Ezekiel James Boston packs whole worlds into lunch-break stories that linger for weeks.

Five soldier-caste donor-parents. Nineteen perfect clone warrior-siblings. And her: a defect. A xenobiologist.

On Kelmer-5, she relishes the constant mist whiting out everything five meters past her nose. Fig-sweet air. Cool algae mud climbing her undersuit-bootied ankles. The frolicking slap-pounces of the brawn, sleek three-armed sea-mammals. Her discovery. Her joy. Her war-bred kin call the posting a waste. She calls it paradise.

Today the pod refuses to play. Today the gentle brawn herd her toward her idle armored exo-skeleton.

Brawn do not spook. The sea knows why. She suits up to find out.

The ink around her neck reads: Oh, the dangers of being a xenobiologist. Family mockery, worn as a motto.

A military science fiction short about rejection, belonging, and the training she cannot outrun.