The first week was paperwork. Soren attended three briefings, two less than he'd anticipated, and spent the rest of it shadowing the outgoing commandant, a flabby, red-nosed man who kept referring to Soren as "the next generation," as if this meant a chunk of wisdom might get wedged loose in the hand-off.
Each morning, Soren walked the perimeter of the sector, mapping the rhythm of the patrols and counting the number of times the same faces oscillated through the front entrance. He noted patterns: who was on time never Kale, who was hungry for an audience usually Lira, who pretended not to see him at all half the garrison, and at least one drone.
On day five, he received his first non-memo assignment: escort detail on a syndicate transfer, "high asset, risk unknown." The brief had been redacted half to hell, but Soren could read the subtext: the Academy wanted to see if he would break protocol under kinetic pressure. Or, maybe, if he would let someone else take the fall.
