Serix listened to the human’s story, leaning his head on the chair while she spoke. So the Lunairans had come during a time of peace on the Earth. Their invasion must have come as a huge shock to the majority of the population. He tried to imagine what it would be like if they reversed positions. He closed his eyes, trying to picture his home planet from the stories his parents told him. He imagined a vast number of ships filled with humans descending on the land and spraying it with toxic fumes. There would be chaos in the streets as the Lunairans tried in vain to flee from their tormentors, only to die soon after from the Plague that had infected the land. Serix opened his eyes again.

There was only one part of the human’s story that didn’t make sense to him. She claimed that his people had killed her parents, while the higher powers always told them that they used nothing but the Plague to exterminate the Earthlings. There was no way the Lunairan authorities could get away with murdering so many humans without someone leaking the information to everyone else. So why was this human’s family the exception? He wondered if it had something to do with the mysterious disappearances of the sympathizers. Perhaps her parents had been in touch with one of them.

[b]“You're turn,”[/b] the human said. [b]“What's it been like all this time on your end?”[/b]

“What’s it been like for me?” Serix repeated. “Let’s see. I’ve lived on a ship all my life, so my routine every day never changed much. Eat a meal, do some physical training, study the history of my people, eat another meal, do some more training, et cetera. It was pretty boring. Well, until we came across your planet, that is.

“Everything changed. I noticed the little alterations in my daily schedule. Physical training increased and studying decreased. So did free time. It was like we were being prepared for war. Then, our leaders began to draft spies to plant among your people so we could learn about your weaknesses and attack. But after three rotations around your star, we realized we were too badly outnumbered to fight. We didn’t want to decrease our numbers while we were already dwindling on the verge of extinction.

“Then someone came up with the Plague. I don’t know who it was; that’s classified information. Our best medicinal authorities all got together to create a disease that would be potent enough to kill your people, but not quite strong enough to be fatal to us. It took two more rotations around your star before it was completed. Then, our leaders sent in ships to drop the new Plague on your planet. My father was one of them.

Of course, you humans wouldn’t go down without a fight. Your soldiers actually managed to take out two of our ships before they finished spreading their loads of the Plague. My father was on one of them. My mother was furious when she found out what your people did to her mate. She wanted to lead a platoon of fighters to kill you Earthlings with gunfire. Of course, her request was immediately shot down by the authorities.

“But she did it anyways. She stole one of the armed ships and took off by herself. I can only imagine how quickly your people shot her out of the sky,” Serix had been reciting his history in a factual, unfeeling manner, but he had to stop at the mention of his mother’s death. He would never forget the look in her eyes when she slipped away that night. It was a cruel and merciless expression. It was also his last memory of her. He pushed the image out of his mind. “I suppose we’ve both lost people we cared about to this war.”