Alvarez hauled Williamson closer, staring into his eyes, his brow furrowing. "Attitude right now, isn't going to endear you to me, either your a comrade, that knows his place... or you are, as you say, some worthless punk kid. I want you to tell me... why do you think we do this? Why do we put applicants for the Fighter Corps through this kind of scrutiny? Do you think it's for some kind of sick amusement? Eh homes?"
He hauled the kid around and drove him into the side of Guillentra's shuttle. producing his combat knife and resting the tip of the blade under the young man's jaw.
"You think we're what, sick sociopaths with nothing better to do with our time than to cut little pretty boys like you up, gun them down... carve them up like they're a Christmas goose?"
"This is nothing compared to what a Corsair will do to you if he catches you... The Outcasts... they'd torture you for months... I hear Doc Jameson's got machines that keep a prisoner alive and conscious through every second of it... And they're the tame ones. There's the Wilde... they like to put little blue squids in your intestines and use you like a human shaped fancy dress costume... the Aoi... they mind rape you till you dance like a little marionette on the end of their strings..."
He sneered.
"And even those... they have nothing on what a Reaper of Sirius or a Phantom is going to do to you if they capture you... Esse," Alvarez shook his head. "I don't think you have what it takes to face the kind of crap we face day and night... defending this system that stands alone against all of these enemies. We aren't setting up a pre-school here, Comrade Williamson, we're at war. And I need to know, if I send you out into that..." he used the point of the blade to turn Williamson's face to stare out of the forcefield. "That you aren't going to screw up and get one of my pilots killed."
He shook his head, "so I ask you again, homes, do you have the stuff?"
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