Clear nights in mid winter where the most dangerous, the winds picks up from the north west then hurtles down the valley at a pace that can lift a man off his feet and make the snow tear any exposed flesh. The worst of the gale was subsiding now and that would mean snow in the morning or late afternoon tomorrow giving us a few meagre hours to do any repairs to the buildings and clear out the rubbish from inside to take to the midden pits. For now though my chores involve mucking out the stable containing the dwern sheep, hardly a warriors task but my father the blacksmith is busy with some of the other men in the village repairing some tools at the furnace, mostly though they talk boastfully and drink some ale. Still I dont mind the simple work, I come from simple people and the last 8 months of training at the acadamy with the off world teachers has made this seem a vacation. Not that I begrudge what I learnt as being a chore, it was a challenge to learn to read, write and do some of the things with their technology. The best fun was learning how to use their unusual weapons, they give you some too after you graduate, I have a pistol and a stormhammer which are both far more destructive than anything my kin and neighbours have. My mother and father where very proud of me when I came back from the town of Juta with my fancy offworlder equipment and licence to trade.

I would be the first in 3 generations to serve the company, the last was a great grandfather who worked on a big space going craft 300 years ago. His legacy still stays with us making us a rich family, my mother has an electric light and radio so we can listen the music and news from places far away at night. He died 24 years ago before I was born in a battle with marauding Fenriti who attacked the village. My homeworld Mistblind is a harsh place full of many dangers, so cold it can freeze an offworlders flesh to the bone in minutes and savage beasts that roam the mountains that will eat you should you be weaker than them. Dwern sheep are hardly likely to eat you though, stupid as a rock and friendly as a drunk, we use them for wool, meat, milk and keep the more valuble breeding stock inside over winter lest they become lost. Frooi the ram was raised by my mother when his own natural mother died in a snowstorm and is a confused animal not knowing to what species he belongs too. He follows me around the pen like a docile pet watching me for a handout of food but I'll give him a pat behind the ears now and then to keep the 200kg black woolly dope happy, now if only I could find a way of teaching him to crap in one area along with his womenfolk it would make my life even simpler.

Between the blows of hammers on an anvil, my shovel scrapings I catch some of the talk around the forge, raids last year on a fenriti squat, how this winter compares to the last and some idle gossip about the commings and goings of the neighbours. One bit catches my ears though which almost makes me stop my scraping, "within 6 months they will decide, for Storolf to get a job with the outworlders," my fathers baritone voice carries across the stable, "been 5 now," another voice says quietly belonging to Osvif the farmer. "They are a long way from here, takes time for the message to get back," my father responds a little tersely, sometimes I wonder too if it has been too long and they no longer want me. "Besides they said he came first in his class", he adds softly not wanting to brag in front of me "and they need us as allies. We're the best warriors they have."

Im not good with the forge and metalworking so a life of farming is all that lies ahead of me if I dont get a job as a soldier and I'd like to see the universe, bring back some money for my family and some payback for my ancestors. That eternal debt is what will get me the job I beleive and I have the faith that my ancestors will give me the chance to prove myself. Finish the last of the mucking out and sit down to watch the work at the forge as they quench another axe head in snow, Gyror the tanner gives me a tankard of mead and a smile through his black bushy beard. "Ye get bigger everytime I see you Storolf, they certainly put some meat on your bones while yer where away." Shake his hand and sit down with him, the mead clears away the smell in my nose and clears the throat, "hows the family Gyror?" He scratches his sideburns for a moment before replying, "oh there all good, 'ceptin the old frost dragon moved in with us a month ago and does nothing but complain. Build her a house of her own come spring." Gyror's mother in law had always stayed with him over winter and it was an object of ire for the man so he must have finally gotten sick of it enough to make the effort at building another house.

My younger brother Gils has taken up the family trade better than I could have ever hoped to have done so I dont feel bad about leaving my father to run the business on his own, he's only 16 but starting to catch up to me in bulk. Unlike my little sister Iounn who is 17 and still tiny compared to everyone else in the family, but she's smart and has taught herself how to read and use my computer, so much so I bought her one to use. If mother lets her go to the acadamy next year I think she will make us proud, not as a soldier but as an artisan, pilot or teacher to others.

Compared to some other races in the universe that Ive seen in my lessons we are a primitive people but we have our own riches and our souls are welded to our backbone stronger than an offworlder. Wound me and I will heal on my own without help from a doctor or medicine, we can live for hundreds of years, anger me and I can throw you through a stone wall. Once we where humans like an offworlder but our ancestors carried a special blood, a blood that makes us Aegir and a heritage that dates back thousands of years.

When the wind dies down later that night I can hear the glacier over in the next valley creaking as the ice splinters under its own weight. My mother braids Iounn's blood red hair like her own for something to do after supper while my father, Gils and myself play a 3 way game of Gaergammon with dice on our rough wooden table. Theres something about the silence this time of year that worries us all, Gils is getting agitated because he's loosing the game and will end up doing the washing up for it and dads winning by a good 18 points over me. I swear he must have some magical way with dice or he just knows how to cheat better than both of us, if he is, he hasnt passed that bit of knowledge onto his sons just yet. My brother conceeds defeat early on tonight and sulks off to the kitchen while dad just smiles broadly and preens his moustache, he should have known better than to try to get out of the chores with a game.

'Theres a lot of torches in the village dad!" Gils shouts from the kitchen, a breif crease of concearn wrinkles my fathers face but he gets up anyway to go look for himself and moments later we can hear some yelling from the outskirts. Knocking on the door, I snatch up my pistol from under my wool vest, "never be without a weapon" my instructors told me and I open the door after 4 quick strides across the room. Harek our neighbour is there with Osvald his son in the dim twilight I can see theyre armed with spears and axes, "fenriti raiders! On the east wall near old Rogets barns!" My father and Gils are already comming back out with my weapons and some of their own, "we're comming" he hollers across the room.

I give my sword to my brother, "stay here and look after mum and Iounn" he looks at me with such disappointment but dad pats him on the back while mum and my sister drag him back inside with fear in their eyes. "Look after him Storolf," my mother crys out behind me, "I will!"

At least twice a year the fenriti try to attack us to carry off food and people, they arent very smart and are eternal predators who dont keep reserves of their own food for winter. At the edge of a clearing I can see one of them running off into the darkeness beyond where our torches will shine, light grey furred, 6 limbed beasts they are agile and phenomenally fast with enourmous strength. It is warning its pack mates with loud grunts as it plows through snow drifts that go up to my waist, I follow its tracks easily. I wait for the other men to catch up before going any further having outpaced them, in less than 5 heartbeats after I stop the snow either side of me explodes into life. Ambush.

An arm the thickness of my leg catches me in the chest knocking me back 4 steps into the drift, at 15 feet tall each of these two is twice my height and bulk, the third has stopped and is heading back. Hungry yellow eyes peer down at me from broad faces and large mouths bristling with white tusks, I get the hammer up in time to block the next blow comming in, the carbon fibre haft is nearly wrenched from my grip. Using the momentum I swing the stormhammer around behind me and bring it down on the nearest limb. Theres a blinding white flash and a sound like a lightning strike that indicates a hit solid enough to release a plama discharge. The creatures arm is blown off from the elbow and it shreiks in pain covering the snow with dark fluids, its companion is stunned by the noise on its sensitive ears, bring the hammer down again with both hands on its chest. Theres a muffled thump as the weapon discharges into its torso almost ctting it in twain, the recoil blows it back out steaming with gore. Continue with the inertia again in one swift movement on my right arm and bury the 10kg spiked head into the back of other ones knee causing it to topple on its rear.

My father and the rest of the men with him impale the crippled creature with spears to hold it down while the rest go to work with axes and hammers, a terrible shreiking from the fenriti in pain has summoned its pack and the rest can be heard ploughing through the snow towards us. The third beast comes back into sight just in time to collect 2 rounds in the face from my pistol which cracks through its thick cheekbones from the heavy explosive projectiles. It starts slumping forward to be greeted by the axes and hammers of my companions who have finished working over the other one. Cutting their losses, the rest of the pack leave running into the darkness and I finally take in a breath of air after what feels like hours, a sharp pain runs through my sternum. A rib feels like its clicking so I slow my pace to a jog behind the others, concearned my father waits for me to catch up, "you are going to be ok?"

"Yes, just give me a little while to catch my breath, he hit me pretty hard."

"We saw, by Rudo's belly I thought you where finished boy."

He chuckled nervously, "a lesser man would have been bent like a pin but you where still standing! Go home and see to your mothers health, I'll just make sure the rest dont get excited and chase them into the night.""

"Be careful dad"

"Aye, always will be"

They found the Rogets in their cellar apparently and wouldnt come out for love or money until they threatened to make good on his beer upstairs while Lambi Roget stayed in the celler with his cranky old wife. My father said the old weaver was out like a spring mole weilding a table leg and had to be subdued by 4 men before he settled down and realised that they where not fenriti. I think Mr Roget was mixing some mushrooms in his beer that night, my father agreed and thought if he had to spend nights with Mrs Roget he'd probably have to be mixing mushrooms in as well.

My mother dragged him off to the kitchen for one of her 'quiet scoldings' after that comment and sent the rest of us to bed.

It was only when the little Tigershark scout ship dropped out of FTL drive above Destarphas a month later that I realised how much I missed my family, relatives and my neighbours. Even the simple things like a warm fire and home cooked food seemed further away than ever, even when I had been in training there was the fact I could have walked the 40 kilometres home any time I wanted. For the first time in my life I felt intimidated and it wasnt the fact that the food was different, the people strange and new or I was ever uncomfortable physiclly, it just I was dependant on others I didnt know very well and I missed the company of my family.

Seven feet ten inches tall, 350 pounds of black haired, tough as nails Aegir who could walk through three foot deep snow non stop for two days and I was now dependant on some small skinny human pilots and engineers who had my life in their hands. They where competent crew and friendly enough, probably just as curious of their one and only passenger as I was of them but it still wasnt enough to stop me becomming introverted.

The saddest thing was telling my parents and siblings that I didnt know when I would be comming back, it distressed my mother greatly but she always knew it was going to happen eventually. For the first week I explored my new surroundings and the ship as they would allow me, there was so little room, like being in a high tech steel cave. After awile I fell into isolation, studying my teachings on the little computer, learning to read better and finding out about what the rest of the universe gets up to.

So this was my great adventure I'd signed up for, set of cameoflage fatigues, a swag of my coarse clothes and personal belongings. It all seemed so meagre, especially so when you dont know where you are going. The shuttle was even worse than the scout ship to take me down to the surface, so low and sleek there was not enough room to even stand up in it and no windows to look out. When I thought things couldnt get much worse they did, when the shuttle skidded off the atmosphere and began belting down at a rapid rate of travel towards the surface, twisting like stuck game on a spear.

Solid ground and open space never felt so good after such a journey I almost completely ignored the alien looking planet. A sky so blue and bright it was hard to look at and vast stretches of concrete dotted with shuttle craft and humans scurrying about looking busy, the pictures I had seen in the computer hardly did it justice. So this was what a sky looked like without clouds, "over there is the customs, they'll tell you where to go. Catch ya later!" Darrek the pilot instructed me by pointing his fingers over to a busy looking exit near some hangers, I thanked him quietly but left out the fact that I was glad he hadnt killed me by flying his little shuttle into the ground and took my leave.

The first thing that strikes me about humans is the diversity of skin colours, my race has universally snow white skin and even the biggest human amongst them barely comes up to my shoulder. The second is the fact that they talk a lot, about nothing in particular mostly and they tend to skip out of your way like your about to tread on them which wont ever happen unless its deliberate. Theres a group of dark blue uniformed men with pistols and card scanners who check out all the new arrivals, one reaches up to me and swipes the reader across the identity card on my left chest pocket. He manages a weak smile and instructs me to follow all the others into the new arrivals lounge, "Im looking for someone called Special Agent Sween". The customs man checks the woman behind me before answering, "they'll find him for you at the arrivals lounge mate" and I get waved on through the turnstiles.

So much metal, glass and synthetic material it makes my mind boggle how much it must all be worth, even their houses are many levels high but off in the distance I can see hills with green vegetation on them. This must be a big city, it has more people than I can count at any one time in any one place, they call it Tynar but I dont know why, maybe it was the ancestor who founded it for them? There are a lot of words I dont understand yet very well and the terminology is different on some of the ones Im more used to using in conversation.

Not that many people have the time it seems to talk as they are all busy scurrying off to wherever it is thay have to go, then I see a man wearing darker clothing than most make their way through the crowd towards me.

There a moment of trepidation at being singled out by people deliberately and I can see that he's carrying pistols and moves with the poise of someone confident of themselves, I reach around to find the comforting grip of my own weapon still in its side holster.

"Well hello, Mr Storolf Dagersson I presume?" He looks at my ID card and grins revealing teeth very white contrasting to his dark brown skin and proffers a hand for me to shake. "You are Special Agent Sween?"

"The one and only," he produces a similar card to mine from inside his black leather duster to confirm my question, not that I have much reason to doubt him, "but you can me Gus. No need for any formalities. Anyhow, we'll talk more in the truck on the way over to the warehouse about the work Ive got lined up. You'll like it, easy money."

We got out onto the street level after a shoulder to shoulder shoving fest through the crowds, which thanks to Gus's directions and my bulk got us through quite quickly to where his truck was. A massive 10 wheeled contraption the size of a house that took up about four normal parking spots in the car park, "you understood completely the terms to joining didnt you Storolf?" I nodded in agreement, his squad was well experienced and looking to hire an extra person, I would accompany them and work my way into earning a share of their trade for a time. It was a good deal the employment manager on Mistblind assured me, considering Gus would be paying for most of the squads equipment, travel and expences until we had enough to start buying in. The only worrying fact was that only Gus and two others where left out of his origional group, "you'll like the rest of the team Ive picked out, 'cept maybe Richardson but he's not likely to annoy you much. If he does let me know immediately"

He swung the great vehicle out of the parking area and into the city streets with its turbines roaring, making smaller vehicles get out of the way in a hurry or risk being rolled over by the 80 ton monster. Not that there was much danger to the vehicle itself which seemed to be made of massive armour slabs and had copious padding all through the cockpit, which was comforting as I had to literally squeeze into the seat and the 10 minute ride was bone jarring.

Gus's place was a russet coloured, round roofed corrogated iron hanger on a small airstrip near the Tynar starport, small green weeds poked their way through cracks in the concrete and a light breeze kicked up small whirlwinds of dust. "Its not much, but we call it home. Cold in winter, stinking hot in summer, if the heat bothers you too much you can sleep in the truck and turn on the air conditioning." It was a lot warmer than I was used too but not so much as to be uncomfortable yet but the whole area smelled of strange fuels and other substances foreign to me. The hanger was packed with crates of various shapes, colours and sizes made out of pressed steel and in the middle a large black sleek looking craft from my studies I remembered being called a Delta class shuttle, so low I had to duck under it in places to avoid denting my head on the various protrusions from antennas and open service ducts.

"Come on out you rude buggers and meet yer new squaddie!"

Gus yelled through the hanger making an echo which could hardly be ignored, figures emerged from the living quarters nearby, out of the shuttle, a suit of FirstStep power armour with wires trailing behind it attached to a computer deck and a clean shaven burly man who seemed irritated at being led along by it. "Sergeant Hardy Macmillan, he's our engineer, something breaks Hardy fixes it." The burly human didnt smile but shook my hand firmly and gave me a polite nod, "inside this is Franc Carter" he pointed at the armour. "Come out Franc or I'll turn off the air supply," Hardy belted the suit with a spanner and a muffled answer of "Im comming" filtered through the armour. "Franc's a powersuit pilot, he flys around and shoots what Hardy tells him to. While we're waiting for Franc this is Charlotte Rihks, our pilot." The woman with the dark hair tied in a white scarf and wearing sunglasses shook my hand gently, she was very pretty and I fumbled a hello out quietly. "Charlotte's been with me and Hardy since the start, never a finer pilot you'll find in this neck of the woods. Ah, heres Mr Grant Richardson. Grant runs the security side of things, rooting out spys, making sure I dont skim the till and shooting people who piss off the company." Grant managed a slight grin at the last comment and gave me a half salute, he was a well built human comming close to 6'5" tall with shaved fair hair and blue eyes that seemed slightly cruel. Franc managed to pop the helmet off the FirstStep finally and emerge from the backplate, he was a lot smaller than I first imagined, thin, barely 18, orange hair and freckles. "Hullo Storolf, I joined Thresher to kill fuckers with bloody great big guns too. How ya doing?" Hardy pressed a button on his computer that had Franc's face twitching slightly from the implants running out of his temple and into the armour, "dont mind Franc." Hardy explained angrily, "we dont let him out much..."

"Well ladies and gents, this is Storolf," Gus interjected over the top of Hardy. "He's our close combat specialist, graduated top of his class last year in a number of subjects. Welcome to the Alpha X Squadron, Thresher privateers, Ive got a medic joining us later too but for now make yourself at home. Theres a room set up over there, stow your stuff and have a look around."

So this would be my new home, a 15 foot by 10 foot room made of sheet steel and two bunk beds with a television, radio and a trunk to put my stuff in. It was clean and had some soft powder grey carpet with the odd grease stain on it, there was also a window to look out over the airfield to the neaxt hanger which seemed to be a similar setup to this one. Probably the same type of strange band of of crazy freebooters in it as well from what I could gather, they seemed to be good people though my new friends, Hardy was easy to get along with and the endless teasing of Franc was mostly in good nature. Except when Franc hit a tree that afternoon in a test flight across the airstrip, Hardy didnt even bother to go see if he was ok, he just threw a chrome shifting spanner into a nearby crate, yelled "fuckit!" and stalked off into his room to watch TV for a few hours.

I helped Charlotte load the suit onto the forklift and get Franc out, he was bruised but only his pride seemed dented more than the suit and made a point of avoiding Hardy for some time after. "Not my fault," he complained, "the right nacelle stuck open, told him it would." It was also when I figured out that Charlotte didnt actually wear sunglasses, the tinted lenses slid back up under her eylids when she didnt need them. I was a little embarrassed when she saw me staring at them when she did it, but she just winked as if it was our special secret.

We retreived the 1800kg suit and made it back just in time for Gus to roll up in the truck with the last addition to the squad, a skinny ebon girl called Mica who was our medic. I'd never seen an ebon before, this one was all smiles and enthusiastic happiness with hair of the most pale blue and unusual armour the same colour, it was hard to work out where the ebon started and the armour began. I had trouble working out humans behaviour and then I ended up being room mates with Mica who took the definition of "damn weird" to a whole new level, cohabitation was something I wasnt used too with women and not to mention a different species. Franc was on the verge of saying something smart when I helped carry her things into the quarters but Hardy was standing behind him like a malignant shadow and just looking for a chance to belt him, Franc had all the social graces of a snow lion in heat but he wasnt stupid. Finally I resigned myself over to sharing a room with Mica because someone that frail would obviously need protecting from just about everything and it might offend her if I said no. She seemed to respect my personal space and understand that I was uncomfortable with the circumstances for the time being, even if she did have some strange habits like never taking the armour off which made me wonder if it wasnt armour and more like some sort of skin ebons grew. I didnt want to ask, she had some strange wall hangings too to cover the walls made of the finest cloth I'd ever seen, decorated with runes like the medicine man used in the village to the south of ours back home. It sort of made sense seeing as she was a medicine practicioner herself.

I typed out my first letter home that night to Iounn, who could read it aloud to the rest of my family just to let them know I was safe and well. All was not well though and the sorrow crept back into my heart as it worried me greatly that I wouldnt be there if they ever needed me like they did the night before I left. Later I came to terms with these feelings early in the morning after a restless sleep, they are the feelings which make us people and make us different to animals and give us a reason to fight for the things dearest to us. Sometimes I wonder if our enemies are much different, do they fight for their families or are they selfish? Do they fight to right a past wrong or is it only a reason to unleash a darker feelings from within themselves?

I dont have anyone to ask these things who wouldnt have a biased opinion and there will be new challenges tommorrow anyway, Gus is taking Mica and myself into town to get us used to working in an urban enviroment. Neither of us come from a background of big cities and he says that it might be important to us one day, at least I share some common ground with my companion and am glad Gus cares to take the time doing it, for both ourselves and for the benifit of the group.

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