The first sight upon exiting the Shuttle was that of a small building directly before us, a few people meandering about it to catch a glimpse of the soldiers debarking from the craft. It appeared to be eight individuals, two children.

The Planet had not changed how they looked, or grew as some of the harsher Planets might do to the Human Populations as they adapted. It meant my calculations would not need to change a very great deal. I regarded the small child, no more than four, holding her Mothers hand. She would not be able to move quickly enough on those small legs to avoid being killed. It made my job far easier.

Judging by the looks, we were also a shock to them as well. No doubt they have never before seen a Personal Squad of a General. Though it was obvious we were just that, based on the fact that below our Generals Crest, which all Soldiers wore under a certain General, was a custom saying. Our ‘Respice Finem’.

I turned to watch as our support personnel shuttle came in beside ours. I frowned behind the helmet. I disliked these undisciplined soldiers. It would have been another matter if they acted like they had some sort of training. Instead they had been lax, and almost all died on the Battlecruiser.

The fact I was planning to kill one, if not all of them in this OP, depending on their performances, was neither here nor there either. The Villagers had an oddly different form of greeting for these five. Still cautious, but a few of the youths that had been hiding had run out to greet one or two of them.

That might complicate matters later, I doubted these soldiers could put a bullet through a child’s skull, or back. Another complication within my plans. I disliked complications. “Move out. Lilith, with me.”

I moved toward the group, Lilith trailing half a step behind me while the rest of my squad split once more. Two moving to the the Support Squad, the rest moving in two groups of two throughout the Village. No one was allowed to move about alone. Standard sweep protocols, I needed to ensure nothing beyond usual suspicion and fear was created, for now.

“Who, and where is your Village Mayor?” I asked of the group in front of the small building. I was met with blank stares, as though they had not heard. I repeated the question once more. Just before feeling I might need to harm one of them, sliming our chances some, the little girl came closer and spoke.

I leaned down, moving to take a knee and stare at her through my helmet. “Repeat yourself, please.” He voice was soft, and sweet. It reminded me of my Sisters.

“The Mayor is Mr. Baxter, he should be at the barricade Mr. Soldier.” She fiddled a bit more, and seemed to build up some courage, she asked a question soon after. “Can I see you without your helmet?”

The girls Mother rushed forward, hissing a rebuke at her. “Melody! I’m sorry, Sir, she is but a child...please forgive her…” I tilted my head up at the woman, and rose slowly, menacingly. I would need to adapt the persona of a Soldier who cared. Easier said than done. But I would manage.

As I rose, the woman grew more afraid, picking her daughter up and stumbling over apologies and requests for forgiveness. I leaned in close to the little girl, Melody, who seemed confused and raised my right hand to hit a small button at the base of my helmet, just above my spine.

I saw the little girls face gasp in shock, and I forced a smile onto my Stoic face. The woman paled some, but I ignored her and told the child ‘Boo’. She giggled and hid, acting shy as she did so. Children were fonts of information, and I would use her naivety against her.

Melody stopped giggling, her Mother seemingly petrified. “Your Mommy, she seemed shocked. Why is that little Angel?” I asked, adopting a soft spoken tone, something that would lull in another and have them feel inclined to trust me. It did not always work, but it was basic protocol for infiltration or information gathering Operations. At least, that is what our training had shown.

The fact that if we failed, we were killed, were very strong motivators for us all in the Academy. The little girl blushed at me, and shook her head. “I don’t know” she whispered, still shy. She looked at Lilith, clearly female in her Armor.

“What about you?” she asked, more boldly. I turned toward Lilith, and made a slight nod to show her she should follow my lead. We needed to earn these people’s trust after all. When her own helmet retracted into the main body of the armor suit, it showed a beautiful face, a small scar tracing just below her right eye, the only mar on her attractive face, with vibrant purple eyes. A common color for Genetically altered Humans, my own were a green to bright they looked like emeralds, after all.

“Pretty!” Melody screamed out, and I saw Lilith Blush demurely, an act of course, each of us had undergone such perversions we had no room for such quaint notions and modesty, or embarrassment, though we could fake it.

I smiled brightly at the child. “Would you like to see her closer, little Angel?” I asked. Melody Nodded and fought free of her Mothers grasp to rush over to Lilith, who had knelt down already and was allowing the child to touch every part of her face, even the bald head.

The child frowned a bit, patting her scalp. “Why do you not have hair?” I found the question personally odd, it was common knowledge all soldiers kept their heads clean shaven during the Acedmy, though she was but a child.

“Melody! I’m sorry Ma’am…” Lilith held a hand up, and smiled at the Mother, putting into her purple eyes all the adoration and care only another Mother could show, fake of course. “It’s all right, Miss. I have no hair, little one, because I am a fresh Graduate of the Academy. Our General chose us as his Personal Squad, and our first mission is to help the Villages of Eden.”

Good, she was using common knowledge, easily acquired through hacking, and that would be all that was on record as well. The true mission was known only to the Soldiers present. “Wow! That’s amazing! Hey, hey, what’s your name? Mine is Melody! I wanna be a Soldier for the Empire too when I grow up!”

Lilith smiled at the little girl, and patted her head with her armor plated hand, gently. “I’m Lilith, my Captain there is Lucifer. And that is a very wonderful dream, Melody. When you graduate the Academy, look us up, I would love to speak with you again then as well.”

The little girl said ok, and her Mother snatched her up and took off with the others. The look she gave us was pure fear, not something she should feel at all. Rebel? Or Rebel Sympathizer? Both a possibility. I had Lilith and I leave our helmets off, would save time later. Then we made our way toward the Barricade, where the Mayor should be.

I heard Lilith say something softly, once she was sure no one would be around to hear. Her voice was no longer warm, and kind. It was cold and desolate. “A shame the little girl must die. I think she would have made a wonderful Soldier in the future, as far as normal bred ones go.”

I nodded my head, stating a single phrase as we arrived at the Barricade Wall. “She will die a Hero of the Empire.”

The Barricade was a massive, ten foot tall, wall that surrounded the Village itself, and would take several hours to traverse fully on foot. We had moved the way the little girl had pointed, and luckily found the Mayor here already.

“....Sheer the Wall up Guard Captain. We don’t want any of the Brujaw to break through and kill anymore people.” The Mayor, an elderly man that seemed to have a great deal of vitality left within him, even opposed to his obvious advancement of years.

When I made my way to him, dodging a few frantic workings as they rushed to plug a gap in the wall that was about the size of half our shuttle, that made for a very large creature. Sadly, the folder in regards to our mission had no details on local wildlife, predator or otherwise.

“Are you the Mayor, Mr. Baxter?” I asked when I arrived. The little old man jumped, and turned with a small scream. I resisted the urge to shoot him at the sudden turn and movements that could have been an attack in disguise, and raise an eyebrow in confusion. “Mayor?”

“You scared me, Boy! Don’t you know we just survived an attack of the Brujaw? What on Eden’s lush green arse are you doing sneaking up on an old man like that?!”

Once more, the urge to shoot him, this time for being so disrespectful. But doing so would ensure my time table changed, would cause it all to change and possibly make it so I missed a few Villagers. That would not be allowed, instead I smiled lightly and continued this farce of a ‘good’ Soldier.

“Ah, forgive me, Mayor. I’m Lucifer Morningstar, Captain of General Azazels first Personal Squad. This, is Lilith Forsworn, one of the women under my Command. We are here on a routine sweep and assist of Villages for the Planet Eden, as well as a census taking. Your Village is the first on our list. Now, what is a Brujaw?”

I truly wished to know the last, the lie of a reason aside, any and all threats must be known, and assessed. The little old man pointed behind him at the gap in his surprisingly thick wall.

“The Brujaw is a massive Predator, solitary hunter and extremely powerful. We had one break through, a juvenile by the looks of it. It made off with two men on Guard before we could arrive to kill it. The bloody thing managed to escape! You’re here on the Generals Orders, yes? Then you can assist us. I want that Brujaw Dead.”

The Mayor was on a rant, and I allowed him to throw his spittle and continue his odd little tirade for a time longer. It consisted mostly about how the Brujaw would return, and these Beasts were actively hunted to ensure things like this did not happen in the areas that were populated. I had asked for a description, at some point.

THe old man had called it a ‘Demon’ made flesh on this Planet of Eden. Demon, in the old tongue, abomination and a creature of the foulest depravities. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at such nonsense. That was when a young worker, hearing us speak, piped in his two cents.

“The Brujaw is a huge Predator with two horns at its temples and thick brown/green fur, with a large mane. It kind of resembles Humanities Cradle of Birth, Earth’s Lion. According to ancient documentations. But it is not feline, it is a kind of sentient, and predatory Plant.”

Now that was fairly interesting. Incendiary grenades should do the job well then. Our ‘Support Personnel’ arrived about then. The large Black Man I never got the name of whistling lightly as he stared at the wall.

“Brujaw, eh Old Man? You have some shitty luck!” The Old man made an odd gesture with his middle finger, creating a fist and leaving just it up aimed at the Black man, screaming out that the ‘Whipper Snapper’ could shove it up his Arse.

I felt a headache coming on, dealing with this idiocy. About then the Black Man remembered I was there, turned to salute and called me Captain. Perhaps he would survive, he had learned something with regards to me.

I nodded lightly, and the Old Man looked between us a bit. “Jarome! Why are you guys taking orders from this Stripling?”

“General’s Orders. We are their Support Personnel. They are at Half Strength, and we fill out the Numbers. They are the Elites, Bred for War after all. No doubt lost half their people in the sham of an Academy where they pit them against each other, kill the Humanity inside they do.”

I clenched my teeth. My fallen, while failures, had been the stepping stones to the formation of our Squad, the giving of Names for my Brothers and Sisters in arms. They had just insulted Heroes of the Empire. Heroes who had laid down their lives for the continuation, and preservation of our Mighty Empire by having us survive.

But I could not strike him, I had a role to uphold, an ideal that must remain intact while on this mission. I had to act the normal Human. My Squad However, did not. The Two of my Men who had gone over with them, Castielle and Mastema had also removed their Helmets, though they were looking at Lilith.

I turned my head to regard her as well, and was somewhat shocked. She was smiling, and it was not a kind smile. We had seen her smile like that in the Academy once before. It had been the only time in the recorded History of our Academy that an instructor had died in the crossfire of a fight.

Lilith had been allowed to live, because of her extreme proficiency for combat, no one survived the Instructors in a fight, she had.

The Black Man, Jerome, was laughing with the old man and his men when she moved forward. The smile itself, when shown, could be called sweet in appearance. But for us, any facial expression not a mask was not something good. We were, in the end, the products of war after all. Forged in the Crucible of Hell that was the Academy. To survive, we all became a kind of Monster.

“What is it Greenie Miss? Want some Black Meat to warm you up at night?” Jerome asked her, and she smiled. Tilting her head to the side. He continued a moment. “I can certainly oblige, show you a better time than that Captain, though the ha…”

He didn’t get another word out after the last insult. Her first was a blur, connecting with the big mans jaw, then it was back at her side. He stood in perplexion a moment, then his eyes rolled back into his sockets and foma formed at his mouth.

She had sent a single, well aimed, punch to the side of his skull. Her speed caused a minor lag in the results, but they were the same. She had knocked him out cold. He fell to the ground, and she nudged him with her foot.

Luckily, this would be expected between Soldiers, to a degree. But I could not do it personally, nor could i have done it in such a manner. Lilith was the better close quarters fighter, I excelled in guns.

“The rest of you mighty Veterans, we are freshly minted, yes. But we are not ‘Greenies’. The place you insulted bred us, ensured our training, and that we would serve the Empire, and our Empress. The Fallen fell as Heroes, ensuring a stronger Generation of Soldiers..”

“Freaks, more like” the angry man from the Ship had said. The one that I had almost killed. He fell next, leaving three very stunned faces to look at Lilith, more if you counted the walking dead men at the wall. All who had frozen in place to watch.

“Do not insult their memory, and valor in front of me again.” She finished, the smile leaving her face. She kept the mask up though, the one of an angry woman who may have lost much in the fighting. Regardless of her strength, and differences from the normal Human, she would be seen as just that, a woman. The people would connect more to her than they would myself.

A sad truth, for them. Women were the weaker Sex in normal people, but in the Program we were bred to, they were the Equal, if not superior warrior. “Thank you, Lilith.” I stated, truth and mask. A Commanding Officer thanking his subordinate for upholding the natural order of things within the Military, and ensuring our Dominance.

I turned to look at the Support Personnel. My voice came out with authority, and a strictness that vibrated with emotion I did not feel. “You three, when they wake up inform them they are to hunt down, and kill this Brujaw creature. Just you five, return only when it is completed. Prove you are Soldiers of the Empire, and not lawless trash.”

They saluted as one, casting a fearful look toward Lilith, and moved the two unconscious idiots away from the pathway, and the people that had just returned to work.

“Mayor, my Support Troops will end the Brujaw for you. My own men, and myself would like to assist in repairing this wall. Regardless of his phrasing, Private Jerome was correct in saying we were bred for our strengths. We can assist, and expedite the repairs of your wall, perhaps even aid in reinforcing them for you.”

The Old Man gave me an odd look, then regarded Lilith before speaking Slowly. “Aye, Captain. We would thank you for such assistance. Very Kind of you.”

I saw a Flash in the Depths of his eyes, something that belied his age and seeming lack of a mind, regardless of his Vitality. The Old Man was making guesses now. He knew were were from the Academy, not just from a Military school, but were Bred, Genetically Altered Soldiers of War. I thought I saw a hint a fear.

I had a feeling that these three days, as well as this OP had just become far, far more difficult...