The Five Brothers Part 1/Chapter 3

[PopRocks]

It never ceased to amaze Nathan what Derek managed to get away with. Somehow he managed to break whatever rules he considered to be inconvenient, but never get punished, much less caught. Even if he was caught, Colonel Ursus’s influence with the military would probably get him out of whatever trouble he might get into. His most recent exploit was somehow procuring leave for himself, Nathan, and Derek’s best friend, Captain Cris Regor. Nathan suspected that whatever Derek did, it had originally been Cris’s idea. He merely pushed Derek in the right direction to initiate whatever particular plan he had for entertaining themselves that week. But Derek finding a way to get them all leave passes when they were about to be shipped out to Canopus for a major offensive within a month, that defied the impossible. Nathan was beginning to appreciate just how much influence Derek really had.

“So, this is Kapteyn,” Derek said brightly as they stepped off the shuttle.

“Lovely place Derek, good choice,” Cris said, looking around with approval.

Nathan said nothing. He was worried that if he did it would somehow be interpreted by Derek and Cris as encouragement. He had mentioned in passing once that he was from Kapteyn and that it was a nice place, but he hadn’t thought that he would end up going back so soon. Derek and Cris, meanwhile were having a grand time. Though their mood was slightly dampened when Nathan refused to let them steal a wolf from the zoo. Wolves were native to Antares, but had been subsequently introduced to a few of the other planets in the kingdom. The canines were enormous beasts with razor-sharp fangs and claws, thick fur of varying shades, and so tall their heads were level with Derek’s elbow. They had a reputation for being among the most vicious and intelligent animals in the kingdom. It was no wonder Derek and Cris thought it would be fun to steal one. The two of them enjoyed dangerous pastimes much more than was healthy or prudent. But still, they did as they were told and left the dangerous animals alone. Somehow, despite his being younger than them, Nathan had become their voice of reason and a sort of walking conscience. Though why Derek decided to listen to Nathan and not anyone else was a mystery. They moved on through the zoo to find something else to look at, but Nathan looked over his shoulder at one of the wolves flexing his retractable claws lazily, slicing into a tree to sharpen them. The wolf locked eyes with him and Nathan quickened his pace a little.

When they left the zoo, Derek and Cris immediately started trying to find something else to entertain themselves. They discussed their options for a while as they walked down the busy street, Nathan hanging back in case they did something embarrassing or dangerous and he didn’t want to be associated with them. Suddenly Derek snapped his fingers, apparently something interesting having come to his attention. He turned back to Nathan, an excited grin on his face. That was a sure sign that whatever he had thought of was nothing of interest to Nathan.

“Nathan, we should go visit your parents!”

Definitely not something Nathan was interested in. The last thing he needed was for any one of his given relatives to meet these two.

“Great idea!” Cris agreed. “Locals always know the best places to go, the best stuff to do. We have to go visit them. They might be more talkative than Nathan anyway.”

“So, can we?” Derek asked.

“No.” Nathan replied instantly.

“Why not?” Cris asked with a frown.

“Because--” Nathan paused for a second, thinking of the best excuse possible. “They’re on vacation, skiing on Kentaurus. We should just go back to that hotel you claim you found for us to stay at.”

“Claim I found?” Cris countered. “I did find! The best hotel available, too. It’s by a lake.”

Nathan looked dubious, but he had no choice but to go along with them. It wasn’t as if he was going to offer to let them stay at his parents’ house.

One way or another Cris had found out about a resort at one of the planet’s pristine lakes and it wasn’t long before Nathan found himself standing in the lobby of the hotel and trying not to gawk. Cris hadn’t been lying after all. The place was obviously very expensive and he had almost asked the other two where they had gotten the money for it before deciding he was better off not knowing. After they settled into their rooms they went to wander about the grounds. It was a beautiful place, grass and trees everywhere and a wonderful view of the lake. There was even a stable full of Gredans. Derek, of course, found these incredibly fascinating the moment he saw them. The Gredans were massive canines so tall their heads were higher than even Derek’s, with a short, curved horn in their foreheads that Derek discovered to be very sharp, much to his delight. They had thickly muscled bodies and long, whip-like tails that could easily break his leg in half. Derek stood in front of a large black one, staring up at it in absolute and exquisite joy.

“I have an idea,” he grinned and Nathan became apprehensive. Derek’s ideas were usually things that ended up being very dangerous. For everyone except him.

Cris looked up at the gredan, which was now licking his face with its massive tongue. “You can’t be serious,” he said as he wiped the slime off his cheek.

Obviously he knew what Derek was up to, and his incredulity was worrying Nathan. If Cris thought that Derek’s idea was crazy, there was definite cause for uneasiness.

“Come on, just trust me,” Derek said, throwing a saddle on the gredan’s back and cinching it up. A minute later he had swung up, towering over the other two and grinning with joy. Seeing him like that seemed to sway Cris’ opinion and he nodded slowly, pacing around the gredan.

“This could work.”

Nathan just looked at the two of them in confusion. “What could?”

The other two were not listening however, so Nathan gave up trying to communicate with them entirely. Eventually Cris wandered off to pester some unsuspecting group of tourist girls he had spotted in a nearby restaurant and left Derek to his own devices back at the stable with Nathan. Derek did not stay in the stable for long, trotting here and there and working out the particulars of the gredan while Nathan wandered aimlessly. He was walking back to Derek to convince him it was time for lunch when he saw someone riding towards him and stopped dead. It was the reporter he had seen on Antares. He had been thinking about her almost constantly since he had seen her at the party, hoping that he would be able to find her again and finally meet her. Nathan watched her come closer and wanted to stop her and talk to her. He started walking quickly towards her, hoping to intercept her before she got back to the stable. Unfortunately, Derek had also seen her, and had already ridden out to meet her. Even from a distance Nathan could tell she was smiling at him. The Lieutenant stopped in his tracks, feeling an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach as he watched them. It was some time before he could finally move from his position of shock and stop watching them ride away, his stomach having sunk to the level of his ankles. Nathan finally turned and walked back to the hotel, too distracted to notice the small voice in the back of his mind, warning of what might happen should Derek find out who the woman really was and why she was so eager to meet him.

“So what are you doing here?” Derek asked the girl, whose name he had discovered to be Sera Lacrima. Derek didn't need to introduce himself. He found never did anymore.

“I’m a nature photographer,” Sera replied as they rode along through the trees. “I came to try and get some pictures of the local wildlife. What about you?”

“I’m on leave,” Derek replied.

“How did you escape your public relations agents?” Sera laughed. “Shouldn’t you be on another fundraising tour?”

“I managed to escape my handlers for a while.” Derek shrugged. “They can be pretty crafty, but I managed to give them the slip for a while.”

“Do you mind? All the publicity and the cameras and microphones shoved in your face all the time?”

“I don’t like it very much,” Derek admitted. “But, it’s what they want me to do so I do it.”

“Why?” Sera asked, ducking under a branch.

“Why what?”

“ Why do you always do what you’re told if you dislike it so much? Why did you join the military?”

Derek thought over the question for a minute, working out what to say.
“I guess I joined because it felt like the right thing to do. I would have been drafted anyway even if I didn’t. I might as well join of my own free will. Besides, I have to protect the kingdom just like everyone else. You can’t accomplish anything without making a few sacrifices. If it means sacrificing a little of my freedom to make the military happy, then so be it. In the end it just helps me protect what’s most important to me.”

Sera looked at him thoughtfully. She had to wonder what someone like him found most precious. When she asked him, he merely replied that they were things which were always worth fighting for, worth dying for and should never be taken for granted. Any further attempts by Sera to decipher what he meant simply led to dead ends, Derek absolutely refusing to say what it was he held most dear. Asking about his family didn’t get her very far either. He simply had no idea who they were or if they even existed, much less who he really was. He was a foundling, dropped on the doorstep of an orphanage, nameless and alone. As they talked, Sera discovered things about him she never would have found had he known she was a reporter. He was kind, sweet, and completely adorable in her opinion, and she was beginning to feel guiltier by the moment for deceiving him. When they finally arrived back at the stable, the sun was low in the sky and she couldn’t help but accept his offer to join him for dinner, dreading he might find out what she had done, but liking him despite herself.

For the remainder of their stay at the resort, Derek spent more and more time with Sera, not noticing how miserable it was making Nathan. Cris did notice, and, once he discovered the source of Nathan’s discomfort, made it his mission to help him forget about Derek and Sara. He managed to accomplish it, though it was difficult, since it was impossible for him to discover why Nathan was so upset about Derek meeting Sera before him. Derek’s relationship itself was not the problem, but that it had been Derek that had been the one to end up with Sera. For some unfathomable reason, had anyone else ended up with Sera he would have found it much easier to move on, but Derek was an almost insurmountable barrier, and Nathan found it very hard to forgive him. Cris found it bewildering, and finally just decided to send Derek to talk to him.

“Are you certain you haven’t stolen his girlfriend before?”

Derek scowled. “For one thing, Sera was not his girlfriend so I couldn’t exactly steal her. Second, if he liked her he should have said something, and for another thing, I haven’t known the guy long enough to go around stealing his girlfriends.”

“Well you must have done something, because he’s acting like his best friend in the universe has betrayed him,” Cris replied.

Derek just frowned and kept walking. Once they reached Nathan’s room Derek stopped and knocked.

“You sure you haven’t stolen his girlfriend before?” Cris whispered.

Derek effectively told him to go jump in the lake and forbade Cris to come anywhere near the hotel while he and Nathan were talking. Clearly Derek was in a bad mood and Cris knew better than to argue, so he left and went down to the lake to jump in like he had been told. As he left, he saw Nathan’s door open, and Derek stepped in.

“Nathan, I need to talk to you.”

“Did Cris put you up to this? You can’t tell me you figured it out all by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, come on Derek, you would never have noticed. You’re so dense about things like this.”

“How would you know?” Derek sputtered. “I would have figured it out! Eventually…”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Derek glared at him for a few minutes, then gave up and started laughing. “Okay, you’re right. I never would have figured it out.” He and Nathan laughed it off, and then Derek turned serious again. “I am sorry though, Nathan. I had no idea you liked her. You should have told me.”

Nathan sat down heavily in an armchair. “I didn’t want to, Derek. You would have just stepped back and let me date her instead. I couldn’t do that; I can see how much you like her.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Derek mumbled. “It’s not like I like her that much.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Stop doing that,” Derek said, flopping into another chair across from Nathan.

“Doing what, being right?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Fine, if it’ll make you feel better I’ll let you be right all the time from now on.”

“That would make me feel better, thank you.”

Nathan picked at the upholstery absently, watching Derek. “Derek, you know what Sera is?”

“Of course I know.” Derek replied, shrugging. “I knew the second I saw her.”

“And you’re dating her anyway? You hate reporters Derek. In fact you’re scared of them.”

“A fact that she and everyone else really don’t need to know,” Derek answered sourly. “And anyway, she’s nice, I like her.”

“You don’t think she’s doing all this just to get some information on you? You know how reporters are.”

“That’s probably what she’s doing, but what could she possibly get? None of the other reporters have managed to get any information on me I didn’t want them to. Sera won’t either, even if I do like her. Besides, there’s nothing to find.”

“Nothing?” Nathan raised an eyebrow incredulously.

Derek smirked. “Well, nothing they can find. No matter how pretty or charming the reporter is.”

More than an hour later, Cris had dutifully jumped in the lake multiple times and Derek was still talking to Nathan. When they finally appeared by the lake it had been nearly two hours, and Cris displayed his wrinkled fingers accusingly to Derek and informed him of the four dozen times he had jumped into the lake. Derek simply rolled his eyes at Cris and walked off in search of something to eat. Cris never could get him to say what he and Nathan had talked about, but whatever it was it had apparently worked, because Derek and Nathan were back to being friends again afterward and remained so for the rest of the time that Cris knew them.

It turned out that Derek’s brilliant idea was to turn the gredans into a cavalry unit. Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well. They were easily trained for combat and consumed far less fuel than the usual military vehicles. The only thing left was to find suitable armor for them and their riders. Derek decided handheld energy shields would be the best solution for the riders and so Cris and Nathan once again followed him, this time to a manufacturer on Alcor.

They found the manufacturer without much difficulty, in a large factory just outside the city limits of the capital. The foreman they were talking to was a nice enough man, and very helpful. Though Derek thought it was probably because he had scored an enormous military contract that would make him very rich for a very long time. The foreman was shorter than Derek, as most people were. He had dark skin, hair, and bright, kind eyes. He also had very white sharp teeth that he showed every time he smiled, which was often. His fur covered legs ended in hooves instead of feet so his footsteps made more noise then their boots as he walked across the hard floor. He wiped the grease from his hands on a cloth as dirty as his rough work-shirt and offered them a tour. He pointed at the various machines and completed shields in the factory, talking constantly as he picked up a datapad with his prehensile tail and handed it to Derek, his hands still busy pointing at things. But there was one problem: Derek couldn’t speak the language. He looked at the foreman in complete confusion the moment he started to talk rapidly in his own language, completely oblivious to Derek’s complete lack of understanding. To avoid problems, Nathan, who did speak the language, decided to talk to the foreman and work things out while Cris stayed a distance behind them with Derek.

Derek looked around at the rumbling machines and flying sparks, only slightly interested. Then a large rodent caught his eye and in a flash Derek’s pistol was in his hand and he shot at it before it disappeared behind the machinery. Derek was intent on pursuing it, considering this the most entertaining thing that had happened all day. But Cris quickly grabbed his hand and took the blaster before he could do anything, hoping the foreman hadn’t seen Derek's antics.

“What are you doing?!” he hissed to Derek.

“I’m going to shoot the flying rat. I think there’s an infestation,” Derek said, looking slightly miffed over Cris stopping him.

Cris sighed with infinite patience and shook his head. “They may annoy you Derek, but is that really necessary? You’re going to hit something important and then the company will sue us. Try to restrain your destructive tendencies for a while would you?”

Clearly Derek thought it was completely necessary, and Cris was kept busy for the rest of the visit confiscating every weapon Derek possessed. By the time they left he had enough to arm a small militia. Derek simply scowled at him and muttered insults and nasty things under his breath the entire trip back to the hotel.

Their first opportunity to use the gredans was a month later, on Canopus. The hoverbikes were late arriving, and Derek’s regiment came to rely wholly on the gredans. It hadn’t taken much effort on Derek’s part to convince the military to let him create a regiment of cavalry once he showed them what the gredans were capable of. All that was left was to train the riders, and he had managed it pretty well. They set up their camp at the base of a narrow canyon with a river flowing to the right of them and steep cliffs on the left. The only way to attack them was a direct assault through the thick forest of trees in front of them, and the cliffs narrowed too much at the top for an aerial assault.

To protect their rear, Derek had ordered massive artillery pieces installed that had a great enough range to both protect their flank and their front position. He also decided to build a wall too, just to be certain. In all, it was an excellent position, and Derek was very satisfied with it. The soldiers dug a long trench from the cliffs to the river and piled stones in front of it high enough that nothing short of a hoverbike or a gredan could get over it. They had also dug steps into the inside walls of the trench to allow the soldiers inside to fire over the wall and climb out the top in either direction. Far behind the trench was the camp itself, made up of numerous temporary buildings and a fenced off area for the gredans. Once the base was established, they had but to sit and wait for the imperial assault.
Derek jogged around the base, making sure everything was to his liking, and the defenses were secure. Reports had come in of imperial troop movements not far from their position and he suspected they did not have long before an attack. The small group of reporters that followed his regiment was there too, but he simply ignored them. One of these days one of them was going to get themselves killed, and he would probably be the one that got in trouble for it. For now, he had sent a message to them to stay where they couldn’t get themselves blown up and concerned himself with matters of greater importance. The gredans were saddled and their great plates of armor strapped on and their riders did last minute checks on their shields and the rest of their equipment. They were to be kept in reserve until Derek felt the moment was right to use them. He had made sure that the trench was constructed in such a way that the gredans would have no trouble jumping across them in both directions. Derek, Cris, and Nathan would be riding with them, and he couldn’t help but feel a little excited about it. The mock battles that they had done so far had proved the gredans to be an incredible asset. They had been trained to attack infantry and protect their riders as much as possible. Riding into battle on the back of something with claws, a sharp horn, and long teeth seemed like an awfully good way to do things.

The imperial attack was not long in coming. It looked as though an entire division, if not two, had been sent to attack their position. The first wave hit the trench and the soldiers repelled it easily. Entire regiments of imperial troops assaulted the trench, and their attacks became fiercer with each attempt. It got to the point where Derek had to order the artillery to fire over the soldiers’ heads in order to drive the imperials back again. The reporters were recording the entire event on their holocams, a fact which Derek did his best to ignore though it annoyed him endlessly. He couldn’t stop them from doing it, but at least the parliament would censor out anything they didn’t like before the public saw any of it.

He watched the battle rage on from his position with the rest of the cavalry, waiting for the right moment. It had begun to rain, and the ground might soon become too soft for the cavalry to be of any help at all. At last Derek could wait no longer. He raised his hand and gave the signal to charge. The cavalry pounded across the turf to the trench, the artillery covering their charge. In one massive leap the gredans cleared the trench wall in a wave and fell upon the imperials. Derek held his shield high, protecting himself as he fired again and again with his short rifle, Cris at his side. Nathan was farther down the line, leading his group of riders through the trees at breakneck speed, cutting down infantry as they went. The gredans did just what they had been trained to do, their powerful jaws and vicious horns tearing into the enemy troops despite the imperials’ armor. The ground underfoot quickly became trodden into mud and the rain continued to pound down on them as they surged forward. Derek went through two ammunition cartridges before he had to slow slightly to get more out of his pack. As he reached back an imperial attacked him from the side. Derek brought his shield up just in time to block the laser bolts and brought it crashing down on the soldier’s head, stunning him long enough for Derek to reload his rifle and finish him off. By the time the rain finally stopped, the cavalry had wiped out most of the imperial troops and driven the rest far out of the canyon. Derek ordered them back to the base, his chest heaving.

He was nearly back to the trench again when he turned to talk to Cris and saw that he wasn’t there. Derek looked behind him, and all around, but there was no sign of his friend. He was so distracted he failed to notice Sera and the cameraman watching his every move. They had been recording the entire battle, but something about Derek had caught their attention and they were now watching him very closely. He turned this way and that, trying to find out where Cris had gone. The riders filed past him towards the trench, the medical teams going the opposite direction to look for the wounded. Suddenly Derek got a sickening feeling in his stomach and began to search the ground, terrified of what he might find. After a few minutes, he stopped and slid out of his saddle. He walked slowly to the familiar figure that lay on the churned up ground, sinking to his knees and turning the body onto its back. He thought he recognized it, but he hoped he was wrong. The soldier’s chest was mangled and bloodied from a well thrown detonator, making it impossible to read the name on the chest plate. Derek pushed the body onto its side and wiped the mud from the man’s helmet. He pulled it up to look at the neck and choked back a sob. He had found Cris. On the back of every soldier’s neck and left arm was tattooed their identification number in case something like this happened. Derek made a point of memorizing his friends’ numbers just in case.
He picked up his dead friend, glad that no one would see the tears that could no longer be held back. He carried Cris in his arms to where the gredan was waiting. Very gently he laid his friend over the saddle, his arms hanging over the other side. Then, Derek took the gredan by the reins, slowly walking back to the base with Cris’ lifeless form. Sera watched him go past without noticing her, holding back her own tears as Derek lifted Cris’ body off the gredan’s back and laid it on a stretcher. There was a growing row of stretchers just like it laid out as the medical teams brought back the casualties. One by one they were carried away to be put in temporary coffins and sent home to their families. Derek simply stood by his mount, watching his best friend be carried away. When the medics were gone he dropped his shield on the ground along with his helmet and walked off, oblivious to everything around him.

Derek didn’t take long to pull himself together enough to assess the situation. He was a soldier and an officer after all, and he could not allow himself to be bogged down by his grief. He looked over the initial reports, noting that the number of casualties was lower than he had expected. That cheered him up slightly, but not very much. After he finished with the reports, he handed them back to the sergeant and shook his hair a bit, trying to get it dry.

“Could you find Lieutenant Arcturus for me please? I need to organize an officers' meeting.”

The sergeant took the reports, shaking his head. “Lieutenant Arcturus is still unaccounted for sir.”

Derek froze. “He what?”

“There has been no sign of him sir; we haven’t been able to locate him.”

Derek turned and bolted back to his gredan, swinging into the saddle and ignoring the shouts of the soldier. He jerked on the reins, turning the gredan back towards the trench and galloping over it into the battlefield beyond. His head snapped back and forth as he searched the ground for Nathan, a growing feeling of fear in his chest. Fear that he would find Nathan as he had found Cris. He rode father and farther into the canyon until he reached the edge. He leapt out of the saddle, running back and forth between the rocks, searching the bodies he found there. At last he found what he was looking for. Nathan lay hidden behind a large boulder, motionless and covered in blood. Derek dropped down at his side, searching for a pulse. After a few moments he found one and released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He grabbed his small med kit from his saddle bag and started bandaging Nathan. Had he kept his helmet he would have heard the message that the imperials were coming again. But he didn’t.
He bandaged Nathan as best he could and carried him back to the gredan, lifting him into the saddle. Derek then swung into the saddle himself and turned back towards the base. As he did, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck and he looked over his shoulder to see half a regiment of soldiers on hoverbikes coming his way. Eyes wide, Derek dug his heels into the gredan, spurring it into a gallop back through the trees. He kept looking back at the troops, who were gaining on them at a frightening pace. He held tight to Nathan’s unconscious form, dodging back and forth between the trees, trying to keep the soldiers from getting a clear shot at him. Unfortunately, they came very close. A laser bolt tore through his left shoulder and another grazed his right side. Derek pushed the gredan even faster, the trench finally coming back into sight. He rode as fast as he could, his shoulder and side pounding with pain as the blood flowed all over his uniform, still glancing back frequently at the bikers. His own troops had seen him, and were waving frantically at him to get over the wall. Just ahead of the imperials, Derek jumped the wall, landing safely on the other side, and the soldiers in the trench sprang up to fire at the imperials. The royals shocked the imperials so much that with the help of the artillery barrage they wiped out half of the imperials before they could regroup and get under cover.

Derek lowered Nathan carefully from his saddle to the stretcher the medical team had run over with and nearly fell off himself. He sank painfully onto another stretcher, breathing a sigh of relief. The medical team carried him away to the temporary hospital while Sera and her cameraman watched him with amazement, having caught everything again. Her shock changed very quickly, however, to dread as the stretcher was set down in front of them, and Derek looked up at her.
“Here photographing the wildlife are you?”

Sera just stared at him, at a loss for words.

[Winterbite]

Anything particular you'd like on this, PopRocks? SPaG, general thoughts, character dissection, opinions on this or that?

[PopRocks]

well, SPaG is always helpful because I'm terrible at it, but I really like general thoughts and character opinions too

[Winterbite]

SPaG it shall be, then! You'll have to give me a bit, though, I'm afraid. I'm working on a heavy edit of somebody's novel, so I have less time for WB critiquing these days. Rest assured, though, I'm on it! SPaG and comments shall be forthcoming in time! This is about five thousand words, so a bit lengthy, but I'll try to see it back here by the weekend.

[PopRocks]

yay SPaG!
Don't worry, I'm in no hurry. I have finals for the next week, won't have time for much else really. Sorry this chapter is so long ^_^'

[Winterbite]

Well, it has been a long time and no mistake! So sorry about the wait--I'm in editing up to my ears

<
It never ceased to amaze Nathan what Derek managed to get away with. Somehow he managed to break whatever rules he considered to be inconvenient, but never got(get) punished, much less caught. Even if he was(Italics, maybe?) caught, Colonel Ursus’(I be a bit foggy here myself, but I think it’s Ursus’s) influence with the military would probably get him out of whatever trouble he might get into. His most recent exploit was somehow procuring leave for himself, Nathan, and Derek’s best friend, Captain Cris Regor. Nathan suspected that whatever Derek did, it had originally been Cris’(Cris’s, I believe) idea. He merely pushed Derek in the right direction to initiate whatever particular plan he had for entertaining themselves that week. But Derek finding a way to get them all leave passes when they were about to be shipped out to Canopus for a major offensive within a month,(emdash) that defied the impossible. Nathan was beginning to appreciate just how much influence Derek really had.

“So this is Kapteyn.(Common error—I correct a lot of these. It’s actually a comma—you can go through your speech tags yourself and correct this. Though I’ll probably end up compulsively correcting a bunch of them )” Derek said brightly as they stepped off the shuttle.

“Lovely place Derek, good choice.” Cris said, looking around with approval.

Nathan said nothing. He was worried that if he did it would somehow be interpreted by Derek and Cris as encouragement. He had mentioned in passing once that he was from Kapteyn and that it was a nice place, but he hadn’t thought that he would end up going back so soon. Derek and Cris(Comma)meanwhile were having a grand time and were in an even better mood(relative to when?), though it was slightly dampened when Nathan refused to let them steal a wolf from the zoo. Wolves were native to Antares, but had been subsequently introduced on(to, not on) a few of the other planets in the kingdom. The canines were enormous beasts with razor sharp(razor-sharp) fangs and claws, thick fur of varying shades, and were(Adding another helping verb just confuses the first one, so this can come out) so tall their heads were level with Derek’s elbow. They had a reputation for being among the most vicious and intelligent animals in the kingdom. It was no wonder Derek and Cris thought it would be fun to steal one. The two of them enjoyed dangerous pastimes much more than was healthy or prudent. But still, they did as they were told and left the dangerous animals alone. Somehow, despite his being younger than them, Nathan had become the voice of reason for the both of them(A suggested reword to avoid using “them” too often: their voice of reason.) and a sort of walking conscience. Though why Derek decided to listen to Nathan and not anyone else was a mystery. They moved on through the zoo to find something else to look at, but Nathan looked over his shoulder at one of the wolves flexing his retractable claws lazily, slicing into a tree to sharpen them. The wolf locked eyes with him and Nathan quickened his pace a little.

When they left the zoo(comma)Derek and Cris immediately started trying to find something else to entertain themselves. They discussed their options for a while as they walked down the busy street, Nathan hanging back in case they did something embarrassing or dangerous and he(Generally I advise against using the adverb suddenly, but I think here it could be used to great comic effect!)didn’t want to be associated with them. Suddenly(...but if you do that, you’ll have to reword this ) Derek snapped his fingers, apparently something interesting having come to his attention. He turned back to Nathan, an excited grin on his face. That was a sure sign that whatever he had thought of was nothing of interest to Nathan(Avoid using the same identifier twice in a sentence—his brother, maybe?).

“Nathan, we should go visit your parents!”

Definitely not something Nathan was interested in. The last thing he needed was for any one of his given relatives to meet these two.

“Great idea!” Cris agreed heartily. “Locals always know the best places to go, the best stuff to do. We have to go visit them. They might be more talkative than Nathan anyway.”

“So, can we?” Derek asked.

“No.” Nathan replied instantly. (Adverb overload! Heartily, then instantly (And I just spotted grumpily down there, too. Do something about them, stat!)

“Why not?” Cris asked with a frown.

“Because,(I’d use ellipses here)” Nathan paused for a second, thinking of the best excuse possible. “They’re on vacation, skiing on Kentaurus. We should just go back to that hotel you claim you found for us to stay at.”

“Claim I found?” Cris countered grumpily. “I did find! The best hotel available, too. It’s by a lake.”

Nathan looked dubious, but he had no choice but to go along with them. It wasn’t as if he was going to offer letting(to let) them stay at his parents’ house.

One way or another Cris had found out about a resort at one of the planet’s pristine lakes and it wasn’t long before Nathan found himself standing in the lobby of the hotel and trying not to gawk. Cris hadn’t been lying after all. The place was obviously very expensive and he had almost asked the other two where they had gotten the money for it before deciding he was better of(I don’t think I need to correct this ) not knowing. After they settled into their rooms they went to wander about the grounds. It was a beautiful place, grass and trees everywhere and a wonderful view of the lake. There was even a stable full of Gredans. Derek of course(This, of course, has to be set off by commas) found these incredibly fascinating the moment he saw them. The Gredans were massive canines so tall their heads were higher than even Derek’s(comma) with a short(comma) curved horn in their foreheads that Derek discovered to be very sharp, much to his delight. They had thickly muscled bodies and long(comma) whip-like tails that could easily break his leg in half. Derek stood in front of a large black one, staring up at it in absolute and exquisite joy.

“I have an idea.” He grinned and Nathan very suddenly became apprehensive. Derek’s ideas were usually things that ended up being very dangerous. For everyone except him.

Cris looked up at the gredan, which was now licking his face with its massive tongue. “You can’t be serious.” He(serious,” he said) said as he wiped the slime off his cheek.

Obviously he knew what Derek was up to, and his incredulity was worrying Nathan. If Cris thought that Derek’s idea was crazy, there was definite cause for uneasiness.

“Come on, just trust me.(Comma, and it’s never good when they say that )” Derek said, throwing a saddle on the gredan’s back and cinching it up. A minute later he had swung into the saddle, towering over the other two and grinning with joy. Seeing him like that seemed to sway Cris’ opinion and he nodded slowly, pacing around the gredan.

“This could work.”

Nathan just looked at the two of them in confusion. “What could?”

The other two were not listening however, so Nathan gave up trying to communicate with them entirely. Eventually Cris wandered off to pester some unsuspecting group of tourist girls he had spotted in a nearby restaurant and left Derek to his own devices back at the stable with Nathan. Derek did not stay in the stable for long, and trotted(trotting) here and there,(no comma) and working out the particulars of the gredan while Nathan wandered aimlessly. He was walking back to Derek to convince him it was time for lunch when he saw someone riding towards him and stopped dead. It was the reporter he had seen on Antares. He had been thinking about her almost constantly since he had seen her at the party, hoping that he would be able to find her again and finally meet her. Nathan watched her come closer and wanted to stop her and talk to her. He started walking quickly towards her, hoping to intercept her before she got back to the stable. Unfortunately, Derek had also seen her, and had already ridden out to meet her, and(You could delete this and start a new sentence to even out the conjunction overload) even from a distance Nathan could tell she was smiling at him. Nathan(Use a different identifier—you just used this one in the last sentence) stopped in his tracks, feeling an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach as he watched them. It was some time before he could finally move from his position of shock and stop watching them ride away, his stomach having sunk to the level of his ankles. Nathan finally turned and walked slowly(Get rid of an adverb or two here!) back to the hotel(comma) too distracted to notice the small voice in the back of his mind, warning of what might happen should Derek find out who the woman really was and why she was so eager to meet him.


“So what are you doing here?” Derek asked the girl, whose name he had discovered to be Sera Lacrima. Derek didn't need to introduce himself. He found(he) never did anymore.

“I’m a nature photographer.(comma)” Sera replied as they rode along through the trees. “I came to try and get some pictures of the local wildlife. What about you?”

“I’m on leave.(comma)” Derek replied.

“How did you escape your public relations agents?” Sera laughed. “Shouldn’t you be on another fundraising tour?”

“I managed to escape my handlers for a while.” Derek laughed(They’re laughing too much!). “They can be pretty crafty, but I managed to give them the slip for a while.”

“Do you mind? All the publicity and the cameras and microphones shoved in your face all the time?”

“I don’t like it very much.(comma)” Derek admitted. “But, it’s what they want me to do so I do it.”

“Why?” Sera asked, ducking under a branch.

“Why what?”

“ Why do you always do what you’re told if you dislike it so much? Why did you join the military?”

Derek thought over the question for a minute, working out what to say.
“I guess I joined because it felt like the right thing to do. I would have been drafted anyway even if I didn’t. I might as well join of my own free will. Besides, I have to protect the kingdom just like everyone else. You can’t accomplish anything without making a few sacrifices. If it means sacrificing a little of my freedom to make the military happy, then so be it. In the end it just helps me protect what’s most important to me.”

Sera looked at him thoughtfully. She had to wonder what someone like him found most precious. When she asked him, he merely replied that they were things which were always worth fighting for, worth dieing(dying) for and should never be taken for granted. Any further attempts by Sera to decipher what he meant simply led to dead ends, Derek absolutely refusing to say what it was he held most dear. Asking about his family didn’t get her very far either. He simply had no idea who they were or if they even existed(comma) much less who he really was. He was a foundling, dropped on the doorstep of an orphanage, nameless and alone. As they talked, Sera discovered things about him she never would have found had he known she was a reporter. He was kind, sweet, and completely adorable in her opinion, and she was beginning to feel guiltier by the moment for deceiving him. When they finally arrived back at the stable, the sun was low in the sky and she couldn’t help but accept his offer to join him for dinner, dreading him finding(Makes it sound like an imminent thing. Switch it to that he might find out or something along those lines) out what she had done, but liking him despite herself.

For the remainder of their stay at the resort, Derek spent more and more time with Sera, not noticing how miserable it was making Nathan. Cris did notice, and(comma) once he discovered the source of Nathan’s discomfort, made it his mission to help him forget about Derek and Sara. He managed to accomplish it, though it was difficult, since it was impossible for him to discover why Nathan was so upset about Derek meeting Sera before him, since Derek’s relationship itself was not the problem, but that it had been Derek that had been the one to end up with Sera.(Whoa, whoa, whoa! A little too much here. Break this up into a sentence or two) Why that was so hurtful to Nathan,(Take this one outta there) Cris could never figure out, no matter how hard he tried. For some unfathomable reason, had anyone else ended up with Sera he would have found it much easier to move on, but Derek was an almost insurmountable barrier, and Nathan found it very hard to forgive him. Cris found it bewildering, and finally just decided to send Derek to talk to him.

“Are you certain you haven’t stolen his girlfriend before?”

Derek scowled. “For one thing, Sera was not his girlfriend so I couldn’t exactly steal her. Second, if he liked her he should have said something, and for another thing, I haven’t known the guy long enough to go around stealing his girlfriends.”

“Well you must have done something, because he’s acting like his best friend in the universe has betrayed him.(comma)” Cris replied.

Derek just frowned and kept walking. Once they reached Nathan’s room Derek stopped and knocked.

“You sure you haven’t stolen his girlfriend before?” Cris whispered.

Derek effectively told him to go jump in the lake and forbade Cris to come anywhere near the hotel while he and Nathan were talking. Clearly Derek was in a bad mood and Cris knew better than to argue, so he left and went down to the lake to jump in like he had been told. As he left, he saw Nathan’s door open, and Derek stepped in.

“Nathan, I need to talk to you.”

“Did Cris put you up to this? You can’t tell me you figured it out all by yourself.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, come on Derek, you would never have noticed. You’re so dense about things like this.”

“How would you know?” Derek sputtered. “I would have figured it out! Eventually…”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Derek glared at him for a few minutes, then gave up and started laughing. “Okay, you’re right. I never would have figured it out.” He and Nathan laughed it off for a while(Implies a longer amount of time—you have just a few moments or seconds in mind, right?), and then Derek turned serious again. “I am sorry though(comma) Nathan,(period) I had no idea you liked her. You should have told me.”

Nathan sat down heavily in an armchair. “I didn’t want to(comma) Derek. You would have just stepped back and let me date her instead. I couldn’t do that; I can see how much you like her.”

“You didn’t have to do that.(comma)” Derek mumbled. “It’s not like I like her that much.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Stop doing that.(comma)” Derek grumbled(Having too many synonyms for said as speech tags ain’t good, but when they start to rhyme... ye gods, dude ), flopping into another chair across from Nathan.

“Doing what, being right?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Fine, if it’ll make you feel better I’ll let you be right all the time from now on.”

“That would make me feel better, thank you.”

Nathan picked at the upholstery absently, watching Derek carefully.(Too many adverbs! Can’t... breathe!) “Derek, you know what Sera is?”

“Of course I know.” Derek replied, shrugging slightly(Ahh! Carbon dioxide is backing up in the system! Our air filters are out! We’re all going to die from adverbs!). “I knew the second I saw her.”

“And you’re dating her anyway? You hate reporters Derek. In fact you’re scared of them.”

“A fact that she and everyone else really don’t need to know.(comma)” Derek answered sourly. “And anyway, she’s nice, I like her.”

“You don’t think she’s doing all this just to get some information on you? You know how reporters are.”

“That’s probably what she’s doing, but what could she possibly get? None of the other reporters have managed to get any information on me I didn’t want them to. Sera won’t either, even if I do like her. Besides, there’s nothing to find.”

“Nothing?” Nathan raised an eyebrow incredulously.

Derek smirked. “Well, nothing they can find. No matter how pretty or charming the reporter is.”

More than an hour later, Cris had dutifully jumped in the lake multiple times and Derek was still talking to Nathan.(I love it when characters take things literally ) When they finally appeared by the lake it had been nearly two hours, and Cris displayed his wrinkled fingers accusingly to Derek and informed him of the four dozen times he had jumped into the lake. Derek simply rolled his eyes at Cris and walked off in search of something to eat. Cris never could get him to say what he and Nathan had talked about, but whatever it was it had apparently worked, because Derek and Nathan were back to being friends again afterward and remained so for the rest of the time that Cris knew them.

It turned out that Derek’s brilliant idea was to turn the gredans into a cavalry unit. Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well. They were easily trained for combat and consumed far less fuel than the usual military vehicles. The only thing left was to find suitable armor for them and their riders. Derek decided hand held(handheld) energy shields would be the best solution for the riders and so Cris and Nathan once again followed him, this time to a manufacturer on Alcor.

They found the manufacturer without much difficulty, in a large factory just outside the city limits of the capital. The foreman they were talking to was a nice enough man, and very helpful. Though Derek thought it was probably because he had scored an enormous military contract that would make him very rich for a very long time. The foreman was shorter than Derek, as most people were. He had dark skin, hair, and eyes that smiled. He also had very white sharp teeth that he showed every time he smiled(Careful of repeating yourself!), which was often. His fur covered legs ended in hooves instead of feet so his footsteps made more noise then(than) their boots as he walked across the hard floor. He wiped the grease from his hands on a cloth as dirty as his rough work shirt(work-shirt) and offered them a tour. He pointed at the various machines and completed shields in the factory, talking constantly as he picked up a datapad with his prehensile tail and handed it to Derek, his hands still busy pointing at things. But,(no comma) there was one problem: Derek couldn’t speak the language. He looked at the foreman in complete confusion the moment he started to talk rapidly in his own language, completely oblivious to Derek’s complete lack of understanding. To avoid problems(comma)Nathan, who did speak the language, decided to talk to the foreman and work things out while Cris stayed a distance behind them with Derek.

Derek looked around at the rumbling machines and flying sparks, only slightly interested. Then a large rodent caught his eye and in a flash Derek’s pistol was in his hand and he shot at it before it disappeared behind the machinery. Derek was intent on pursuing it, considering this the most entertaining thing that had happened all day. But Cris quickly grabbed his hand and took the blaster before he could do anything, hoping the foreman hadn’t seen anything(Argh! More repetition! Bad!).

“What are you doing?!” He(lowercase) hissed to Derek.

“I’m going to shoot the flying rat. I think there’s an infestation,” Derek said, looking slightly miffed over Cris stopping him.

Cris sighed with infinite patience and shook his head. “They may annoy you Derek, but is that really necessary? You’re going to hit something important and then the company will sue us. Try to restrain your destructive tendencies for a while would you?”

Clearly Derek thought it was completely necessary, and Cris was kept busy for the rest of the visit confiscating every weapon Derek possessed. By the time they left he had enough to arm a small militia(Sounds like me ). Derek simply scowled at him and muttered insults and nasty things under his breath the entire trip back to the hotel.

Their first opportunity to use the gredans was a month later, on Canopus. The hoverbikes were late arriving, and Derek’s regiment came to rely wholly on the gredans. It hadn’t taken much effort on Derek’s part to convince the military to let him create a regiment of cavalry once he showed them what the gredans were capable of. All that was left was to train the riders, and he had managed it pretty well. They set up their camp at the base of a narrow canyon with a river flowing to the right of them and steep cliffs on the left. The only way to attack them was a direct assault through the thick forest of trees in front of them, and the cliffs narrowed too much at the top for an aerial assault.

To protect their rear, Derek had ordered massive artillery pieces installed that had a great enough range to both protect their flank and their front position. He also decided to build a wall too, just to be certain. In all, it was an excellent position, and Derek was very satisfied with it. The soldiers dug a long trench from the cliffs to the river and piled stones in front of it high enough that nothing short of a hoverbike or a gredan could get over it. They had also dug steps into the inside walls of the trench to allow the soldiers inside to fire over the wall and climb out the top in either direction. Far behind the trench was the camp itself, made up of numerous temporary buildings and a fenced off area for the gredans. Once the base was established, they had but to sit and wait for the imperial assault.


Derek jogged around the base, making sure everything was to his liking,(no comma) and the defenses were(You might want to lose this, because you already have a form of “to be” there, and two in one sentence is a bit weird) secure. Reports had come in of imperial troop movements not far from their position and he suspected they did not have long before an attack. The small group of reporters that followed his regiment was there too, but he simply ignored them. One of these days one of them was going to get themselves(themself—it’s only one person!) killed, and he would probably be the one that got in trouble for it. For now, he had sent a message to them to stay where they couldn’t get themselves blown up and concerned himself with matters of greater importance. The gredans were saddled and their great plates of armor strapped on(Maybe a new sentence to avoid too many ands?) and their riders did last minute(last-minute) checks on their shields and the rest of their equipment. They were to be kept in reserve until Derek felt the moment was right to use them. He had made sure that the trench was constructed in such a way that the gredans would have no trouble jumping across them in both directions. Derek, Cris, and Nathan would be riding with them, and he couldn’t help but feel a little excited about it. The mock battles that they had done so far had proved the gredans to be an incredible asset. They had been trained to attack infantry and protect their riders as much as possible. Riding into battle on the back of something with claws, a sharp horn, and long teeth seemed like an awfully good way to do things.

The imperial attack was not long in coming. It looked as though an entire division, if not two(comma)had been sent to attack their position. The first wave hit the trench and the soldiers repelled it easily. Wave after wave of imperial troops assaulted the trench(This bit is too much like the last sentence—sounds odd. Switch it up), and their attack became fiercer with each attempt. It got to the point where Derek had to order the artillery to fire over the soldiers’ heads in order to drive the imperials back again. The reporters were dutifully recording the entire event on their holocams, a fact which Derek did his best to ignore though it annoyed him endlessly. He couldn’t stop them from doing it, but at least the parliament would censor out anything they didn’t like before the public saw any of it.

He watched the battle rage on from his position with the rest of the cavalry, waiting for the right moment. It had begun to rain, and the ground might soon become too soft for the cavalry to be of any help at all. At last Derek could wait no longer. He raised his hand and gave the signal to charge. The cavalry pounded across the turf to the trench, the artillery covering their charge. In one massive leap the gredans cleared the trench wall in a massive(Whoop! Redundancy alert!) wave and fell upon the imperials. Derek held his shield high, protecting himself as he fired again and again with his short rifle, Cris at his side. Nathan was farther down the line, leading his group of riders through the trees at breakneck speed, cutting down infantry as they went. The gredans did just what they had been trained to do, their powerful jaws,(no comma) and vicious horns tearing into the enemy troops despite the imperials’ armor. The ground underfoot quickly became trodden into mud and the rain continued to pound down on them as they surged forward. Derek went through two ammunition cartridges before he had to slow slightly to get more out of his pack. As he reached back an imperial attacked him from the side. Derek brought his shield up just in time to block the laser bolts and brought it crashing down on the soldier’s head, stunning him long enough for Derek to reload his rifle and finish him off. By the time the rain finally stopped,(no comma) the cavalry had wiped out most of the imperial troops and driven the rest far out of the canyon. Derek ordered them back to the base, his chest heaving, trying to catch his breath again.(That’s implied by his chest heaving)

He was nearly back to the trench again when he turned to talk to Cris and saw that he wasn’t there. Derek looked behind him, and all around, but there was no sign of his friend. He was so distracted he failed to notice Sera and the cameraman watching his every move. They had been recording the entire battle, but something about Derek had caught their attention and they were now watching him very closely. He turned this way and that, trying to find out where Cris had gone. The riders filed past him towards the trench, the medical teams going the opposite direction to look for the wounded. Suddenly Derek got a sickening feeling in his stomach and began to search the ground, terrified of what he might find. After a few minutes, he stopped and slid out of his saddle. He walked slowly to the familiar figure that lay on the churned up ground, sinking to his knees and turning the body onto its back. He thought he recognized it, but he hoped he was wrong. The soldier’s chest was mangled and bloodied from a well thrown detonator, making it impossible to read the name on their(his or the) chest plate. Derek pushed the body onto its side and wiped the mud from the man’s helmet. He pulled it up to look at the neck and choked back a sob. He had found Cris. On the back of every soldier’s neck and left arm was tattooed their identification number in case something like this happened. Derek made a point of memorizing his friends’ numbers just in case.

He picked up his dead friend, glad that no one would see the tears that Derek(Makes it sound like it’s talking of someone else, not him) could no longer hold back. He carried Cris in his arms to where the gredan was waiting patiently. Very gently he laid his friend over the saddle, his arms hanging limply over the other side. Then, Derek took the gredan by the reins, slowly walking back to the base with Cris’ lifeless form.(Four adverbs in these two sentences—cut down a bit!) Sera watched him go past without noticing her, holding back her own tears as Derek lifted Cris’ body off the gredan’s back and laid it on a stretcher. There was a growing row or(of) stretchers just like it laid out as the medical teams brought back the casualties. One by one they were carried away to be put in temporary coffins and sent home to their families. Derek simply stood by his mount, watching his best friend be carried away. When the medics were gone he dropped his shield on the ground along with his helmet and walked off, oblivious to everything around him.

Derek didn’t take long to pull himself together enough to assess the situation. He was a soldier and an officer after all, and he could not allow himself to be bogged down by his grief. He looked over the initial reports, noting that the number of casualties was lower than he had expected. That cheered him up slightly, but not very much. After he finished with the reports, he handed them back to the sergeant and shook his hair a bit, trying to get it dry.

“Could you find Lieutenant Arcturus for me please? I need to organize an officers(officers’) meeting.”

The sergeant took the reports, shaking his head. “Lieutenant Arcturus is still unaccounted for sir.”

Derek froze. “He what?”

“There has been no sign of him sir; we haven’t been able to locate him.”

Derek turned and bolted back to his gredan, swinging into the saddle and ignoring the shouts of the soldier. He jerked on the reins, turning the gredan back towards the trench and galloping over it into the battlefield beyond. His head snapped back and forth as he searched the ground for Nathan, a growing feeling of fear growing(It’s already growing once J) in his chest. Fear that he would find Nathan as he had found Cris. He rode father(farther) and farther into the canyon until he reached the edge. He leapt out of the saddle, running back and forth between the rocks, searching the bodies he found there. At last he found what he was looking for. Nathan lay hidden behind a large boulder, motionless and covered in blood. Derek dropped down at his side, searching for a pulse. After a few moments he found one and released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He grabbed his small med kit from his saddle bag and started bandaging Nathan. Had he kept his helmet he would have heard the message that the imperials were coming again. But he didn’t(I think hadn’t would be better here, saying he hadn’t kept his helmet rather than he didn’t hear the message)
.
He bandaged Nathan as best he could and carried him back to the gredan, lifting him into the saddle. Derek then swung into the saddle himself and turned back towards the base. As he did, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck and he looked over his shoulder to see half a regiment of soldiers on hoverbikes coming his way. Eyes wide, Derek dug his heels into the gredan, spurning(spurring) it into a gallop back through the trees. He kept looking back at the troops, who were gaining on them at a frightening pace. He held tight to Nathan’s unconscious form, dodging back and forth between the trees, trying to keep the soldiers from getting a clear shot at him. Unfortunately, they came very close. A laser bolt tore through his left shoulder and another grazed his right side. Derek pushed the gredan even faster, the trench finally coming back into sight. He rode as fast as he could, his shoulder and side pounding with pain as the blood flowed all over his uniform, still glancing back frequently at the bikers. His own troops had seen him, and were waving frantically at him to get over the wall. Just ahead of the imperials, Derek jumped the wall, landing safely on the other side, and the soldiers in the trench sprang up to fire at the imperials. The royals shocked the imperials so much they wiped out half of them(Seems very sudden—they just shocked them so much that they wiped out half? What about a hail of fire? A withering crossfire? Something that explains how they wiped out the troops aside from shock value?) before they could regroup and get under cover.

Derek lowered Nathan carefully from his saddle to the stretcher the medical team had run over with and nearly fell out of the saddle himself(Just say off to avoid the repetition of “saddle”). He sank painfully onto another stretcher, finally breathing a sigh of relief. The medical team carried him away to the temporary hospital while Sera and her cameraman watched him with amazement, having caught everything again. Her shock changed very quickly(Comma, and, to what did her shock change?)however, as the stretcher was set down in front of them, and Derek looked up at her.

(you can join this dialogue to the previous paragraph—and his line is awesome )“Here photographing the wildlife are you?”

Sera just stared at him, at a loss for words.

Mostly, it’s those persistent commas and those darn hyphenated words that keep tripping you up. You’re overall a good writer—what’s left to work on is mostly just your instinct on sentence-building. Unfortunately, there’s no real technique to work on that, save for paying attention to what works and what sounds good and what your editors comment on. It’s a matter of experience, I think, and you’ll acquire it given time and some self-editing. Try looking over your old work and editing it. If it’s been sitting away long enough, you’ll probably see the errors in it much more quickly, note where the sentences hang up, and rewrite them so they sound good. That’s as good practice as any, and you’ll know what to avoid in your current work! Also to watch out for are those pesky adverbs, which you have a tendency to abuse at times, and issues with redundantly repeating things that have already been said before previously. As this is a novel excerpt, I can’t critique characters or story very well, because I don’t know much about either, but I can say that when it counts, you have the setting in place. Generally I couldn’t picture where they were all that well—nor was it really important—but when the battle came around I could get a good image of exactly how and where they were moving. One thing about characters, though, I couldn’t get a real handle on any of them, like there was a main character(s) whose thoughts I was privy too, who I was supposed to be rooting for and following. Maybe it’s more prominent in other chapters, but I couldn’t get close to any of the trio.

[PopRocks]

Thanks for the help Winterbite I've edited it, tried to lessen the abuse of the poor adverbs.
With this chapter it wasn't as important to focus on one of the trio individually, the other chapters do that.

[Kent]

Good story development here, but extraneous detail and unnecessary description get in the way.

Here's a quick edit to give some idea how you could tighten up the flow:

It never ceased to amaze Nathan what Derek managed to get away with. Somehow he managed to break whatever rules he considered to be inconvenient. But he never gets punished, much less caught. Even if he was caught, Colonel Ursus’s influence [with the military] would probably get him out of [whatever] trouble [he might get into]. His most recent exploit was [somehow] procuring leave for himself, Nathan, and Derek’s best friend, Captain Cris Regor. Nathan suspected that whatever Derek did, it had originally been Cris’[s] idea. He merely pushed Derek in the right direction to initiate [whatever particular] his plan [he had for entertaining themselves that week]. But Derek [finding a way to] getting them all leave [passes] when they were about to be shipped out to Canopus [for a major offensive within a month,] - that defied the impossible. Nathan was beginning to appreciate just how much influence Derek really had.

alteration
[deletion]

[PopRocks]

thanks for the help, I'll look it over