“Too important? To give orders?”

“Military protocol. When you get important enough to order an armada into battle, you’re too important to interfere with how a quartermaster runs his shop. You’ll see. There’s a lot you know, judging by that test—but still some things you don’t. You got number seventeen wrong.”

“Seventeen…” I flipped through the test quickly. “The overwhelming odds question?”

“The right answer was to fall back and await reinforcement.”

“No it wasn’t.”

He stiffened, and I quickly bit my tongue. Should I be arguing with the person who’d just given me a cadet’s pin?

“I’ll let you into the sky,” he said, “but they’re not going to be easy on you. I’m not going to be easy on you. Wouldn’t be fair.”

“Is anything fair?”

He smiled. “Death is. He treats us all the same. Oh-seven-hundred. Don’t be late.”

PART TWO

7

The elevator doors opened, and I looked out upon a city that should not exist.

Alta was primarily a military base, so perhaps city was an ambitious term. Yet the elevator structure opened a good two hundred meters outside the base proper. Lining the roadway between the two were shops and homes. A real town, populated by the stubborn farmers who worked the strips of greenery beyond.

I lingered in the large elevator as it emptied of people. This represented a threshold to a new life, a life I’d always dreamed about. I found myself strangely hesitant as I stood there, pack full of clothing over my shoulder, the phantom feeling of my mother’s kiss farewell on my forehead.

“Oh, isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” a voice said from behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder. The speaker was a girl about my age. She was taller than I was, with tan-brown skin and long, curly black hair. I’d seen her earlier on the elevator and noted her cadet’s pin. She spoke with a faint accent I didn’t recognize.

“I keep thinking it can’t be real,” she said. “Do you think it might be some cruel prank they’re playing on us?”

“What tactical advantage would they gain by that?” I asked her.

The girl took my arm in a much too familiar way. “We can do this. Just take a deep breath. Reach up. Pluck a star. That’s what the Saint says.”

I had no idea what to make of this behavior. People normally treated me like a pariah; they didn’t take me by the arm. I was so stunned that I didn’t resist as she towed me after her out of the elevator. We entered the wide walkway leading through the town, toward the base.

I’d rather have been walking with Rodge, but they’d called him in late last night to ask him something about his test, and so far I hadn’t gotten word of what that meant. Hopefully he wasn’t in trouble.

The girl and I soon passed a fountain. A real fountain, like from the stories. We both stopped to gape, and I extricated my arm from the girl’s grasp. Part of me wanted to be offended—but she seemed so genuine.