Once we are twelve, the culling begins. The class must go from one hundred fifty down to twenty or so. There are many ways to fail out and be placed in military or civil service instead, but the most frequent is the ‘pool bash.’ We are strapped into a mock spacecraft that is suspended a hundred feet over a pool with wave generators. The lights go out, and the craft is dropped into the pool. We have to get out of the underwater wreckage in the dark and make it to the edge, all with twenty-foot swells.”
Holy shit
