I was becoming resigned to my position behind this tree, listening for the sharp click of pellets splattering my friends in paint, when I looked up at the round glass window on the wall and spotted our Occisio mentor standing behind it. His long grey neck—its length the same as my arm—and noseless face were leaning forward to get a better look at me. His thin arms were crossed before his round chest as he stared with beady black eyes.

Fear rippled through me. If he deemed my cowardly actions unacceptable, would I become one of the other ninety-two students who had been dismissed?

I pulled myself to my feet, his stare making the hairs on my back stand up. The reason the Occisio had saved us from Earth and protected us for ten years in this station wasn’t so we could just sit around and do nothing. They were training us to return to Earth and fight the Columnia ravaging our home world.

The Occisio hadn’t come out of hiding in space for nothing. They planned to mold me into a dependable soldier so I could prevent my race from going extinct as theirs had.

Yet here I was, letting my fright get the better of me, just like it had every day after I was brought here at the age of six.

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I gulped and turned away from him, peering around the tree at my surroundings. I would be turning sixteen tomorrow, along with everyone else, and our birth date would mark the final test where they decided whether we were good enough to finally return to Earth.

Perhaps the reason the Occisio hadn’t eliminated me yet was because they knew I would become brave at the very end. Maybe they were holding out hope that I’d rise to the challenge and become stronger for it.

Heat rose in my chest—from excitement or nervousness, I couldn’t tell—as I considered this. I could usually tell the difference between a thrill and anxiety, but right now they felt the same.

“I can do this,” I whispered, scanning the trees around me and holding my breath. “I am humanity’s last hope. I am not a coward.”

I gripped the handle of my gun a little too tight, my finger hovering over the trigger, then I stepped out from behind my tree…and a ball of grey paint instantly splattered my chest.

Gasping and releasing all the air I’d been holding in, I stepped back and spotted Sarmatia crouching behind a tree a few feet away. Her square jaw was tight but it loosened immediately as she nodded at me, acknowledging that she’d once again taken me out. Out of the 3650 training exercises, she’d been the one to shoot me in 2891 of them.

My moment of bravery gone, I raised my gun in the air and admitted defeat. When I looked back at the glass window, the trainer watching me was gone. I don’t know if he liked what he saw or not.