Anu allowed his eyes and ears to take in the information, while his mind wandered somewhere else. It was always the same. Behind every disintegrating blip on that screen always lay a cascading avalanche of molten steel, chemical fumes, and human flesh. Behind the eyes of the officer up front was a mind that had slowly hardened against the onslaught of loss and fiery death. And most importantly, behind his own mind was hate - pure, unaldulterated, hellish hate - for the fucking lizard-people that had so willingly sent more than a hundred men to their deaths. Anu wanted to reach out and crush that little hologram, feel the muffled screams of the lizard-men in their lizard-crafts smothered in his own gloved fists. He wanted them to [i]die[/i]. He wanted them off the face of existence. He wanted to [i]kill[/i]. He wanted [i]blood[/i]. And no man was going to stop him save God himself.

He tensed on his seat for a while, and then forced himself to ease off. He had seen this a thousand times, and it was not going to change anything. Better he focus his rage in the cockpit, where a single push of a button could release a million Terran credits of scorching death in seconds. Oh, how he loved his ship, how he loved that it could burn and kill with such ease! For this he loved what he did, if it involved murdering murderers; if it involved killing the killers. He let the images of flaming metal carcasses hurling through the deep expanse of space slowly float out of his mind, as his crew assignment flashed on his datapad.

Moe Williamson. An apparently respected, loyal officer, who had been with the Direwolves for quite a while. Though the older he was, the more stubborn and entrenched in his old ways he would more likely be. He grimaced and shook it off. Whatever it was, in the battlefield Anu was master of all. No old man would deny him the blood he deserved.  

Thomas Sanders. Cheerful fellow he had seen joking in the hallway a few minutes earlier, though it was obvious he had never seen combat. Anu sighed. He would learn. And when he did, it wasn't going to be pretty.

Severin Renault. Weird android-thing he had seen floating around on deck a few times. However, he liked AI. They always felt the hate directed against them, the prejudice and ignorance, and that made them stronger, faster, more willing to think critically. Oh well - the action would soon prove itself.

"Sanders!"

"Lieutenant!" Sanders floated towards him with a great beefy smile and a flightily blonde patch of hair, assuming the standard Academy salute. "I'm Ensign Thomas Sanders, sir, graduated top of my class in the Orion academy, twenty-seven simulated kills-"

[i]"Simulated?"[/i]

The ensign was taken aback. "Yes, sir, why do you as-"

Anu bid him silent with a wave of his hand. "You think all those simulations will save you in battle, ensign?"

"W-well, t-they'd certainly help, wouldn't they, si-"

"You think those blips on a screen will have the hate your enemies have for you? Do you think those blips are truly dedicated to killing you?"

"N-no, sir."

"Good." Anu smiled. "You have learnt your first lesson." 

His eyes shifted around the room. 

"Bring me Commander Williamson and Renault."