The Executioner (Cosmic Justice League Book 0) Page 5

  "I would like to know which one I would like it to be...I certainly would hate to think that one of my own would want to kill me...even though that would mean I have a big problem since then someone else has tried to kill me, someone I do not know. Like they say the old book says, a known threat is always better than an unknown one.

  Hours later, when he finally made it back to the barrack, he saw them all grouped together around few bunks, worried and quiet. The blood and the remains of Virkle in his office had been removed by the cleaning crew and now his office looked like nothing ever happened in it at all.

  "I just came from talking to the commission. You have a right to know that it seems someone was targeting me… All the evidence is pointing that way. Virkle was certainly not the target.”

  He walked to stand among them, and they all quietly circled around. “I offered my resignation on the account that I may indirectly endanger your lives, like I did to Virkle, but…the commission turned that down.

  “What I can offer you is that, currently there are still twenty more assigned drill sergeants here. If any of you want to, you can be transferred to one of them, so you can complete your training with them. You are given an option to do that. And it would be wise to think about it.”

  “Sir?” Siya interrupted him.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  “I do know it cannot be any of you… I know you well enough by now.” His eyes went over their faces as he spoke. “Besides, I have not even trained you into the use of explosives yet. So unless one of you had a sideline hobby I did not know about of creating a homemade explosive device, you are all in the clear. But… I really do not think any of you could do it. But…”

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “You have to understand, there were billions of people who lost their lives in the last war. Wounds are still too fresh to heal. Those that were killed… they all had family and friends. The hatred toward the imperial army burns hot and is powerful enough to singe rationality of many those who suffered. You have to understand. I’ve been there. Those people… the things we did to them, the suffering they all experienced… It is incalculable. It would not be surprising that one of them decided to ease their pain through killing me. As you all know the army decided to create and market me as one of the symbols of their victory. Why they did that, especially since they perfectly know I was just one of the soldiers, nothing more?” Derran shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe the same reason as why they fought the war the way they did… because they are that stupid and ignorant. So, they made a mark out of me. I know that. I knew that as soon as I saw the first video bit hit communication lines. And that is probably what this is all about. You deserve to be fully aware of that. So…”

  “But who could have known you were here? Isn’t it supposed to be all secret?“ Siya was not ready to quit, was trying to add it all up, find the answer.

  “Of course. But, I cannot talk to you about that now. Actually, the commission has ordered me not to look into this matter. They promised to do that, although I trust them not more than I trust my generals. Stil, it is not my job. My job is to prepare you, the best I can, so you can pass your initial testing by the end of your first year. Maybe when you become all powerful investigators, you can look into this… I understand you will be able to do just that sort of a thing. Until then, my hands are really tied…”

  He could see them starting slowly to relax, the information he gave them slow to process, but still relieving their doubts and fears. They seemed to relax so much and the chatting slowly increased that Derran decided to speak up again. “Please consider what I have told you. I will not bare any ill feelings if you decide to move to another barrack and have a new instructor.”

  The next day, or the day after that, to Derran’s sobering surprise, the commission received zero transfer requests.

  C

  hapte r 8 - The Fire Test

  “Good morning, soldiers! At ease… I have good news and bad news…” Derran with a harsh voice and murky face greeted the candidates one morning. “Good news is that now there are only forty-five of you left in the program and that during the last ten months of training, you almost learned how to be a real ground-based trooper. You passed through most of the elements of the basic training. And many of you have been asking yourself questions of why do you really need to learn how to use every available weapon, why you have to learn the hand combat. Well, because you just do not know when you will need it. And that is exactly what is going on to happen next. That is the bad news…We are going into a combat, real combat.”

  “What?”

  “What combat?”

  “Who are we going to fight?”

  “Where?”

  “When?”

  Hundreds of questions started to come from all sides as candidates jumped up with each eager to know more.

  Derran raised his hands, quieting them all down. “You are going to experience a real combat. We have information that the peace treaty that has been signed almost two years ago has not been, as you probably know, signed with all the houses on the Planet of Vazz…There is a small region where rebels, are still known to cause trouble, well, don’t know if I can call them rebels, they are labeled by the army as rather thieves, renegades. We are to go in there and patrol one of the air ways that have been seeing some engagement from this bandit groups. And when I say ‘bandit’ I hope that’s all they are, and not, what I am more afraid of, some heroic ready-to-die-for-a-cause fanatics.”

  Everyone instantly became very quiet.

  “Our mission is to secure this road and engage anyone who is raiding transporters there. And let me tell you, they are raiding transporters. People are dying. It would be a folly to think that this is not going to be a star-gazing picnic. The army has already lost about hundred troops during the last year to the combat in the area. Let’s hope you do not become an incremental part to that statistic.

  “It is only fair of me to warn you what you will be facing…Regardless of how the army markets these guys, these are probably veteran soldiers, snipers, people who lost dear ones in the war and hate you enough to put a laser between your eyes just for wearing that uniform.

  “On a bright side, they seem to have a rather limited use of droids since the army got mostly rid of all of them…Probably a few neuron slicers, but plenty of explosives and booby traps. And you saw what a bomb can do to a person right here, so…”

  He could see fear starting to creep across many of their faces. Their eyes got wide, many held their breaths. He could not blame them. Actually, he admired it. Maybe he tought them something after all.

  “Much better to know fear now than all that crap about being holly imperial warriors that nothing can touch, spaceshit I was fed by my drill sergeant. How much did those lies help us? All that ego-boosting got us as far as the first droid, the first shot that grinded our inferor armour like it was made of clay not metal... stupid fucks.” The memories came back, but he should not burden them with those, and he pulled himself together.

  “Well, The mission is to last four weeks, and with the end of that mission, it is my understanding that this part of your training will be over. I can guarantee you that you will use some of the skills that I tried to drill into you during the last year, as well as guarantee you that when we get into a combat, many or some of you will not make out of it alive.”

  “Now, a good point is that you do not need to do this…You have not signed up for the army. Consult with your families, consult with yourself…you have about a day to think this through, think if you want to sign this release form, if you want to continue with this program… In case you decide to continue, sign it, and slide it under my door. You understand the risks now. You understand that there is no pressure for you to sign. You decide what you want. I will not think of you any less if you do not sign, and leave…

  “For those that have lost their brain capacity and still desire to continue�
�we are shipping out to the Space Elevator and then to Vazz in exactly… twenty hours.”

  For a few hours not a single paper were slithered into his office. He decided to take a few hours off, and decided to spend a day in the Space Elevator bars.

  Just an hour before the deadline, he went back to the barracks and his office and counted a pile of thirty-five release forms.

  “You know, many of these kids are from very prominent families. They have enough money that they could live forever. Yet, they’ve decided to risk it all.” Derran told Virrana, the other drill instructor.

  “You have to respect that.”

  “Tell me that if we come back alive,” Derran answered sourly.

  ***

  But two weeks into their assignment, all the warnings that Derran gave them seemed over-exaggerated. They were positioned about a mile away from the mining operation in a small transport station which connected the rail from the mines to the planetary main railing line.

  Their objective was to secure the station as well as that part of the rail system. For all thirty-seven of them, it became even somewhat of a boring duty consisting mostly of observing monitors and patrolling the parameters of the station without even the slightest of an incident taking place, not even a single laser shot, not even a sight or sound of the rebels.

  The regular army would drop in on them from time to time, usually in the evening hours, bringing them food and checking if their security equipment was working properly. Freight trains would come in and go, but they, just as other transportation that passed through the station, would not stop in and would zip through faster than the speed of sound. So mostly, they were completely left to themselves.

  They learned really soon that the food they were served in their training camp, the same food they used to complain so much about, was at least three classes better than what they were given at the station.

  “Well, these are your regular combat food packs. What did you expect?” Derran told them with half a smirk seeing most of their faces covered in a complete disgust as they tried to eat their rations. He chuckled and expected most of them to lose at least five percent of their body weight by the time moth was over.

  Even though most of the candidates seemed bored and start to relax, to Derran, it all seemed too deceptively peaceful. He didn’t like the looks of the regular troops. He didn’t like how spooked and nervous they sometimes came across. He was on alert, counting days until their task was over, blessing each day which ended in kids being progressively more bored.

  So when Fober run hysterically inside the station on the morning twenty days into their training, screaming, "They took them!" Derran jumped from his seat and was on top of him before he could utter another sound.

  "Who took whom and where?" he asked, trying to stay calm.

  "Some armed men...”

  “Were they the army? What armor did they wear?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Their fatigues were dark green, some gray, all mixed up, different.”

  “What happened?” Derran spoke as he swiftly pushed the kid toward the door.

  “I saw three armed men sneak up to the patrol, just outside the gate, I think Fkiss, Bardon and Siya were in it. They came from behind them, disarmed them, then pushed them inside the woods. I saw an old air transporter land there, and it took off really fast… I saw it all from the distance...But it was all done before I could fire..."

  “Why didn’t you communicate it all in? You have your communicator implant on, right?”

  “I did, but…” They turned their heads and looked up toward the control center which had an empty two seats. Sari and Vatiz which were supposed to be occupying them just walked in the room, giggling faces suddenly being instantly frozen as they met Derran’s eyes.

  “I’ll deal with two of you later,” Derran said with enough anger to permanently scare the giggles of their faces.

  "Which way did they go?" Derran grabbed a few things off his desk and pushed the boy outside. He pointed his finger to the part of the sky where nothing could be seen, other than trees and menacing grey clouds coming their way.

  "Listen to me now, okay? Call all the units in and barricade yourself inside. Nobody leaves! Then call in the army station and tell them what happened. And, do not shoot at anyone unless you know who it is. Understand?"

  "Yes, Sir!"

  Derran jumped on a jetter, floored the power pedal, and took the air scooter high in the air. He could not see anything in the distance, but his scanner locked in on the implants which kids were injected with. It detected them already ten miles out.

  He wasted only a moment to scan the area of human thermal signatures, fearing a possible ambush. But if there were snipers hiding someplace, they must have had a good insulation shields as no body heats could be detected.

  So with the reckless determination, he let the jetter loose in the direction of the old air transporter. They headed north, away from the major army station and toward the thick forests which covered most of the wilderness there.

  They didn’t not chop their legs off to get rid off trackers. Kids don’t even know they have those implants, so they would not know to reveal them. Good we never told them. He thought hopefully as the cold air needled his eyes. But what if they have tracker busters? They may be expensive now, but still… Maybe they rushed out so fast because they don’t have those? Hopefully, those signals are of them and not of their body parts.

  The rocket purred quietly underneath him, and he counted the distance slowly closing in. In a few minutes, he cut it in half.

  If there were no shots fired, maybe they are still alive. Fober didn't say anything about them jumping on them, hurting them, with knives ... So it was not an assault on the station. More likely they wanted them alive, more likely they were kidnapped...Let’s just hope that’s all it is. He tried to make sense of what happened, keeping his almost closed eyes on the tracker, not letting the power pedal lift of the floor.

  When he noticed the distance to be less than two miles, he brought the jetter down, closer to the tree tops as much as possible, slightly slowing down.

  It took him another ten minutes to see the air transporter as a dot in the air. He knew he could catch up with it, but then what? He could not stage the boarding of the flying transporter all by himself. So, he decided to keep his distance hoping he will not be detected.

  Steep mountains, covered with icy peaks, soon appeared in his vision and the dot disappeared behind their stiff cliffs. The snow started to fall down announcing the coming blizzard and an eye-visibility swiftly became a matter of the past. He could hardly keep his eyes open, ice needles gnawing at his face.

  Luckily, his tracker was pointing out that the transporter seemed to have entered the forest, and landed somewhere close to the body of water, probably some small lake.

  He came to the spot soon enough, raised his scooter high over the place, but there seemed nothing there. He could see nothing, and their tracking beam had suddenly died.

  They must be there, he thought as he carefully landed the air-scoter right next to the iced lake. He looked again at his thermal scanner and a very weak and diminishing signals moving deeper into the forest. He pointed his rifle forward, and decided to follow on foot.

  He wasted no time hiding among the trees, but ran toward it. He only stopped when he stumbled on footprints in the ankle-deep white blanket. The snow started to come down hard, and the footprints were slowly being filled up.

  Following those prints, he pushed through the falling whiteness and soon noticed a heavily-camouflaged cottage less than twenty yards away. Next to it, two of the kidnappers, with their backs to him, were pulling a mask over the twenty foot transporter.

  He instantly ducked himself in the snow. If I didn’t come here right now, in ten minutes, who knows if I could ever find this place? They obviously knew about the coming storm. Smart planning on their part. But they rushed it. Fools. Ten minutes later and my scanner would pick nothing.

/>   He considered his options. If he goes further into the clearance, toward them, he knew they would notice him right away. Sure, he could drop those two without much problem, but what would happen to the kids? They seemed to have taken them to the cabin.

  He decided to circle around and approached the cottage from the back.

  The place was obviously not a military installation, but rather just a rude place where shepherds could keep their sheep and hide away from a snowstorm like the one he was in.

  As soon as his back was against the cottage rough wooden wall, he scanned its entire interior. There were eight heat signatures. Five next to the fireplace with three of them laying down.

  Those must be kids, he thought. The others were constantly moving around the first floor.

  What do I do with those two camouflaging the transporter? His thoughts went to the laser knife in his boot, but he felt his muscles all tensed out, his fingers half frozen. You would be lucky to get a jump on one of them before the other fires a shot. There has to be a better way… But if they are covering the transporter, that means they may be staying here for a while, no?

  So he decided not to rush too much, but to take on the elevated position by climbing to the second floor, breaking in through the window as his laser knife soundlessly opened it up.

  The room he entered had four bunk beds, covered by thick, wool blankets. They were all empty. He crawled to the door, fearing his steps would creak him away. He put his ear to the door leading out of the room.

  “…we just wait here for an hour. Slicer will be here with his transporter and then we can get the hell out of this planet. We wait…We are early anyway. So just stay calm.” The voice was deep, overpowering, and he thought of nothing he’d rather do than to put a blaster to the man’s voice cords.

  Instead, he forced himself to check his scanner again. Two men were still outside. Kids tracker implants seemed to be neutralized as they worked no more.