| abstract
| - Three days. Three damn days, thought Havel. Three days of exercising in the mud, hiking through mountain rocks loaded with stone-crammed backpacks in rain and wet, being forced to stick through tedious ‘motivational’ films in the recreation tent that were little more than hours of parade footage and slogans being shouted, and then being forced to recite said slogans without fail. Three days of being yelled at by that bastard sergeant, of being forced to sleep in a maggot-infested bunk in a tent that did a very poor job of keeping the wind and the cold out, and three days of being forced to sit in proximity to these lummoxes who judged everyone by the size of their biceps. Just three days of basic training, and already he was wondering what the hell he had been thinking. But now, with the morning sun creeping across a grey sky, he and the other troops were once again standing in line in the center of the camp, with a large pen set up before them. Chatter breezed down the line about various subjects: the advantages of smoothbores over kinetic barrels, the itchiness of their vests, and the attractiveness of someone’s Zeltron girlfriend. As sergeant Henzal emerged from the officer’s tent, the chatter drifted away to silence. “Welcome to day three, maggots.” He began, taking a cigar out of his mouth. “Today we’re starting on the fun stuff: basic target practice. How hard your ass is or how much your bitch wants to get your creamed-up muscles ain’t gonna matter crap if you can’t shoot a moving target at 15 meters with a basic assault rifle.” He paused as small, shiny pistols were handed down the line. Havel fingered his weapon as soon as he got it. Hard to believe it had taken him three damn days just to get his hands on a gun. “You each hold a MDL-4K light pistol—loaded with non-lethal training rounds, ‘case any of you bastards get any ideas. Later, of course, you’ll be getting proper assault rifles, and then we’ll be seeing how hard you really are. You all know that the deadliest weapon in this galaxy is a Necasian and his assault rifle. You all must harness your killer instincts if you expect to survive. You don’t do that, when the time comes to kill, you won’t! You’ll be dead. And you are not allowed to die with explicit permission! Do I get an affirmative?” “Oorah!” bellowed the recruits. Henzal nodded, and a large crate in the pen before them fell open, releasing a group of chirruping Talz, buzzing in terror. A few of the recruits snickered as they threw themselves against the walls of the pen, knocked back as electricity crackled around them. “Your instruction here is simple. Take aim, and shoot. Doesn’t matter if you hit the same target as someone else, as you’re possessing non-lethals. You are all being recorded, and I will be evaluating your results personally. Fail to satisfy me, and you can kiss goodbye to your ego, reputation and your balls. Begin now.” The soldiers raised their pistols and fired. Havel aimed at one of the Talz struggling near the pen boundary and fired. To his surprise, he immediately scored a hit, with the Talz screaming in pain as blood appeared on its hide. Ignoring the deafening shrieks of agony that were now filling the air, he fired again, and could not help but feel a sense of deep satisfaction as it collapsed to the ground, withering in pain. For so-called non-lethal rounds, they certainly dealt out good. He let off several more shoots, watching as more of the Talz jerked spasmodically as they were pummelled. Then, his gun clicked as he realised he had used up his magazine. Growling in annoyance, he stood and watched as the others likewise were met with clicks from their weapons. A few of the guys he had come to know as not exactly being the shiniest rounds in the clip were giving their weapons mystified stares, or otherwise fiddling with them like Trandoshans trying to solve children’s puzzles. “Cease!” bellowed Henzal, and those who had not yet exhausted their ammunition did so. Putting his cigar back in his mouth, he scrutinised a datapad. “Well, well, well. Sometimes even you worms surprise even me. But I’m afraid that some of you turned out to be just as shait as I expected.” He briefly paused as a guy in engineer’s overalls cleared the pen of bloodied, writhing Talz. “You will repeat this exercise this evening, and tomorrow you’ll be getting to grips with proper assault rifles. When you properly receive them, you will be faithful to these weapons, you will sleep with them, because they are going to be, besides your teammates, your most faithful companions! Without your gun, you are just a dumb kriffer in a uniform! Acknowledged?” “Oorah!” Havel took another look at his gun as the pistols were collected up. It would be so much better and more fun if they were given actual bullets, he thought. He tried to imagine shooting someone—a Rakata guard—watching their eyes swell up, blood drip from their mouth, them begging for mercy with their last breaths. That guy wanted a soldier? He’d sure as hell get one.
*
* Sergeant Den Henzal sat down at the food table in the officer’s tent, studying today’s results on a datapad. The dumb little kriffs were doing better than he expected in the training exercises, which pleased him. Recruit 4567-B, Joahnn, had performed exceptionally in all the tests, including today’s target practice session, and had responded very well to pol-droc, having displayed apparently genuine devotion to the cause. Maybe he even had a place in the SpecOps. Recruit 4568-B, Toker, while not quite as impressive, had also come out very well, especially in target practice—a place for him the Sharpshooter cohort, maybe? Most of the recruits, on the other hand, had done reasonably—though recruit 4571-D, Havel, didn’t seem to be displaying much interest in the cause. Still, as long as a good soldier came out, he’d be willing to pass that. Recruit 4580-H, Nevl, on the other hand, the guy he had beaten into the mud on day one, had fared poorly in the exercises, proving himself to be the weak-assed piece of shait Henzal had suspected him to be, and had showed zero interest in pol-droc. Probably a closet liberal, or a homosexual. Under normal circumstances, Henzal would’ve sent him down to the NPEC, the engineering corps, or one of the other divisions reserved for weaklings or failures, but he wanted the pleasure of seeing that maggot getting the punishment he deserved so richly. Colonel Hillor, Henzal’s superior and veteran of the old resistance, stepped into the tent, carrying a tray with a steaming cup of Corellian coffee and some rations. He had been deemed too old and frail to serve in the army, so here he was, overseeing Henzal’s training here. Sitting at the table, he slid a newspad over to Henzal. “Same old crap.” He croaked, sipping his coffee. “Shipyards most productive in the galaxy. Military the best. Colonization programme exceeding expectations.” Henzal nodded as he read through the pad. What it didn’t say was what he had been getting from his friends in high command: reports of another big government expanding in the Inner Rim, a ‘Srav Federation’ dedicated to nonsense ideas of equality and socialism. Clearly it wouldn’t be long before they had a clear enemy to fight—and for Henzal, this was good news. A good soldier needed an obvious foe to hate and despise—this made him stronger, filled him with determination. Fuel a man with hate, and he’ll tear the guts out of a regiment of enemy grunts before he realises he’s dead. Any good officer would know this, and exploit it. Patriotism and hate—two key ingredients for a hard-ass trooper. “How was high-com?” asked Henzal, nibbling the tasteless ration slab from the tray. “Same old, same old. There’s a new creep, Askar—a Taung. Served a long time in the old resistance, ‘parently. Looks set to become head of the Sharpshooter Cohort. Had to read paperwork—damn paperwork. How many helmets and body armor we need, how many rifles, bullets, blah de blah. Turn my hair white, if it wasn’t already.” He took another sip of coffee. “All young new hotshots there now. No room for an old warhorse like me. Either going to spend the rest of my days in this craphole training newbies, or retire soon. ‘suming they’d let me retire.” Askar. The name rang a bell. High command was drawing from hotshots who excelled themselves in training exercises and from the old guard of the former resistance, so he was probably one of the guys who had passed. “Oh yeah—they give me this to give you, to show the newbies at the next pol-droc.” He took a DHD disc casing from within one of his back pockets and slid it over the table to him. “Just another load of corny crap from information department.” He glanced at it. ‘Morale Incitement Video 21’, it was labelled—jeez, why not just go all the way and call it another damn propaganda video? With all this crap they were sending him to make the troops watch, he wouldn’t be surprised if some of them turned out hard-assed. But hey, orders were orders, and at least some of them could laugh at the cheesiness the media centers in Havez spewed out. For crying out loud, whichever reject actor they had chosen to model on the cover of this couldn’t even fit in the damn uniform! “’Stime.” Murmured Hillor, glancing at the clock hanging from the end of the tent. “I’ve gotta make another damn evaluation for that dipshait Locen, and you gotta yell at the troops like an asshole outta some Corellian action movie, right?” “Aw, hell, almost forgot.” Mumbled Denzal as he stuffed the rest of his rations into his mouth. It was time for the evening prep talk—another bout of him yelling at the poor kriffers in the barracks to try harder. Of course, he’d prefer not to scare the poor bastards so much, but each one of them was to be moulded into a hard killing machine who’d laugh in the face of overwhelming odds—a killing machines that would be devoted to the cause and which would bowl over all obstacles. And by the gods, when he would be finished with them, they’d be all that and beyond.
*
* Okay, so the first new planet—Hypori, they had named it—he had stepped foot on was nothing more than a big sandball dotted with the occasional rock or pile of tumbleweed. Okay, so the space journey he had looked forward to so much had been four days of being squashed together with men bigger than he was while the ship felt like it was held together with chewing gum and wishful thinking. Okay, so the other troops weren’t exactly nice to him, and kept reminding him of what a ‘dumb little country boy’ he was. Okay, so everyday he had had to go through hours of exercise in the boiling sun, slowly frying like a meatball on a grill, and then there was target practice with weapons that made his ears ring and then inspections in full uniform that left him drenched in sweat from the heat. But other than that, Lexi still felt confident that his decision had been a good one. Right now he was in the middle of one of the periods of free time they got—soon they would meet up in a special tent within this camp—Ikon 1138, it was called—and watch some films that provided him with yet more glimpses of the things in this galaxy he desperately wanted to see: the famed giant shipyards over Sviat, the testing of these nuclear weapons he kept hearing about, the giant factory complexes, in one of which his sweet sister was probably working in right now. And then there would be a brief message telling them of the greatness of the Srav cause, and the foolishness of things he didn’t know about but guessed were bad, such as ‘capitalism’ and ‘democracy’. That was certainly one perk. Dressed in a pair of combat trousers and a white vest, Lexi gazed absently at the seemingly infinite expanse of orange sand before him, and then turned around to walk back into the heart of the camp, which was a cluster of tents, makeshift buildings, a couple of garages and hangars and a large landing pad for the transport in which they had arrived—a Klasnost-class, they called it. There were the other troops wandering around, largely ignoring him, but a few, including that halfwit who had confronted him back in the recruitment office, would stop by to hurl insults at him or mock the size of his muscles compared to theirs. Mama had always told him to ignore the foolishness of some people, but he had difficulty repressing the urge to insult them back. After all, now that he was a soldier, shouldn’t he stand up for himself? And then there was the colonel, who spoke only to give out instructions, read out messages at dinner in the mess hall, or to shout abuse at someone if they made a mistake. The only friendly face he knew and trusted in this camp was the nurse, at the sickbay tent beside the communications array. “That is a very good question, young comrade.” She had said when he had asked her why there were so many cruel men in the camp. “The people at the top do not care what psychopaths we take in, as long as they are loyal, can run and fire again, and babble slogans. Gods!—sometimes I think that colonel is worse than those greenskin bastards. But you wouldn’t know, would you?” And then she sighed, and went back to sorting out boxes of first aid and bottles marked not for drinking. Now he was going to explore this camp fully, and avoid the crueller men. He had glimpsed what he just knew was one of those invincible Drakuv tanks they had been talking about in the sleeping quarters at the barracks, hidden under a tarpaulin in one of the garages. He had also seen what he believed was a crate of some nuclear shells in one of the storage bays, covered in labels telling him to keep away. One of the men at the mess hall had proclaimed that one of those shells could shatter a planet, but as he had been on his eighth bottle of Corellian beer when he had said that Lexi wasn’t too sure if he was right. But now, he was going to check out one of the hangar bays. Apparently, he wasn’t technically allowed in, but everyone else wandered around where they pleased here, so why shouldn’t he? He walked past a rusty speaker tower towards one of the smaller hangar buildings, with the door partially open, revealing a glimpse of the barely lit interior. With nobody else in sight, he casually strode in, and was greeted with a sight that was the complete opposite of the ordered stacks of machinery and rows of vehicles he was expecting—instead, scattered everywhere were sheets of metal, empty cans of paint, and diagrams. The place stunk like nerf fodder, and as he walked forward he almost stumbled on one of the many random tools scattered on the sand-covered floor. The walls were covered in shelves of paint and boxes overflowing with screws and nails. Gods, thought Lexi, wasn’t there anyone paid to clean up this place? “What the hell are you doing? This maintenance shed is off limits!” Lexi looked up and found himself staring straight at the nose of a rust-colored fightercraft, which they immediately recognised from one of the films they had shown him—a Yukel, or something like that. Some of the hull plates had been removed, exposing the inner workings, and the wings were covered in paint cans and toolboxes, but the mere presence of dangerous-looking missiles and powerful Gatling cannons under the wings just caused it to radiate menace despite its appearance. Wondering briefly how he hadn’t noticed this baby when he had walked in, Lexi walked around the wing to see who was talking to him. A small guy in dusty, partially ripped engineers overalls was sitting on the floor behind the wing, surrounded by spare parts and tools, and was looking intently at a laptop placed on a pile of square metal things that Lexi didn’t have a clue were for. Peering over, Lexi glimpsed a picture of a naked woman bending over on the screen, just before the guy slammed the laptop shut and got up, turning his unshaven face to his. “Listen, ‘comrade’, if you think you can just come in barging in here like you own this place, you got another thing coming! This is del-i-cate equipment you are standing around! Right now I am in middle of highly complex maintenance operation to fix crappy missile safety lock measures built into this piece of scrap!” He indicated one of the missiles hanging from the wing of the fighter, exposed wires hanging out of it and one of its mountings. “So why you looking at that?” asked Lexi, indicating the laptop. “Sviat send me this piece of crap, this ‘prototype’, for tests, they say.” Muttered the guy darkly to himself as he bent down under the wing. “And what do I get? Pivot mountings not correct, inlet actuator not even polished, fin spigots clearly aligned by man after twenty drinks...hey, leave that!” He quickly emerged from under the wing as Lexi pulled a magazine from under a box on the wing, with a picture of a Twi’lek in a swimsuit splashed on the cover. Quickly, the guy grabbed the magazine and threw it into a corner. “So what’s your name, anyway? You sound like a clever guy.” Continued Lexi anyway, giving that smile that had always made the girls back home coo. “Virodok. Grigor Virodok. Smartest man in whole damn camp, on whole damn crapball planet, and here I am, trying to cover some lazy son of bitch who cannot even be assed to add basic safety feature like safety lock into fighter armed with one-kiloton Kakashka tactical nuclear missiles, and...ah, sorry, I’m under a lot of stress lately.” He then gave Lexi a scrutinizing look. “What? You not gonna mock me for being wimpy geek, like all the others? Come on, I’m used to it. Maybe if you piss me off enough I smash your head in with this.” He picked up a sharp tool and wiggled it at Lexi. “No, I’m just trying to be friendly.” Stuttered Lexi, stepping back. “Really? Well, that is a change.” Grigor sighed. “You wondering how I’m so smart, eh? Well, back in old days, I was one of those who was trained to build and repair this sort of crap by the greenskins—they were too lazy to do it themselves, you see, and they didn’t have any automation. Now they need people like me to keep all these damn new machines working. Radiation leaks, crashing computers, faulty wiring...problems, problems, problems, and only geeky wimps like me to solve all of them at the same time!” He took a deep breath, then took a pill from his overall pocket and tossed it into his mouth. “So, anyway, you seem familiar somehow. They talk about wimpy farmboy from the Kolkhoz valley—from a village of escaped slaves. I guessing that’s you?” “Er, yes. My name’s Lexi. Lexi Kolzh—” “Yes, yes, yes. Well, Lexi, if you want to be friendly, you can start by helping me with this crap. Get down under the wing.” Lexi did so, trying not to gag at the smell of lubricant and rust. He took a moment to inspect the various exposed workings and machinery in the wing—he didn’t have an idea how it worked, but it looked fascinating nonetheless. “Okay, my friend, so you see green wire hanging out of missile?” called Grigor. “Yes.” Said Lexi, diverting his attention to the missile in question. “Connect green wire to blue wire, while I push into mounting...” Lexi did so, and heard Grigor grunting as he pushed some tool into the mounting. He couldn’t help but notice that the exhaust nozzle of the two-foot long missile was smoking. “Er, comrade, there is a problem here...smoke...” he called out nervously. “What? Look, never mind. Now, try pushing both wires back in, while trying not to move the missile...” Lexi complied, and began to sweat as a light came on in the missile’s visible innards. “Look, there is a problem...light...smoke...” he stammered. “I’m not surprised—wait? What? Get back!” Lexi jerked back onto his backside as sparks spat from the back of the missile. Grigor yelled something that was drowned out by the screaming of metal tearing away from metal as the missile tore away from its mounting and shot through the door. Jumping back onto his feet, Lexi ran out to see the missile careening around the space in the center of the camp like a crazed Nexu, with dozens of men walking around throwing themselves to the floor. Finally, it sped away in an opposite direction into the desert, and after a few moments disappeared over the horizon, leaving a thick black contrail. Seconds later, Lexi covered his eyes as a flash appeared on the horizon, followed by a muffled booming sound. The ground shoot slightly under his feet as he could faintly make out a black mushroom-shaped cloud billowing over the horizon, superimposed against the monochromatic blue sky. “Damn it! This is precisely what I was afraid of! I told them to install the cursed safety lock, I told them to put in prohibitive chips, but no, they don’t listen!” ranted Grigor as he emerged behind Lexi. “Now of course I will have to write memo and reports before it gets into...their...” He stuttered to a stop as a figure walked briskly across the camp towards them. Lexi calmly reassured himself that they had no way of realising what had happened—and then he noticed the thick, smelly black trail of smoke left by the missile snaking out of the door. He froze as Colonel Jalenko stormed right up to them. “I will be brief.” He growled, his scarred face bright red. “What the hell happened?” He gestured at the faint mushroom cloud on the horizon. “Comrade Colonel, as I have been telling Sviat for days, the safety lock on the fighter in the maintenance shed was of insufficient quality, so when I was performing simple maintenance right now I must have accidentally triggered...”# “Silence! I cannot bear any of your babbling about things I do not care about. It gives me a damn headache!” he shouted, sending blobs of spit out of his mouth. He inhaled deeply. “As far as I am concerned, you are both responsible. I am having difficulty repressing the urge to shoot you both down and wipe your guts all over the barracks walls. However, as nobody has actually died as the result of your stupidity, and the wind appears to be blowing the cloud away from this direction, regulations prevent me from doing so. They do not, however, prevent me from doing this.” Lexi had time to register Jalenko’s enormous fist filling his scope of vision. There was a brief dreary sensation, and a second later he found himself sprawled on the ground staring into the sky. Then the pain hit. He tasted blood seeping into his mouth from his nose as a throbbing, unbearable ache spread throughout his head. He moved his arms to pick himself up, but his bones felt several dozen times heavier. Hearing returned as the noises of shouting and jeering flooded in, and he found himself lying in the sand within the center of the camp, surrounded by a ring of the troops. Jalenko was standing a few meters away, brandishing a very large leather whip, with Grigor standing beside him, casting Lexi an apologetic expression. “Little country boy, you have endangered the safety of the personnel within this camp, and therefore you are subject to punishment of number of lashes of my choosing.” Bellowed Jalenko over the noise with a smile. “I would do the same to this frail little maggot here, but unlike you, he is actually worth something. Now, let’s teach you the basics of life here, so that you don’t repeat such idiocy.” Lexi tried to respond, but all that came from his throat was a hoarse croak. The troops began shouting and jeering as Jalenko approached him, picked him up by his scuff, and brought the whip down. His body went rigid as pain reverberated around his body, and screamed out loud—like a little girl. He tried to ignore the agony—tried to think of home, of his sister. The whip came down again, and his body jerked in a violent spasm. Panting, Lexi tried to crawl forward, only for sand to be kicked towards him. Collapsing onto the ground, he closed his eyes and waited for the agony to end.
*
* “The situation is as follows. We are cut off from friendly forces, have no access to air or ranged support of any kind. Our objective is to seize the nearby building. Enemy composition is sketchy, but we do know that they have at least three on the roof and half a dozen in the building. If our spy-in-the-sky drones are accurate, they are equipped with light assault rifles, possibly 7mm. What do you suggest we do?” Haveer Jarn observed the four men before him, each clad in thick, clunky armor and brandishing a large assault rifle. Each of these soldiers, wearing their bulky, cumbersome suits and waving their guns with enthusiasm, were applicants for the SpecOps—the finest the Necasian Military had to offer. His task here was to strain them to the limit, see that they made the material, and make sure they survived their training. Encased in sleek, shiny new prototype armor that was the finest the design teams had produced, he was more or less guaranteed to make it through their challenges, but these guys had to get used to the stress of combat if they ever wanted to be bestowed that coveted rank. Now, it was time to see just how they thought in a battle like this, under fire and isolated from friendlies. Looking through those blue visors in their helmets, he tried to make out just what they were feeling on those faces in those eyes of theirs. “I say we surround the building and move in stealthily, to guarantee no casualties. We take the enemy by surprise and take him down quickly.” It was Doranez, selected for his skills at marksmanship. Evaluators had expressed concern over his lack of interest in political indoctrination, or ideology acquirement, or pol-droc, or whatever the hell they called it, but Jarn didn’t care if a soldier could memorize slogans so much as he cared about their ability to fight. “I disagree.” Preitol, the dark-skinned heavy hitter chosen for his stamina. “We’re Necasians. We have the advantages of firepower, bodily protection, and superior training. We smash into them in a head-on attack, and any stragglers will barely be able to aim, we’ll have made such a message.” Jarn weighed the possibilities. “We go with Preitol’s, unless you’ve got any objections.” The men remained silent. “Very well. Form up behind me. Doranez and Balor hit the roof, Preitol and Greenspan any hostiles in the windows. You ready? Then move!” Lurching out from behind the boulder they had been standing behind, Jarn charged down a sandy slope with the others behind him, towards a cube-shaped concrete building down ahead. His heads-up display projected onto the inside of his visorless helmet immediately began flashing as it highlighted figures on the rooftop and in the windows. Readying his weapon, Jarn singled out the targets on the roof—best to leave the others to the men and see how they fared. “Contact!” shouted Doranez as bullets impacted into the sound around them. Jarn paused to aim, when two rocket-propelled grenades shot over his head and arced onto the roof, blasting apart the targets there into a cloud of concrete chips and dust. Greenspan and Balor were the ones with the grenade launchers built into their rifles—being able to score such a hit with such short notice definitely boded well. Jarn lowered his rifle as the others sprayed at the windows with bullets, with the black silhouettes in them vanishing as the walls were pockmarked with holes. He waited for them to reload before they continued charging. “Method of entry?” he grunted between breaths, anticipating their replies over the radio comm built into his suit. “Smash through the wall. Less risk of being ambushed or booby trapped at the entrance, as well as providing shock and awe.” Preitol again. The men were taking this situation well—the fact that their suits could withstand sustained volleys of pistol rounds certainly helped. “I like your thinking.” Smiled Jarn as the grey wall of the building came up. He tensed himself as his armored body slammed into the wall, caving it in like plaster. Automatically his HUD turned into infra-red as the dust obscured his vision, highlighting the three targets in the minimalist room he was now in. He let off a quick burst at one of them as the others smashed through the wall behind him, blazing away almost mindlessly. Jarn almost ducked as several ricochets bounced near him—something he’d have to note in the report. Looking around, he confirmed that the targets were down, and then motioned for them to follow. Moving rapidly into the next featureless room, Jarn halted as more targets appeared from behind support columns and some crates, quickly calculating how fast he could take them. As he readied his rifle and motioned for the others to hold, Doranez burst in firing wildly, and immediately the weapons of the enemies swivelled in his direction and fired. Dozens of rounds impacted into his armor, knocking him onto the floor. Sprawled there, he writhed his suit began blaring warning alerts and cracks appeared on the floor. Sighing, Jarn raised his hand and shouted: “End excersise!” The guns of the ‘enemy’ lowered and died to silence as the others slowly filed in. Jarn waited as the gun toting target practice dummies folded away, before removing his helmet and turning towards Doranez as he awkwardly got up and began tearing off his armor. Yes, something just had to screw up what would have otherwise been a perfect exercise. Suppressing the urge to shoot the moron there, he turned towards him. “You were just riddled with several dozen AP rounds. Your vital organs are ruptured. You’ve compromised a vital component of the squad. Explain.” “I was hoping that I could take the targets down quick, but the suit hindered my...” “So you get around that and adjust accordingly. Don’t blame your equipment for mistakes you could have avoided.” “Well, you can say that in your fancy white getup there, with all that crap built in, when we’ve got these clunky things that we can barely bend over in!” Doranez immediately blushed and looked shameful, mumbling apologetically. “Under normal circumstances, I would have you shot for insubordination, but because you’ve otherwise displayed excellent conduct and devotion I’ll let you off for that comment.” Said Jarn coldly. He sympathised with the guy, nonetheless. Newer suits that allowed fluid movement like his were on the way, he had heard, but for now command had made them stick with those bulky-ass pieces of junk. However, from a point of view, constraints made a man stronger—force him to excel with limitations, and then watch what he could accomplish without them. That one was one of the philosophies of the SpecOps training programme—one that he agreed with. “Well,” continued Jarn in a more reflective tone, “apart from that...hitch...you all performed admirably today. Report back to the center for evaluation.” The men saluted, and walked away, with Doranez walking behind the rest of the group. Small Talz in jumpsuits scurried into the room, bowing to Jarn as they passed him, and began clearing away spent bullet casings and the remains of the training dummies. Slinging his rifle into the compartment holster on the back of his suit, Jarn sighed in resignation and began walking after them.
*
* “Beer. Coruscanti.” “Coming right up, Kitti.” The Anx bartender poured the liquid from a tumbled and passed to the woman sitting at the counter. Buzzing music warbled from a jukebox in a corner. The other four people in the bar sat around separately, silently sipping their drinks before looking up to catch a glimpse of whatever was playing on the cheap primitive monitor on the wall. The only light came from outside, through the large windows that provided a view of the street outside and a large bay with a skyline of office buildings covering the opposite shore. A typical dry, quiet rundown establishment on this dry, quiet rundown backwater of a planet—which was just how Kata Heser, ‘Kitti’ to her associates, liked it. “You hearing all the stuff from offworld?” grunted the bartender in that gravelly voice as he passed her the drink. “Still can’t believe the greenskins are gone. Kinda saw it coming, but still.” “Yeah. Least we don’t have to worry about them deciding that this system would look good colored in on their starmaps.” She sighed as she sipped the beer. Of course, not even the Rakata would have bothered with this boring little planet—another reason why she had chosen to come here. There had been a simpler time for her, on the streets of Corellia, when there was always that sense of impending doom around the corner, even as the Infinite Empire fell apart, giving you that feeling that everything went in this short, fleeting life. So she had become a gunwoman—specialising in firearms of all sizes, from handguns, to automatics, to larger heavy ones, to oversized ones that no sane person would possibly use for want of recoil and weight but still looked cool as hell for her to brandish in the advertising pictures. However, one too many guys pissed off, one unsatisfying job too many, and she had packed up and headed here, to Turien II, a quiet little place off the spacelanes. There were many jobs available here in the main city, from the local news agencies reporting on the last person who sneezed to, of course, the clubs in the so-called ‘red light district’—nicely shaped brunette humans like here were apparently popular with the local crowd. Until she could make up her mind, she had chosen to spend her days lounging around from place to place, mainly here at Jghr’s Bar at the boundary where the city ends and the suburbs begin. She still had some credits—might as well burn ‘em. “You heard about all those new guys—former greenskin slaves, deciding that it’s their galaxy now? Heard it from my friends at the spaceport.” “Oh really? Well, they surely don’t sound like they can do much.” “Oh, you’ve no idea. There’s a nasty bunch callin’ themselves Necasians—got a big military drive going. Another group calling themselves the something or another Federation—they’re already setting up bases across half a dozen systems. These bastards have been put down for years—can’t blame ‘em for finally wanting something of their own. They probably be going around, being all ‘resistance is futile’ ‘n stuff. Ah, well. If anything does turn ugly, we’ll be safe here. No reason for anyone to hit this godforsaken rock." She gulped down another portion of her drink, and then suddenly the volume on the wall monitor increased as a newsflash title appeared. The other patrons lazily looked up from their drinks as that sleazeball planetary president whose name Kata couldn’t be bothered to remember appeared on the screen, looking very pleased. Superimposed on the backdrop behind him was the planet’s flag and a skull insignia that quickly got her attention. “People of Turien.” He grinned, his voice still sounding clear through the bad speakers on the monitor. “As you all know, it is the dawn of a new age for the galaxy. The political landscape has been wiped clean, allowing new bodies to take form and bring their own sense of dominance and justice to the galaxy. I have recently on behalf of our humble world began negotiations with one such body, the ‘Necasian Military’, to bring our world into their sphere of co-operation while gaining from the benefits such an association would bring us. I have been fully convinced that this new body is set to usurp the role of a bringer of order and peace to the galaxy, albeit in benevolent form.” “Kriffin’ jackass, get to the end.” Growled Kata under her breath. “Ultimately, I hope you too will recognize that the benefits of this outweigh the disadvantages. I will leave you with a few worlds from the Necasian supreme leader, Carsal Redharn.” The president was replaced by an old man in uniform, with an expression that Kata could only view as being slightly scary. As the skull insignia expanded to fill the entire backdrop, he spoke. “It is our pleasure to bring our sense of order and stability to your world and sector. I strongly hope that you will embrace our superior method of governance, and the protection our mighty forces will provide. You are but one of many worlds who will choose and be made to accept a place in our...’co-operation sphere’.” He paused, and smiled slightly. “Remember, we want the best for all of you. I bid you hope.” The screen flickered, and resumed showing the previous channel. Kata stared back into her half-empty glass of beer. All she could feel was that this wasn’t going to end well. “Play it again, Jghr.” She groaned as the music faded into silence.
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