Chapter 4
"So, what's our first assignment?" Ben asked his superior officer, starting to grow accustomed to him, therefore speaking in a more relaxed tone. Even though he was starting to grow comfortable with the second lieutenant after a few hours of doing nothing, he couldn't quite shake the nervous feelings forming a ball inside him.
"Well, we're serving as security on board the ship this week." Jansen replied, double-checking his uniform. While most of the crew wore the standard issue uniform, a select few wore the Superior Officer uniforms, and the security personnel wore a light armor. The armor parts were grey, while the mesh beneath the plating was darker in color. It was brand new, and Lambda Squad would be the first ones to break it in. A little snowball made of thoughts started rolling in Private Carmine's head. Military defensive technology was always a few steps back from the offensive. The security armor would deflect standard issue bullets, but only to a degree, and armor piercing rounds, or shredder rounds for that matter, could easily turn the Private into pulp and hamburger. The Private had often seen science-fiction movies from the early 2000s, as he found it interesting to see how people back then portrayed the future. In most of those, humanity had some sort of shields on their armor, their ships, and even teleporters. That's where the 'fiction' part comes in. He silently said to himself, but loud enough for his squad leader to pick up the faint murmurs he had released. He stared into Benjamin's eyes, full of question, and asked him what he had just said.
"Nothing." Ben replied, and decided it was time to strap in.

The armor was slick enough to wear, and the temperature modules inside were definitely a welcoming touch. If things got too hot, he could simply turn down the temperature inside the armor and vise-versa. But it was limited, as a frozen ice planet would be cold as hell, even with the temperature modules. Brushing off some dust as if the armor was a rented tuxedo, the Private looked in the mirror to see how the armor fit him. He looked a bit more muscular, but he didn't look as buff as the ones wearing medium armor. Armors all had nanobots in them that followed every contour of the wearer's body, making sure that the need to produce both male and female armors was a thing of the past. Luckily, Ben was going to stand guard at the bridge with Jenna, a more familiar face than the rest of his squad. She was already suited up and ready to go, and was waiting for Ben to get his ass out of the cramped room they all shared.
"C'mon, you're like a woman sometimes." She laughed, and Ben simply lightly grunted as a reply.Up the stairs they went, and ended up on the bridge, where over 30 people were constantly working. Do they ever get any sleep? Ben thought to himself. Don't be ridiculous, they're only human..Or are they? With the recent news of groundbreaking progress in the android research, could these people, just like the ship, be some sort of prototype? Is this entire journey just an experiment? His thoughts were quickly sheared in half by Jenna's hand waving infront of his eyes, hoping somebody was home.
"Ben, sorry for the bad pun, but did you just space out?"
"You're right; that is a bad pun."
"Well, atleast it's not as stupid as your 'and that's when I bought the horse a prostitute' joke."
"I read it somewhere, it was funny."
"Yeah, in the bizarre world of Benjamin Carmine." She laughed and playfully punched his shoulder.
"Oh shut up, you had a crush on that retro-guitarist guy. The guy who plays acoustic guitar and is from Spain or something?"
"But Ramirez is hot as hell!"
"He has facial hair that looks like the imprint of a donut, or some worm coiling around his mouth." Jenna laughed, and so did Ben. But their laughter was put to a quick death as Commander Kaine got on the bridge.

* * *
Stupid newbies. the Commander thought as he walked past the two recruits making conversation. They had no idea that they were in for some serious shit. He didn't know what, he didn't know when, but he knew that they'd experience atleast one traumatic thing while in the International Military and Peacekeeping Forces. 'Peacekeeping'. There can never be peace, and the Commander knew that well. "As long as there will be men, there will be wars." The Commander silently told himself, quoting Albert Einstein. He got up to the Captain's post and whispered something into his ear before they both took off.

"You want complete access to all mission reports *and* personal journals?" The Captain asked in a suprised tone.
"Yes." Kaine replied coldy.
"That's a violation of privacy. I mean, I can get you the mission reports, but not personal journals."
"You are aware that I'm going to find a way into those journals anyways."
"Yes, but I don't want it to happen because I told you that you could." The Commander was silent, elegantly putting together his next verbal strike, hoping to win over the Captain. If there was something Kaine had learned the hard way in the army was that knowing every single one under your command is essential to finding out how they will fare in battle. He had always had a bad feeling about this 'mission'. He knew something was gonna fuck up, and all he wanted was to know who would be the idiot who managed to blow it. He could always question the crew after the uknown accident would happen, but that wouldn't be as effective as silently tapping into the personal journals that each and every crewmember were encouraged to write.
"Captain," Kaine finally spat out.
"What?"
"There are too many people on this ship. Too much margin for error. You know I'm the only one who can prevent bad shit from happening, and to do that, I need those journals. If you want me to do my job, I need to be able to do it the way I do it.
Questioning the crewmembers later would be too slow, and the accident would've already happened."
"But you can't boot someone before they fuck up?"
"No, but I can prevent them from fucking up."
"...Limited access. As you know, Journals are stored in different categories, depending on the subject. You will only be able to read what is related to the military, NOT what is truly personal."
"That's all I need." Kaine snapped off a salute before leaving again, waiting for confirmation that he would be able to read everyone's journals. He was one step closer to understanding who he was dealing with, and who to eliminate.