They packed the marines in tight.

  Kaden stood shoulder to shoulder with Navarro, Tanaka a half-step ahead, Vos on his other side. Theta-3 was lined up with the rest of Theta Platoon in one semi-orderly block. Around them, the entire marine detachment filled the bay: squads from other platoons, shipboard security, a handful of specialists in different-colored tabs.

  The bay’s usual clutter was gone. No pallets, no gear stacks. Just bodies and the raised platform at the far end, where a holo rig hung like a metal spider from the overhead.

  “Feels like inspection day,” Navarro murmured.

  “Less starch,” Vos said. “More weaponry.”

  Kaden flexed his fingers, then stilled them. He’d slept, mostly. Eaten. Done exactly what Jax said—nothing strenuous, no extra blocks. But his nerves still hummed.

  A chime cut through the idle talk. Conversations dropped off in a ripple as heads turned toward the platform.

  Captain Elias Gaunt stepped up first.

  He wore shipboard blacks, rank tabs precise, expression flat in a way that somehow made him more noticeable. A small cluster of officers and senior NCOs took positions behind him: the marine company commander, Lieutenant Colonel Abramov; platoon leaders, including Okafor; the five Theta squad leaders—Jax, Moreau, and three others Kaden hadn’t met yet—alongside other platoon squad leads; and a Systems officer in grey with an Aurora sigil on his sleeve.

  Gaunt let the quiet stretch for a moment, eyes sweeping the formation. When he spoke, his voice carried without needing to shout.

  “Marines,” he said. “You’ve had a few days to remember which end of your weapons goes toward the enemy and which way is up on this ship. Good. We’re going to find out what you can actually do with that.”

  A faint grid sprang to life in the holo field behind him: a wireframe silhouette of a ship that wasn’t the Valiant. Longer, broader, with a slimmer waist and heavier prow. The label at the bottom read: OPPOSITION HEAVY CRUISER – PATTERN GAMMA-CLASS (SIMULATED)

  “This,” Gaunt said, glancing back at it, “is our best composite of a Gamma-class Opp cruiser. You’ve seen fragments. Kill cams. Helmet feeds. Some of you have boarded hulls like this for real. Most of you haven’t.”

  Kaden stared at the shape. Even in wireframe, it had a predatory look. Forward-heavy, all knives and thrust.

  Gaunt turned back to them.

  “In forty-eight hours,” he said, “HIS Valiant’s marines will conduct a full-scale simulated assault on one of these ships. All squads, all platoons, one continuous operation. This is your integrated combat readiness evaluation.”

  A low murmur rolled through the ranks and died quickly.

  “Let me translate that,” Gaunt went on. “Command wants to know if we can take our portion of the line and hit above our weight. Whether this ship’s marines are worth the fuel it costs to drag you to Andromeda. Whether I can throw you at something bigger than you and trust you not to bounce off and break.”

  Navarro shifted beside Kaden, shoulders squaring a little.

  Lieutenant Colonel Abramov stepped forward half a pace.

  “Objectives will be threefold,” he said, accent flattening his consonants. “One: secure multiple entry points and establish lodgments. Two: push to and disable key systems such as power, weapons, FTL. Three: maintain acceptable casualty rates while you do it.”

  “Acceptable,” Navarro muttered under her breath. “Great.”

  Kaden didn’t answer.

  Abramov continued.

  “You will not be running isolated squad drills,” he said. “You will be part of a coordinated assault. Your failures will hurt other squads. Their failures will hurt you. Treat the simulation accordingly.”

  The Systems officer in grey stepped up next, tapping his slate. The cruiser model zoomed, sections highlighting in alternating colors; green, blue, red.

  “Lieutenant Sato, ship systems liaison,” he said. “Here’s what Aurora will be doing for you, and what it won’t.”

  A faint grid overlaid the cruiser, then branched into smaller nodes. Sato gestured.

  “The Valiant’s main Aurora node will host the environment,” he said. “When you enter the simulation pods, your implants will be bridged through a local sandbox that replicates hull geometry, gravity fields, atmosphere conditions, and Opp contact based on our data.”

  He said it like a checklist. No embellishment.

  “Your HUDs,” he went on, “will be in combat profile. That means: friend-or-foe tags, simple directional markers, vitals for your immediate squad. No floating icons pointing at cover. No glowing critical points on doors or enemies. If you want to know if a hallway is safe, you put eyes and ears on it.”

  Kaden felt something in his chest relax at that. After the Academy’s overdone sims, the simplicity was almost a relief.

  Sato’s gaze flicked over the crowd.

  “Pain feedback will be in high fidelity,” he said. “You take a hit, you’ll feel it. You go ‘critical,’ Aurora will lock your motor functions to simulate incapacitation. Your heart will still be beating in the pods. Your brain will believe otherwise. That is the point.”

  A few of the newer marines swallowed. Kaden didn’t blame them.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  “Aurora will log everything,” Sato finished. “Reaction times, AP expenditure, comms discipline, shot placement, triage choices. Command evaluates. The System adapts your profiles accordingly. You’re not here to win a game. You’re here to give us real data on how you break.”

  He stepped back.

  Gaunt took his place again, folding his hands behind his back.

  “You don’t have to like that part,” the captain said. “You just have to understand it. You are not the first generation to run these evaluations, and you won’t be the last. Aurora is very interested in what you do under pressure. So am I.”

  He let his gaze move across the bay. Kaden could’ve sworn his eyes lingered on Theta’s block half a second longer than the rest.

  “You’ll receive specific routes and objectives by platoon,” Gaunt said. “The short version: board, survive, accomplish the mission with as few simulated body bags as possible. I expect every one of you to treat this as if it were real. If the only thing that changes when the bullets are live is that you flinch more, we’ve wasted our time.”

  He nodded to Abramov.

  “Colonel?” he said.

  Abramov stepped up.

  “Platoon leads,” he said. “Front.”

  Okafor moved from the Theta ranks, joining the other leaders near the platform. Kaden watched her step into line with an easy familiarity, like she’d done this a dozen times before.

  Abramov’s tone shifted slightly, less briefing, more order.

  “First day—today—you rest and review,” he said. “Pull your sim feeds, run your own corrections. Tomorrow morning, block training by platoon. Tomorrow evening, squad leads will receive injection packets with their initial objectives. Evaluation starts next cycle at oh-eight-hundred.”

  He looked over the assembled marines again.

  “You will not all perform at the same level,” he said. “You will not all like your scorecards. That is fine. What is not fine is walking into this half-awake or treating it like a game. This is the nearest thing you get to failing safely. Take advantage of it.”

  He stepped back.

  Gaunt gave a short nod.

  “Questions go through your chain,” he said. “Not to me. I’ve done my part. Now you do yours.”

  He turned, stepped down from the platform, and walked toward the side hatch, officers falling in around him. Sato followed, already speaking quietly to another Systems tech.

  “Platoons,” Abramov called. “With your leads.”

  The bay dissolved into organized motion. Calls, the slap of boots, squad blocks peeling off and reforming.

  Okafor turned toward Theta and raised her voice.

  “Theta Platoon, eyes front,” she said.

  Conversation tapered. Kaden straightened.

  “We’re not going to waste today,” Okafor said. “You heard the captain. You heard Sato. You know the stakes. That doesn’t mean I’m throwing you into another four-hour grind. All squad lead, you’re going to run your people through their feeds, pick the three worst moments and the three best. Bring them to the table tonight.”

  There was a chorus of acknowledgments from the front: Jax, Moreau, and the other three Theta leaders, plus the squad leads from the other platoons.

  “For you,” Okafor went on, “that means this: obey your squad leader. When they tell you to rest, rest. When they tell you to review footage, review it. When they tell you to shut up and listen, do that too. They’ll be inside this thing with you. They’re not interested in making you look pretty for Gaunt. They’re interested in making sure you keep moving when the scenario goes bad.”

  Her gaze swept Theta’s line. It was a softer look than Gaunt’s, but no less sharp.

  “And it will go bad,” she added. “Because if everything goes smoothly, we learn nothing.”

  She let that hang a second, then snapped, “Dismissed. Squad leads, with me.”

  Theta squads began to break apart, drifting back into their clusters.

  Navarro exhaled.

  “So,” she said. “Fun little test.”

  “Nothing says ‘light day’ like a speech about how Aurora wants to see how we break,” Vos said dryly.

  Tanaka’s eyes were still on the now-idle holo rig.

  “Better here than when we’re actually crossing the line,” he said.

  Jax finished a quick exchange with Okafor and the other squad leaders, then turned toward Theta-3. She crossed the distance in a few easy strides, hands tucked behind her back.

  “All right,” she said. “You heard the grown-ups. Here’s what it means for you.”

  She stopped in front of them, looking more like their squad leader than an abstract staff sergeant now that Gaunt and the colonel were out of the spotlight.

  “Today: no sims,” she said. “No gym. You already did your heavy work. You will, however, be watching video.”

  Navarro groaned softly.

  “Of ourselves?” she asked.

  “Yes, Navarro,” Jax said. “Of yourselves. Shocking, I know. I want each of you to pull the feed from our last two runs. Tag three moments you’re proud of and three that make you want to crawl under your bunk. Be ready to talk about why.”

  “Out loud?” Vos asked.

  “In front of the squad,” Jax said. “This isn’t confession. It’s pattern recognition. The sooner you learn what you do when you’re stressed, the sooner you can decide whether you like it.”

  She tipped her head toward the empty holo.

  “You also heard about the evaluation,” she said. “Lieutenant Sato wasn’t exaggerating. This is a full-hull scenario. Multiple squads, multiple objectives, one big shared mess. You’re going to see ways it could’ve been split up cleaner. You’ll be right. You’ll also still have to deal with it.”

  Navarro chewed that over.

  “You’ve done one of these before?” she asked.

  “Not at this scale,” Jax said. “We did smaller ones on my last ship. Same idea—Aurora builds a maze, we run through it with guns. Point is, none of this is new to the System. You’re the new variables.”

  Kaden glanced at her.

  “You said you’d be in the pod with us,” he said. “That still happening?”

  “Yes,” Jax said. “For the evaluation, I’m not up on a balcony. I’m strapped in next to you, sharing the same limited HUD and the same simulated bruises. You’re going to get a very clear idea of what it’s like when I’m arguing with a door while Tanaka is trying not to die in front of me and Mercer is yelling about someone’s artery.”

  “That’s an image,” Navarro said.

  “Use it,” Jax said. “When you’re reviewing your feeds, I want you thinking about how that will feel with three more squads in the comms stack and Opp pushing harder.”

  She checked the time on her slate.

  “You’ve got the next few hours to yourselves,” she said. “Eat. Shower. Put in an hour with your feeds. After evening meal, Theta-3 meets in the squad room. We’ll go over what you found and I’ll tell you where command is likely to drop us on that cruiser.”

  “Any hint?” Vos said.

  “Somewhere that hurts if it breaks,” Jax said. “That’s what shock squads are for.”

  Tanaka nodded, like that was the only answer he’d expected.

  Jax’s gaze lingered on them a moment longer, then she stepped back.

  “You’re moving in the right direction,” she said. “Don’t use today to prove me wrong.”

  She peeled off to rejoin the knot of other NCOs, already talking quietly with another Theta squad leader.

  Navarro watched her go, then nudged Kaden with her elbow.

  “So,” she said. “You heard the woman. Food, shower, self-loathing over helmet cam. Any preference on the order?”

  “Food first,” he said. “Self-loathing lands better on a full stomach.”

  “Truly, we’re warriors,” Navarro said.

  Vos snorted.

  “I’m finding the least-watched terminal on this deck,” he said. “If I’m going to relive my mistakes, I’d rather not have an audience until Jax forces it.”

  Tanaka rolled his shoulders.

  “Mess, then feeds,” he said. “We’ll get more out of them if we’re not falling over.”

  Kaden looked back at the now-empty platform, then at his squad.

  A fake cruiser. Real fear. And all of them, strapped into pods, trying to make it out of a simulation that wanted to see exactly where they cracked.

  He felt his pulse pick up again, but it wasn’t the wild stutter from the earlier sim. More like a drumroll. Anticipation threaded into it, heavier than dread, but it was there.

  “Mess it is,” he said.

  They turned with the rest of Theta Platoon and filed out of the bay, four marines in a sea of grey and black, walking toward bad coffee, worse stew, and the footage that would show them exactly who they’d been before the evaluation tried to turn them into something else.