Driftwood on an Ocean World 

My name is KPJax.

I have grown tired of war. I’ve fought in too many conflicts, on too many nameless rocks, against too many enemies whose faces I can’t even remember. The years blur together: the battles, the bodies, the endless march of campaigns. Since the day I joined the UEE, I’ve been fighting. The Charon III civil war was my baptism, and from there it never stopped—Tiber, Caliban, Orion, Oberon, Vega, Vega II, Virgil, Vanguard, and countless other incursions. Always another battlefield. Always another war.

When I finally retired, the UEE granted me a lifetime regen promise—an insurance that no matter how many times my body failed, I’d always come back. As if that could undo the decades I had already given. They dropped me on Carteyna (Cano II), a beautiful ocean world, a haven for tourists and vacationers. My orders were simple: rest. My commanders told me, “Your war is over. You’ve done your time. Breathe. Live.”

But how do you rest when your entire life has been forged in battle? Thirty years of soldiering doesn’t just wash away in the waves of Carteyna.

I didn’t stay idle for long. I didn’t know a soul on that planet—just me and the ocean. So I started working odd jobs. A few conversations turned into introductions, which turned into connections on the gray market. I ran security, sometimes mercenary work, for unsavory entrepreneurs. A soldier’s trade fits too easily back into war, even in retirement.

But Carteyna wasn’t home. It wasn’t where I belonged. I needed to move, to find something more than quiet beaches and restless nights. Eventually, I found a way out: a freighter crew hauling cargo across sectors. They needed security. I needed a ride.

Now I’m aboard, en route to a place called Stanton. The journey will take six months, stopping at stations and ports along the way, hauling goods and protecting shipments. It’s not glamorous, but it’s movement. Its purpose. 

For the first time in years, I feel something different.
Not peace—not yet. But maybe the first step toward it.