Reuben Calloway turned and waved one last time toward his parents. He wouldn't be seeing them for a long time. Reuben knew they were incredibly proud of their only son but he was scared stiff. As a member of the Imperium he was required by law to begin a five year period of service as a soldier. All humans began their service at the age of fifteen.
It wasn't the training that scared him. It was the fighting. Imperium officials made constant public broadcasts about how he should feel proud about serving his government. They boasted about how the Taborian training regiment was unparalleled which meant that most of their soldiers lived to see the end of their service.
Reuben supposed that was more or less true. But it was ones that didn't come back that had him worried. The youths a few years ahead of him that were rumored to have died in action. That maybe the Imperium wasn't quite as peaceful as the officials suggested.
On Reuben's fifteenth birthday his father had held him by the shoulders and told him that he must now learn how to be a man. He would not disappoint his father.
With a sigh of resignation he turned and boarded the transporter shuttle that would take him to the training camp.
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