Chapter 1

Prologue

While not formally at war, the Eastern Alliance and the Twenty Colonies have been throwing sucker punches at each other since the war ended. It all started with the Eastern Alliance attacking and eventually destroying the Etherion, a scientific research station. While not a significant loss to the Twenty, it was enough of an excuse to make a raid on an Alliance mining station that was producing high-density metals for the Allianc shipyards. After that, it all went down hill. Both sides have gone out of their way to keep their secret war out of the public eye. So far, the Twenty has resorted to using its elite combat division, Colonial Soldier, for raids and skirmishes. But after a year and a half Colonial Soldier is beginning to run short on troops. Under Colonial law, Colonial Soldier is not allowed to draw troops from the main military branches in peacetime. Colonial Soldier must look to other places to replenish its ranks...

Zach Malor looked up from the papers on his desk as an aid walked into his office. “What now Lieutenant?’ he asked and closing his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘More troop requests? If command keeps trying to take more of my troops, I swear I’ll go insane.”

The aid stopped in front of Zach’s desk and frowned slightly.

“No sir, no troop requests, just mercenary applications.”

Zach was glad when he heard the first part of his aid’s sentence, but saddened when he heard the last part.

“Has it really come down to this?”

“I’m afraid so sir.”

Zach took the stack of applications, nearly an inch thick, and set them on his desk. “Alright, send them in.”

Two hours and nearly forty mercenaries later, Zach leaned back into his chair and sighed. Out of all of them, he had hired only two, with a questionable third. It wasn’t that they weren’t bad soldiers or bad shots, it was their pay. Most of them demanded nearly sixty thousand a year (although they probably wouldn’t last a year), a price which Colonial Soldier just couldn’t pay.

Two of his aids walked in and began talking to him about how outrageous the pay on the mercenaries had been and how he had made a good decision in turning them down, but Zach didn’t hear much of it. He was trying to fall asleep in his chair to relieve his stress when there was a loud nock on the door post.

The aids had left the door open, allowing one last mercenary to walk in.

He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, Zach thought, but he had such a look of somberness that he could have passed for thirty had he been taller. He wore a long, dark coat that went halfway down his calves. His hair was short and brown, and combed, which was surprising, since most mercenaries didn’t care about their personal appearance. He wore a pair of boots that Zach thought were so, so, he couldn’t find the word for it. Zach decided if he ever needed to find this kid in a crowd, he would find him because of those boots.

“May I come in?” he asked, his voice stern and youthful, but showing wisdom.

“Do you have an application?” One of the aids asked.

“No, but I didn’t think I needed one after seeing all those other guys walk outta here.”

“Well,’ Zach said, ‘let’s begin.’ He folded his hands and sat up in his chair. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen”

“Really? You don’t look seventeen, by looking at you; I’d guess you were sixteen.”

“I guess I’m just short.”

“Moving on,’ Zach said, ‘Why would you like to work for the colonies?”

“I heard a rumor that the Alliances might be going to war again and I thought I'd get ready.” There seemed to be some other reason for the kid’s want to fight the Alliances, and it seemed to be much more important that the aforementioned reasons, but Zach decided not to bring it up.

“Do you have a weapon?”

“Huh?”

“You are supposed to have your own weapons; the Colonies will not provide them for you.” Zach had made that up, it wasn’t really one of the questions he was supposed to ask, but if this youngster waned to have the Colonies equip him in his fanciful fight against the Alliances, he was sorely misguided.

The boy nearly laughed.

“My weapon?’ he said smiling, ‘You wanna see my “weapon”? Alright, I’ll show you.”

He took off his coat and threw it on Zach’s desk. He took off his shoulder straps which reminded Zach of something used by old, undercover policemen. There were two revolvers in holsters attached to the straps. He laid these on the desk and moved on. He pulled a large gun with a wooden stock out of a thigh holster that appeared to be jury rigged. He laid it down gently on the desk next to his revolvers. “Revolvers; shotgun.”

He then removed his belt, which was armed with six plasma grenades, two smart shrap grenades, and a flashlight. He placed it on the table next to his other articles. “Grenades, you never can have too many.”

The boy removed a rifle that was slung behind his back. “Rifle, this baby’s been very good to me.” He set it down and unclipped his two hip holsters. “Pistols. .357 Magnum and a Verager-18.” Zach didn’t know what the Magnum was, but he had read in a history book about the Verager, a good, durable sidearm that took thick, blunt bullets. Zach wandered why all of this kid’s guns were bullet weapons.

The boy went on. He took off another belt and placed it on the desk, which was rapidly filling up. “Knife, torch, more grenades.” Zach noted the ivory-handled blade, not much longer than his K-bar.

“Oh,’ the kid said, as if forgetting something, ‘Ammo.” He unclipped a third belt and placed it on the table, it clanged as it went down, attesting to its weight. Zach and his aids freely perused the many square, leather pouches on the belt, finding bullets that went to the various guns. There were two dozen rounds for the revolvers, which could only hold six rounds each. Two dozen rounds for the shotgun, which could hold eight when fully loaded. Two dozen rounds for the rifle, which was a bolt action and therefore could only hold one round at a time. The pistols had six dozen rounds each, tucked away in preloaded magazines.

“So, why a bolt action?’ Zach asked the boy, fingering a rifle bullet. ‘It means reload after every shot, which can be hazardous in combat.”

“It can punch through mesh.” The boy replied mater-of-factly.

Zach couldn’t help but let his jaw drop. He had never heard of a weapon the size of this kid’s rifle that had that kind of capabilities. Zach put the bullet back in its pouch.

“And now for the grand finale.” The boy smiled reached behind his back, and drew out a sword. Zach had never seen a sword of this kind before, and he noted the detailed etchings on the blade near the hilt. The boy went on, “It has a gyroscopic sensor in the hilt, so when it’s flipped upside-down like this,’ he flipped it in his hand and held it in an ornamental stance, with the blade facing down at a forty-five degree angle, ‘it activates its mesh.” Suddenly a large, convex circular mesh came up less than a foot in front of the boy. This made all the jaws in the room fall to the floor. And as he turned the blade back around, the mesh de-activated and disappeared. “Very effective,’ the boy continued, ‘just activate it, run at the enemy and at the last moment, flip it back around and shink!” He emphasized this statement by swinging the sword through the air.

“Well,’ Zach said slowly, admiring the boy’s weapons as the sword was placed on the desk, next to the shotgun. ‘I still have few more questions. For one, what is your name, son?”

“Joseph,’ the boy replied, ‘Joseph Kennings.”

“Joseph or Joe, which do you prefer?”

“Joseph.”

“Alright Joe,’ Zach said, not caring for the kid’s personal preferences. ‘How much do you think you should be paid?”

Joseph thought about this a moment, as if it hadn’t occurred to him before.

“Um, thirty thousand?”

Finally! Zach though. A reasonable price. Only half of that would actually make its way into the kid’s hands because of life expectancy, so only about fifteen thousand would need to be spent on what appeared to be a crack mercenary with all the right tools.

“You’re hired!’ Zach said, extending his hand. ‘I’ll see to it that you’re assigned to my battalion, Joe. I’ll also see to it that you have adequate quarters for your needs.”

“Thanks.

‘Uh, what now?” Joseph asked.

“Well,’ Zach said, looking to one of his aids. ‘Lieutenant Jargin will take you to your quarters.”

Joseph reattached all his gear before leaving the room. As the two walked out into the hall, Jargin noted the large bag sitting by a bench. Joseph said that it was the only thing of his that he wasn’t currently carrying.

As hard as Jargin tried, the bag wouldn’t budge. It must have weighed three hundred some pounds, mostly made up of spare ammo for Joseph’s plethora of guns. The bag was four feet long, two and a half feet wide, and two feet deep. Jargin finally gave up trying to move it; with sweat rolling down his forehead and his uniform ruffled. Joseph just looked at him, smiled comically and reached into a side pocket of the bag, found a small keypad and flipped a switch. The bag suddenly lifted up a few inches off the ground thanks to its built in hover jets. Jargin laughed at himself for not seeing the obvious, got up and pushed the bag to Joseph’s room.

A day later, Joseph accidentally walked into an officers meeting, and not being an officer, was told to leave, which he did, but he waited outside the open door, eavesdropping

A day later, Joseph accidentally walked into an officers meeting, and not being an officer, was told to leave, which he did, but he waited outside the open door, eavesdropping.

Zach looked at all his company commanders, standing in a row in his office. They stood at attention, waiting for their orders.

“Well men, the brass has decided that we need to capture the research base on the moon Aladere-“

His men mumbled among themselves, but didn’t voice any opinions.

“-and I want to know what your say is on the matter.”

A young captain spoke up.

“Sir, I don’t understand, sir. We can barely hold onto the worlds we have now, how does the brass expect us to go out and capture places that are probably guarded with twice as many troops as we’ll attack with. I personally think it’s a waste of men and resources.”

“I agree!’ another captain said, ‘and what if there is another Alliance presence on this moon besides the lab? And couldn’t we just bombard it from orbit?”

Zach shook his head.

“Because this moon has a very valuable laboratory on its surface, it needs to be wrested from Alliance control and not damaged. The moon is uninhabited. That is why the facility was built in the first place.’ Zach said.

‘Where do you think the alliances have gotten all their advanced weaponry? They got the designs for them from the research done on Aladere. If we want to stop the Alliances from getting such powerful weapons, then we’ll have to take back this moon’s facility and who knows, maybe we might be able to find some designs there.” This made all the company commanders perk up.

‘We’ll be moving out tomorrow morning, and tell your men to get a good night’s sleep. They’ll need it. Dismissed.” As his officers prepared to leave, Zach thought he heard a quite ‘Yes!’ from outside the door.