I tried to take his advice. I put in requests for every safe, back-line technical school I could find—dock drone engineer, engineer’s mate, communications maintenance. It was no use. I was fast-tracked right into team training for combat drones, along with about a quarter of the other goblins. The machine had needs, and my fabricated profile fit them perfectly.

  I had a couple of close calls. Once, a group of goblins decided to settle an argument with a spontaneous wrestling match in the showers while I’d been trying to privately clean up. I’d been cornered, forced to press myself against the slick tiles an cover myself in towels to avoid the flailing limbs, my heart hammering against my ribs. Another time, during a surprise barracks inspection by the Petty Officer, I’d just managed to re-secure the carefully modified fastenings on my coveralls. No one knew the truth about gremlins, and I intended to keep it that way. They were pickier about clean surroundings here, always preaching “attention to detail.” My entire existence was a monument to hidden details.

  Graduation was no ceremony. Just a march in review—a properly coordinated march, not a run—and then the reading of ranks. Two of us made Lance Corporal, five made PFC, the rest remained privates. In a support unit, rank was almost theoretical, a measure of future pay, not present authority.

  An orc private who was your team’s tank could give an order in a hot rift, and you’d obey, regardless of rank. It mattered more for the ones heading to ships, a promise of a future. For those of us bound for combat teams, it was just a number on a soon-to-be-filled grave.

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  And then came the moment I’d been dreading. The orders. Now that I was an actual, ranked member of the military, certain databases would be updated, certain checks might be run. Before, if I’d been discovered, I could have just been disappeared, tossed out of the program, and into a black site. Now, there would be paperwork. Questions.

  “Private Nax!” the Hobgoblin Petty Officer barked.

  “Yes, Petty Officer!”

  “You are going to J-School for munitions management.”

  “Aye aye, Petty Officer!” Nax’s face was a mask of ambivalence. Supply could be good—full of profit opportunities for a clever goblin. It could also be bad—full of courts-martial for a greedy one.

  “Private First Class Pok!”

  “Yes, Petty Officer!”

  “You are going to A-school for shipboard drone maintenance.”

  “Aye aye, Petty Officer!” Pok’s grin could have powered a small city. Fleet duty. Spaceman Apprentice. Higher survival odds, better pay, a real future. He was made.

  Then his eyes found me.

  “Lance Corporal Reynard!”

  I stiffened. “Yes, Petty Officer!”

  “You are going to an assault J-school.” He paused, frowning at his dataslate. “Huh. I haven’t seen that before.”

  A cold trickle of dread traced its way down my spine. “Excuse me, Petty Officer?”

  “They are sending you to Assault Drone Coxswain School. Normally, only dwarves get that fleet billet. You graduate minimum E-4, a noncom.” He looked up from the slate, his expression unreadable. “Either you are incredibly lucky, or incredibly unlucky. Come get your papers, Lan… err… Spaceman.”

  The title hung in the air. Spaceman Apprentice. Fleet. It was everything the Hobgoblin had said I wouldn’t get. It was a promotion. It was also a one-way ticket to the most violent, desperate corners of the war. And it meant someone, somewhere, had looked at my file and seen something they desperately needed.

  I walked forward to collect my orders, my mind racing. Incredibly lucky, or incredibly unlucky. The line between the two had never felt so thin.