Sam did the crime.  He had a good reason for it.  Now he’s a cold detached kid.  The media and public want to see him hang on national television, broadcast in colour with commentary.

Unfortunately the public won’t get what it wants.  Sam was put through mandatory testing scoring incredibly high.  He has what it takes to be accepted in as a Marine candidate.

The Glentol Corporation desperately needs more recruits.  They aren’t above over riding the rules in any regional court to get what Earth will need to survive.

Sam is going to head off to a top secret facility and undergo training for months with constant mental and physical testing pushing all the candidates limits to the max.  If he passes he lives.  If he fails?  Maybe he gets shipped off world to one of the outposts for a very long time.  Or maybe he just gets executed.

There are two options for Sam; become a Marine and be on the front line if the aliens come back one day, or end up in a box six feet under.

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This is book 2 in the Corporate Marines series, but in reality this is almost like book 1.  The first book, Video Game Recruiting, is set a few years earlier and lays the ground work for this worlds dynamic and sets out some of the characters that appear later.  In fact you do not need to read book 1 to understand book 2.