I love when it rains. I haven't always – it's something I just decided today. We'd been outside doing knife-throwing drills, which I wasn't bad at but sure didn't mind getting out of, when the sky fell. The rain just began pouring down with no lightning or thunder or any warning at all. We grabbed equipment as quickly as possible and tore into the main building. We dumped everything into the nearest storage closet, leaving it overflowing and dripping wet, and piled into the gathering hall, completely ignoring the shouted instructions of Captain Gillocki, our instructor. We respect him and all, just sometimes we don't take him seriously. And this was too much fun! I don't think I could have stopped smiling if I'd tried! Here were fifty students, most of them Seniors, all sopping wet and grinning up at one frowning, dripping teacher.

I was a Baby. It was my first year of Mission Training, but they'd put me in a Senior class anyway. They said I was good enough, and I guess I was, but boy did I ever get teased! I was the only Baby, and only thirteen other members of the fifty-person class weren't Seniors. I'd only been mission training for two months, and this was the most fun I'd had so far.

"Mackie! Carlon! Hendra!" Captain Gillocki bellowed, "Storage Duty! Now!" Three wet Seniors trudged out of the lamp-lit chamber and back to the storage closet, while everyone remaining giggled. We all like Captain Gill.

We settled loosely among the heavy wooden benches that amply seated the entire population of the Mission Training school. Our teacher looked at us as if to say, "Five years here and this is all you've become." What he actually, wearily, said was, "Anyone to start up a discussion?"

A tall, serious Senior named Jason Wellin raised his hand and asked, "Why are we doing this?"

"Because it's raining, you moron!" an unidentified Senior called out.

"No, no!" Jason explained, though he was laughing along with everyone else, while Captain Gill's eyes searched for the speaker. "I meant, why are we permanently at war with the Barons? What's the point?"

"If you don't like it, go join a pac!" called out Rolph Newburn. Rolph was known for being one of the most aggressive students at the school. But since this was a military school and all, his opinion was echoed, though less fervently, but just about everyone.

"Quiet!" Captain Gill roared. "It's a good question, and a great topic for discussion. Does anyone care to answer?"

I stared up at my teacher as if to say, "That's cheating!" Captain Gill was the only one here with actual experience fighting the Barons, and in his day he'd been a great leader for us Cols. I knew that the only reason he was giving Jason's question fair discussion time was to prove him wrong.

A Senior named Delpha raised her hand and announced, "My uncle is part of a pac. It's really funny when he comes to a family gathering. He sticks out because he only wears green!"

Captain Gill sighed. I pushed my wet bangs out of my face and laughed.

"Why?" asked a girl named Awna.

Delpha shrugged. "These peace-attempt clans say green is a neutral color, so they wear it. It's also supposed to represent the peace and security of nature."

"So at family gatherings, don't your parents and uncle always argue?" asked a girl named Shyla.

"You have family gatherings?" a boy named Jedd asked incredulously.

Delpha grinned and answered Shyla's question. "No – everybody usually gets too drunk on blackwine to fight."

"Everybody?" echoed a Senior named Dillan. "Does that mean you get drunk, too...and in front of all your family?"

The Captain noticed my laughter, and he smiled wickedly down at me. "Let's ask the Baby, shall we? Any ideas, Brytani?"

"Baby! Baby! Baby!" the seniors began cheering me on.

"Quiet!" Captain Gill shouted.

I was blushing, and couldn't stop grinning, but I knew the answer as everyone else did. The technical answer, anyway.

"We're fighting to save planet Skye for the Cols," I said, my young voice ringing loud and clear in the now silent hall. "Our ship, the Colossus, was here to settle and claim this planet years before the Baron, but they're trying to take it over anyway. We're fighting for freedom from the Barons."

Captain Gillocki smiled, satisfied by my noble explanation, but Jason asked, "Isn't this getting a little old, though? It's been hundreds of years since the ships landed. There's certainly enough of this planet for us to coexist peacefully."

"That's what the pacs are for, you wuss!" Rolph shouted out, and there was a low murmur of agreement.

Captain Gill sighed again. "Rolph, it's a good thing, being open to new ideas. That's an important lesson for everyone. But, Jason, our ancestors have fought and died to preserve this planet for us. Do you think their honorable deaths can be disregarded as unimportant? Can we decide to ignore their ideas as being too much work, and opt for an easy way out instead? Should all of their accomplishments, everything they've done and given for us, simply be forgotten?"

I had known Captain Gill was just going to show Jason to be wrong. However, I was glad our teacher had made his point.

Jason would not be silenced so easily, though. "Should their accomplishments be forgotten!" he protested loudly. "They came here in giant spaceships that traveled the stars! They encountered new races and explored new planets! We've lost all the technology they had! Even our weapons are far less than what theirs were!"

"Jason, I know that this is your only year of military school, Senior that you are," the Captain said, slowly and loudly above the murmurs of disagreement with Jason's statement. "Once you've been here longer, you'll understand better what this is all about. And what life on this planet is all about. And then you'll be able to use your life to make a difference."

Jason looked doubtful, but he didn't protest again. He'd probably join a pac when he graduated in a few seasons, I thought, looking over at him sadly. Captain Gill would have to work quickly to save him. The school tried very hard to squash rebellious attitudes like Jason's. I'd heard that more and more people were joining pacs lately. I knew that Captain Gill was right, though. I knew from deep down in my heart that we had to fight. But who was I to decide? I was only a child in this.