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The silent hum of the spacecraft's engine was soothing. Anyone could easily fall asleep to it, but there was no time for it. I was on my way to Planet Blood to sift out the best people out of the militaries and law enforcement agencies throughout the Sirius systems, to see who'd be worthy to join the BloodGuard Academy on Neutro Station. They all came to Blood months ago to prepare for one the hardest physical and mental tests in their lives, most of them only to be sent back home to try some o…

As I reached the barracks, I met the training officer who was about to start the morning call. I stopped him and ordered him to bring me some flashbang grenades. He stood there gawking at me like an idiot. - Sir? - Just do it! All of the trainees were roughly my age. Give or take a year or two. So if I wanted them to take me seriously, I needed to make clear who was in charge. Scaring the shit out of them should do the trick. The training officer soon returned with two bags with the said grenad…

The exams went every bit as bad as the Admiral feared. Every one of the recruits excelled individually, but were utter rubbish when put in teams. I had no choice but to fail them. At the end of the day I went to my quarters. There was a mission briefing folder and four-pack of beers sitting on my desk with a note attached. It was from the Admiral: - Take tomorrow off. You'll have to deploy on Saturday. Next round's on you, by the way. I couldn't help but get my hopes up. Finally an actual missi…

And so Saturday came. I went to the spaceport at 9AM. Getting all the paperwork done to allow someone to retake the exams immediately after they have been failed is quite a hassle and I had to pull some pretty big strings with the Admiral, so my mood was already sour. But what I had to see on the spaceport really made me pissed. The four trainees were at each others' throats: - Greene! You tryin' to pull some prank on us, bitch?- Shut your trap, Mason! He'll be here!- I bet he just told you wha…

It was widely known that jump holes allow transit for only one ship at a time, otherwise they just collapse, destroying whoever is currently in the jump tunnel. Hinode entered the jump hole first, so the rest of us couldn't follow until he was through... - That moron! I'm jumping next... Then Göttling, then Mason. Greene, you take our six.- Affirmative!- Roger that!- Copy!The jump holes readings showed normal values again and I jumped through. On the other side, I already saw wrecks of Blood Dr…