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***

I expected so much more! Eight hours sleep. Eight! I've never slept so much in my life! Running - five kilometres, no more, the standards are child's play. I didn't even have to use the Force. Not even close.

My service began with a fight and a punishment cell. That's right - when we arrived at the training base, some bastards who thought they were old-timers wanted to put us in our place. Me, Aarn, Rorsch. Rorsch is a cat, a very taciturn and secretive guy.

I was reminded of the film "DMB" when the spirits came to the barracks. However, this is a training camp. Three months, the rest are as green as us. We didn't like it so much, they started pushing their rights. They've been here for two months, what an achievement!

The main one, jutting out his jaw, trying to look like he was in charge. Arrogantly so... the others stood behind him. Aarn didn't budge and took half of his teeth in one blow. The other underdogs jumped into the fray, seeing that their leader was without teeth. And then it was my turn to act. I sped up and rushed towards the crowd. The first one got a swift kick to the kidneys, then I bounced, almost colliding with another underdude. It was enough of a hook to make his teeth fly out. Two of them were coming at me - I didn't dodge - the first one got me in the ear, and the second one kicked me in the stomach, pushing back harder. He flew off nicely, and his head slammed into the leg of the bunk and he lay still. Aarn was scattering his enemies with mighty blows, and Rorsch was flying between them as fast as I was. And he didn't use the Force! Now that's what I call a fast bloke. Two to go. Realising that the grandfathers, fifteen of them, had suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the three newcomers, the other two tried to escape. They ran away from us, but Rorsch and I immediately sped up. Before they could take a step, we were already in front of them.

- Where do you think you're going? - Rorsch purred.

- They're probably going to complain to the officers," I surmised, "rats like that attack in packs, and if they break their teeth, they go to complain to their daddy.

Rorsch ran a sharp claw across the face of one of them.

- Do we have a complaint?

- N... no," the boy almost fainted. By the way, they were having a hell of a fight. I turned round. The Aarn was coming. Rorsch and I stepped aside, and Aarn hit them both, one at a time, and then grinned:

- "If they don't want to live the good way, we'll live the bad way...

As luck would have it, an officer came running into the barracks.

- What's going on here?

* * *

Training wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Compared to the 24-hour hell that was the LC, the "intense training" was laughable. But with my friends Aarn and Rorsch, we trained hard. And our sparring was watched by the whole school. Aarn would hit so hard that even my Force enhancement didn't help. Rorsch could easily dodge my fastest blows. Every sparring session was a circus - we fought with passion.

And then there's my pocket dimension. One night, after two weeks of training, when Aarn complained that the food here was good but not good enough, I took a box of chocolate bars out of the dimension, spread the food around the bed - baked goods from the stasis chamber - meat pies with more meat than dough, local Snickers, and so on. And he handed it all to Aarn. Aarn was surprised:

- Where did all this come from?

- Have you heard of this thing? - I showed him my hoover, - a pocket dimension. It allows you to store a lot of useful things inside. There's a lot of stuff in there, I'm keeping it just in case....

- Maybe you shouldn't," Aarn hesitated, "there's probably not that much in there....

- No, there's still plenty," I said, "I packed a lot of food in there before we went to the PP. You never know what kind of a hole you'll end up in. So take it, don't hesitate. I'll fill my pockets again before the end of training....

Aarn thanked me discreetly and went to eat. With his size, it was necessary.

- Are there no fish in there? - he suddenly asked.

- Er... - I hesitated, - no. But there are fishing nets.

- Too bad, too bad... I like fish, - my feline friend saddened.

* * *

Three months in the training centre flew by like one day. It's a real resort, because the training centre was on Xandar. It was in the centre of the republic. And there were no difficulties - after the massacre on the first day we were treated with respect. And after the sparring, there wasn't a single idiot who would shake his rights in front of us. That's why Aarn and Rorsch and I became fast friends - after all, we'd beaten faces together, taken a beating for it together, and scared people away together. The training facility was simple - a few barracks, a headquarters, a firing range, training grounds, and a few outbuildings like a mess hall, warehouses, hangars and landing pads, and the like. All... modest.

Three months flew by - we were issued new soldier's uniforms. The commander made a heartfelt speech about serving our dear, beautiful Xandar Republic, gave everyone automatic rifles, and those who didn't have enough - sapper spades. Just kidding.

It really feels like yesterday, but it's been three months, which is surprisingly short. Well, fuck it - a soldier sleeps, the service goes on. That was fast? Yeah, I don't even remember anything, all three months were a real Ru-tina. Get up, exercise, breakfast, lecture, physical training, lecture-lecture, lunch, marching or obstacle course, lecture, sparring, dinner and two hours of free time - mostly spent by me playing online games with friends, or together we went to empty supplies, or just walked around the training centre. That's about it.

After the allocation, the ships came for us - big and utterly ridiculous, cattle carriers. We all went to the transports, where we were to fly to the place of service - a week's journey. I didn't know anyone I was travelling with. Aarn and Rorsch had left to serve in other units. I'm a space trooper now. Private Hyarty.

Inside the cattle carrier were very cramped cubicles, like on a submarine - there wasn't much room to move around. Too little, so we spent most of the journey lying on our sides. I wasn't happy about it, but the others loved it.

* * *

Planet Karsan IV, type: Green. Vegetation: Moderate. Located in sector 567711038. The planet is home to the Xanal colony.

Industry is represented by ore mining and aluminium production. The prospect of agro-industry is low, due to its remoteness from the main hyperspace routes. The system's star has significant electromagnetic radiation, making it unsafe to use repulsors and unshielded electronics on the planet.

The Karsan-4 colony is divided into six major settlements - First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth. The First settlement is home to a spaceport, a metallurgical plant, and a cargo terminal. The other settlements are mining sites for raw materials. The colony has a staff of fifty-two thousand one hundred and forty-one people. The garrison of the colony is 658 division of the KD VKS KR.

Due to the special state of EMP radiation on the planet, wheeled and tracked vehicles are used.

Attached to the page was a photo of the equipment used. This is something, compared to which even BELAZ will seem modest - wheels, four metres in diameter, wide-profile, and on them - a huge machine. A big yellow ore hauler - with a bucket holding about five hundred tonnes of ore, huge military vehicles used for travelling on local roads... yes, I've never seen such a thing. Very, very interesting, I'm intrigued by this type of transport. I've read more about it.

Howlers are a type of wheeled vehicle. They are used in remote colonies, due to the high cost of repulsor technology and a huge resource, reliability. The area of internal premises is about three hundred square metres.

The creation of the Howler became possible due to the transition from internal combustion engines to reactors - before that the energy capacity of fuel was too limited and it was impossible to overcome a certain barrier, beyond which the increase in mass was faster than power. Hauler's thermonuclear reactor could move the two hundred tonne vehicle with great speed, the wheels allowed to overcome big bumps and not to pay attention to small ones at all.

* * *

The ship began to enter the atmosphere. There was a lot of excitement on board - a week on the road was about the same as a week in a parcel-car - everyone had lost all patience. Lying, sitting, munching and staring at datapads and computers to pass the time is not easy. Soldiers began to walk along the corridor more briskly - the windows were only at the end of the corridor and there were always people standing near them. The ship was now out of hyperspace into normal space. Beautiful. Splendid. I gathered my things, just vacuuming through the cupboards and shelves. Sucked all the little things in.

Before we landed, we had to sit down and buckle up in the landing compartment. We all got out and took our seats. The boys were whispering, anticipating at last the solid ground under their feet, which could not but be happy.

We shook a little, the ship began to slow down with its plasma engines.

- Are we gonna crash? - Some kid to my right asked the others, "I heard that because of magnetic storms, no transport can fly here....

- It can, but not on repulsors, - answered his neighbour, - and we are descending on brake engines. Hold on, it's going to shake.

He was not mistaken - the ship began to shake violently. It tilted to one side or the other. The shaking increased as we descended. The shaking was unrelenting. Gradually the vibrations increased, and when they became too strong, everything suddenly stopped. I looked round, and the others were still turning their heads. The officer accompanying us just said:

- "We're getting closer. Come on, boys," he took off his belt and stood up first.

The ramp opened, and the commander immediately kicked and kicked everyone in the direction of the planet. Not that I didn't enjoy it - after a week of vegetative living, it felt incredibly good to run. I looked around - a large landing field, high walls, towers around the perimeter... people seemed so small among these gigantic buildings and constructions... But what can you do - the fascination with microcosm in science fiction is illogical, any development of planets is first of all gigantic construction sites. Running, in formation, we reached the strange man. He stalled us, and then our chaperone ran up. Trumping the man, he reported our arrival and ran back to the ship.

The man was strange - military trousers, high boots, unbuttoned military uniform without insignia, shabby, like the famous Afghani, the look of a kind of barracks old-timer. Bald, with protruding brow arches - looks like a boxer. No intellectualism in his face.

- Well, - he walked along the lined-up soldiers, - a new addition. Good.

He spoke softly, without shouting at anyone and in general, pretended that he didn't give a damn about us. Like a cook who took fresh bread to the kitchen... He didn't care much. He went on, looking round the ranks:

- You're not in the warmest place to serve. There's a small colony here on Karsan IV. Six settlements, about half a hundred thousand people. Outside the colony walls, it's wilderness. There's a lot of predators, so if you're kicking your arse, you'll be lunch for one of them in no time," he looked intently at the frightened boys, "Our job is hard - we have to protect those Xanal jerks from the wild animals. The border with the Kree Empire is not far away, so it's a bit of a worry. There's no civilisation here, the only way to get supplies and BC is with the transport ships that bring aluminium scraps from here to Xandar. Since this fucking ball of gas," he pointed his finger at the sky where the sun was, "is also hitting the planet with electromagnetic storms every half hour, the unshielded electronics will soon die. We move around the planet in these things," he waved his hand in the direction of the cars standing there. Howlers. Giant cars. Wow! What a size... even from a distance it looks huge.

The soldier walked around us once more, looked at the formation, shrugged, and with his hands in his pockets, walked away.

- Sir...

- Captain.

- Mr Captain! - suddenly asked the guy standing next to me, -, but where should we go?

- Do you have a choice? If you kids can't even find your way to the barracks without me, there's nothing for you to do on Karsan. Well, see you later, greenie! - he waved his hand and grinned and walked towards the cars.

The guy standing next to him was indignant:

- What kind of a man is that? He didn't say anything, and he looks like....

- I shrugged my shoulders, - I shrugged my shoulders, - OK, let's go.

- Where to?

- To the barracks.

- You go, and I'll find out everything from the commander....

I was glad to breathe fresh, clean air and headed towards the spaceport. If you don't want to, you'd better ask the staff there. What a place! No iron discipline, no father-commander yelling in the best traditions of American sergeant-shouting... While I was walking I enjoyed the situation. Blue sky, greenery in the distance, concrete under my feet, native smells of the spaceport - so familiar and pleasant... Perhaps my ship could be parked here, too - there's no reason for it to gather dust on Xandar. But later.

There was a spaceship coming in from above. A big freighter. There was no one on the field, and I realised that I was about to be hit by the plasma engines, so I activated my armour - the shoulder pads appeared first, followed by everything else. A second - and the rubber-metal sole of the suit was already stepping on the concrete floor. I didn't miss a beat - the ship was landing next to me, and I felt the heat from the concrete that had been heated during the landing. If it wasn't for the suit, I would have burnt my hair for sure. The armour only gave out information about the temperature outside. Not wanting to stomp any further, I activated the engines, soaring slightly above the surface of the spaceport and heading toward the building. I was there in less than ten seconds.

* * *

3 days later.

* * *

"Up at four in the morning again... my body aches and my head hurts, oooooh, I'm in the army now," I hummed in a half-voiced voice, keeping up the pace. The others were following me, yawning. The barracks were incredibly ingenuous, like the rest of the soldier's life. There were no charms of civilisation here - the colony was so remote that one could not wait for the superiors to arrive. I ran to the toilet, a sort of latrine, and then to the washbasin - before the others had time, I took a trump card seat by the window. It was still cool, frankly, pleasant. The soldiers came in here too, and there was a ruckus for about ten minutes. Some were spoiling the air in the latrine, some were brushing their teeth, some were staring sourly and deeply into the big mirror opposite.

I, having washed my face, went away. It was seven o'clock in the morning. Seven ten, to be exact. The iskin on the mindlink immediately told me the time and date.

He didn't button his uniform yet - he went out into the corridor and headed leisurely towards his corner. The corridor of an ordinary, official barracks - concrete, simple finishing. Suddenly, as if by magic, Captain Senna materialised from the corner. Senna was the one who had met us. It was rare to find this man "on parade", that is, dressed according to regulations. Now Senna was dressed in the local analogue of the field uniform, with sleeves rolled up. In his hands he was carrying some kind of tablet.

- Dzhokhar! - shouted Senna in the direction of the bedrooms, "Dzhokhar, for fuck's sake!

Dzhokhar is our platoon sergeant. He came running out almost instantly. A dark-haired bloke in his twenties. The sergeant was always dressed to the nines. He ran out to Senna and saluted, but the captain interrupted him:

- "Gather the reinforcements in the courtyard. We'll check it out.

- Dzhokhar dematerialised and a couple of minutes later, when I'd gone to my room, the alarm was sounded. I got dressed and went out, taking my time - I was the first one down anyway. The soldiers were gathering in front of the barracks. All of them ran out as one. Dzhokhar handed out weapons. Senna stood there, hands in his pockets, looking at the clouds and thinking about something of his own. As soon as the sergeant finished his inspection, he reported to the officer and got into formation himself.

Senna finally took his hands out of his pockets and walked along the line.

- Well, well... At least you know how to stand up on command..." he took a couple of steps back, "listen up. In the course of your service, you will encounter many, many beasts of prey. The planet is teeming with them, and human habitats are a favourite feeding ground for them. The biggest is the Bo-Bo. A lizard, three or four metres at the withers, with teeth that can bite through space armour. If you don't want to die, you'll have to learn to shoot, not out there! - said the Captain in a deep voice.

We stood and listened to his speech. The captain looked at us. All were in armour, without helmets. The space trooper armour we'd been given wasn't that cool - a cuirass, with two power cells on the shoulders, wristbands, knuckles, boots... all these metal parts were attached to a fabric base made of a multi-layered material, quite strong, capable of withstanding a predator's bite or a spear blow. However, it didn't look really fantastic - more like a regular high-tech armour. Yes, the metal could withstand a hit from various weapons, the fabric insulated well cold, fire, electricity, and in a set with a helmet, the armour could protect well from an explosion - the blast wave hit the armour powerfully, but did not go through a single crevice. Everything within the limits. I was wearing it too. It was bad that my stomach was covered only by a thick cloth, so that the armour did not lose flexibility. This armoured suit was as far as the moon to the BC "Wolf", but it is understandable - "Wolf", according to my calculations, is invaluable. Because the technology behind it is unpatented and unique. Two clean energy reactors, the ability to fly, airtightness, repulsors, thrusters and manoeuvring engines, built-in weapons, and super strong metals - in a combat situation, the only problem was how to get rid of the stock armour as quickly as possible to put on your own.

The captain looked us over again and ordered the sergeant to lead us to the firing range. We were supposed to shoot.....