"Good morning, soldiers! At ease… I have good news and bad news…" Derran with a harsh voice and murky face greeted the candidates one morning. "Good news is that now there are only forty-five of you left in the program and that during the last ten months of training, you almost learned how to be a real ground-based trooper. You passed through most of the elements of the basic training. And many of you have been asking yourself questions of why do you really need to learn how to use every available weapon, why you have to learn the hand combat. Well, because you just do not know when you will need it. And that is exactly what is going on to happen next. That is bad news…We are going into combat, real combat."

“What?”

“What combat?”

“Who are we going to fight?”

“Where?”

“When?”

Hundreds of questions started to come from all sides as candidates jumped up with each eager to know more.

Derran raised his hands, quieting them all down. "You are going to experience real combat. We have information that the peace treaty that has been signed almost two years ago has not been, as you probably know, signed with all the houses on the Planet of Vazz…There is a small region where rebels, are still known to cause trouble, well, don't know if I can call them rebels, they are labeled by the army as rather thieves, renegades. We are to go in there and patrol one of the airways that have been seeing some engagement from this bandit group. And when I say ‘bandit' I hope that's all they are, and not, what I am more afraid of, some heroic ready-to-die-for-a-cause fanatics."

Everyone instantly became very quiet.

"Our mission is to secure this road and engage anyone who is raiding transporters there. And let me tell you, they are raiding transporters. People are dying. It would be a folly to think that this is not going to be a star-gazing picnic. The army has already lost about a hundred troops during the last year to combat in the area. Let's hope you do not become an incremental part of that statistic.

"It is only fair of me to warn you what you will be facing…Regardless of how the army markets these guys, these are probably veteran soldiers, snipers, people who lost dear ones in the war and hate you enough to put a laser knife between your eyes just for wearing that uniform.

"On a bright side, they seem to have rather limited use of droids since the army got mostly rid of all of them…Probably a few neuron slicers, but plenty of explosives and booby traps. And you saw what a bomb can do to a person right here, so…"

He could see fear starting to creep across many of their faces. Their eyes got wide, many held their breaths. He could not blame them. Actually, he admired it. Maybe he taught them something after all.

“Much better to know fear now than all that crap about being holly imperial warriors that nothing can touch, spaceshit I was fed by my drill sergeant. How much did those lies help us? All that ego-boosting got us as far as the first droid, the first shot that grinded our inferior armor like it was made of clay, not metal... stupid fucks." The memories came back, but he should not burden them with those, and he pulled himself together.

“Well, the mission is to last four weeks, and with the end of that mission, it is my understanding that this part of your training will be over. I can guarantee you that you will use some of the skills that I tried to drill into you during the last year, as well as guarantee you that when we get into combat, many or some of you will not make out of it alive."

"Now, a good point is that you do not need to do this…You have not signed up for the army. Consult with your families, consult with yourself…you have about a day to think this through, think if you want to sign this release form if you want to continue with this program… In case you decide to continue, sign it, and slide it under my door. You understand the risks now. You understand that there is no pressure for you to sign. You decide what you want. I will not think of you any less if you do not sign, and leave…

“For those that have lost their brain capacity and still desire to continue…we are shipping out to the Space Elevator and then to Vazz in exactly… twenty hours.”

For a few hours, not a single paper was slithered into his office. He decided to take a few hours off and decided to spend a day in the Space Elevator bars.

Just an hour before the deadline, he went back to the barracks and his office and counted a pile of thirty-five release forms.

“You know, many of these kids are from very prominent families. They have enough money that they could live forever. Yet, they’ve decided to risk it all.” Derran told Virrana, the other drill instructor.

“You have to respect that.”

“Tell me that if we come back alive,” Derran answered sourly.

***

Two weeks into their assignment, all the warnings that Derran gave them seemed over-exaggerated. They were positioned about a mile away from the mining operation in a small transport station which connected the rail from the mines to the planetary main railing line.

Their objective was to secure the station as well as that part of the rail system. For all thirty-seven of them, it became even somewhat of a boring duty consisting mostly of observing monitors and patrolling the parameters of the station without even the slightest of an incident taking place, not even a single laser shot, not even a single sight or sound of the rebels.

The regular army would drop in on them from time to time, usually in the evening hours, bringing them food and checking if their security equipment was working properly. Freight trains would come in and go, but they, just as other transportation that passed through the station, would not stop in and would zip through faster than the speed of sound. So mostly, they were completely left to themselves.

They learned really soon that the food they were served in their training camp, the same food they used to complain so much about, was at least three classes better than what they were given at the station.

"Well, these are your regular combat food packs. What did you expect?" Derran told them with half a smirk seeing most of their faces covered in complete disgust as they tried to eat their rations. He chuckled and expected most of them to lose at least five percent of their body weight by the time moth was over.

Even though most of the candidates seemed bored and start to relax, to Derran, it all seemed too deceptively peaceful. He didn’t like the looks of the regular troops. He didn’t like how spooked and nervous they sometimes came across. He was on alert, counting days until their task was over, blessing each day which ended in kids being progressively more bored.

So when Fober ran hysterically inside the station on the morning twenty days into their training, screaming, "They took them!" Derran jumped from his seat and was on top of him before he could utter another sound.

"Who took whom and where?" he asked, trying to stay calm.

"Some armed men...”

“Were they the army? What armor did they wear?”

“No, I don’t think so. Their fatigues were dark green, some gray, all mixed up, different.”

“What happened?” Derran spoke as he swiftly pushed the kid toward the door.

"I saw three armed men sneak up to the patrol, just outside the gate, I think Fkiss, Bardon, and Siya were in it. They came from behind them, disarmed them, then pushed them inside the woods. I saw an old air transporter land there, and it took off really fast… I saw it all from the distance...But it was all done before I could fire..."

“Why didn’t you communicate it all in? You have your communicator implant on, right?”

“I did, but…” They turned their heads and looked up toward the control center which had an empty two seats. Sari and Vatiz which were supposed to be occupying them just walked in the room, giggling faces suddenly being instantly frozen as they met Derran’s eyes.

“I’ll deal with two of you later,” Derran said with enough anger to permanently scare the giggles of their faces.

"Which way did they go?" Derran grabbed a few things off his desk and pushed the boy outside. He pointed his finger to the part of the sky where nothing could be seen, other than trees and menacing grey clouds coming their way.

"Listen to me now, okay? Call all the units in and barricade yourself inside. Nobody leaves! Then call in the army station and tell them what happened. And, do not shoot at anyone unless you know who it is. Understand?"

"Yes, Sir!"

Derran jumped on a jetter, floored the power pedal, and took the air scooter high in the air. He could not see anything in the distance, but his scanner locked in on the implants which kids were injected with. It detected them already ten miles out.

He wasted only a moment to scan the area of human thermal signatures, fearing a possible ambush. But if there were snipers hiding someplace, they must have had a good insulation shields as no traces of body heat could be detected.

So, with the reckless determination, he let the jetter loose in the direction of the old air transporter. They headed north, away from the major army station and toward the thick forests which covered most of the wilderness there.

They didn't chop their legs off to get trackers out. Kids don't even know they have those implants, so they would not know to reveal them. Good that we never told them. He thought hopefully as the cold air needled his eyes. But what if they have tracker busters? They may be expensive now, but still… Maybe they rushed out so fast because they don’t have those? Hopefully, those signals are of them and not of their body parts.

The rocket purred quietly underneath him, and he counted the distance slowly closing in. In a few minutes, he cut it in half.

If there were no shots fired, maybe they are still alive. Fober didn't say anything about them jumping on them, hurting them, with knives ... So, it was not an assault on the station. More likely they wanted them alive, more likely they were kidnapped...Let’s just hope that’s all it is. He tried to make sense of what happened, keeping his almost closed eyes on the tracker, not letting the power pedal lift of the floor.

When he noticed the distance to be less than two miles, he brought the jetter down, closer to the treetops as much as possible, slightly slowing down.

It took him another ten minutes to see the air transporter as a dot in the air. He knew he could catch up with it, but then what? He could not stage the boarding of the flying transporter all by himself. So, he decided to keep his distance hoping he will not be detected.

Steep mountains, covered with icy peaks, soon appeared in his vision and the dot disappeared behind their stiff cliffs. The snow started to fall down announcing the coming blizzard and an eye-visibility swiftly became a matter of the past. He could hardly keep his eyes open, ice needles gnawing at his face.

Luckily, his tracker was pointing out that the transporter seemed to have entered the forest, and landed somewhere close to the body of water, probably some small lake.

He came to the spot soon enough, raised his scooter high over the place, but there seemed nothing there. He could see nothing, and their tracking beam had suddenly died.

They must be there, he thought as he carefully landed the air-scoter right next to the ice-covered lake. He looked again at his thermal scanner and a very weak and diminishing signal moving deeper into the forest. He pointed his rifle forward and decided to follow on foot.

He wasted no time hiding among the trees but ran toward it. He only stopped when he stumbled on footprints in the ankle-deep white blanket. The snow started to come down hard, and the footprints were slowly being filled up.

Following those prints, he pushed through the falling whiteness and soon noticed a heavily-camouflaged cottage less than twenty yards away. Next to it, two of the kidnappers, with their backs to him, were pulling a mask over the twenty-foot transporter.

He instantly ducked himself in the snow. If I didn’t come here right now, in ten minutes, who knows if I could ever find this place? They obviously knew about the coming storm. Smart planning on their part. But they rushed it. Fools. Ten minutes later and my scanner would pick nothing.

He considered his options. If he goes further into the clearance, toward them, he knew they would notice him right away. Sure, he could drop those two without much problem, but what would happen to the kids? They seemed to have taken them to the cabin.

He decided to circle around and approached the cottage from the back.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

The place was obviously not a military installation, but rather just a rude place where shepherds could keep their sheep and hide away from a snowstorm like the one he was in.

As soon as his back was against the cottage rough wooden wall, he scanned its entire interior. There were eight heat signatures. Five next to the fireplace with three of them lying down.

Those must be kids, he thought. The others were constantly moving around the first floor.

What do I do with those two camouflaging the transporter? His thoughts went to the laser knife in his boot, but he felt his muscles all tensed out, his fingers half frozen. You would be lucky to get a jump on one of them before the other fires a shot. There has to be a better way… But if they are covering the transporter, that means they may be staying here for a while, no?

He decided not to rush too much, but to take on the elevated position by climbing to the second floor, breaking in through the window as his laser knife soundlessly opened it up.

The room he entered had four bunk beds, covered by thick, wool blankets. They were all empty. He crawled to the door, fearing his steps would creak him away. He put his ear to the door leading out of the room.

"…we just wait here for an hour. Slicer will be here with his transporter and then we can get the hell out of this planet. We wait…We are early anyway. So just stay calm." The voice was deep, overpowering, and he thought of nothing he'd rather do than to put a blaster to the man's vocal cords.

Instead, he forced himself to check his scanner again. Two men were still outside. Kids' tracker implants seemed to be neutralized as they worked no more.

They found them. Took their time. Not all that smart after all.

He thought about opening the door but he feared it would make too much noise.

There is no good way to do this...only one way...In an hour, it might be too late. With more people around, what are my chances? And there is no guarantee that the army will be able to find this place, no guarantee that if they do, they will manage it without the shooting, without killing the kids in the crossfire? No, I am all those kids have…I am the best they have.

He took a deep breath, then another.

Do I go slow or fast? For a second he panted for air, but then steadied his mind. Nice and slow, don’t be stupid… nice and slow.

He waited to hear the sound of the voice occupy the air and went slow and opened the door as quietly he could. The voice got quiet and below everyone turned around and looked up, and whoever didn't have a gun in his or her hands, reached for it.

He kneeled down and pressed himself against the wooden beam which, at best, could only protect half of his side, and only against the firepower of low intensity

In the space below, he could only spot three kidnappers, their guns already zoomed in on him. From the corner of his eyes, he knew they were powerful enough not just to blow away the wooden beam but to blow a hole in the cottage roof, after passing right through him.

But his rifle was already pointed toward the man standing in front of the kids, the one he thought he heard talking, the one he thought was their leader.

"You move! And I'll blow your head off!" Derran's eerie yell froze the air. "You do not move an inch!" He commanded again to the man whose helmet still covered most of his face, whose hands were raised halfway in the air, indicating to everyone to be still.

“They can shoot you before you pull the trigger…” Yes, that was the voice he heard, that was the leader.

"You better tell everyone to relax. I'll start to waste all of you before they drill a hole in my shield." He lied about the shield.

“You have no shield.”

“You calling me a liar? Who do you think I am? I also didn’t have a scanner to track your ass down, right? How did you ever think you can get away with this? You must be the stupidest assholes I ever met. I do not have a shield…? Well, if that’s what you think…one way to find, no?”

“Well, it does not even matter. We have enough power to break through any shield.”

"Sure, sure you do…They certainly can try." Derran squeezed the trigger halfway. "But I've already pulled the trigger, and if I let it go, live or die, my shot will find you."

He could hear other guns being re-checked again, saw how three of the kidnappers started slowly to spread around, still locking their guns on him.

The man would not answer, his hands still folded in the air.

“The real question you have to ask yourself is if one of your men does not fancy you very much, if one of them has a problem with you, if one of them would not mind seeing you dead…”

“You do not need to worry about my men- “

“I am not the one that is or should be worried. But you, you should. The way they move from one leg to another, waging the situation, thinking… calculating. Because you and they all know, if they start shooting, you know who will die first.”

"Everyone, just take it easy!" the man was urging.

"We all will probably die," Derran continued "since I have so much explosive strapped on me that after I blow up, I'll make a crater in here large enough to look like a space missile hit you." As he spoke, he unbuttoned with his free hand part of his jacket revealing a hand grenade there. A single grenade could not do so much damage, but they didn't need to know he had only one.

As the men below started to process his words, Derran considered the threat of the two men outside, and how easy it would be for them to get through the window and flank him from behind.

"Wait, wait...I am sure we can work something out...Nobody needs to die today."

“That really depends if you want to listen or shoot…”

“So, what do we do?” The man asked.

"You need to let those kids go!" Derran threw a half a glance at them. They were tied with ropes, but none of them seemed bleeding or hurt for that matter. "The only reason you are still alive is because they are still alive."

“Just take it easy. Nobody needs to die today.”

"I bet that is the smartest thing you said in your whole life... Take your helmet off. I want to see you."

With one hand, the man slowly took the thing off his head.

His face was thin, sunken with penetrating sparks of the eyes, permanently fixed on Derran and his every twitch. A man way too young to be standing there in charge, yet his face lines so deep.

“So much pain, so much suffering, for what?” Derran muttered quietly to himself before pulling himself together and announcing in a firmer voice. “I can’t let these kids die here… But if they do, I do not plan to write home about it.”

Their leader suddenly chuckled. “Just tell me, since when does the empire send kids to do man’s job?”

“Since when do brave men of Vazz kidnap kids?”

“Well, you will be glad to know I am not from Vazz.” He saw the leader cast a quick and nervous look toward the back. A brunet was there standing behind the kids, her hands on a neuron gun pointed at them.

“It seems I am pointing the gun at the wrong person,” Derran said and shifted the gun to the woman who stood behind the kids, pressing the release button with his pinky and re-locking his shot on her.

“Maybe you don’t mind dying, but can you live with those dearest to you to die for you? What a bastard would that make you?”

"And you, what kind of bastard are you? You rather have these kids die than be safely taken away?"

A ransom, that’s all this is about… they want them alive…

"Hell, if they are so stupid to be caught, I should probably shoot them myself. What I won't do, as I said earlier, is to write home about it. They go nowhere! I am ready! Lived too long as it is!"

The man's hands were instantly raised a bit higher, his posture became even tenser. But his voice was still cool. "Just relax, soldier. I've already told you that nobody needs to die tonight. Okay? Everyone, just relax. I am sure we can work something smart out. By the way you, you sound familiar, have we met before?"

“No, I am quite sure we have not…look fella', I feel bad for you, but you better tell your folks to put down the guns. I will drop your lady there, then you. You know you cannot stop that from happening.”

“Yeah, and your kids and you will be next. You know you can’t prevent that. Look, you sound like an honest guy, fighting this hard for these kids here, risking your life for them. That is…profound. Especially since I know who they are, and I know what they are worth. I am sure we can work something out.”

“What do you mean you know who they are?”

“Kids from rich families, kids from major Houses of the empire…We know all, all right?”

Derran knew that Siya and Bardon were not from rich families, and the House Fkiss belonged to was nowhere rich enough to pay a hefty ransom. Everybody knew that. That information didn’t come from the kids. Somebody else talked, maybe someone even in the army.

“I don’t think you have your facts straight, you got the wrong kids. But besides…I don’t have any money on me…”

“Yeah, but we are sure you can call someone who does.”

“Sure, I can do that… Sure I can. And in ten minutes, while I am stretching negotiations with you and a person who is going to pay, the army special units are going to land here right on top of you. And then you won't have any options of not anyone dying tonight.

“Get real! If you really want to live, you better leave now… You still have your lives and plenty of time to get away.”

“Well, I cannot do that. But at least it seems you are an honest guy…And I know you do not want to kill anyone either…You could have waited for some of us to fall asleep, could have tried to kill us all by nightfall…”

If I had my father’s sword, if my rifle had a silent mode, if there was no snow, if… No need to think about that now…

“I know why you didn’t. I know you are a veteran, a soldier who saw too much of the killings, too much of blood being spilled. I know you saw too much of death.”

“Ten of my fifteen boys cut to pieces by your droids …...Most of what remained of them I had to scrap off my face. But you are not taking these ones with you…” The gun really didn’t even need to be pointed at the woman’s head anymore. If his cramping finger let go of the trigger, her head would be no more. Together with him.

“Yeah, and twenty thousand of my town’s folks got torched to the ground by your bombs, everyone I knew…And now, now we are not allowed to use humanoids to help us survive? Do you know what that means for the planet like this? We are starving here, man! Our children are starving!”

“Why didn’t you say so right from the start? I’ll share half of my dinner plate with you. And I’ll throw in my dessert to sweeten the pot.”

"Gripac?" One of his men, the one that was right underneath Derran, called him, asking for a command to shoot. Obviously his men were getting nervous.

“Well, nice to meet you Gripac…I am Derran, the last man you might ever see.” He tried to interrupt the thoughts he saw clearly sliding away from him, dreading what will come next.

“You know, your voice really sounds very familiar…” Gripac started in a slow voice, his eyes never leaving Derran’s. “…like the voice in that stupid video bit about that butcher of Vazz…”

Derran didn't like where that was going. "Look, if this is really just about the money, then you leave. You leave right now. And let these kids be. And I give you my word that I will drop here in this very cottage or in any other place of your choosing, one million emperor's credit within the next twenty days."

“Yeah, I can trust you to do that? Besides these kids are worth much more than that.”

“Of course they are! They are worth more than all the money can buy…Worth more than old soldiers like you and I put together. But that is all the money I can get hold off, and that is all the credits you can get…So choose, choose now, before someone else does not do it for you.”

Gripac thought for a second, then two. “And you say you will not shoot after us, and you will honor our deal?”

"Yes, you have my word. You have the word of an old soldier. I'll give you your money...But know this, with that money I am not just buying the lives of those kids lying there...And everyone else in here for that matter. With that money, your fighting days, your raids, your killings...It all stops. With those credits, it is all over. Those are your last credits!"

The silence lasted with no end. "You see…” Gripac suddenly interrupted it. “Nobody has to die tonight, Derran.” The man even smiled at him.

"I sure hope so," Derran said hearing the noise to his back.

Gripac slowly lowered his hands and waved to the others to do the same.

“Two of you go and warm up the engines.” His instructions followed.

“Better tell that to the men in the room behind me. I can hear them and they are getting awfully close to fucking the spaceshit out of our deal.”

“Maraz, Wiz! Get out of there! You heard me! Go out and take the cover of the transporter! You come through that door, I swear, I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Okay, boss.” The grouching response followed.

Even as all of them left, and he heard the transporter lifting off, Derran didn’t want to risk going out of the cottage. He gave his spare gun to Fkiss, and they just set down and waited for another hour before the army could track his locator beam to come and rescue them.

“Why did you do it that way?” Siya asked him in the end, as they were being led to an army air transporter.

“There are a lot of things that you can do only once…And if you do not do them right, well…you cannot redo them…Nobody dies tonight. I like that. It seems as I was putting ideas in my head, he was putting some in mine.”

Two days later, they were pulled back from the planet, and send back to their training camp.

On their arrival, Derran asked the commission to talk privately with Senator Sulivaro.

He got a secured private link to him, all the way to the Capital where the senator was located.

“Senator Sulivaro, this is Derran. I have a favor to ask…”

“Yes…I saw your report, entirely. I guess I know what this is about.”

“One and a half million credits, I gave you a few months back. You know all the circumstances about it. Of that money, I need one million of it back. You can transfer it to the following account...”

“Sergeant… I… We need to talk, in person, not just about this-“

“We can talk all you want, Senator, but I need this money now. No ifs, no buts, no citing any kind of spaceshit regulations, no nothing.”

Both men stared at each other for a moment.

“I gave my word,” Derran offered an explanation, but his words were still cold and threatening. “And it will take more than a million of those stinky credits for me to even consider breaking them.”