The week of the Universal Government recruitment had finally arrived.
It came not with ceremony, but with a kind of unspoken gravity. The kind that weighed down every conversation in Grey Hollow, stretched every silence between friends, and tightened every glance exchanged between would-be applicants.
For Jace and Lenn Virek, it wasn't the beginning of something.
It was the culmination of everything they'd been shaping themselves for.
— Day One
Jace woke before the dome lights warmed. The soft pulse of his alarm blinked against the wall in amber, casting shadows across the ceiling. He didn't move for a few seconds. Just listened to the faint hum of the recyclers, the rhythm of Lenn's steady breathing, the silence of everything else.
Then he rose.
No hesitation. No delay.
By the time Lenn stirred, Jace was already in the middle of his morning drills, core work, slow body-weight resistance sets, and static holds to build stability. The kind of training that didn't need equipment, just grit.
"You're up early," Lenn said, stretching as he sat up.
"Weeks started," Jace replied, not breaking form.
Lenn rubbed his jaw, stifled a yawn, then stood and joined him without another word.
They didn't need to speak much anymore. Not about this. Not after twenty-two months of pushing, sweating, and bleeding.
They'd done sprint runs in the canyon at dusk, breath catching in their throats from the thin air. They'd trained in hazard drills under Arik's watchful eye, learning to improvise when the lights failed or a seal burst under pressure. They had studied UG protocols from bootleg handbooks, dissecting rank structures, memorizing fleet divisions, and arguing tactics late into the night.
And they'd sparred often.
Sometimes with each other. Sometimes, we have volunteers from the outer rigs. Once, even with a retired UG scout who passed through Hollow and had noticed their form.
That one had ended with a bruised rib and a lesson in humility.
But they learned.
They always learned.
— The Town Changes
Grey Hollow didn't change much on the surface. It was still rust-colored, quiet, rough around the edges.
But recruitment week made everything feel sharper.
Posters from the UG were plastered across the central boards, slick, pristine, holographic. Words like Legacy and Duty blinked beneath images of armored figures and gleaming starships. No one said where the materials came from, but everyone knew they weren't printed locally.
Every teen with half a dream was suddenly training harder, eating cleaner, and standing straighter. The mechanic's son from the east dome stopped skipping drills. The orphan girl from the canyon floor was spotted reading military doctrine.
The whole settlement breathed differently.
Even the traders were quieter. Watching. Measuring. Guessing who might leave and who might come back changed.
— Learning from Kael
Kael had changed, too.
Not in the ways that made noise. But in the ways that mattered.
He didn't say much. But he watched everything. And when Lenn struggled with field theory protocols for emergency lockdown procedures, Kael corrected his diagrams.
When Jace overstrained his wrist in a simulation module, Kael built a tension brace from three recycled stabilizers and a cooling filament wire.
At night, when the brothers trained in the old ventilation zone, Kael would silently point out their weaknesses. A shift in balance. A repeated inefficiency in Lenn's footwork. An overcompensation in Jace's left shoulder guard movement.
At first, they'd brushed it off.
But then they listened.
And Kael, quiet, strange, unnervingly observant, became part of their routine.
Even now, as Lenn hauled gear out from the side crate and Jace checked their practice module's capacitor levels, Kael sat nearby with a folded datapad.
"Your lateral sprint time dropped," he said without looking up.
Jace blinked. "You tracked that?"
Kael nodded. "You lose speed when the slope curves right."
Jace rolled his eyes. "You and Vessa talk or something?"
Kael looked up, expression unreadable. "I listen."
Lenn laughed. "Of course you do."
Then, softer: "Thanks, little brother."
Kael didn't smile. But he dipped his head.
"You'll need that time. For what's coming."
Jace's grin faded slightly.
Lenn tightened a strap on his wrist brace.
They knew what Kael meant.
Because in two days, the UG screening crew would arrive.
And everything would change.