Free Blood War 1: Last Stand of the Legion: Rift by Rod Carstens

The drop out/flunk out rate was over fifty percent; what made a good fighter pilot did not necessarily mean they made a good infantryman or woman. But they eventually found the men and women they needed for the battalion.
    Through five years of trial and error, Dasan and his cadre of young officers and senior enlisted men and women, had developed the weapons, equipment and tactics for the new battalion. The first full-scale live fire exercise to include a planet insertion and extraction was to be held tomorrow. Admiral Raurk had been as supportive as possible over the last years, but it was now time to show the Legion and the political powers that the billions spent in the development of the Armored Infantry were justified. His career and the fledgling AI's future depended on it. The Admiral had placed Dasan under the command of her most trusted Legion commander, Major General Dincin Grove Buchman, whose other responsibility was the Commander of the Legion contingent of the Pleiades Fleet. Buchman was a Groombridger like Dasan, thus guaranteeing no inter-breed friction. He could not have asked for a more positive environment for this great experiment.
    Dasan stood up from his desk and stretched. He turned to the window behind his desk. The bleak red beauty of Rift stretched before him. A large red rock outcropping pitted by eons of sand storms stood outside his window to his left. The holes and gouges formed by a harsh environment created a beautiful natural sculpture. Beyond the rocks a field of dunes stretched to the mountains on the horizon with nothing to break their red ocean of sand except the shadows thrown by the sun. The craggy  mountains on the horizon looked closer than normal today, it had been an unusually clear day.
    It was hard to believe that this bleak landscape would be covered by some of the most beautiful wild flowers he had ever seen during the spring and summer. Both spring and summer were only two months long and the planet seemed to try and make up for the shortness of the growing season with its flowers and birds appearing quickly and then disappearing just as quickly to remain dormant for another year. It was a harsh planet and the first settlers had chosen it for its harshness. Rabid environmentalists, they had chosen a planet the opposite of earth in an almost religious effort to learn to live within the boundaries of a planets’ ecosystem. They were determined not to make the mistakes made on earth: to live with nature not against it. They had been successful even though thousands had died in the effort.
    He had grown to love this bleak yet beautiful place. He had chosen Rift specifically for its challenges. It was a cold and forbidding desert planet that did not allow any mistakes. It was the perfect place to train Legionnaires to become the warriors the Confederation would need. He had spent the last five years doing just that, most of that time out in the most forbidding locations on the planet. Rift's harshness reve aled the true character of someone. Rift had become as much a part of him as his home Taini in the Groombridge system. It also had become the birthplace of the Armored Infantry.
    "Excuse me Colonel."
    Dasan turned to see Command Sergeant Major Axec Aijuba standing in front of his desk. She must have been standing there for some time because she had a smirk on her face.
    "Colonel what have I told you about sleeping on your feet. You should only use that trick in battle ," Aijuba said.
    "Sergeant Major , have I threatened to have you demoted this week?"
    "No sir, but it is still early."
    They laughed together. They had become close over the years , Aijuba fighting for the A.I. on the enlisted side of the fence while he had fought with the officer corps. She had reached the mandatory retirement age of eighty, seven years ago but she had wanted to stay on to help Dasan finish the formation of the AI. Dasan had to go to the Commandant of the Legion to get permission for Aijuba to be