Lucas sighed. It had been a bit over a month since the initial invasion. On one hand, most things continued as normal. But not all. And you could feel an atmosphere of unease in public places. No one was really fearing the invaders, which seemed to call themselves Kyreikon. But most were fearing another attack from a different species, in a different universe. The UE was massive, and could potentially fight on a lot of fronts and win, but there were limits. It was unlikely that it would fall, at least as long as no one else used Gates, but it was always a possibility that they would loose a lot of their standard of living.

It was a horror scenario, which luckily enough was incredibly unlikely.

One of the changes was that now there were advertisements for the military. For a true military, for the UE. Something that had never really existed, now was there. There were many voices that were against it, that it destroyed not only their standard of living, but even for what the UE stood. Lucas snorted at that thought. Idiots, all of them. We need a military to not only retake Terra, but to safeguard every world under the protection of the UE.

He was surprised as voice suddenly came from near his ear: “Turn left in 15 meters.” Well, his fault for daydreaming while walking towards the closest recruitment offer. That he had moved through three Gates to get here was not really important, the closest on the earth he had slept for the last month was more than five hundred kilometers away. This was just 4 kilometers from his hotel room.

But now he was finally there. There was no line, unsurprisingly. Ignoring that you actually needed to register, and got a time slot for your troubles, while there was a huge number of prospective recruits, there also was a huge number of earths in the UE. And every single one of the populated ones needed to have a recruitment office. They had other duties, in fact, the recruitment of new soldiers was a rather minor function of their usual duties, but now it became necessary.

He was greeted by a young man, in casual business wear: “Hello. You are here for military recruitment, right?”

“Yes.”, while answering, Lucas sat down on the indicated chair.

“Ok, lets begin with the classical disclaimers I am sure the AIs have already fed you over and over again, but those are sadly necessary. So, you realize that your life will be in danger on this track? There are other ways to help the war effort, but the route you are following has no out from seeing active combat. Nobody will think worse of you if you decide to go a different route, or even just go into the civilian market. The economy is after all one of our strongest advantages in the coming conflict. Hm, here is written that you are a member of the Academia Exploratus. Which means that there are even more opportunities to serve the UE that do not require you to endanger yourself. Some might argue that those opportunities would be better for the UE in the end.”

“But not you, right?”

“I officially have no opinion in that regard, but personally, it boils down what you want. Yes, as a researcher, you could make a difference, but if you yearn for adventure, you might not use your skills to their fullest extent. And having scientists in the field is also useful. You are knowledgeable about Gates, which means that you might even able to do more than the simplest field repairs in an emergency. In fact, you actually have the basic skillset to build new Gates, which can be an advantage. Of course, you need resources for that, but that is not relevant here. Now, are you certain that you want to go this route? You can always back out, and it would not be cowardly.”

“Yes, I am certain.”

“Great. Remember, if you feel it is not for you, you can always back out. Take your time, even if it is likely that you already did. If you do not feel like, you can always return. We have enough administrative staff after all.” He paused for a short moment, meaningfully: “Now, everyone will need to go through the basic infantry course. In case of another invasion, current tactical planning is that everyone will be thrown into battle, even if they normally use machines that cannot be reached currently. That training is necessary to make something like that not into a total waste. That course will likely take two months. I say likely, because we are still overhauling a lot of things. Skills which were vital before the invasion are still useful, but they have significantly less priority than others and honestly, a lot of them will likely be the preview of specialist units as soon as we have figured everything out. Skills which only got basic coverage or none at all are suddenly utterly important. Like building field fortifications and coordinating in a large battle. As you might now, the largest battle in the last one hundred years before the invasion involved a whopping 27 men on our side, and 384 on the enemies, with them using bow and arrow as their only ranged weapon. And that was the largest battle. Operations have included more, but I am not doing my job anymore. Sorry for that. Other than the basic Infantry training that everyone needs to do, you will need to decide which arm of the military you want to be in afterwards. You do not need to decide now, that question will be asked at the end of the basic training again, but you should now the basic options. Be aware that you might not be able to get your choice, but you can always leave the military as long as you are in training still. You would need to repeat the training if you reapplied afterwards, but otherwise, no problem. Your basic options are the infantry, the tank force, the Air Force and of course the newly created space force. If you have more questions ask. Here is your application that needs to be filled out under the watchful gaze of a government employee to guarantee that nobody pressures you into anything you do not want. I will be reviewed afterwards through a board of three HIs, with the potential of human advise.”

Lucas filled out the forms, regularly asking for clarification. When the question came to check the box in which he declared his tentative service path, he marked space force.

After he was finished, the tablet was returned. After some pleasantries exchanged, he left the building. After not even 30 minutes, he received an email that said where and when he needed to be at the mustering place. In a week, his training would begin.