Sacred Ground

The war is over. Everyone should embrace peace, but Rakkel is struggling with his emotions. As one of the most valued and successful warship captains within the Placer race’s space-faring Fleet organisation he faces a future that is anxiously unfamiliar.

Long distant from this, a disgruntled Xarrt warrior holds his ship in ambush. He attacks a defenceless Placer outpost, killing thousands. The news enrages Leader of the Placers, Izah, and he instructs that Rakkel be set to catch this fiend.

A religious Placer leader, Ar-Bekan, rallies his followers during a meeting of the Cult of the Chosen. The end of the war gives them the opportunity to reach out into space and seek the mythical land of their forefathers.

An accusation has been made that the establishment of a military outpost called Farway during a critical phase of the war many years before destroyed more planetary life than just a few harmless plants. An investigative mission is ordered.

Rakkel starts to hunt down the rebel Xarrt, simultaneously fighting his own demons. This unknown warrior is the only thing keeping the war alive in some small way – and ending the war would be to end his career and life as he knows it.

As Ar-Bekan and his disciples head to Farway to seek their faith’s one true goal, and Rakkel prepares to stop there for refuelling so he can continue his military quest, the investigation into the colony’s genesis begins – the post-mortem on the morality of wartime behaviour.

More than one person holds a secret, more than one seeks a truth, and more than one is in denial. As the past begins to catch up with them all, love and hate reach out, life and death.

Is this really peace? If it is, how many endings and how many beginnings does it nurture?