A light fog rolled through the tree line under an otherwise cloudless night. Millions of stars twinkled incandescently beside the two moons of white and grey light. In a break from the forest a roughly square compound sat fenced off, poorly constructed wooden guard towers stood manned at its corners. Lighting in the base was minimal as the archaic generator was already struggling keeping basic functions operational. Freezing guards leant in each tower kept awake by dreams of fires and warm beds, rifles stood lazily beside them. Again to save power there were no radios, the guards communicated by sonic cabling running between the towers. Occasionally brief snippets of conversation or dirty jokes would spread between them but overall they stood in silence. In the centre of the garrison stood an old abandoned church with a new concrete bunker hastily attached to the side. The classic earth-that-was gothic architecture juxtaposed with an ugly block of shapeless grey rock. A series of radar dishes and antenna littered the roof of the newer building rotating lazily in the twilight.

Unbeknownst to the entire base a group of shadows skulked through the trees.

A hand was held up in the Mist and three men huddled to a stop beside a lumbering oak. “Stand by here for Rendezvous with Spacers team” “Up here boss” Came a whisper from above. All three men swung their rifle skyward as they jumped of shock. “Jesus Spacer! Do you want me to shoot your ass off? Christ you’re like a Wisp of smoke up there. Where’s the rest of your squad?” Spacer tapped a log against the tree trunk and two more men dropped from neighbouring trees and joined the group. “All present Sir” Snapping off a perfect geometrical salute.

“The Snipers in your team isn’t he?” the group leader asked Spacer, a clear tone of disdain in his voice. “That would be me sir. Hence the tree.” He replied with a boyish grin. “Well Mr Wisp. We’re going to head to the edge of the tree line, when we get there we’ll give you the signal. How many guards have you spotted and how long will it take you to remove em?” “The only guards we’ve spotted are in the towers. Four of em. I've been taking ranges and I can take em all out in eight seconds.” “Spacer I've got no time for macho shit. Its Night they’re at least 400 yards away not backlit with a separation of 200 yards between each target. You can’t take em out in eight seconds.” “Oh well if you say so Sir I’ll make it last a minute” “Fine whatever Signal when you’re done. And this is going in my debriefing report. Ok team move out” As the group moved out a distinct mutter was heard insinuating very unpleasant things about Wisp.

A brief time passed as the squad stalked through the woodland. Wisp took up his Rifle and practised his four shots at the guard towers. The range was great, and the elevation was uneven, and it was dark, and his four targets were spread out. But Wisp was the best damn infiltration agent in the whole Ariel Youth Military Academy, this was child’s play. Lining up on his first target his headset muttered the word “Go”. In a lightning succession four pops rang out into the darkness. “You were right sir. It only took six seconds” A grumble followed over the comm. And Wisp watched through his scope as the group entered the church. The target was a terrorist cell that had been hitting troop transports in the area, however recon reported that civilians were present on the base so an airstrike wasn’t possible. Instead a commando squad was sent in to exterminate the terrorists whilst leaving the civilians unharmed. Very difficult high end mission. Just the way he liked it.

Wisp watched as the team exited the building and checked his chrono. Three minutes. The outline was for at least eight. Was the squad leader getting back at Wisp for his display earlier? Pretty damn risky doing a whole infiltration in three minutes, or pretty sloppy. Wisp dropped from the tree and joined the convoy as it headed past. “Everything go to plan?” He asked as they headed through the trees. “Slight change. Tell you at the extraction.”

It took around fifteen minutes to reach the extraction zone. When they did the group leader looked at one of his men and said “Charges now” “Wait...” Wisp interjected “Charges? What Cha...” an explosion erupted from the compound they were just at followed by a series of secondary blasts. Wisp felt the heat on his face as the simulation disappeared from around his eyes and he reappeared in the training room. He immediately took off his neural interfaces without wating for the techs and grabbed hold of the group leader by the collar.

“What the hell were you thinking! There were civilians in that base. Women and children! Which is precisely why we DIDNT just blow it to hell from low orbit!” The group leader pushed him away groggy from the simulation interface and the barrage of questions. “When we got inside there was a much bigger weapon stockpile than recon told us there would be. I had to wonder if the rest of the recon was accurate, so I made a judgement call and saved my team.” “You saved your own cowardly ass more likely! What if this had been a real drop? Would you still be so gung-ho at murdering dozens of innocent women and children?”

“That’s enough Spacer” boomed a voice from the doorway. A greying general stood perfectly at ease frowning down at the pair of them. “Come join me for a walk. The rest of you I’ll see you at debriefing.”

Wisp fuming with rage followed the General into the corridor and began walking with him. Nothing was spoken until they reached the outer doors to the campus. The training building was located down a woodland path similar to the planet Wisp had just seen himself on. Apparently this was to help the trainee assume the artificial reality. All it helped Wisp do in his experience was remind him how artificial the realities really were. “I'm sorry about that outburst in there sir, But if that had been a real combat drop then he would have just killed dozens of innocent people to save himself some work”

“Actually” replied the general, his voice much calmer now “was save himself some risk. It’s not the same thing Spacer.”

“But were going to be commandos. Risk is what we do. Its better us risk our lives than innocents die needlessly”

“That’s a great ideal Spacer but there are a lot of people out there who hate the alliance and won’t hesitate to kill you no matter what your intentions are. That training scenario is designed to make the team leader make a choice. I'm not saying he made the best choice but it certainly wasn’t the WRONG choice.”

Wisp went to speak but stopped considering his words “But it wasn’t right sir”

The general stopped and turned to Wisp. “Right and wrong aren’t our call to make. Your heart thinks what’s right and wrong. A soldier thinks with his head. You’re going to be a great officer one day Spacer. Hell I watched you take out those four guards and I can easily place you in the top ten snipers in the whole alliance military. But you need to stop letting your view of right and wrong get in the way. If you keep thinking with your heart you’re going to find yourself in trouble one day”

“ I don’t know If I can sir”