“Warrant Officer Eric Stahl, reporting as ordered, sir,” I said as solemnly as I could muster. I was in the formal uniform of the Imperial Security Ranger Division, but I had not yet earned the coveted silver-star-within-a-circle that would make me a full member of that elite unit. For that prized bit of metal, I was required to make the “Long Ride.” If I didn’t make it, I would have to join one of the regular Imperial Security units stationed in Tam Bay, which was something that I really didn’t want to do. The Ranger captain gave me an appraising look as I stood ramrod straight. Captain Rodgers was an old Tam Bay hand, having ridden in the sector for nearly three decades. He had proved himself against almost any threat a Ranger was expected to handle, and done so with a solid record. He certainly looked the part. Captain Rodgers was easily two meters in height with a build that was solid, but not bulky. His black hair was worn long, and tied back. His dark eyes were notorious for being able to reduce even the toughest Rangers to stammering fools, or melt even the coldest lady’s heart. As I said, the captain was notorious. Right now, I was on the brink of becoming a stammering fool.
I had spent the last eighteen months of my life enduring a long string of physically and mentally demanding courses that were all needed before the Rangers would even look at me as a prospective candidate. At seventeen, with my secondary school diploma in hand, and over the objections of my father’s family, I enlisted in the Imperial Armed Forces. My father’s family ran the prosperous Arroyo Financial Group out of Tam Bay. They had expected me to go on to one of the more elite universities, and then join back up with firm. After all, I was a first-born son, and it was expected that I would work in the firm. If I truly felt I had to serve, then it should have been as a commissioned officer, not some lowly enlisted rating, or even as a warrant officer. Well, most of my family felt that way. My grandfather, who founded the firm in the early days of the Tam Bay sector, and my Uncle Dennis, who was currently the head of the firm and the family, both had decided that I had every right to serve the Empire as I saw fit. Plus, they both knew that my powers had started emerging, and none of the family really wanted to see me as a member of the Praetorians. Those elite soldiers tended to mettle where they were not wanted, and they demanded a loyalty that would trump even my loyalty to my family. The Praetorians worked directly for the Emperor, after all.
The first four weeks of my enlistment were spent at what was officially labeled as Fundamentals of Military Service, but more commonly known as “boot camp.” All enlisted, whether they were bound for the Army, Navy, Marines, or Imperial Security spent their first four weeks in boot. It was a time of testing and conditioning. Boot led into branch specific training. I had the test scores to qualify for the Rangers, but it was a matter of surviving all of the courses that I would need to go through before I could join their ranks. Unlike most of the elite units that selected their members from a pool of qualified soldiers that were already serving in line units, Rangers generally recruited their members directly. The Rangers had a unique culture within Imperial Security, and they felt it was easier to mold a new soldier with that culture rather than overcoming whatever an older soldier had already picked up during service with a line unit.
Since the Rangers belonged to Imperial Security, I spent the next four weeks at Basic Imperial Security Training. For the most part, it was a continuation of boot, but the recruits learned how Imperial Security wanted its troops to operate in the field. Imperial Security was the branch of the military detailed to handle threats within the borders of the Empire. These would include not only the Dark Towers raids, but also bandits, free town forces, and the aborigines. Weapons work, combat training, as well as learning the basic laws and some diplomacy were how I spent my days at Basic. Normally, a Ranger candidate would go from Basic Imperial Security to Advanced Infantry, but I had to attend something else before I could continue on the normal path. The military knew that I was a psychic, and they wanted to make sure that I could control my powers and use them effectively. As humans learned over the centuries, psychic powers could provide innumerable benefits when controlled or innumerable curses when not.
I was sent to the Psi-Academy to learn how to control my powers. Humanity had crashed on this planet a few hundred years ago, and it had come as a great surprise when a few of the survivors began developing psychic abilities. When humanity came in contact with the Dark Towers, and the never ending war against their malevolent forces began, psychics were desperately needed to counter the threat of magic on the battlefield. All humans in Imperial territory that had psychic powers were expected to attend the Psi-Academy and spend a two-year stint in the Praetorians. The Praetorians were a regiment dedicated to both protecting the Emperor and those close to him or her, but were also used to project the Emperor’s force, which was why they were also known as the Emperor’s Own. Two of the battalions assigned to the Praetorians were elite, but non-psychic, soldiers. The First Battalion, on the other hand, was made up exclusively of psychic soldiers. The most famous of these was the Imperial Guard, a company of elite soldiers that were supposed to be the epitome of the heroic psychic. Each soldier had a unique uniform, a codename, and expected to fight the Dark Towers wherever they poked up. I idolized them when I was a kid, but I had learned the truth as a teenager. Many of the Imperial Guard took their exalted status to such an extreme that they saw themselves as superior to all but the Emperor. I saw this demonstrated when the Imperial Guard had come to Tam Bay, my home town, to root out a plot to assassinate the Emperor. I had met Major Justice and his company at a reception. I did not enjoy the experience, and I had the distinct impression that the feeling was mutual. At the Academy, I learned how to master all of my powers so that they didn’t make me go insane. I also learned how to control my powers when they grew in strength. Unlike physical strength, which is built up over time, psychic strength built up in bursts. This new strength is usually found when a psychic is strained to the point that the mind has to “create” new strength or render itself into gray pudding. Those bursts of strength needed to be tightly controlled, and there were unique methods to keep those bursts under control. It was during this time I learned that I was what had been called an empathic hunter. Although I was a strong telekinetic, my main power involved my empathic senses. I couldn’t read minds, but my empathic senses were strong enough for me to feel the power of specific emotions – enough that I could almost make out what the person was thinking. The hunter side to my powers came from the fact that I could find a person based on his or her unique emotional makeup. Better still, I could feel the “ghosts” of emotions that a person left impressed on his or her physical surroundings. I was an emotional bloodhound, in a matter of speaking. I was surprised to find out that I had been invited to join the Imperial Guard when I graduated the Psi-Academy, but one of my instructors confided in me that empathic hunters were rare. The Imperial Guard liked to have them on hand. Since I had already declared that my path was to join the Rangers, I was allowed to decline the invitation and defer my stint with the Praetorians. After all, the Praetorians preferred having soldiers with some field experience so they didn’t have to waste the time of knocking out all the useless things that were drilled into a recruit’s skull during boot and the Academy. After graduating the Academy, I was finally able to return to the schedule of courses that I would need to complete before the Rangers would even consider me for acceptance. The next stop was to Advanced Infantry School.
Advanced Infantry School was primarily for those who expected to spend their careers in the down and dirty trade of infantry warfare. Generally that meant the mechanized infantry of the Army. I knew that wasn’t how I would be spending my military career, but I needed to get through the course to be able to attend the far more important Light Infantry School. I knew that the Rangers had asked the Army to waive the AIS prerequisite, but the Army had steadfast refused. I didn’t like it while I was at AIS, but I was thankful for it when I was accepted into Light Infantry School. Light infantry, unlike the more common mechanized or heavy infantry, were usually way out in front of regular forces to perform reconnaissance and to cause general havoc amongst our enemies. Light Infantry was an absolute prerequisite to join any elite unit in the Imperial Armed Forces. It is a demanding course designed to weed out those who wouldn’t be able to handle the stress. Most candidates have at least a couple of years’ experience in a line unit before applying. Since I had stated my intention to join the Rangers, I had to get through the infamous course without any of the normal seasoning that a soldier would get in the field. This was why the Rangers relied on AIS to break those who couldn’t handle the stress of the Rangers’ work and strengthen those who could handle the job. Just to make my work more difficult, the instructors at AIS made sure that I couldn’t use my newly-developed psychic abilities to ease my burden. It infuriated me at the time, but a chastising letter from my grandfather ceased my whining. Grandpa was good at that. He also gave me advice to surviving the ordeal. I found a small group of soldiers that took pity on me and helped me through LIS. Two of them wanted to be commandoes and the third knew me from the Psi-Academy. They understood my desire to be part of an elite unit, and so as long as I worked my rear end off, they would help with things that I didn’t understand. I thought that all of the time I had spent out in the wilderness when I was young would prepare me for LIS. All it managed was to give me a slight edge on some of the basic coursework. I managed to graduate LIS, but it was by the skin of my teeth. Still it was enough for me to continue on the path to become a Ranger, and to qualify to enter Warrant Officers Candidate School.
Warrant officers are unlike commissioned officers in the Imperial Armed Forces. Warrants are soldiers whose duties require them to have some of an officer’s authority, but not in a command structure. Rangers, for instance, were specialists in long range patrolling and protection, and were expected to settle disputes amongst Imperial subjects as well as enforce Imperial edicts in a manner that needed a commissioned officers authority. Rangers, however, cannot lead regular or even Imperial Security forces, at least not officially. It was a rare fool of a commissioned officer that didn’t listen to the “advice” that a Ranger handed out.
WOCS was more demanding than I had anticipated. The physical part of the school was nothing that I hadn’t dealt with in my other courses, but now I was working on college-level coursework on a myriad of subjects ranging from civilian and military law to the biology of the Dark Towers’ forces. Most of the subjects came easily enough, mostly thanks to the education that my family provided for me before I left to join the Rangers. The one that almost killed me was Theory of Magic. I could never get my mind wrapped around how magic and psychic powers differed, and how those differences translated into effects. Something to do with the odd energy bands that surrounded the planet and did weird things on unshielded electronics. I managed to pass, but I was left wondering if it was a mercy passing. I really didn’t care. I graduated WOCS, and that was what I really wanted. With all of the coursework finished, I was finally able to officially send in my application to the Rangers.
Unlike the normally rigid structure of the rest of the armed forces, the Rangers were kind of casual with the few of us that managed to get the prerequisites to join their branch. Unlike many of the elite forces, there is no specific course for Rangers. Instead, a prospective Ranger is sent on several patrols with different veteran Rangers. It’s during these patrols that a prospective Ranger begins learning the techniques and culture of the Imperial Security Ranging Patrols. If the veterans give the prospect good marks, the prospective Ranger is given a chance at a Long Ride. I had done exactly what my grandfather had told me to do during these early patrols. I listened and did what I was told, and most importantly, I learned what the veterans were trying to teach me. I must have done well enough, because a week after my last patrol in the Violet Sands sector, I was given an invitation to attempt a Long Ride in Tam Bay. I suspected that my family had pulled some strings to get me the invite, but I was willing to accept their assistance on this. I wanted to work the Tam Bay sector. I had grown up there, and I loved the area and the people.
Captain Rodgers leaned back in his chair. He said nothing as he continued to look over me with an almost disinterested air about him. His emotions told me that he wasn’t as bored as he looked. If anything, he was both anxious to meet me, and a little angry at my being there. This did little to settle my own nerves. After a minute or so, Captain Rodgers stood up and walked around me, still inspecting me. His anger lessened, but his anxiety hadn’t. Moreover, his curiosity had suddenly spiked. I continued to stand at attention, pretending that I couldn’t sense his emotions. Rangers have a tradition of almost nonchalance in the face of adversity, and I was doing my best to maintain that tradition, even if I hadn’t joined their vaunted ranks yet. Finally, the captain finished his inspection and sat back down at his desk.
“Your grandfather pushed pretty hard for me to ask for you to do your Long Ride here in Tam Bay,” Captain Rodgers said with a calm voice, but I felt the spike in his anger behind his words. The captain didn’t like that he had almost been forced to accept me. “Did you know that?”
“I suspected, Captain,” I answered. I would have been surprised if my family didn’t have anything to do with my invitation. The family did what was best for it, and not what the individual members wanted. Having a Ranger in Tam Bay would be good for the family. It was just happy luck that I also wanted to be posted back to my home sector, at least in the family’s view.
“Why do you want to be here?” he asked, and I could tell from his emotions that this was the question that could make or break me in his eyes. It set me to ponder my own reasons as to why I had chosen this particular path. My father and most of my relatives had been content to serve in the regular Army or Navy, but not me. Perhaps it was the stories that Grandpa told me when I was younger, but I think it had more to do with my father’s death.
“You know how my father died?” I asked, “Orc raiding party caught him coming back from one of our holdings in Blackwater Creek. I imagine that it’s part of my own desire for vengeance and part from the stories that my grandpa told me of when he was a Ranger way back when the Tam Bay sector just got started. It may have been a bad combination, but it’s what brought me here.” The captain gave me a long, almost searching look, and I could feel the swirl of emotions in his mind. He understood and condoned my want to avenge my father’s death at the hands of the Dark Towers, but he was worried that I was going to be unable to separate that need for vengeance from my duties as a Ranger. “Sir, if I may speak further?”
“Go ahead, Mr. Stahl,” the captain answered as his curiosity spiked again.
“I’ve been learning about duty and honor since I was an infant,” I said, trying to quell the captain’s fears, “They were always a big part of my family’s culture. Those virtues have been honed since I joined the military. Vengeance and family history is what may have pointed me in the Rangers’ direction, but honor and duty are what drive me to do my utmost to fulfill my obligations as a Ranger. It is a code of obligations that I chose, because I believe in it. Some of that probably had to do with my grandpa, but I made the choice to become a Ranger on my own.” I could feel the captain’s anxiety lessen as I spoke, but he was still unsure of me. Well, that’s what the Long Ride was for.
“Well Warrant Officer, its time for you to see if you can fulfill the obligations of being a member of the Imperial Ranging Patrols,” Captain Rodgers said, walking over to a map of the Tam Bay sector, “You will start out from Tam Bay and ride east towards Liberty Bell.” The city of Tam Bay was on the southwest corner of the sector, jutting out into the Emerald Sea. Liberty Bell was the southernmost city in the Tam Bay sector, riding right on the border with the Black River sector. I was tracing the southern border of the sector, which was also the safest of the routes, a good circuit for a rookie like myself. “From Liberty Bell, you will ride north to the Panck Homestead, and back west to Halston Pass. Stay away from Hellstowne.” The Panck Homestead was the largest private ranch in the sector and had enough workers that it rivaled some of the smaller allied towns. The Panck family had a long established relationship with the Rangers that allowed Rangers to use the homestead as a staging area for patrols. Halston Pass was a small allied town that had been debating becoming a territorial city since nearly the founding of the sector. It was also less than a thirty kilometers south of Hellstowne. I knew that the Captain was right for warning me to stay away from Hellstowne. It was the most notorious free town in not only the Tam Bay sector, but in this part of the Empire. Bandits were known to frequent the town to fence stolen goods, purchase supplies, and relax and carouse. Imperial Security tried several times to seize the town, but the Ministries of Intelligence and Justice kept Hellstowne open to keep their collective eyes on known threats to the Empire. So, only the most experienced Rangers were allowed to patrol near the town.
“After Halston Pass, you want me to return back to Tam Bay?” I asked, making sure that I had my orders down correctly. They sounded simple, because the Long Ride was supposed to be somewhat simple. The rough part was enduring the long patrol. The captain nodded and handed me a paper. It was an order for the drawing of a horse, supplies, weapons, and ammunition sufficient for the long patrol. With that piece of paper in hand, I was dismissed to start out my final test to become a Ranger.
The horse was an older gelding that was named Tecumseh. Rangers’ horses traditionally were named after people and tribes that were indigenous to the North American continent way back on Earth. They were supposedly called Indians, but I had never understood that. From what I remembered from my Earth History classes in secondary school, India was clear across one of the oceans from the North American continent. Still, Tecumseh was a tall and strong horse, even though he was getting close to retirement. He was part of the stable that Rangers reserved for rookies. A couple of sugar cubes and Tecumseh was very favorable to me. The saddle was one that my grandpa used. It had started out as his patrolling saddle, but it had been repaired so many times, I doubted there was any of the original leather left. Still, it was well-worn and comfortable with plenty of pouches for the various small pieces of equipment that a Ranger needed out in the field.
The weapons that I drew from the armory were brand-new Army-issue weapons. When humanity landed on this world, the settlers were armed with the latest in energy-based weapons. Unfortunately, the energies that fostered magic and psychic powers destroyed the micro-electronics that were necessary for those weapons to work. In fact, a lot of the technology that the settlers had depended on no longer worked. Fortunately, The Ship had been sufficiently shielded and had enough manufacturing facilities that the settlers had been able to produce new weapons that would survive in the planet’s environment. The settlers had turned back to the use of firearms. My long weapon was the G5C, the carbine version of the Army’s standard assault rifle, the G5. The carbine used the same roller-delayed locking action that had been standard in the Empire’s military for nearly a century and fired the newer 6 mm cartridge. The compact size of the carbine made it easier for long riding, but it had a much shorter range of only 400 meters. The carbine also lacked the integral retractable spear. So, I had less range and accuracy, as well as being unable to use my weapon in hand-to-hand combat, but the carbine was easier to handle in the saddle, and I could bring it to bear faster than the full-size rifle. My sidearm was the relatively new GP-5 10 mm semi-auto. It was bigger than most of the pistols that I had used before joining the military, but it was designed to be able to shoot reliably with little maintenance and after being used as occasionally as a blunt weapon in close-quarters combat. In addition to the firearms, I carried a retractable spear and my grandfather’s saber. These were primarily in case of close-quarters combat with Dark Towers. Orcs were much bigger and stronger than humans. Infantry rifles had spring-loaded, retractable spears built into their rifles allowing the infantry to have instant polearms to keep the nasty creatures away from the lines. Rangers and light infantry couldn’t carry the heavier rifles, so we had a lighter version of the retractable spear that started as a half-meter rod and extended to just shy of two meters in length. Topped with a bayonet, a Ranger could use it on the ground to keep an orc at distance, or as a lance while mounted.
Suitably equipped and provisioned, I led Tecumseh out of the East Gate and followed the paved road through the small suburbs that had grown outside the Tam Bay Wall. Most major cities had a city wall to protect it in case of a Dark Towers raid. For growing cities like Tam Bay, there was usually a cluster of small villages that grew up outside the defensive wall. New Town had rebuilt their wall seven times to encompass the numerous communities that sprang up just outside the wall. As I left the suburbs of Tam Bay, the paved road fell away, and the dirt trail drifted east towards Liberty Bell. Most of the Imperial territory was vast open terrain. Magrails were used to connect the territorial cities and allied towns, but beyond that were a few paved roads and the numerous dirt trails that most people used if they didn’t want to pay to take the magtrain. Free towns were only connected by the dirt trails because the Empire refused to connect any town that had refused its sovereignty to the massive magrail web. Part of my job was to keep an eye on the magrails. In addition to being vital to Imperial commerce and military movement, the magrails also had the communication and datalinks that allowed for Imperial Network access. Since the magrails had to be hardened and shielded in order for the magtrains to work, it made sense to run the sensitive telecom lines inside the magrail housings. The problem with these lifelines was that the Dark Towers and bandits like to destroy the lines to catch a magtrain. Although the magtrains tended to be decently armed, fast attacks could overwhelm their defenses.
The terrain of the Tam Bay sector was long spans of flat grasslands, sparsed with evergreen tree copses and occasional lakes. Tam Bay was in the sub-tropical belt of the planet, so the weather was usually hot and humid during the summer. I had learned to deal with the heat when I was much younger. My family did business all over the sector, and there weren’t that many towns that had the infrastructure to handle a proper power grid. Most of the small homesteads and the smaller allied towns didn’t have HVAC, so I learned quickly how to work and play in the sweltering heat of a Tam Bay summer. After a few hours, I began thanking my grandpa for showing me some of the tricks he had used as a Ranger to withstand the heat. I took a gulp from my canteen and continued to ride on the trail towards Liberty Bell.
It was the gunshot that stopped me. I was about a day and a half out of Tam Bay and had another day before I would reach Liberty Bell. Out this way were only a few homesteads. Gunfire usually did not bode well. I turned Tecumseh towards the sound of the gun shot and kicked the horse into a strong cantor. My two big concerns were either a Dark Towers raid or an aborigine raid. The aborigines were non-human sentient hunter-gatherers that populated the continent humanity had crashed upon. They looked like a bipedial mixture of dog, cat, and rat. Generally we had amicable relations with most of the tribes, but sometimes one of the tribes decided that the humans on their territory were for plundering instead of trading. In Tam Bay, we had two main tribes. The Stone Bones were usually in the north part of the sector, and they usually were peaceful. Occasionally they would raid a homestead or a trading party convoying through their territory, even though they knew that Rangers and Imperial Security would hunt down the perpetrators to obtain retribution. The best that I had heard it described, the Stone Bones thought of it as some sort of very lethal game where they could test which of their warriors was the most capable. The authorities tolerated it because primarily, everyone knew that living outside of the territorial cities and allied towns entailed a certain level of danger, and secondly, the Stone Bones were firmly allied with the Empire against the Dark Towers. In fact, it was one of the few tribes that were willing to allow its warriors to leave its territory to fight alongside Imperial soldiers. This far south, any aborigines should have been with the Swift Wind tribe, and those aborigines didn’t raid humans. There had been instances of Swift Wind warriors taking retribution against humans that had harmed the tribe or its members, but Rangers were more than willing to overlook those. The Imperial position was that its subjects had an obligation to deal fairly with the aborigines, and they failed to do so at their own risk.
The gunfire had come from an area that had two homesteads close to each other. A ripe target for a raid. As I came up to the homesteads, I saw several people outside, most of whom I already knew. One of the women was holding a shotgun skyward. It looked like the McCrorys and the Kileens were at it again. At least it looked like no one had been seriously hurt. I slowed Tecumseh from his cantor and trotted into the midst of the two families.
“Put that gun down, Missy,” I ordered, and slightly startled myself. The voice I heard coming from my mouth didn’t sound like anything I had ever used before. I had only heard come from my grandpa. I hoped my own surprise wasn’t evident and continued in that same commanding tone, “All of you back up from each other.” I dismounted as I came between the two feuding families. The McCrorys and the Kileens had set up homesteads some forty years ago. At the time, they had thought that having two homesteads close together made sense in such an untamed part of the Empire. For the most part, the two families had been close allies. I knew from my family’s dealings with them that the harmony between the two families had fallen apart a couple of years ago. The border between the two homesteads had always been the Little Black Creek. Two years ago, the Imperial Corps of Engineers had done some work to make the Black Creek more navigatable. The result was that the Little Black creek shifted its course by a couple hundred meters into the Kileens’ homestead. My grandpa had been asked to mediate the original solution, since he had been a Ranger and our family had financial dealings with both families. He had ordered the McCrorys to pay the Kileens for the land and to keep the creek as the natural border between the two families. It seemed like a happy compromise at the time. Then, came the fight over the value of the land. That was the fight that had been raging over the past two years, and it had soured the once-friendly relationship between the two families. Like everyone else in the sector, I was tired of hearing the constant accusations and bickering of the two families. I was going to solve this problem once and for all.
“Well, I heard that you were trying to make Ranger,” Bob McCrory said as I dismounted. Bob was the patriarch of the McCrorys, and he had known me for my entire life. I had played with his kids when my family came out to check on our investments in his homestead. Jill Kileen, the head of that family, joined the two of us. She had known me for just as long, and for the same reasons. Bob gave her a quick glare, but made no objections. I ignored the two elders and focused on Missy McCrory. She and I had some history, but that had been when we were both thirteen. At the moment, she was the one person with a weapon drawn. In the midst of this fight, that could quickly lead to someone getting killed.
“I’m serious Missy,” I said, placing my hand on the butt of my sidearm, “Put that gun on the ground right now.” She was shocked that I was speaking to her in such a manner, but she carefully placed the shotgun on the ground and took a step back. I turned back to the two elders, who were also shocked. They remembered me as Philip Stahl’s grandson, and they were having a hard time reconciling that with Eric Stahl, the Ranger. “You know, everyone who knows you is getting tired of this constant fighting. I don’t want to hear what started the fight today. It’s all so much manure as far as I’m concerned.”
“Now you listen to me young man—“ Jill Kileen began before I glared at her. Something in my countenance made her stop before she completed her sentence, and I felt as her righteous indignation dissipated into fear. Bob McCrory was radiating a similar fear. They were completely unsure of how to deal with me.
“Let me explain this to the two of you,” I said, carefully parsing my words, “This bickering has dragged on long enough. No one wants to do business with either of you because of the poisoned atmosphere between the two families. Everyone is waiting to see when someone gets killed. Not if, when. From what my family tells me, the Rangers that have come by haven’t wanted to get involved because they don’t want to get involved in a domestic dispute unless someone’s hurt or about to be hurt. Now me, I know better. I was here when Grandpa Stahl darn near had to beat the two of you around the head and neck to get that compromise worked out. I know how much honor and pride is all wrapped up in this because I know both of you. Stubborn pig headed fools, both of you.” I walked over to Tecumseh and began rummaging through one of the pouches.
“Why you jumped-up little tin god!” exclaimed Bobby McCrory. Bobby was Bob’s eldest son, and the family hot head. He was a few years older than me, but he had never really matured past the age of fifteen. “You think because your family owns a stake in both our homesteads, you can tell us what to do. You got no right to be poking your nose into our business.” I regarded Bobby with a casual look, but I felt jittery inside. Bobby had given me one of the worst beatings in my life, and I was still a little scared of him. Not a rational fear, but childhood fears were very rarely rational.
“Bobby, get away from me before something bad happens,” I warned him, as I felt the ancient fear being pushed down by the professionalism that I had been forging within myself. All of the pain and suffering that I had endured in the past eighteen months had given me the confidence and the surety that easily defeated the irrational fear of a person that I could recognize as a petty loser.
“Don’t go telling me what to do,” he shouted, closing the distance between us. I could feel the dread fear rising from the others. They knew Bobby was going too far, but they didn’t know how to stop him – and they were frightened that I was going to kill him. Bobby didn’t seem to notice, because he continued on. “I kicked your sorry tail once, and I can do it again.”
The telekinetic slap threw Bobby to the ground. Anger coursed through me, and I knew that I had to keep my temper in check. He looked up at me and I drank in the pure terror that was coming from him. He had never known that I was gifted and the sudden shock of it had awakened Bobby’s stunted survival instinct. Our eyes locked, and I could feel me silently asserting my dominance – and Bobby surrendering whatever hope he had of ever being stronger than me. Without another word, I shot the flare into the air. I ignored the pleading questions from the families as I waited for a response from my signal. I had a plan, and neither family was going to like it. From what I had learned from my family’s various dealings, sometimes that meant it was a good plan.
I felt the unique psi-scents of the aborigine party. They were trying to stay hidden amongst the grasslands, which meant they were nearly impossible to see. The leader of the party came out first. His hunched over posture hid his true height, but he was easily one of the larger aborigines I had ever seen. The sudden appearance of the Swift Wind party startled Bob and Jill. I had made everyone else leave without telling them what was going to happen, which made everyone nervous almost to the point of panic. I admit, I did little to assuage any of their concerns. The aborigine leader skittered over to the three of us, his whiskers twitching in curiosity.
“You new Ranger?” the aborigine asked in broken Imperial, “Smell familiar. Live in Tam Bay?” I didn’t recognize the aborigine, but most of them looked the same to me. I knew a few of them well enough to make out distinguishing characteristics, but most aborigines looked enough alike that I would have had a hard time telling one from another. Fortunately, that was before my powers developed. Now I would always recognize the aborigine in front of me from his unique psi-scent.
“I grew up in Tam Bay,” I answered, “My family has dealt with the tribes before, so we may have met. I need the leader of the Swift Wind for what is happening here.” I had learned a long time ago that aborigines understood human language much better than they could speak it, and they respected humans that spoke to them regularly rather than trying to imitate the broken pattern of normal aboriginal speech.
“I head of Swift Wind,” the aborigine said, “I surprised to see green lights. So I come.” That made a certain amount of sense. Green flares were the agreed upon signal that a Ranger needed assistance from the aborigines. Since this area of the Tam Bay sector was more or less peaceful, the appearance of green flares were surprising enough that the leader of the Swift Wind decided he needed to see for himself what the problem was. Leaders in the aborigine tribes led from the front, especially when there was something odd or possibly dangerous to the tribe.
“Thank you for coming sir,” I told the leader. He hadn’t introduced himself, and I wasn’t going to either. It was one of the quirks of the aborigine culture. “There is a land dispute between these two families. This dispute has become very nasty and neither side is following the agreement. As such, I think it would be a good idea for the Swift Wind to reclaim this land until one of the families makes you an acceptable offer for the land. Or you can keep it for your own use.” Both Bob and Jill were looking at me in wide-eyed surprise. I kept a level glare at them.
“Your two families have failed to keep any bargain that would allow the land to hold value. As such, I see land that has no value. Therefore, neither family will be paid recompense. Any further dealings with the land will be between your two families and the aborigines.”
“You do this foolishness, and both of us will cut your family’s business,” Jill said with a threatening tone. It may have been effective if I didn’t know two things. First, I could sense the horror and fear behind Jill’s words. Secondly, I knew that if the two families cut their business with mine because of my actions as an Imperial officer, my own family would do everything in their power to blacklist the families from any other financial service. My uncle had already informed me of the company position before I left for my Long Ride.
“You might want to rethink that,” was all I said before I kicked Tecumseh in the side and rode out.
Halston Pass was the last leg of my circuit. It was a small allied town that was situated on the best road through the Black River Swamp. The swamp extended from the Little Black River and encompassed several square kilometers and was in the middle of several direct routes between the various towns and cities. Halston Pass was a trade town that lived on providing services to the traders that used the pass to shorten their routes. The town had maybe a hundred or so residents and didn’t have much in the way of modern technology. The town proper was surrounded by a thick wooden palisade. A sentry on the palisade sounded for the doors to be opened as I rode up to the town.
“A new Ranger,” commented an older, heavyset man with a shiny badge on the lapel of the leather vest he was wearing. From his demeanor and confidence, I guessed that he was the town marshal. “Well, I guess you’ll have to do.” There was an odd emotion behind the marshal’s words. The closest thing I could think of was anxiety. It didn’t just come from the marshal, but from the townspeople that were joining the two of us in the town square. All of them were feeling that same emotion of deep anxiety.
“Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?” I asked, calmly. If they needed a Ranger, it couldn’t be good. Halston Pass was pretty good at defending itself from most of the threats surrounding it. The marshal led me back to the church in the center of the town. Halston Pass was a Christian town, and the large church was used by the few denominations that populated the town. It also served as the town hall and meeting center. I remembered it from the few times that my family came into town to discuss financing certain town projects. As I walked in, I noticed that the church was filled to capacity. At the pulpit was the head of the Lutherans, Minister Halloran.
“Finally, a Ranger has come to assist us,” the minister intoned, “God willing, he will be able to find the girl.” A murmur rumbled through the crowd. There was a collective feeling of relief mixed with dread amongst the people. Something bad had happened, and I was supposed to fix it.
“Would you all mind telling me what is going on?” I asked calmly.
“We got hit by bandits the day before yesterday,” the marshal answered, “Small group, nothing we couldn’t normally handle on our own. We forted up behind the wall, shot a few of them dead, and then watched as they rode off. What we didn’t know was that some of the children had been playing in the fields to our north.”
“They snatched my baby!” exclaimed a woman as she stood up from one of the pews. Her anguish flowed through her with the force of a mighty river. The others in the church felt a sorrow for the woman that I had never seen in a collective before. Usually there is a certain mood amongst a collection of people, and most of the time its neutral with streaks of joy or sadness. This was a deep sorrow, which I found to be very unsettling.
“Who hit you?” I asked with a forced calm. Because of the hard years after the crash, the protection of children was amongst our society’s highest priorities. The Dark Towers would occasionally snatch a child on a raid for reasons we still didn’t understand, but most bandits would avoid the kidnapping of children. Maybe a teenage girl would be snatched for a bandit’s unsavory pleasures, but young children were avoided because the bandits knew what would happen. The moment Imperial forces were aware of the situation, they would concentrate their available forces to find the child and the perpetrator rarely made it to court.
“Bandits,” the marshal answered, “We think it might have been the Oakes Brothers. They’ve been doing some raiding this way. Somewhere between five to fifteen bandits. Some of them are going to be wounded.” I hadn’t heard of the Oakes Brothers, but there were always new gangs of bandits forming. There were always those people who thought it was easier to steal than to work for their money. It was why there were Rangers out on the plains.
“I need something from the child,” I said to the mother, “Something she felt very close to. Marshal, while she does that, would you please show me where the girl was snatched?” There was a general feeling of relief from the population as I handed out orders. If a Ranger was going to handle the situation, then the people knew that it would be resolved. Rangers had a reputation for tenacity. The marshal guided me away from the church, out through the palisade, and to a small rise just south of the town.
The rise was barely a hill, but I could see how children would want to play on the grassy covered small hill. The grass had been churned up by running horses. There were psychic ghosts from frightened children and angered bandits. That made sense – the marshal said that the defenders had hit a few of the bandits. I didn’t see any blood in the surrounding area, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. As I circled the rise, I looked for where the bandits had fled from the attack on the Halston Pass. The hill was used by a lot of people, so I couldn’t find any definitive tracks for the bandits. There was a way for me to pick up the bandits’ trail, but I wanted to wait until the child’s mother brought me the item. Then, I was going to have to open up my psi-senses fully.
The mother handed me a well-worn, blue linen blanket. It was just the right size for a young child. As I took the blanket, I could immediately sense the girl’s ghost. This was probably the most important material object the girl had, and she had poured her emotions into it. As I focused on the blanket, I noticed a unique sense in the ghost. It was too strong for a normal girl, but not for one already demonstrating psychic powers. Most of the time, psychic powers don’t erupt until puberty, but the unique mind that can produce psychic powers can be detected early. One of those ways to detect a possible psychic early is the strength of the ghost that the child leaves. I doubted the parents even suspected that their young girl was going to erupt. I would need to talk to them about it, but that meant getting the girl back from the bandits. I looked at the townspeople surrounding me in an almost messianic fashion, with the infinite hope that I would save the child from the evil that had snatched her from their protective grasp. “I need all of you to go back to the town. I don’t want stray emotions screwing up the trails.”
“What are you talking about Ranger?” the town marshal asked with a touch of suspicion in his voice. I hadn’t confided in any of the town what I was about to do. Part of that was the general taciturn attitude that I had learned from the Rangers I had worked with before. Part of it was a natural suspicion that someone in Halston Pass knew who the bandits were, and that they would try and alert the bad guys that I was on their trail. It may have sounded paranoid, but I had heard too many tales from other Rangers and from my grandpa to have any illusions that everyone who made their home on the plains were the lilly-white, industrious people that the Imperial media portrayed.
“Marshal, you wanted my help,” I said with that same, surprising command tone, “Now let me do my job.” Rookie Ranger or not, something told the town marshal not to argue the point with me. Instead, he just strode back to the town wall with a look of righteous indignation. I really didn’t care if the marshal was upset with me or not. All I cared about was finding the child. With the hill cleared, I opened up my psi-senses fully.
The various psi-scents on the hill suddenly jumped out of the background and slammed into me with the force of a psychic hammer. I had a moment of pure sensory overload before my mind could begin sorting out the myriad of psi-scents. The girl’s psi-scent, pungent with terror, rose above the other scents. I focused on it, and I could almost “see” the trail of the girl’s ghost as it left the hill to the north. There were four other psi-scents that went with her. They were all tainted with the sadistic glee that most bandits exuded. With all five scents firmly in my mind, I could sense all of their ghosts trailing off to the north. Towards Hellstowne.
I said nothing to the townspeople as I mounted Tecumseh. There wasn’t time to answer the onslaught of questions that were percolating in the townspeoples’ minds. I had to hurry to catch up to the bandits before they reached the freetown. I couldn’t go into that town without backup. I was still too green to handle Hellstowne. Even my grandpa had warned me against going anywhere near that town unless absolutely necessary. Tecumseh seemed to understand the urgency of the danger, and he immediately began galloping with an alacrity that I had never imagined possible out of the old horse. I followed the ghosts of the five people. The grasslands of the plains blurred by as I focused on the ghosts. I could feel the ghosts beginning to dissapate into the background of the psychic world. Thank God the girl was so unique.
I followed the trail into the Black River swamp. The Black River was one of the larger rivers that ran north to south through the Imperial Penninsula. The river narrowed through the Tam Bay sector and created a large swamp of alternating grassland and muddy marshes. I smiled with a predatory grin as the trail went into the swamp. I knew the bandits weren’t going to be able to move that fast through the swamp. The muddy terrain, the brush vegetation, and the odd creature would keep the horses from being able to move at anything faster than a trot. As for myself, I had been hunting and traversing the swamp since I was six. Many of my family hunted dangerous game, and the Black River Swamp was home to many species that fit that category. Instead of just following the bandits’ trail, I headed east to a small game trail that I used for hunting. I continued on the trail for a bit before I saw something that stopped me. There were several tracks for grand deer and loco-hogs, but they were all going the wrong way. The game trail led to several small pools of good drinking water. Most of the game moved towards the water, with only a few tracks heading away from the water or going across the path. This looked like at least a small herd of grand deer and several small groups of loco-hogs. Something was ahead that frightened the animals of the swamp, and there were precious few things that could frighten a loco-hog. I dismounted from Tecumseh, drew my carbine, and crept forward on foot. I knew that Tecumseh would wait patiently for my return. Ranger horses are well-trained.
I could still sense the ghosts of the bandits and the girl off to my west. As I slinked through the undergrowth of the swamp, I felt their psi-scents grow. They had stopped, which surprised me. Bandits normally didn’t stop in the swamp. They might try to lose pursuers in the muddy stretch of land, but no one liked staying in the swamp. No one, except the crazy hunters and outdoorsmen like my family. As I approached where the bandits had stopped, I felt two other strong psi-scents. Both were radiating a maliciousness that almost made me sick. They weren’t Dark Towers, but they were just as evil – if that was even possible. I crept through the muddy ground, shielded from their view by the shadows of the mangrove trees. The six adults and one scared, little girl were in a small clearing of grassland, maybe twenty meters in diameter. I had managed to find a blind at the very edge of the clearing, maybe fifteen meters from where the bandits and their companions were meeting. Three white canvas tents were set up in a triangle around a stone-circled cook fire. The horses were all tied to a few trees closest to the campsite. The six men were sitting around the cook fire, their rifles sitting next to them. I could hear the murmur of talking, but I was too far to hear anything that could be discerned as words. The girl was bound with rope and sitting in front of the far tent. From everyone’s psi-scents, they hadn’t detected me, and they were feeling pretty secure. The bandits were far too much at ease for them to believe that they were being tailed. Their companions were similarly relaxed in the campsite.
By rights, I could have just begun shooting the bandits and whomever they were meeting. Rangers are not police officers. Rangers are soldiers tasked with peacekeeping duties. I had no legal obligation to demand the bandits’ surrender. That said, the whole situation was bothering me. Bandits normally didn’t kidnap girls that young, except as ransom. This didn’t seem like a ransom kidnapping. Plus, there were the two men that the bandits had met up with. The pervasive vileness in their psi-scent bothered me greatly. Something told me that there was more going on than I could see. I really wanted to take them alive. I was beginning to wonder if the girl had been targeted. If I could tell she was a potential psychic, then someone else definitely could. I was beginning to think that these two individuals could tell she was a psychic, or knew that she was a psychic. I watched the men for a while, looking for an opportunity.
The fading daylight vanished completely and darkness enveloped the swamp. Only the small cook fire fended off a portion of the encompassing darkness. I grinned to myself. The darkness would be my friend. I watched as the bandits placed the girl into one of the tents. Four of the bandits retired to another, and the nasties went back to the last tent. Two of the bandits sat down with their rifles across their laps. My guess is that they were the sentries. For sentries, they were pretty lax, even taking the time to light up cigarettes. There went their night vision. I wished that I had a suppressor for my carbine, but those were only issued to the commandoes. I would have to do this carefully so as not to let those bastards harm the girl.
I kept my carbine trained on the right hand sentry and slowly levitated off the ground. It took more of my psi-strength than I like to admit to do a slow float out of my firing position. Strenuous, but very stealthy. The two sentries didn’t even notice that I had come into the firelight. The iron sights of my rifle glowed with as the firelight reflected off of the white marks. The campsite shook as my carbine cracked twice. The two sentries were slumping off of their perches as my carbine turned to the tent with the bandits. The selector switch clicked and I focused on the bandits’ individual psi-scents. Bursts of fire ripped through the white canvas, splattering red blood in wide arcs. I felt two of the psi-scents fade into ghosts. The other two flared in pain, surprise, and anger. I felt the two nasties jump awake at the gunfire. Their vile psi-scents were punctuated with astonishment. They weren’t expecting anyone to have found their little campsite. I wanted to turn and confront them, but the two bandits in the tent had managed to find their weapons and began firing. I fell to the ground as pistol rounds cracked above me. I fired two more bursts into the tent before the carbine’s magazine went dry. Another psi-scent faded, but the last was spiking with incredible rage. The two nasties were coming out of their tent as I scrambled to eject the spent magazine and slap in a fresh one. I felt their surprise turn to rage as they came upon the scene.
I managed to throw up the telekinetic shield a bare moment before a rain of bullets came down on me. The two nasties were wielding sub-machine guns and were showing exactly why the weapons were nicknamed “bullet hoses.” I felt a throbbing in the base of my skull as the rounds slapped into the psychic barrier. I knew that my psi-strength would be erupting soon with new strength, but I didn’t want it to happen while I was in the firefight. Those eruptions needed careful control – not something I could guarantee while I was trading fire on two angles. The magazine slipped into the receiver, and I hit the bolt release. I felt the carbine chamber the round as I brought the weapon to bear on the last psi-scent in the tent. I squeezed the trigger and held it a little longer than I was trained – I wanted to make sure that the bandit was dead. Bullets slapped into my telekinetic shield as the two nasties began emptying their sub-machine guns at me. I rolled up into a firing crouch. I dropped the magazine out of my carbine and reached down to retrieve a fresh one when a bolt of unknown energy lanced through my shield and slammed through me. It felt as if every neuron in my body fired as once. Intense pain flashed through my body and I collapsed to the soft, muddy ground.
With great strain, I raised my head and looked up at where the two nasties had been standing. I didn’t know what they hit me with, but I knew it wasn’t natural. Magic, in the hands of humans? It seemed impossible. Only the native races of the planet were able to work magic. Humans just had psychics. Neither of the two nasties had been psychic. I would have sensed it when I came near the camp. I needed to get back on my feet, and I needed to do it quickly before the nasties finished me. It was at this time that all those months of training paid off. Honed reactions began without thought as I assessed the damage and began to move. Physically, everything was working, but my reactions were completely off. It felt like it took a second or two for my body to respond to what my brain was telling it to do. I staggered to find cover, trying to get my shield back up and wondering why I wasn’t being rained down upon with lead. I rolled behind one of the logs that the bandits had been sitting on and brought my carbine up to where the nasties had been standing. That’s when I finally noticed the camp.
All of the tents had been knocked flat. The two nasties were on the ground, dazedly trying to get to their feet. I placed bursts into both of them and watched as they slumped to the ground. I felt their psi-scents fade to ghosts. As I tried to shake off the lingering effects of whatever had hit me, I felt for the psi-scent of the girl. She was in her tent, and I could feel the pain that was coursing through her. I began cursing to myself as I stumbled over to where she was draped in the remains of her tent. Rather than struggling with the canvas to untangle her, I pulled out my work knife and cut her free. She was moaning in pain, and for good reason. It looked like she had been slammed with a giant sledge hammer. Rage filled me, and that seemed to wash away any of the lasting effects of whatever had hit me. I whistled for Tecumseh to come into the camp and quickly began to fashion a sling for the tiny girl. Even at my best speed, I was doubtful that I could do anything to save the girl. Rib cage, legs, arms, even her pelvic bone was shattered. Extensive bruising led me to believe there were extensive internal injuries. Maybe if a helicopter could reach us and airlift her to Tam Bay, assuming that I could reach one. There was one thing that I could do immediately, but I had to be very careful, or I would kill her before I could even hope to save her. Using the techniques I had learned in the Psi-Academy, I cleared my mind and used my telekinesis to carefully probe her brain. A sudden flash of intense pain coursed through her, and I knew that I had found my target – the main pain receptor of the brain. An infinitely tiny telekinetic thrust shut it down. A medical psychic would be able to repair the nerve, but it would allow me to move the girl without her body hitting the pain threshold that caused it to shut down. Tecumseh, being a Ranger horse, had come close to me when he had entered the camp, and waited patiently for me. The sling I had fashioned wasn’t perfect, but it would do the job. I reached into the saddlebag for the airship schedule. I allowed myself a string of curses. None of the vital communication links would come close enough in the small time window the girl had to get emergency care. Coming to that conclusion, I made a decision. I reholstered the carbine on the saddle. I wouldn’t need it. I faced Tecumseh, and told the horse, “Meet me back at the town.”
Gently picking up the girl with pure telekinetic power, I lifted the two of us above the trees of the Blackwater Swamp. I had to slowly build up my speed as I accelerated back to Halston Pass. I wanted to make sure that the girl was alive when I returned her to her parents. They should at least have a chance to say good-bye. In two minutes, I was at my top speed of forty kilometers per hour, which was much faster at thirty meters than at ground level. Normally, I loved to watch as the ground raced below me as I soared through the air. It had taken me weeks to be able to fly without continuously concentrating on the myriad of details necessary to maintain myself aloft. Normally, it was an amazing sensation of freedom. This time, I felt constrained, and the ground just couldn’t go fast enough. The town raced up to meet us, and I saw the red cross painted on the top of the doctor’s office. Thankful for Imperial regulations, I landed as softly as I could in front of the office and slammed the door open with a telekinetic thrust. It wasn’t my most gracious entrance, but that was far from my mind at the time. I pushed through the people in the small waiting room and into an exam room. The man in the room retreated as I came through the door and gently laid the girl on the table.
“Go get the doctor, her parents, and the pastor,” I told the man. He nodded and fled the room. I waited until the doctor came rushing into the room. I gave him a very quick rundown of my initial exam. He nodded as he went to the girl’s side. I could sense from his emotions that my suspicions were correct. The girl would not survive her injuries. I left the room. It was about to get very crowded in the room, and I needed to get to a phone. The Rangers would need to get to that campsite before anyone came poking around.
The last leg of my Long Ride was relatively uneventful. I had managed a dispute between two farmers and had stopped an aborigine raid of another farmer who was letting his livestock roam outside his land and onto the aborigine hunting grounds. Both times, simply having a Ranger around made both sides more willing to talk and come to an understanding. Rangers aren’t really known for their patience, but do have a nasty reputation when weapons are pulled. Supposedly, one of the Rangers’ ancestor organizations had a motto of “One Riot, One Ranger,” and the Imperial Rangers have managed to continue that tradition. I had put the last week to good use to try and figure out what had happened at the campsite, and I didn’t like the conclusions I found. Duty forced me to submit my conclusions on my patrol report, even though I was fairly certain that the captain would disqualify me from service once he read the report.
As custom dictated, I attended my Long Ride debrief in dress uniform. I stood at rigid attention as Captain Rodgers read my report. His face was impassive, and his emotions were curiously bland. I sensed an interest, a disappointment, and something akin to astonishment as the veteran Ranger read the details of my Long Ride. After he was done, he looked up at me with a level look. “Mr. Stahl, do you know how many Long Rides I have had the duty to oversee in my tenure as station commander in Tam Bay?”
“No sir,” I answered as smoothly as I could. The question caught me off-guard.
“Seventeen, including yours,” Captain Rodgers answered. The captain’s emotions became more solidified with a concern and a reproach that was worrisome to me. “And every time one of you comes back, you give me a patrol report that reads more like ‘How I Screwed Up’ then what it should be. I will be the first to admit that your patrol was a bit more eventful than most, but a patrol report is not a place for you to recite your mistakes. Patrol reports are so the intelligence people will have current information about what is going on within the Imperial borders. Debriefs are for your mistakes.”
“I wanted to be complete, captain,” I replied in my defense, “I made a critical error in assessing the danger, and a civilian was killed as a result.” It had taken some time to figure it out. The nasties had hit me with an energy weapon of unknown type that set off my entire nervous system. The obvious result would have been a pain and sensory overload that should have killed me, or at least incapacitated me. The side effect was that it also unleashed my full telekinetic power in a single uncontrolled wave. Essentially, I became a psychic explosive. I don’t know how the nasties had shielded themselves from the blast, but I suspected that whatever they had used had also protected them from being crushed by the telekinetic wave. The girl hadn’t been so lucky. From the captain’s emotions, I gathered that he disagreed with my report’s conclusions.
“You did not make a mistake, Warrant Officer,” he said in a neutral tone, “You proceeded like you should have. An unknown factor crept into the situation, and you had no chance to overcome it before the hostage was killed. Tragic, but it happens. We don’t live in a safe place. My only reprimand was that you failed to secure the campsite before leaving.” It sounded harsh, but there was a sympathetic tinge to the captain’s emotions. “That being said, it was a very human thing to want to get the girl to her parents before she passed on. It’s a decision you’ll have to make often – balancing the needs of a Ranger’s duty and the needs of human compassion.” The captain paused, and there was a sudden humor in him. “Of the seventeen that have taken their Long Ride, do you know how many are now serving Rangers?”
“No sir, and I would hate to hazard a guess.”
“Eight,” Captain Rodgers answered, “Including you.” My mind reeled at the words. It seemed almost surreal as the captain stood up from his desk to pin the silver star within a circle to my chest. I saluted, trying to keep my military formality, but from the amusement coming from the captain, I was pretty sure I had a stunned grin on my face.
“Now Ranger Stahl, we have some housekeeping items to attend to,” the captain said, slamming me back into reality, “First, I want an amended patrol report on my desk by 1800 hours today. This time, I want you to spell out exactly what you saw and what actions you took in response, and I want it in neutral terms. Recriminations for your actions are for myself, other commissioned officers, and the Chief to deal out. You’ll ruin our reputation if you put that fallacious stuff in your reports. Secondly, you’ll need to add this to your uniform.” With that, the captain tossed me a small felt-covered box. Instinctively, I caught it telekinetically and floated the box to my waiting hand. A gleaming silver bar, maybe three centimeters long by half a centimeter wide, shone up at me. The official name for the decoration was the Meritous Service Award for Non-Combat Duties, but most soldiers called it a silver chit.
“I’m not complaining, or refusing this, Captain, but what is this for?” I asked. Rather than answering me directly, the captain picked up a sheet of paper off of his desk and began reading.
“At the behest of the Duke of the Tam Bay Sector, the Earl of the territorial city of Tam Bay, the Earl of the territorial city of Liberty Bell, and assorted exalted persons residing therein,” the captain began, “And after a review of the requested actions by Ranger Captain Rodgers and Imperial Security Brigadier Noreen Calhoun, it has been determined by the Imperial Defense Ministry that Warrant Officer, Third-Class, Eric Stahl did perform his responsibilities in a manner that is consistent with the highest possible ideal of a soldier in Imperial Security. It goes on with a bunch of honorary speech, but it essentially says that the Tam Bay Sector believes your handling of the McCrory-Kileen affair was successful and smart enough that they want the Rangers to recognize it. Since I happen to know both of those families – and what had been happening between them – I agreed.” I was a little surprised to say the least. I had just completed a weeks-long patrol, shot it out with bandits and unknown forces, and my commendation was for the handling of a land dispute.
“As for the action at the campsite,” the captain said, “While you did a pretty decent job there, it has been classified while the Ministry of Intelligence and Imperial Security conduct an investigation. You are ordered not to discuss it at this time without my express approval. Is that clear, Ranger?”
“Yes captain.”
“Good,” the captain replied, very satisfied, “Now, let’s talk about your first actual patrol.”