They gave him a soldier’s skills.
War taught him the price.
Tomas Neumann wants off his backwater planet and away from his suffocating mother. “Taking the shilling”—joining the Confederated Worlds Ground Force—promises escape, purpose, and the father figure he’s never had.
The Confederated Worlds uploads combat training directly into his brain—decades of tactical knowledge in mere hours. He’s the perfect soldier before he fires his first shot.
But no implant can prepare him for the reality of killing. Especially when his “enemies” are human civilians who should welcome him as liberator, not occupier. On the war-torn world of New Liberty, Tomas discovers that downloaded skills mean nothing when every doorway could hide a sniper.
As his unit bleeds out in brutal counterinsurgency warfare, Tomas faces a choice that will define him: break under the weight of what he’s become, or forge something stronger from the wreckage of his innocence.
Because soon, with thousands of lives in the balance, he’ll need more than programmed reflexes to survive his war’s ultimate test.
