On the morning of the day my life went sideways, I raced to the arena in the center of the Mars Dome and managed to be the first cadet to arrive, though half a dozen of my classmates followed close behind me. I yanked the heavy metal door open, slipped inside, and let it slam shut, announcing my arrival to my instructors.

Three men and two women sat waiting for the cadets to arrive. Four of them were strangers to me. They used their coffee cups to hide their lips when they murmured to one another. These were people who made a life out of keeping secrets.

These were our examiners.

Oh, crap. My stomach dropped. I hadn't expected testing day yet. Nobody had. We'd all been certain we still had time to fine tune the skills we'd been taught, to memorize a few more details, to grow up a bit more.

Resisting the urge to pat my braids and make sure they were tidy, or to fuss with my uniform, required all of my willpower. Instead, I stood directly in front of the table and arranged my face in a way that hopefully hid the fact I kind of wanted to vomit.

The wheel that controlled the emergency airlock rattled against its frame as the other cadets hurried in. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched every one of them take in the scene. Without exception, their steps faltered for a split second before they squared their shoulders and took a place in line.

Rodamere and Reinbach chose to stand on either side of me, surrounding me with their mean-spirited idiocy. When we were kids, one of the caretakers told me I'd learn to tune out the negative voices. A skill I had yet to master.

"How's that weak ankle?" Rodamere kept his voice too low for the examiners to hear over the rolling thunder of our classmates' quick footsteps.

I refused to look at him. "Get bent."

"Must be scary to go into a test like this knowing you're physically weaker than average. I mean, really, there was only one other injury in our entire class," Reinbach pointed out, as if we didn't all know it. What could I say? She was right.

Generations of careful genetic engineering had given us physical abilities far greater than that of other humans. Our muscles were stronger and more flexible, our bones more dense, our skin resistant to damage and quick to heal. Nonetheless, I managed to shatter my ankle during a training exercise two years earlier. It didn't matter that it healed, and I returned to my regular duties. The injury itself was enough to distinguish me as weaker than the rest. It was part of the reason the two of them outranked me by several points.

"Have you memorized the Starborn Protocol yet?" I asked Reinbach.

She'd flubbed it every time she'd been quizzed about it.

The bell rang before she could come back with whatever nasty thing she was planning to say next.

General Colbert stood from her place at the end of the table. For eighteen years, since we were toddlers, the gray-haired, steely eyed woman had been in charge of our instruction. She kept her spine straight and her chin high, defying age, refusing to give in to the weight of her advancing years. I had always wondered how much of that came from her extraordinary genetics and how much of it was sheer grit.

"As you know," she began. "We give no class the date of their final exam. No one can tell you when a crisis will emerge. There is often no warning before disaster strikes. The material we test you on is not something you can study the night before testing. You need to know how to move and adapt, how to put your skills and your learning to use with the same level of instinct with which you draw breath."

Motion near the right end of the line caught my eye. Someone had raised their hand.

Colbert called on them, but her voice carried an unmistakable hint of annoyance. She loathed interruptions.

"Just last week you told us our futures depend on studying faithfully," the boy pointed out.

Damn, I wanted to look and see who it was. Somebody with a death wish, for sure.

The general's upper lip twitched into a snarl. "And the week before that, I told you it's better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it." She paced along the length of the line before whipping around and changing directions. When Colbert moved, the sharp angles of her body sliced through the air. "Your exam starts now. Lowest rank first. Fall in."

An order had been given. Not one cadet hesitated. The line broke apart and reformed in seconds, no longer side-by-side, but single file.

I set my eyes directly ahead, staring at the greasy head of the cadet in front of me; the cadet whom I outranked by less than one full percentage point. I was closer to the back of the line than the front, but Rodamere stood behind us all and that chapped my ass. He had all the right skills, but he used them in all the wrong ways. He didn't deserve honor in any way, shape, or form. To distract myself from my buzzing nerves, I started running stats in my mind.

A 97-A13 holds enough charge for eighty-seven shots. That's a lower capacity than the 99, but each shot is more powerful by three.

An average transport takes thirty-seven point one Earth days to travel from Mercury station to Heaven.

One judge called out, "Cadet Shepherd."

Shepherd, a beefcake of a soldier who was all brawn and not a bit of brain, lumbered over to stand in front of the table.

"I'm Senator Redmond." The judge shook her glossy blonde hair back from her shoulders. "I'd like you to tell me what you would do if you got a call for a bomb threat on Earth."

"On Earth?" The poor big oaf sounded like he'd never heard of the planet where humanity had been born.

"Yes, Cadet. A bomb threat on Earth."

"Why would anyone bomb the Earthborn?" Shepherd asked.

The senator leaned over and whispered to the tall, gaunt man next to her, nodded, and made a note on her tablet. "Thank you for your time, Cadet. Please move to the east side of the room and take a seat."

Shepherd's mouth fell open, snapped shut, opened again. He looked like an over-muscled mutant fish.

I didn't blame him for his shock. No one in line moved or spoke, but confusion rippled through the row like an electrical current.

What just happened?

"Cadet Jonesberg."

While Shepherd drifted toward the bleachers, a towering pale white girl with cropped red curls scurried forward. This time, it was a small round man with eyes the color of copper who spoke. "I am Dr. Hajyousef. How are you today?"

Jonesburg stood so straight I worried her spine might snap like an over-tightened bowstring. "Uh... I'm fine. Sir. Thank you."

The doctor smiled in the creepy way all doctors do right before they perform uncomfortable procedures on you. "Tell me, Cadet, what you would do in the case of a level three bio containment crisis in the Martian dome?"

"Time until total permeation?"

"Minutes at most."

"Where am I when I learn of it?"

The doctor hesitated. It appeared he hadn't been prepared for these questions, but Jonesburg was right to gather more information.

"Here," he said. "In the Arena."

"I'd pull the alarm and wait until the last moment possible. Then I'd blow the airlock and send a distress signal to Jupiter. To Europa Station, I mean." A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face.

"You'd blow the lock and let your friends on the outside die?"

She didn't hesitate. "Yes, Sir. Better some of them than all of us."

"Thank you, Cadet. You may join your classmate over there."

Jonesburg backed away from the table as if afraid an enemy might leap out from behind it and attack her.

"Cadet Lubinski," the Senator called out.

I despise Lubinski. The sight of his pale dewy face, red from overindulgence, made me want to slap him. He was lazy and prone to cheating. I sincerely hoped he'd wash out, but I never dreamed of the spectacular fashion in which he'd do so.

"Is this seriously what you've been going on about our whole lives? This whole test is one question each?" Lubinski's tone rivaled any petulant toddler's.

General Colbert folded her hands in front of her. "Did I, at some point, indicate that cadets are in a position to question their superiors?"

Lubinski gestured toward the table. "They're civilians. How are they supposed to know what we're capable of, based on one question? This is ridiculous."

The senator cleared her throat. "Thank you for your time, Cadet."

That shut Lubinski up. He stood there gaping, but the silence didn't last long. A bark of horrid, joyless laughter burst out of him. "This is some pile of—"

"Cadet Rodamere, execute this traitorous Peacekeeping Cadet."

"Cadet Rodamere, execute this traitorous Peacekeeping Cadet." General Colbert's order carried no more or less venom than her order to fall in line.

Lubinski spun to face Rodamere. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rodamere had all the color and animation of a Greek statue.

Time slowed.

Only the hum of the generators moved inside the arena. The whisper of general Colbert's uniform echoed loud as the thunder in Jupiter's red eye when she crossed her arms. "I gave you an order, Rodamere."

Did the others hear my pounding heart? Could they smell my rank fear? Or were they as panicked as I was?

Lubinski panted like an animal in a trap.

The line of cadets stood frozen with wide-eyed horror.

Colbert sighed. I'd been wrong about her resisting the years. Every one of them had left its mark, turning her into a tired old woman.

A dust mote, caught in a beam of light, drifted on an air current. It danced toward Lubinski and then shifted toward Colbert, before choosing Lubinski again, and finally landing on his shoulder like a fairy with a secret to whisper in his ear the moment before his death.

Colbert unfolded her arms and reached for her weapon.

Then, as if to make up for its sloth, time shot forward faster than ever. Later, I couldn't remember drawing my tranq, or pulling the trigger. I only know I had a moment of overwhelming clarity. I had to take action or something terrible would happen. And then Lubinski lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious, but alive.

General Colbert glared at me, her hand still on the butt of her holstered pistol. "What do you think you are doing, Cadet?"

Thankfully, my lips took over, because my brain was a blank screen. "I neutralized any threat with zero collateral damage, General."

Colbert closed in on me with slow, measured steps that carried her past the long line of gawking cadets. "You weren't part of this exercise, Cadet."

Exercise? Seriously? I lifted my chin. "A Peacekeeper's first priority is to protect the well-being of the Alliance's citizens as dictated by the constitution." I held her gaze and prayed for strength. "That duty cannot be superseded by orders from any person in the chain of command, up to and including the Prime Administrator."

Cold sweat broke out across my chest and down my arms, and I gritted my teeth to suppress a shiver. It took an act of will to relax my jaw enough to speak again. "No person within the boundaries of the Alliance may be punished for a crime without due process, and no criminal, regardless of crime, shall be executed if there remains a hope of rehabilitation."

I swallowed the hot acid in my throat and continued. "You had no justification for ordering Lubinski's execution, and Rodamere had no obligation to obey your bogus order."

As I heard the words come from my own lips, the truth dawned on me. "This is all part of the—"

"Cadet, you may take your place with your classmates. Rodamere, clean this up." She flicked a hand toward Lubinski, who was just beginning to groan and come around. I considered helping, even though I'd been told to step aside, but I thought I had spent more than one day's worth of guts and gumption already. Plus, to be honest, it amused me to watch Rodamere struggle, and I couldn't have cared less if Lubinski got dropped.

I dropped onto the front bleacher next to Shepherd. He whispered to me out of the corner of his mouth. "I can't figure out if you're the stupidest or the smartest person in this room."

I had no response. I didn't know, either. Clenching the hard edge of the bench kept my hands from trembling and prevented me from falling over.

Rodamere grunted and heaved his way over to us, dropped Lubinski in a heap, and plopped down by my side. "I'm not sure if I should kiss you or kick your ass."

Matching his hushed tone and avoiding eye contact, I answered. "As if you'd ever be able to do either."

One judge who hadn't spoken yet glanced in our direction and we fell silent.

The cadet in front of the judges' table then was a short girl, engineered with flexibility that rendered her practically immune to joint injury. Ever since the thing with my ankle, I'd been a tad jealous of her. The entire class waited breathlessly to see what would happen next on this extraordinary day.

"What would it take for humans to pass through the Kuiper Belt?" Dr. Hajyousef asked.

Seriously? Rodamere gets life and death and breach of command sanctions and the rubber girl gets third grade geography?

Boredom squelched adrenaline as I listened to the cadet drone on about failed attempts of earlier explorers to leave our solar system, and the resulting belief that humanity, at its current level of evolution, could not do so. The cadets waiting for their turn, fidgeted. They remained at attention, but restless fingers drummed a thigh here, and someone bounced on their toes over there.

We suffered through ten more mundane questions and answers before the general conferred with the judges and announced that we were done, although most of the people there had been only bystanders to the weird testing process.

"You are to return to your barracks. Do not leave your rooms. You are excused from communal dining for the day. Someone will come to you before lights out and inform you of your orders or your release. Dismissed."

Not wanting another drama like the one that happened last time someone hesitated, I made for the door immediately. Everyone else must have felt the same because two hundred twelve silent cadets joined me in an orderly, quick-moving line that exited the arena and streamed toward the barracks. I glanced behind me and saw Lubinski limping along dejectedly behind everyone else.

If that idiot is the reason I lose my chance for a commission, I will hunt him down and squash him like the bug he is.

The inside of my room felt small and dark as a jail cell. I perched on the edge of the bed and looked at the clock. Ten hours until lights out.

In the next ten hours, I'd find out if I had successfully completed my training or if I'd spend the rest of my life as a washout.