Dauntless: Destiny Remade

1.3 Assignment in the Galra Army

Join the Empire—bring Peace to the Galaxy.

Serve Zarkon—bring Honor to the Galra.

The purple words floated on the comm screen in Lance's lap. A dark laugh bubbled up inside of him, but he swallowed it. The middle of the imperial Galra registration center was no place to start a giggling fit.

Join the empire—not that he had a choice.

Bring peace to the galaxy—not likely.

Serve Zarkon—hopefully, he'd never lay eyes on the old cat.

Bring honor to the Galra—they'd probably prefer he wasn't one of their species at all.

But Lance was Galra, and as a duty to his clan, he would join the imperial Galra infantry for thirty sleep cycles. Refusing to join the Galra army would condemn his family to work in the mines, a fate the Galra reserved for the alien peoples they subjugated. Lance wouldn't let his family suffer because the thought of being an imperial soldier made his guts squirm. After eighteen sun cycles, every able-bodied Galra was expected to serve their empire, and by extension, their emperor. Lance would be no exception.

Not an invasion force corps, Lance pleaded mentally as he finished reading his contract of service—of servitude more like it—on his comm screen. Lance tapped the screen, signing his Galra name and clan—Lorran of Claithan.

Lorran...no one called him that. Well, his mom did when she was mad at him, but he'd picked up the nickname Lance so young that he'd forgotten where—and who—had given it to him. It was a better, cooler name than Lorran, and that's what mattered.

Lance sunk back against the metal wall, his shoulders relaxing into its coolness. Now that he'd signed thirty sun cycles of his life away to the Galra empire, he had to wait for them to tell him where they'd make him serve the first five cycles. Afterward, he'd have options for other assignments—promotions or possibly in Lance's case demotions—but the first five cycles were known to be a somewhat random assignment. Not really random, he knew, because Galra that lived in the Central Command System—nearer to the heart of Galra power—got the best assignments and usually had connections. Lance lived on Veltria, the eighth planet in a sixteen planet solar system. He wasn't the son of the Claithan clan chief or related to anyone of note—his family ran errands for the clan.

As a delivery boy, he'd get whatever dreg job no one else in the imperial infantry wanted. At least that might keep him out of active invasion zones—the last places Lance wanted to be deployed. He wouldn't mind some excitement but subduing hostile aliens—not his thing. His dislike of wrestling and fighting made an aberration among his clan, but he was an insignificant member, so nothing great was ever expected of him.

"You finished your forms already?" Hunk said, sitting down on the butt-numbing bench beside Lance.

"It's easy—just ask to do something boring," Lance muttered, feeling a little part of his soul die. Gods, he'd be wasting thirty sun cycles of his life in the infantry...

Hunk grinned, baring his fangs. "That's the plan. I figure they'll need an engineer somewhere...preferably somewhere without lots of—pew, pew, pew—"

Hunk mimicked shooting a laser pistol, and Lance gave a half-lean, half-shrug. "We're not important enough to go into an invasion zone, but 'The empire needs all its people to maintain thousands of years of greatness'," Lance said, deepening his voice and mimicking the recruitment material. Both of them grinned half-heartedly; the Galra empire, so distant on far-flung Veltria felt crushingly real now.

Hunk stretched his arms behind his head and rested his head on his intertwined palms. "Thousand ticks of doing nothing right now, though. Got to take advantage of our last chances to be lazy. They're going to make us do martial training, you know."

A grin tugged on Lance's lips for the first time since he'd entered the austere recruitment center. He said, "That's the only thing I'm looking forward to."

Hunk leaned forward and cocked an eyebrow. "You never liked wrestling or sparring."

Lance shrugged. "Maybe there's more they can teach us in martial training—you know, some secret Galra fighting techniques."

"Martial training is supposed to be brutal," Hunk said, shuddering. "They make you run...they only let you eat two meals a day...no dinner, Lance—no dinner for twenty-one sleep cycles!"

"But we get to become real Galra, real soldiers," Lance said, his legs twitching with involuntary excitement. He'd never been the strongest pup, but the Galra army turned anyone, even nobodies like Lance, into elite warriors. He'd get to pilot fighters, stealth ships, and cruisers instead of junky, slow delivery and cargo ships. Unlike Hunk, he was lean and built for speed, and Lance pictured a wise, grey-furred Galra soldier that would surely teach him how to hone his naturally lanky body into a weapon.

Grunting, Hunk said, "I'd rather have the food, cat."

Lance rolled his yellow eyes, settling back into the bored stasis of waiting.

"Out here...you're really not bored?" Lance asked and dropped his emotional barrier and ventured the question, casting a cautious glance at Hunk. Lance exhaled in relief when Hunk shrugged—completely indifferent to his moral quandary.

Hunk arched a furry eyebrow. "Why would I be? I like to fix things—I don't need to fight on the front lines of a galactic war to do that. Cat, I thought you didn't want to fight, either."

With a half-embarrassed shrug, Lance said, "I don't want to fight...I mean, I don't want to—"

Lance's inelegant blubbering was cut short by his comm's beeping. Lance flipped open his command and read the message. His heart skipped several beats before the words sank in....

Infantry: Central Command....

It listed his date of deployment, but Lance didn't read it. The information seeped into his brain like sap, but his carbon-based senses couldn't hope to comprehend it. He was going to Central Command—his family and clan would be overjoyed. He had no prospects at all, and this was an unexpected boon.

Yet, it was the exact last thing Lance wanted.

**************

The only thing that kept Lance from bolting from the new cadets' platform was Hunk, who stood beside him and solid as a rock. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Lance glanced at the Galra officers—each ready to corral them aboard the space crafts that would fly them hundreds of thousands of ticks away to the Galra Central Command. First, they'd deploy to an intermediate base for twenty-one sleep cycles of martial training. During training, they would be evaluated by the Lieutenants in charge, and before leaving for Central Command, they'd take a final skills test.

Jerking around, Lance waved to his family. Over fifty—a suspiciously large group—of Valteria natives would be crated almost a hundred sun cycles to the Galra Central command. It was an unprecedented honor, and Lance couldn't shake his suspicions. Sending him to war—to die on the front lines of the Galra conquest—didn't feel like a great honor.

It's for your family, Lance told himself...even if he didn't believe it in his heart.

The transport shuttle ramp descended with a puff of grandiose yet ominous smoke. Lance hesitated, dragging his feet. When Hunk drudged up the ramp, Lance kicked himself into motion, forcing himself to keep pace with his eager comrades. After all, they did the Galra empire an honor.

Lance waved to his two sisters and mother while the door shut. He waved with a child's enthusiasm, yet it felt like the door shut at warp speed. When it clicked closed, Lance's hand dropped limply by his side.

The vehicle jerked, and Lance staggered and gripped Hunk's bicep. The transport launched into space, and Lance's gut sank. Would he see his mom and sisters again? He couldn't say, but he had no control of the ship, which streaked into the boundless realms of space.

Note: I figured 'cat' would be the Galra equivalent of 'man'.