Star Force: Quenar (SF88) (Star Force Origin Series) by Aer-ki Jyr Page A

occurred afterwards in the
power vacuum. Those very dark times were what had initially forged the Knights
of Quenar and part of their Oath was to never forget lest they allow such
unbearable events to occur again. They felt, and rightly so, that what had
happened to the galaxy in the aftermath of the Chixzon’s defeat was worse than anything their enemy had
done. That was saying a lot, but seeing the pillars of galactic stability go
down by the hands of those that had helped hold them up during the war was
bound to make anyone start questioning reality.
    The Traelix had lost contact
with the other prime members of the Ancients after the war, but the KoQ had
sought out their remains much later and were able to piece together the varying
means of their demise. A few had survived, but none intact. All were weakened
or destroyed to the point that the galactic landscape essentially lay barren as
thousands of scavengers tore over it trying to gobble up what scraps remained,
and then fought each other over those scraps.
    Anything that shown the light of civilization was hit,
as if there was a mob mentality that was targeting stability and order.
Destruction was the appetite of the lesser races that backstabbed the greater
ones, and after time passed there were so few building that the destroyers
eventually bled themselves dry and the ruins of the galaxy finally knew a
sickly peace as the barbarism was confined to local areas and a few bastions of
sanity were allowed to survive through anonymity.
    Davis could appreciate that, for it was such anonymity
that had allowed Earth to survive to this day, but the KoQ hadn’t been one of
them. While they did build, it was in the form of a roaming fleet that could
not be targeted by the scavengers. Their resources were low, but they preserved
and managed them wisely to set themselves up with a mobile base from which to
begin striking back at those who had all but destroyed the Traelix in conjunction with the main spur of their civilization. Once the major
fighting was over they split, continuing to seek vengeance where the other Traelix did not.
    One group, the larger of the two, sought seclusion in
order to begin rebuilding in the smallest of ways, hoping to create a new life
for themselves and accepting the reality that their great civilization was gone
and that they would have to become something else in order to survive.
    The KoQ were the smaller group that did not let go the
past, but likewise transformed into an elite unit that would never forget their
heritage while at the same time not trying to rebuild it. They were the last of
the true Traelix , and they would remain true,
carrying out their Oaths and insuring that, among many things, the Uriti would
not be released or threatened for release in order to leverage others.
    Over the millennia that followed they fought one
battle after another, usually small, precise strikes, assassinations when need.
The killing aside, they essentially became Batman in that they were a planetless force that could not be pinned down that came
out of nowhere to strike the unscrupulous and created more stability through
sheer intimidation than they did through actual combat.
    There was honor in that, but not in some of their
chosen methods…and the fact that they didn’t even hide them away in their
records showed that their primary motive was in accomplishing the mission
rather than a sense of right and wrong. Maybe that was something that
originated from their race or was a side effect of the cataclysm that befell
them post-war, but it was twisting what otherwise seemed to be an honorable
group into savages when the situation merited it.
    Then again, Davis had only got through a third of the
records, so maybe the more recent ones showed a change in behavior. Right now
he was just beginning to get to the part about them finding the need to augment
themselves in order to balance the odds when in engagements where they were
vastly outnumbered. Their