As we had the morning off today, I decided to make a clearer map in my head of the facility. From my understanding, we were currently in the barracks, the largest building of the camp. This had the main hangar which is where the new intakes reside prior to getting their respective groups, where we were effectively for one day. We are then divided in one of the many floors of the barracks, 11 in total, 1 per group with the ground floor being the common cafeteria area, and each other floor having 10 rooms, meaning our camp could hold around 1000 recruits at a time, though not all rooms seemed full. While the barracks building was the central part of the camp, several other buildings were dotted around it. I hadn't gotten the chance to go in most of them yet, but I'd soon be able to more clearly note them down in my mind. The open court we had our initial assessment on, was on the outskirts of the camp. I decided that I definitely would have to make my mind map more clear, but it was too early to get in trouble by sneaking out.

  “I'd say we should get to know each other, we may have group work coming up eventually, and I'd rather know the people I will work with”

  I was currently sitting in the lower bunk of the bed closest to the door, my back was leaned against the wall and I had been aimlessly staring at the bathroom door while I had been making the map in my head. Hearing the voice, my eyes focused on the origin of the voice. Ralf's shining bald head greated me, his brown beard ever imposing. He was the slightly older kid that had greeted us in the intake hangar, giving us a quick rundown of the situation as the ‘elder’ of the group. In the bunk above me was Mayla. She was probably still lying down in her bed as none of her body parts were exposed over the bed. I wouldn't be surprised if she had just been woken up. Wilson currently had his shirt off, a towel hanging on his shoulders, he had just come out of the shower, he along with Zoraya were two of the people that competed with me on the second round of the obstacle course. She still stole glances at Wilson, the latter having beaten us in the obstacle course would be getting a surprise meal for lunch today. These were those I recognised, the other 5 people were currently just names to me. So I was interested in Ralf's proposal.

  “I'll start, my name is Ralf, I'm 21, most of you should be familiar with me since I was in charge of greeting you all in the intake hangar. I come from Augusta I”

  I hadn't heard much about Augusta I even from Roberto, except for the fact that it was the first of the two populated planets of the Augusta system to be populated. Most planets followed that naming structure, with their name being that of the system and the number when they were populated, some exceptions existed if they were particular, like Oasi, Vicky's home planet.

  “Nice to meet you Ralf, I'm Stefan, I worked in Oasi, but the ‘work’ didn't suit me well and so here I am. I'm 18 by the way, probably still in the older half looking at this group.”

  The 18 year old looked definitely older than his given age, as he was very tall and his face full of facial hair, he also had white hair, which was surprising, he and Vicky shared the same trait, but Vicky had immigrated to Oasi with her family, so it isn't a planetary trait, maybe he came from the same migrant batch as her, I'd ask him about it later.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Mayla and Zoraya followed suit in the introductions, here I learned that Zoraya also came from the New Horizons planet, though she came from a different outpost, explaining why we never crossed paths. Then came Cerny and Minnie, the girl duo both came from the same area. They were stationed in one of the Moons of Augusta II which was the base for a mining facility, also explaining their deathly pale skin since that particular mining plant was on the dark side of their moon. They were both 16 and had taken the first opportunity to escape after their families had already done so when this system was born. Here I learned that the mining industry effectively looked like a child labour factory since almost all escaped at 16 to run away from the conditions and low life expctancy the mining colony offered.

  This left Andrés, Freya and myself, we were clearly the more introverted bunch of the group since we kind of awkwardly stared at each other, neither daring to speak up. Looking at us, Ralf pinched his nose and shook his head with his eyes closed, before opening them up, looking at the only remaining girl and directing his voice at her.

  “You, RedHead, present yourself.”

  She looked at him hesitantly, probably also a bit startled by the attention. She had olive toned skin and brown eyes, an interesting combination with her bright red hair. After a few seconds she shook her head seemingly waking up and promptly answered in a almost slightly panicked tone.

  “Freya, 16, from Aurelia I, pleasure to meet you.”

  She bowed her head slightly, indicating she had finished. Ralf didn't seem fully satisfied with the curt answer, but he couldn't press her more, since almost as soon as she finished, the person I assumed to be Andrés, spoke up

  “Andrés, 20, so close to our elder over here. I come from the same planet as Freya”

  Ralf shot him a cold look, but Andrés simply raised his shoulders nonchalantly. Despite being from the same planet, the only trait he shared with Freya was the brown eyes. This left me, I hoped they hadn't realised, but Mayla poke her head from the bed above and called me out.

  “Looks like you're left you little peste”

  I shot at her a sharp glance, frankly her calling me a peste annoyed me a great deal. I didn't like my name, and while she didn't know why my mother called me this, she probably has associated or should have associated the name I go by and that word.

  “Pesté, 16, I'm also from New Horizons, though from the colonial city, first to make a comment about my name might lose his hand in their sleep.”

  Ralf smiled at my comment, he seemed positively mused by my statement.

  “Looks like the higher ups were not worried enough about internal group murder by the looks of things.”

  His tone was sarcastic, he actually seemed happy.

  “Well glad to know you all, my self interest will still be first, group 1 is my goal since as most of you have probably realized by now, they are looking for useful people so the higher we are the better our position will be, if we can help each other achieve it better, if I have to choose between me and you I will choose myself.”

  “Same here, and probably for all of us, nice to meet you”

  This time it was Stefan the first person to follow Ralf's lead to reply, and everyone else nodded behind him. It was an interesting group, this conversation had only taken up an hour of our time, and we still had about 2 hours before lunch, so I got dressed and decided to go out and explore a bit.