"My name is Prestliva. I am a Telvan, from what was once the Kingdom of Telva. In the universe where I lived, my country was once the most beautiful country of all; it was called the Pearl of the Stars. But then the brutal invaders came. Their interstellar warships invaded our space, destroyed our starships and space cities, and then invaded and destroyed our home planets. One planet after another that had once been lovely became a hell under these invaders' attacks. Hundreds of billions of people lost their lives in that calamity. And that is the evil Devourer Civilization! I was only twenty then. I didn't know what had happened; I didn't know why they had invaded our home. I only saw the flames, starships falling, planets burning. And…… my elder brother, from whom no word ever came again; he was a starship commander. My father, after he put my mother, my younger brother and me aboard an interstellar transport to flee, was never heard from again either. Because he was the lord of a planet, he said…… he had to do a lord's duty. I was rather lucky. My mother led us, and we fled to the Sacred Elf Empire; there we were given the right to live, and built the home we have now on a few planets. But my mother said that this can never be our home. Our home was destroyed long ago in the fires of the invaders' war. I've come here at the invitation of the Owl Dragon Empire. Because they too have long suffered the Devourer Civilization's invasion, and they've dared to fight the Devourer Civilization's invaders, to protect their home. I don't want what happened to my home to happen here. I don't know how many Telvans can hear what I'm saying. Back then you joined the Devourer Civilization, some of you willingly, some of you forced, and threw in your lot with demons. But now a chance of redemption lies before you. Give up resisting. The Owl Dragon Empire promises not to persecute you; you will have back the right to live. You may stay in the Owl Dragon Empire, or come with us to the settlements in the Sacred Elf Empire. Whatever you choose, don't fight for the Devourer Civilization; they are the enemy who once hurt your families and invaded your homes. ……" The woman's voice went from a murmur at first, to grief, and then to anger.
These words echoed on and on over this public channel.
On the Devourer Civilization's interstellar warships, a good many could hear this public channel too.
Owl Dragon Empire interstellar stealth reconnaissance ships even broke straight into the main internal channels of their starships, and played the message from this surrender channel.
Some starship captains cut off this surrender broadcast in time.
Some starship captains fell silent.
"Telvans…… they're…… our people." A deputy captain looked at the middle-aged man sitting silent in the captain's chair.
The middle-aged captain said nothing; he only sat there in silence.
He looked at the fire and smoke of the battlefield in the distance, his gaze heavy,
as though he saw the battle that had once taken place at his home.
He had been willing to fight to the death to protect his home, but the enemy's interstellar fleets had been too strong; his comrades were destroyed one ship after another.
Just when he thought his fate would be the same as theirs,
the interstellar family he belonged to had actually negotiated with the Devourer Civilization, chosen to go over to the Devourer Civilization, and in the end joined it.
At the time this had filled him with anger; he could not understand it.
But after the family's elders had talked him round several times, he chose silence, and muddled through day after day.
And at the demand of the family's elders, he had even taken his own interstellar fleet into the Devourer Civilization's interstellar fleets, launching invasions of other universes, doing the very things that had once enraged him.
And now his heart, numb for years, seemed in this moment to have been touched.
At this point someone on the bridge, who knew who, began to weep.
For this was his family's fleet, and his flagship besides, so most of those aboard the starship were his people and his trusted men.
Over half were Telvans.
"All these years, what have we done? Captain…… we……" One of the bridge department heads raised his dull, gloomy eyes and stared at the captain.
The middle-aged captain said nothing.
"Heh heh heh, what have we done? Didn't she just say it? Thrown in our lot with demons." Another department head took out a cup and drank the liquid in it.
And in the cup, in truth, was liquor.
At this strictly forbidden thing, no one around said a word.
In truth a good many of them drank heavily too.
For had they not drunk, they might well have sought death long ago.
Living as they did now was no different from being dead.
"But we still have family in the Devourer Civilization's universe! If we choose to surrender now, the three Sovereigns are sure to take it out on our families!" an officer shouted.
Complicated looks came over the others' faces at once.
It was a hard choice.
"You know what? In that battle back then, of my five children, three died. I lived, with the two children left. But from then on those two children never called me father again. They even looked at me with hatred. They said…… they'd rather have died back home." The drinking officer gave a bitter laugh and took another drink.
A good many lowered their heads; they had met with the same thing.
These people lived in the Devourer Civilization's universe and star systems, true, but a good many of them were bearing humiliation in their hearts, living cowed lives.
Letting go of hatred was a very hard thing.
The middle-aged captain clenched his fists; it was as though two little figures were fighting in his head.
He truly found it hard to decide.
"Report: there's a riot in compartment V41 of the starship; the compartment has been sealed off. How should it be handled?" an officer suddenly reported.
The middle-aged captain looked at the surveillance video brought up; in it the chaos inside a compartment could be seen.
Dozens of soldiers with weapons of every kind were smashing everything around them; there were traces of blood from fighting on the floor too, and some crew members had been tied up and set to one side.
It looked like a clash between those for surrender and those against it.
"Report: crews in every department aboard are getting restless."
Suddenly,
an officer on the bridge raised a gun.
The move startled everyone around.
Everyone with a weapon at once aimed at this officer.
But this officer, tears streaming down his face, only put the muzzle to his own head.
"Captain, you decide. If you still decide to fight alongside those beasts, then I can only go and look for our old home in my dreams." In this moment the officer's eyes were utterly resolute.
The middle-aged captain took something like a pocket watch from his breast and opened it; inside could be seen a photo torn to pieces and pieced back together.
"You're not my dad. You're a bad man. You're the same as the bad men who invaded and destroyed our home before. You're a murderer now!"
In the photo was a happy family of four.
Only now it was covered in cracks.
The middle-aged captain gripped this pocket-watch photo tight, as though he had made some decision.
He said in a deep voice, "Pass my order. This ship has decided to surrender to the Owl Dragon Empire. If anyone disagrees, I can give you the escape transport ships. Within ten minutes you may choose to leave the ship; I won't stop you."
As he spoke, the middle-aged captain tore the Devourer Civilization's crest from his uniform, took out a gun, and sat in the captain's chair, his eyes resolute, just as when he had fought to protect his home.
At this, cheers rang out on the bridge.
They tore wildly at their uniforms, each and every one as though it were a holiday.
They laughed, and they wept.
All these years, this was the first time they had truly let out what they felt,
even though they knew this might lead them to their deaths.
"Captain, this is a communication link the Owl Dragon Empire sent out on the surrender public channel. We can contact them through it." The deputy captain stepped forward at once and said it; it seemed he had been ready for this.
"Contact them. Ask them what they need us to do."
"Yes."
Very soon the deputy captain had an answer.
"They say they'll treat those who surrender as agreed. Until then, our starship needn't declare anything; we need only stand by where we are. After that, depending on the situation, they'll give us instructions either to shut down the starship's engines and be taken over, or to open fire on Devourer Civilization interstellar warships," the deputy captain said.
The middle-aged captain clenched his fists and said seriously, "Tell the Owl Dragon side: we surrender unconditionally, and we're also willing to fight the Devourer Civilization's interstellar warships to the end at any cost! If they trust us, we're willing to be a sword thrust at the Devourer Civilization!"
"Mm, I'll pass it on."
The Owl Dragon Empire's surrender appeal spread like a virus,
invading the interstellar fleets of the Devourer Civilization.
Their morale had already been wavering since their retreat was cut off; with their own people urging them to surrender, a good many interstellar warships surrendered, or broke out in shipboard riots.
Some interstellar warships could be seen going up in sympathetic detonations without having been hit at all.
That was the work of the rioters aboard.
At the same time, the Owl Dragon Empire's legion fleet groups, the Sacred Elf legion fleet groups and the Owl Dragon interstellar hive-race fleets were all pressing their attacks while there was time.
Meanwhile, the defecting Devourer starships that had received orders to help in the fighting went into action too.
In the rear, they concentrated their attacks on the enemy's remaining interstellar transports and interstellar supply ships and combat units like carrier starships,
causing the Devourer Civilization's interstellar fleets enormous trouble and loss.
At the same time, news of the Devourer Civilization's great defeat in invading the Owl Dragon Empire spread like wildfire
to every interstellar power in every universe watching this war!
The Sacred Elf Empire among them, naturally!