Denor's misplaced anger at his father had all but dissipated by the time he had sorted the converters and sprinted far enough into the hills that the sound of Ledo's machinations could no longer be heard. He had even managed to smuggle a blaster with him when he left the settlement, his father too fixated on his latest project to notice the battered old pistol was missing. Armed only with this, Denor set to work, running across the snow-covered fields and hills that made up most of Andron VII, where the ice storms played symphonies that only glaciers appreciated. A tourist hotspot, this planet was not.

The days on Andron VII were long, and the nights were longer still, with the darkness broken only by the faint glimmer of distant stars and the occasional aurora. Under this frozen sky, Denor's training began in earnest.

His father's suggestion that it would be some time before he became a soldier faded under the intensity of his youthful imagination. It was in the forest, far away from the goading smiles and sharp eyes of the adults, that Denor began to become the man he knew he could be. Though inconspicuous for his age, he was still growing day by day. His arms and legs were becoming as strong in potentia as those of his father and grandfather before him, even if his coordination and motor skills rivaled that of a bolt-stunned badger high on mushroom spores. His gait swallowed meters, when he wasn’t plunging face-first into the snow, and by the time he learned to disappear into the trees, his transformation was in full swing.

He was no longer the challenged son of a washed-up mechanic with a drinking problem, sent to check the perimeter defenses. No, he was going to become a scoundrel of the stars and find a way off this rock. He was not looking for holes in the shield wall, but for bigger prey. Somewhere in the woods there might be a crashed Temrit scout ship, sent to explore the lands of the Andronians. Or, worse, the Trunians could be encroaching to the north, pushing their borders into lands to which they had no right. Not that New Titania had any right to be founded on their planet in the first place. His grandfather had fought them before that settlement was founded, and he had always said that they would take their chances and expand further. It was perhaps the most realistic threat he could face in his young and boring life, and he often daydreamed of the inevitable conflict.

It didn't matter to Denor that it hadn’t happened yet. It was only one motivation of many. He had to move quickly and silently through the forest, stepping carefully so that the crunch of the snow beneath his feet would not betray him. He moved from point to point, slipping around the evergreen trunks and peering through the snow-covered branches into the forest around him, blaster at the ready. He watched the shadows, for there were worse things than Trunians to be found here, and he listened for the tell-tale hum of the shield armor that would betray their presence.

Though Denor knew he was playing a game with himself, for him it was much more than that. The young man reveled in the thrill of seeing something half-hidden in the snow and turning it into an ambush in his mind. But a part of him looked beyond the fantasy, honing his skills for the conflict to come, whatever that ended up being. He looked at each area he entered with total concentration, studying the terrain to make sure he could not be ambushed.

That he was absolutely easy to spot hadn’t occurred to him, as he thought he was being stealthy and didn’t have anyone to shake him off that strange notion and send him back to reality.

None of the other youths in his settlement had such delusions of grandeur that produced such cognitive dissonance in the face of reality. They also had limbs that didn’t flop about like spaghetti at the slightest provocation. For this reason, they rarely invited Denor to join them in their pretend games. There was something different about Denor Kara, the soldiers had said, and the children had passed on their words. They all knew it, and his father had become more and more protective of this perceived difference.

For many of them, this fact defined who Denor was and how little they expected of him. He was destined to be a janitor, or possibly a farmer, but he wanted to prove himself worthy of something greater. His mother died during his birth. He was told that she gave him his name with her last breath, though he had no memory of her. His greatness would be a credit to her and her family, perhaps even to all of Andron VII. The name Denor would be a terror to the Trunian invaders and to all those who thought they were his superior.

Or if reality had a say in the matter, it would be a name that people would chuckle about when remembering his slapstick antics. It was nice to have lofty ambitions, but sometimes you had to be realistic about these things.

The boy slipped behind another tree, watching his path carefully. Moving from point to point, he made his way to one of the perimeter defense modules. He could have easily made it there in a straight line, but then the device would have detected him and changed color. The fact that these compromised modules had the same perceptive ability as a hungover village elder didn’t occur to him.

He flitted from place to place, probing and testing the module to see its effective range. It was a game that he knew he couldn't win, but each time he would get closer to it before it would light up a harsh blue and peer at him with its sensors. He would do this hundreds of times over, it was his idea of fun. This better explained why Denor didn’t have many friends.

He had done this to three of them now, only one more to go. He had saved the furthest and most difficult one for last. Or at least that’s what he told himself, since they seemed to spot him each time at exactly the same moment no matter what he did. Denor just didn’t realize this was happening.

The forest opened up in front of him, revealing a long mostly-dead meadow that was divided by a dark stream. Denor stayed at the edge of the forest, studying the largely untouched expanse of snow. When he came to a set of tracks, he would crouch down and have a closer look at them. He looked not only at which animals had gone by, but also at how the tracks had changed over time. Long study convinced him that he could somehow read the signs of men and animals. That if anyone else had passed through the area, he would somehow be able to guess how many and how long ago, even without the sensors. This, like much of the boy’s thinking, also had no basis in reality.

Although no intruders had passed through the detection grid, a number of animals had done so. A sudden movement caught his eye—a flash of something dark against the white landscape. Denor dropped to a crouch with all the speed of an arthritic cat, his blaster at the ready to attack the ground at any second, having fallen into the snow as he attempted to draw it. He scanned the area, squinting despite the sunlight not causing any issues. He peered through the snow-covered branches, the cold air biting at his cheeks as he tried unsuccessfully to identify the source of the movement.

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A squawk next to his ear proved that even the wildlife could get the jump on him. He picked himself up from the snow for the fifteenth time that day and recovered his stolen blaster. Just a bird. He audibly groaned, itching for trouble and frustrated at finding none that wanted anything to do with him.

Reaching the control panel, Denor checked the sensor data, but there was nothing large enough to warrant alarm. One more boring trudge back home, then, to report that everything was the same as it always had been.

The quickest way home would have been the path he had chosen to reach the meadow, but that path was forbidden to him. Not that there was a barrier, or that the descent was too difficult. Not that any intruders had taken up positions to lie in wait for him. No, for Denor this way wouldn't work for the simple reason that it would be unwise to go back the same way. That would be an invitation to ambush. It could drive an enemy back to his home, and it was the duty of every soldier to make sure that such a thing would never happen. He might not think he was being watched, but there was no telling what the Trunians and their advanced scanning technology might be up to.

Denor Kara wasn’t paranoid, that tree over there totally could have been a Trunian. It’s just that it wasn’t, this time.

He continued through the forest, having left his settlement from the north and returned from the east, steadily getting lost in the process. This time he turned west and made his way through the woods. He stopped at the top of a hill that overlooked the trade route that led into the setting sun. He had traveled along it before, heading north to visit his grandfather, but today he was not interested in the deserted road.

Turns out if your people are universally known for being con-men and swindlers, merchants tend to want nothing to do with you.

Instead, his eyes were on the mountains to the south and the lands beyond. The name Trunia had become so common that it no longer sent him scrambling for the nearest fainting couch. But he knew there were other distant planets he had never glimpsed, each waging their own wars with the Trunian Empire. Men had always said his grandfather was a great soldier, but he was also said to be an even greater storyteller. In his tales, the planets he wandered and the ships he raided became fantastical realms where people could fly and use embodied energy to do miraculous things.

Of course, even at a young age, Denor knew his grandfather was exaggerating. A planet like Xumea? A place so warm all year round that there was never any snow, and the sand itself rose up in great storms? Absolute rubbish! Or that unexplored jungle planet teeming with wild, man-like beasts and horrors beyond comprehension? Preposterous. They were stories to frighten children and loosen the jaws of fools, and they definitely weren’t real. Absolutely not. Denor had grown out of those crazy stories, but that didn't stop his longing. The call of the silent stars in the sky as night began to fall was too enticing. If only he could commandeer a ship, if only he could sneak aboard some kind of freighter.

What fascinated him about the stories of old Tycho were the humans and their strange ways. Denor wondered about their need for huge armies and massive ships, built to carry out the will of their gods, and huge spaceports built in their honor. The stories made it clear that the personal sense of honor that every Andronian held dear was nothing more than a commodity. It could be bought and sold—even very cheaply—in the sectors beyond the Outer Rim. He would never call his grandfather a liar, but part of him would never be convinced until he saw these things for himself.

The young Andronian straightened and smiled as he looked to the south, where the faint glow from the port of New Titania lay. He would be more than a soldier. He knew it was what the trickster god Tamet had willed, that he would make the most of the luck and spirit he was born with. He would use it to carve his name into the stars. You know, provided he didn’t die horribly due to his own incompetence and being trapped in a teenage body.

"For now," he said to the wind, the only thing willing to listen to him, "if any Trunians dare to set foot on these plains, I will make them pay in Tamet's name." He wasn’t sure what he could do as a small child with a single blaster, but his determination overrode his sense of reality, as it does with all young boys with few friends.

The sky darkened as twilight descended over the land. Denor took one last glance at the distant horizon before turning back toward the forest. The path home was longer, but his determination had been renewed. He moved with purpose, each step bringing him closer to the settlement and the duties that awaited him. His true destiny of being a passable if unremarkable janitor with delusions of grandeur.

As Denor made his way back, he kept his senses alert. The forest seemed to whisper secrets in the fading light, the shadows lengthening and blending into the trees. Every rustle of leaves and snap of a twig was magnified in his ears, a reminder of the dangers that could be lurking just beyond his sight. Despite the cold and the growing darkness, he felt a warmth inside him. His father might see him as just a boy, but Denor knew that his destiny was out there, waiting for him among the stars. And with each passing day, he would prepare himself for that moment when he could prove his worth, not just to his father, but to all of Andron VII, the most boring planet in the known universe. A planet so dull that even the occasional Temrit invaders got tired of it and decided against conquering it.

Reaching the outskirts of the settlement, Denor slowed his pace and caught his breath. The familiar sights and sounds of home were a comfort, but also a reminder of his current reality. He tucked the old blaster back into his coat, careful not to draw any attention to it or accidentally shoot himself as he approached the perimeter.

The night watch had begun, and Denor greeted the guards with a nod. They acknowledged him with a professional mix of boredom and obligation, aware of his solitary excursions but not fully understanding or caring for his motives. Denor offered no explanations, slipping past them and making his way to his father's workshop.

The door slid open, and Denor found Ledo hunched over his latest project, the soft glow of the lamp illuminating his workbench. Tools and parts were scattered around him, the air filled with the scent of oil and metal. Ledo looked up, his expression a mix of sternness and relief that the boy hadn’t got himself lost in the snow again.

"Did you find anything?" he asked, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized his son.

"Nothing unusual," Denor replied, holding back the urge to mention the old blaster. "The sensors were all working fine. Everything is as cold and boring out there as usual."

Ledo grunted, returning his attention to his work. "Good. Get some rest. You'll need your strength for tomorrow. The festival commences earlier every year."

Denor nodded, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. Festival? Now that sounded interesting. As he made his way to his quarters, Denor felt a sense of accomplishment that required mandatory narration. Today had been just another step in his journey, but every step brought him closer to his goal. Sure, he might have done almost nothing of note, but it was totally the quiet before the really exciting and interesting storm. It had to be, right?

He lay down in his cot, staring up at the ceiling, and let his mind wander to the potential adventures that awaited him. For now, he was just Denor, the son of a mechanic on a remote planet. But someday, he would be more. Someday, he would make his mark on the galaxy and carve his name into the annals of history. You know, once he got this whole childhood thing over and done with.