Rane’s legs screamed before his heart rate even began to rise. Each time his boot hit the ground, it felt as if he shook the Earth itself, and each time he raised it once more, it was as if he were running through a bog after a rain. Many of the guys in his enlistment class reassured him that the first day was the hardest. They were wrong.

One did not start the first day sore. One did not start the second day broken. This was day three, and Rane found himself feeling both. He remembered some of the opening statement from the High Tally Cloud.

“It is part of the civilian misconception that you can ‘run out of ambient’. You could not be more wrong. Ambient is nearly everywhere, and in quantities so large none of us could dream of depleting. You are the ones who are simply too weak to make use of it, and so first, we fix that weakness.”

It was much too soon to confirm the truth of the High Tally’s claims, but much too late to back out. Military exercise was not an unbreachable topic, but the Empire considered its exact training methods to be secret, so recruits that made it to this section were forced to complete it, or be required to serve out the remainder of their military service as a porter.

On day one, they had been ordered to run until they could no longer run. The bottom 2 of each squad would have no meal that night, only water. If the entire squad could continue for more than an hour, all would be dismissed. If none of the squad could make over an hour, all would share the same punishment as the bottom two. One recruit asked about rewards. Low Tally Cobble told him that his reward was strength, then took his meal privilege.

Day two was ten percent more running than you were able to do the day before, then unarmed combat. Round robin in your own squad, then another three bouts against someone who mirrored your placement in the round robin seeding. Rane placed fifth in his squad, and found himself against an opponent he was sure was 40 pounds over his own weight, and taller by a decent margin.

Rane began by stepping forward, feinting a jab before quickly taking one step back. When the taller boy took a step forward, Rane pivoted on his left foot driving his foot towards his leg. Rane was too slow, and the boy simply lifted his left leg to avoid the blow. Off balanced by the miss, Rane postured awkwardly with his right leg too far forward to do anything other than keep him from falling. He turned his head towards his opponent just in time to see his fist coming down from above, striking him in the cheekbone. He fell backwards and half scrambled, half ran away for a second before the pain really registered. Rane opened his mouth and worked his jaw for a moment before putting his fists back into his best impression of a guard. The opponent did not wait for him, and quickly advanced, throwing a right-handed jab that Rane did manage to catch with his left fist raised. This accomplishment was fleeting, however, as the force of the blow still drove his own fist into his face. The next strike was low, a hook that hit him just below the ribs, paralyzing him with pain as he went to ground instantly. Rane lost all three rounds.

And it was so that on the third day, Rane considered his commitment to all this as each footfall brought him closer to his mark. Not by distance, but simply time. Today he needed to run for 55 minutes without stopping. It would continue to rise by ten percent until they all reached 2 hours. And so he ran. Rane cursed the guys that told him day two would be the worst, reminding himself that he never needed the advice of his peers again. He had thought them savants just a day ago. Now, bruised and battered from the sparring, his muscles screaming from the running, Rane couldn't imagine a place better than the cot found in his tent at the barracks. It was actually less itchy than the one he had back home.

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His thoughts were interrupted by the cue of a low tally he didn’t even know, “Dreg Rane, time’s up!”

Rane made a move to slow down. His lower limbs, however, did not take this order as he stated. He lost his balance, falling face first down into the dust of the track. He thought to himself that he had been wrong previously, this may actually be more comfortable than the cot, which was the last thing he thought before waking up in the medical tent.

***

Rane woke up to the yelling of Low Tally Cobble blasting through the tent. Was it possible for a man to be so loud?

“Wake up, Dregs, you’ve all been healed of any life threatening injuries, report to weapons training at dusk. Any questions?” his voice boomed. The tent was large, but was it large enough for an echo? That was the primary question on Rane’s mind, but he didn’t have the courage to vocalize that one.

Another recruit, the one that had beaten him senseless in the hand-to-hand training, had tried to stand as soon as the tally had said to report somewhere. He did not succeed, instead falling to the dirt floor of the tent as his knees weakly buckled underneath him. This one had a question.

“Were our injuries not healed,” he asked?

“Do you have corn in your ears, dreg, I said, ‘life threatening injuries’. A brazient class healer has better things to do than massage your weak little ferull legs.”

The tense air seemed to normalize a bit after the tally left. Rane took a look around and opened his mouth to ask what day it was, but closed it when he realized that he actually didn’t know any of these recruits. It seemed that none of his other squadmates had run into this particular issue. Well, technically he had met one guy, the tall one that killed him in hand-to-hand. Well, the devil you know, Rane thought.

“Hey,” Rane said, a bit too loudly, prompting many to turn to look at him. He quickly shook his head and pointed, “him.”

“What?”

“What day is it,” asked Rane.

“Wednesday,” he responded. “You make a habit of passing out for multiple days or something?”

“No. Well, actually it’s happened more than once now, but I wouldn’t call it a habit exactly.” Rane was more scared that he had missed something important. He missed a meal, but he could always make that up later. Doing too poorly in this induction would have his military service be a far cry from the glorious demi hunts he dreamed about on the day he decided to enlist.

“I’m Mack, but my squad already calls me Puddles,” he said as he reached his fist forward. “Apparently, I sweat a lot.”

“I’m Rane, nice to meet you.” He met Puddles’ fist with his own. “No nickname, just Rane.”