“We’re offering you a chance to make a difference. You’re flagged as a potential high-value operator, which means they – Army, Navy, whoever else sees your file first – will eventually come knocking with a conscription order. It’s just a matter of whether you’ll join, or be pressed into service.”

I couldn’t tell if it was the topic of conversation or the drugs or some convoluted combination of the two but it was all too surreal to believe. Conscription orders were the stuff of bad dramas, conspiracy theorists and thriller novels. The words had no right to be coming out of this straight-laced officer’s mouth.

“We’re losing our grip on the colonies. It’s not fearmongering from loyalist propaganda sources any more, it’s a fact. The insurgent actions are becoming more frequent, better co-ordinated, better armed. We can’t afford a huge standing army, so we have to become smarter. Equip our soldiers better.

And for that, we need you."