"And I lose all my hard won earnings buying you guys drinks."
"Well, at least we're here to drink," Jason replied, raising his voice.
"Yeah, great, brother, beer money for us all from a grateful Confederation," someone announced from the other side of the bar.
A chorus of sarcastic laughter echoed in the room and then fell silent as first one, and then the rest of the patrons of the Vacuum Breathers Club turned and looked at the door.
A heavily built Kilrathi filled the entryway and though his frame was imposing he somehow looked a bit lost and nervous.
"Sire!"
"Oh god, it's Kirha," Ian sighed, coming to his feet and approaching the Kilrathi as he leaped down the steps. He started to drop to one knee and Ian grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Not here," he hissed, "and besides, remember I released you from your oath of fealty."
"But such an oath can never be truly broken, sire," Kirha said
"Just what the hell are you doing here? It's been years since I've seen you, I thought you were exchanged or something. Why aren't you going back home?"
"I was with the first batch of prisoners to be released last week. It was a sad sight, my lord. Many did not know where to go, what to do, not sure if their hrai will still recognize them. I heard I could find you here and thought you might know what to do."
Ian slowly grinned.
"You saved my butt once, my friend, and I must say it's a pleasure to see you again. Come on, let's have a drink.
Kirha came up to the bar, looked at the chairs which had no place for his tail to stick through, and simply leaned against the railing, towering over all the others in the room.
"Hey, we don't serve his kind in here," the bartender growled.
"Listen, buddy, the war's over, or haven't you heard, Doomsday said quietly.
"I don't care, we don't serve him."
"Say, brother, how long you been working in this bar?"
"A week."
"If Gallagher, the owner of this dive, heard you talking like that in his joint he'd throw you out on your butt. This Kilrathi's a friend of ours and that buys him a drink anywhere we are."
"I don t care, I'm not serving him."
Kirha looked around nervously.
"If this will cause trouble, sire, I can withdraw."
"Hey, Hunter, who the hell's your buddy?" a pilot wearing the insignia of a fighter squadron leader on his lapel shouted from the other side of the bar.
"You blokes heard how Paladin and me rescued that Firekka princess?" Ian replied.
Most of the men and women in the dimly lit room nodded their heads, laughed, and groaned. Ian's ability at telling stories of his heroics was legendary in the Vacuum.
"Well, this is the furball that saved my butt. I'd have been dead along with Paladin and that Firekka princess if it hadn't been for him."
The crowd nodded their approval and several came up to shake Kirha's paw, a human ritual which he still obviously found to be disconcerting.
Ian turned back to the bartender.
"So serve him his damn drink."
The man looked around nervously, and mumbled to himself.
"What was that you said about my Cat friend?" a pilot at the edge of the group snarled.
The bartender looked at Kirha
"Whatya have?" he said quietly.
"Scotch, single malt, make it a triple.
A chorus of laughter echoed around the room, breaking the tension and even the bartender forced a weak grin as he filled the glass and pushed it over. Ian started to slide a bill across.
"Sorry about the mistake, Captain. Keep it, it's on the house," the bartender replied and turned away.
Kirha took the drink up, and bowed to Ian.
"To peace between the hrai of the Kilrathi and of Humans."
He downed the drink in a single gulp and a flash of sharp canines signaled his delight. The bartender shook his head
"I guess you're all right."
"I've waited a long time for this drink," Kirha sighed, and Ian ordered up another round.
"So what do you think of all of this?" Ian asked.
"You mean the peace agreements?" Kirha asked
"Yeah."
"It is, how do you humans say it, warmed leavings of a male cow."
A ripple of laughter echoed around the room and even the bartender smiled
"Why?"
"I know of this Baron Jukaga of the hrai of the Ki'ra. They are the most ancient of the families, their blood even thicker than that of the Imperial line. Their hatred of the Imperial family is well known."
"How's that?" the bartender asked, coming over, obviously curious.
"Before we gained space, in the Seventh Dynastic War, the family of the Emperor gained dominance over Kilrah, defeating the Ki'ra who were forced to swear allegiance. It surely would have become an Eighth Dynastic war, except for the arrival of the foolish Utara."
"The who?" the barkeep asked, leaning against the side of the bar and pouring Kirha another drink.
Kirha laughed, nodded his thanks and downed the drink in a single gulp.
"The Utara came to Kilrah offering friendship, trade, and peace. They showed us how to make spacecraft, and the secret of the jump points."
Kirha shook his head.
"As soon as we gained space we slaughtered them. They were a weak and foolish people."
Kirha laughed and pounded the bar as if he had just told an hysterical joke. His audience looked at him in silence.
"Some thanks," Ian mumbled.
"It's considered quite funny by us," Kirha said, looking around the room, still chuckling though finally realizing that his audience wasn't all that amused.
"I guess you don't see the humor."
"Maybe something got lost in the translation, mate," Ian interjected.
Kirha nodded, looking at the bar patrons.
"I see here, yet again a difference between us," he finally said. "To us, such weakness was stupidity so pathetic that it becomes funny. I take it you don't see it that way."
"Something like that," a voice from the back of the room said.
"It is why I, and those still prisoners, roared with laughter when we heard you agreed to this thing you call an armistice. It was an act of weakness. It will cause a loss of face for you, a loss of respect that you have in some way earned by your valiant resistance against the might of the Empire. There is an old Kilrah saying 'steel against iron is not a testing.' Though we hated you, and wished to overthrow you, still we came to see that our own courage could be honorably tested by matching it against your own. That is the way of finding honor and glory.
"Your leaders have thrown that away. When we come again, it will be with contempt and the slaughter will be brutal beyond your darkest nightmares."
There was a stirring in the room.
"And will you help them out, buddy?" the barkeep asked quietly.
"I am without hrai, without country," Kirha said in reply. "I have sworn allegiance to Hunter; it is now impossible for me to ever go back."
He looked almost mournful and there were even a couple of nods of sympathy from the others in the room.
"You were telling us about this Jukaga," Jason asked.
"Ah yes, Jukaga. With the freeing from our planet and the outward rush to wars with races we had never dreamed existed, our own civil wars became a thing of the past, for at last we had found others to test our steel against. But the clan of Ki'ra never reconciled itself to the fact that it was not upon the Imperial throne, seeing this as the fluke of but one battle lost ages ago. In Jukaga this disdain became more openly voiced with the reversals of our war against you. That is something I suspect your leaders have not given full weight to."
"How so?" Jason pressed.
"The fact that it was Jukaga who made the first overture of peace I find to be surprising. It was not someone of the Imperial line. It means that he has gained enough power to actually allow the Emperor to permit him to be the voice of the throne.