Riss Series 5: The Riss Challenge by C. R. Daems Page A

typical recruits one saw for commandos: young, physically fit, and cocky. This group looked in their thirties and forties, out of condition, and surly. If Nadya hadn't been her long-term friend with a vision for thwarting the JPU, she would have thrown up her hands in disgust and concluded making soldiers out of this group would take years—commandos never. But she would no more disappoint Nadya than she would walk in space without a suit. Nadya said she wanted fifty commandos, so fifty of these...misfits would have to survive her.
    "When are our instructors arriving?" a big man of girth and height shouted. Terril smiled, coming out of her musing. Just what she needed, an example. People learned best from examples, rather than long boring lectures.
    "You are looking at them," she said. "I was standing here wondering when the candidates were arriving."
    "Girly, you aren't going to teach me anything I didn't learn years ago. I could teach you a thing or two," he either smiled or sneered, Terril wasn't sure.
    "Grandpa, years ago you might have lasted a minute or two with me, but now?" Terril laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. The man pushed aside the two men in front of him and charged her. He grinned, his eyes bright with excitement as Terril took a step backward. But at his next step, she exploded into him, knee driving into his groin, shoulder into his chest, and head into his chin. The two seemed to stand suspended, then the man dropped. "Any more clowns in the crowd?"
    A short man with a scarred face twisted into an evil grin stepped forward holding a dagger. "You think us clowns? I'll show you funny." He approached slowly, the knife moving back and forth, until he was just out of reach. He licked his lips, which Terril knew was nothing but a distraction technique, then lunged at her stomach. Terril twisted right, her right arm guiding the knife past her stomach while her left elbow drove into his temple, which cracked under the force of the impact. Her right hand snaked up, locked onto his wrist, and held him in place as her left hand shot back—knife edge—into his throat. He dropped to his knees gasping for breath and died less than a minute later.
    "It was my understanding that you came here to learn to be commandos, to fight our enemies, the JPU, and to fly again. Grandpa lying over there is obviously too old to learn new tricks. He thinks in terms of the old days of raiding, when you descended on small communities whose local militia would be lucky to hit a standing target one out of five times, had few if any modern weapons, and were taken by surprise. Those are not commandos. Those are Raiders. Commandos are elite men and women who after helping the ship crew make repairs, fetch and carry parts and equipment, move the dead and wounded for ten to fifteen hours, and getting tired to the point of collapse, are capable of overcoming their tiredness and mind-numbing fatigue to board crippled cruisers and fight trained military with modern weapons. That is not achieved without great effort and desire." She paused to look at each individual. "Those of you that are willing to work eighteen hours a day and endure the hell I'm going to inflict on you for the next ten months and want to be part of the Riss...family, stay. Those that think you are already commandos, take grandpa and go home. And take the one who doesn't know his friends from his enemies with you." Terril stood quietly waiting as people collected in groups and talked. In the end, some twenty left.
    "Some of us have never been Raiders," a young woman in her late twenties said, more as a question than a statement.
    "So we understand each other. I don't care whether you are male or female or whether you have fighting experience. I would be just as happy with fifty women as fifty men. In the end, it will be those of you who can survive the hell I'm going to subject you to for the next ten months. Those, I will transform into respectable fighting machines.