The Lieutenant stopped and considered him for a second. "That's a good question. Sometimes we reverse it when they're taking the fight to us. Sometimes we recover data from those raids and find their spaceships. Unlike us, they are not a nomad culture and have many planets. This gives them a massive population advantage over us. It's unclear whether or not they respawn or they're just endlessly numbered; it's something that we have not been able to determine. We have found a few of their planets, but it's not worth raiding them as the cost is too high."

Then he began pacing again. "That brings us to the next topic: our enemy. They are ambush predators, or they were. They have exceptional stealth capabilities and frequently will send light raids against us. We are not sure why they haven't done a full assault. The few times they have tried larger raids, we have usually prevailed. Perhaps that is why they don't commit to wiping us out. Their best attack seems to harass and move us out of their planet's local space. They don't like us anywhere within a few light years of one of their inhabited worlds. However, their worlds do not seem to work together very well, so it's largely small forces that come after us."

"The other issue is that they have many, many worlds. We have yet to find a solar system that has a habitable planet, to which they have not already laid claim. We are also lost deep in their territory. No information we have captured has yet shown us any sort of boundary to where they claim in the local region of the galaxy. We've tried going in one direction and have been doing that for a long time. However, with the light-speed stuff, I don't know, something about the system that doesn't let us just jump far away. We have to have a destination. If you want to know more about that, ask an engineer. I don't know."

Sevs thought that just sounded like a game mechanic to force them to stay in conflict. However, those sorts of rules were where exploits could be found. So he made a note to have that conversation with the engineer that Dan suggested.

Lieutenant Dan came to a halt in the center of the line. "Now, any more questions?"

All the recruits looked at each other for a second. It was a lot to take in at once. Eventually, Sevs raised his hand.

Dan nodded at him. "Go ahead, Sevs."

Sevs was mildly surprised Dan remembered his name. Though he supposed he shouldn't be. Gesturing to the recruits, "So what are we going to do next?"

"That's a good question, straight to the point." Lieutenant Dan answered. "See, we are in constant need of warriors to protect everyone. Unlike many games, this one does not provide for us. Pretty much everything we have needs to be manufactured ourselves. That means a lot of our population are civilians. The reward for that is fairly great, and for my life, I can't understand why they have fun. But they seem to enjoy playing it this way. A lot of 4x over on the population ships."

"What they don't have is combat skills. So the solution is twofold. First, we force everyone to go through basic training and then a couple of tours of duty. That gives us warm bodies to repel the enemy. It also ensures that anyone with the idea of only playing 4X gaming and not contributing will contribute somewhat. The added benefit is they have the combat skills to defend themselves if our defenses are breached." After this, Dan started to pace again.

"It can last anywhere from 6 months to about two years, depending on how much action you see. If you choose to sign on and have done well enough, you will be given specialty training. Then you will be more engaged in more interesting combat missions. And once you have specialties, options open up to you. You can leave anytime you want. You are no longer a conscript, willing or not. You will be a full military member with the right to retire anytime between missions. If you choose to retire or choose not to continue, you will be given free transport over to a population center. And a week's worth of pay to support yourself while you find work."

This time Bexy raised her hand. "What's the distribution of people who choose to become civilians versus military?"

"About 60% choose to remain in the military, and 20% become civilians. The other said they want to strike off on their own, in which case they have to earn enough money to buy a ship, or they will decide to reroll. Don't ask me why you would spend many years as a conscript and then decide you don't want to be here. I slightly understand if you want to go wandering space for yourself. But neither of them sounds like my thing. I don't understand it. Go talk to a psychologist if you care to."

The Lieutenant continued to field the questions. But Sevs had heard all he wanted to know. He had a good direction for himself; Sevs never was one for anything but combat in this game. He would do his tour and then probably sign on for some specialty. Maybe they would have some leadership positions as a specialty that he could train in.

Maybe he would; perhaps he wouldn't. Either way, Sevs was pretty happy with this place. Sure there was lots of danger and risk to mental health. He hadn't encountered a real threat in a long time. But he could feel the pressure on his shoulders, and it wasn't crumpling him. If anything, it felt like it was condensing him.

Seeing there were no questions, Dan made sure to address them all. "You have not finished your training here. That was but the basics. Before you have any real assignments, we'll spend some time ensuring we can work as a team, not just as individuals. However, along that line, we will regularly patrol the ships for the next three months while we do this training."

Yes, this was someplace he could grow.

***

They reported the following day to their new squads. The first tour usually consisted of units almost entirely formed of recruits. An experienced sergeant and Lieutenant would lead them. The Lieutenant would be Dan for them. They had yet to meet their sergeant. Lieutenant Dan had another sergeant underneath him that led another batch of recruits from a previous class. Sevs was excited to serve under Dan.

The sergeant came in late. It was not a good first impression. At least Sevs didn't think so. He wasn't sure what the rest of his squad thought, in any case. Holding a coffee, the late sergeant showed up, looked at them, then said "sup." and went to lean against a wall. How he managed to get away with that, Sevs didn't know. He imagined it was only because this was a game. However, if someone didn't take it seriously, there could be real consequences for him and his friends.

The sergeant introduced himself not by his ID and nickname but by a moniker. Usually, in-game names were based around ID and traditionally a very understated name like Dan, Alex, or Jason. Sevs was honestly one of the weirder names. But no, this sergeant introduced himself as Doomslayer. Just hearing him say it made Sevs cringe.

"Squads normally are a set of six members," Doomslayer said. That works out perfectly, so I've got all the people who I had learned names for, Sevs thought. "The other three from your training group were transported to another ship to fill out a squad, as they didn't want an uneven number of people."

"Us here on the cruiser Excelsior is one of the ones on the edge of the formation. This means you get to see a lot of action. "And it's my job to make sure ya'll are ready." Doomslayer leaned over to spit. So we'll start with the basics, sure. You didn't learn anything in the last couple of weeks, so we got to start over."

Soshal shifted slightly. And that brought his ire.

After a tirade, he marched them down to the range, where he made them each shoot 20 shots at a target while standing. Somehow he had found a stick and used it aggressively to correct their form. Everyone sat in silence. If they so much as moved, they got yelled at. Even Zim wasn't so unreasonable.