Thunder Snow

Home. It is strange how that word is so short in every language that I know, yet means so much. After two years spent as a captive, or on the run through the wilds of the Far Reaches, I am finally going home. Finally able to embrace my friends, finally able to relay the information we have been carrying for so many months.

If we could just have a few weeks, a few months, to plan, to prepare, maybe we could end this cleanly... but I know better.

The Faithful are still out there, still hunting us. They will not forgive, not forget, the insult we offered in our escape. The members of their cult we killed on our way out. The vital intelligence we bring to the Empire, to the Dual-Kings, to the Ark Fleet. To every nation of the Compact. They know that, so long as we're alive, we can spread the stories of what they've done. Can warn the galaxy of what they are.

I am home, but I fear I will have little time to enjoy it, for there remains too much work to be done.