War Against the White Knights by Tim C. Taylor

strengthened this time, rather than flickering out as it had so many times before. Remus bent over and kissed her scaly forehead. The green hexagonal plates of the ginquin parasite felt like warm polished leather.
    The kiss ended, but he was unwilling to relinquish the touch of his lips and kept his lips pressed against her. Janna was all he had left. If he let go, she might leave him too.
    Remus was cut off from his mother. Worse. He had received occasional word over the years, but she was stranded on Tranquility with only intermittent and often corrupted lightspeed comms. It took thirty years to pass a message there and back. It was like receiving word from a ghost. And although he had no memory of her, the death of his birth mother when he was a baby still left a gaping wound in his heart. If Romulus was truly gone then his girlfriend, Janna, would be the only family he had left. She was so desperately precious to him.
    He sat back upright and turned his head away, unable to look Janna in the eye and see there that his brother was dead.
    Janna reached out and squeezed his hand. “He was still alive when we ejected,” she said. “Don’t give up hope yet.”
    “What happened?” Remus turned back and peered into Janna’s face, as if hoping to find answers in that scaly face. “It’s a blessing you survived, Janna. But I don’t understand. You were cut off and surrounded. How is it that I see you here alive?”
    She glanced away, searching her memories for an answer. When she looked back at him, her eyes were filled with sadness. “It’s no use. I can’t remember anything between ejecting and waking up in hospital.” She added halfheartedly, “They say my memories might return.”
    Her words propped up Remus, but only for a few seconds. Then the hope drained out of him and he knew in his heart that his brother had left him forever. He drew the wounded Wolf to him in as tight an embrace as he dared. Only the thought that it would embarrass her kept him from sobbing. His eyes streamed with silent tears.
    “Hey, little brother.”
    Remus froze. Was this grief overwhelming his mind?
    “Hands off my girlfriend!”
    “Rom!” screamed Janna.
    It really was him.
    Romulus clapped Remus on the shoulder, a smile plastered all over his silly face. “Don’t look so surprised, bro. I always make it back. It’s you lot I have to worry about.”
    As Romulus moved on to Janna’s bedside, the joy froze over Remus’s face. Then it shattered.
    He studied Janna’s expression as she pulled Romulus toward her and eased into his embrace before they started to kiss. No, she hadn’t seen what he had.
    Remus had seen right through the smile on Romulus’s face to the terrible burden he carried on the inside.
    Something was wrong with his brother.
    Very wrong.

—— PART II ——
    A MEMORY
OF
THE FUTURE

Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
    HISTORY OF THE LEGION
    – Civil Administration and Politics Part I
     
    The Human Legion grew to become something much larger and more significant than its originators ever conceived, but its origins lay in the Human Marine Corps and its depot planet of Tranquility. The humans were slaves, and their Jotun officers were also slaves, albeit more elevated ones. This was a standard part of the White Knight strategy for regional dominance: vulnerable worlds, and those conquered by other factions, would beg for the White Knights’ protection against an extremely dangerous galaxy.
    White Knight Vassal worlds were allowed a semblance of autonomy to run their own affairs so long as their economic, military, and scientific endeavors were bent to the will of their overlords. Indeed, in comparison with invasion, occupation, or destruction at the hands of other strong species, the legally binding terms dictated by the White Knights in return for their protection appeared extremely lenient.
    The term ‘White Knight’ is a human one, and comes from humanity’s own introduction to the brutal realities of