The yard emptied with military precision at 0630 hours. Nine trays slotted into recycling ports, nine bodies moved with the coordinated economy of gears in a well-oiled machine. All except Fiona, who hesitated fractionally at the disposal unit, fingers lingering on the tray's edge as if reluctant to surrender even this meager possession.
The weapons lab gleamed beneath phosphorescent panels—a cathedral to the science of destruction. Three long tables stretched across polished concrete, each bearing symmetrical arrangements of disassembled firearms. Not the crude chemical propellant weapons of centuries past, but the elegant architecture of electromagnetic acceleration and directed energy. Coilguns, gauss rifles, and plasma inductors—the vocabulary of 22nd-century death.
As the recruits filed in, Ashby stood at parade rest beside the center table, his scarred face illuminated from below by the soft blue glow of charging cradles.
"Today, you will learn to maintain your assigned weapons systems," he announced as they lined up. "Your life depends on this equipment. More importantly, the lives of your comrades depend on your competence."
The sergeant's gaze swept across them, lingering on Fiona.
"These are FN-442 Gauss platforms with variable chamber configurations. Standard infantry issue. For our civilian guest, I'll speak slowly and use small words."
He lifted a component from the table—a carbon-ceramic cylinder threaded with hair-thin superconducting filaments.
"This is the acceleration chamber. It contains twelve magnetic coils that propel the projectile. Touch the wrong contact point, and forty thousand volts will cook your nervous system before you realize you've made a mistake."
The recruits moved to their assigned stations. Nakamura's hands immediately found the disassembly latches of his weapon, fingers moving with practiced certainty. Singh, at the next station, matched him component for component. Even Davis, who had specialized in communications during his Marine service, approached the task with methodical confidence.
Fiona stared at the disassembled weapon before her, its components alien as artifacts from another world. In her hands, a mango fruit or a screwdriver had weight, texture, purpose. These fragments of metal and ceramic might as well have been written in a language she had never learned to read.
"Problem, Private?" Ashby materialized beside her, voice pitched to carry across the room. "Or did they not teach weapons maintenance in your fruit stall?"
She met his gaze without flinching.
"No, Sergeant."
"No, what? No problem or no they didn't teach weapons maintenance?"
"Both, Sergeant."
A ripple of suppressed amusement moved through the room. Ashby's single functioning eye narrowed.
"Then demonstrate the proper procedure for secondary coil maintenance. Now."
Fiona looked down at the array of parts. Her fingers hovered above a cylindrical component, then shifted to a rectangular module with heat-sink fins.
"That's the power regulator, civilian," Ashby hissed. "Touch the contacts with that screwdriver, and the medical team will be scraping you off the ceiling."
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a whisper meant for her alone.
"You promised me regret, Private. I'm delivering as promised."
Across the table, Yoon's eyes flicked toward them, her hands never pausing in their practiced routine of disassembly and cleaning. Montoya, two stations down, deliberately slowed his movements, allowing Fiona to observe his sequence.
Ashby noticed immediately.
"Eyes on your own work, Private Montoya, unless you wish to join our civilian for remedial training at 0300 tomorrow."
Fiona's hands finally settled on a component—the primary trigger assembly, though she couldn't have named it. Her fingers probed its contours with the tentative attention of someone mapping an unfamiliar coastline.
"That goes last," Ashby snapped. "Start with the power cell extraction. And use the insulated tongs, unless you enjoy third-degree burns."
She reached for what she hoped were the tongs, hands steady despite her uncertainty. The metal implement looked nothing like any tool she'd used before—more like a surgical instrument than something for weapon maintenance.
"Not those," Ashby sighed, exasperation overtaking malice. "Those are flux alignment calipers. The tongs are in your kit's second compartment."
For the next forty minutes, Fiona fumbled through procedures the others completed with mechanical efficiency. Each component became a riddle to be solved under Ashby's relentless scrutiny. When she finally managed to extract the power cell without triggering safety protocols, sweat had soaked through her undershirt.
"Now field strip the acceleration chamber," Ashby commanded, watching her flounder with thinly veiled impatience.
Her fingers found the disassembly pins but applied pressure at the wrong angle. The chamber's containment seals hissed in warning.
"Stop!" Crowe's voice cut through the room. The corporal appeared behind her, his massive hands engulfing hers. "Like this."
He demonstrated the correct pressure points with clinical precision, his touch impersonal as a machine's. The chamber separated into its component parts, revealing the intricate magnetic coil assembly within.
"Thank you, Corporal," Fiona said quietly.
"Don't thank me," Crowe replied, his voice without inflection. "Thank me by not becoming a casualty statistic. Continue."
As he moved away, Ashby's expression shifted subtly—the predatory satisfaction fading into something more calculating. He watched Fiona struggle through the maintenance sequence, her movements improving marginally with each repetition.
"This isn't clever psychological warfare, Private," the sergeant said, voice too low for the others to hear. "This is reality. In combat, weapons failure means death—yours and everyone depending on you. My insults might bruise your pride. Equipment failure will turn you into atmospheric particles."
Fiona paused, the cleaning rod suspended above the barrel assembly.
"I understand, Sergeant."
"Do you now?" His scarred face came closer, the milky eye catching light like a dead moon. "Your martial arts training keeps you functional in physical drills. But this isn't a dojo with rules and referees. This is preparation for galactic extinction-level contact. If you survive long enough to face what's coming, you'll pray for the luxury of mere pain."
Something in his tone—not cruelty but a terrible honesty—made Fiona truly look at him for the first time. Beyond the practiced intimidation, past the institutional sadism, she glimpsed the burden of knowledge he carried. Whatever waited beyond Earth's atmosphere had left its mark on Ashby long before he'd acquired his physical scars.
"I learn quickly, Sergeant," she said, returning to her task with renewed focus.
"See that you do. Your ignorance endangers everyone in this room."
Two stations away, Nakamura had completed his maintenance routine and reassembled his weapon with flowing efficiency. As Ashby moved toward him for inspection, the Japanese soldier deliberately disassembled his flux regulator again, positioning his hands so Fiona could observe the correct technique.
Ashby noticed but said nothing, his attention apparently focused on Singh's work. Fiona watched Nakamura's fingers, memorizing the sequence of movements. When the sergeant's back was turned, Nakamura caught her eye and nodded fractionally—acknowledgment between professionals, if not yet equals.
By the second hour, Fiona had managed to disassemble and reassemble the primary components without direct supervision. Her movements lacked the fluid certainty of her peers, but catastrophic error seemed less imminent. When she finally seated the power cell correctly, even Ashby granted her a curt nod.
"Minimally adequate, Private. Repeat the sequence until you can do it blindfolded."
As afternoon approached, Crowe entered carrying a sealed container that hummed with its own internal power source. The room fell silent as he placed it on the center table. Even Ashby straightened imperceptibly.
"At ease," the corporal said, though no one had been formally called to attention. "Sergeant Ashby, if you would."
Ashby's demeanor shifted as he approached the container, his customary aggression replaced by something approaching reverence. He pressed his palm against the biometric scanner, then spoke a code phrase in a language Fiona couldn't identify. The container's seams pulsed with blue light, then separated with the precision of mechanical origami.
Within lay what appeared to be a rifle—but one designed by an intelligence with different assumptions about form and function. Its lines curved where human weapons favored angles. Materials shifted color beneath the lighting, suggesting adaptive properties beyond conventional metallurgy. Where a traditional stock would connect to a human shoulder, this weapon's structure flowed into organic contours that seemed to anticipate the body rather than accommodate it.
"XR-17 Pulse Rifle," Crowe announced. "The integration of recovered Streagrian tech with human engineering principles. This is what you're here to learn. This is what you will carry when deployment comes."
The recruits' expressions changed, professional detachment giving way to undisguised fascination. Even Nakamura leaned forward slightly.
"The XR-17 operates on principles we only partially understand," Ashby continued, lifting the weapon with careful precision. "It generates coherent energy pulses by manipulating subatomic particle interactions. In layman's terms, it creates micro-singularities that collapse on contact with solid matter. The resulting energy release is equivalent to a tactical neutron device but contained to a three-meter radius from the point of impact."
He rotated the weapon, revealing components that seemed to shift position subtly even while stationary.
"Mishandled, it will convert everything within fifty meters into component atoms. Including the operator. There is no margin for error."
For the first time since her arrival, Fiona found herself on equal footing with the military specialists. The alien technology rendered their years of training temporarily irrelevant—all of them now students facing the incomprehensible.
"Private Vega," Ashby called, his tone lacking its usual edge. "Step forward."
She approached the table, conscious of the others' stares. Ashby held the weapon toward her, not quite offering it.
"You have no preconceptions about conventional weapons systems. No muscle memory to unlearn. That gives you a potential advantage with Streagrian integration. Take it."
Fiona hesitated only briefly before accepting the rifle. As her fingers closed around its contours, the material seemed to shift beneath her touch—not physically moving, but somehow becoming more accommodating to her grip. A faint vibration traveled through her palms, up her wrists, settling somewhere behind her sternum like a second heartbeat.
"Good," Crowe said, observing her reaction. "You feel the resonance. The weapon operates partly through bioelectric field interaction."
The others watched with expressions ranging from fascination to disbelief as Fiona adjusted her stance, the rifle settling against her as if it had been designed specifically for her frame.
"How does it..." she began, then fell silent as indicator lights along the barrel pulsed in rhythm with her words.
"Voice-responsive targeting assist," Ashby explained, his tone shifting to that of an instructor rather than tormentor. "The Streagrian components interpret neural patterns and micro-muscular movements. It anticipates your intentions before you've fully formed them.
Davis stepped forward, professional curiosity overcoming protocol.
"Sir, is it true these were recovered from the library on Mars?"
Ashby's expression hardened.
"That information is classified, Private. But I'll say this much—what you're holding is the only reason Earth still exists as more than a memory. And learning to use it effectively is the only reason you're here."
He turned back to Fiona.
"Bring it to the firing line. Let's see if our civilian has better luck with alien technology than human engineering."
The firing range occupied the installation's lowest level—a reinforced chamber carved directly into the bedrock beneath the Sinai. As they descended, the air grew noticeably cooler, carrying the faint ionized scent of previous energy discharges.
"Standard safety protocols don't apply to the XR-17," Crowe explained as they lined up behind transparent polymer barriers. "Conventional body armor is useless against particle collapse effects. Your only protection is competence."
Fiona stood at the center position, the pulse rifle cradled against her body with unexpected familiarity. She'd never held a weapon more sophisticated than her sensei's bokken, yet this alien hybrid felt less foreign than the gauss rifle she'd struggled with hours earlier.
"Targeting sequence is neural initiated," Ashby said, standing close enough to intervene but not interfere. "Focus on the primary target, subvocalize the engagement command, and allow the weapon to complete the firing sequence. Do not attempt to control the discharge manually."
The target—a reinforced mannequin at the range's far end—seemed to pulse slightly in Fiona's vision as she focused on it. The rifle hummed against her, its vibration synchronizing with her heartbeat.
"Engage target," she whispered, the word barely formed in her throat, remembering when she played those mecha games Bairon used to love.
The weapon responded with a sound unlike anything she'd experienced—not a report or discharge, but a momentary suspension of acoustic reality, as if sound itself had been briefly prohibited within a localized field. A distortion rippled through the air between barrel and target, visible only as a heat-mirage shimmer.
The mannequin didn't explode or disintegrate. It simply ceased to exist, along with a perfect hemisphere of the wall behind it. No fragments, no debris—only a perfectly smooth concavity where solid matter had been.
"Holy shit," Davis whispered.
"Acceptable first attempt," Crowe said, his face quiet. "Note the overpenetration. Cognitive restraint is necessary to prevent collateral damage. The weapon responds to intent as much as action."
As Fiona lowered the rifle, she became aware of the others' expressions—not the dismissive assessment she'd grown accustomed to, but something approaching cautious reevaluation. Nakamura, in particular, studied her with the analytical intensity he usually reserved for tactical problems.
When the others took their turns, the results varied dramatically. Yoon's target vanished along with a sizable portion of the ceiling above it. Montoya's discharge failed to materialize at all, the weapon remaining inert in his hands despite repeated attempts. Singh produced a perfect hit but immediately dropped the rifle, his face contorted in what might have been pain or revelation.
"Neural feedback," Ashby explained, helping the Indian soldier regain his composure. "The weapon sometimes establishes connections beyond the intended parameters. What did you experience?"
"Voices," Singh whispered. "Not words, but... presence. Awareness."
Ashby nodded as if this were expected.
"Streagrian tech retains certain... capacities from its original design architecture. These experiences are classified Level Seven. You will report any unusual cognitive phenomena immediately."
By the session's end, only Fiona, Nakamura, and surprisingly, Davis had achieved consistent successful discharges without adverse effects. The others showed various degrees of compatibility, from Singh's disturbing neural feedback to Montoya's complete inability to activate the firing mechanism.
As they secured the weapons for transport back to the armory, Nakamura approached Fiona, his movements casual but purposeful.
"You have an advantage," he said, his voice low enough to remain private. "No preconceptions. No muscle memory to override. The rest of us are trying to unlearn a lifetime of training."
Fiona glanced at the XR-17 as Crowe sealed it back into its container.
"I don't understand how it works."
"Neither do they," Nakamura replied, nodding toward the instructors. "That's the point. We're all amateurs with this technology. Some of us just have the wisdom to recognize it."
Before she could respond, Ashby's voice cut through their conversation.
"Assembly in ten minutes. Get a little rest while you have breakfast."
As they filed toward the exit, the sergeant intercepted Fiona, his expression unreadable.
"Adequate performance, Private. Your incompetence with standard equipment remains unacceptable, but your Streagrian aptitude is... noted."
He leaned closer, voice dropping to ensure privacy.
"That comment you made in physical training? Still going to cost you. But not because I enjoy cruelty. Because out there," he gestured vaguely upward, toward the stars hidden beyond concrete and conflict, "the things waiting make me look like a loving parent. If you survive my training, you might survive them. Just might."
For the first time, Fiona recognized the emotion beneath his calculated brutality—a desperate urgency born of knowledge he couldn't fully share.
"I understand, Sergeant," she said.
"No," he replied, his scarred face momentarily revealing something like regret. "You don't. Not yet. But if you're still standing in three weeks, you will. I hope."
As he strode away, Fiona became aware of the others watching her, with the calculated assessment reserved for potential assets. For the first time since arriving at the installation, she felt a weight beyond her personal survival settling across her shoulders.
Camilla's face flickered in her memory—not the resentful young woman who had secured her future in that CosmosX company without a backward glance, but the small child who had once believed her mother could fix anything, protect against any threat. The daughter who hadn't yet learned to be ashamed.
As they marched toward the barracks for gear inspection, Fiona realized that the unforgiving discipline of this place offered something poverty never had—purpose beyond mere survival. The XR-17's resonance still hummed in her bones and her gauntlet, an echo of connection to something beyond Earth's limited conflicts.
Perhaps here, finally, was a way to become someone her daughter couldn't dismiss. Someone who mattered beyond Bucaramanga's dust and desperation. Someone who could face the world without flinching.
The gauntlet pulsed once against her skin—not painful, but insistent. Fiona glanced down, noticing thin lines of luminescence tracing patterns across its surface that hadn't been visible before. The resonance had established itself permanently, just as it had with the alien weapon.
"Private Yoon, report to communications immediately" The facility's voice echoed through the corridor, interrupting Crowe's instructions. Yoon's face remained impassive, though something flickered behind her eyes.
—Central Command priority transmission—
"Continue to the mess hall," Ashby ordered the rest of the squad. "Yoon, with me." He exchanged a brief glance with Crowe—a look Fiona couldn't interpret but recognized as significant.
As the squad filed away, Fiona noticed her gauntlet pulse again, this time in rhythm with Yoon's retreating footsteps. She hesitated, feeling an inexplicable tug of awareness.
Later, when they had settled with their food trays, Yoon's absence stretched beyond the expected duration of a routine communication. When she finally appeared at the entrance to the mess hall, her face was a perfect mask of military discipline—too perfect, too controlled. She moved with the mechanical precision of someone navigating by training alone, her eyes focused on nothing.
Nakamura noticed too. "Something's wrong," he murmured, setting down his utensil.
Yoon took her place at the table, her movements precise but hollow. When Montoya asked about the message, she responded with textbook brevity: "Personal matter. Resolved."
But as Fiona reached for her water, the gauntlet flared again, and for a fraction of a second, she wasn't seeing the mess hall anymore but a sterile room—a brief flash of text: "We regret to inform you... condition could not be stabilized... Asan Medical Center, Seoul."
The vision ended as abruptly as it began. Across the table, Yoon's gaze met Fiona's—and in that instant, widened with recognition, then sharpened into something colder. Suspicion. Awareness.