Not a Hero
"How much of this can one person take? Before they become less of themselves, and more of a monster?"
-Lieutenant Konrad Harris, First Ranger Special Tactics Unit.
Colonel Calderon rounded another corner at Silver's Rest, dodging a pair of rangers in a set of identical blue-and-grey BDU's to those that Valkren was sporting now, the only difference being the rank insignia on Valk's shoulder.
The two rangers were quick to offer salutes, Valkren returning the same to the pair by bringing his hand in a knife-manner to the brim of his patrol cap. It was the sort of half-assed salute he would have expected from a colonel in his early twenties. Although, still rocking at the age of thirty, he was beginning to pass the life expectancy of someone in his profession.
Many would still consider this young, perhaps even teetering on the line of middle-aged, but not Valkren. For Valkren, he had been fighting since the age of eighteen. For half of his life, he had seen both sides of a battlefield, and the horrors to come with it.
The sad part? He couldn't walk away from it.
Combat was a lifestyle for him and his men, and after his transition from regular infantry and the marines whilst in the republic, to the special forces sector, he had much more freedom with how he operated and who he operated with.
That didn't make it any easier, though.
Technology was advancing, and so were the way soldiers were operating. During his constant deployments, Valkren had seen a growing number of soldiers- no, not even soldiers..More of monsters, rip through platoons of rangers with ease. He had seen them take several bolts to the chest, and then continue to move into more engagements for hours on end until they finally crumpled from wounds.
Men like this were the reason why he was here, walking through silvers rest in his BDU's instead of on some hostile planet somewhere in his Katarn armor. For Valkren and the Quick-Reaction-Force he was apart of, every moment spent not in combat, was vital moments in which someone somewhere needed help.
So he had to make this quick.
He stopped outside of an all-too-familiar office, one with many features that reminded him of someone else's..When he was first recruited into the Silver Jedi and Antarian Rangers.
Valkren removed his cap, waving a hand over the door console to alert the owner that he was there. He'd raise his voice, so either the occupant inside could hear him, or the door's console would pick up his voice and transmit it.
"Got time for a chat with a friend that's really not supposed to be here?"
[member="Jyoti Nooran"]