Beyond the Zenith

Nobody told them where they were headed or how much longer the ride would take. The mood in the truck shifted from initial excitement and nerves to a dull, heavy gloom.

If not for the occasional glimpse of the vast starry sky, that gloom would have deepened further.

The regiment lead advisor climbed aboard to check on morale. “Sitting in the dark like this isn’t easy, is it? I get it. There’s nothing I can do about it, though. How about this? Think of this cargo bed as the cocoon before a butterfly breaks free. What do you think?”

He was a cultured man, and his voice was warm and engaging.

“You guys haven’t actually seen the real Azure Coalition yet, when you think about it,” he continued with a smile. “Have any of you ever seen the Coalition’s flag at the previous base?”

They all thought about it and realized they hadn’t.

“Once you pass this test, on the day you don your armor, you’ll see the real Azure Coalition for the first time. By then, you’ll already be one of them,” he said, trying to use anticipation to chase away the gloom.

As he was about to say more, the convoy suddenly came to a stop.

It seemed to be a hidden checkpoint. The regiment lead advisor got off to handle it.

From then on, temporary checkpoints like that one appeared with increasing frequency. This probably meant they were approaching their destination, and that wherever it was, the security level was extremely high.

“Hey, Little Qing, let me ask you something.” Wen Jifei scooted over.

The two of them had an advantage the others didn’t: they could talk in dialect. The dialect of a remote southern county was obscure enough that nobody would understand even if they discussed something sensitive.

“Go ahead,” Han Qingyu said.

“So, Lao Jian tricked you into coming here, right? Now that you know there were other paths you could take, if you had the choice, would you still be willing to go to the front lines of the Witnesses and fight the Sharpies?”

For once, this was a serious topic. He’d probably already exhausted all the unserious ones.

“Yeah.” Han Qingyu nodded without hesitation.

Wen Jifei didn’t understand. “Why? But you were—”

“Here’s how I see it,” Han Qingyu interrupted, glancing left and right, before continuing quietly, “We know for a fact now that the Sharpies are a genuine threat, right?”

“Right.”

“They’re powerful. Much more powerful than us. It’s just that their numbers are still small enough to be held back with human lives.”

“And that makes you want to go more?” Wen Jifei asked incredulously.

“Exactly. That’s why I need to be on the front lines. I want to get stronger,” Han Qingyu said firmly. “The way I see it, if we can fight and hold the line, then we should do so with everything we’ve got. If worst comes to worst, at least the Coalition won’t be wiped out all at once. Also, if we’re strong, we’ll have a better chance if we ever have to run with our families.”

His thought process was small and plain, not grand at all. Lately, he had also been considering that if he could send ten thousand or so back home before going into battle, maybe he wouldn’t be so afraid of dying there.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Wen Jifei said thoughtfully, reaching over to pat Han Qingyu’s shoulder. “You’d take your parents, and me, I’d...”

He went quiet, probably thinking about his own parents and their new families. Two whole households. That would be a lot of people to bring along.

“Should I bring Yao Yue, though?” he randomly asked, turning to Han Qingyu. “Just one extra person. You wouldn’t mind, right? Wait, no, she’d definitely want to bring her family too. That’s a bunch more people...”

He started counting on his fingers, muttering the whole time.

Yao Yue was the girl he’d made a pact with in middle school to attend university together, the one currently studying at Yue University.

Han Qingyu grinned slyly in the darkness and teased, “So you still think about her that much? Weren’t you planning to have one girl here and another back home? You think she’d agree to that?”

“Quit messing around. I’m being serious. You know me. All through high school, I never so much as glanced at another girl. You know that, right? I was just saying that for fun.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” Han Qingyu said with a small laugh. “I’ve never liked anyone.”

“Figures. You don’t understand love.” After that jab, Wen Jifei fell quiet for a moment, then sighed. “Before I came here, I even called her. Told her I’d work hard in the army, sit the military exam, become a general—a hero. She said that was perfect because she wanted to be a journalist and could come interview me. I even brought it up again in my last letter...”

A thought seemed to occur to him.

“No, wait,” he said with sudden urgency. “Now that you’ve put it like that, I need to find a way to write her another letter. I should tell her—”

“Tell her what?” Han Qingyu cut in. “You know we can’t talk about any of this.”

“I know. I’d just tell her that if one day I still haven’t passed the military exam, and I haven’t become a hero, and I just... disappear... I hope she won’t laugh at me, and won’t blame me. And also, if someday I come to take her away, it’s not because I’ve deserted. She needs to come with me.”

Han Qingyu thought about it. “You’d never get that past the censors. Also, don’t worry too much. Because I... might be pretty strong.”

“Oh, you can’t even write that?” Wen Jifei paused, then turned. “Wait, what did you just say?”

“I said I might be pretty strong.”

“Mn, I might be too.”

Just then, the rest of Dormitory 11 shuffled over and squeezed in beside them.

“Hey, Little Qing. The midterm test is coming up. There’s something I’ve gotta say before it’s too late.”

“What’s that?”

“In the future, at the front lines, if a Sharpie comes at me, you remember to help me cut it, alright?”

“Sure.”

“Me too. If a Sharpie’s chasing me down, you chase it down too.”

“Done.”

“If I get shattered to pieces, you’d better put me back together and make me whole again...”

“Then you’d better strip down and let Little Qing get a good look at you first, so he knows what goes where,” Wen Jifei chimed in.

Grim imaginings of the future laced the jokes, yet they delivered every word with a grin. Before long, the whole group was laughing.

***

The convoy lurched to another stop.

Everyone either curled up or rolled over in their sleep.

“Wake up, wake up.” The canvas at the back of the truck was pulled open, and an instructor leaned in. “We’re here. Get ready to go through the checkpoint and get off.”

We’re here? Han Qingyu cracked his eyes open and glanced outside.

The light was hazy, as if dawn had just broken.

It had taken six days and five nights to arrive.

The convoy first underwent another thorough security check as a whole. Past the checkpoint, through the open tailgate, they could see clusters of gray buildings and vast stretches of flat land. It was enormous, large enough that they couldn’t see where it ended. Armed soldiers with source energy maneuvering devices on their backs stood guard and patrolled in formation.

“Everyone out,” called the regiment lead advisor.

Han Qingyu jumped down from the truck and found himself in a parking lot.

“Whoa, look at that!” someone cried.

They all turned and stared. The parking lot was massive, filled with row after row of military green trucks and SUVs lined up in perfect formation, stretching as far as the eye could see.

“There’s got to be thousands of them. How many people are getting tested?” Liu Shiheng stood on his toes to get a better look. “Are all those buildings source energy fields?”

“You wish. Do you think source energy fields grow on trees? There’s only one. Though there really are a lot of recruits this year,” an instructor nearby cut in, also standing on his toes to look.

“Why not build a few smaller ones in different locations?” a curious recruit asked.

The instructor didn’t turn around. “You’re asking me? How am I supposed to know?”

“Look over there!” Wen Jifei yelled, pointing at something.

Everyone turned.

“Those are... planes? Transport aircraft?!”

Over a dozen massive aircraft sat parked on another large stretch of open ground in the distance.

It seemed some people had come by plane.

“Annoying, isn’t it?” Regiment Commander Li walked over, laughing at first, then growing indignant. “That’s how it is. It’s fucking annoying. The ones close enough have to drive, while the ones really far away get to fly... It’s the ones like us, who are neither near nor far, within five or six days on the road, who get screwed the hardest.”

As if to emphasize his point, he rubbed his lower back, his joints popping.

A platoon of Coalition soldiers in full gear approached. Their leading officer exchanged a few words with the regiment lead advisor, then waved the recruits over. “Recruits, fall in. Inspection time.”

The individual inspection was just as thorough. Every person had to enter and strip down completely.

Once they were done with the inspections, the guiding soldiers led them to an open patch of ground. “Your regiment can set up camp here and wait for further notice. Get some rest.”

They didn’t even have a place to stay.

The 425th pitched their tents and continued their aimless wait. On the bright side, food and water were delivered.

Eat and sleep. Sleep and eat. A day and a night passed leisurely enough.

Not far from the tents, Regiment Commander Li, the regiment lead advisor, and a few instructors huddled together, smoking and chatting.

“This is ridiculous. We should get priority scheduling,” Regiment Commander Li griped, smoke spewing out of his mouth as he spat out a cigarette butt and stomped on it. “We’ve still got a six-day, five-night drive back, for fuck’s sake. The ones who flew in should go last, shouldn’t they?”

“Exactly,” the instructors agreed.

The regiment lead advisor let out a small laugh. “Nothing we can do. It’s always been this way. Besides the first few regiments from nearby who arrived first, everyone else goes in order of ranking, mixed into groups of several regiments at a time.”

That remark stung Regiment Commander Li’s heart badly.

“So, uh...how are the kids holding up?” The regiment lead advisor quickly changed the subject.

“Fine, mostly,” the instructor said.

“Honestly, it doesn’t really matter,” someone else chimed in. “It’s not like an exam where being nervous will hurt your score. No amount of relaxing or preparing can help them. It’s all just fate. I remember the year I went through it, there was this one guy who’d been so scared he soiled himself. Had to be dragged in. He turned out to be a B-ranker. Where’s the justice in that?”

“Right? Exactly.” The others nodded vehemently.

Everyone present, barring Regiment Commander Li, was C-rank at best. The randomness of integration levels was a sore subject, and most of them felt it to be unfair.

“Four-twenty-five! Four-twenty-five!” An officer came running, shouting. “Who’s the person in charge?”

“Right here.” Regiment Commander Li and the regiment lead advisor eagerly stepped forward, handing over their credentials and receiving a schedule.

“Keep the schedule confidential. You know the drill. Make sure your recruits get there on time.” The officer saluted and left.

Once he was gone, Regiment Commander Li and the regiment lead advisor reviewed the schedule together.

“Hey, Old Li, why do you think the schedule has to be confidential? And why do they insist on splitting up recruits from the same regiment and mixing them in with other regiments for the test?” the regiment lead advisor asked.

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Li Wangqiang replied.