Reveille hit like a fist.
The lights in the barracks snapped from dim to bright, the overhead strips flaring white. A half-second later the horn blared through the ceiling speakers, that same three-note sequence Kaden had heard every morning for almost two years.
He was already awake.
He lay on his bunk and watched the light crawl across the underside of the one above him. The sounds came in layers: groans, curses, the thump of boots hitting the deck, locker doors banging open.
“Move it, cadets!” someone yelled from the corridor. “You’re not on compassionate leave, you’re on schedule!”
Kaden swung his legs over the side and sat up. The air smelled like sweat, fabric, metal. Familiar. Safe, in a way that made his skin itch.
Navarro was stuffing her feet into her boots across the aisle, hair a wreck, eyes puffy.
“You look like shit,” she said.
“Morning to you too,” Kaden said.
“Sleep?” she asked, tying laces.
“Some,” he said. “You?”
“Didn’t dream,” Navarro said. “Call it a win.”
Jensen’s bunk was already stripped. The mattress bare, the locker closed and untagged. Just a gap in the pattern, where there used to be noise.
Navarro’s gaze flicked that way, then away. She didn’t comment. Neither did he.
“Squad Alpha and Bravo to the range,” a voice blasted from the corridor. “Charlie squad to sim pod block C. Delta squad to PT. If you don’t know your letter by now, congratulations, you’re the problem.”
Kaden blinked his HUD awake with a thought. The Academy node answered fast, the link tight and clear.
[SCHEDULE – DAY 132, TERM 2]
0600 – PT (CANCELLED)
0700 – BREAKFAST
0800 – RIFLEMAN TACTICS 2 (PENDING)
0900 – SIM RANGE BLOCK C (PENDING)
The “pending” entries pulsed amber.
[NOTICE: TRAINING ASSIGNMENTS SUBJECT TO CHANGE]
Fatalities did that. Somewhere in Admin, a local Aurora node was busy shuffling bodies and pretending they weren’t also names.
He swung down from the bunk, landing barefoot on the cold deck. His joints complained. Aurora logged it.
[FATIGUE: MODERATE]
He dismissed the notification and got dressed. Undersuit, socks, boots, cadet fatigues. Shirt tucked, collar straight, wrist cinch tight. His hands knew the sequence even when his head was elsewhere.
Navarro shut her locker with more force than it needed.
“You got psych again today?” she asked.
“Had it last night,” Kaden said.
“And?”
“I’m not crazy enough to bench,” he said. “Apparently.”
Navarro snorted. “Their standards are slipping.”
A couple of cadets nearby glanced over, then away. Nobody wanted to linger on the incident longer than they had to. The Academy moved fast around holes. Fill the space, patch the schedule, keep the machine running.
Kaden sealed his cuffs. The words he needed sat like a stone in his throat for a moment.
“I’ve got to hit Admin after breakfast,” he said.
“Why?” Navarro asked.
He could have told her it was follow-up paperwork. Could have dodged. Instead he made himself look at her.
“I’m filing a track change,” he said. “Rifleman to Combat Medic.”
Navarro froze halfway through tying her boot.
“You’re serious,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Kaden, you hate blood,” Navarro said.
“I hate not knowing what I’m doing while someone bleeds more,” he said.
She stared at him for a second. The joke she might have made a week ago didn’t show up.
“You’re still an idiot,” she said finally.
“Probably,” he said.
She sighed and shook her head. “Just don’t die doing something noble and stupid. It’ll ruin my day.”
“I’ll keep your schedule in mind,” Kaden said.
They filed out with the others, boots clanging on metal. The corridor outside was jammed, cadets merging from multiple barracks into the main flow. Aurora’s local node threw tags over doors and junctions, traffic routing painted as faint lines in everyone’s HUDs.
He followed the stream to the mess. Breakfast was protein bricks, grains, something pretending to be eggs. He chewed, swallowed, barely tasted anything. Navarro sat across from him. Nobody mentioned Jensen. Nobody mentioned the turret.
Aurora kept politely highlighting his “pending” classes in the corner of his vision. He ignored that too.
When the mess released them, the majority of the crowd peeled toward the training halls. Kaden cut across the flow, following a thin blue line that sprang up in his HUD the second he thought of Admin.
The Academy’s node infrastructure did the rest.
[ROUTE: ADMINISTRATION NODE 3 – TRAINING / ASSIGNMENTS]
ESTIMATED TIME: 04 MINUTES
The route glowed faintly along the floor and up walls: door frames outlined, corners tagged, subtle arrows at junctions. In here, Aurora held your hand if you let it.
He wondered what it would feel like when there was nothing but the implant in his neck and whatever the System could do from inside bone.
Admin Node 3 looked like every other bureaucratic box the Academy had grown around its core: functional and worn. Rows of desks with holo-terminals. Light panels humming. A line of cadets along a strip painted on the deck.
A petty officer behind the main counter was working through them with the kind of exhausted efficiency that suggested she’d been doing it since before Aurora had a name.
“Medical deferment denied. Next.”
“Appeals are Command, not here. Next.”
“Your transfer is pending. You’ll get a ping when someone important cares. Next.”
Kaden took his place at the end of the line. Aurora, eager as ever inside the node, offered help he hadn’t asked for.
[QUEUE: 7 AHEAD]
[ESTIMATED WAIT: 06 MINUTES]
He closed the panel. He’d wait as long as it took.
When his turn came, the petty officer didn’t look up.
“ID,” she said.
Kaden stepped forward and pushed his credentials across the local link.
[ID TRANSMIT – MERCER, KADEN]
Her holo flared with his file. Name, tier, conscription date, class, current stats, psych clears, incident flags.
“Mercer,” she said. “Rifleman track. Level two. Incident participation.” Her eyes lifted at that. “Busy week.”
“Yes, Petty Officer,” Kaden said.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Make it quick.”
“I want to file for a track change,” he said. “Rifleman to Combat Medic.”
That broke her rhythm. She leaned back a fraction, taking him in properly for the first time.
“You and every other cadet with a conscience,” she muttered. “Turret pops and suddenly half the cohort wants red crosses on their file.”
“I don’t want the cross,” Kaden said. “I want the training.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Aurora, pull current stat profile.”
His HUD flickered in sync with hers. Node-side Aurora grabbed his data and mirrored it back at him.
[STATUS – MERCER, KADEN]
LEVEL: 2
CLASS: RIFLEMAN CADET
PHY: 6
AGI: 4
COG: 7
RES: 6
AP: 5
The RES still looked wrong. Like a scribble added in the margin after the fact.
The petty officer’s mouth twitched.
“Not bad,” she said. “Stronger than baseline, not slow, seven in cognition… and look at that, stress resistance bumped to six. When did that happen?”
“Yesterday,” Kaden said.
“Psych day,” she said. “Figures.”
She flicked a few commands. Another window opened, mirrored to his HUD in ghost form.
[CLASS REQUIREMENTS – COMBAT MEDIC CADET]
MIN COG: 6
MIN RES: 6
MIN AP: 5
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
PHY: 5+ RECOMMENDED
“Well, you clear the minimums,” she said. “Cognition, RES, AP… physical isn’t a problem. On paper, you’re the right shape.”
“On paper,” Kaden said.
She nodded. “Problem is, paper isn’t breathable. We don’t like shuffling people off Rifleman this late. Screws squad cohesion. Makes training officers cry. But Command’s jumpy after that turret glitch. They flagged medic throughput as a priority.”
She eyed him.
“You understand what you’re asking for?” she said. “You’ll still carry a rifle. You’ll still breach trains and sims. But when someone’s screaming and leaking out on the deck, you don’t get to look away. You go in, or they die. Maybe they die anyway.”
“I know,” Kaden said.
“Do you?” she said. “We get kids in here who think Combat Medic means they’ll get a glow around their hands and a guaranteed save rate. Those ones break fast.”
“I don’t think I can save everyone,” Kaden said. “I just don’t want the next one under my hands to die because I had nothing except sealant and bad guesses.”
She watched him for another beat, then jerked her chin.
“All right, Mercer,” she said. “Aurora, log training track change request. Rifleman to Combat Medic, priority incident-related. Route to Training Command.”
[REQUEST RECEIVED]
A spinning icon appeared in his HUD. Not the implant this time. The node itself thinking, passing his request up a chain he’d never see.
The petty officer drummed her fingers. The holo flickered through internal approval hops.
[ROUTING: TRAINING COMMAND]
[ROUTING: MEDICAL TRAINING OVERSIGHT]
Then:
[REQUEST APPROVED]
[CLASS UPDATED: RIFLEMAN CADET → COMBAT MEDIC CADET]
His HUD flashed. The class line next to his name rewrote itself.
CLASS: COMBAT MEDIC CADET
New icons slotted in, pulled from some standard medic curriculum.
[FIELD MEDICINE – INTRO]
[TRAUMA RESPONSE – LEVEL 1]
[STATUS: 12% COMPLETE]
The petty officer snorted.
“Congratulations,” she said. “You’re a walking bandage now.”
“I’m pretty sure that comes later,” Kaden said.
“Trust me,” she said. “You’ll feel like one soon enough.”
She tapped through more admin screens.
“Rifleman classes are scrubbed,” she said. “You’re on Medic Track from now on. Today: Medical Training Annex Two at 0900. Theory, then lab. Your sim squad assignment is suspended until the brass decides where to plug you back in.”
“Navarro?” Kaden asked, before he could stop himself.
“Stays Rifleman,” the petty officer said. “Her schedule’s her business, not yours. Anything else?”
He tasted a dozen questions and swallowed them.
“No, Petty Officer,” he said.
“Then get out of my line,” she said. “Next.”
He stepped away as another cadet moved up. The door hissed open when he approached, reacting not just to his presence but to the node’s awareness of his intent. Out here, Aurora wanted to smooth every edge.
[ROUTE: MEDICAL TRAINING ANNEX 2]
REPORT TIME: 0855
CURRENT TIME: 0831
Plenty of time. Not enough, really.
He followed the glowing route lines through the Academy. The node lit the way, tagging junctions, painting doors, updating timers. It felt like having a hand on the back of his neck, steering.
He wondered again how much of that would still be there when all he had was the implant in his spine and whatever Aurora could scrape from the local area of dead metal and hostile hull.
Medical Training Annex Two squatted off a main corridor, its door outlined in soft blue in his HUD.
[MEDICAL TRAINING ANNEX 2]
Inside, the air was colder, scrubbed sharper. Cleaners and disinfectant tried to smother less pleasant smells that had seeped into the walls over years of training.
A small knot of cadets waited outside a door marked CLASSROOM 2-03. Aurora tagged them automatically.
[COMBAT MEDIC CADET – LEVEL 2]
[CLASS CHANGE: RECENT]
[ROLE ORIGIN: RIFLEMAN / SUPPORT / TECH]
He caught flashes off their tags when he glanced their way. Rifleman stripe. Support stripe. One Tech. All with a small red-cross icon flickering beside their names now.
He stepped in beside them. A cadet with a Support stripe and a tired face gave him a once-over.
“Mercer, right?” he said. “Support wash-out here. Name’s Myles.”
“Mercer,” Kaden confirmed. “Rifleman.”
“At least you could probably pass a push-up test,” Myles said. “I got here because I can’t keep numbers straight in Logistics but apparently don’t puke at blood.”
“Useful skill,” Kaden said.
“Medic said that too,” Myles said.
The door cycled open.
“Inside, cadets,” a voice called. “If you’re going to be late, do it to your own funeral.”
They filed in. The classroom was smaller than the main lecture halls, built for maybe twenty. Displays lined the walls. A holo tank sat in the center, currently dark. Benches tiered up around it.
An officer in medic whites leaned against the front desk. Hair cropped close, face scored with old lines. Rank pins: lieutenant.
Corin.
Of course.
“Find a seat,” Corin said. “Aurora’s taking attendance. I don’t care what chairs your asses end up on as long as your brains are switched on.”
Kaden sat in the second row. Corin’s eyes swept the room, pausing half a beat when they landed on him. If she recognized him from the med annex yesterday, she didn’t show it beyond that tiny hitch.
“All right,” she said. “Because Training Command couldn’t be bothered to give me a proper window to onboard you, we’re skipping the inspirational speeches. You are here because your numbers fit and somebody in the chain thought you might not run the other way when someone screams.”
A few cadets shifted, nervous laughter dying before it could gather.
“Let me adjust your expectations,” Corin said. “You are not healers. You are not miracle workers. You are not special children of Aurora. The System does not care about your feelings. It cares about outcomes. It will log your successes and your failures, weight them, and spit out numbers that decide if it trusts you with more tools or takes some away.”
She tapped the desk. The holo tank woke, projecting a generic armored marine in the air. The armor was rendered half-transparent, vital organs and main vessels highlighted beneath.
HP and vitals floated beside the model.
HP: 100%
BP: 118/79
HR: 74
O2 SAT: 99%
“This is what you’re used to in the sim range,” Corin said. “Healthy, upright targets, neat numbers, clean backgrounds. Local node feeding you every line of data it can.”
She snapped her fingers.
The holo marine jerked as if hit. A red spray flared from his side. HP started to drop. Warnings crowded the projection, fed by the classroom node.
HP: 82%
76%
69%
[BLEEDING: SEVERE]
[POSSIBLE INTERNAL DAMAGE]
Kaden’s chest tightened. For a heartbeat, the holo warped in his vision. Jensen’s outline tried to fold over it, guts and armor and that stupid half-grin.
“In this room, Aurora will paint you a pretty picture,” Corin said. “Local nodes are rich. You’ll get full vitals, projections, overlays. Enjoy it. Memorize as much as you can. Because once you’re out there on a breach with only the chip in your neck and whatever signal it can cling to, you will not get this.”
She pointed at the crowded bars.
“You will get this,” she said. The projection stripped down in an instant. All the extra data vanished. What remained was brutally simple.
HP: 69%
STATUS: BLEEDING
AP: 5/5
“That’s implant-level,” Corin said. “That’s what the System can push to you when you’re boarding some hostile bastard’s ship in Andromeda with no friendly nodes in range. It’ll track your HP, your AP, maybe a simple flag on your squad if you’re lucky. No route lines. No helpful highlight on the ‘press here to stop the bleeding’ spot.”
She let that sink in.
“In here,” she said, “we use the full node assist to teach you the principles. Out there, you do it mostly from memory and muscle. So. Today we start making the memories.”
The holo split into side panels: flowcharts, bullet points, diagrams of wound patterns.
[MODULE: TRAUMA RESPONSE – LEVEL 1]
— SCENE SAFETY
— PRIMARY SURVEY (AIRWAY/BREATHING/CIRCULATION)
— HEMORRHAGE CONTROL
— STABILIZATION / EVAC PREP
Aurora in the node chimed in Kaden’s HUD.
[TRAUMA RESPONSE – LEVEL 1]
[PROGRESS: 12% → 13%]
He listened. He took notes. Corin walked them through the sequence: check the scene, check the airway, check the breathing, check the blood, stop the biggest leak first. Anchor steps for when the HP bar was falling and the world narrowed.
It felt clinical and raw at the same time. Less like “how to fix a wound” and more like “how to think in the middle of a disaster.”
Two hours later his head throbbed.
“Break,” Corin said. “Fifteen minutes. Then Lab Two-A. Aurora will point the way. If you get lost, that’s on you.”
The room emptied in a rush. Cadets spilled into the corridor, clustering around the water dispenser or sliding down walls with thousand-yard stares.
Kaden stayed seated a moment longer. His HUD updated.
[TRAUMA RESPONSE – LEVEL 1]
[PROGRESS: 13% → 19%]
Seven percent progress. Jensen still dead. The System unimpressed.
He stood, followed the herd. The node helpfully tagged his destination.
[ROUTE: PRACTICE LAB 2-A]
Lines lit up along the floor. He let them guide his feet while his mind chased itself.
Lab 2-A smelled more strongly of disinfectant than the classroom. Cleaners, metal, and under that the faint, artificial copper of synthetic blood.
Four trauma mannequins lay on tables. Torso units with ports and tubing. HP bars hovered over them, each at 100%. Hard-wired into the annex node, their vitals were Aurora’s toys.
Corin stood near the door, arms crossed.
“All right,” she said. “Pair up. Aurora will stick you with someone. Don’t complain, it’s not listening. Each pair gets a dummy. Local node will run the scenarios, track vitals, grade you. I will also grade you, and unlike Aurora I have a temper.”
Names linked in Kaden’s HUD.
[PARTNER ASSIGNED: SONG, JI-HOON]
A cadet with a Tech stripe nodded at him.
“Mercer,” Song said. “Guess we’re stuck together.”
“Could be worse,” Kaden said.
Song huffed something that wasn’t quite a laugh.
Aurora pointed them to a table.
[SIM 2-A-3 – ASSIGNED]
Up close, the mannequin’s synthetic skin looked too smooth. There were faint puncture marks where others had practiced injections, seals, tourniquets.
“On my mark,” Corin said, raising her voice. “The local node will kick off scenarios. You follow the trauma sequence we just covered. You will not aim for perfection. You will aim for ‘least dead’ in the time you’ve got. Aurora will shower you in colored numbers. Do not get used to that. In the field, you do this with half the data and twice the screaming.”
She lifted a hand.
“Three,” she said. “Two. One.”
The HP bar over their dummy flickered.
HP: 94%
[BLEEDING: MODERATE]
A wound opened on the mannequin’s side, synthetic blood pumping out in pulses. Heat generators under the skin kicked in. Fluid slicked over Kaden’s gloves as he stepped in without quite meaning to.
“Scene is safe,” Song said quickly. “No incoming fire, no hazards.”
“Airway and breathing are stable,” Kaden said, reading the node-fed vitals without thinking. “Aurora’s not flagging a problem there.”
[RESP RATE: WITHIN NORMAL RANGE]
“Circulation,” Song said.
The HP bar ticked down.
HP: 89%
“Pressure,” Kaden said. He shoved his hands down on the wound. The synthetic skin gave, warm and slick. Not flesh, not real. His body reacted anyway.
[HEMORRHAGE CONTROL: PARTIAL]
“Tourniquet?” Song asked, fumbling in the supplied kit.
“Not a limb,” Kaden said. “Pack it. Gauze.”
Song got the gauze bricks out. Kaden eased one hand aside, shoved material into the wound. His fingers moved clumsily at first, then smoother as the local node projected faint guides only he could see, little arrows and depth marks.
[TRAINING OVERLAY ACTIVE – LOCAL NODE]
[HEMORRHAGE CONTROL: IMPROVING]
HP slowed its fall.
HP: 85% → 86%
“Seal,” Kaden said. “Wrap.”
Song slapped a sealant patch over the packed wound while Kaden kept pressure. They wound the wrap around the torso, ugly and uneven but tight.
HP: 88%
[PRIMARY HEMORRHAGE CONTROL: PASS – NODE EVALUATION]
Kaden let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, chest aching.
“You’re not done,” Corin called. “What comes after ‘don’t let the red stuff leak out’?”
“Reassess airway and breathing,” Kaden said automatically. “Secondary survey. Prep for evac.”
They moved through the rest of the sequence. Check chest, back, limbs. Scan for other leaks. Monitor vitals. It wasn’t smooth. Aurora flagged missed steps and delays with small icons.
[STEP ORDER: SUB-OPTIMAL]
[SECONDARY CHECK DELAYED]
But the HP bar held.
When [SCENARIO COMPLETE] flashed, Kaden sagged back from the table. His undershirt stuck to his spine with sweat.
[TRAUMA RESPONSE – LVL 1]
[PROGRESS: 19% → 27%]
Another notification slid in behind it, tagged from the local node.
[MOTOR CONTROL: STABLE UNDER ELEVATED STRESS]
Same wording as yesterday. Same quiet weight.
Corin moved from table to table, skimming node-fed summaries. She stopped by theirs, eyes flicking through a private overlay.
“Messy,” she said. “Too much time fussing with the wrap. You could’ve had your partner handle that while you moved to a secondary sweep, Mercer.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kaden said.
“But you hit the main leak fast,” Corin said. “Didn’t freeze when the HP started falling. That counts more than neat lines in a classroom. Don’t get attached to the overlay,” she said. “The local node won’t be there when you’re wedged in a corridor three decks deep in a hostile ship. Out there, you’ll have your implant, your AP, and whatever you remember. So memorize this part now, while the Academy’s bending over backwards to help you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kaden said.
She moved on.
Song blew out a shaky breath.
“I thought I was going to throw up,” Song said quietly.
“You didn’t,” Kaden said.
“Yeah,” Song said. “Weird.”
The node reset the mannequin. Wound closed. HP refilled. The overlay cleared, a blank slate waiting for the next disaster.
Aurora hovered in Kaden’s HUD, waiting.
[READY FOR NEXT SCENARIO]
His hands still trembled, but not as badly as they had on the training hulk. His chest still ached, but there was room in it now for something besides panic.
He flexed his fingers, feeling synthetic blood tacky on the gloves.
“Again,” he said.
Song swallowed and nodded. “Again.”
They leaned over the table as the node spun up a fresh scenario, full of numbers and warnings and clean, artificial gore.
In the back of his mind, Kaden tried to imagine the same thing with half the information and real screaming. The image made his gut twist.
That was the version he was actually training for.
