Less than a day into the scouting mission, the Varallen Irregulars were half way into the crater, stuck atop a teetering platform, and engaging an unidentified enemy. As I lay flat on my face from the blast, I remember thinking ‘This cannot possibly be a routine operation.’

“This story began with a question that nobody wanted to answer. ‘Are we at war in Varall?’ When my old friends in the brass got evasive, I sharpened my inquiries to ‘Who are we fighting?’ and ‘If the Astiagen Coalition isn’t at war, why did the Council approve sending so much advanced military hardware half way around the planet?’