"Remainders"

Jaret Lazarus forced his eyes to remain open as the Pantheron burned through the entry atmosphere of Socorro. Trying not to blink, he rested his hand on his upper thigh, a few centimeters from the two rows of five buttons on his belt. The interior of the ship smelled like rotting fruit and sweat, thanks to the proximity of the members of his squadron. He shifted his weight, pulling his gut free from where his belt always pinched his skin, and yawned. He'd never been to Socorro, but he knew the planet's history as one of the first colonized planets outside of the original solar system. As a man with a past he'd rather forget, Jaret cared little for history.

Half of his conscripts gaped mutely at the scratched metal floor of the ship, as if their brains were shut down, or at least in standby. The other half stared at him with varying degrees of apparent contempt and disdain. Each wore a thick black collar lined with a band of corrugated metal. The conscripts twitched fitfully in their locked harnesses. Waiting for the ship to land and the start of the mission, they watched Jaret with a series of quick glances. All ten members of his squadron knew he could slip inside their minds at any moment if he wanted.

"Get everyone focused," he called out to Anda, his second-in-command. He gave her a meaningful look at the ragtag group of aliens that composed the rest of his squadron. Anda's homeworld had once been made up of bold colonists from this very planet, but that fact hadn't stopped the Alliance from sweeping in and gathering up all the young and healthy natives they could steal.

Along with Anda, Jaret was the only other human onboard. Anda stood a foot taller than him, her thick frame threatening to him only in appearance. Jaret knew that as long as he wore his belt and she wore her collar, Anda would never turn on him, unless she wanted her collar to constrict itself in one convulsive movement, separating her head from her body. If the situation ever got that bad he'd have trouble doing it, but he wasn't above giving Anda a shock through her collar, or a nice neck squeeze, if that was what was needed to keep her in line.

The rest of the squadron were non-humans from worlds the Alliance had overtaken. Jaret was in command of three Hadras, two Mannatanks, a Krapn, and three oversized, four-legged creatures whose name could not be pronounced by humans without extensive throat-clearing and a series of glottal stops. Jaret called them Bob.

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