by Sam Sea
“Yes?”
“Sir, you said... you will leave anyone who falls behind...”
“A young girl of fifteen is reminding me of what I said? Is that what I am seeing here?” Derran smirked.
The girl didn’t answer.
“What this little girl does not know yet is that a real solder has a right to talk spaceshit… Space hell, a real solider, a true soldier has a right to talk any kind of shit she or he likes. He has a right to talk since he will do the walk – knowing that that walk may cast him his life, understand?”
Siya still said nothing but her eyes were fixed on his.
“What the true solder doesn’t have a right, does never have a right, is to leave his comrade, his friend-in-arms behind, especially if he can help. Understand that? So, the only question then that emerges right now is: do you think I am a real soldier, or some space-shitting asshole who dresses up as a sergeant to play around with little kids?”
Siya knew to keep her mouth shut.
“So, now get your sorry ass out of this rain, and don’t you ever dare question if I’m a real thing, understand?”
“Yes, Sir! She answered shivering as much from cold as from the energy that came through his words.
It seemed everyone inside the barrack heard the speech and the sudden silence was only interrupted by Siya’s hurried creaking steps.
The next day, after the breakfast, twenty bunks were emptied. As he watched the last of them being stripped of the bed clothes by the maintenance crew, Derran was not sure whether he should be glad to note that neither one of those bunks belonged to Siya’s.
C
hapte r 6 - An Offer
A month in the program, Derran was rather happy with how things were progressing. He was satisfied that the seventy candidates who still decided to stay in the program all seemed to be already in a very good shape with many of them picking up skills faster than he originally anticipated. Maybe not all of them were mommy’s boys and daddy’s girls after all.
Yet, he was well aware of the depressing fact that it would still take him years to teach them everything they needed to know and that he was not given enough time. But, at least, it appeared to be a very satisfactory beginning.
So he was less gloomy and almost enthusiastic until he got an unknown call on his communicator. It was meant to be used only in the case of military emergency or a call from the councilmen, so naturally it got his full attention. But, it was neither.
As he answered it, he saw a man he had never seen before. Deep blue eyes stared at him.
“Who are you?” He asked as the man was not eager to identify himself.
“I am sorry to disturb you…” The man didn’t seem sorry at all.
“But there is something we would like to talk to you about…”
“Who are you and how exactly did you get connected with me?”
“I am Filo Domovan, Domovan of Domovan Industries…Well, you have our grandchild in there, Wrankies, and…”
Derran didn’t want to respond at all to that, so he just kept his mouth firmly shot.
“…he has been saying all this great things of how great you are, and how much he is admiring you, and that you are one really great-”
“Wrankies saying that? Are you kidding me?”
“Well, yeah, he was saying how great it is that he can have such a great mentor as you, the chance to learn from the best - you being decorated war hero and everything…” The man stopped to clear his throat. “But anyway, we were just thinking how great it would be if you would consider becoming an instructor for his younger brother and cousins. After, I mean, after your job is finished over there and our grandchild successfully completes it all, graduates and all…We would naturally pay well for it, pay for it all, if you know what I mean.
“Really? I did never consider myself an instructor…That is a lot to think about,” Derran seemed to had put on his thinking hat and scratched his head as if that would help him think faster.
“How does 500,000 credit sound to you?”
“500,000?? Hum… Five hundred thousand to think about… that’s a lot to think about, if you know what I mean… May take me a long time to think about it all.
“Well, does six hundred sound better then…? I mean even if you pass him successfully, there is no quarantine if he will pass other sections as well, and just imagine…”
“Yeah, six hundred a section, that would be like three million in all to you… wow, that is some serious thought to think about.”
“Well, so you see that seems very fair, and…you can see why we are not ready to offer more?”
“Yes, of course, but can I just ask you one question?”
“Yes, certainly…”
“Now, I had no clue, as I didn’t want to have a clue who Wrankies was, but now that I do, I mean things change drastically. Now, I have a whole new appreciation for him. Before I just considered him a spoiled brat, but now with what you showed me and what I know, I think he can do so much more. Actually, I think he is ready to go and do so much more. I think I was holding him back. I think he is all ready to do some cliff climbing in this rain we are having today, I mean, cliff climbing right now. I was not going to make anyone do it on the account of it being very slippery and we have already lost a boy doing it. He slipped, Fell hundred meters down. Now dead. Sack of mashed bones and churned meat dead. Crazy what one fall could do.”
“What do you want?” the man asked with a shivering voice and a face white as choke.
“Well, now, on the account of him being Domovan, of Domovan Industries, I think he can handle it all…”
“Don’t you dare!” Mr. Domovan shrieked. “Just tell me what you want?”.
“You know, you know I have every right to do so. I can take your boy out. Right now!!… I decide, I know you know that… And if slippery rocks don’t present a big enough problem, a little push, well, a little rock to his head… Like who would ever find out that that rock was kicked off by someone’s boot? They would probably never even find the rock, might not even suspect that it was it that got him down the fastest way.”
“Just tell me what you want?”
But Derran ignored his plea. “So you do know this, this that I have every power to do so right now, but my question to you is, do you know that I have every bit sick mind to do just that? I bet if you talked to anyone who knew me, they would had warned you, didn’t they?”
The man’s face was frozen in disbelief, mouth trembling, mind incapbable to comprehend what is going on.
“I am not your fucken instructor, old man! And now that I know who you are, think! How much is it worth to you that I, at this very moment, don’t do something like that?? Only six hundred thousand?”
“If you do that…”
Derran extended his hand to shut off the communicator.
“Sis hundred fifty…seven hundred…?” the man spoke swiftly, eyes panicking.
His hand stopped, but the crazy look on Derran’s didn’t change.
“Eight hundred thousand? More? That is incredible!?”
“And I thought you loved your grandkid, build all this empire and have family to help you grow it. Maybe I am talking to a wrong person, maybe I should be talking to his father, or mother?”
“One million? But you better-“
“No!” Derran cut him off sharply. “I think I made it very clear, you do not make demands. You meet them, understand?”
“You would not dare do it?!”
“Ask the guys who gave you this number if I would not. You know, I do not even like the kid. What you need to do is ask yourself a question if that all he is worth to you. And don’t go cheap. I hate cheap.”
The next day, Derran called Wrankies into his office. He played him a full recording of that call.
“You see, they really do love you, to the point…” Derran said
“Sir…You were just kidding, right? I mean about taking me out-“
“Would I lie about a thing l
ike that? You think I am a type of a man who would do that?”
“No, Sir.”
“I mean a type of a man that would lie?”
“No, Sir.”
“And about the other stuff.,. Kid… I id worse thing that that to people I did not even know. And you, like I said, I do not even like. I watched you around, how arrogant sometimes you behave, how much you like to splash to others about all the places you were able to travel to, how you had this and how you had that… I mean, if I take you out, I certainly know nobody here would miss you. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, Sir.” The young man uttered it quietly, obviously hurt by his words.
Derran saw it clearly, nodded his head and pointed to Wrankies to sit down.
“You see, they have already sent the money. I mean, it is a lot of credits…No way that I will ever be able to make even half of that in my lifetime. And with that money, you know, I can live forever. So what do you think I should do?”
“Keep it. You can keep it if you want. I won’t tell anybody. Do with it whatever you want. I don’t care. But I will definitely not retire from the training now. If you want to, you can kill me. I know that. I don’t care.”
After that, Derran stared at the kid for a long time, neither of them saying anything. Nothing needed to be said. It was all understood. Wrankies’s face fully showed it all with tears that were hard to be fought back. He did not even need to continue, but yet he did. “I stay. I’ve got nowhere else to go. And if you thought my grandfather bad, you should meet my parents.”
Derran sighed. “They still love you.”
Wrankies smirked. “On some level, they proably do. But… they love some other stuff much more than they care about me. No, I am here. And if I do not make it, it’s okay that I end here.”
“You don’t need to. I actually want you to live. And of course, I cannot keep the money. I will forward it to the commission. I think they will be glad of 1.5 million credits to go into their budget.”
“You know, Sergeant, the sad part is how little my family has a faith in me, how much they distrust that I cannot make it on my own. But the saddest part of it all is how much I am worth to them…One and a half million might seem a lot, but that is less than my father makes on one freighter in a single month. And he’s got fifty of them. I guess that is the value of my life to my family, less than a month of work of one of their freighters…”
“Well, you can’t choose your parents…But you can choose who you are going to be. You choose that. You cannot change the past, but you can choose who you are now, and choose who you want to be in the future. So you are not going to be a quitter and blame your family for it, and you will move on and try to be one of the first emperor’s investigators in the history. And when you get there… if you get there, you will not waste your life opportunity to try and regain their love and approval.”
Wrankies intensively stared at him with gleaming eyes, and Derran nodded his head as he continued. “You - You will have enough integrity and knowledge of how money can change and influence people that you will never let it do the same to you… Right?”
C
hapte r 7 - The Assassination
Three months later into the training…
Derran ran to the barrack as he heard an explosion, than painful shrieks and screams of horror, confusion and chaos.
"What is going on here?" he yelled, asking for the explanation, seeing many of the candidates piled up in front of his office door. It was the room right next to the entrance he didn't only use for doing a file work but also to sleep in it even though he had every right for a more comfortable sleeping arrangement in the main building. Keep it close to the troops, you are their leader, not their boss, was philosophy of his own drill commander, the philosophy he considered adopting on a few occasions.
"Somebody answer, what is going on?" He asked again and started to move candidates out of his way. They all appeared paralyzed, looked like they took a zombie pill.
"He is dead..." someone whispered through the silence.
"Who is dead?" Derran asked loud enough to turn all their heads around. "Let me through, let me see."
"Make room!" he asked again as the candidates were just not moving out of the way fast enough.
As the line opened up to his office, he saw blood covered floor and body parts splattered in the middle of the room. His closet was blown off and below it, the lower part of the dead body was laying there, the blood still sipping out.
"Everybody out!” he yelled at them, pushing them out of his way "Everyone, except three of you! You three, closest to the body, you do not even move - not even an inch!"
"It's Virkle..." Siya, one of the two who stood with their backs to the sergeant, said. She could not stop starring at the blood that ran down the floor, reaching the edge of her shoes.
"Siya, Fkiss! Yes, two of you! Walk! Slowly! Backward, toward the door. Do not touch anything, okay? And everything is going to be fine. Just get out."
As two of them started to leave the office, he turned to the other boy. "You know why I left you here, Rich?”
"What the high hell is happening here?" Derran heard behind him two of other commanders rushing in the barrack.
"Give me a minute, Sill. One of the boys is dead. Give me a minute here.” He answered in a single breath, thinking of the best way to proceed.
"What can we do? Can we help?" asked Virrana, the only female instructor whose barrack was the one next to his.
"Take the kids out. I will stay here. I first need to talk to Rich, then I will see you all."
Derran swooped like a praying cat around the room, seeing if anything else was out of place. "So, Rich, you know why I left you here, right?" He repeated the question to the boy who seemed completely lost, whose white-washed face seemed not to have any blood left in it.
"We, we were just..." he seemed to have lost ability to talk. He tried, he kept opening his mouth, but words would not come out.
"Wait," Derran said, all cool and relaxed, like it was just a breakfast ritual, "Let me just wipe off that brain and guts from your face, and then, then you can tell me exactly what happened."
"We..." Tears rolled down his face, leaving the trail of the cleanest part of his cheek.
"I know, I know that, but if you do not tell me something after that, I will really slap you really hard...Would you like that?"
"Looking for the files, looking for the scores...someone said that you were already grading us...we just wanted to see." Derran could hardly make sense of half pronounced words he started to utter.
"And you thought that I would keep your score cards in the locker?"
Rich’s tears didn't stop coming down.
"Now, this is very important, and I would like for you to think hard about it before you say 'I don't know'. I want you to take a deep breath. Yes, that is good. Now exhale it, let it go, let it all go. Now do it again. Breath! That’s better. Now, remember what I said. I do not want to hear you say “I don’t know’. I want you to tell me who told you such a thing, about you being graded right now, and about me having the grades in here?”
"Mirinlo... Mirinlo did. It was his idea," he said it at once. Derran sighed, put a hand on his shoulder and helped the boy out of the horror room. He instructed Siya to take him to an infirmary, and went to talk to Mirinlo.
He was ready to bring him in and make him clean the mess as he talked to him about what was said and done. But the boy locked himself in the bathroom, and even after it took an hour to get him out, Derran could see that he was still locked in.
There is so much you can do to push some… He thought as he looked at his uncommunicative and not responding face. These kids, most of they were raised to have everything. They were taken cared off to the point of never having to feel pain, any pain. And now, they are exposed to the cruelest of life endings… All this might be too sudden for them, too much.
So, in the end, he just took the boy by the hand and let him to the
infirmary. In less than four hours, he, together with Mirinlo were flown out.
...
Less than an hour later, Derran from one level of anger to another.
"Are we to think you had nothing to do with this?" he stood in front of the huge screen where three members of the commission he didn’t know stared back at him. Their question was pissing him off, and he didn’t mind showing it on his face.
"Maybe one of your bombs left from the war kept in the closet, maybe exploded..." One on the left insinuated.
"I am sorry, I do not know your name?" Derran asked politely.
"My name is Sulivaro, Senator Sulivaro..."
"Senator, no, I didn't have any bombs in my room closet. Obviously someone placed it there. I carry no weapons with me, and none, not even a knife, was placed by me inside any of the space of that room. Do you understand that? Did I make that clear? It could have not been me!" he answered with a hefty dose of anger and impatience.
Three people on the commission looked at each other.
"Were your door knocked?"
"No, they were not...didn't come with a key, but I put in a little sensor so I knew if someone was sneaking in."
"What does that sensor say?"
"I didn’t have a time to look at it yet, but none has been going to my room since the program started."
"How about the closet, does it have a lock?"
"I do not believe it does, but even if it did, you understand, most likely I would not lock it unless I was to keep some records in there, records that I would want to hide from others. Since I don't, and whatever filing I do, I send in right away, I had nothing to hide there...You understand that locking stuff away sends a bad message to the others. It says you do not trust them, that you are not part of the same team.
"There are only two things that this could have happened. Either Virkle was trying to place a bomb he didn't know how to manage inside my closet, or else someone had placed it there before him, and he has died.”
"Which one do you think that is?"
