Team Scarlet’s Zeta-Class Patrol ship rumbled as it broke through the planet’s atmosphere.

“I always miss our old Corvette during entry,” Perri sighed, blowing a tousled lock of blond hair out of her face. She furrowed her brow during the bumpy descent.

“Corvette’s a different kinda ship now,” said Jarek. He scratched his scalp, recently shaven according to his style as of late. “But it ain’t all that much bigger than a Patrol. Doubt it’s any smoother a ride neither.”

“We should all count ourselves exceedingly fortunate we’re not skilled enough to pilot an Epsilon-Class Corvette,” Maqsud opined. His finger-length black hair, slicked back atop his head, stayed put thanks to copious product.

Perri snorted. “Well, except—”

“Except you,” Maqsud finished for her with a snarky look of half-praise, half-mockery. “Of course, Perri. But don’t speak that possibility into existence! I know you play all the WorldGov naval sims on the market and a few you downloaded through backchannels. My point is that space combat has the potential to be even more dangerous than doing it on the ground.”

“Not like she’d see any action anyway,” Jarek argued. “When’s the last time you even heard of a space engagement? Other than the rogues. But those are few and far between.” Nic felt Jarek look at him from two seats down in the control room. This room had a different configuration, two rows of three seats each. “What do you think, Squad Leader?”

Nic found himself wondering which of the two empty seats would have been occupied. “Space engagements are costly,” said Nic, “when your enemy can camouflage against the entire electromagnetic spectrum and adapt hull durability to withstand attacks. On the ground, they’re squishy enough if you know where to aim. I like the ground.” His squadmates nodded in agreement.

Nic had been forced to learn very much, very quickly in the past year. Combat strategies. Basic, archaic first aid. The diverse anatomies of the enemy. The knowledge served him well, but even with all this wisdom of war weighing on his mind, his central focus was on more pressing matters.

In five hours, this mission will be over, he thought to himself. In five hours, this mission will be over.

said RTIFIS, their helpful AI assistant.

“Y’all ready or what?” said Jarek, grinning and rubbing his hands together. “We been through this a couple times already. Third time’s the charm, right?”

“This part always makes me anxious,” Perri replied, flailing her hands and then running them through her platinum blond hair. “Even though I know everything will probably be fine. What about you?” Her blue eyes looked up probingly at Nic, her index finger grazing the knuckles of his right hand.

“I’m good,” Nic lied with a nod.

In five hours, this mission will be over.

“I cannot wait to enjoy a good, hearty meal once this is all over,” said Maqsud, reclining as far as his seat would allow. “A snack just isn’t going to cut it. When this is done, we’ll have earned a feast—and then some!”

“I always get too queasy to eat until we’ve been back in transit for a while,” said Perri with a slight grimace. “I think it’s from seeing all their faces. Being watched so much... Not a fan.”

RTIFIS chimed in.

“You sure you good, man?” Jarek chuckled, giving Nic a friendly but dubious look. “I mean, you’re gonna be takin’ most of the damage on this mission, after all. You ready for that?”

Nic shrugged. “If I still get to wear my Achilles,” he answered, “then I’m good.” The other three laughed.

That’s good, he congratulated himself, you still know how to make them laugh. Keep doing that. Don’t let them know how much you’re sweating on the inside. And remember... In five hours, this mission will be over.

Nic let out a brusque sigh. Showtime.

***

“Scarlet 2, ready weapon!” barked the lieutenant.

Jarek, in his powered vac-armor, snapped his Rocket Launcher abruptly into an upright position. “Weapon ready, sir!”

“Weapon... fire!”

Jarek pulled the trigger, sending a rocket straight at his Squad Leader.

Nic managed to cross his arms at the last millisecond just as his squadmate shot. The explosion rocked the suit of armor around him, pushing him back a solid meter and kicking up a small cloud of dust and smoke, but hidden decoy smoke pellets also went off on impact to increase the visual effect. A hundred gasps reached his ears through the comms channel connected to the next room.

Wait a few seconds, he remembered from his training. And... that should be good. He stepped forward from the cloud of smoke, provoking even more gasps from the small crowd of remote onlookers, and held up his hands in shrugging, casual victory. “And that, boys and girls, is how it’s done,” he said with practiced confidence.

His audience went wild. A room of 16- and 17-year-old students cheered with such volume and ferocity that a pair of magisters had to whistle to get them to quiet down a minute later. Once they were done, Nic waved once at the camera, exchanging back-pats with Jarek as they left the Arena where they’d first met over a year ago.

“Mr. Siegfried!” “Mr. Mitchell! Mr. Mitchell, have you ever been hit with a rocket?” “Mr. Siegfried, can I touch your armor? Is it still hot? What, Magister Paulsen? It was just a question...”

It felt strange being addressed as Mr. Siegfried, given Nic was only 19 years old himself, but the adoration heaped upon him stoked the fire of his ego. The fact that his face was hidden behind the opaque visor of his helmet probably helped cement his hero status.

“Scarlet 1,” said the WorldGov Space Force lieutenant, stone-faced, “the floor is yours. You may proceed when ready.” The man folded his hands at the special wooden podium brought into the room for the occasion.

Nic looked out at his audience of Paradigm Military Academy students. An entire graduating class sat before him—but they were graduating several months early, as had the class before them, out of necessity. In a few short weeks, they would be deployed to the front lines. Nic would have found the whole situation a tragic gut-punch if he hadn’t already grown so accustomed to war. It is what it is.

“On Planet Nereus,” Nic began, using a speech-giving voice that was slightly distinct from his usual voice, “I fell over 10 kilometers out of a Hexadian Egg following my abduction. The only reason I’m alive today is because they were afraid of us. Afraid of what we’d do to them if I died. So, they saved me because they had to save me, but if not for them, I would have been dead on impact. Old-school vac-armor was designed to take a punch, a kick, and maybe a 10-meter fall. 10 kilometers... I’d be nothing but chunks of metal and a bloodstain if I’d hit the ground full force.” A few students in the audience winced. “You know, this very same thing happened to another soldier about two months ago. Freefall from over 12,000 meters. Except now we’re in the Contact War. No Hex is gonna bother saving us this time. They wanted him to fall to his death.

“He fell 12 kilometers. Screaming. He’d already killed a few Commanders and a cluster of Fodders on that Egg. They were sick of him.” Nic chuckled quietly in his helmet. “So, out he went. Down. Down. Way down. He fell for almost a minute straight, touching nothing but air. He was still alive when he hit the ground. I’m guessing you’re probably wondering what happened next.” He let the pause hang in the air, relished the edge-of-their-seat, mouth-slightly-agape expressions of the students. “Well, he was wearing a Gen-3 Achilles Powered Armorsuit, so he got up, dusted himself off, and went on to kill 23 more enemies.” Gasps and applause followed. “Now, this story isn’t exactly a perfectly happy ending. He did not make it out totally unscathed. He had a pretty nasty bruise on his knee for about a week. And let me tell you all, I got sick of him complaining about it every morning.”

“What?” Jarek laughed. “I fell 12 klicks, bro. You can cut me some slack!” The whole room burst into laughter and raucous applause, including the magisters, and even the lieutenant cracked a half-smirk.

“Okay, we have a few questions,” said Magister Paulsen, a redheaded woman with a streak of gray through her hair. Her eyes flicked to the WGSF lieutenant for approval before she called on a student with his hand up.

“Mr. Siegfried, or, uh, Scarlet 1,” said the student, “so, it was Mr. Mitchell, Scarlet 2, who survived the fall?”

“That’s right,” Nic answered with a nod.

“Wow. Okay, so, um, how do you survive a fall from that high?”

Nic looked at Jarek, who said, “I can take this one. So, you got astrosteel plating on the outside, right? Inside is your feedback suit, skintight, one size fits all. Between those two is a layer of what’s called reactive impact foam. Distributes kinetic energy over a certain threshold—” Jarek snapped his fingers “—like that. Instant. Cushions the blow. Boy, I was hollerin’ my head off outta instinct, but I hit that ground like I rolled outta bed or somethin’. Barely hurt at first.” A few students chuckled.

Nic glanced at the holo-clock on the wall. Three and a half more hours, he thought to himself.

***

Three hours later, the worst of it was over.

The celebrity lecture at PMA—although Nic would always remember it as PPI—concluded after a long Q&A session and some action-packed holos designed to boost class morale. What followed was a short and simple dinner paid for by the WorldGov Space Force. Nic and Maqsud both noted how it was a far cry from the foods they were offered on their last day at PPI, and Nic hoped, for the students’ sake, that their graduation banquet would be more impressive.

Donning their helmets once more, the four members of Team Scarlet said their goodbyes as the students were whisked away to another hab for the remainder of the day. The WGSF lieutenant shook their hands and they departed after exchanging a crisp salute. It’s mostly over now, Nic celebrated inwardly. Mostly.

Walking outside the repurposed Final Exam hab, Nic saw that Planet Ayrus was a very different world from the one they’d left behind not even two years prior.

Only about half of the workers outside were wearing airsuits; the others were wearing jackets with thick pants and nasal cannulas for oxygen, and some of them wore Earth-winter-style hats for warmth. Their every breath was visible as a puff of vapor in the air. Short, shrublike plants and moss gardens lined a long walkway leading out of the hab to the parking lot.

The atmosphere pumps had doubled in number since last time, too, chugging along at full steam and spewing terraforming gases into the sky at an alarming rate. It was much more rapid atmospheric conversion than planetologists typically allowed in the past. The sky, now encouragingly bluish, peeked out from behind a haze of greenhouse gas.

Nic climbed into the driver’s seat of their rover and drove it back to the spaceport.

“Nicolas, I thought we were going to visit the arboretum before departing?” said Maqsud.

“We are,” Nic answered. “We have a pit stop to make first. Don’t worry, it won’t take long.”

“Well, I was sweatin’ bullets the whole damn time we were in there,” said Jarek. “How’d you feel, man? Get any easier than last time?”

Nic sighed. “Nope. But a job’s a job.” He shrugged. “It’s only my third one, though. It’s early.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Perri, patting the shoulder of his armor, “I think you did great. You both did.”

Nic chuckled. “Thanks, but to be perfectly honest, I’d rather be out in the field.” He parked the rover and they climbed the stairs to their Patrol ship.

“Oh, come on,” Perri laughed, “it wasn’t that nerve-wracking, was it?”

“No, it’s not like that.” Nic led the way into the living quarters, much smaller than their old Corvette’s used to be. “It’s just, our actual job is way more satisfying. Do what you love and you won’t work a day in your life. And I gotta say...” Nic looked at the 3D-printed alien models sitting on their coffee table. He grabbed a Commander, the tall, hulking gray one, and squeezed it in his right hand, feeling the flexible material bend, but knowing that he could break it with the power of his Achilles suit. “Well, this part of the job has grown on me.”

“Shit,” said Jarek, “I just remembered what tomorrow was. Y’all know what tomorrow is, right? I mean, we know what it is... The anniversary of the war and stuff, but... you know what I’m gettin’ at, right?”

Perri and Max nodded. Nic said, “I remembered. Actually, I came back to the ship because I have something planned before we take off. I guess I might as well get on with it now. Wait here.”

“Those plans had better include the arboretum!” Maqsud called after him.

He went to Bedroom 5, which had remained unoccupied since the day they were reassigned to the Patrol ship. Shanti’s potted plant sat on the desk, just as it had sat on her desk in the old Corvette. He’d kept it thriving for nearly a year after Nereus with meticulous watering and pruning, but he knew that potted plants were far from immortal, and it had started to wilt and brown despite his best efforts. It still hurt to part with it. Strangely, it felt like her funeral all over again.

He drew in a sharp breath, blinked away the deep, dark feeling that welled up inside him until it was gone. All gone. But the memories that replayed in his mind’s eye like a glitched holo couldn’t be suppressed so easily.

Nic grabbed the plant and walked back out into the living room. He announced to his squad, “We’re going to bury it in the arboretum.”

Jarek’s lip quivered but he nodded once. Perri fanned her eyes and looked away. Max gave a sad smile, asking, “That sounds like a lovely idea. Have the botanists given the go-ahead?”

“I sent them a beacon this morning,” said Nic. “I told them the kind of plant it was, dimensions of the pot for the soil... They said it should be fine. We have a small window of privacy now between tours. Let’s go.”

The four surviving members of Team Scarlet carried on with a small, private ceremony remembering their fifth squadmate. Her plant was now buried on the same planet she was. Nic told the others of his decision to keep the pot, telling them that they could plant something else in it someday, perhaps when the Contact War was over.

He said, “I think it’s what Shanti would have wanted.”