Aiden's throat tightened, but he didn't show it.
"What do you do with a shadow you can't touch?" he said. "You go to school. You work. You pretend you have a future, because if you don't, you're dead before the enemy arrives."
The tent stayed quiet.
Then a young guy maybe nineteen spoke, voice cracking. "So why are the leaders 'united' now?"
Reeves answered before Aiden could.
"They aren't united," Reeves said. "They're locked in the same room because the door is on fire."
Aiden watched the new recruit swallow.
The woman looked down at her hands, then back up. "So all those agreements… the draft protocols… the coordination… it started before the invasion."
"Yes," Aiden said.
"And the rule?" the woman asked suddenly. "People keep saying the aliens can't just wipe us from orbit. That there's some… rule."
Aiden shrugged, because that part had always been incomplete even for him. "That's what we were told. That they couldn't sterilize the planet. That conquest had to be on the ground. That's why militaries weren't dismantled entirely. That's why the plans were about trenches and training, not evacuation ships."
Reeves added, "And because even if you could evacuate, where would you go? Space isn't your backyard. It's their territory."
The woman's face went pale as the logic hit her fully.
"So this war…" she whispered, "…was always going to happen here."
Aiden nodded.
Someone in the back muttered, "That's insane."
Reeves turned his head. "So are aliens."
The woman took a shaky breath. "My name's Lena," she said, as if she had to remind herself she was still a person. "If you know it why did you still continue to volunteer? Why not stay hidden like everyone else?"
Aiden's mind flicked to Ellis's grave.
To Parker shaking beside him.
To Sarah's face after the attack.
He answered honestly. "Because hiding isn't real. It's just waiting to die somewhere quieter."
Lena held his gaze.
"What about you?" she asked. "You seem… too steady for someone who's only been here a few days."
Reeves made a sound like he didn't like that question.
Aiden didn't answer immediately.
"I got lucky," he said.
Lena didn't look convinced, but she didn't press.
A horn sounded outside short bursts, the signal for movement.
Markham's voice followed through a loudspeaker.
"New intake to the yard. Now. If your boots aren't on, I don't care. You will run barefoot."
Reeves snapped into motion. "You heard him. Everybody up. Move."
The tent exploded into scrambling.
Aiden followed the flow out, then stopped long enough to catch Parker at the edge of the crowd.
Parker's eyes were distant, but he was moving.
"You good?" Aiden asked.
Parker blinked like he hadn't heard, then nodded once. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm… I'm here."
"Stay on me," Aiden said. "Don't drift."
Parker swallowed. "Okay."
They reached the yard.
Markham and Imani stood at the front with two other instructors Aiden hadn't seen before older, harder, wearing patches that suggested real units, not training cadre.
Markham's voice cut through the crowd.
"New intake. You're not getting a welcome. You're not getting a week to adjust. You're getting thrown into accelerated combat conditioning because the war doesn't care about your feelings."
A recruit raised a hand.
Markham pointed at him. "No questions."
The recruit lowered his hand instantly.
Markham continued. "You'll run. You'll learn to shoot. You'll learn to move in teams. If you can't keep up, you'll be reassigned to support roles. If you can't do those, you'll be sent out. Not home. Out. Into labor and defense work until you're useful. Understood?"
A scattered chorus of "Yes, Staff Sergeant."
Imani stepped forward. "Pairs. Everyone gets a buddy. You lose your buddy, you will be treated as a problem. Problems get fixed."
Lena ended up beside Aiden without trying.
"You," Imani said, looking at Aiden. "You're pairing with her. Keep her moving."
Aiden nodded. "Yes, Staff Sergeant."
Lena stared at him. "I don't need..."
Aiden cut her off quietly. "Just do what they say."
Training began immediately.
They ran the cratered track until legs turned to rubber.
They practiced dropping into cover behind broken concrete.
They learned how to keep spacing so drones couldn't wipe a cluster with one pass.
They did reload drills until fingers bled.
Every mistake was corrected on the spot, not with shouting, but with repetition until it stuck.
Lena struggled at first not physically, but mentally.
She kept wanting to ask why.
She kept wanting to understand before acting.
Aiden watched her fight that instinct.
"Left!" Aiden called when the instructor sent them into a movement lane.
Lena went right, realized too late, corrected, stumbled, recovered.
After the lane ended, she stood there breathing hard, jaw clenched.
"You don't have to like it," Aiden said. "Just survive it."
Lena glared at him. "You talk like you've done this before."
Aiden didn't answer.
By late afternoon, the new recruits looked like the old ones mud-streaked, exhausted, eyes a little less soft.
When the last drill ended and they were finally released for chow.
Aiden peeled away from the group and walked behind a supply tent, where the noise dropped enough to think.
He closed his eyes.
System.
The response came, quiet and immediate.
[System Operational]
Aiden exhaled.
He didn't want motivation.
He wanted clarity.
"What am I now?" he asked under his breath. "After all of it."
A brief pause.
[User status: Active]
[Physical adaptation: progressing]
[Psychological load: elevated]
Aiden's jaw tightened. "You said Phase Three was delayed because I wasn't stable."
[Correct]
"So what changes?"
Another pause long enough to feel like the System was weighing him, not the other way around.
[User demonstrates improved external regulation during stress exposure]
[Phase Three: partial access authorized]
Aiden's eyes opened. "Partial?"
[Limiters remain until psychological stabilization increases]
[New function available: Training Optimization Interface]
Aiden swallowed. "Show me."
A faint overlay appeared in his mind not numbers on a screen he could show anyone, but structured suggestions how to distribute exertion, where his form broke down under fatigue, what his recovery time should be, how to keep his hands steady under adrenaline.
Aiden's hand tightened unexpectedly.
He thought about Ellis again.
How Ellis had died because his body hadn't moved fast enough.
Because his mind hadn't decided quickly enough.
Aiden whispered, "Will this keep them alive? My squad?"
The System didn't pretend to care, but it answered anyway.
[Indirectly: improved user performance increases local survival probability]
Aiden nodded once, not because it was comforting, but because it was real.
He shut his eyes for a second, then stepped back toward the mess tent.
On the way, he passed Lena sitting on a crate, head in her hands, staring at her scraped knuckles like she didn't recognize her own body anymore.
Aiden stopped.
"You'll get used to it," he said.
Lena looked up, eyes sharp and wet. "You shouldn't have had to be used to it."
Aiden didn't argue.
He just sat down beside her.
After a moment, she spoke again, quieter.
"The warning… the probe… all of it… and they still didn't tell us."
Aiden nodded. "They told who they could. And they built what they could."
Lena's voice trembled. "And now we're here."
"Yeah," Aiden said. "Now we're here."
Lena swallowed, then asked the question that mattered most, the one no one wanted to say out loud.
"If they warned us… does that mean they've done this before? To other worlds?"
Aiden looked out across the camp at the floodlights turning on, at recruits limping to chow, at instructors moving like predators through the lanes even when training was over.
He answered honestly.
"I think so."
Lena's face tightened. "Then we're not special."
Aiden shook his head slowly. "No."
He stood.
"But we can still be a problem."