Moral Differences

I never would have imagined being on a new world. If it weren't for the Foreans here in Alia Das or the strange looking animals, I could have sworn I was back at home in the Northwest Florida woodlands.

I went to a military school in Missouri named Wentworth. I always wanted to be a soldier. I even became an officer. I had an uneventful career in the reserves; I never even got to go to the sandbox. I resolved myself to a civilian career of working on computers and taking care of my young family.

I was just returning from a business trip when the Bane struck. I-10 was a smoldering mess of charred asphalt and burning wreckage, and Hwy 90 was not much better. I continued to push forward (thank goodness for 4WD trucks). I had to get home. I had to protect my family. When I arrived the house was gone. It was splinters and debris. It looked like it was struck by a hurricane or a tornado. My wife and kids were missing. There were no bodies, and all the animals had gotten loose too. My sweetheart is a survivor. I will find them all.

I didn't think much about guns after my time in the service. Man, that was a mistake; I should have taken advantage of my right to bear arms. I didn't even hunt like most of my neighbors. I scrounged for what I could find. I could barely fit into my old uniform; camoflague would be a must in the near future. The only weapons that I could find were a survival knife and samurai sword that was a gift from a friend. It had a full tang; I hope it would hold up. I had studied martial arts since I was a kid, but, other than a few fistfights growing up, I never really had to use it.

I started to head back into town. I wanted to rendevous with the local guard unit and offer my services as a troop or whatever. Once a soldier always a soldier, and I needed real weapons. As I crossed the Shoal River, I heard a low flying aircraft, and I ducked into the woods. I heard a human voice over what I thought was a megaphone calling me to come out. Soon I was surrounded by troops in strange uniforms with strange weapons. They hustled me into something that looked like a dropship from Starship Troopers. "If you want to find your family, come with us."

I was taken to a camp with hundreds of other refugees and herded to a pillar of light coming from an elevated ring system; they called it a wormhole. I didn't see my family anywhere. I was not given any options. I heard chatter from the troops pushing us along about something called Logos-sensitive. It did not make sense. I thought I was losing my mind from too many years watching Star Trek and Star Wars; this was unreal.

Well, here I am on Foreas going through basic training again. The Foreans are mostly friendly, except this Apirka character. He wanted me to arrest this Forean kid that had shown aptitude in Logos-energy, like me. The thing was he did not want to be a soldier. He was a Ranger and one of the Elders mentioned that he could one day be a Shaman or Healer. Logos seems to be the key to survival here, so I am going with my gut on this one, just like my sergeants taught me back at the academy. You make a leadership call and live with it, for better or worse, at least you make a decision. Besides, it is the right thing to do. We may have lost earth, but we have not lost our humanity. I guess we have moral differences.

The sirens are ringing, so that means the Thrax are back. I have killed a couple hundred so far; I have really lost count. The natives call me a Hunter now. I found this strange, since I never touched a gun back home. It doesn't matter. They are in between me and my family, and that is a bad place to be.

Mandalore, out...