"Last chance, trainee! Jump!" Simon's quivering hands locked around the straps of the backpack the Navy men had given him as his legs buckled and threatened to fall out from beneath him. Before him gaped the open troop bay of the enormous dropship, and beyond that lay an icy blackness that threatened to reach up and swallow Simon whole if he let it get any closer. But now they'd all been herded back onto the dropships--without any food--given these strange backpacks, and now an enormous Navy man was telling him to kill himself. Simon's leg slipped, just an inch... Nothing happened.