I climbed up stairs into one of the many raised simulator cockpits and slid in. The lid closed with a hiss and internal lights came on, though I could see perfectly well in the dark. The inside appeared to be an accurate control system for a small one-person starfighter. A flicker of nervousness ran through me. I had never flown a ship before. Had other people here flown ships often? The other candidates certainly had the access and resources to do so if they wanted to test fly ships and to get good instructors, but I was not sure it would be something expected or required for them. After the previous test I wanted to do well, but I had no idea what to do with the controls.

“Welcome to the starship commander simulator, Candidate Lucion.” My monitor said.

“I don’t know how to fly one of these.” I admitted to the machine bluntly, straight to the point.

“Instruction will be provided first of the controls necessary to fly the ship.” The wristwatch replied.

“Why is it called starship commander simulator when I’m piloting the virtual craft?” I asked it directly.

“Early stages of the test involve learning to fly and fight with a starship from the perspective of a pilot to give knowledge and experience that will develop your understanding of space-based warfare. The very first stage will be a solo flight through an asteroid field, learning to navigate and maneuver three dimensional battlefields and avoid obstacles. The next stage will be six one-on-one fights against a computer-controlled peer quality starfighter that will advance your combat skills.” The monitor said.

“Got it.” I said, nodding. “What comes next after that?”

“After that you will have successive rounds of being a fleet commander. A holographic hard light display will appear that you can interact with to set objectives, direct movement and flight paths, prioritize enemy targets, and alter and adjust behavioral characteristics of your fleet’s computer-controlled pilots like aggression, group cohesion, hesitance, spontaneity, and individuality. You will begin with two piloted starfighters vs two enemy ships, followed by four versus four, then eight versus eight, then sixteen versus sixteen, then thirty-two versus thirty-two ships, and so on infinitely in doubling measures until the enemy side defeats your fleet first. You could find this test over in two starfighters versus two foes or last far longer and reach a fleet of gargantuan and excessive size. It will come down to your skill and daring.” The monitor said.

“And fortune,” I said.

“There is no such thing as luck, Candidate Lucion. Only inadequacy and performative excellence.” The monitor replied, once more with a hint of something human in its voice.

“If you say so.” I said. I did not know if the goddess of luck would agree with the machine’s assessment of the universe’s state in denying her realm.

The monitor explained to me over the course of fifteen minutes all the controls and the purposes of the many switches and buttons and dials in the simulator cockpit.

“Ready to begin? You will initiate this process with a simple exploration phase to catch you up to speed with practical knowledge.”

“Yes. Let’s do it.” I said.

The screen that masqueraded as an actual cockpit’s viewing window came alive and showed the inside of a Solar Guard warcruiser’s open hangar bay. I started up the checklist of things that needed to be done prior to take off and then fired the starfighter’s engine up. The entire simulator shook and thrummed, and I felt the air warm as the false cockpit mimicked the nature and workings of the real thing. I interacted with the recorded voice of a space traffic controller on board the virtual warcruiser and eased my starship out of the hanger and forward into the inky, midnight void of outer space. Pushing the engine and sending the thrustors and repulsors into full force, I soared outwards at incredible velocities and jetted into an asteroid field. I buzzed like a bumblebee through the floating, rotating space rocks, and danced around them in pirouettes and spirals and flips.

After a few minutes of practice, another starfighter entered the asteroid field and started firing at me. I noticed that its aim was terrible and that it was slow to react to changes in my trajectory and speed. I toyed with it at first and then quickly destroyed it. Another starfighter appeared, round two of six, and this time I found that it was far quicker in thought processing and more skilled in flight than its predecessor. I realized then that each time I won, the enemy would be allowed more resources and would fighter smarter and harder, just as I was improving my own skills at void warfare. Tricking the second spacecraft by exposing it to predictable patterns of action over and over and then diverging at the last second, I destroyed this one as well. The final four scenarios followed as such, I would devise some trick or ruse to destroy the latest iteration and that ship’s replacement would now be aware of that tactic, learning from me just as I was learning from it. It forced me to hone myself, sharpen my edge to a razor sharpness.

After I killed the sixth starfighter, my wristwatch spoke.

“You are now ready for the third stage of this test: leading as a starship commander.” The device said to me.

The controls’ lighted display went dim and the screen projecting images of space outside the simulated cockpit receded to unpowered blackness. A holographic projection of hard light that I could touch appeared in front of me. It showed a bird’s eye view of the asteroid field that would be used as the battlefield. Two ships marked in blue formed into existence and two ships marked in red transitioned into reality opposite them. The blue ships were mine and the red ships were the enemy side. Tapping on my ships, I brought up menus that controlled their functions and behaviors. I drove them onwards as if I was in each of their cockpits, instructing them to fight as if I were sitting in them myself.

When I had annihilated my opposition, the battlefield reverted to the start, and I suddenly had four ships to command, and my foes were numbered similarly. Again and again, I learned to master my forces and direct them to defeat an enemy that evolved and self-examined itself as I did after each of our battles. I reached the seventh round of the third stage, one hundred and twenty-eight of my starfighters versus one hundred and twenty-eight starfighters ruled and commanded by the opposing computer, before I finally succumbed to it. My enemy had grown too clever and devious for me to beat at that point and my ability to control my side of the war had become more and diminished as I started to struggle to effectively plan and implement strategies involving all one hundred and twenty-eight as well as a computer that had no doubt been trained on all kinds of resources related to void combat.

“Candidate Lucion, for the starfighter commander test, you have earned the rank of Satisfactory. Please exit the simulator’s cockpit and proceed to sequestration while results are compiled and the final ranking of the one thousand and thirty-one candidates are decided by the Scholarium’s Evaluation Committee and the Apollonian Governor.” The monitor said to me.

The cockpit’s ceiling popped open, and I pushed it all the way open and stepped out, and then walked down the steps. I followed others getting out of their simulators and came to an area that reminded me very much of a subway station. A single cube-like pod would stop on the rail outside a little station and one of us would get on. All of us candidates were being split up so that those of us who had not made it into the three hundred that got into the Scholarium and had the chance of training to become a Strategos of the Solar Guard could be dropped off elsewhere and those of the candidates that had gotten high enough in the rankings would be brought to a final ceremony given by the Governor and then sent off to travel to the officers’ school.

I strode ahead of the others and got in the next pod that stopped outside of the starship simulator room’s exit station and was whisked away on the tracks elsewhere. I breathed out. I was done. It was out of my hands now. I had done the very best that I was capable of and now I would soon find out whether my efforts were going to end in grand success or embarrassing failure. As I sat in the moving pod, music played by some Artisan singer and songwriter. I did not recognize the musician.

“Who is this playing right now in my pod, monitor?” I said.

“Timaias Apion.” The monitor replied.

I listened to several albums of his as half an hour, and then a full hour, and then two hours and then nearly three went by painfully as I waited for the results and then finally my pod started moving again. It paused outside of another subway station and I stepped out hesitantly. It was a large hall with a stage and a podium at the front of it.

Clodias was the only one else there. The numbers 001 floated in holographic light above his head.

He smiled. “Hello, 002.”

I looked above my head to see that projected light was levitating above my own head just as his numbers were for him.

“Hello, 001.” I said back to Clodias. I walked over to him, and my pod whisked away and the next one stopped in the middle of the tracks where mine had been a moment ago.

A girl got out, the numbers 003 generating themselves over her.

“Hello, Thorania.” Clodias said warmly to her.

“Told you to call me Thor.” She replied. Her white hair was in dreadlocks tied back with golden wire. If she had been born to another Path, she would have been dark-skinned rather than having our characteristic albino pallor that contributed to our statuesque image.

“Hello.” I said politely.

The next person to come was Quartias Fulvion, one of the clones, with a 004 glowing overhead. He was the clone that looked younger than his brothers, though all had been artificially aged to biological ages older than their chronological three years of life, he appeared to be fifteen rather than seventeen or eighteen like the other Fulvions.

There was an emptiness to his eyes, though he greeted us cordially. I got the unsettling sense that he would feel little difference emotionally between shaking my hand and slitting my throat.