“So, Rake this is my Fireteam.” Rachel nodded to the few people sitting around a table in the middle of the room.

“We got two heavies, Vic and Leaf.” A huge man and a woman nearly as tall and even broader nodded to Rake, who did as he was told and nodded back.

“Sarah is our team's medic, be nice or she will cool any shots she has to give you before you get them... “ A woman of medium height nodded, she had light brown skin and the usual short hair, her eyes were blue. Not the usual blue Rake had seen with the others but a deep shining blue that could not have been natural, he would need to ask her about that later.

“Nike and Mint are our shock troopers, both of them are unreasonable so I would recommend not arguing with them.” The two people rose from their seats, Nike was bare chested and scars covered his entire back, when he turned to Rake he could see the scars reached up to his face until they ended just below his eyes.

Mint was wearing a sleeveless shirt and her arms were not only scarred but also clipped together with steel tools.

When she noticed his stare she grimaced at him revealing shattered teeth in the front.

“Bad day yesterday, my pack exploded… the titanium nails are still in, but should be gone by next week.” Rake nodded, he had thought they were just training here, if training caused injuries like this he would need be careful.

“Well and you have met me, I am the commander and will handle explosives until you got the hang of it.” Rake nodded again and Leaf frowned.

“Is he mute? What the hell are they doing to the new recruits these days… they seem to get less inclined to talk with every breed they push through the doors…” The large woman took a step towards Rake and he had to swallow, the woman could most likely snap his neck with one arm while drinking tea with the other.

Rachel took a step towards the woman, who stopped dead in her tracks.

“Rake and me are going to get him into the fast program for explosives, you have the evening to yourselves. Mint, you will need to see the physical again, if you want to be kept on reserve for the Angels that is. Nike you are out, psych eval came back negative, sorry about that.” Mint nodded and Nike sighed, Leaf turned to her colleague and walked back to the table. Rachel took the chance and pulled Rake back to the entrance.

“Okay, that went about as well as could be expected, you are now a member of the team. I will pull some strings to get you to the next learning booth, try to cram in as much about explosives as possible while learning the language.” she whispered, as soon as they reached the edge of the building a platform appeared in front of them and pushed him on it.

The steel dropped and Rake had trouble staying on his feet. The world outside seemed to be a hectic place, he hoped he could deal with all the new stuff that was expected of him.

Rachel lead him to a large round building half an hour away from the barracks, at the entrance she talked to one of the workers who then lead Rake into one of the learning booths.

“Okay, Rachel said you did not get the full tour for you linguistics, I will restart the program for you and add explosives to the course. I am guessing you already know the whole religion stuff so I cut that so you get done faster. The whole thing will start as soon as you step into the ring, you will spend twenty hours in there and sleep the remaining five in the barracks. Everything clear?” Rake nodded, not like he had much of a choice in the matter.

Learning seemed easier now, every evening he got back to the barracks he managed to exchange a couple of words with Rachel who told im he was making fast progress. The explosives tutorial he received covered a lot of things and Sue had to drag up simple physics and chemicals for him to fully grasp the subject. The world had changed, much to the better in his mind. More and more of the fourth exited the facility he had been born in. Most of them had difficulties talking just like him but all of them had a different view on the world.

Rake couldn’t quite put his finger on why he thought that way, but they behaved differently, they walked with purpose, they had a hidden goal they wanted to achieve while he did what he did for the sake of his team.

Combat training proved to be hard work, even with his strangely strong body he had to sweat and take breaks every now and then. The others did not seem to mind, in fact Leaf told him she had never seen a recruit to make it through the Course as fast as he did.

The Course was a large area where they got a set of tasks and trained with other teams, both were armed with non lethal weapons. Killing was forbidden but if you did kill someone by accident there was little to no punishment depending on the circumstances.

Rachel told him killing was part of a soldier's life, just like water or breathing, just like death would be the end of it.

Rake had never thought too much about death, sure the subject came up every now and then in the learning phase but the true meaning was something different.

One of the things he noticed was that many Fireteams around them moved, the left their barracks and new people moved in. A constant flow of new Faces surrounded him, at one point he had tried to truly understand how many soldiers the Ercinee were raising, Sue had declined the search and told him that it should be of no concern to him.

As days stretched into weeks his lessons became less frequent and he could finally talk to the others, Rachel agreed to let him leave the complex on his own.

He began to take long walks around the complex, the size was incredible, the Barracks were on one of the outer rings. On the map it was directly next to a steep cliff but on the ground Rake had to walk over an hour to get to the cliff.

There he found a spot he liked, a couple of meters above the ground was the balcony of an abandoned building set int the stone behind it. On the Rake would sit, a little pad in his hand and ask Sue about the planet, the Ercinee and the Empire they were fighting.

“The Empire’s population is mainly Humans and Draconians, the humans are a less advanced subspecies that inhabited most of the old world. You and your kind were the furthest advanced creators on the planet and the only one that found wisdom in the Teachings of the Allfather.” rake had learned not to trust Sue too much, she was telling him what she had been told to say, if true or not had to be found out another way.

“What of the Draconians? And the Darkwing. Is he one of them or something else…” He did not fully expect Sue to answer.

“The Darkwing is thought to be a mixture between the two races. The Ercinee high council has no knowledge about him, only that he seems to be immortal and change his shape at will.” Rake sat up, had Sue just given him an answer about one of the most critical topics in the Ercinee culture?

Rake looked at the pad, an error message had appeared and the thing was now rebooting, a glitch perhaps? He had gotten a short version of the programming in these things but he had no true understanding on what happened behind the screen.

“Don’t push me!”A soft voice reached Rake’s ears, too high pitched for a human. Laughter followed and the scraping of claws over stone. Rake stayed still and tried to locate where the noise was coming from, another soft laughter followed by claws scraping over stone.

Whatever made the noise was above him to the right, about three creatures. Small and light, he could hear the rustling of feathers.

A loud scream sent him to his feet, he looked up and saw a small figure falling off a piece of railing from an upper balcony. Wings brushed through the air as it tried to get into an upright position. To Rake’s surprise the creature managed to land gracefully next to him on the balcony.

It was considerably smaller than him, it’s head only reached to his chest. Thin limbs and claws on the feet made it look more like a bird than a human, however it stood on two legs and had something closely related to fingers on the second join of it’s wings.

Big eyes and a flat nose nearly looked human, when it opened it’s mouth Rake could see thin teeth, or something resembling teeth.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spy but the others…” It talked and slowly backed away from him, above the other creatures shrieked and set out into the sky with flapping wings.

“One of them pushed me, I didn’t want to fly so close to you, we know you humans don’t like wings…” rake raised an eyebrow, they knew about humans?

“Hello, my name is Rake. Did you hurt yourself?” The words came easier now, nearly fluent. The thing’s eyes widened.

“You speak? But the teachers always said humans can’t speak…” It stopped backing away, something new in it’s eyes, wonder or maybe curiosity.