Another military science fiction story, but this one is a little lighter. One day, the idea of “reserves” in the military struck me an odd way, and I thought of woefully inadequate recruits who were forced to sit in a room, only to be brought out in an absolute worst-case scenario. Then I wondered how battlefield commanders would act differently if they had a guaranteed rescue if a combat operation went south. The two ideas collided in this story, which I wrote in a one-week gap between finishing one novel and starting another.