Lan Carter hated these windowless Troop Transports more than he hated anything else in life. It was true that he hated war in general, with every gram of his being, but yet he hated these windowless Troop Transports even more. A soldier couldn't see what he was being dropped into, was the whole issue! The Brass didn't want the Infantry Soldier to see what he, or she, was being dropped into, of course, because it only gave them time to become terrified. Terror was nonproductive.

That was fine for the fresh green newjacks, but he would have liked to be able to see in advance what he was being dumped into, so as to be able to formulate some kind of plan of action.

This was old business for Lan Carter, nor had he been unduly worried the first time the Space Corps had dropped him into hostile alien territory. This was like a slow Sunday afternoon back home on Calafga, a newly Reunified Prison Planet Colony World, and the place of his birth and youth.

Any Prison Colony World could petition for Reunification when they proved to the Federation that they had gained and could maintain a free, Democratic and, nearly, crime free society. It had taken Calafga seven hundred and fifty six years, Standards, to gain that stability, and now, Reunified, she was becoming nearly as modern and civilized as some of her oldest brethren.

It had been a rocky road for Calafga, with near constant warfare and barbarian warlords the main form of government for most of that time. Communications with the Federation, when communications technology was finally reinvented, brought hope and purpose and the mobilization of the people.

The Army of Liberation, as they had called themselves in their early years, and of whom Lan Carter had become a member, had slowly marched across the planet, annihilating all who stood before them in their grand purpose of Democracy and Reunification. It was the bloodiest and worst time in all of Calafga's bloody years of existence, but it had ended in Reunification and the restoration of civilization for the beleaguered world.

So warfare was all Lan Carter knew. Calafga had no need of him once the last of the resistance was crushed. It often happened that way, that those who had been so necessary so recently were now a liability and a danger to the new, evolved society. Service in the Space Corps, who certainly did need men and women with Lan's particular qualities, was his ticket off Calafga.

A man of Carter's characteristics would have only found troubles in the new society. Under Calafga's new laws, trouble meant a one way ride to a new Prison Planet, one that had not yet been Reunified! That was the last thing Carter wanted, after having fought so hard already on Calafga.

So Carter signed for a ten year hitch in the Space Corps Infantry Division. Ten was the minimum. He was just beginning his fifth year.

The war here on Barcene would be no more than a minor skirmish. The indigenous race which called this place home were a space-faring race, or had been before the Navy Division of the Space Corps had annihilated their small armada, but their technology was thousands of years behind man's. The fight would be very one-sided!

One-sided did not mean there would be few or no casualties. It did not mean that at all. The planet would be pacified one alien at a time, until there were no aliens, and then it would become another home for mankind. The Corps did not destroy perfectly viable planets. There would be a lot of casualties! There always were. Always.