Days passed before Hayes could walk the halls without listing to one side. The medics used that time to show him and Lilith the commons: shops, a lounge, a cafeteria.
The food was a clear liquid. A line of people in white waited to fill cups from a dispenser. Next to it, a screen offered flavors—roast beef, chocolate cake, anything he could name. He chose chicken parmesan. Powder dropped into the cup and vanished.
Lilith hesitated. He drank. Savory, then sweet. He finished it. She watched him not die and tried hers.
They left the commons for the observation deck. Outside the hull, ships packed the dark by the thousand—every shape, every size. This vessel was for intake. New blood. New assignments.
A man in a green uniform found them.
"Placement, Mr. Hayes. With me."
Hayes looked at Lilith.
"Wait in the room. I'll come back."
The white corridor took them to the test block.
"Four tests," the man said. "Military. Engineer. Guard. Medical. Sub-tracks come after the primary."
The first room was yellow. Workbench in the center. A door at the far wall. A welding tool lay in pieces.
"Used outside the hull. Make it work."
Hours. Hands. Guesswork that slowly became order. The intercom cut in.
"Test complete. Next room."
White room. Medical. A written exam, one hour. Easy questions first, then the kind that wanted a school he had never attended. A chime ended it.
"Next."
Green room. Guard work, simple on paper. Deliver a package without opening it. Watch an exit. Escort a VIP while two runners tried to tag the mark.
Hayes picked them off one at a time and sent them back to their corners. Midway they came together. Speed jumped. A few feet from the line, the VIP got tagged.
Failed escort. Green test over.
Last door. Red.
A rack of strange, clean weapons—different barrels, different weights. An observer put a long, heavy rifle in his hands. Targets across the room.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
He hit them.
Through the back door: moving marks, green ones mixed in for friendlies. He passed that too.
His mother had put a rifle in his hands until the day quit before he did. He had hated those hours. After she died he missed them anyway.
The next chamber did not look like a chamber. Trees. Running water somewhere out of sight. Growth thick enough to hide walls. Only the door behind him admitted this was still a test.
"Nothing special so far," the first observer said. "Green, most likely."
"What about blue?" said the second.
"Blue's still building a roster. Why would he want average?"
"Submit the file. I've got a feeling."
"After this last one. Then I decide."
They watched Hayes step into the trees.
He moved like the ground might argue. No brief. No target card. Then he saw the marks—long gouges in the bark. Something in here with him.
Twigs broke at his back.
He turned into a bear that was not a bear. Red eyes. Metal face.
He fired. The rounds skipped off plate. A claw came for him. He rolled, put two into the flank, and the hide tore enough to show the frame underneath.
He ran. The thing came after him hard. He cut behind a trunk.
WHAM.
The bear hit wood.
That was the idea.
He worked a circle, shooting trunks as he passed, and led the machine into one he had already wrecked.
WHAM. SNAP.
The tree came down on it. He dropped four more before it could climb out. The weight pinned the frame.
"Test passed."
"Combat's ordinary," the first man said. "Ingenuity isn't. Blue gets the file."
"That surname. Relation?"
"Unknown. Watch him. If they're connected, he doesn't walk the fleet loose."
The first man left. The second killed the monitor and walked for the blue zone with two files.
"Congratulations. Testing's done." The green-uniform man scrolled a slate. "Engineering, Level 1 Basic. Medical, Level 1 Intermediate. Guard, Level 3 Basic. Military, Level 3 Advanced. I'll take you to your room. Someone will find you when processing finishes."
Lilith was waiting. She came off the bed too fast. Dark circles. She had not slept.
"Hayes."
"Bands," the escort said, cutting across the reunion. "IDs. Right now they only hold your scores."
Holo-screens woke above the wristbands. Hayes read hers.
Engineering, Level 3 Advanced.
Medical, Level 1 Advanced.
Guard, Level 2 Advanced.
Military, Level 3 Basic.
Level 3 military. The bear, then. Or something like it.
He looked at her a second longer than the scores needed, then pulled her in and held on.