why fight if you don't even know what you are fighting for? "Well, I have no idea what happened, seeing as I don't belong to that colony."
Then Dracon looked perplexed, looking at me as though I just said something totally left-field. “What are you talking about? Of course you are from the same colony as the others. You are human, aren’t you?” he challenged.
“Well I’m human, but I don’t belong to those humans. I’m from another colony, one that lives on the planet called Cycle. I have nothing to do with the humans here on Shaviro,” I tried to explain.
The perplex looked stayed on Dracon’s face for another few long moments, his eyes distant as if in deep thought. But then he abruptly shook his head and then moved on, I suppose not believing me or not caring. “Anyways, the humans killed my father and his band of people. When a day had gone by and my father and his men didn’t return, I rallied a group of scouts to go with me to find them. We were half way to the human’s base when we were ambushed by a militia of humans. Shan and I barely escaped, and we retreated back to the village only to find out that another, bigger militia had come to the village and raided my family home. They killed my mother and my three sisters, and burned the hut to the ground to send a message of war.”
My breath caught in my throat. Lyle had really made his men do that? Why? What had it all started over? All the rumors about Shaviro just made the Navani sound like natives who were being territorial… If anything, the colonists sounded like the beasts. At that point, I had no idea what to say. There was no way for me to relate to his loss seeing as my home planet had never been invaded and family slaughtered. It wasn’t Dracon’s fault for the war, nor did it sound like the Navani had anything to do with why the war started. My chest ached for his lost, just unable to imagine.
Dracon’s eyes weren't on me then but fixated somewhere in the distance with a pained look in his eye. And it was as though suddenly his face seemed to age from stress, looking years older from letting the stress sit on his head. "The colonists have killed my entire family and more friends than I can count. I do not know what the humans are fighting for, but we are fighting for survival, and to take some of our planet back. The humans are drilling and fracking in such large quantities, far much more than is needed for their survival. They are destroying Shaviro to the point where even if our species was to survive the war, I don’t know how many generations would be able to last after the fact.”
I was still at a loss for words, unable to make him feel any better or provide him with any information about the colony there and the Navani. At that point, I wished I would have asked more questions while in Harp, gotten some sort of knowledge about the war. Maybe it would have been able to help him. It felt almost like treason to think, but I was beginning to think the Navani were the ones