Chapter 1

The near naked teenagers dancing on the stage were boring. Gavril had gawked at them, or young women like them hundreds of times, he guessed, and he was blasé to the promises their swaying hips offered. He watched his squad, all of them five to eight years younger than him, hoot and holler at the show while keeping their options open for the girls trolling the tables with watered down drinks and greasy finger foods.

"Sergeant want a good time?" a sweet voice with a thick Awanili accent whispered in his ear.

"I sure do," Gavril answered. "You ain't it, though. Why don't you ask Dunnel sitting right in front of me? He needs a lot of coaching if you know what I mean. You make nice-nice with Dunnel and I'll be nice-nice to you."

He never even looked at her face.

Gavril watched the thin woman lean over Dunnel's shoulder and whisper something in his ear. The younger man's ears went red. Dunnel turned back and looked at his sarge, who gave him a slight nod of approval. Dunnel let the young woman with long black hair take his hand and lead him towards one the doors beside the stage.

Gavril settled down with a second drink. By the time he had finished sipping through the shot of the local distilled liquor, his entire squad was in back getting laid. The local stuff was good, a slightly fruity finish but still dry. They deserved it after the hell of the Awanili equatorial jungle, hunting Vizz remnants. After ten years of hunting the slippery bastards down on seven different planets, he was near his limit.

He had shot, burned, sliced, and even strangled the alien bastards for too long. They fought viciously, confoundingly leaping from one body to another, even if the only living creature was a dumb animal. They didn't leap to humans though. To hunt them, one had to rely on the tracker equipment to identify the enemy because the Vizz could fool human senses. The bastards could hide in the trees, under the ground, or deep in the rocks. Bastards.

This tour of duty wasn't going according to Gavril's personal plan. A twenty-year hitch guaranteed a lifetime pension and benefits, but most soldiers didn't expect the majority of their time to be spent in combat. Ten years and seven tours — there seemed to be no end even though the humans were winning. Awanil was supposed to have been base building and training, not running like maniacs through alien jungles with greenhorns in tow. Too many of his fellow veterans were already dead or gone.

He glanced at his half-filled glass wondering why he didn't remember drinking it. His face darkened at the memory of the new captain chewing him out for all of the destroyed and missing equipment he had reported earlier in the day. The moron had the fresh scrubbed look of a new graduate from a fancy-pants military college. Some day Command Central was going to put pressed-pants Captain Blowhard out in the field and let him learn the real lessons of the Vizz war. Gavril gave a short chortle as he considered the possibility that he would be ordered to drag the captain's ass back to a forward base. Nah, with his luck, the captain would be commanding his company. Moron.

He missed his lieutenant. There was a man who never failed to appreciate what he had and he drank, and when the lieutenant didn't have something to appreciate, he drank more. A Vizz had ripped a hole straight through his middle three weeks back. Gavril had collected what little gear the lieutenant had and handed it over to the major at Forward Base Charlie. Like Gavril, the lieutenant had been a war orphan. There was no one to notify. Gavil and his squad had offered a toast to the man under a sky full of alien stars, using the last bottle that the lieutenant had squirreled away.

Gavril ordered a third shot. He was staring at the potted trees at the corner of the stage slightly ill at ease, wondering if the vegetation had been scanned. As a drink was placed at his right elbow, a body slipped into the seat beside the glass and a soft hand brushed his arm.

"Drinking alone?" the unaccented feminine voice asked.

"Not if you're sitting there," Gavril said as he turned towards her. "Ma'am."

She was wiry, all muscle and no obvious fat. Her black hair was cut in a military bowl shape and she stared at him seemingly without blinking her eyes, which betrayed an ancient Asian ancestry. However, her irises were palest blue and her look was predatory. She was definitely off-worlder, with an air of command about her. She may have had a calm demeanor but her back was ramrod straight and her legs were still poised to launch her body from her seat. Sergeant Gavril had no doubt that he was talking to a superior officer.

"If these women don't entice you, why are you here wasting your precious hours of leave?" she said.

Gavril hadn't been expecting that question; of course, he hadn't expected to be talking to a beautiful commissioned officer in the middle of a whore house/titty dance club. He took a small sip as he attempted to formulate an answer that would keep him respectable but at a distance. Officers in the field like the captain this morning were a crapshoot for veterans like Gavril: some got it and some didn't. Officers above the rank of captain in the Imperial Forces who oversaw dirtball action were to be avoided even more. No commissioned officer in his or her ambitious mind wanted anything less than a space command. Their dream job was whizzing around in space cruisers armed with lasers and missles. Meanwhile they read dirtball tactics out of the manual as if the way to kill Vizz was in there. Idiots.

"I've got a green squad fresh from the field. I'm just guiding them through the best hours of their leave before we go back to the meat grinder, like a good mother hen is supposed to do, ma'am," Gavril said.

"Nothing for yourself?"

"Pardon the crudeness" Gavril said, "but ten years of fucking whores leaves me cold. At least when I drink the liquor, what I feel is genuine." He glanced at her, trying to gauge her response.

The strong beat of the piped music shifted to a more sultry sound. The dancers on stage took their cue and left, most of them coming down to the tables to drum up business with the soldiers who still had chits in their pockets. Rumor had it that some of the locals were carrying a particularly vicious STD that ate a man's dick from the inside out, leaving it a shriveled, useless peanut. Gavril wondered if his men were using the condoms that he had distributed earlier in the day.

"You want a real woman, sergeant?" she asked.

"This is Awanil Three," Gavril said. "What I want most is to get the hell off of this planet, and a woman comes a distant second. Neither of my wants is particularly possible. I don't believe in miracles, ma'am."

Ten years of military life had taught Gavril that there was a clear and distinct line. Commissioned officers were above the line and everyone else was below. He was not going to make the mistake of making a pass at an officer.

"Your cynicism is duly noted, sergeant. However, I would suggest that even on Awanil many things are possible for those who have a sharp mind and a willingness to seek," she said.

"You're probably right," Gavril said. "You're also talking in some cryptic fashion that I cannot begin to crack. Ma'am."

Gavril's mental alarms were on full alert. Whatever game she was playing, he had better step up and pay attention. Reluctantly he placed his nearly full drink back down on the table and took a deep breath. He pushed the decidedly warm feeling of a good buzz to the back of his brain as he straightened up in his chair.

"I see that I've got your full attention," she said. "Play my little game a moment longer and I'll explain myself. Based on what little you know of me, what role do I play in the Imperial forces?"

Gavril took a moment to scan her body and her clothes. Bringing his eyes back to her gaze he said, "Military Intelligence."

"Close enough," she said. Reaching into a pocket on her pants, she pulled out a folded piece of paper and placed it on the table. "I'm looking for volunteers for a new unit that is beyond the scope of the Awanil mission. I'll see you tomorrow morning at this address. Come sober and I promise you will not be disappointed. Questions?"

"Will my absence be squared away with my captain?"

"He will be informed," she said. "Good day, sergeant."

"Good day, ma'am."

The woman got up to leave but turned back to Gavril.

"By the way, sergeant, you may want to try the dinner at the Willy-Nilly club in City Centre. Bring your chits and plan for a long night. You won't be disappointed. I, too, take care of my charges."

With that, she turned on her heel and walked out the door. Gavril watched her go, keeping a close eye on her small, but well-defined butt. She didn't walk, he decided. Rather she glided as if gravity had little hold on her. He shook his head with a touch of disbelief when she disappeared through the doorway.

He picked up the small note and read the address, committing it to memory. With a quick pitch, he tossed the rest of the shot down his throat. Sergeant Gavril Dalakis stood and weaved towards the door. If he was to have a night to remember, he wanted to be alert, shaven, and rested.

Following a nap and a 3-S regimen (shit, shower, and shave), to put him in a better mood, Gavril exited an ancient cab in front of the Willy-Nilly club. Two local militiamen stood guard with burst rifles, a nasty piece of weaponry to have in the middle of a city. One shot of burst could level an entire floor.

He stepped in the door and was greeted by an older Awanili man dressed in a formal suit. His hair was grey and his face was full of wrinkles, but his smile was faint and humble. If the man was unimpressed with Gavril's fatigues, he didn't show it.

"Name, sir?"

Gavril gave his name with a shrug, knowing full well that he didn't have a reservation.

"The sergeant's table will be ready momentarily. May I suggest you wait at the bar? Atalato is our bartender and he has the touch with many a good drink. Ask him for a recommendation and you will not be disappointed," the old man said.

The old man politely pointed at the curtain behind him. Taking the cue, Gavril stepped through the black curtain with its gold geometric patterns and into a very formal setting. Local wood polished to a deep luster shone on the walls, the tables, and the booths around the sides of the room to his right. Crystal shimmered from the ceiling and tables. Nothing in the room was off-worlder exotic, which Gavril would have dismissed as posturing anyway. The room was a compliment to the beauty of Awanil and indeed, many of the faces at the tables were the typical black skins of the Awanili.

To his right was the bar and it was a study in curves and wood. Pleasing to his eye, Gavril couldn't see one sharp edge to the bar or the built-in behind it with its hanging glasses, and shelves of many colored liquors. The windows with their thin curtains let in the last of the day's sun with a softness that seemed to glow off all the surfaces. The room seemed magical.

Gavril chose a spot in the middle of the bar and clambered up on a stool. Another Awanili man, a young adult, approached him.

"What may I get you this evening?" he asked.

Gavril glanced at all the bottles that he couldn't identify against the wall.

"Are you Atalato?"

The man nodded and Gavril continued. "Then what do you recommend for a man who doesn't like sweet, but appreciates the local panishtato straight up?"

"If you can drink panishtato, then you are on the right track to appreciating the beauty of Awanil. Are you waiting for dinner or are you here to drink in my bar?"

"I have a reservation for dinner, but I'm drinking alone," Gavril said, not really sure why he added the extra comment. There were a few other customers in the bar. All of them were dressed in better military fatigues or in Awanili civies. None of them was alone either, sitting in groups of two or four people mostly. Every single one of them seemed engrossed in the people with whom they were sitting. Gavril felt alone. "Orphan alone" they used to call it at the depot center.

A depot center was the way station where young men and women who had no home world prepared for a life in the Imperial military. The second Vizz war had destroyed enough planets to create a vast army of war orphans. The bad news was the Vizz returned; the good news was the humans were prepared and people were saved even if the planet wasn't. Some people were saved.

"I have just the thing," Atalato said in the local patois, 'ting.'