Published: 02 Oct 2017

Chapter 16 – Trials of Command

Cory low crawled up the ridge, stopping just below the crest. He glanced back and shot Paula a rare grin as he found the older girl only a few meters behind. The others were spaced out further back, but even Saul, who was the weakest overall was only a hundred and fifty meters back. While not great, he expected far worse, especially since the last ten days had been one trial or test after another.

Cory knew all of those behind him were on the verge of exhaustion, but as of yet, none of them had thrown in the towel. It was getting a bit frustrating, but at the same time very satisfying to know those with him on Brile were pretty much all mentally tougher than most of the humans in the known galaxy. On the other hand, he wasn’t able to do a few of the really nasty trials, since the sensory deprivation tank would have to be made and then he would have to get a hold of the proper suit and breathing tubes. He could come close with what he had, but it wasn’t total. Those in his makeshift sensory deprivation tank could move some, feel, and hear a slight hum that wasn’t constant and steady. He needed to have some time in a lab, when he wasn’t trying to figure out an Ultra, to make some white noise earplugs to totally cut off sounds from the outside world. He also needed to make a suit ridged enough to where the person in it couldn’t move yet couldn’t feel it.

Earth Core used a special electrostatic fabric that shrunk and became cast hard when an electrical current was placed into it and would not loosen until an opposite polarity was put through it. It was this suit, much more than the lack of sound and feeling, that had almost caused Cory to wash out of training. Not being able to move… he could still remember it with vivid detail and it still sent shivers down his spine.

The other thing he couldn’t do was isolate each person. He had to do some of the trials in groups, and this allowed those participating to draw strength from each other. Even when he put on blindfolds and placed headsets with static playing in them to cut back what they could see and hear, they knew only a few meters away a fellow cadet was going through the same thing.

At the Mars Farm Training Facility, there were days of tests and trials where Cory only had contact with the instructors, normally just one, who said little to nothing. He had no way to know what the others were being put through, and as he found out by the age of six, the Mars Farm tailored the worst trials based on observations of the individuals within the Brood. This meant within months of moving out of the Hive and into endurance training, instructors knew what those in the Brood could take with little to no torment and moved in other directions.

There was no way Cory could do this on Brile. At least back on Forest Garden, with the help of Colonel Price, General Scott, and Ariel McCurdy, he could separate each of the others and hit them with extra sessions of things very similar to what seemed to bother them the most. For Joel this meant breathing, or not being able to. For Chip it meant cold, for Karen it meant foot pain, and for Gabriel, it meant hunger.

Being able to pull each away from the other for a few days and focus on their weaknesses toughened them up. In essence, it allowed them to harden off to their real source of fear to some extent. Gabriel having to live on a limited water diet for three days almost caused him to tap out, but somehow, he found it within himself to push past the horror of nearly starving and with tears streaming down his face he refused a plate of food in exchange for a pass instead of a success. He lasted two more days, barely.

Joel ended up a quivering mess after the fourth time with the plastic mask but demanded to get the last one through sobs, so he could ‘make the cut’. Cory never told anyone, but he gave Joel an extra thirty seconds before putting the mask on the last time. Only Colonel Price noticed this and said nothing.

Karen stood on the metal-studded plates as they alternated between hot, cold, and shocks bawling the whole time, but never moved. She then collapsed and had to be taken to the infirmary within seconds of being told it was over. Cory didn’t have the heart to tell her the others all had to make it three times, not two, knowing in his heart she would have taken the final ten minutes. Even if she had to get help, she would have gotten back on those plates. He passed her at two times.

Chip took the cold mist spraying on him even as he shivered so badly, Colonel Price stepped in and put a plastic mouth guard in the boy’s mouth between the second and third fifteen-minute test to prevent the boy from possibly chipping his teeth. As soon as he made it through he curled into a ball and sobbed, but not until the cold-water fogger had shut down. Cory felt so bad he stripped down and hugged him to give him some quick warmth, even before the medic could move up with a thermal blanket.

Only two of those who went through took a ‘bypass’ on their biggest fear and only one tossed up hands and walked away. Jennifer took an offered pass after not being able to use her hands for sixty-three hours. She came back for more, but never did make it to seventy-two hours. Somewhere between sixty and sixty-five, she simply couldn’t take it any longer. Cory seriously thought about giving her a clock to see if she would force herself to make it longer, but not knowing how long was part of most of the tests, so he simply couldn’t figure out a good way to help her with this one flaw.

Brandon simply gave up on survival in a swampy area a hundred kilometers from the BHJMA main campus and hiked all the way back just to get away from the bugs, mud, and nastiness of it all. On the other hand, Brandon did hike back and didn’t set off his beacon, so Cory had to give him some credit, giving him an unsatisfactory. Brandon also lasted ninety-nine hours on his own with only a survival knife and a basic survival kit like one commonly found in an escape pod. When he found out he missed the cut by only twenty-one hours he was livid and wanted to go back out, but school got in the way. Had Andar not gone down the way it had, Cory was certain Brandon would have made it on a second time through, no matter how many bug bites he ended up with or how dirty he was. Brandon, Cory realized, really didn’t like to be dirty, so he was working on ideas with Colonel Price to make the kid have to live being dirty for periods of time in other trials. If he could get Brandon past this, he bet the kid would be able to handle the bugs.

For Candice, heat, the feeling of burning was simply too much. Even when Cory fudged and only put in a max temp of forty-two, knowing she was simply not cut out for it, she only made it to thirty-nine before she started screaming to be let out and was done. Not being able to make forty-two at Mars Farm Training Facility was a failure and the offending Brood member simply vanished, but if she had held out to forty, he would have reluctantly passed her.

However, here on Brile, the sand test was passed by all. Lawson totally surprised him by making it to forty-six, second to only Paula and Derek, both of whom made it to forty-eight, more than Joel had actually authorized, and all three had done it nude. Tracy was the only other one to do it in the buff, but only made it to forty-four, but still plenty to pass even back on Mars.

Here on Brile, though, there were a few things Cory simply couldn’t do, and the swamp was one of them. They were a few hundred kilometers from the nearest real swamp and it was simply too dangerous to head out over the wide-open plains to the south to get to it. The vegetation was too low to hide in and an aircraft could easily spot the group. It was something he wouldn’t risk. Besides, the swamp had some very dangerous creatures, and putting someone out there alone wasn’t really an option, not with hostile forces roaming around. For Earth Core, sure, but no way would Blood’s Honor allow it and Cory simply wouldn’t do something Colonel Price, General Scott, or Ariel McCurdy would not approve of. He owed them far too much.

However, putting the kids through the tests he could figure out how to do gave him a whole lot of information on each. Saul wanted nothing to do with anything capable of sending even the slightest shock into him. Had it not been for others around him, he would have given up on day two or three.

Tracy was the same with sound. Shrill noises left her with a headache and the sonic stunner shots were devastating to her. There was little chance she would be able to handle one and still fight, but she simply wouldn’t give up. However, Chip really liked her, so Cory was working in private when he claimed to be working on the Ultra to put a lower setting on his stun pistol so she could pass. He wouldn’t tell anyone, and it really didn’t matter unless she got nailed at point-blank range. Anyone shooting her from over five meters would degrade the average shot enough to where, with work, she would still be able to fire back even if she was on the ground.

Liam, as Cory expected, simply wouldn’t give up, but getting an electronically simulated needle stuck under his fingernails was certainly one of his weaknesses and very probably the biggest one. This wasn’t at all uncommon. Back on Mars over two score of kids didn’t get past this trial. Yet even as snot came down Liam’s face, he bravely forced each and every finger out to get the next simulator pad put on. The small pad then activated nerves under the nail to make it seem as if a needle was being inserted. The second time of dealing with it back in his Brood, kids tried to run away when they saw the boxes come out and those who wouldn’t come over to the tables after five minutes were escorted out never to be seen again. At the time, Cory was six.

He bet there was an even chance Liam would fold when it came time to do the toes since the pulses were designed to make the phantom needles feel thicker and longer, so he would fudge it some and only do five instead of all ten. He was certain the kid would pass if he told him the passing mark was five, and there was a chance he would push for six or seven, but there was little to no chance he would get to nine or ten. Again, much like Tracy, there was the drive to try and try and try, to force self past the normal limitations. This is what Cory found important. Besides, none of them had been genetically mixed to be what Earth Core tried to create and even with the superior mixing of genetics and being raised in a truly brutal environment, less than a fifth made it out of Brood training.

This directly led to the second part of Cory’s reasoning. He had been raised with these trials and tests. From the day his Brood left the Hive to enter Endurance Training every effort was made to break him. Earth Core instructors had one purpose. Every man and woman Cory saw from the day he left the Hive until his arrival on New Bravaria was an instructor. It mattered not the sex or age of the adult. He was Spawn and the adults over him had the sole task to find the best and dismiss the others. None of these kids had been molded to handle these tests, so some kind of curve grading needed to be given.

His thoughts were brought to a stop as Paula moved up, “Not bad, but you left more signs of a trail than I did.”

Cory shot Paula a wicked little smile, “Let them follow… Third rock down.”

Paula glanced back and noted a wire she had totally missed. “OK, smartass, nicely played. What would you have put there?”

“Explosive spike,” Cory chuckled. “Just brown paint in air dispensed cans at the moment. I wonder if any of those behind us hit it or any of the other five I planted on the way up here.”

“Not nice. You didn’t even warn us.”

“Shouldn’t have to. Earth Core never did when they sent us on training and they used ones with enough of a charge to potentially do real damage after the first month of basic penetration training. One kid in my Brood lost an eye and was dismissed and another was killed when he rolled over one and it blew up in his stomach. Be happy I just use paint.”

“Seriously? This is what Earth Core puts kids through?”

“Not kids, just us Spawn.”

“Spawn?”

“Yeah…” Cory spotted movement, stopped, pushed Paula’s head down and held up a fist. “Company,” he hissed even as he unslung his electron rifle by unhooking the strap, so he could pull it out from under him without raising up.

Next to him, Paula slid her gyro rifle around, then rolled over so she could finish getting it from around her shoulder without poking anything up above the top of the ridge. She then kept her hands low but held them up, so Derek could see. Once she was certain she had his attention, she pointed to her rifle and jerked her head in the direction of the top of the ridge.

Derek gave a hard nod and quickly slid back down the hill to warn the others, even as he pulled his micro missile launcher off his own back.

Cory took a deep breath and scooted up another meter while angling slightly to keep a large rock between himself and those on the backside of the rocky ridge. He double-checked the position where Brile’s star was in the sky before he pulled out a mirror and used it to look around the rock. It took only a few seconds to locate what he had first spotted. He moved the mirror just enough to give Paula a clean look before he pulled it back and slid it into his pack.

“At least four,” Paula stated.

“Five, one is closer but further down the other side. He is quiet and had the shrub not moved against the direction of the wind I would have missed him. They are all wearing Ulysses infantry uniforms and gear. We need what they have.”

Paula frowned, “I can’t see them coming out here on foot. They must have a platform or something…”

“Not even a hover or track is getting up here. If they have one, it is way down the ravine. The whole reason I picked this area is we could practice without worrying about machines.” Cory patted his blade. “So how good are you with your long knife, anyway?”

Paula shot Cory a glare, “More than you can do with your pig sticker.”

Cory smiled widely, “I heard about you and the boar, wish I could have seen it. You think we can take all five?”

“Not cleanly. Now if we could get a distraction…”

“Oh,” Cory’s eyes lit up, “what do you have in mind?”

“Let Derek handle the first one. Make it look like he thinks the scout is alone. When the others move to support, we strike. The others can give us cover if we run into problems, but from what I’ve seen of you, we won’t need it.”

Cory gave a thumbs-up, “We just need two sets of gear for what I want to do, but more would be nice.”

“We can get all four.”

Cory looked down and motioned for Derek to continue to move up.

Once Derek was close, Paula whispered, “You up for taking a lead scout and giving us a distraction?”

“Shoot or hand-to-hand?”

Cory frowned, “We are trying to get Ulysses uniforms.”

Derek shrugged and cracked his knuckles, “Sure, why not. Even if he is a big guy, I should be able to take him off guard and pound his face in with a rock.”

Cory smiled widely, “Yup, I knew I liked you too!”

Paula held back a snicker, “We’ll move down and get the others in positions to cover. Take him and make a scene so our local sadist and I can take out his buddies.”

Derek nodded with some satisfaction, “It’s ’bout time we kick some more Ulysses punks in the nuts. I’m sick of this hiding crap. Just make sure you are as at least as mean to them as you have been to us, Cory.”

“Count on it.”

Derek shot Cory a smirk, “Oh, and since I have to be the cannon fodder, I get a nap before we do more.”

Cory covered his mouth, so he didn’t laugh hard, even as he quickly and soundlessly moved down the rocky hill followed by Paula who moved with equal skill.

Ten minutes later Derek spun from behind the rock Cory had hid behind, slammed his knife into and through the foot as it appeared from around the backside of the rock. There was a shrill scream telling Derek he had just impaled a female’s right foot, but he really didn’t care. Instead he jumped up grabbed the hooded head and slammed it into the rock with everything he had. He then followed it up with hard kick into the right knee. Since the blade had gone all the way through the top of the boot and had sunk deep into the rocky soil underneath, the foot was held fast. The knee gave with an audible popping sound.

Firmly expecting to get shot at, Derek grabbed the badly wounded woman and spun behind the rock, ripped off the hood of the light E-suit, yanked her head back by her hair, and punched her a trio of times in the throat, totally crushing it. Not liking the slight gurgling sounds he was hearing, and seeing desperate eyes looking at him, he took the head and smashed it into the rock a pair of times, making sure she died unconscious, so she would not have to experience the last few seconds of her life.

He stayed down and waited for over a minute, but nothing happened. With concern, he poked his head up only to see Tracy, Saul, Lawson, Liam and even Jason standing with rifles out but looking down the other side of the hill with wide eyes. With a raised eyebrow he tossed the dead woman out from behind the rock and cautiously stood.

Derek had to blink a few times as he found himself looking down at three dead Ulysses infantry, all with necks clearly broken as was evidence by the unnatural angles of their heads, and the fourth convulsing while Cory held a hand over the man’s mouth. After nearly three minutes Cory finally stood and kicked the guy hard before pulling out his canteen and washing his bloody hand. Teeth marks clearly could be seen, but they weren’t very deep.

Cory glanced over to Paula, “Bastard’s got a big mouth!”

Paula snickered, “Big enough to get rocks in and down his throat.”

“Trick one of the Earth Core guys taught all the top infiltrators in my Brood.” He then looked up the hill, and dropped his shoulders as he looked at the woman’s body next to Derek, “Really? You had to get blood on the uniform?”

Paula looked over and shook her head, “You only had one and you just had to use a knife, didn’t you?”

Derek moved down and looked at the bodies, noting none of the four had a drop of blood on them other than some around the mouth of the guy Cory had his hand over. After a few seconds of befuddlement, he shook his head, “How?”

Paula pointed to the largest of the four, a man of well over two meters, “A simple side of the neck blow with a yank of his head.”

Cory pointed to the second biggest, “Rifle butt to the back of the neck.”

Liam moved up and pointed to the third body, a woman with senior lieutenant bars on, “Paula kicked her into the tree with a roundhouse, moved around, shoved the wench’s shoulder into the tree, spun around the backside and yanked on the top of her hood a few times until she stopped twitching.”

Saul moved up and looked into the dead eyes of the last one, “And our ensign put his fist through the faceplate of this one and shoved a handful of rocks into this dude’s mouth, then held on as the guy choked to death!”

“Yeah, while Mr. Combat Ball Player here had to use a knife.” Cory complained, while nodding in Derek’s direction.

Paula shook her head, “No one’s going to want to wear her boot now and her feet are small enough to where one of us girls could have! I thought you were going to use a rock!”

Derek looked back and forth between the two, even as Paula and Cory started stripping the four bodies around them.

Off to the side Jason let out a sigh, shot Derek a grin, and pointed for Tracy and Saul to get the gear off the one Derek had taken out.

With a shake of his head, Lawson moved up to help. After a few seconds, he looked over at Cory and Paula, “God, I hope you two don’t end up hooking up. I don’t even want to know what your kids would be like.”

Major Goddard looked at the three-dimensional image on the holographic table while chewing on the inside of his mouth. The stealth drones over Terra Nova, the capital city of Nova IV, were only giving basic information because of increased ECM from the raiders who had taken large sections of the planet in a series of lightning attacks.

Had Blood’s Honor not responded as quickly as it had, the whole planet would have certainly fallen. However even two weeks in, the situation was still pretty dire on the southern continent. This was also where the vast majority of the people and infrastructure of the world existed. The initial raider assaults had wiped out over sixty percent of Nova IV’s ground forces and over eighty percent of air and space units, while forcing what was left to scatter.

Since Major Goddard was the first NFC/Blood’s Honor unit to respond, and he only had a frame force, a platform force and an aerospace squadron at his disposal, he used what he had. He took the space defenses off guard and punched through the raider’s light aerial screen over the northern isles. He then used this surprise and proceeded to eliminate small concentrations of raiders as he found them while rescuing dozens of beleaguered Nova IV military units.

The tactics Goddard used allowed Blood’s Honor to resupply and rest what was left of the Nova IV military. Then, as the personnel recovered, they were used to fill holes and combat losses within Blood’s Honor ranks and even rest entire Blood’s Honor units. This meant the campaign to pound the raiders had been nonstop.

Furthermore, Major Goddard took a tactic out of the depths of history, using something called island hopping, meaning he bypassed well dug in raiders and took easier targets, focusing on islands where there were decent Nova IV military holdouts. The bypassed islands were then hit by missile fire targeting infrastructure such as water purification and storage facilities. Once the raiders’ resources started to dry up, many surrendered rather than face dehydration and starvation while others fled back into space only to find a pair of Blood’s Honor destroyers and two NFC frigates blockading any attempt to escape. Those who didn’t surrender outright were either forcibly captured or eliminated.

Others held out, but the attacks pounded them day and night, and were designed to wear them down. Sooner or later they would fold. It was only a matter of time. Unfortunately, this also meant civilians on those isles also suffered, but it simply couldn’t be helped with the ground forces Goddard had available to him. It took a week to fully secure the vast majority of the northern isles, then another five days to push the raiders off the small equatorial sub-continent. With the northern sixty-three percent of the planet either freed or besieged, the focus was now on the main continents.

Major Goddard shook his head as a section over the northern edge of the city suddenly faded out and became nothing but fuzz. He glanced over at Senior Lieutenant Denali, a Nova IV recon officer, “We get anything on who we are facing from your people yet?”

“Nothing new, Major. I got another report in from our underground network of two merc units we already heard about, Wagner’s Wards and Stone Fist Fusiliers, both very new units on AIM listings, although, the AIM report we have says the Fusiliers are a brigade sized unit with at least two teams of frames and two full forces of light armor with a dozen successful missions. They are already rated at a C+. My infiltration network is saying the Fusiliers are very heavy on Zip Tech equipment, while their frames are a mixture of EC and non-EC, mostly in the lower end. The Wards are a totally different story. They are very heavy on Hastatim and Munifexim class frames.”

“Hastatim?” Goddard scowled, “Are we fighting kids?”

“No idea,” Denali responded with aggravation, “the Wards took an Unrated AIM rank, and are only listed as a force sized unit with armor and frames. My people have only seen Cuirass and Pugio platforms with Wards markings. I have yet to see a report come through of seeing them outside of frames and platforms. But it stands to reason if they are in Hastatim, then they have to be below average size which implies kids or young adults. The Munifexim frames are outfitted with size adjustment tech for below average to just above average size, though.”

“At least their platforms are small and all of it is lower end EC. Probably some castoff or ronin EC unit, maybe even from the failures on Black Earth or even New Bravaria, but for them to be heavy on Hastatim, they are probably Black Earth ronin. Most of the EC kids from New Bravaria would have outgrown Hastatim by now, or at least be on the upper edge of fitting into them. But you are correct, Munifexim frames take up to slightly above average sized pilots, so many are probably young adults or older kids. The other possibility we need to consider is gravity heavy origin. It is entirely possible small sized frames could mean they came from a gravity heavy world and have stunted growth.”

Denali cringed at this, “Which means they may be stronger than average.”

“Yes, but less agile and heavy for their size, which will slow the smaller frames down. We will need to warn our people of either possibility. The one thing we can’t do is let our forces take EC youth lightly or hold back just because they find themselves shooting at kids. EC churns out some mean little bastards.”

“I heard New Bravaria was hit by entire units of young EC recruits.”

“It was, and in at least two occasions very young, so young, in fact, they went into battle in Socim frames.”

Denali cocked his head to the side, “Sorry, I don’t know that one.”

“Very similar to a Micro frame, only they go even smaller.”

“Why?” Denali demanded to know. “My seven-year-old can fit into a Micro and pilot it and he is normal sized to even a bit small!”

“Because EC starts some kids younger than seven. In fact, Andar was hit by several merc units formed out of ronin EC units from both New Bravaria and Black Earth and some of those units used Socims to take initial fire and draw attention away from heavier and or flanking units. It was a tactic they used to some success on New Bravaria.”

“They sent in little kids to be slaughtered?”

“Hundreds…” Before more could be said, the face of Commander NuJent of the NFC Frigate Narwhale appeared in place of the still fuzzy map of the capital. This meant it was an emergency flash message override.

Major Goddard turned his full focus on the image, “Commander?”

“Major, we just took out an EC Fire Lance as it left the atmosphere of Nova IV, but not before it fired a quartet of zip balls as it lost its cloak exiting the atmosphere. We stopped three with EM pulse cannons, but the fourth ripped a hole before we could do anything about it!”

“Did you fire a tracer?”

“Yeah, but the Fire Lance took it to its hull and blocked a second shot while staying between us and the hole just long enough for the rip to snap shut. We are sending recovery parties, but there was a series of internal explosions right after it took our second tracer and a spread of our new Gatling lasers and it fell back into the atmosphere out of control. I don’t think they will find much, if anything, at the crash site.”

Off to the side Denali winced, “Not good, not good at all.”

Major Goddard nodded in full agreement even as he focused on the holographic image, “Commander, I need you to send an emergency zip ball to Forest Garden and see if they can find us something, anything, to reinforce us and keep on high alert. Also I strongly recommend you and the other three capital ships up there with you relocate. Put yourselves behind moons or into the asteroid belts and out of normal fold lanes. When party crashers do show up, and they will, do your best to un-invite them quickly and with all due prejudice!”

Candice finished a cleaning on her captured frame, even as she munched on some grayish-orange Brile Bat eggs wrapped in flat bread. It wasn’t even slightly good tasting, but at least it was filling. She spat out a bit of shell as it crunched between her teeth, but didn’t give it much thought, since having food crunch on Brile was pretty common with the way the wind often blew sand around. With a shrug, she closed up the frame. While she did so, she pulled up everything she could remember on the location on the drop pods. At the same time, she thought back to the last conversation… confrontation she had with Chip.

Using a captured hand computer found in one of the Javelins, Candice marked off the area her small patrol covered, then studied the remainder of the area Chip and Jason seemed so sure the drop pod had crashed in. It wasn’t looking good. All the easy areas had been searched, so she would have to go higher onto the rocky slopes. This would also slow down her search, since she would have to check out ravines and in between rocky crags and there were a number of them. There was no doubt the higher she took her group, the harder the search would get and the more questions she would have to deal with.

On the other hand, the abandoned Silver Spike strip mine Chip had suggested to base out of while they looked had turned out to be everything Chip thought it would be. It had half a dozen buildings, all with basements. And while only two of the above ground structures were fully usable, five of the basements were fully intact and it only took a few hours to clear out some of native Brile wildlife, then a couple of days to fully clean them out. It gave the kids and the handful of surviving adults from the Jade Lion drilling station a place to settle in and also gave those who had been injured during the brief fight a relatively safe place to heal up. Just as importantly, it let those who had been forced to labor untold hours at gunpoint a chance to rest.

While all those she had broken out of captivity still seemed tense, a few days of independence, decent meals, and rest had done them all a great deal of good. Many had even found reasons to smile again. Of course, finding a place for all of them to get really clean and wash clothing helped as well. But being out from under the horrors of forced labor was one thing. True free will was another, and Candice knew as long as they were on Brile, real freedom was still a distant dream. With this first and foremost in her mind, she focused in on getting enough supplies and equipment to attempt a real escape.

Candice looked over the map she had of the area and marked off the latest area searched while studying what she felt would be a good search area for the following morning. She made some notes and set an outline, then glanced over to Xylon, “I’m pretty much beat. What else do we need to do this afternoon?”

“From what I can see, just getting a status update and make sure everyone is safe and secure for the night.”

Candice nodded as Xylon disappeared down the steps to grab some food. She glanced over to one of the armor cadets from Paris III, “Florence, where do we stand?”

The fourteen-year-old sighed, “Nothing new, Danni. Only one patrol left out and they checked in and should be back here shortly. Another day of no hostiles, which is good. We are still running low on food, but I hate to say you were right about Xylon and the others from Ulysses. They really aren’t bad and them having a vid chip on Brile edibles combined with Mindy and Judson bringing back a huge stack of Sand-Scorp eggs an hour or so ago, things are looking more stable on food than they were yesterday.

“Between all the patrols you set up, they got us a couple more days’ worth of things we can at least eat. Also, the two girls from Nagasaki XI were able to get a boiling unit hooked up with Basil’s help, so we started boiling water out of the spring on the backside of the strip mine and collecting it, so we are now getting water without the heavy metals content, so it should be safe to drink. First tests looked good. But we are on the last cases of food from the fortress you rescued us from and first-aid supplies are dwindling fast.”

Candice cringed, “I know. Some of them must still have shrapnel in them or whatever. Otherwise the antibiotic creams would have killed the infections. We really need a doctor or an auto-admin med unit.”

“Probably not going to happen.” Florence stated with a resigned sigh.

Xylon overheard as he came up from the basement with his own plate of eggs and flatbread which was noticeably less full than the plate Candice had been handed. He didn’t complain. Instead he focused on the situation at hand. “We can’t give up on our injured. I had Mindy take the Sand-Scorp eggs down to the to the infirmary since we’ve all seen how they helped heal you all when you were being forced to work. I would have, but some of them don’t even trust me enough take offered food from me and Mindy is at least willing to give me the time of day.”

Seeing Candice cringe, Xylon decided he didn’t want Candice to jump in and stand up for him or the others. He was starting to see some of the others loosen up around him and figured things would continue to get better if he just did what was needed and deal with the hostility. To this end, he focused on Candice as he added, “Hassan has an idea he thinks may help some of the injured, but wants to talk it over with you, Danni.”

“Any idea what he has in mind?”

Xylon shook his head. “He is not going to tell me anything anytime soon. I’m still Ulysses to him and probably always will be. I was astonished when he spoke to me at all this afternoon.” Xylon forced a grin as he added, “He didn’t even spit in my direction this time.”

Florence shook her head, “We’ve talked to those who still hate you Xylon, so hopefully you will not be seeing quite as much resentment. You may be from Ulysses, but you aren’t one of them. You even snuck us extra food and junk.”

“Not as much as I wished we could. It was hard, but Basil and I had Major Kasper help a couple of times. We couldn’t sneak in enough for everyone, though, so the major told us to give it out based on who looked the worst off, and Hassan was never one who did, so we skipped him and a few others over all three times Major Kasper got us in to see you guys in the Jade Lion station. I know Sofia gave all the kids in your station and four others a chocolate on AFG Discover Day, but it was only a small pack to each and Major Kasper had to fill out paperwork saying the shipment had been hit and destroyed by machines to hide what really happened to it.”

“The major was about our only ray of hope, but you tried and Hassan still saw you hand out some food, and I know a few of the others gave him some once you left. I’ll try to talk to him again. If not, I’ll have Ikram try. You got her a different vest and jacket after hers got ripped. She knows you took a risk doing so, too. She is actually the one to convince me you weren’t part of what happened to us. Even better, Hassan really likes her.”

This got a rare grin out of Candice, “Several of us have noticed.”

Josef, a senior armor cadet from New Israel IV, snickered and glanced over from where he was keeping guard, looking out of the window and down the valley, “Ikram is not the only girl who has caught the eyes of some of the guys. We’ve all seen the way Titus looks at you, Florence… and Xylon, you may as well ask Danni to go steady!”

Florence’s eyes gleamed while Candice blushed badly. At the same time Xylon moved over and punched Josef in the shoulder only to get laughed at by the older boy.

Florence quickly changed the subject as a trio of frames entered the backside of the building and popped their back hatches. Included in the trio was Titus, one of a couple of Black Jungle cadets Candice had rescued. Florence gave Titus a tight smile while fighting hard to not cringe at a light snicker out of Josef. She took a breath and turned back to Candice and Xylon, “I’m just wondering why we haven’t seen more Ulysses patrols. They have to know we escaped and were not part of the dead by now. What are they doing?”

Jonny, a frame cadet from Nottingham VII, pulled off his vest and tossed it off to the side even as he started inspecting his Riot frame, “My patrol is the last one to get back this evening. Everyone is in other than the three on perimeter guard, and no one saw a thing. No machines and no Talborne patrols, nothing. But we need to figure some other plan, Danni. Snow is now on the peaks to the north of us, just behind this first set of tall hills and it got pretty cold again here last night. This old strip mining station may be secluded and safe from machines, but these old buildings and basements aren’t going to do us much good if it drops down into the single digits at night unless we build fires. As soon as we do, smoke will give our location away.”

“Jonny’s right,” Marlin, one of the youngest frame cadets in the whole camp spoke up as he started working on his Intruder frame. The not quite twelve-year-old took a long drink out of a canteen, then pointed back at the frame he had managed to get working. “As it is, my frame showed it got down to fourteen last night.”

Titus shot Florence a warm grin, then glanced over in Marlin’s direction, “With as much damage as it had to the head unit from the air bursts, I am surprised you can get a temp reading.”

“The HUD still has some glitches, and there is no compass.” Marlin sighed. “Also all the visual enhancement slots are still out, but I got the rest of it running.”

Jonny gave the kid a smile, “Which is why you have the frame you have and there are older cadets who don’t have one. None of the rest of us could get the targeting system up. I’m glad you got her working though, since it gives my three man patrol a frame with a bit more firepower and armor than Riots and for as young as you are, you are pretty good in it.”

“I’d be better if the Telescopic and IR chips would interface with the frame’s HUD.”

Candice looked over at the black-haired boy with eerie light grey eyes, “If you can’t get it working in the next day or so you need to give those chips out to others who can use them.”

Marlin cringed but nodded in resigned agreement, “I’ll try to get the IR working again tonight. If not, I’ll give it to someone else. But I really don’t want to give up the telescopic until I know I can’t get it working. My first enhancement on my Cadet frame was telescopic, since I can shoot so much better with it installed.”

Xylon looked over, “Hey, Danni, how about we meet Marlin in the middle on this?”

“Um, sure… What do you have in mind?”

Xylon glanced over to Jonny, then back at Marlin. Not seeing either looking angry at him for all but taking over command, he focused back on Candice. “What if you have him give his IR chip over to Jonny? This way his patrol has a frame with active IR. If he does, you could let him keep the telescopic chip. Within only needing to get one slot working, he can focus on getting himself telescopic. He can keep the chip until Marlin either figures it out or decide he can’t fix the interface.”

Candice’s eyebrows shot up, “Yeah, not a bad idea. Telescopic isn’t nearly as important as IR and it would be nice to have IR active on the patrol leader’s frame. How about it Marlin? Sound reasonable to you?”

The small boy’s lips scrunched up some as he thought it over. Seeing Jonny nod, he took a deep breath, reached into his frame and pulled out the IR chip. As he tossed it over to Jonny, he turned to focus on Candice. “Done, but I want one of those Ulysses field issue hand computers. I think I can use the electronics in one to get at least one vis slot working and fix the fade-out on my HUD. If I get my telescopic up, I don’t really care as much about any of the other visual enhancements until I get a full repair kit or something.”

Xylon didn’t hesitate. He pulled out his issued personal hand computer and tossed it over to Marlin. “You can have mine as long as once you get your HUD and telescopic working you help Omokki with her Astro’s leg. You seem to be one of the best electronic frame techs we got, and her leg problem isn’t mechanical. Cortez fixed the hydraulics and the knee moves cleanly. The stutter has to be in the electronics.”

Titus jumped in, “He’s right, Marlin. And getting the Astro fully working would give us a fast frame if we need someone to flank or whatever.”

Marlin smiled as he caught the small computer, “I may have gotten unsatisfactory on most mechanical repairs, but I was in the top of my class in electronics and programming. With this, I’ll get my telescopic up and see what I can do for Omokki before we go out on patrol again tomorrow!”

Candice shot the kid a grin, “Good, but right now I want all of you to go down and grab some food. Cortez’s patrol managed to bring back a bunch of Brile Bat eggs. They are pretty tasteless, but filling.”

Jonny motioned for Marlin and Titus to join him as he looked back at Candice, “Better than hearing our stomachs growl all night, which is what we dealt with many nights at the work camp. After untold weeks of dealing with hunger, tasteless but filling is just fine with me!”

Xylon lowered his head, “I’m sorry. I wish I could… would… have done more…”

Josef once again glanced back from the window, “You and your buddies did something, which is far better than pretty much anyone other than that major who came around once in a while. I’ll also try to talk to Hassan and a few of the others who won’t even look at you. It is getting stupid. Being angry with everyone just because they are from Ulysses isn’t doing any of us any good. Hell, if I ever see that major, I’d be one of the first to thank him and shake his hand. I bet more of us would have gotten sick and died without him. I know those AIM ration packs he handed out each time he came through and the doc he had work on my infected back tooth probably saved my life!”

Candice moved over to Josef, “Go grab some food, too. I’ll keep watch for a bit.”

The teen happily passed the gyro rifle over to Candice, then motioned for a couple of other infantry cadets to join him in the basement. “Guys, it’s time we start trusting Xylon and his buddies a bit more. I mean geesh, he is going to be up here with Danni! Now one of you hand him a rifle and let’s go eat!”

One of the girls shot Xylon a glare, but after getting a stern look from Josef, she handed over her electron rifle and quickly went down the stairs.

As soon as it was just Candice and Xylon in the room, Xylon moved up and knelt next to her, “OK, so we have been here for four days and we have done nothing but do a grid search pattern going further up the slope of the mountain just behind us each day while the others have gone out guarding, scouting, and scavenging for us. You mind telling me what you are looking for?”

Candice thought it over for a few seconds before she took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “You know who I am and who I was with, so I will, but you can’t tell anyone else.”

“I’m not the only one. Basil knows who you are, too, and Sofia knows you were with Blood’s Honor. I also heard a couple of the other framers say you looked familiar, but they haven’t placed you yet. I bet a few will as they get more rested and can focus a bit more.”

Candice cringed even as she decided to go with a large measure of the truth behind what she was doing on Brile, “I am Danni, or Candy, or whatever. Candice and her ties to Blood’s Honor are gone. As for what I am looking for… well, there is a wrecked cargo pod on the side of this mountain somewhere. The ship it was in got hit as it made the drop, and we lost track of the drop pod. I don’t even know what is in it, but I am sure there are some frames, food, and at least some repair equipment. Blood’s Honor dropped it for us while we were out on maneuvers but pulled everyone off because of some emergency in the Nova system. They broke off searching for it, so it is still up there somewhere.”

“Then why not tell everyone and send all of us up there to look?”

“Because it has an access code, a code I have, and may even have a voice match or retinal scan. I don’t know what kind of security BH Command tied to the code, but it’s probably set to fry all the electronics or may even blow up the pod if it’s not me who enters it. Even worse, I am sure it will tell everyone around who I am, so no, I need to be the one who finds it with people who know who I am. That’s why I have you and Basil as my patrol-mates.”

“You are about the only ones willing to take us, and no way any of the others would let a patrol of nothing but Ulysses cadets go out on a recon sweep alone, no matter what we did back at the drilling site.”

“I think those attitudes are starting to change, but it doesn’t matter. I want you with me because you know who I am. The others can’t see whatever message the cargo pod may have in it.”

Xylon shook his head, “Sooner or later others will figure out you were with Blood’s Honor on Andar. I really don’t see what the big deal is.”

“I blew it!” Candice snarled. “I totally screwed up our mission and came close to getting my entire squad killed. I’m not BH material and never have been. The past few months have proved it to me. I want a fresh start, one not tied to BH or being in command, OK?”

Xylon held up both hands and slid back to give Candice more room, “If you want to start over, fine, but you will have to do it with a BHJMA AIM number. You can’t get away from it. And like it or not, you are in command here. All six adults even see you as being in command!”

“They are non-combatant government officials and four are still badly injured. They don’t know what or how military command works.”

“They may be NCs, but they are big wigs from their planets and their governments, so they have to know something. And even if they don’t, there are a dozen kids older, including Judson and Mindy who are both framers and are both senior cadets and over two years older than you. But all you have to do is look around and how they all treat you. You are in command.”

“I know how it looks,” Candice countered, “but you are the one making the decisions, not me. I am just passing them on, and I seem to be pretty good at it. But no one wants me really in charge, including me. As far as my AIM number, I have heard others have gotten new numbers, so maybe I can figure out how they did it. Or I’ll have them erase my certs and start over… I don’t know. All I do know is I am not cut out to be Blood’s Honor, nor am I a good commanding officer.”

Xylon decided it was simply not worth arguing over. Maybe over time he could get her to change her mind. At the moment, he had some questions about Candice’s plan, and it really was her plan even if she refused to admit it. “So after we evaded pursuit, you brought us all out here hiding behind this strip mine, so you could steal a Blood’s Honor supply drop? Don’t you think they will come after you for taking it?”

“They left it. It is abandoned. It’s salvage and I happen to know the codes to get in. Besides, we need what is in the supply pod and will be using it to fight those who are directly fighting Forest Garden and the New Frontiers Coalition. BH Command may be mad, but they really can’t say anything since it is a crash and I am still going against Talborne with whatever is left in it. Also, this field trip is in a semester break, so I resigned during an approved time to do so. I don’t know what they will decide, but I really don’t think they will push it too much. If they do, I will go to a Forest Garden prison for a few months to a year and figure it out. I just don’t care any more and I don’t want to hear about me being Blood’s Honor ever again. I’m not. I never should have been.”

Xylon let out a silent sigh, “OK, we’ll do this your way. In the meantime, let me take over watch. You need to talk to Hassan and see what he has come up with to help the injured.”

Candice set the gyro rifle up against the window frame, “OK. I’ll send up one of the others who isn’t afraid of you, but you need to start thinking of how we are going to get a hold of some aerospace cadets and where we can steal a ship from so we can get off this rock. I really don’t want Brile to be my new home.”

“None of us do. I’ll talk it over with Sofia and Basil. But the only place I saw with aerospace cadets being held was the old Earth-Co’s Sapphire Lake crystal mine. I’m pretty sure the same applies to Sofia and Basil. For the most part we were together and neither mentioned seeing aero cadets anywhere else. The big problem with Sapphire Lake is all the workers are held in the mine and there are only a trio of buildings, all right outside the mouth of the mine. It has a small landing pad, but there was only a Normandy class Assault Ship parked on it twice of the dozen or so times I was there. They use them for cargo transport, but also to transport troops, armor and frames, so it could have a heavy security detail. I never saw inside. The other problem is if we assault the mine they could and probably will drop the mine on those inside.”

“Well, we need to find the supply drop and then locate a place close to the mine to base out of. We’ll have to keep an eye on it and wait until there is a ship. Getting in, well, we’ll have to figure out some kind of plan while we search for the supplies.”

In the Black Jungle system, a small space fold rip opened up. A couple of seconds later a blackened metal canister shaped object, slightly larger than a large coffee can, suddenly appeared and was pushed away from the location where it arrived in system as the fold rip snapped shut behind it.

A few seconds later it sent out an encrypted message, alerting Blood’s Honor units of not only the need to pick it up, but of its urgency.

Aboard the Blood’s Honor destroyer, Silver Falcon, the fold rip had already been detected and an alert was sounded. As soon as the computer verified the rip was too small for a spacecraft, and it had opened in the area where Blood’s Honor had targeted for zip balls coming in system, a pair of Sky Viper attack craft were launched out of the port side hangars. The two craft made maximum burns to get a safe distance from the destroyer before they opened fold rips of their own and seconds later appeared halfway across the planetary system to protect and collect the interstellar item commonly referred to as a zip ball.

The pilot of the lead Sky Viper verified the code of the zip ball, grappled it, and pulled it in. As he did so, the ship’s computer sent an authentication code to the computer inside the zip ball, unlocking the message. The pilot then ordered a copy of the message be transferred over to a new zip ball, and he fired it off. The new zip ball left the Sky Viper’s front launch tube, fired thrusters accelerating it to 30000 kilometers per hour, then the front end seemed to explode. At the same time the magnetic coils wrapped around the zip ball made a brilliant display of colors as the zip ball seemed to come to a stop for an instant as a new reddish-purple fold rip appeared. Moments later a new hole appeared only a few hundred kilometers from the Silver Falcon and the new zip ball appeared. Fighters were dispatched and quickly pulled the message in. The whole process from the message’s initial arrival to the securing of the information aboard the Silver Falcon took only a few minutes even though the distances traveled were over two billion kilometers one way.

Even as the commander of the Silver Falcon read the message, he put an emergency comm down to the planet below.

Colonel Price’s eyes snapped open as the holographic display in his quarters aboard the command PLC of Shadow Brigade lit up and gave off an alert chirp. He didn’t even bother to grab for a shirt as he spoke, “Open comms!”

A split-second later Colonel Price found himself looking at the commanding officer of his brigade’s flag ship. He spoke even as he grabbed for his uniform, “Commander Kantor?”

“Sir, sorry to wake you, but I have a flash message from Forest Garden. It arrived in system just over six minutes ago.”

“Send it down and give me the highlights.”

“Pretty straight forward, sir. Major Goddard is requesting reinforcement for the Nova system. An EC Fire Lance managed to send out a zip ball, destination unknown. From what Goddard is reporting, it looks like he has pushed back the attackers with what he has, but just, and he is facing unknown or new merc units heavy with EC equipment intermixed with Zip Tech crap. He doesn’t think he will be able to hold if more show up. At the moment we are the only sizable Blood’s Honor veteran brigade within a single fold of Nova with the upper hand. BH Command is hoping you can find something to send him. As it is, BHJMA is sending him a cohort frame force and a cohort platform force. It’s all they can safely spare. If we can’t send him something, he is a good two to three weeks from getting anything worth mentioning from BH or the rest of the NFC.”

Colonel Price moved over to the terminal and tapped a key. The information in text form scrolled down on a side holo-viewer. He got the basics, then moved to his room’s sink and splashed some water on his face as a new plan formed in his brain. He muttered something unintelligible under his breath before clearing his throat, “Commander, send Goddard a zip ball and let him know I’ll get him something, but he may not like what I send him.”

“From the way it sounds, he isn’t in a situation to be too picky.”

“I understand, but still let him know his complaints are already known and noted. Price out.” Colonel Price waited for a moment then spoke again. “Open new comm; Brigade CIC.”

Instantly the figure of Commander Kantor was replaced with Commander Thomas. Shadow Brigade’s female XO didn’t even look phased at seeing Colonel Price’s half undressed form staring at her. “Problem, sir?”

Colonel Price gave himself a wipe-down with a wet towel even as he spoke, “Flash message from home. Goddard needs some help in the Nova system yesterday.”

“Ahhh… Command does know we still have a 979 problem along with other Talborne supporting ABR remnants, right?”

“Yeah, but we can still send him something he can use. He is a tactical master, so let him figure out what to do with what we have to send. Round up Oliver Mathis, Mitch Peller, and Brice Mathis. I need you to have them get their command groups into Strat Room One and tell their shadow officers to pull a unit of their choice each to go with them on a live mission. As soon as you have them moving, send BHJMA a message and tell them to send me Delta Nine, Delta Two One Three, and Delta Four Eight Six.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t worry Commander. They’ll know what I want. Oh, and tell them it is an official royal order, not just a military one. I’m not taking no for an answer on this. While you are at it, remind them it is my estate picking up a third of the tab for all of them, so they are technically mine anyway. Make sure they send them on a double-fold capable ship with Sky Vipers so they can make all three folds to get all three here before the sun sets tonight.”

Commander Thomas cocked her head to the side, “OK, but it may cause someone an embolism! You never use your royal status…”

“Which should tell everyone back home just how serious I am, and how pissed off I’ll be if I don’t see all three within the next sixteen hours. Price Out.”

Cory looked over the assembled gear pulled off the Ulysses patrol and held up one of the female’s E-suits. He looked over to Liam, “Hey, you want to get a little real infiltration work in?”

Paula shot Cory a sideways glance, “What are you up to?”

“Well, as you pointed out, they didn’t walk from wherever they are based out of, so there must be a vehicle down the ravine. If we take it, we could drive it right up to the gate of whatever work camp we decide to take out, get inside, park it in whatever motor pool they have, and plant explosives. Not only will it take out a grip of their vehicles, it’ll make a great distraction for us.”

Paula gave a humor filled snort, “While it has a simplistic grace to it, it would eliminate vehicles we need to get the work prisoners out…”

“No, no, not plant explosives on the APCs and others we want to take, but on the rest. We can also do it by remote, so when the first vehicle goes up, we wait until they scramble, then detonate the others as the crews get to the motor pool. We should be able to take out most of the crews without getting our hands too dirty.”

Liam looked over from his where he was finishing off a ration pack. “Let me guess, I get to wear the female E-suit and pretend to be a lone survivor?”

Cory put on an impish grin, “It’s not like I am asking you to wear a dress to the next BHJMA dance.”

Liam stood and moved up to take the E-suit, “If I do, you have to give me the first dance.”

Cory noted the smirk on Liam’s face and quickly countered, “For you, I might even do it!”

Liam snickered, “You don’t know how tempting it would be, just to see if you would really do it.”

“Oh, make it a challenge, and I definitely would.”

Liam gave Cory a playful push as he grabbed the suit and held it up, “She was heavier than me.”

“Yeah,” Cory agreed. “It’ll be a little baggy, but the senior private who was in this was almost your exact height and we could stuff some extra cloth in the breast area.” He then shot Derek a smirk, “You’ll have to wear a bloody and cut boot thanks to our knife-wielding maniac, though.”

Derek flipped off Cory, getting a round of snickers.

Liam moved over and put his feet next to the boots, “The suit isn’t the problem and I can deal with a bit of squish in the boot, but they are narrow… Oh, what the hell, it’s not like I didn’t have to wear a girl’s coat back on Ratone Prime all through second grade since it was what was in the handout box. Plus, the boots will force me to walk funny, so I’ll limp down the ravine while checking behind me with her rifle.” He pulled up the Stardust medium assault rifle. “At least it isn’t Zip Tech.”

He then looked back at Saul, “Hey, paint boy, let me borrow your laser pistol.”

Saul made a snarling sound and glared at Cory, “You tricked us.”

“No, you and Tracy followed my trail and paid for it. This evening while you are cleaning the paint off your E-suits, remind yourselves I made it clear taking the easy way out of any challenge isn’t an option.”

Tracy used her canteen to wash the water-based paint off the faceplate of her E-suit as she responded, “Still, you could have warned us.”

“He kind of did,” Saul admitted as he moved over and handed over his laser pistol to Liam. He then looked at Liam with a frown. “She wasn’t armed with a pistol of any kind. You’ll stick out…”

“Not planning on taking it, just using it for a sec,” Liam stated as he took the weapon, held up the helmet of the E-suit, and shot the antenna off, while leaving an obvious burn mark on the left side.

Seeing a few looking at Liam with confusion, Paula pointed to the burn mark, “It’ll explain why he isn’t responding when they try to radio. He can point to the side of the helmet as he comes down. He can then fire a few shots back up the ravine as he limps back to whatever vehicle they have down there. The crew will focus full attention up hill and on Liam while Cory and I take out the trash.”

She then looked around, “But I want the rest of you to use what Cory has taught you and get in position to help. We have no idea how many are down there and if they are really having problems with machines, they may have more than one vehicle. If they do, we need to take them all.”

She then grinned at Derek, “And as long as you keep your knife at your hip, I bet we get it done with no blood on the seats.”

Derek smacked his forehead, “The next time you want me to take out a Ulysses prick, there won’t be a drop of bloodshed!”

Lawson chuckled, “Until we see it I say we give you the call sign ‘bloody boot’.”

Derek’s shoulders dropped as he pointed down to his booted feet, “How about I take these size elevens and put them square up your ass?”

Lawson grinned widely, “Pooping out a boot just doesn’t sound much fun, so I’ll pass. But, hey, thanks for the offer.”

Cory picked up the boot in question and used his canteen to wash most of the blood out. At the same time he smiled, “Damn, this trip is getting more fun by the minute and I could really start liking all you non-Spawn. This is almost like being back in the Brood.”

“The Brood?” Jason asked, even as Cory tossed the mangled footwear over to Liam.

This was followed by, “Non-Spawn?” by Liam.

“Trust me, it’s about as big of a complement as I can give you all.” Cory then looked over, “So you all up for this?”

Jason looked a little disappointed about not getting Cory to open up more but went with the flow, “I just a worried about what the Blood’s Honor guys will say about it. You all already killed five and are about to kill more.”

Cory’s tone became far more sinister than anyone had yet to hear, “Oh, it won’t be an issue. First, I am commanding officer in this group by rank. Besides, by now Chip, Joel and Gabriel won’t even be slightly surprised. If anyone really objects, Chip will have my back. The worst anyone will do is put me on hard labor as the commanding officer using too much force.” He shrugged, “And to kill a few more Ulysses pricks, building a rock wall for sixteen hours a day for a week or more will be totally worth it.”

“Not alone, you won’t,” Tracy stated with complete conviction. She looked over to Jason, “Come on, let’s go help him.”

Jason let out a long breath, “OK, but this seems so much against the Blood’s Honor code we pledged… I mean, if any surrender…”

“Then we strip them of gear and send them walking.” Cory smirked, “In the end, the results will be the same.” He then turned to Liam, “As soon as you see the vehicles, move so you have the sun between you and them. It will screw with their IR and make seeing some of the bagginess much harder to spot. As soon as you are sure they see you, fire up at rocks. The more you can keep focused on you, the easier it will be for Paula and me to snap a few more necks or crush a throat or two.”

Saul stared at Cory with a stunned expression before speaking, “Cory, do you have a built-in mean switch you can turn on and off at will or something?”

Cory shrugged, “Earth Core did its best to wire me to where it was always on. Just be happy it didn’t work the way they planned.” Before more was said he dropped his pack, dug into the back of it and tossed everyone in the group a stun grenade. “I was going to use these on you all later today for the first time, but if you really want to leave some of them alive, this should do the job.”

Paula took the offered hand-sized canister with a twist knob setting on the top. She held it up and pointed to it. “Keep in mind, if you lob this in a vehicle the overpressure of the concussion wave very well might kill. At the very least it will do serious damage to ears.”

“Way worse than a sonic stunner,” Cory agreed. “So Tracy, stay well out of the explosive radius until I can work with you more. Eventually you’ll be able to stay conscious when one of these bad-boys goes off close to you.”

“Oh, I am soooooo not looking forward to that,” Lawson quipped.

Cory’s wide smile lasted only a few moments, “Lawson, while you think about fighting through a stun grenade, I’ve got a mission for you. You seem to have a knack for being stealthy in rocky areas and are a very good shot, so I’d like you to trail Liam and shoot back in his general direction once they see him. Make sure you never expose yourself.” He tossed the boy a micro missile pistol. “Use this so there is a big enough explosion to make anyone in the open move to the vehicles. While I’ll commit to not killing if at all possible, if you see someone with a heavy weapon take them out. Finally, keep in mind they will see the micro missile smoke trail, so fire and move fast.

“Also, we don’t want them to know what they are facing or where we are, so we’ll use the radio codes I taught you all. Those of you on backup see if you can pick off one or two of those down at the vehicle or vehicles with indirect fire from further back. This way they will be forced to fall back to whatever they came in. If we can pin them in, it will put the stun grenades right at the deadly side and maybe we can take out a few even as we try to play Blood’s Honor and minimize enemy casualties.”

Lawson checked out the pistol and the spare five round clip tossed to him by Cory. “Be happy to provide fire support, but come on, you really expect us to stay combat ready after getting hit with a stun grenade?”

“Hey, it is part of endurance training. Most of those who went through my trials ended up being able to do so. Well, at least stay conscious…” Cory shot Lawson a big smile, “Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!”

“Fun?” Jason snorted in disbelief. “I can name a thousand fun things. Staying awake after a close blast of a stun grenade is not one of them!”

Cory nodded at Paula to follow him before looking back, “By the time I get you to the testing phase, you will.”

Saul let out a long breath and waited until Cory and Paula moved out of sight, “This makes me wonder what he really does for fun.”

Tracy hefted up her gauss rifle, “For now, let’s focus on taking out some Ulysses jerks.”

Saul quickly stuck his laser pistol back into his shoulder holster and slung his laser rifle. “Yeah, let’s get into position so he doesn’t get mad. I don’t think I can take much more than what he is making us do.”

Tracy sighed, “At least he is doing all of it with us and showing us it can be done.”

Jason nodded, “And he makes it look easy as he does it… You know, for a cute little kid, there is little nice about him. However, this is about as happy I have seen him. So… Unless I am crazy, I believe this is what he does for fun.”

Oliver entered a highly guarded room deep within Shadow Brigade’s command landing craft. The ‘escorts’ stopped outside the room and added to the frames already in the lower hall. Next to Oliver, his new XO, former Cadet Master Sergeant Sastana, and his new operations officer, former Cadet Ensign O’Bannon looked over at him nervously. He really didn’t have any words of comfort, since he was certain he could not easily find his way out of the ship, and he had never seen such tight security. Even the access elevators and the exits to them were covered with pulse laser turrets. An infiltrator wouldn’t make it more than a couple of steps, and seeing the turrets tracking him from the moment he had stepped off the elevator had left him somewhat unnerved.

Inside the room he found his brother and former Cadet Corporal Peller already seated. His brother was in an ensign uniform with several awards and Peller was wearing a lieutenant uniform with almost as many awards. Both boys snapped to attention and saluted Oliver, since he was now wearing a commander uniform.

Oliver returned the salute then looked around the room, “So any idea what’s going on?”

Lieutenant Peller shook his head, “No, I was just finalizing who I wanted on my team and their ranks when my shadow officer’s comm unit lit up. He told me to grab Brice and head over here and a VTOL was on the way for us. We were escorted straight down here as soon as we arrived, so no idea.”

“Same here,” Lieutenant O’Bannon responded with a nervous sounding voice. “Must be important…”

A panel slid open in the back of the room and Colonel Price entered, “It is.”

All the kids in the room snapped to attention even as Colonel Price looked pointed to chairs around a central table. “Take a seat.” Once everyone was seated he looked back over his shoulder, “Boys, enter.”

Almost instantly, three boys entered the room. All three looked to be about twelve years old and wore BHJMA uniforms, but with no rank insignias or name tags. The only thing they did have was the standardized starbursts on their epaulettes showing they were frame cadets along with Combat Certification ribbons in Frame Pilot, Laser, Ballistic, Missile, Gyro, and Advanced Beam Weaponry. One had Torpedo, the second had Indirect, and the third Heavy Ballistic. In addition, they all had Basic Certification ribbons in Drop Pod and Jump Pack. All three carried a stunner on one hip and a fairly long blade on the other. They also looked extremely rigid and their eyes held an intensity bordering on ferocity. Other than those similarities the three could not have looked more different. The one with Torpedo certification had dark hair and green eyes with a pale completion. The boy who had Heavy Ballistic had dark ebony skin, brown eyes, and straight black hair. Finally, the kid with the Indirect ribbon had wavy sandy colored hair, a tan completion, and sky blue eyes. The dark skinned boy had the strongest build, while the pale boy looked more agile and was over three inches taller than the other two.

All three reacted identically, however. They moved to stand right behind the chair at the head of the table right to left by size, snapped to attention, then as Colonel Price sat, spread their feet slightly and put their hands into the small of their backs.

Brice found himself trying to stare down the sandy haired boy, but the stare was so intense, he gave up well before he needed to blink. A glance around at the others told him those with him had also quickly averted their eyes and instead focused on Colonel Price.

Colonel Price ignored this. Instead he spoke in an even voice, “Nova system display.”

Instantly the lights dimmed, and a super high-quality holographic image shot up from the table showing a star system. The system had an astounding nineteen planets and three massive asteroid belts. Only two of the worlds had obvious signs of water, the fourth planet was mostly water with large white polar regions and most of the northern hemisphere was ocean dotted with hundreds of islands. The equatorial zone had one small continent, while the southern hemisphere had a pair continents with at least a hundred more islands. It was also extremely lush and green in most areas. The sixth planet couldn’t have been more different. It had several large water bodies, but was well over seventy percent land, much of it looking brown and parched with strips of greenish grey around the bodies of water and a handful of rivers. The sixth planet was also considerably larger than the fourth.

Colonel Price gave everyone in the room a minute to look over the system before he started talking, “I have looked at all of your records. None of you, nor any of those you have in your units, have any record of having been to the Nova system. This is about to change.”

Seeing the eyes of the Black Jungle kids all go wide, he slid data chips over to each of the kids. “Those will give you all the basic information you will need to survive in the Nova system. But let me cover a few key things since some of you have very limited to zero off world experience. Nova IV is almost perfect Earth gravity, and slightly, just slightly less than what you are all used to. Its gravity is 1.03 to be precise where yours is 1.06. The other things anyone who travels to another world need to consider is radiation and air. On Nova IV you have no need to worry about air or star radiation beyond normal sunburn, but air isn’t quite as thick, so if you get into the mountains on the southern continent you could find it harder to breathe than you are used to.

“Nova VI, however, is bigger but has less mass. Its gravity is also very close to optimal at .981 Earth Standard. One of the reasons it has less mass is its core is smaller and thus doesn’t create the greatest EM fields. This means direct starlight from Nova’s sun can burn you more quickly and skin related problems including cancer is high for those living there. We will provide lightweight protective clothing and spray which are required to be used during daylight operations or when outside of a building during daylight hours. All of you and your people will receive training on this gear, and serious disciplinary write-ups will be handed out by your shadows should they notice anyone not properly protecting themselves. This includes you all. Not being properly protected during daylight hours when on Nova VI is an automatic week of hard labor and a multiple demerit offence. A second offence doubles this and a third offence will result in a demotion and being sent to New Israel IV for an offender’s full semester of hard labor at one of our prison work camps.”

Colonel Price made sure this message had sunk in before he continued. “Secondly, Nova VI is slightly oxygen poor, while you are actually oxygen rich here, so while at sea level on Nova VI it will feel like you are above 2000 meters here on Black Jungle. This means even moderately high altitudes on Nova VI could cause some oxygen deprivation problems for you or your people. We will give you some classes on recognizing the symptoms and you will all have the option of using one of your frame’s hard points for an oxygen enhancer. Anyone found to be getting any kind of oxygen deprivation sickness will be required to put in an enhancer. I strongly recommend you have a standard frame load-out and one with an enhancer ready so a changeover can be made quickly. Tell your people this is nothing to be ashamed of. There is no way to know who may be affected.

“Nova VI is also a colder planet, with the maximum recorded temperature twenty-nine. The average daytime temperature highs are around eighteen in the warmer regions. Nights, even in summer, can fall into the upper single digits, so we will provide cold weather gear for all of you as well. This is pretty much the opposite of Black Jungle, so it will feel pretty darned cold to most of you, even during the middle of the day in most regions. Also, just for the record, you will all be landing on Nova VI first. This is so your shadows can acclimate you to much drier climates and to make sure all of you recover properly from what for some of you will be your first fold.”

Colonel Price reached into the holographic display and touched Nova IV. The rest of the system vanished and was replaced with the very water heavy world and its three moons. “Our real objective is here. Nova IV was one of the first worlds to join the NFC following Andar. It has a long and proud history and was one of the founding worlds of the ABR. It has a sizable population, mostly in the southern hemisphere. As of last report, it has over 700,000,000 inhabitants. Its air is right on par with the best worlds and as you can see it has an abundance of water. The oceans are saline, but not overly so. Humidity levels tend to be high, but nothing like what I have found in many areas here on Black Jungle. If anything, some of you may dehydrate more quickly because humidity levels will be lower than most of you are used to.

“Nova IV is a plant and animal rich world. As you will see when you look at your data chips, there is over five thousand edible aquatic life forms in the waters, one hundred and eighty-nine are labeled extremely dangerous or worse, but most live in the deep waters.

“I will get all of you handhelds so you can take a picture and scan for all native edibles and non-edibles, but there will be things you come across not in the database or will not match up well enough for positive ID. Also keep in mind there will be no way to memorize all of them. The world is full of native vegetation and lots of islands have invasives, many of which are intentional. Those of you who like the Berries and Grape AIM dry rations may have noticed many of those are produced on Nova IV. Anyway, you will want to keep the planetary information chip we give you and use it often while you are there. However, don’t be surprised if you run across something edible you have seen elsewhere. Of the worlds in the ABR and now NFC, Nova IV is about as close to Earth as any world other than Forest Garden, Nottingham VII, and Azure Glade. Because of this, and the fact there are so many large islands to keep invasives localized, many Earth crops and animals were brought to Nova and there are some northern islands that specialize in some Earth foods for export across much of the known galaxy. I know of at least fifteen Black Jungle plants being farmed on Nova IV as well.

“While I am sure you all find this at least somewhat interesting, I know you all would like to know why you are going there. Well, simply put, Nova IV is a powerful world and it seems either Lord Talborne, Earth Core, or both have taken a keen interest in taking it over. Simply put, we cannot allow this to happen, but we are also very short on fighting forces. We sent in a combined arms squadron, but they have hit heavy resistance and we have intel suggesting Talborne and or EC allied reinforcements have been called in.

“Our squadron in the Nova system isn’t in a position to handle more than it already is, so they have requested any and all help. Forest Garden has scraped together a couple of ultra-green forces, which will arrive in the next day or so, but Major Goddard, Blood’s Honor’s on-site commander, has requested more help and Forest Garden thinks Shadow Brigade can find something else to send. After seeing you all in combat, and going over vids, I believe you will be a great addition to help bolster Blood’s Honor forces on Nova IV. I know this is throwing you all back into the fire, so I will also be assigning every team a full sixteen frame unit of BH volunteers to reinforce you and help you all out. They are there to help, not to carry the fight and I expect the officers in this room to command as if you don’t have the backups I am providing.

“Commander Mathis, I am designating your entire force to help bolster Major Goddard’s forces on Nova IV. However, Lieutenant Peller, I have a separate mission for you.”

He reached over and tapped the console causing the entire Nova system to reappear. He then reached out and touched Nova VI. “Your team is going to land on Nova VI, recon possible sites and destroy any EC or Talborne stations you find. One thing I know about Earth Core is they like to stash supplies close by. It is meant to provide quick resupply and demoralize those they fight. I have to admit the first few times I fought them, beat back a large military grouping, only to find them resupplied in the following days with brand-new equipment was quite a shock.

“However, now it is kind of like a game for me. I look at where they are likely to hide supplies and hit those areas first. This ends up reversing the effects, since their forces end up not having expected supplies and are the ones with low morale. After an extensive search of the system, the only easy place they have to base supplies out of is Nova VI. I know, they could bring in some from out of system, and in this case they called for help, so out of system help will be on the way. Nevertheless, they will want to place some supplies close by, so I would bet my next several pay checks on them sending some reserve supplies to Nova VI and I would bet an equal amount of money to some already being staged on Nova VI. This is especially true since EC frames have been seen on Nova IV.

“Now before you ask, Earth Core tends to be predictable in other aspects of their supply stashes. They use preexisting places to base out of if at all possible, so they don’t have to hide signs of stashes or new construction. and Nova VI has several town-sized settlements that have been abandoned as water dried up or mineral resources ran out. This means your urban skill sets will be perfectly suited for where I expect EC to base out of.

“Even better for you and your team, Blood’s Honor will run recon and make sure the first couple of places are free of EC forces, so you can get in some practice runs. I have to order you not to tell those under you and to treat them as if they could have hostiles. It will make for very realistic training. Besides, as with any poor water world with abandoned settlements, it is not uncommon for bandits, renegades, or broke merc units to base themselves out of such places. Should you come across any, it will be up to you to figure out how to deal with them.”

Oliver held up a hand and waited to get a nod from Colonel Price. “Sir, Black Jungle is over two folds away from the nearest Earth Core world. I’m pretty sure none of us have had any kind of serious identify friend foe training on Earth Core frames. Can we get some information on what kinds of frames, battle armor, platforms and aerospace they use?”

Colonel Price nodded even as he typed something into his handheld computer. Once he was done, he looked up, “Extremely good observation and an even better request. Blood’s Honor provides all cadets and new warriors extensive information on EC equipment. Because of this I didn’t realize you all didn’t. I will make sure you all get the basics and will add in couple of instructors into your squadron with a background in teaching EC threats. Anything else you all think we need to provide instruction on?”

Brice spoke up, “Sir, I’ve seen pictures of deserts before, but…”

Mitch nodded in full agreement, “Those of us on an urban skill set take less survival classes by default. If we are going to be spending a lot of time on Nova VI, my team is going to need a lot of help on everything from non-electronic navigation to finding food and collecting and purifying water.”

Again Colonel Price made some notes, “Non-electronic, huh?”

“More than half our nav training is nothing more than topo map, compass, sun, star with no electronics, sir.” Lieutenant Sastana jumped in. “Getting to know how the magnetic poles, the Nova sun’s sky position, and any obvious constellations visible from both worlds in both hemispheres would be something I think we all want and need. And I have been on an off-world survival class, but I’m with Mitch. I have no idea how I would survive in the middle of a giant desert with no real edibles.”

“Then consider it done. Anyone or anything else?”

Both Oliver and Brice spoke up at the same time. “Yeah one big one…” they stopped and exchanged grins at the timing and the exact same use of words.

Colonel Price couldn’t help but chuckle with the other kids in the room, “Alright, Oliver, you first.”

“I’m betting we have the same question, sir. We both want to know more about Earth Core tactics and strategies.”

The left side of Colonel Price’s lip twisted upwards, “Ah, now we are getting somewhere!” He quickly spun his chair around to face the three boys behind him, “Boys, step up and introduce yourselves!”

The pale skinned youngster stepped up to the table snapped to attention and spoke while staring straight forward, “I am Spawn Two One Three, Omicron Hive, Brood Delta 17,229 from Mars Farm Omega.”

The boy with sandy hair waited until the first boy stepped back then moved forward. “I am Spawn Nine, Omicron Hive, Brood Delta 17,229 from Mars Farm Omega.”

The dark skinned youngster took a step forward. His voice was deeper than the other two by quite a bit as he spoke, “I am Spawn Four Eight Six, Omicron Hive, Brood Delta 17,229 from Mars Farm Omega. The three of us have been selected by our Blood’s Honor sponsor, Colonel Price, from the survivors of our Brood to provide you any and all information you need or want on Earth Core. We are also all formally requesting to be allowed to fight next to you.”

Colonel Price let the kids around the table all exchange glances for a few seconds before he spoke up, “I can see you are all a bit bewildered by this…”

“Call it bewildered, if you want, sir,” Mitch spoke up, “but the words I’d use is more like weirded-out!”

Oliver glanced over, “Yeah, I’m with Mitch on this, sir.”

“Confused comes to mind.” Lieutenant Sastana joined in.

Brice glanced down the line of kids, over to Colonel Price, then back to the kids, “Well, um… me too, but if you all are really from some Mars work farm or something and know about Earth Core equipment, weapons, tactics, and the like, I say welcome. Looking at your uniforms, I’d also add in, I’d be honored to fight next to any or all of you. But, um, I really don’t want to call you by numbers. What are your names?”

The pale skinned boy’s right eyebrow went up, “Ensign, we just told you our names. I am Delta Two One Three.”

“OK…” Brice cocked his head to the side. “So you were given the designation of Two One Three. What did your mom and dad name you?”

“Sir, I have no parents. None of us do. We are Spawn.”

Brice blinked several times, clearly expecting more to be said. When the kid snapped back to attention, and Colonel Price put his hand behind his head and leaned back in his chair, Brice looked over to his brother, “Um, a little help here Ollie?”

Oliver frowned even as he stood, “OK, Delta Two One Three, I mirror my brother’s words. You and your buddies are more than welcome to join us, but we seem to have a, um…”

“Communication gap?” Mitch jumped in.

Oliver nodded and pointed back at Mitch, “Exactly!” He turned back to look at the boy, finding it very difficult to look into the extremely hard eyes of the smaller boy, “We have a communication gap.” He glanced over at the other two, then back at Two One Three. “How about you tell us a bit more about what a Spawn is and how come this means you don’t have a mom and dad?”

The slightest hint of frustration flickered across the facial features of Two One Three. After nearly a second of silence he took a deep breath, “Commander, with your permission, I formally request you allow Delta Nine to respond to your inquiry. Delta Nine is the best of the three of us in dealing with those outside our Brood.”

Colonel Price spoke up, “Delta Two One Three, I selected you to come here because you have shown a great deal of advancement in interpersonal skills around those outside of your Hive members. The three of you have all proven to your instructors you can go out into the markets and even towns without escorts. You are quite capable of answering.”

“I understand, sir, however…” for the first time since the kid had entered the room he truly looked uncomfortable.

Knowing he was missing something and suddenly feeling sorry for the kid Oliver reached out and patted the boy on the shoulder. As he did so he could feel and see the kid tighten up from head to toe. His initial response was to quickly withdraw his hand but forced himself not to. Instead he took a deep breath, “Hey, Two, relax…” He gripped the boy’s shoulder, then glanced back at his brother, “Brice, Two here has Torpedo, so he would be a good fit for your team, don’t you think?”

Mitch answered, sensing Oliver really was trying to break the ice with all three kids and Two One Three in particular. “Yeah, we’d love to have some more Torpedo certified pilots. Two, why don’t you come over here and sit between me and Brice?”

Concern, maybe even fear, could be seen in the boy as he swallowed, took an uneasy breath, and reluctantly moved over to the chair Brice was pointing to.

Oliver sidestepped over so he was standing between the other two kids, “Nine and Four, the two of you are going to join my frame force as long as you want to, so if you would please take a seat at the table with us?”

“Sir,” Nine spoke, “if you would allow. I feel it would be better for me to stand if I am going to respond to any and all enquiries you or your command staff may have about either us or Earth Core.”

Oliver nodded even as he moved over to Four Eight Six. He patted the kid on the back. As he did so, he realized the kid was every bit as solid as he looked. It was like trying to pat a brick. Figuring physically giving the smaller boy a push was not in his better interest, he forced a grin, “Impressive build. Four, you may as well as sit and get used to being around us. If you are really wanting to join us, we all need to get to know each other and be comfortable as well.”

“Understood, sir.” The boy barked out as he moved to a chair. Oliver looked at the two seated kids. Both were utterly ridged. “Four, Two, relax. We don’t bite.”

Nine gave a slight smile, “Maybe you don’t, Commander, but we have been known to.”

At this Colonel Price snickered, both at the boy’s words and the reactions of those around the table. “No scaring your new commanders, boys.”

At this Nine gave an earnest grin, while the corners of the mouths on the other two angled slightly upwards. Nine’s eyes took on a gleam, “As your people have shown us, sir, humor can often be found in a measure of truth.”

“Indeed it can,” Colonel Price agreed, “but this is the first time I have seen any of you display it, so I must say I am impressed. Now, why don’t you give my newest squadron command staff your basic history and see what questions they come up with.”

Nine snapped to attention, “At once, sir.” He then moved so he could easily see everyone in the room and took a more relaxed stance. He took a deep breath as he scanned those around the table, “Because many of you are just calling us by first numbers I will continue to do so. The three of us understand you do not mean this as a slight. Besides, one thing we have all been told is we will each have to select a more universally acceptable name now, since we are no longer in our Brood. However, when out in the field, should we encounter other Broods, not using a full name, um, number, when given will be seen as a serious insult. There is not many things we have as our own in the Brood, but our names are unique.”

Brice couldn’t hold his tongue, “What is a Brood, and why a number instead of a name?”

“Ensign, I will answer your questions immediately if you order me to do so. However, I request you let me go with what I prepared. I think it will answer many of your questions and I am still not very good at dealing with people I do not know.”

Oliver gave a waving motion with his hand, “Nine, this is now your show. We will not interrupt, but we will probably have many questions after.”

“I fully understand, Commander. I am sure I will fail to mention many things, since what I am going to tell you is what we all went through, I still think is normal. We have learned this isn’t true, but there are still many things you see as normal where we simply have no frame of reference.”

Oliver sent the boy a reassuring smile, “We will try to keep up, Nine. Go ahead.”

Nine took a second and a couple of long breaths. He then moved to stand as far away as the room would allow as he started talking. The way his voice sounded, and the mannerism told everyone this had been rehearsed dozens of times. “Hello, I am Spawn Nine, Omicron Hive, Brood Delta 17,229 from Mars Farm Omega. I know you have lots of questions as I say this, so I would like to start by breaking down who I am. First, I am not a normal human, I am a Spawn.

“What is a Spawn? Well, the easiest way for me to explain it is this way. I am a farmed being. I have no mother, no father, no lineage. The egg I started in was human made, the genetic material I am made out of was pulled from two vats, mixtures of human genetic material. The first vat came from females with traits idealized by Earth Core geneticists, the other half from males selected by those same geneticists. Who these people were, or are, I have no idea, no Spawn does.

“Even if we did know, the genetics are altered as they are injected into the egg I came from. Key genes are targeted and enhanced. This includes healing and immunities. As a Spawn, I heal faster and have a long list of immunities to countless human viruses. All three of us are very interested to see if we can get what your world calls ‘the Smut’. My best guess is I can’t, but maybe Black Jungle’s unique sickness will get past our superior genetics. If it does, I will be interested to see what it is like to get sick. I do not remember ever being ill.

“Second, I am Nine. I was the ninth male to emerge from the banks of birthing chambers lining the walls of Delta Pod of Mars Farm Omega. Delta Pod has 775 birthing chambers. All contained males. Some other pods have nothing but females. I do not know how many, but I have heard Mars Farm Omega makes two-thirds male and one-third female Spawn.

“Third, I am part of Omicron Hive. The Hive is where we spend our first six years. We do so with many other Pods. It is relatively safe and ultra-regimented. My first memories are being trained to listen to our mentors. Mentors are the adults who take care of everything from feedings, to bathing, to teaching us how to speak, walk, and follow all rules. Mentors all carry shock crops, a slender flexible stick. At first, they would strike us with it a single time when we failed to follow rules. By the time we were four, it was done with the shocking ability on.

“While most I have spoken to are appalled by this, let me reiterate, being in the Hive is our safe place. It was fair, it was basically warm, we had food, we had medical care, and we had someone to go to. Although, crying was not tolerated after our fifth year of life. But this was to prepare us for Brood training.

“This leads me into the next part of who I am. I am Delta Brood 17,229. I am the ninth Spawn to emerge from the 17,229th time Delta Pod produced a mass birthing. Until I entered the sixth year of my life, I was not Brood, I was simply Spawn. The marking of the beginning of my sixth year I was removed from the Hive and entered Brood training. Of the 775 of us to emerge from Delta Pod, 721 of us were moved into our Brood pod. We do not know what happened to the fifty-four of us who did not move over with us, but all were weak. None had learned not to cry when being struck by the shock crop.

“Everything changed from the first hours after our arrival in the Brood pod. There was limited climate controls. The pod was hot, over thirty degrees, and there were only five hundred bunks. Our Brood instructors came, introduced themselves, and made it clear if we wanted a bunk, we would have to claim it. They also gave us a handful of rules. Always obey the instructor, no matter what the command. When there were no instructors, and during lights on, there were no rules. When the lights dimmed we had to get to our bunks, when the red lights came on, all those who were in bunks had bunks for the night. Only those in bunks would get rations. When green lights came on it was class time and we had to go to school. School time was safe, even when learning combat. Although, I broke four bones in my first two years of combat training in the Brood pod. Most broke more or had more serious injuries.”

Nine paused and looked over to Colonel Price, “Sir, may I have liquid?”

“I’ll get you all some refreshments. If you wish to pause…”

“No need sir, I am just getting a dry mouth. I am not used to talking this much. And this is much harder with others looking at me than when I practiced alone.”

“You are doing very well. Continue. I will be right back. While I am gone, Commander Mathis is in command.”

Nine snapped to attention, “Understood, sir!” He then turned to Oliver as soon as Colonel Price left the room, “Sir, what are your orders?”

Oliver cocked his head to the side, “To be honest, I am really waiting to hear more about what happened in the Brood pod.”

“Yes, sir.” Nine loosened up some again. “The first few days in the Brood pod was…”

Four Eight Six spoke up, “Terrifying.”

“Sordid,” Two One Three muttered.

Nine nodded, “The word I picked was brutal. However, the other two apply every bit as much as the one I selected. At first we didn’t really understand. A few took bunks and didn’t leave them. Others opened windows and tried to get the place more comfortable. It wasn’t any use. It was hot outside, and with over seven hundred of us in the room, it got even hotter. There was a bank of sinks and waste stations, so there was water and a place to go, but the water was warm and slightly rusty. It got better as we used it more, so it must not have been used for a while or something.

“When the lights dimmed the first time there were several empty bunks. The instructors came in and handed a meal pack to those in bunks and left. An hour later the red light came on and those who were not in a bunk slept on the floor. The next day the lights came on. I was real hungry by the time the lights dimmed again. Lots of us were. We raced to beds. I made it. Most didn’t fight for one, but a few did.

“When meals were handed out, nothing was said about those who fought and some of us gave some of our food to those who didn’t get any. By the fourth or fifth time the lights dimmed, however, there were all out brawls over getting a bunk. I got pulled off mine by Six One One, and didn’t get a meal, and ended up with a few scraps. The next time I smacked Six One One’s head into the floor and kneed Nine Eight in the groin to get a bunk. This went on for like two weeks. By the time it was over the instructors had pulled out over eighty Spawn who either were too badly hurt or deemed too weak.

“The instructors then came in and told us any sharing of meals would lead to serious punishments. It took only another five days for our Brood to drop to five hundred. Also by then, the pod smelled of sweat, blood, and urine and feces. The instructors finally gave us a day to clean, opened up access to showers, and gave us two meals. We had made the first cut. At this point we were Brood and our training really began…”

Next to Brice, Two One Three let out a sigh, “Then came the endurance and combat training. By the time we landed on New Bravaria there was one hundred and sixty-nine of us. We were in our ninth year.”

Oliver’s jaw dropped, “You were sent in by Earth Core at age nine?”

Four Eight Six nodded, “Yes, we were sent to attack a merc camp, on a heavily mined side of a ridge as a distraction so an Earth Core strike group could use us as a diversion and take the camp and the supply depot. We lost over half of us and the rest of us were pulled out of our Socim frames, given ballistic rifles with twenty rounds each and sent to clear another minefield after the attack on the depot failed. We would have all been slaughtered, but one of us did the unthinkable. He defected.”

“Defected?” Brice asked.

Nine nodded, “We are jumping well ahead, but yes. One of our Brood killed our two trainers and went to Blood’s Honor… Delta Seven Six Three. He is why we’re here, why we are alive. Well, him and Colonel Price, General Scott, and Major Beck… But the exact events of what led Blood’s Honor Cadet frames dropping in on us with auto tranq rifles and capturing us is not known by any of us. Besides you are getting way ahead of where I was ready to go. I wanted to tell you about our endurance training, the trials and tests that whittled our Brood down from five hundred at our sixth year to less than two hundred by the time we hit our ninth year.”

“Tranq rifles?” Mitch asked with confusion, “Why?”

Nine shot Mitch a smirk, “Because… Two One Three, if you would please.”

Without warning Two One Three jumped up, pulled his stunner, and shot Nine.

Nine rocked back, pulled his own stunner and shot Two One Three.

Two One Three flinched, shook his head and fired a second shot, only knocking Nine back another step.

Nine then shot Two One Three a second time.

Two One Three wiped at a trickle of blood coming down out of his nose and shot Nine a third time.

Colonel Price quickly entered the room and verbally shut off the weapons discharge alarm while sending an all clear to the bridge. He then looked at the two boys holding stun pistols. “Oh, so this is what you all do for fun when the cadre are not around, huh?”

Four Eight Six busted out in laughter, “No sir, but it does provide a way to let off some steam when we are treated like we are still in the Hive.”

Sastana looked back and forth between the two boys, “There is no way! Those have to be low power!”

“Really?” Nine stated with real anger as he pulled up his pistol and fired.

Sastana’s eyes rolled back in her head and she was unconscious before she fell off the chair.

Nine then looked terrified as he put down the pistol and took a step back, shaking like a leaf.

Colonel Price moved to stand between Nine and the others, even as the other two Spawn started to pull blades on Nine. “Sheath weapons boys!” He then glanced behind him, “No real harm done, Nine, and point proven. However, two days of hard labor for shooting an officer without first asking.”

“Yes sir! Totally deserved, sir!”

Colonel Price looked down at Sastana as she was helped back to her chair by Oliver and Four Eight Six. He waited for her to regain some of her senses before letting out a long breath, “And you, young lady, get to join him for insulting all three of these young men instead of asking. Now are there any questions on why my son and several other cadets went in with auto tranq rifles instead of sonic stunners?”

Brice shook his head, “No, sir, but um, sir, can you get us a few more like these three?”

“Why?”

“Because having them on my side and with me makes me feel safer already!”

Cory moved down the ravine, sticking to the west side, while Paula did the same on the east side. Both kids moved with remarkable stealth given the footing. With precision showing untold hours of training, neither sent telltale rocks sliding down the embankments even though they were steep and loose rocks were abundant. They also blended in to their surroundings and used every drop of natural cover to prevent themselves from being seen.

Twice Cory looked across to see if he could spot Paula but didn’t. He hoped this meant she was as good as it seemed, but there was no telling if she was keeping up with him or not. He sure expected her to keep pace with him. However, splitting up had been her idea just in case one of them slipped up and made a mistake. Just by the tone of her voice, Cory knew she felt she had the better chance of going undetected alone, so he didn’t argue. Truth was, he figured he had a better chance going on his own as well.

Fifteen minutes later the rocky slope leveled out into rough grasslands a few hundred meters below where the ravine widened out. Right at this transition area, Cory spotted his target. With a careful eye, he scanned the small encampment of two Javelin APCs, a Slasher Tracked Platform, and a Barracuda Field Support Hover Platform. All had new paint jobs and the circling dolphin-like fish with a six in the middle marking them as Ulysses 6th Armor. It was a bigger group than he expected to see. However, after only a minute of observation he picked up on a few key things.

First there were two men working on a serving line set up on the left side of the Barracuda. This meant they were getting a meal ready. Second, there were only three obvious guards out, including one on the Slasher’s upper machinegun. All three guards were focused out, away from the rocky ridge, meaning they were not prepared for problems coming from the rocks. Third, there were four eight-man tents, but none showed signs of movement.

Last but far from least, the two Javelin APCs had small piles of trash next to them. In addition, the bivouac site had camp showers hooked onto the APC’s sides, along with solar-powered humidity collectors. Both APCs also had 250-liter water tanks secured to the roofs. Cory tapped a button on the side of his filter mask, pulling up the telescopic enhancement and focused in on the water tanks. Much to his satisfaction he was able to pick out a green blinking light under both tanks. This told Cory the tanks were over eighty percent full. It was laziness at its worst. Each tank currently weighed at least 200 kilos and the way they were mounted prevented the top turrets from covering a full 360 degrees. Even worse, the two APCs had been parked in a ‘V’ to provide extra cover from the wind while the Barracuda was parked at the top of the ‘V’ and it didn’t have a turret. For Cory, this was akin to a criminal flaw in the camp set-up because the fields of fire blocked by the water storage tanks overlapped. This left a large dead spot in the direction of the rocks.

The sloppiness didn’t end there. The tents were between the rocks and the vehicles, while the Slasher was parked slightly further out. This meant the outer two vehicles’ guns were effectively blocked by the two APCs and the tents. With all the real firepower focused outward, the whole camp was all but undefended from his current position. With a shrug, he angled down the rocks making sure to keep a tent or boulder between him and the two men working on the serving line. It only took five minutes for him to slide under the wheels of the closest Javelin.

Cory put his back to the center left tire and listened for any indication he had been spotted or he had set off an unseen sensor. There was no change within the camp. The very fact the two men setting up the serving line started complaining about KP duties and the nasty freeze-dried potatoes they were about to serve made it abundantly clear no one inside the camp had noticed anything at all. The total lack of security caused Cory to smirk.

Cory low crawled to the very back of the Javelin to see if he could spot Paula. It took only a few seconds. She had done almost the exact same thing and was under the second Javelin. Seeing her point to the escape hatch under the vehicle she was under, Cory gave a quick thumbs-up and slid to where he was directly under the center of the vehicle and reached up. With a slow pull and twist he tested the latch. Since it moved, it was not secure from the inside. Also, as easy as it moved, there was no question it had been recently serviced and oiled. A quick glance inside, told him the hatch to the front of the vehicle was open and the person manning the controls was playing some kind of holo-vid game.

With a frown at how easy this all seemed, he pushed the hatch back up and slid the latching mechanism back until it was barely closed. At this point he pulled off one of the hooks on his gyro rifle taking the shoulder strap off the bottom. He then wedged the hook into the latch, so it didn’t snap back to being fully latched. This was made almost stupidly easy since the Zip Tech latching mechanism was cheaply made with a single heavy spring and the access to replace it was nothing more than a sliding panel secured by a hand twist nut. The whole process took Cory less than half a minute. He then scooched back over to the center wheel, put his back to it and tapped his radio with one long and two short bursts, saying nothing.

At the same time, Paula was a little more aggressive with her approach. She opened her hatch a smidge and peeked in. The back crew compartment was empty. This really didn’t surprise her. The seating in the back of the Javelin was designed for ten, but it was absurdly tight when one considered combat gear and weapons. The seats were fixed, non-padded metal and next to each seat was a slot to secure a rifle. Above each seat was a square box for putting a combat pack, meaning the only place to stand was in the center aisle, which was really too narrow to disgorge ten infantry all carrying combat packs and rifles. Quite simply, there was no way anyone would or could comfortably rest inside.

Like Cory, Paula waited with the hatch held only a few centimeters open, waiting, almost expecting an alarm to sound. None did. After another few seconds, she lowered the hatch and crawled up it, using it like a ramp. As soon as she was inside, she pulled it closed, taking her time to hold the internal latch back and nearly silently slid it closed. She then stayed flat on the floor, removed her boots, and slowly moved into a crouch position.

Paula edged up to the forward compartment and gradually pulled the securing latch up, using her shoulder so she could apply even force with her legs. She cringed with each sound it made, but finally got the door open. She braced herself, ready for someone to investigate what she guessed had to have been heard, however after nearly ten seconds there was no indication the hiss of metal on metal had been noted. She was now committed and she knew it.

She reached up to her radio just as she heard Cory’s ‘ready signal’. She smiled to herself as she gave two short and one long burst of silent communication, telling the others she, too, was in a good position and standing by.

Up on the ridgeline, Lawson put his back to a boulder as he heard the clicks over his radio. He let out a long breath and responded with a long short followed by a long click of his radio. He put his back to a large rock, looked up to make sure the barrel of his rifle was not sticking up above the boulder and rolled his neck. The last several days had been beyond harsh. He was exhausted, his skin was lightly burned, his hands and feet hurt, and he was pretty certain every muscle in his body ached to some degree.

Part of him wanted to close his eyes just for a minute, but he knew if he did, he would be sound asleep just when he was finally really needed. Ever since joining Blood’s Honor, he really felt like an outsider. It wasn’t like Joel and the others were standoffish, or even haughty, but he just wasn’t one of them. He just wanted to really fit in. Dealing with the insanity Cory was putting them through seemed at the time to be a way in, to understand the kids he was with better. No, putting up with this wasn’t on his wish list. It wasn’t on any list, other than maybe events to put into some horror holo-vid.

This was doubly true, since Lawson found just about everything Cory was coming up with both cruel and vile. No one should have to deal with what Lawson could only define as torture. However, Cory wasn’t just forcing this on a group of new kids. He was participating. He was showing he could handle it all and a few times Joel, Gabriel, Karen, Brandon and Chip stepped in to show they could deal with it as well. As sick as it seemed, there was several times Cory purposefully did more to himself and the core group of Blood’s Honor cadets than he was asking everyone else to do. The other thing was, Cory clearly enjoyed showing how much he could deal with. This made getting the toned down ‘trials’ seem mild. The truth was, however, there was nothing mild about most of ‘endurance training’.

On the other hand, all of this gave Lawson some insights into Joel and several of the others. Most had done this and according to Cory took refreshers. Why? Well, he had no good answer, but they had. It was a matter pride to them. The thing Lawson still was trying to understand is why Terrin and a couple of the others were still so accepted, when they either failed out or refused to participate. It really didn’t make sense.

Lawson’s thoughts where brought to an abrupt halt as a long, short, long series of clicks came over his radio. This was the signal Cory had set up to let everyone know Liam could be seen by those in the camp. He winced as he rolled out from behind the boulder, stayed prone, and spotted Liam. He waited until Liam was fully out in the open, then let loose with a single shot of his gyro rifle, shattering a rock off to Liam’s right.

Liam responded with a burst from the assault rifle at nothing really. Dirt and dust kicked up from the hill over a hundred meters off to Lawson’s left.

As the exchange of fire was heard within the camp, the men on the serving line dove for cover. At the same time, those on a rest cycle within the tents scrambled out. Lawson took advantage of the initial confusion, lined up on the machine gunner on top of the Slasher and fired. The results were not initially noted by those in the camp, but through the scope on the gyro rifle, Lawson could easily see the body slumped over the gunner shield and spotted blood running down the side of the platform.

Knowing the heavy weapon was out of action at least for a few seconds, Lawson rested his gyro rifle on the rock, pulled the micro missile pistol off his shoulder holster and fired a snapshot in the general direction of the serving line before grabbing his rifle and rolling to get the bulk of the rock formation between him and the camp.

The moment Paula heard the first exchange of fire, she jumped through the door leading to the driver’s compartment, flipped her katana’s shoulder strap over the pilot’s neck and yanked back.

The woman behind the seat kicked and flailed while trying to reach for the gunnery controls for the turret.

Paula kicked the seat lever allowing the seat to spin and spun the seat around, while keeping hard even pressure on the strap. This put the woman facing to the back where she couldn’t reach any of the controls. At the same time, Paula spoke in a voice devoid of all emotion, “If you reach for any kind of weapon, you’re dead. If you don’t you’ll eventually wake up. Your choice.”

She then kept pressure on the strap as the woman’s hands tried to pull the strap from around her neck. At the same time, Lawson’s micro missile shot hit the serving line and exploded, causing the petrochem heating fuel tank to detonate as well. Even as Paula felt the woman lose strength, runny grayish-white mashed potatoes splattered over the front window obscuring a view both in and out of the vehicle.

With a hand still keeping some pressure on the strap around the woman’s neck, she reached over and hit the controls to drop the back ramp.

Paula waited until she felt the woman go slack. She loosened up on the pressure enough to allow some breathing, even as she reached over and swiveled the turret enough for the barrels of the twin machineguns to bump into the water tank. While she waited for people in the tents to run to the safety of the APC, Paula pulled the woman off the seat and delivered a single hard shot to the side of her head with the back of her katana. Knowing the pilot was out and would stay out, she moved to the hatch to the back and pulled out the stun grenade.

Cory pulled a stun grenade, opened the hatch again and rolled the grenade toward the front of the APC. He then shut the bottom hatch. Even as the bulk of the food from the serving line was raining down over the camp, the grenade went off causing a bright flash to come from the windows of the APC. No one noticed since most were either still struggling to grab weapons and get out of the tents or were down on the ground looking at where the smoke trail from the micro missile came from. Two men fired up at the rock formation.

Cory dropped the hatch, looked in and saw the guy in the pilot seat leaning to the right with drool coming out of the corner of his mouth. Satisfied, the guy wasn’t going to recover anytime soon, he closed the hatch and shot the open spring compartment with his laser pistol melting some of the metal.

Knowing it would be extremely difficult to force it open, he rolled out from under the APC and made it over to the Slasher. He got to it just as the top turret started to spin the main gun toward the rocks and the engine sent power to the tracks with a roar.

Seeing the top gunner with a hole through the middle of his chest, Cory grinned even as he scurried up the side. As soon as he reached the top he pulled another stun grenade, twisted it to a two second detonation, yanked the top hatch and tossed the grenade in while slamming the hatch shut. Cory had just enough time to shove the dead body out of his way and roll over the top of the hatch.

A moment later the hatch bucked hard under him, popping him up several centimeters. He let out a slight snarl as the metal left a deep bruise on his right side, but he still managed a pained grin. He knew by how much force was directed upward, the bottom escape hatch had held, meaning the vast majority of the concussion wave had been contained within.

Cory ignored the fact he was covered with the blood of the dead gunner. Instead he yanked the hatch open and dropped in. A single look around told him the three-man crew were out. The driver was slumped over controls, the loader was lying under the ammo rack with an explosive tipped shell on his clearly broken left arm, and the gunner was convulsing, while blood leaked out of her ears, nose and corner of her right eye.

He shoved the driver’s body off the chair, hit the controls to take control of both the turret and the front guns, and spun the turret in the direction of the Barracuda. Since he had a near point-blank shot, he lined up and put a shot into the engine compartment. The armor piercing round blew right through the armored housing and destroyed the engine, killing all power to the vehicle, including its twin front lasers.

Further back on the ridge, Saul and Tracy watched as sporadic fire peppered the rock Lawson was behind, while Liam hustled down toward the camp occasionally turning to fire a three-round burst up the ravine. This caused a couple of others in the camp to fire up the ravine as well, even though there was nothing there to shoot at.

With a shrug, Saul used one of the captured assault rifles with a single shot grenade launcher under the barrel to launch an explosive round into the camp. While he really saw no reason to reduce casualties, he did as instructed and fired long, aiming at the side of the far APC, knowing it would mark the armor but was unlikely to breach it. His shot was not a good one. The wind took it even further than Saul wanted it to go. It burst harmlessly as it hit the ground on the far side of the APC.

Tracy, on the other hand, lined up a carefully aimed shot on the petrochem tank for heating one of the showers. It blew, spaying the area with razor sharp bits of metal from the tank, while catching the closest tent on fire.

Those caught in the open grabbed a couple of wounded and ran toward the open back ramp of the APC Paula was in.

Paula waited until she heard several in the back before she closed the back assault ramp. She paused to give all of those in the back a few seconds to feel safe before she opened the hatch between the pilot area and the back. She quickly tossed in the stun grenade, slammed the door, and pulled down on the latch. On the other side she heard a man shout a warning, even as she opened her mouth and put thumbs into her ears.

Paula saw the latch move but whoever was on the other side never got it open. The grenade went off first. Even though Paula had a hatch between her and the back, reverberation could both be heard and felt. She shook her head and pulled the door open with her katana out. It took only a few seconds before she sheathed it. There were seven men and women all down in the back. An eighth one was trying to crawl out from under a man wearing sergeant rank with his head split open from where he had fallen against one of the metal seats.

Paula stepped on a couple of the bodies to get to the struggling man. She waited for him to pull himself mostly free before she reached down, grabbed the back of his head and slammed it down onto the metal floor. She felt as the guy weakly tried to pull free, so she drove his head and face into the floor a couple more times. She stepped on two more, kicking one in the face who was still moving before she reached over and opened the back hatch.

She rolled out with her katana ready, only to find the few survivors down on knees, holding up hands. A single look around told her why. The Slasher had both its front machineguns pointed at those in the camp, while Liam stood over an older teen who was down on the ground rolling around in agony with both hands holding onto his face. Blood could be seen oozing from around the teen’s fingers, while the butt of Liam’s rifle had both skin and blood on it. Liam stood over the older teen ready to bring the butt of the rifle down again.

Behind Liam, Jason and Derek stood ready, panning their weapons over the few who managed to come out of the sneak attack unhurt. Neither seemed interested in coming between Liam and the teen.

Paula eyed Liam, “I gather you know him?”

“Yeah,” Liam snarled and trembled in anger. He started to raise the butt of the rifle to bring it down again.

Paula stepped between them. “Liam, take a breath and look at him. If you still need to pound him again after thinking this over, I’ll move.”

Liam stood there glaring at Paula for a few seconds, saying nothing. As soon as she stepped aside, he moved up and slammed his rifle butt into the teen’s gut knocking the air out of him and cracking a couple of ribs. He then kicked the young man in the nuts as hard as he could, even as the teen let out a silent scream. With his hands moved down to his groin, everyone could see the teen’s nose was flat, his lips were split wide open, and he was missing several teeth from what had to have been more than one rifle butt shot to the face.

Breathing hard, Liam spit on the young man before backing off. “You’re damned lucky she talked me down. The next time we see each other…” He then spun and walked away while adding, “Just hope we never do.”

Cory drug the crew out of the Slasher, unceremoniously dropping them out of the side hatch and into the pool of blood created from the gunner Lawson had killed. He then stayed in control of the tracked platform until all the Ulysses warriors were stripped to underclothing and thoroughly searched. He watched as each of the hands of the survivors were secured with disposable restraints found in the Barracuda. Finally, he jumped out of the tracked platform and looked over the two dozen surviving combatants. He couldn’t help but smile as the adults stared at him in shock as the others with him addressed him as the commander.

The highest ranking members of the encampment scanned those holding weapons on him and his people. Even though his head was pounding and his ears were ringing so badly he had a hard time hearing, he glared at Cory, “OK, kid you and your friends escaped somehow, so now what?”

A smirk spread across Cory’s face, “You don’t have to shout, some of us can still hear.”

The lieutenant cocked his head to the side, “Huh?”

Cory chuckled as he spoke loudly, “I guess I do have to shout at you, but we all can hear just fine.”

The guy shook with rage but stayed down on his knees. “You have nowhere to go, kid. None of you do! What are you going to do? Are you going to live here the rest of your miserable lives on this nasty rock?”

Saul stepped up, snorting as he did so, “Not really what we had in mind, but living here free has got to be better than living here with your miserable boots on our necks!”

“Freedom?” the man snarled with total contempt. “You know nothing about freedom. You will all be hunted down…”

Jason moved up and put his hand on Saul’s shoulder, “You already tried. The whole reason we took this camp is you sent a squad after us!”

A young woman spoke up from behind the lieutenant, “We weren’t looking for you…”

The lieutenant turned his head and shouted back, “None of you say another word!”

Cory stepped up and shot the man with a sonic stunner at point-blank range and let him fall face first into the rocky soil. He then moved up to the woman, “You were wearing an ensign uniform, so unless I missed someone, you are now the highest ranking member of this unit. So, if you would, please continue.”

The woman looked at the stunner in Cory’s hand and noted the boy’s facial features showed no emotion over stunning her lieutenant. She gulped, “What’s in it for us?”

“Ah, negotiation,” Cory put on a fake grin, “how about we hand each one of you a basic pack, a change of clothing and we stick the emergency kit from the Barracuda, a few days of food and a handful weapons at the rock formation sticking up over there.” Cory pointed to a crumbling rock spire about ten kilometers out into the grassy plain.

A sergeant next to the ensign spoke up, “How do we know…”

Cory turned and shot him with the stunner, shrugged as he face-planted, and turned back to the ensign. “I hate being interrupted. It’s just so rude, don’t you agree?”

The young woman gulped and nodded, “Uh huh…”

“Good to see we are on the same page. Now, before anyone else decides they want to get shot with the stunner I captured, let me state the obvious. Right now, you all have everything you are going to get unless you make a deal. I really don’t care if you believe we are going to leave you anything or not. What I will guarantee you is we are going to take everything we can out of the support hovercraft and then burn it. We have all either seen machines come toward smoke plumes or have heard you and your scum bucket buddies talk about them.

“One way or the other we are going to leave and you will be real close to a burning vehicle. You will have to run. You can either tell us what we want to know and have a chance at a few weapons and some food or have a guarantee of nothing. After the way you treated those of us on Andar, you deserve whatever you get. At least I am willing to give you a chance, which is more than you all gave those you left lying on the Andar academy grounds or who have been tortured or killed here.”

The ensign looked to her right and then to her left. Those in her line of sight all looked terrified, but they also either nodded for her to talk or did nothing. She could see tears on a couple of the younger faces as well. It was impossible to tell if they were tears of shame, fear, or both. She glanced down at her still unconscious lieutenant, took a deep breath and looked up at a face way too innocent looking to be so… harsh… “OK, young Cadet, I’ll take the chance you are going to follow through. We are out here looking for dozens of kids who escaped from the Jade Lion drilling station, including a Blood’s Honor cadet and some VIP adults. We were told they escaped during a machine assault, but they managed to take frames and some platforms. We were sent to scout for signs of them, then call in a frame unit to take them down if we found them.”

Cory didn’t even blink, “Blood’s Honor? From what we’ve heard out of you all, they kicked your butts, not the other way around.”

A senior sergeant spoke up, “Oh, they all but wiped us out kid. The ensign wasn’t there. Matter of fact, I am one of four in this patrol who was there. They cleaned our clocks, and all but wiped us out, along with almost an entire frame force commanded by Lord Talborne’s oldest son. But we still managed to take a few of them. Most were taken to Ulysses, but a few of the cadets who gave us the most problems were shunted here. Of the eight I know of on this rock, seven have escaped at least once, three of them got out two times and one, the one we are after is on his fourth. But this time he took several others with him including the son of a merc commander, a handful of planetary government members from a few important worlds, and we think they took at least three Ulysses cadets, all of whom have higher-up parents in the Ulysses government.”

The ensign let out a long breath, “And our commanders want those cadets back.”

Paula scowled deeply. The whole thing didn’t make sense to her. She stepped up behind Cory, “Why are Ulysses cadets, especially those with connected parents, here?”

Cory looked back over his shoulder as the pieces fit together in his brain, “The same reason Earth Core takes kids of senior officers to off world encampments before major assaults. It’s to make their mommies and daddies behave and continue to support Lord Talborne.”

Derek rubbed his chin, “So are you saying Lord Talborne doesn’t really have full support back home?”

The sergeant spat into the ground, “You said it kid, not us.”

“But you ain’t arguing,” Lawson noted aloud.

“No kid,” another sergeant responded, “no we aren’t. Not sure what good any of this does you, but do we have a deal?”

Cory kept his face totally neutral while secretly being thrilled, “Yeah, we’ll give you each a small pack and drop some supplies out at the rock. It’ll give us plenty of time to get clear of here before you have even a chance of finding help.”

Candice woke to the feeling of a nudge on her shoulder. She rolled over and blinked a few times. It took another couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust enough in the low light to make out Xylon. With a groan she sat up and turned the dial of the light up so she could see better. “What… Why… Did they find us?”

“No, we’re secure.”

Candice let out a long breath, “Good.” She then paused and yawned. “So what time is it?”

“Just after 0300 local, 1400 planetary standard.”

“These long days are a killer. I want to get up before sun-up and I am tired before the sun goes down. I hate this world! I have never been this screwed up and this is the ninth world I have been to!”

“Gave all of us fits for the first couple of weeks and many of us, like Basil, it still does,” Xylon snickered. “With just over a thirty Earth-hour planetary rotation, seconds are 1.27 of an Earth-second and an hour here is 76.2 Earth minutes. It’s the longest I have ever been on. But I’d prefer this over the days on Storm Sea II. With a less than eighteen Earth-hour planetary rotation, days flew by and I never got enough sleep at night. Making matters worse, there were heavy storms most nights, so what little time there was for solid sleep was full of massive thunder claps. Trust me, after spending four months there, I’ll take long hours over short ones all day, every day.”

“I think giving every world a twenty-four hour day based on rotation is stupid.” Candice complained. “I mean, we have to track Earth time for our ages and to synchronize military ops, so why not just use Earth time everywhere?”

“Because then we would be getting up in the middle of the night some days and during the day other times. It is better to have a set schedule by planetary rotation so the times of day match where the star is in the sky. I sure wouldn’t want to go to school in the middle of the night one day, early in the daylight hours the next, and late in the day the next. Besides plants and animals either adjust to world day rotations or don’t survive.”

Candice gave a light snarling sound, “OK, you win…” She glanced at clock on the solar recharging light unit, then looked back over at Xylon. “So why wake me up at 0306 in the morning?”

“Well…” Xylon started then stopped. He looked away, “Look Danni, I had a long talk with Basil and Sophia…”

“You all want to leave?”

“No, no, no,” Xylon waved his hands back and front on himself. “Not even close.”

“OK…” Candice let out a sigh of relief, “So what then?”

“We were all just thinking maybe you ought to rethink how we are doing this whole thing.”

“I already told you, I no commander…”

“I know, I know. But let’s face it; neither am I. And worse I am not fully trusted by the others. It’s getting better, but no way will some of them ever see past what Ulysses military and even cadets put them through since getting here. Plus, they all know it was my world behind the attack on Andar. I bet everyone you pulled out of the work camp lost close friends because of what Lord Talborne did. There is no getting totally past any of it. If the others start realizing I am the one giving the orders, there will be problems we don’t want or need.”

“So what do you think I should do?”

Xylon looked away to hide the look he knew was rolling down his face. He also started to understand what Candice meant. She really wasn’t a command type leader. She was a good, actually very good subordinate officer, but making the hard decisions simple wasn’t in her make-up. This also meant the plan he was trying to make Candice come up with probably wasn’t going to happen. He would have to spell it out for her.

Once Xylon centered himself on this fact, he forced his facial features to go as neutral as he could and made sure to keep any edge out of his voice, “Danni… No, let’s use real names, Candice, you rescued all of us, even Sophia, Basil and me. You all but singlehandedly took out a Ulysses outpost in doing so. You earned all the admiration you have been given and the full respect of everyone here. But you’re twelve years old. So am I. We have senior academy cadets who are fifteen, and two framers who are fourteen. We also have six adults. Now I know only one has military experience and she is not doing well at all, but there are others who could and should take charge.

“At the same time Basil, Sophia and I also think you should come clean, or at least build your background story around your real past. Tell them you were with Blood’s Honor. Tell them after Andar you joined one of the fleeing merc units. Hell, Basil suggests saying you were here on a field study last year and you know there was an abandoned crashed supply pod left on this mountain somewhere and you were one of the ones with access codes.”

“And say what? Blood’s Honor just left all those supplies here?”

“Why not? Say you recovered another stash and did your mission, killed some machines, and they left this and a couple of others here for the next groups, but then Andar happened and you figure no one has come back.” Xylon suddenly snapped his fingers, “Hey, there is a good cover story for you. Say your merc group was going after the abandoned supplies when you got separated in the sandstorm. Say they got to one site and recovered a lot of stuff, so you know there is still stuff out there and this mountain is where one of the pods or whatever is!”

Candice ran her hand through her hair and twirled it for several seconds. “Yeah, I can see everyone buying such a story. It would also explain my Blood’s Honor AIM number when it comes up and why a poor merc unit would be willing to pick me up at my age.”

Xylon nodded, “Pretty much what Basil came up with. You can still say your name is Danni if you want, just to hide who you really are, but at least use a huge amount of truth to build your background on.”

“Yeah, I can’t let out who I really am. I’ve heard I’m wanted by Lord Talborne himself. So I say I am Danni… I keep the name Danni… um, then I guess I need to say I was hired… But by who?”

“I know the Ulysses 9th Infantry wiped out a team sized merc unit by the name of Lomax’s Raiders, captured and renamed their PLC and SFC. Field Marshal Korjell claimed both for himself after he was promoted after Blood’s Honor took out the command ship in charge of the attack on Andar. All the members of the merc unit are supposedly dead and if any really did survive, they would have to change their name with AIM since Lomax owned all the major equipment. Because there isn’t a unit left to dispute you were with them and since Lomax was confirmed as killed, you can say the survivors rescued and then hired you. In exchange, you told them about the supply drops here and offered to help them get one or two of the drops to help them rebuild. Even if someone bothers to check, they will not find any sign of the small Forager class SFC or the Reaper class PLC since they are now owned by the Ulysses military and have different names. Plus, going after abandoned supplies on a machine world isn’t stealing, it is salvaging, so there is no crime. The fact you have a code is simply a bonus.”

“And this way we can all look for the supplies, yeah, makes sense.” Candice scowled, “Then what?”

Xylon found it hard to believe Candice had really been a BHJMA Command College cadet officer, but quickly dismissed the thought. She was obviously very skilled and deadly, so she probably got promoted because of skills. He bet there was little chance she would have gained any higher ranks. Still, it was a bit annoying to have to spell it out, but he did so without any hint of anger in his voice. “It really wouldn’t be up to you if you hand over command to one of the older kids. If I were you, I’d recommend to whoever takes over we try to free some aero cadets and steal a ship from the mine and head up to one of the SFCs in it. I know there are small cloaked EC SFCs coming and going. Personally, I say we dock with one, take it by force and surprise and get out of here. Anywhere is better than here. We’d have a ship, military hardware, and supplies. We could become our own mini merc unit or sign on with one. But I bet whoever takes over command will come up with a better thought out plan.”

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