“Children,” the uniformed officer in the room said dismissively. When no one stopped their milling or chatter, he started again, voice filled with the boom of command. “Children, listen the fuck up. You are all here because you want a shot at getting a class in the Pax Defense Forces.”

  He paused as some of the people in the room cheered while others looked nervous. He was speaking to a room filled to the brim with bright-eyed youth—Pax citizens, most of whom had just entered adulthood. The time when they could choose to become part of the system and help defend humanity.

  Jace was one of the many packed tightly into the lobby. He gave his own hooah before he let his eyes roam over the massive projection on the screen. Everyone’s name was up there. There were hundreds of new recruits listed. They were all about to go through their pre-trial screening. Even though he had been crammed into the room for over an hour, he had only recently laid eyes on his name.

  [Neural System Interface]

  User ID: JACE // CALDER // JACE

  Age: 18

  [Primary Vector: Unassigned]

  [Available Classes: Ground Commander (Recommended: Legacy Affinity 89%) | Ground Vector-89% | Fleet Vector-11%]

  [Hybridization Note: Locked—Pax Directive: Single Path Protocol]

  [Mote Load: Minimal—Initialization Phase Active]

  His father was a ground commander, his grandfather had been a ground commander before retirement. He was one of only a few that he could spot who had a legacy class. The Jace name had been tied to the ground commander class since the Architects first introduced humanity to the system. It was no coincidence that his legacy affinity matched his ground vector perfectly. In the system you could only have one class, either ground or fleet, never both.

  The gravelly booming voice of the officer at the front of the room drew both his eyes and attention back to him. “These pre-trial screenings are twofold. First, they are for the Pax. By figuring out what you lot are capable of before your trials, they get an idea of what to expect from future cohorts. Second, they give you all a chance to show off. Undoubtedly, if you make it into the DF, you will run into some of the cadre running the screenings here. Will you be remembered as the kid who could shoot even before injection and classing, or the kid who couldn’t even tie his shoes without the help of a skill?”

  The group let out a collective nervous chuckle at the joke. Everyone was on edge. Some, like Jace, had been destined for such trials; others were the first in their line to commit to helping the greater good. The latter didn’t have the benefit of having family that had already undergone the process. To them, everything that happened after entering the massive double doors was a mystery unfolding before their eyes.

  The speaker’s eyes drifted to the back corner of the room before he continued. Jace followed them until they landed on a thin black-haired woman, cuffed to the bench, guard standing over her shoulder. “Most of you won’t have what it takes to even progress to the trial phase. That means that you get to go back to your families to live a life supporting humanity in a different way. If you find yourselves being escorted out of the facility, don’t give up hope. The trials can be attempted three times for most.” His voice lowered and his eyes hardened as he stared at the woman. “For others, this is your only chance to make a difference. Fail here and you will find yourself in a work camp, or worse, recycled.”

  The officer stomped his boot twice and a mob of his fellow cadre flowed like water into the room. They immediately began sorting the candidates into groups based on the color of the armband they were given upon entry. Jace’s was red, the color of combatant-focused candidates. After being dropped off by his father in an armored personnel carrier—borrowed from his command section—the entry clerk didn’t even have to ask him what he wanted to focus on. She knew to hand him a red armband before ushering him into the waiting area.

  As he was being herded toward one of the side doors with the others who had chosen combat, he searched the crowd for people he might know. He had several buddies who were looking to sign up with him; sadly, they didn’t get to choose which intake station they went to. Out of the hundred or so grouped with him, he recognized only one: one of his teammates on his high-school slamball team.

  The group was led to a side compound of the facility, far from the trial chamber. The farther they moved, the more military-industrial the space became. Gone were the pleasantries like seats or windows. Coming to the first of many rooms, the cadre leading the group motioned for all of them to stop.

  “These will assess your natural abilities with the weapons that many of the ground classes utilize. You will not be assisted at any point to prevent your skills from being artificially inflated. For every skill that can be tested, you will be given a score of zero—no proficiency—to five—post-training proficiency. Are there any questions?”

  Answered by silence, he motioned for the first ten individuals to enter the door. Moving down the corridor, he split the recruits off, ten at each station. Jace was in the first group. As he entered the room, he found it lined with boxes of weapons parts. Looking down the length of the room, he found ten targets standing at different intervals. As the door closed behind them, another tester started a clock and watched them silently.

  Knowing what he was supposed to do, he raced to the nearest box. Looking down, he found it filled with rifle parts, all of them familiar after the years of training he had undergone with his father and grandfather. Dumping it out, he arranged all the pieces of the rail rifle according to size. As much as he wanted to just dig in, his grandfather’s advice held him back: Make sure you know what you’re working with before stepping in it.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Tiny retention pins piled to his left, the items growing larger as he worked his way to the right, until he ran out of pieces with the buttstock. Grabbing it, he fitted it with the multi-barrel array. Acting on muscle memory alone, he reached to his left and grabbed a retention pin to secure it. He had rebuilt weapons so many times that he didn’t even have to think as he worked.

  Nearing the end of the assembly, he ran into his first snag. He didn’t even know how he missed it when he was organizing everything. The charging capacitors he was trying to slot into place didn’t match the platform he was building. In one hand he was holding the mostly complete standard-issue Pax Liberator V2; in the other he was holding pistol capacitors.

  He nearly froze up at the oversight. Quickly looking around, he found a recruit building the pistol that would require the capacitors. Shaking his head, he was willing to bet anything that the man was in possession of capacitors that would fit his rifle. Without asking permission or telling anyone he was moving, he stepped back from the firing line and headed straight for the firing position. As he got closer, he spotted exactly what he was looking for: a set of much larger capacitors.

  “They mixed up some of the pieces in the boxes,” he said as he tossed the man the capacitors, scooping up the ones he needed as soon as his hand was empty. “Thanks.”

  The man was clearly struggling with his own assembly, not likely to have even made the connection if Jace hadn’t said anything. Back at his own station, he fitted the capacitors and did a functions check on the weapon. The bolt slid smoothly, releasing one projectile for every trigger squeeze. Switching the rifle to auto-fire, he watched as the bolt continuously cycled until he released the trigger. Everything was as it should be.

  As soon as he set the rifle down, he turned to find the instructor pointing him toward an absolute heap of magazines and rounds. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, he thought. The idea of having to rummage through hundreds of pounds of munitions to find what he was looking for was both nuisance and challenge. As disappointed as he was, he was equal parts excited for the challenge. Before he even started moving toward the mess, he spotted three of his magazines, their ends barely popping out from beneath the pile.

  Those were his first stop. Just as he had grabbed them, another of the recruits ran up to his side. Without a word, he began furiously digging through the pile of munitions. Rounds and explosives flew in every direction, no doubt making it harder for the others to complete the task. As Jace worked through the mess, loading a round every time he found one, he cut his eyes toward the man next to him.

  He was frantic, desperate to find his munitions and complete his task first. The instructors hadn’t said anything about this being a timed event, but the pressure sure made it feel like it was. Just as he was about to get consumed by the man’s panic, Jace took a steadying breath. Slow is steady, steady is fast. His grandfather’s words immediately calmed him. All he had to do was find twelve more tungsten projectiles.

  Several more had their weapons assembled and were digging through the pile by the time he found his last round. Seating it in the magazine, he gathered up what he had come for and returned to his firing line. The instructor’s eyes never left him. Knowing that pausing would be a mistake, he picked up the Liberator and seated the first magazine. As soon as he did, one of the targets in front of him lit up.

  Breath, pause, squeeze.

  The target shook as the supersonic round slammed center mass. The lights on it went off as it folded backward. Fifty meters farther down, another pair of targets lit up. Repeating the process, Jace took his time to ensure every round was a hit. Each took two before they too fell.

  “Hey, does anyone have a piece that fits this?” he heard someone ask from behind him.

  With his dialed-in focus, they might as well have been on another planet. It wasn’t his problem. The targets in front of him were. Another grouping lit up, these moving side to side. With a quick glance to his left and right to ensure it was safe to engage, he put them down. The rest of the group was catching up; weapons were being fired all along the length of the firing line. At least one voice was still in the back, desperate to find the missing piece to his weapon.

  Then it happened. The man had spotted what he was looking for, three positions down from Jace’s. Without thinking, he stepped in front of the men who were engaging. It was a mistake that he wouldn’t live to regret. Seeing it play out in slow motion, Jace safed his weapon and tried to say something—anything—to get the man to stop. His words came too late. Just as the man started toward the prodigal piece of his weapon, another recruit, unaware of him, fired. The medium-velocity flechette shell caught him in the shoulder, torso, and head.

  Warm sticky blood sprayed everywhere, including in Jace’s open mouth. He wiped it from his eyes as he screamed for everyone to cease fire. The man in front of the line needed medical aid. The instructor holding the clock slowly stood up. “Disregard. Continue the screening process.”

  There was a disgusting lack of caring in the man’s voice. Something that Jace couldn’t tolerate. Slinging his weapon, he stepped back behind the other recruits who had listened to the orders. Dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled forward of the line, grabbed the man by what was left of his collar, and dragged him to relative safety. Heaving for air—not from exertion but from the situation—Jace found a set of boots standing right by his head. Looking up, he followed perfectly pressed pants to a perfectly pressed blouse. Finally, he met uncaring eyes.

  “I said continue.”

  Jace wanted to protest. These men, although not friends, could be his comrades someday. How could he just sit back and let one bleed out on the floor of a screening room? A boot connected with his ribs as he moved to start first aid.

  “He is dead. Do you know how I know that?” The instructor pointed downrange toward a gruesome clump of flesh. “I’ll tell you. Because most of his head is over there. Now get back to work.”

  Jace wanted to say something—bitch about how unfair it was, about how safety should be paramount—but he couldn’t. It was a dumb mistake that got the man killed. A mistake that could drag others with him in live combat. Numb, he stood back up and took his place at his firing station. He only had one magazine left. Sixteen more rounds and he could be done with the test.

  He didn’t even feel the time slip by. Before he knew it, the remaining candidates were standing in a semicircle around the instructor, all but one. Weapons had been left at their stations, where more cadre were breaking them down for the next group to come through. Two had hooked the remains of the fallen recruit under what remained of his arms and dragged him out, while two more started sanitizing the floor.

  “Williams, Benny, three weapons maintenance, one munitions, three rifle expertise…”

  Jace stood solemnly as the instructor read off everyone’s results. Their interfaces updated in real time, filling in as the man spoke.

  “Jace, Calder, four weapons maintenance, four munitions, five rifle expertise, four situational awareness, one command.”

  After what felt like forever, he came to the end of the list, the fallen recruit. “Billings, Matt, zero weapons maintenance, zero munitions, zero rifle expertise, and most notably zero situational awareness.”

  The statement was so callous. The man was dead; there was no need to further degrade him by stating he was useless.

  What the fuck have I gotten myself into?