Out There: The 1K - Part 1

Chapter 18 - What the Keth Left Behind

"The keth happened," Selka turned somber, "They targeted this district three years ago. Apparently they got what they wanted early in the attack and left the rest of the city alone." She didn't want to say most of the residents on these three streets were killed, but she didn't have to. The memories of terror, sadness, and loss stained the ground. "It's overkill, but effective."

"What were they looking for?" Will asked. Janna had never clarified their reasons. She hadn't even shown them the face of a keth. Just their ships, their angular helmets, and their technology, but mostly their devastation and how the Regents arrived immediately to fight them off and aid the survivors. If he passed a keth on the street without that helmet, he wouldn't know it.

"An invention, a natural resource, a person - no one knows," she shrugged, "The most we know about their motives is that they went after you, because you're a threat to them."

There it was again, always dogging them; the mysterious reason why the keth hunted them. Will didn't have a speck of a clue as to what a thousand children from a pre-space faring species could do to threaten an advanced race powerful enough to blow up a planet.

Knowing the keth were responsible for destroying this area to get someone or something, saddened him. The person they were after might have been like them - having zero idea what they could possibly have done, or would do, to incur a death sentence. These people lost their personal worlds and lives, and didn't know why. He wished he could tell them that he was sorry.

In Will's point of view, the Cos Bestans were more lucky than they could possibly imagine.

Selka's story explained why the royals hadn't rehabilitated this zone.

They stood in the heart of a memorial.

"Now I really don't want to be here," Terra squeaked.

"Yeah, you and me both," the solidarity left Yune before he could stop it.

He knew what the kids were feeling. It slapped him in the face the moment he set foot inside this district - likely due to his heightened anxiety about tiptoeing through the Dyne's back yard. He could only imagine what it did to Selka. However, he'd been to a melange of skeevy places in his life that gave him the same heebee-jeebees, so this was just another addition to that long list.
Selka blinked at him. She had watched him run headlong into situations without fear, pulse pistol blazing. They never bothered him before, or at least he never vocalized it.

He noticed her confused stare, "What? Squeaker's got a point. It's creepy," he shrugged. "Look, let's just talk to this guy and go." He marched up the stairs.

Will picked up a blue roofing tile chip, "They told us about Quora Ness. We saw the damage and how they were fixing it, but they didn't tell us about this place," he wondered how many other unknown places shared this fate.

Seeing it in person, being within the wreckage, and feeling the atmosphere for himself was completely different to the history lessons they'd received from Janna. Every single lesson came from the maskan viewpoint of the hero. Including their liberation of Mikra six thousand years ago.

"They didn't fix scak," Yune snarled, overhearing the boy's comment, "The Alliance barely has a presence there."

Will cocked his head slightly, "But they showed us a video of them rebuilding it."

"They fed you propaganda. They rebuilt a corner of the Dark Side and helped the government wall off the rest. The galaxy doesn't get to see what life is really like in there. They don't get to see the people who are trapped there."

"You've been there?" he wondered.

Yune ignored him and entered the building.

Selka answered his question, "Yune grew up on the dark side of Quora Ness. He doesn't like to talk about it."