I ran down the hall, my squad followed close behind. I held my C6-NIGHT in both hands as I clamored through the escape hatch onto the roof of the building followed by Zack, Michael, Luke, and Jack. Of course these weren’t our real names, we never used though. When you use someone’s true name, it gets you attached to him or her, which is something our military officers couldn’t let happen. But there was one slight glitch in their plan we made our own names. Now, I would rather die than let my squad go down. But I think of this as a good thing, this developed loyalty. Something I know the officers don’t have for each other.

I ran to the edge of the cliff and popped up the scope on the sniper-rifle. All the kids here had been together since the minimum age of four. So there were different classes depending on your age. I was thirteen, so were all my classmates when you are thirteen you become a Guardian. I pulled my eye up to the scope and tracked the green trooper on the ground. I was blue so was my team, we were part of the dragon troopers. This was one of the four clans you could be. When you join you are placed in a test that is so grueling a few kids died, but when you are training to be the next generation of commandos what did you expect. This test judges were you would go; dragon clan for those natural leaders, Lion clan for those who think it’s all about a big gun, serpent clan for those who can get in and out quickly, and wolf clan for those who are stealthy and deceptive. The serpent crawled to the door of a building, I took a deep breath placed my scope on the back piece of his helmet, and fired. The serpent crumpled to the ground, these weren’t real lasers though they were all jammed on stun and through our vacuum-sealed armor you could barley feel it anyway. But in training mode when you were hit your suit goes into full lockdown.

All squads had a sniper, a smith, an assault, a pilot, and an officer. I was the officer, jack was our smith, Luke is our sniper, Zack is our assault, and Brandon was our pilot. Of course we all knew how to do these things, but some were better than others right. Brandon was about five three and had brown short hair. Zack was five two and had dirty blond hair. Luke was five foot four with blonde hair and green eyes. Jack was five one and had dark brown hair. Then me, I have brown hair spiked up at all times and I have blue eyes, I am also five foot three.

I moved on to my next target, took a deep breath, aimed, and fired. But he didn’t move. I shot three more shots into the figure before it shimmered and disappeared. A hologram I realized in horror, one thing you always have to keep in mind on the battle field is to keep sharp never miss and… “Jake!” Zack screams “we got company.” Nothing ever goes as planned.

“Luke” I screamed, “ get a good shot at the door.” Then I screamed into my radio “Brandon get that Harpie up here.” A Harpie was a drop ship that the GC (Generational commandos A.A.K the commando school) Engineered. It’s powerful and large but is not very fast or maneuverable, which is what we needed right now. It had two sets of turrets and a drop ramp for quick retrieval missions. We were in a special training exercise called a death match the title says it all. It was squad on squad so we were given stun guns and would send a magnetic pulse encrypted with codes to put our armor into lockdown. There must be about four left, the hatched opened up a bit and a stun grenade rolled out. I jumped behind a swamp cooler, the grenade exploded but since I had the cover I didn’t get the full blast and my dimming visor covered the rest. A sudden burst of laser popped out of the hatch as the troops made there way through the hatch and found cover.

Brandon couldn’t have chosen a better time to show up. The site of a Harpie stunned the serpents long enough for me to jump on the extended ramp and hop on the guns. In my vehicle Intel class we were taught how do shoot a turret as a basic but to a knew comer it might have been overwhelming. The turret was an elevated seat on a rotating ball set in the wall in front of you. When you twisted the controls you swooped in whatever direction you just turned. Then you select one of three ammo units on a touch screen, shock wave, laser, or a grenade. Then press the glowing red button on top of the gear sticks. Simple enough right, well let’s just say I left out the directional patterns of the grenades, and the angel of launch so that they might ricochet off a wall. Also when you use the shock wave you and your pilot have to work as a team to time the shot perfectly so it does not hit you, now does it seem so simple?

I launched a grenade over the canisters the Green squad was hiding behind “no!” jack screamed over the radio, “Those canisters are filled with X-5O you could blow their heads off.” I gasped and glanced at the radioactive scanners they were all telling me the same thing; I might have just ended two commandos’ lives.

I had to think fast, the only way to keep them alive was to either stop the grenades from detonating, or to get the canisters away from them. There was not a chance of stopping the grenades, I mean it’s not like there is a self-destruct button on them. So the only way was to get the canisters away from them, one perfect shot from a shock wave shood do it. However shock waves aren’t the most accurate of things, they were meant to be quick and cover a large amount of area. But I had no choice, I aimed and fired, and a small sphere appeared in-between the grenade and the stunned green commandos. It pulsed outwards and a deafening scream filled the air, the commandos went one way and the grenade and canisters went the other. There was a huge explosion and half the building crumbled away, the other side swinging ominously.

Luke climbed onto the exit ramp, “next time you almost cause our deaths, or someone else’s, I will personally taze you.