0600 came much too quickly. Sevs had gotten decent sleep, but when the lights came on bright, with a tall, grown man in uniform standing at their door and he was not ready.

“WAKE UP, wake up, wake up.” That was the refrain as he walked down the hall. Pounding his fist exactly once next to the head of every recruit. After the first call rang out when he opened the door, the volume didn’t change. It wasn’t particularly loud, but the pitch was just such that you couldn’t ignore it. After he finished this round, the first people he visited were getting up. He went to the first one up and got her standing at attention. Then he moved down the line. Chivvying and correcting their posture until each recruit was smartly standing at their bed. Then he stood at the doorway. Feet just a bit more than shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind his back, he looked like the perfect picture of ease. It wasn’t until Sevs was slightly more awake that he saw his face. It was an unforgiving face, all sharp angles without even a shadow to soften the edges. Sevs wondered how much of the reason he was given this job was his looks. It wasn’t until he started talking for real did Sevs consider he might have already underestimated this man.

This situation dragged on for a while. All the recruits stood straight, and the man who woke them passively stared at them. Just when Sevs was about to shift, the man spoke.

“I am Z1177, Sergeant Zim. You can call me Sir, Sergeant, Sergeant Zim, or god. Not Zim. I’m not your friend.” Zim took a second to look each of them in the eyes. “While I am not your friend, I am your mother, father, teacher, and master for the next two weeks. They say I can’t be as harsh as an actual drill sergeant. ‘Cause, this is all a game, after all. So I don’t because I listen to our lords and masters. But I'm going to walk that line.”

Ah, a Heinlein fan, Sevs thought. Zim held his fingers up; so they were almost touching. “I’m going to be this close. Do you know why?”

He started walking down the aisle between them. “It’s for many reasons. We don’t need players here. If you treat this like a game, you will get spawn-locked. Then we'll have wasted years of your time. And more importantly, you will have wasted Tara’s equipment!”

The last word came out as a shout as he reached the end of the line. He made a sharp turn on his heel and began walking back. “You all best hope that I am that hard on you too. If I am not, you will be eaten alive. And that is never fun. So you will listen to me and do as I say, and I will whip you into something that can fight back. Follow me!”

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With that last word, he reached the end of the line and set off at a run. The recruits all scrambled to follow. Zim led them around the ship, which was mostly empty at this hour. There was only the night shift out and about. The run lasted for a long time. Maybe an hour. The pace was not brutal; the unendingness of it was. After five minutes, it was clear that they were going in a loop. After the third or so go around, people started to fall behind. Sevs still hadn't gotten a chance to talk to anyone other than Jason. It was too hectic in the morning, with insufficient sleep to focus on anything other than Sergeant Zim. By the time the run woke them up, they were too focused on keeping up with Zim. By the fifth round, only six of the thirteen were left. In the next lap, they passed someone, likely the first to fall out of sight. It was a chubby kid who was probably not yet thirteen. When he heard them running behind them, he started running again, but they could see he was walking before that and soon past him. Sevs was honestly surprised that he had made it as far as he did. As the group kept up with Zim, they gave him pitying looks, but no one could muster up the energy to do much else. Zim didn’t acknowledge him at all.

By the eleventh lap, only Jason and Sevs were with Zim. Sevs was starting to struggle. He was in good shape, but long-distance endurance was not what he trained for. Zim, however, hadn't even broken a sweat. His breathing never faltered, and his eyes never moved from right in front of them. During the whole ordeal, no one said a word. As the twelfth lap started, Sevs was barely able to keep up. Jason was still going strong, though. He sent Sevs a challenging grin and sped up a bit.

Sevs thought that he couldn’t go any longer, and he was less running after Zim and more stumbling. Right before he collapsed, Zim turned into a door that snapped open at his touch. Jason followed him in and bent over, hands on his knees, panting. Sevs half fell in the doorway and collapsed. A few seconds later, he rolled over to his back out of the way of the entrance. The room was dim from an outside perspective; it would be hard to make them out. Zim still was not winded. He stood at rest and watched the corridor, hardly glancing at Jason and Sevs.

Over the next fifteen minutes, people came by at various stages of a run. Some were only walking, and some were jogging. There was as much variation in the levels of exhaustion each player showed. Some of the walkers were in worse shape than Sevs, and some joggers did not even look winded. As each person was about to pass the door, Zim reached out to snag them in. Eventually, they were all there.