As we disembarked, a surge of unease welled within me, Father stopping me just outside the shuttle.
"Marcus."
"Hmm?"
He lowered himself, placing his knee to the floor. Before I could realise what was going on, he fished out a shiny object from his back pocket. I only caught a glimpse of it before he pinned it to the blazer of my uniform.
"That pin," he said, pointing. "I wore it when I was tested. So did Grandfather. Before him, it was Great Aunt Lydia's. Maybe it'll bring you more luck than it brought me."
A tightness gripped my throat, and my chest ached with each shallow breath. My mind churned with confusion—a tangled storm of fear and hope. I forced my gaze to harden, mimicking Grandfather's unshakeable expression. This time, I could feel it settle over me perfectly, the sensation sharp and certain, as though I had finally become the person I was supposed to be.
Father gave me a nod before standing back up, and soon after, we began our walk towards the arena. Its great doors loomed, not yet in sight.
-
The walk from the platform to the arena entrance was a gauntlet of epic proportion. Crowds pressed in from designated viewing areas. Vendors hawked everything from lucky charms to last-minute genetic predictors. The smell hit hard: fried protein, nervous sweat, ozone from a thousand recording devices all running hot.
"S-RANK PREDICTOR! KNOW YOUR CHILD'S FUTURE!" A man with an illegal neural scanner shouted. A line had formed despite the security guards watching.
"MEMORIAL HOLOS! REMEMBER THIS DAY FOREVER!" Another vendor, selling customised recordings for prices that would feed a family for a month.
The arena's entrance divided the crowds like water. Four gates: Legacy for military families like the Tiernans or the Chens, Merit for scholarship students like Alexei, General for regular testing and the Main Entrance for the spectators.
We joined the flow toward the Legacy Gate, our genetics scanned before we even reached the threshold.
"Tiernan family. One candidate. Marcus Tiernan, age fourteen. Proceed to Assembly Hall Seven."
The voice was heavily vocoded-"protection," they called it. We kept moving.
-
The Legacy Gate was on the south side, opposite the main gate to the north. Scholars Gate to the west. General Gate to the east. The Legacy door was ten meters tall, flanked by black columns carved with thousands of names. The names climbed by rank: C-grade at the bottom, then B, then A. S-grade names were huge, easy to read from across the plaza. Above B-Rank, each name listed their service, final rank, and how they died. Most said Killed in Action.
Above the archway, holographic projections cycled through the faces of the Eridani sector's most decorated families. The Chens. The Tiernans. The Nakamuras. The Santos...
They weren't advertisements; they were reminders. 'This is what we expect. This is what you inherit. This is what you owe.'
The gate itself was crafted from the hull plating of the Stargazer, the first mech to break through Terran Dominion lines at the Second Battle of Procyon. Scarred metal that had survived void combat—now repurposed as a threshold. A door made from something that refused to break, welcoming those born to families who also refused to break.
The archway felt like crawling under a guillotine blade that could drop at any second.
One Hour.
Inside, the temperature dropped, and the roar muted to a distant thunder. The Legacy hallways were a shrine to exceptional genetics. The names that had been plastered at the top of the pillars were now displayed as holoportraits. Holograms of every S-Grade Cultivator from Epsilon Eridani lined the walls in order of testing date. Young faces, all children, all wearing different expressions ranging from terrified pride, arrogance, to expectation.
My eyes scanned the holoportraits. After a few moments of searching, I found Great Aunt Lydia. Third row, near the end. Only four came after her. One was Marshall Chen Hoaran.
"Don't stare," Mother whispered. "Bad luck."
Still, I couldn't look away. Had Lydia stood here? In this very same hallway? Feeling what I felt now? Had the pin brought her "luck", or was it that "luck" that got her killed?
The pin felt heavier.
We passed through the Legacy Gate hallways until we reached a door with "Assembly Hall Seven" etched in a golden placard above it. We stopped. I knew what was coming.
"Marcus," Mother touched my arm. "We need to go to our box. Legacy families have assigned seating."
"I know..." My voice broke, trembling exactly like Sara's did.
"We'll be in Section A-7. Look for us." Father said. His voice was steady, but his hands weren't.
They hugged me. Mother whispered, but her words were lost beneath the roar of my heartbeat. Then they were gone. I was alone.
I stared at the door and took a deep breath. Time stretched, eternity passed. Steeling my resolve, I pushed it open and entered.
-
Assembly Hall Seven was smaller than I'd expected. Six chairs sat around a low table. One wall was clear, showing the arena floor below. The other walls depicted forests and oceans on Eridani Prime before it became the industrial powerhouse it is today.
Five faces turned to look at me.
I recognised them all. David Huang paced by the window, his uniform already soaked with sweat. Maria Santos sat perfectly still, muttering what sounded like a prayer. Tom Bradley had found a waste bin to hover over, preparing for the inevitable. They were on the same prep academy circuit as me.
The other two I only knew by reputation. Yukiko Nakamura, whose mother tested S-rank thirty years ago. Ferdinand Cruz, from a minor military family that had been something of a rising star the past few decades.
"Barbaric, isn't it?" Ferdinand said to no one in particular. "Making us wait. Making us watch."
"It's tradition," Yukiko replied without looking away from the arena floor. "The spectacle matters as much as the testing."
Everyone went quiet. I knew she was right. But that didn't mean she was right.
Half an Hour.
Through the clear wall, I saw the arena floor below. Fourteen chambers: ten in a line for common candidates, three set apart with better lighting for scholarship students, and one raised on a gold-trimmed platform for legacy candidates.
One legacy pod. We'd each go alone while a hundred thousand people watched.
"Theatre," I muttered.
"What was that?" Ferdinand asked.
"Nothing." I couldn't take my eyes off that golden pod. So much for 'meritocracy'...
Time crawled. Conversations started and died fast. None of us wanted to talk, even to distract ourselves.
I touched the pin on my jacket. Warm from my body heat. Three generations had worn it to their testing. How many of them had felt this afraid?
-
A hush fell across the arena as the lights dimmed. Then a voice, not amplified by speakers but projected through the Ether itself, filled the Moirai Arena.
"Civilians and Citizens of the Federation! Sons and daughters of Earth! Today, we honour the gift bestowed upon us by the Enlightened."
A Holographic display blazed to life above the arena floor, showing the symbol of the Federation. A stylised icon of Earth surrounded by the wings of an ancient avian, long extinct. It must have been at least fifty meters in size as it spun clockwise.
"Three thousand years ago, we were bound to a single world. Weak. Mortal. Limited. The Enlightened saw our potential. In their benevolence, they gifted us the power to reach beyond and grasp the stars. They gifted us, Ether—"
The voice paused, letting the weight settle.
"Today, the children of Epsilon Eridani step forward to claim their inheritance. To discover what flows in their blood. To learn their place in the grand design of human destiny."
Spotlights moved, and flashes of light illuminated the testing machines in the centre, drawing every eye.
"Let the 2187th Genetic Assessment commence! First wave, approach your stations!"
A large metallic gate opened, and fifty teenagers filed out. Their uniforms were plain. No family crests. No expensive tailoring. Just the standard-issue testing uniforms provided by the state.
They looked so small, their forms swallowed by the immensity of the arena and the pressing weight of thousands of expectant eyes.
A group of ten split off from the main group as they headed to their designated testing machines; the rest waited in a holding area to the side.
"May the Ether recognise you, may your potential be revealed, and may you serve the Federation with honour!"
With a roar from the crowd, the testing had begun.