The Human Alliance is an indissoluble alliance composed of races large and small, including humans, the Infernals, the Furred, the Bloodkin, the Superstarkin, and the Molekin.
This was the first sentence in every Alliance textbook. The lower-grade version featured an illustration: six hands clasping together to form a circle. The upper-grade version removed the illustration, replacing it with a footnote—the words “indissoluble alliance” in bold.
Its territory covered the entire Milky Way. In the future, it might reach the whole universe. It was only because of the failure of the Claude Engine that humans were temporarily unable to leave the Milky Way—this sentence was usually followed by another: “See Chapter Seven, Section Two for details.” Chapter Seven, Section Two never explained the cause of the failure, only its outcome: the Milky Way was the sole territory, and all races had no choice but to squeeze together.
The advantage of squeezing together was that you needed an alliance. So was the disadvantage.
I. The Third Global Workers’ Congress
Year 2520. New York.
The Global Workers’ Congress was held every four years. This year was the third. The venue was hung with banners printed with the emblem of the Alliance—six hands forming a circle—and the labor union’s slogans. The slogan changed every year; this year’s slogan was “Unity is the Future.”
When Aie Koichi walked onto the stage, the audience stood up.
He did not wear formal attire. A dark gray work jacket with sleeves rolled up twice, revealing old burn scars on his forearms—left behind from mining. He had been a miner, had been the man striking iron at the blacksmith’s door, had done every task that went unseen. Today he was a labor leader, re-elected for a third term, by unanimous vote.
“I never tell the outside world that I am an Infernal.”
His voice was not loud, but the venue was silent, and every word could be heard.
“I only say that I am human. A member of the Human Alliance. We are not aliens; we can do the same things as humans, even the impossible.”
He paused.
“Our ancestors faced discrimination for generations. The blacksmiths at the door, the workers in the mines, even other things that go unseen by people. We have had enough.”
His right hand clenched into a fist and fell onto the edge of the podium. The wood let out a dull thud.
“And we will never compromise.”
Applause. Amid the applause, Aie Koichi was elected labor leader by unanimous vote once more, and publicly “declared war” on Douglas.
Douglas was at Quilla D Space Station at the time, watching the live broadcast. The signal flickered, the picture intermittent, but he saw the moment Aie Koichi slammed the table clearly.
“Douglas is a paranoid man.”
He heard this sentence. On the screen, Aie Koichi was pointing a finger into the distance. That was the direction of Quilla.
“I don’t understand why he became like this. I still prefer the former Douglas. He used to come to New York often to drink with me. It’s just that he is now far away in Quilla. I fear there won’t be another chance.”
Douglas turned off the hypersignal television.
“Aie Koichi is just an arm-chair coward. The Infernals, just like the Fire Fiends, are a bunch of talkative cowards.”
He said this to the empty command room. No one answered.
Regarding hypersignal television, an interlude is required.
Hypersignal television was a device capable of transmitting brainwaves through a vacuum, allowing users to “hear” sound indirectly. Its underlying technology was called the hypersignal, also known as Claude waves—propagating through a vacuum at the speed of light, more stable than electromagnetic waves. Claude had discovered it while researching black holes.
The Alliance requisitioned this technology for military use, later gradually opening it to civilian applications, and renamed it: the hypersignal. Official documents, textbooks, news reports, and product manuals uniformly used this new name. So much so that young people today had no idea who Claude was.
They only knew that the hypersignal was fast, stable, and easy to use.
II. Quilla
“All forces hear my command. Launch the final assault on the Fire Fiends. Win this in a single battle.”
Douglas issued orders to the entire army via the hypersignal.
“Qian! Kun!”
A large fleet of Lich fighters set off for the front lines. Behind them were Falcon fighters and King fighters. The target this time was the Fire Fiends’ last base in Quilla—located between Quilla D and Quilla D-α, a military-crest-class space base. The Fire Fiends claimed it could withstand the firepower of Human military-crest-class bombardment.
No one had verified this claim.
Byrne Butler, 25 years old, white, born in a small town in Virdo. His father had responded early to the call for Earth migration, settling here from Paris. His father always told him that Earth was beautiful, filled with many creatures he had never seen, and that once the war ended, they had to go back and see it, because his mother’s tombstone was still on Earth.
His father had passed away last year as well.
Byrne was appointed by Douglas as the general for this decisive battle. The Quilla mothership cast a vast shadow over his head—it was Quilla’s planetary defense ship, capable of holding tens of thousands of aircraft and hundreds of thousands of troops.
“General Byrne, we have surrounded the enemy base completely. Not even a fly can get in.”
Byrne’s accompanying guard stood behind him, reporting in a low voice.
“Listen, people inside,” Byrne picked up the hypersignal megaphone and shouted in faltering Fire Fiend language, “surrender your arms and you will not be killed.”
“But General,” the guard leaned close to his ear, “Field Marshal Douglas said to leave no survivors.”
“I know,” Byrne’s mouth barely moved. “I’m letting them lower their guard first.”
No response. There was no sound at all from the base.
“I will give you one hour to think it over.” Byrne raised the megaphone. “After one hour, I will attack.”
15 minutes.
20 minutes.
Half an hour.
“Attack!”
The guard froze: “Only half an hour has passed—”
“Are you the general or am I the general? Entire army, attack!”
The super-particle laser cannons of the King fighters tore an opening in the outer shell of the base. Byrne led his troops pouring out in full force, passing through the gap and charging into the base.
Inside, there was not a single person.
Only charred corpses and exposed wires, sparks flashing at the broken ends of the wiring.
On the titanium alloy deck, there were no signs of fighting. These Fire Fiends looked as if they had suffered sudden death, completely devoid of wounds on their bodies. Those charred corpses—appeared to be intentional.
The military doctor later wrote in the report: “Prior to death, they may have encountered some terrifying entity; all died by suicide.”
The report was classified as top secret.
III. Byrne
Byrne ordered the soldiers to clean up the battlefield. Then he called over the war correspondent.
“This matter must be kept secret. Do not leak half a word out. I will report to Field Marshal Douglas.” He looked into the reporter’s eyes. “To the outside world, you will say that General Byrne heavily defeated the Fire Fiends.”
The war correspondent was named Marjorie. Just turned 19. A university intern, accompanying the military for the first time.
She nodded.
Byrne turned around and called his accompanying guard over.
A single gunshot.
The guard collapsed onto the deck, blood flowing from the back of his head, seeping into the seams of the titanium alloy.
“General Byrne is a remarkable, famous general,” Byrne read into the war correspondent’s recording device, his voice steady. “He charged alone into the enemy formation, braving a hail of bullets to save his deputy. Unbeknownst to him, the enemy cruelly killed his deputy. Suppressing his tears, Byrne smashed the enemy base, but lost his right hand forever.”
After reading, Byrne drew a limonite blade.
And chopped at his own right hand.
A dull thud.
He ordered the dissolution of the Fifth Division.
Of course, these were all Douglas’s intentions.
“This matter is exceedingly strange; do not voice a word of it to the outside.” Douglas sat on the sofa in the mayor’s office, legs crossed, speaking to the standing Byrne. “Take care of your guard’s after-death affairs properly, and attend well to his family.”
Byrne nodded. He did not dare to breathe loudly.
“Marshal, if there’s nothing else, I will take my leave.”
He turned around, preparing to push the door.
“That war correspondent—handle her as well.”
Without a word, Byrne went out the door.
IV. Communiqué
August 1, 2522 AD.
At the third session of the 87th Alliance Congress, Human Alliance Chairman Li Zimin praised Douglas and Byrne’s heroic deeds highly. Byrne was reassigned back to Paris as Director of the Western European Affairs Office.
This was a lateral transfer.
The official news agency released a press release titled Great Victory at Quilla: General Byrne Fights Bloody Battle to Defeat the Enemy, Refuses to Retreat Even with Severed Right Hand. The press release was republished by major media, accompanied by a photo of Byrne saluting on the mothership’s deck—saluting with his left hand, the sleeve of his right arm empty and limp.
No one mentioned that empty base. No one mentioned the Fire Fiends who had died suddenly. No one mentioned the guard who had died on the deck.
The designation of the Fifth Division disappeared from the Alliance organizational chart. The soldiers were broken up and reassigned to other units, signed non-disclosure agreements, and received a sum of “resettlement pay.” A few soldiers refused to sign. Later, they signed.
Marjorie returned to her hometown in California.
Under Byrne’s “handling”—the specific meaning of this word had no record in the archives. All Marjorie knew was that after returning from Quilla, she had become a cripple. Her right leg lost sensation, and her left hand could not bend. The doctor said it was nerve damage. What caused it could not be found out.
She relied on government relief funds to get by. 400 Alliance Dollars per month.
No one ever came to visit her.
No one knew what she had actually gone through.
New Year of the following year, Marjorie died of illness. She was only 21 years old.
The cause of death written on her death certificate was: multiple organ failure.
Winter in California was not cold. The sun was out on the day she died. The landlord found her two days later, because she had not paid the next month’s rent.
Douglas also woke from the grief of losing his son.
He resigned from his post as Governor of Quilla and returned to his old home in London. The official statement was “out of grief over losing his son, sympathizing with the people’s feelings, taking the initiative to yield to the worthy.” After returning to London, he bought a house with a garden, raised two dogs, and lived a retired life.
No one pursued how his son had died.
Nor did anyone pursue why a governor who had fought for three years in Quilla and driven the Fire Fiends to extinction suddenly fled back to London as if running for his life.
Epilogue · Indissoluble
The Global Workers’ Congress was held every four years.
Year 2524, the fourth session. Aie Koichi was elected once again by unanimous vote. He spoke the same words on the podium: “I never tell the outside world that I am an Infernal; I only say that I am human, a member of the Human Alliance.”
Applause beneath the stage.
Only this time, the applause was sparser than four years ago. Some seats were empty—not because people hadn’t come, but because people were no longer there.
The first sentence of the Alliance textbooks did not change. The illustration in the lower-grade version was still there, six hands clasping together to form a circle. The footnote in the upper-grade version was still there, the words “indissoluble alliance” still in bold.
The Battle of Quilla was written into the textbooks of the Alliance Military Academy, listed as a case of “classic encirclement battle.” General Byrne Butler’s left-handed salute photo hung in the corridor. In the textbooks, there was no Fifth Division, no accompanying guard, no Marjorie.
The Fire Fiends vanished from this chapter. Just as they had vanished from that base—no wounds, no signs of fighting, simply no longer there.
The final line of the textbook read: “This battle established the Alliance’s absolute control over the Quilla system and stands as a model of inter-species harmony.”
Inter-species harmony.
Six characters, printed on white paper, very clean.
—End of Chapter Five.