THE GUARDSMAN: Book 2: Blood Debts – Chapters 49-51

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The Guardsman, Book 2: Blood Debts:

Chapter 49)

Senior Lieutenant Phyllip Chroynos II flipped through screen after screen of readiness reports, status reviews, personnel evaluations, messages, Command Directives from The House, Command Directives from Military Corporate Headquarters, Command Directives from Personnel Division, and even the odd Command Directives from Military Research and Development demanding field trial status of various pieces of equipment they were experimenting with during pre-combat trials. His groan at the stack of messages that had piled up since he had cleared the message box, before his morning workout and meal, was as staggering as the stack.

One of the things that they never taught in any of the Military Academies was how to deal with the simple but exponential explosion of paperwork that the dedicated comm systems made so easy. Any employee in their hierarchy, with proper access could spit out ‘Command Directives’ as fast as their fingers could move.

His father’s philosophy of ‘if it isn’t worth doing in hard copy, it isn’t worth me reading’ worked for him as the head of the family House and Corporate CEO’. That didn’t work for the son who was laboring to learn the job.

Once he graduated from the Military Academy and was Commissioned his lot had been even worse than when he was a cadet. His father saw to it he got the most grueling assignments. Thomys, as VP, with his fingers in Personnel actions and Research, saw to it that his unit ‘mysteriously’ landed more than its share of research and other projects. His mother insisted he be on his best behavior at every family function, while his father insisted he attended every Home Guard Unit function, and Thomys ensured that he never failed to correct Phyllip’s uniform deficiencies.

That man had micrometers for eyes. Either his Platoon and Company were too intimidated to tell him, which they weren’t given the hammerings he took from both above and below in the Company and Battalion, or Thomys’ attention to detail was that precise. It was like some sadistic game everyone in the Battalion played, ‘stump the chump’ had turned into ‘stump the Phyllip’. But given his father’s faith in the man, Thomys was probably that precise.

Thomys Promethean whispered the same prayer every time he corrected Phyllip’s uniform, ‘Prior planning prevents piss poor performance’. It didn’t take too many recitations before someone started singing along with Thomys every time he said it.

You couldn’t tell by looking at Thomys, but he was the only Officer to graduate above Phyllip’s father in that year’s standard Officer training course before Thomys went to the Ground Forces and Phyllip I went to the Guardsmen. The tall soft-spoken Thomys just had a way about him. When he spoke, everyone listened. He wasn’t a flashy or brash Officer, but he was very steady. His commands never did anything like ‘fighting to the last man for the honor of the regiment’ or any other excuses for failing to plan. Thomys and his units always accomplished their mission. They did it in the most efficient and expedient manner possible. Doing so won consistent progress, with little cost and rarely any setbacks. Most importantly, he brought his troops home after the campaigns. His casualty markers were substantially below other units, despite being engaged in as many or more fights.

When Thomys spoke, it was a very good idea to listen.

So Phyllip II got to sit at his desk flicking his finger back and forth over his touch screen desktop. Every flick of his finger dispatched another message to the various ‘piles’ he had established around the screen. Some were trash for immediate deletion. Some were things that could wait a week before they became an issue. Some things he could forward to others to handle. Other things like messages from the Family, Company Commander, and First Sergeant were not things he could or wanted to, hold in his messages.

Just put your mother on hold while she asks the name of your date for the next Friday evening’s ‘festivities’. Then see how long it takes for the Battalion Commander, Command Sergeant Major, Company Commander, First Sergeant, and Platoon Sergeant to all show up within moments of each other. Follow that with the silent march of one Senior Lieutenant Phyllip Chroynos to ‘visit mother’. Then all six men were communally dressed down by the woman. And after all that, they got to stand in a line, at attention, waiting for her displeasure in turn, on an up-close and personal basis.

Mother’s messages were now always answered first.

His duty comm chirped, he slapped the activation and addressed himself to the caller, his CO.

His Company Commander, who was undoubtedly sitting in his office doing the exact same thing as Phyllip was at that very moment, spoke sounding as bored as he probably was, “Lieutenant, there is a gaggle of people at the front gate. They look like … petitioners of some sort. Figure out what the hell is going on and send them on their merry way please.”

The Senior Lieutenant answered crisply, “Yes Sir,” The Commander nodded and the comm went blank. He had probably just finished a similar call with whoever had just called him, and probably passed the order in the exact same way.

Phyllip circled the junk mail, with his index finger and flicked them off to the upper right of the desktop screen where they fell into the deletion box.

He tapped out a mission order message to the Platoon Sergeant, instructing the ready squad to report to his office within five minutes. They could do it in two, less if it was serious, but he wanted the time to finish puttering with his mail.

Phyllip sorted the important pile opened three messages from family and tapped back routine replies. The Company Commander and First Sergeant’s messages were simple enough that short answers like, ‘will do’, ‘information attached’, and ‘sent that yesterday’, answered the vast majority. He kept those three message snippets available on the comm display, for copy and insertion into messages, he used them so often. The most time-consuming part of the task was pulling the data packets together from whatever documents they were using as hiding places.

The tap at his door frame arrived sooner than he expected. Phyllip turned to see his Second Squad Leader and he realized that he was at four minutes, and thirty seconds from when he had requested the Duty Squad. He stood to snap on the upper half of his duty armor. While attaching his shoulder and arm guards he explained the mission.

The Squad Leader waited patiently; he had already seen the freakos with their silly signs on the way over. After the brief while his Platoon Leader was picking up his rifle, he said, “Yes Sir. They look like some rock-hugging anti-terraforming morons.”

Phyllip realized that not only was the Squad Leader already briefed by the Platoon Sergeant, but that he knew more about the situation than his Platoon Leader. He had just politely told his Platoon Leader that he needed to catch up with the rest of the platoon. Phyllip kicked himself for the double mistake of not asking if the Squad Leader had been briefed and if he didn’t have any additional information he could share before walking into the unknown. Phyllip made a mental note to not make the same mistake again.

The Battalion always made it a high priority to have an officer outside to talk to petitioners. Home Guard troops were some of the best line troops in the Empire. They were selected from experienced ground combat personnel in the standard combat formations. Then they attended additional training and schooling that taught them how to perform everything from police functions to how to behave inside the Citadel.

Under the pretty uniforms and training, the unit as a whole was an attack dog on a short leash. They weren’t selected unless they were aggressive, highly motivated fighters in the junior enlisted ranks. The Non-Commissioned Officers were cut from the same cloth but were older, meaner, and less patient, but behaved themselves inside and pounded their subordinates when they were outside.

The Battalion Commander’s joke was that he never wanted a lone squad to deal with protesters without a platoon leader because the squad was outside the walls where he as Battalion Commander couldn’t keep an eye on them and Home Guard troops naturally don’t like any visitors, so he joked they were as prone to herd protesters off the side of the landing platform as deal with them politely.

The troops and command always laughed at that, but the truth was they were just as likely to punch someone in the face and start a brawl, ‘just because’, as they were to calmly cordon and contain the issue so normal business could resume. Unlike the troops who were selected to enter the Home Guard, Phyllip II was not required to log combat hours before applying.

The Natural Planets Coalition and other organizations that wanted to ban terraforming of uninhabitable worlds were all ‘bat shit crazy’ according to the Home Guard troops. The Home Guard troops liked to discuss their feelings on the subject ‘fist to jaw’ with the protesters given the chance. The Home Guard troops all made small fortunes every year from the residuals they drew from the colonization of new worlds. The average Corporal in the Home Guard made as many credits as a certified medical doctor in a private hospital. The only reason a soldier would leave the Home Guard would be to scoop up some additional residuals from a campaign, or a promotion, before transferring back when a slot opened, at their higher rank.

Phyllip II snapped his rifle’s quick release into his armor. He picked up his helmet and looked up into the rogue’s grin of his Second Squad Leader. “No Sergeant,” heading off the inevitable question with his own smile, “You all can’t go out there while ‘I get coffee’. Dumb-shit-rock-lovers, as you like to call them or not, you know the media vid crews would have a field day with you twisting the heads off a bunch of pencil-neck college kids.”

If it was possible to sulk and grin at the same time, not just the Squad Leader, but the whole squad, to the last man, had it down like parade maneuvers. Shaking his head while he turned down the corridor, Phyllip could only groan as he was pelted by the inevitable questions. “Sir? Can we beat them senseless when we get off duty?”

Hiding his annoyance he droned, “No Corporal.”

A different member injected, helpfully and hopefully, “Sir, what about if we wrap them in their little signs, and tape them to the landing grid light posts?”

Phyllip groaned again, this time at his Alpha Team Sergeant. “No Sergeant. You don’t have that much tape with you.”

The Bravo team grenadier volunteered, “We can get some more, Sir!”

Phyllip knew he was being razed, and uttered, “Shud’up.”

They all sulked collectively, trying to get a rise out of him, in a disjointed chorus of, “Come on Sir! Please?”

Pretending to be an adult, he intoned, “No.”

The grilling continued across the open lawn, while the squad fanned out, into their natural tactical posture, “Can we follow them to their school, find them in their bar, and beat them there, Sir?!”

Phyllip asked with a note of curiosity, “In civilian clothes?”

They took it as a suggestion and eagerly chimed, “Yes Sir!”

Phyllip pretended to think about it, “Uuum … No!”

They knew they were tempting him, so pleaded, “Com’on Sir!”

Succumbing to the jackassery he snapped, “Shud’up! You nut-jobs need to learn to be more casual in your approaches to this sort of thing.” This got their attention as they neared the front gate. “First, you need to justify the mission statement with something snappy like ‘a counterintelligence operation hunting potential insurgent elements in the capital city’. Second, you need transmitting devices that can slip into clothing and signs when we mingle with the troublesome agitators. Then we can track their progress through the tram system to localize their headquarters. We can set up a deliberate raid, and when the maximum number of the target personnel are assembled, we can hit them with knock-out gas, through the air vents, and just scoop up the bodies for interrogation later.”

His senior NCO present snapped, “That’s a great idea, Sir!” Phyllip scowled at his Squad Leader as he replied happily, “Can you get the tracker-thing-a-ma-bobbers and write the order! We can get the gas pretty easy!”

The Platoon Leader questioned, “Sergeant, are you out of your mind!?” Phyllip shook his head before looking back at the older soldier. “I’m not going to write an order for you to go raid some college kid’s dorm room with knockout gas, because they have badly worded signs on the front lawn. You all need to find a new hobby! Beating up college kids, it’s not even sport … It’s just too easy … It’s like using grenades when you go fishing.”

The Squad Leader grumbled, “Sir, I like easy.”

A team leader offered, “Is there any other way to go fishing?”

Phyllip shook his head in frustration at his platoon’s intractable and certifiably insane Second Squad. How all the nut cases landed in the Home Guard was beyond his understanding, how they gravitated to his platoon was making him certifiably insane too. They were funny in their own way, but just … weird. They were utterly professional with the outside world but Phyllip knew better as their platoon leader.

He shook his head as the gate slipped open. Phyllip’s eyes drifted toward the heavens and sneered at the ugliest creatures on the planet. The ever-present turkey vultures, floating on the humid updrafts from the warming buildings, as large as the birds were, became substantial navigation hazards for anyone who needed to travel above normal traffic patterns.

Why the Terraforming Commission insisted on importing every strain of pest creature and feathered annoyance to every single planet that could support life was beyond him. Thomys would probably know, and if he didn’t know, no one would. It was probably based on some archaic agreement between these anti-terraforming environmental nut jobs and the Terraforming Commission that happened millennia ago. Now, after so much time, the Terraforming Commission neither knew nor cared anymore. They just did it the way ‘it was always done’. The Terraforming Commission was like a religion in that the longer it was done one way the more intractable the Commission became when someone asked them to change.

The college kids who must have thought taking their protest to the Citadel was a really great idea at some point, balked and stepped back, into and on top of each other. The smoothly unfolding black and gold-armed and armored Home Guard formation slipping into an orderly perimeter around them was scary. In their peaceful educated little worlds, most had never even seen a firearm, let alone had a Gauss rifle pointed in their direction. Or imagined one even indirectly pointed in their direction.

Phyllip II began his copy-and-paste speech to placate the news vid crews, and the Public Relations department, and try and gently nudge the sign holders into the nearest vehicle that would carry them far-far away. The ten guard troops split evenly to both sides of Phyllip II as he waited patiently, with their cool eyes and trained camera smiles, while newsies ducked and wove around Phyllip. They wanted to capture every angle of his speech possible. They had it recorded a dozen times over from the heir of the Chroynos Stellar Hegemony but this one might be different from the exact delivery of the prior dozen times. It might even be different from any of the other fifteen Platoon Leaders, if they reviewed the recordings long enough, they might find a discrepancy.

The Platoon Leaders practiced together until they could sing the speech, in a slobbering drunk, chorus line. It made for interesting Friday and Saturday evenings out when they were off duty. The Battalion had its most frequented bars. Inevitably at some point in the night, the Citadel Home Guard Battalion would end up providing some form of entertainment, be it solo or as a group.

High above and almost one hundred meters out over the cavernous depths between buildings, one of the turkey vultures did something strange. Its head flipped a full and unnatural right angle at the neck and onto its body. Headless, the vulture drifted smoothly down and left, naturally sweeping through the air currents and its fellow fliers with ease.

The ‘bird’s’ body, which was actually lighter than air ignited into flames, silently incinerating the body in an instant, as the hydrogen interior of the ‘bird’ allowing it to fly was exposed to the first stage of the four-kilogram rocket’s ignition.

A miniature guidance system acquired its target from the operator’s distant control panel. The target’s shape was already locked into the brain of the dumb computer. The computer directed the rocket to fire two-tenths of a second after the target was designated by the operator.

The second stage motor ripped the missile free of the guide wire.

One of the warhead’s three kilograms worth of high explosive anti-personnel bomblets exploded only an arm’s length from Phyllip’s face. The rest ripped through his squad, the subdued protesters, and the recording journalists.

The carnage was unprecedented.

The spider web thin, and biodegradable optical cable, drifted into oblivion between buildings.

Thirty kilometers away the foreign businessman finally sat back in his veranda porch chair and allowed himself to sigh. He wiped his hand on his bathrobe and ran his fingers over his forehead flicking the perspiration away through the porch railing.

As the bead of sweat fell into nothing below, he stood and started working on the control device for the missile system. The launch balloon hadn’t worked correctly, and it had delayed the launch. Once the vehicle was in the air the wire was failing to transmit commands properly. The nerve-wracking traffic around the hotel had almost cracked the control line on the vehicle. The number of things that had gone wrong made this contract horribly complex.

Once the troublesome technical issues were sorted and he had reseated the control wire in the terminal, the bird drifted on course with few problems. The client had insisted on the weapon and guaranteed its success. The launch was nerve-wracking, but the bird-weapon had performed beautifully. At first, he didn’t trust the device, but after firing he decided he liked the weapon, and would include a pro bono positive review when his substantial final payment arrived.

He allowed himself a smile at the thought of the completion bonus he would have in his hands shortly.

The last thing to do was set the control box for self-destruct, release the clamp, and toss it over the edge of the balcony to explode somewhere far below. He would be long gone before the emergency crews got around to questioning him.

When the foreign businessman flicked the final switch of the self-destruct timer, instead of starting the timer and a conventional bomb, it immediately triggered a highly illegal, extremely powerful, and multi-treaty-banned short-range neutron and microwave bomb. The finely tuned device shredded the assassin’s genetic material, boiled all the water in his body, and pulverized his bones to a fine powder.

It performed beautifully and worked exactly as intended.

He was dead before what had been his finger could have left the trigger that he had been told would start the self-destruct timer’s countdown. The empty robe fell into a puff of gray powder. The gray powder was carbon and calcium ash mostly, which was plucked, molecule by molecule, into the morning breeze and carried innocently into the wide world.

The neutron and microwave bomb combination was timed to stop generating once everything living within a ten-meter radius was obliterated. After that, the wave propagation dispersed to the point of sunburn at twenty meters. Further than 20 meters was followed by an exponential decrease in the radiation’s effects. Since the hotel had no other guests in that block, he was alone.

Minutes later a homely older woman in a maid uniform, unlocked the door of the foreign businessman’s room with a hotel service key. Her stooped back and graying hair was belied by her sure movements and careful speed once she was in the room. With the cart firmly blocking the door and clear skin-tight gloves on her hand she flicked the room’s light out.

The balcony door was open. She picked up the owner-less bathrobe, closed her eyes, and flipped the robe in the breeze. Wrapping the weapon’s control device in the robe she popped the releases, walked to the cart, and casually checked the hall. She dropped the multi-million credit control panel, and lethally illegal bomb, into the laundry bin and flipped half a blanket over top. She dragged the robe out of the cart’s hamper, as she turned back into the room.

As she walked back into the room, she casually tossed the robe into the bathroom, where it landed on the pile of wet towels waiting for the real housekeeper. Quickly checking the drawers and finding nothing she scooped up the foreign businessman’s small black travel bag and dropped the bag on top of the control panel before knocking the rest of the blanket on top of the bag. She left the hotel key cards sitting peacefully next to the vid screen.

She was gone in under ninety seconds. She disappeared into the shadows of society as surely as the foreign businessman fell to dust and blew away.

The foreign businessman had prepaid his room, so he was never inquired after. The desk marked his bill as current and management assumed, he just forgot to use the checkout system, so no one bothered to inquire about his whereabouts.

Chapter 50)

The Warsong’s Captain said, with an annoying touch of humor that Thomys found peculiar to the Guardsmen, “I heard that you had an ‘interesting’ dinner last night, Sir.”

Thomys questioned, “How did you hear that, Captain?”

The Guardsman who wore naval rank shrugged, “People who know people were talking, Sir.”

Thomys rose and accepted the tease, “Oh, the Guardsmen ‘sewing circle’ as Lady Celine is fond of calling it.” Thomys sighed as he was pulled into the rumor mill, “Yes, dinner was overly exciting last night.”

The Captain added conversationally, “I hear that things got interesting when that Home Guard messenger boy told you all that Lady Persephone was back up on vid. We were running training, so I missed it until later. What is this about Lord Kazimir?”

Thomys Promethean signed at the mention of the unpleasantness with Kazimir. He had a choice. He could ignore the question and let the rumors run wild or address it and squash the rumors before the trip started so he wasn’t hounded by their shadow. “He is getting frustrated that he can’t find his cousin. He and Lord Thanatyos suggested a bounty for her return; Lord Phyllip would hear none of it. Then Kazimir said something … unpleasant as we were leaving. Lady Celine doesn’t want to see him at the table for a month, she has never banished a family member before, so it is a big deal.”

The Captain sensed it was time to change the subject, “Are you ready for your trip, Sir?”

Thomys looked down at the smiling ship’s Captain as he lounged on the comfortable command couch in the center of Warsong’s bridge. Thomys huffed at the joke, “You ask me that every time we go to this miserable little dirt ball. What makes you think that the answer has changed this time?”

The middle-aged Guardsman shrugged while playing his fingers over the controls too quickly for Thomys to read what he was doing. “Well, that’s easy, Sir. Warsong has so few guests that when we actually do get to stretch our legs and leave the system, I get all perky.” The Captain smiled over his left shoulder, while his eyes flicked back to the right and his right hand flashed through another sequence on the controls. “We’re a warship,” the Captain shrugged while turning back to his controls, “We are stationed so close to the capital world shipyards that we get modifications before any other ship in the fleet. We are a Guard ship, so we have higher priority than any other ship in the fleet. And we never go anywhere so even if we did have another ship of equal priority in the fleet chances are, we would be in the shipyards first anyway because the other ship would be out on patrol. We can kill any battlecruiser class ship in space and give battleships a run for their money. All we do is train fleet battles all day long in a simulator with our weapons set to amber controls. The High-Commander is too busy yelling at civilian simpletons to take us anywhere fun anymore, so we get to wait around for you to take us to Earth.”

Thomys almost winced at the Guardsman Colonel carrying the naval rank of Captain’s idea of fun places to visit, “How many tours have you had on Warsong, Captain?”

The Captain informed Thomys, “I was High-Commander Chroynos’ signal’s officer years and years ago as a young naval type Lieutenant, I had some ground combat tours and few protection tours, then I had a stint as Executive Officer here, with some Naval tactics schooling in between them and now I’m a year into my three-year tour as ship’s Captain.”

Thomys nodded while he stood next to the Captain, impatiently waiting for the last scout ship to return. Phyllip and Thomys had fought together on eleven worlds. Though Thomys always claimed twelve because his Mechanized Infantry Brigade had arrived at the tail end of that one fight, causing the enemy commander who had already committed his reserves to look at the mixed Guardsman and regular infantry forces that were chewing him to pieces under Phyllip and Thomys’ newly arrived armor that would roll up his headquarters and rear area unopposed within a half hour of travel time before he could disengage and shift forces to counter the threat Thomys posed. The arrival had forced surrender, even though Thomys’ unit hadn’t fired a shot. The Guardsman in Phyllip Chroynos still grumbled about that because Thomys had taken Phyllip’s fun during his last field command. “I suppose putting a shipload of ‘Alpha-Male-Killing-Machine-Guardsman’ into close orbit around our home world, trapped inside a battlecruiser is a risky proposition if we don’t have the right guy in charge. You all might get bored and start shooting holes in things if you don’t keep busy.”

The Captain laughed silently while lounging. When he finished, he sighed happily, “I suppose you’re right. I think we have fought every engagement that the Hegemony has ever fought involving a battlecruiser class ship. I have gone back all the way to the first Hegemony CEO, under High-Commander Chroynos’ grandfather while the Hegemony was still forming. The Navy Corporation had recorded some really nice fleet engagements under CEO Harold Chroynos. Those were some fun ones. There is just something exhilarating about a dozen capital ships with fifty battlecruisers and nearly a hundred and fifty little line ships buzzing around, our guns tearing hell out of a fleet half again our size. I did have to dial down the effects of our weapons while updating the enemy ship and friendly fleet stats to match modern standards. I want to make it harder for us. I am not quite to the point of using other empire’s battles but I’m getting close. I think that since we … Signals! Mind your board! Contact! Two-eighty-eight up Thirty-One. Query target for report!

Thomys leaned over the Captain’s shoulder. He was looking at a display labeled ‘regional gravimetric distortion’ but Thomys could see nothing on the display but the ships tracked with all the rest on the main display.

The Captain looked back over his shoulder into Thomys’ curiosity and guessed the question, “Scout ships have pissed me off my whole career. I hate things that I can’t see to kill so I’ve studied the little bastards for the first few months of my command. I hated the answer I got at the Navy Command Academy about them even more than not being able to see them.”

Thomys asked, “What was that?”

Sounding smug, the Captain shared, “They told me, ‘You can’t see them, it’s impossible!’ So, I have been looking for the little bastards in every spectrum I can imagine and finally got them a few months ago. There is a window of only about fifteen seconds where they are unstable after dropping out of Faster-Than-Light. Even I miss them arriving most of the time, but this one I pretty much knew where he was coming from, so I could focus my search. When he drops out of FTL his engines are decelerating and they need to compensate for the added mass from dropping into reality at large speeds. They do a good job of it, but a gravity ripple shimmers briefly before their real-world stealth systems and their FTL drive systems fully hand off to each other and the bastards disappear again.”

Supremely irritated, but keeping it hidden Thomys asked, “So, you figured out how to spot our arriving scout ships?”

Nonchalant, Captain teased, “Not reliably but it is better than the alternative.”

Thomys encouraged, “Which is?”

Captain offered, “Fill space with ordinance and beam weapons in every direction constantly to fry the buggers.”

Thomys smiled at the joke. He looked over his shoulder at his own two Guardsmen who finally had an answer to a question that they could appreciate and were smiling in kind. Thomys made a note to himself to land on the backs of his Research and Development division with two feet to get them to fix that problem of the gravity ripple when he returned.

The signals officer reported, “Captain, scout ship Seven-Seventy-Five reporting on tight beam transmission. Mission data transmitting to our systems, their upload should be complete in the next,” he glanced at his console, “Three minutes. The scout captain has attached a personal inquiry.”

Taking the bait, the Captain asked, “Which is?”

The signals officer relayed, “Sir, he demands to know how you detected his ship.”

The Guardsman Captain scoffed, “Tell him exactly, ‘this is the Guardsmen Flagship Warsong. We are the best for a reason’.”

Signals smiled while he turned to his console. Thomys suspected the man was going to send exactly that as the Warsong’s official response.

The Captain grumbled, “Stupid scout ships. Did you know that wanker over there is just a Lieutenant Commander? I should demand trial by combat to assuage my insulted honor. The nerve! Demanding from a Captain…”

Thomys asked, “Do we have time for an armed duel?”

Blandly, the captain informed, “There’s always time for a duel…”

Thomys the diplomat stepped forward, “Maybe so. Then again we will be gone for weeks out, about a month there, and weeks on the way back. Even at FTL speeds it is a long trip. I wonder how large the rumors of your omniscience will grow in your absence. Maybe it’s best to leave a few survivors to spread the rumors for us while we’re gone.”

The Captain scoffed and rolled his eyes while Thomys’ Guardsmen silently laughed behind the two. “Not a big enough legend to suit my numerous talents.” The Captain grumbled, “I want a statue at that stupid Navy Academy with me larger than life pointing at the stars, maybe with a fleet of starships floating over my upturned palm in an anti-gravity bubble … well then I might pass up putting boot to …” he caught himself and reduced his profanity, “‘His unwashed hind quarter’, in a duel. Until then, I think I still want to beat him bloody.”

Signals entered the conversation softly, “Sir, data retrieved and complete. All required records are stored and backed up.”

The Captain snapped, “Excellent. Helm! Set course: ‘Earth’. Best speed. Execute.”

Thomys nodded to the Captain as he left the bridge so he could do Captain things. For the next five weeks, they would be traveling to Earth, followed by the inevitable horse trading and graft associated with doing business with the Terraforming Commission, all followed by either another five weeks on the way back, or a very long five weeks on the way back, if he didn’t get them what he needed for this trip.

Thomys hated this trip, almost as much as he hated Earth.

Chapter 51)

The nine and ten-year-old class had remained fairly rudimentary until this particular battery of instruction.

Samson was pleased with his standing in this year’s class. His third year at ‘The Chroynos Hegemony Guardsmen Academy’ had just seen him turn ten. Samson’s math, science, and writing scores set him firmly in the top third of the class. Not at the honors mark yet, but secure to graduate this year. He could stand to receive zero credit on two of his six academic exams and if he maintained grades on the others, he would still graduate.

The bottom half of the class would be summarily dismissed.

There was no way in this world that he would allow himself to fail. Other students were there because they were good at academics or athletics or had family connections and were trying out. Samson was there on merit alone. He had no money and no sponsors. Regardless of the starting point, acceptance to The Academy was a fast track to the upper levels of society.

He was too young to really understand what that meant. But it was what the rich kids said. They only parroted what their parents said to them when they were dropped off after the weekend. Since they were successful adults, they probably knew what they were talking about. The parents said that ‘the farther they went in the academy the better their lives would be in the long run’. They didn’t even care about the honorable service after graduation.

Samson liked the idea of honorable service.

Samson also detested the idea of returning to the orphan creche. The thought of returning there because he didn’t work hard enough, to the rotten food, horrible schooling, and miserable peers, was enough to dig the fiery lash into his back whenever he felt like letting things slip, at the Academy.

The snotty rich kid leering at him now was one of those. Every weekend his parents picked him up in their own air car. He always handed his laundry to some drab little man who arrived every day after practice. His day’s school and training clothes were stuffed in a bag. Then he would receive his bag of identical clean clothes at the same time, he never had a single dirty article of clothing in his presence for more than twelve hours. He must always have kept a duplicate set of clothing ready because his inspections were always flawless. He never had any dirty clothing and his dressers were always perfect, like someone else packed them for him, and he never used any of the clothing packed there. His roommate always complained about how his side always looked bad because of it, so it had to be true.

Samson wasn’t jealous or angry or even interested.

He was in that happy place floating out of time and space, past the conflict of those emotions. He worked better in this class, with that relaxed mindset. The harder he tried the more difficult it became.

This was his worst class. He had spent half of the year, after academics had ended for the day, struggling in this class. His marks in this class were dragging the bottom of the halfway mark. Never in his three years at the prestigious Academy did he once have a grade that placed him below the seventieth percentile. Now he was scraping by just above the fiftieth percentile, and he was still struggling.

Now that he was in the final quarter of the yearlong third-year trials at the Academy, he was finally starting to develop an understanding of the subject.

During the middle of the year the wiry little Guardsman, dressed smartly in his black and gold, who had been assisting the class that day, had snuck up on Samson while he was performing a form particularly badly. While he fumbled through missteps and poor hand movements, Samson had only become more frustrated. The crack of the hand at the back of his head had ignited a fierce rage deep in his core, which Samson hadn’t felt since he started the tightly regimented Chroynos Hegemony Guardsmen Academy.

Samson slipped his left leg back behind his right and smoothly spun ready to punch the face of the student who had committed the offense, and instead stared at the waistline and up and up to the face of the Guardsmen. He had a strange little smile on his face and didn’t even bother setting a guard to defend himself. That strange little smile said to Samson, that he knew a secret or a joke that no one else in the room was allowed to hear.

Samson had physically gravitated towards the back quarter of the gym classroom and mats, so his mistakes could not be seen, so next to no one of importance or standing in his class could see the confrontation that took place during the middle of the year.

Samson immediately dropped his offensive hands and assumed a posture of utmost respect for the visiting Guardsman. The lessons were forgotten completely. The instructor carried on the class without care.

Samson nearly trembled with fright as he looked up at the Guardsman. A combat veteran by the looks of his ribbons, and recent survivor of the intensive medical regeneration process, that had regrown the skin over the back half and right side of his scalp and who knows what else. The thin man in black, with a quarter head of hair, made the unprecedented step in Samson’s short life, of kneeling in front of him, so they could be eye to eye when he spoke. After a long exhale, the Guardsman’s piercing eyes digging holes out the back of Samson’s skull, he spoke, “Do you know what your problem is?”

Quick and ready, Samson replied, “No Guardsman!”

The man in black and perfect gold exhaled his laugh through another mystery smile, “Just call me Mike.”

The cadet snapped, “Yes, Guardsman Mike!”

The Guardsman did the inexplicable then, and rolled his eyes and sighed, before continuing, “What is your name Cadet?”

The cadet snapped dutifully, “Academy Cadet Samson Rockpoint, Sir!”

The massive man in black began, “Alright, Cadet Samson, do you know what your problem is?”

Confused, the youngster asked, “Sir?”

The adult asked cryptically, “Do you know why you are getting all of this wrong?”

Now Samson was really confused, bordering on angry, “Sir? … If I knew what I was doing wrong I wouldn’t be getting it wrong … I would fix myself so I could pass this class.”

Another quick smile and nod of the head, before the Guardsman replied, “You are trying too hard Samson.”

Now Samson was even more confused if that was at all possible.

It was confirmed in that instant after he asked, “Trying too hard?”

The old soldier informed him, “That’s right, you are trying too hard.”

Samson repeated, turning it into a question “Trying too hard? But Guardsman Mike! If I don’t try, I will fail! If I fail, I will need to work extra hard in other subjects. I want to be a Guardsman too! If I even pass, this year and they don’t kick me out, I will be at a disadvantage to every classmate who can pass this stupid class, from now until I am finally expelled all for failing this one stupid class!”

The slap on his left cheek started his ears ringing followed immediately by the crushing grip around his throat pulled his burning left cheek and captive head closer to the Guardsman’s fierce face, Guardsman Mike whispered so softly it consumed all outside interference as Samson was forced to focus on every word, “Cadet Rockpoint! This is the most critical class in your education! Fail to master this and you will die. You will dishonor your Regiment. You will dishonor your Service. And you will dishonor yourself.” He released Samson’s neck and pushed Samson’s head back hard enough, with three fingers pressed together, that the boy stumbled backward before recovering his attentive posture. “Now, cadet, this class is not like any other class in The Academy. The harder you try, the harder you think about it, the more you think about it the more difficult it will become. You need to just let it happen, don’t fight your body or your instincts. Be patient and open to it and you will learn that much faster. Clear your mind, relax, and just do it. Let things flow from you. You did it perfectly when I introduced myself just now, you turned without thought or confusion, and you were just ready. This is all the same, that feeling of being right or being in the right place, when you turned, is what all of this should feel like.”

Samson could only think to nod while the words played around his head. They held the ring of truth and enough weight that Samson knew they were important and would help. But he had no clue what they meant. Could Guardsman Mike really mean when he turned ready to punch him?

Samson sighed, releasing the frustration he had been holding. Guardsmen Mike smiled his knowing smile but didn’t share his joke again, then stood. His hand landed gently on Samson’s head and turned him bodily to the front of the room. “Relax ‘Academy Cadet Samson Rockpoint’. The greatest pot takes the longest to make.”

Utterly confused, Samson shook his head at the nonsense the Guardsman had just babbled.

Three months later the forms were starting to fold gently into his life.

The smirking little nobleboy shook his head and shoulders while taunting Samson.

Samson’s unfocused eyes held the other boy’s core in his peripheral vision while his guard remained firm and unmoving. His flair and gimmicks could not shake the core of his body or distract Samson while he was calmly measuring his opponent.

The noble boy irritated that his showmanship hadn’t worked in front of the class, pressed his attack in disgust. His parents had paid for private tutors since he could stand and his weekend visits home included extra instruction on the subjects at the academy, this year and the two prior years.

Samson’s experience ended with what he had learned in this class and growing up.

The noble boy’s right shoulder dropped as his fist came level with his ear, his growl was inaudible, but Samson could feel it. The telltale shoulder movement was accompanied by a shift forward on his feet and the other boy’s midsection tensing, moving, and advancing.

He started to punch but Samson intercepted it just behind the wrist. He deflected the blow, pushing down and across with his left hand, sending the attacking fist tangling across the other boy’s body. Samson’s right hand slipped across their two bodies, over the attacker’s shoulder, cupped his neck under the ear, and drove him forward and past.

Samson’s right foot slipped across and his left drifted lightly across the mat behind him as he turned to face his rear. The other boy was recovering his stance, after such a humiliating display, being slipped by one of the worst students in the class.

The sparring match continued with Samson on the defensive as the other boy attacked violently. With both hands in front of the attacker, as if to strangle Samson, his guard rose smoothly, his left forearm and right elbow caught both of the other boy’s hands as they circled, rising clockwise across Samson’s chest. Stepping forward, his right knee slipped under the other boy’s knee and lifted him off balance. The short step forced his right foot down, and Samson tucked his face and arms to his body as he turned inside and pulled his left leg behind him.

The other boy passed Samson’s back.

Samson felt his heel hit the other boy’s ankle, while he passed behind Samson.

When he looked up, from his turn, the attacking boy was flying to land face-first on the mat, almost a meter away.

Without a care for the fallen student, the instructor looked to Samson, after the other had landed, and asked neutrally, “Where did you learn that?”

Confused, the cadet asked, “Instructor?”

Instructor’s patience was controlled but starting to fray, “It is a simple enough question.” The other boy groaned in a tangle of arms and legs after his crash to the mat, while the instructor continued to ignore him. “Where did you learn that?”

Taken aback, Samson answered as honestly as he could, “Well, here instructor.”

The instructor, now confused, asked, “When?”

It just spilled out from Samson’s mouth, “From the form we learned last week. The arm movement and turn, just … fit. I didn’t mean to kick him so hard! Honest!”

Instructor snapped coldly, “See me after class Cadet Rockpoint.”

Crestfallen, Samson groaned, “Yes, instructor.”

The remaining two hours of the class dragged hopelessly as more students struggled through their first head-to-head sparring competitions. Samson stood alone in the middle of the crowd. The taint of his failure was fresh and reeking on his skin. It was contagious at the Academy, and no one wanted to be near failure. No one wanted Samson near them.

By the end of class, he wanted to crawl into the crack between mats. He wanted to hide in a corner. He wanted to be anywhere but where he was, waiting for the inevitable dismissal, resulting from his failure.

Instead of being able to run, he was only allowed the long wait for the instructor’s leisure after class. He still needed to change, shower, and dress for the evening meal.

While the rest of the class rushed off to find their buddies for their evening meal, Samson waited outside the instructor’s office. He was lost in his own apprehensions, in the hallway, when the instructor’s voice woke him from his fearful daydream as abruptly as if he had kicked Samson in the side of the head, “Get into my office.” The instructor brushed past and unlocked his office.

Samson followed and snapped to attention in front of the desk reporting as ordered.

Once inside the instructor demanded, “Do you know what you did, Cadet Rockpoint?”

Samson jerked straight into his trained attentive posture. Unsure of what the correct answer should be Samson guessed, “No, instructor.”

Suspicious, the instructor demanded, “Are you lying? You know that is an honor infraction if you are caught. You told me in class that you learned it ‘from the form we learned last week’. Did you or didn’t you learn that in my class?”

Samson had to hesitate and think it over again before responding, “I did learn it in class, I think. I did what felt right for the situation instructor. I don’t know how to explain it. It was just … ‘there’.”

Dropping into his chair, the instructor rubbed his eyes. He was tired after teaching Martial Arts classes all day, from senior students in the early morning to the fumbling kiddy classes before the evening meal. As a junior instructor, he got the physically intensive hands-on full-contact classes with feisty young men his own size to lead early in the day and the bulk attendance junior classes to stressfully hand-hold and shepherd whelps in the afternoons.

The instructor admitted, “No, you did a surprisingly good job of describing what you did the first time. What would you say if I told you that what you did was something that no novice should know?”

Samson interrupted, “Sir! I didn’t mean to…”

The instructor snapped, “Shut up, Cadet!” Shaking his head in frustration, the instructor continued over Samson’s interruption, “I said no ‘novice should know’, I didn’t say that it was wrong. It is just not what we teach at this level. What you did was a very high-level application of that form, as basic as it is; it has a lot of applications and hidden tricks that make it very useful at higher levels. Are you sure you never had training before? Your only experiences are just in this class?”

Samson agreed, “Yes instructor. My parents were too poor when I was young and, after, well I was in a community orphan creche and no one would help us. We were lucky if older children didn’t steal our food at mealtime…”

Shaking his head in disgust at the horrifically inadequate system that cared for the society’s most vulnerable, the instructor’s philosophical irritation was interpreted as direct disapproval of Samson, himself.

Samson braced himself for the worst.

The instructor admitted, “Well, what you did today was excellent.

His instructor warned, “I was about to recommend your dismissal for failing to meet standards in this class. Things seem to be falling into place for you. Your display today was superb, and your leap in understanding makes up for a lot of fumbled afternoons earlier this year.

“As long as you don’t give up and start slacking off in my class you will be secure in the top fifth come the end of this evaluation quarter.

“Well done Cadet. Go to dinner.”

Thank You!

Thank you for reading this chapter!

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