-(Colonel David O’lleary)-

Border of the PX2458 uncharted star system, Year 456 of the Unified Alliance

I sighed in my command chair; I hate long hauls like this one. Patting the breast pocket of my uniform, I sought my comm-link tablet which was vibrating. Looking at the caller ID, I sighed more heavily. Dio Quatro, one of the super soldiers charged with training the other super soldiers of the mercenary company.

“It’s me, Dio.” He had the bad habit of speaking self importantly.

“I know it’s you,” I said.

“Commander, I’m calling about Corporal Ell Evan. She did it again!”

Sighing once more, I asked, “Did she beat the simulations again and you’re unable to accept it?”

Ell Evan was the perfect soldier. On paper. The operative, space combat, and survival simulations were a piece of cake to her. Unfortunately, she was unable to perform in the field, because she was a lazy young woman. She was often punished for her eccentricity by pulling double guard duty, cleaning or other chores no one want to do.

“Commander! It’s not about that, she’s fighting with Corporal Anderson! She listens to you, please do something!”

“Of course, I will do what I can,” I responded amiably.

I cut the call and brought to mind the operation in this system that we had just received from the main HQ. Two big clients had paid for the capture or elimination of a target that had been raiding and destroying their assets for two decades. They wished for it to stop, to give them a chance to rebuild.

But, my gut was telling me that something was fishy.

Getting out of the leather command chair on the bridge of the ship, I entered the elevator which led to the service corridor of the ship. She was an old design, dating back to the war of the first contact with the Saryan race, which had been just a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that cost millions of lives before the Alliance intervened. The ship was one of the first destroyer scouts of the Earth Federation, retrofitted to be able to pound medium sized vessels into oblivion and also act as a drop ship for troops. It married elegant curves and squares in its elongated form and had additional modules for operations and deep space maneuvers. The weapons system was upgraded to what the federation currently used on its ship, laser beam banks, rail guns, and sublight missile launchers. I envied those who could order weapon packs from VICE industries, their ships were another beast entirely; they had technology the earth federation tried relentlessly steal from them… but that was wishful thinking. The technology was locked and would self-destruct if you tried to even look at the code of its programming.

Arriving in the simulation bay, the sliding doors opened for me and I was immediately struck by the number of people surrounding one of the simulators. It was one of those blocky grey ones, mimicking the cockpit of a heavy fighter, with an AI which would take you through simulated space and guide you through different scenarios. Remembering the pattern of an earlier incident which happened not so long ago, I advanced toward the little gathering. One of the super soldiers saw me arriving and saluted me on the spot, the rest of them were too focused on the fight between a female and male soldier. The female soldier was a curvy young woman of medium height. Her face was distinctive due to her Asian features and dark blond hair crowning her head. She was the obvious result of a genetic engineering program given the preternatural speed with which she avoided kicks and punch. Corporal Ell Evan, super soldier B-58 of Asian strand sold to ARES mercenary when she was 8 years old. A genius compared to other super soldiers sold in the same batch as hers, but a lack of stimulation and hard missions had caused her to become rather “lazy.”

Ell deftly avoided a punch from the buff young man, catching his arm as it swung wide, and finally landed a powerful blow to his chin with enough force to lift the man off his feet. We all saw him hit the deck of the simulation room like a bag of potatoes.

“Can’t beat me in simulation, or in the real world. I’m better than you, dickhead,” she declared triumphant.

“Attention!” I yelled with my command voice.

All the soldiers turned toward me, snapping rigidly to attention. Most of them wore a sloppy version of my own dark uniform or were just in undershirts, pants, belts, and boots with their sidearms. Some wore accessories, quantum jewels, bracelets or their dog tags. Their ID tattoos were showing on their neck due to their nervousness. The super soldier tattoos are made with invisible ink that only showed if said soldiers had elevated body temperatures or under a certain light spectrum.

My eyes finally locked on those of the female corporal of interest, and she didn’t even look guilty. She never did.

“Ell Evan at ease and everyone else drops and give me 100, fast!”

Dropping into push-up position despite the limited deck space in the simulation room, the soldiers went at it quickly. Not bothering to wait until they were done, I signaled for the corporal to follow me out of the room.

***

-(Ell Evan)-

I was so in trouble! Shit. Why couldn’t that bastard leave me alone? Anderson always gave me trouble for no reason. Taking a seat in the chair of his office, which was situated adjacent to his cabin, the Commander touched his tablet and then looked at me. I was still standing at attention, waiting for him to lay down the law. Given my situation, this wasn’t my first time in the Commander’s office. There were old books in a fake wood shelf behind him, potted plants placed in each corner of the room, and a single chair facing his desk. He looked exasperated.

“At ease, corporal, and please take a seat.”

“Yes, sir!” I sat, back stiff and straight, and waited.

“We are entering system PX2458 and the passive scanner has detected a class M moon around a gas giant. However, that’s not the most important thing.”

His slid the tablet across the desk towards me and I could see what might be a structure orbiting the large moon. The IFF of what could only be a space station was displayed.

“SHIT.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought, too.” The commander made a sad smile as I slid the tablet back to him.

“Sir, this is dangerous. VICE Industries will go to war with us and we will not be able to survive. I recommend aborting the mission. I saw on the passive scan that this station doesn’t have any defense platforms but that’s not possible!” I gave my input without being asked.

With good reason, VICE Industries’ augmented centurion made super soldiers looks like toys, their ships were geared for war, and were super advanced. I had seen the reports on their war against the superior Shdeveri Empire, aliens that had dimensional technology, and yet VICE Industries still fucking won.

“The defense platform must be concealed, and I’m sure if we tweak the sensors we would even be able to pinpoint if they have mines around that space station.”

The commander looked at me and sighed, his face showing sorrow. “We cannot abort. HQ has already taken payment for this mission and we can’t refund because our clients are Assurians. They would take it quite badly…”

“Shit.” My shoulders slumped as I sank back into the chair.

Assurians have a weird sense of honor, professionalism and vengeance. If you were friends with one, he would move mountains to help you, but if you had a falling out, they had no qualms about killing you later., This meant accepting jobs from them was always dangerous; you must fulfill the contract to the letter or risk getting killed for some details they expected you to follow. Assurians took the notion of vengeance to another level; they would kill the people you cherished or even only remotely knew, and then kill you. A race like that was hard to deal with.

“So, now we come to the real reason I invited you to my office, Corporal. I want you to go, scout, that space station, and look for the hidden defense. Become my Arianne.”

I laughed for a long time before calming down. “You are not asking for something small. But, you know what?”

“Do tell.” He smiled at me, knowing my answer already.

“I will do it.”

This was a challenge, or a suicide mission. I didn’t care about my life anyway; all I thrived on was excitement. Living like a slave at the whim of my masters didn’t interest me the slightest. They dangled Freedom before us like a carrot if we did meritorious service, but I knew the truth. The more useful you were, the harder it was for them to let you go. I’d been lowering my standing and abilities while biding my time, waiting for the day when I could find a way to escape. Or, I could die while having lived my life to the best I could.