The rain pattered down lightly all around them.

Neville heard it sizzle on his personal force field, evaporating before it could reach his skin. The rain would be cold, he knew, but it would also wash away the grime and dried sweat on his skin. After a while, he turned the unit off. Icy misery struck him, and instantly he regretted his choice. Too late now, though; turning it back on wouldn't warm him back up.

"So," he said, sitting up. "That was a battle."

The massive figure lying on the hillside beside him did not respond.

"I'd imagined it a lot differently," the young lieutenant said quietly. "I thought it might make sense, for one thing. But this was just a big bunch of people trying like mad to kill us. Utter chaos. Is it always like this?"

More silence.

The lieutenant toyed idly with the sword he held in his hand. His sword now, he figured, since he'd taken it from a man who'd tried to kill him after lodging his own in the man's ribcage. It was longer than Imperial standard issue, designed for slashing rather than stabbing. Not perfect for fighting in formation, but then again he wasn't exactly a line soldier. Perhaps he'd keep it.

"Gods, I'm tired," he said.

Sergeant Naylor grunted up at him. Finally, a response, thought Neville wryly.

The man had been almost godlike, entirely in his element during the defense of the hill. At one point he'd lifted an enemy warrior over his head and hurled him bodily downslope, smashing through dozens of the man's fellows. He'd fought for hours without injury, seemingly tireless. Not bad for a man his age. Half the legion had cybernetic limbs of one sort or another, but not the sergeant. "Not yet," he'd said, laughing, during a lull in the action. "Day's still young."

Now, young it was not. The sun had set long since and neither of the moons had risen, so the battlefield was lit only by the stars. Even so, Neville could see movement from below.

"They can't possibly be forming up again," he breathed.

At that, Naylor raised himself on his elbows and peered down.

"No, lad," he said. "Old women and local farmers, out to loot the dead. Theirs or ours, doesn't matter to them. Worse than vultures."

"How, worse?"

The sergeant spat to one side. "Vultures only eat the dead. These'll do for the wounded too."

Neville was horrified. "But those are their own men down there!" Imperial casualties would all be at the hospital tents, safely in the hands of the autodocs.

"Not the way a peasant sees things. I come from peasant stock myself, so I know."

Painfully, Naylor clambered to his feet, moving slowly, and began stretching. Neville contemplated joining him, but didn't. Instead he waited, and after a minute the big sergeant spoke again.

"To those down there, there's no difference between us. We're all soldiers, here to trample crops, drive away livestock, and poison the river by dying too near it. They see us like locusts, or wolves maybe. A plague."

"Surely, their own country—"

"What's a country to a farmer, lad? They can't even imagine one. Never been further than the nearest market town, most of them, and that's full of strangers. To them, unless you're family, or a native villager..."

"What a terrible way to live!" The lieutenant was aghast. "It's about time the Empire came here, to bring these poor souls the gifts of civilization!"

"And what gifts would those be exactly?" Naylor asked quietly. "A hundred years from today or a thousand, those people will still have the same attitude toward strangers, and no matter that the Empire calls them citizens."

"But what about modern medicine? Education? What about computers, the Net, and the Imperial Forum? Voting, and civic responsibility?"

Naylor shook his head. "Empire needs a farm planet, see, a breadbasket. What use does a farmer have for higher education? He'll use the metal salvaged from a sword to clad his plow, and he'll be grateful for it. Anything else is a waste."

The big man rolled his shoulders, settling his corselet, and then started down the hill. Somehow, Neville found his feet and followed.

"Wait! If that's true..."

"Hm?"

"...then how'd you make it from peasant to soldier? And, more important, why?"

Naylor laughed sharply, a hard, bitter bark with no humor in it. "It was this or pigs, lad. If you'd ever smelled pig shit, you wouldn't need to ask why."

"But not an officer?"

"No, not for me, lad. I'd rather fight than think any day. Besides, someone's got to watch out for the likes of you."

They were at the base of the hill now, surrounded by the stench of the messily dead. Even pigs can't smell worse than this, Neville thought miserably. The locals gave them a wide berth as they passed through, climbing the next rise toward Headquarters.

After a while he asked, "Why do you still do it? Soldiering, I mean. You're a citizen, a twenty-year man. You could retire, raise a family..."

"This is what I know, lad. It's what I'm good at, all I've done for those twenty years. Besides, it's steady work. Job security, you might say."

"How's that?" Neville asked.

Naylor grinned. "There's always another war."

As if on cue, thunder rolled in the distance.

"I'll be happy just to survive this one," the lieutenant muttered, fiddling unsuccessfully with his force field. Naylor heard and barked another laugh.

"We'll make a soldier of you yet," he said.