She was walking down a dark, cold metal passage. Strange alien words were glowed from walls like futuristic hieroglyphics. At the end of the tunnel, she came to a large rounded door, thick and constantly rotating in its center. She touched one of the glowing symbols located to the far right of the door, it immediately rolled to one side into the wall. In the room beyond, there was a massive stream of pure, blinding light that stretched up from the ground to the impossibly high ceiling. Stepping into the room, she turned to look at the many levitating platforms and walkways that ceaselessly rotated and moved around it.

Lifting one armored hand, the young human signaled to those who occupied the platforms. As it lowered to her level, the being that stepped from it was definably not a human, nor did it resemble a human in anyway.

It stood several feet taller than her, with a hunched posture, long neck and arms that came down to clawed hands. Its head looked more like it belonged in some prehistoric time. When it spoke, it was a series of growls of some ancient language.

"Ferewn nur-ah, treaqua. Doscesh vishhiler?"

The young human answered back in the alien language.

"Ferewn nur-ah, jykier. Lerpan-qua gruver."

"Grusha-lar newara Zuelseh?"

The human then turned to the light.

The young woman gasped and started out of the dream. Looking around with wide eyes, she found herself looking at the interior of a small drop ship. She was sitting strapped in a seat while the rest remained vacant, all except for two.

There was a large, tough looking soldier in gray armor siting near the front. And directly across from the girl was a man in blue armor looking right at her.

"Hello!" he chirped in a friendly manner, "I'm Caboose."

"H-he-hello…" the girl said awkwardly, still groggy from the dream' she thought. "I'm-"

"Hey rookie! Be quiet back there!" the tough looking guard shouted at her.

The girl was instantly silenced. Caboose shook his head at the man, "ignore him," he whispered. "He's mean."

"Yeah," she whispered back, "they all are."

In spite of her ability to somehow have a normal conversation, Rookie was an unusual case.

Some weeks back, she had awoken in the recruitment center, where people were gathered around to take some test to get into military training. She assumed she must have been there for the same thing but had absolutely no memory of how she got there or who she even was.

Instead of helping, staff quickly her ushered into a large room with chairs and long desks. She was made to write down answers on a thick paper packet. In a bit of a stunned state, she accepted the reality of things and wrote down the answers to the best of her ability. It took a little over 2 hours to finish, it would have taken a lot less if her hand didn't start cramping up all the time. Looking around, she noticed that everyone else was still taking the test.

Then she looked down at top front page and felt her heart drop.

Name:_

She didn't know her own name! Now she was going to fail.

Sighing quietly, she decided that she would fake a name; hopefully they would buy it and let her in.

She began to ponder a good name and scribble a few good ones on a piece of scrap paper. Only to find that her pen had run out of ink.

Glancing up, she noticed that the guy next to her had several extra pens. Despite a sense of pride that would have forbidden her from asking for help from anyone, she knew needed it.

She was partway in asking him if he would share one of his pens for a short while when one of the guards shouted at her.

"Hey you Rookie!"

The girl looked up, "No talking!" he shouted.

The girl quickly took one of the pens and scribbled down her new name.

After the two were unceremoniously dumped at the blue base, Rookie attached her sapphire blue helmet to her full body suit of matching color. Looking though her yellow visor, she took in the view. A big box canyon, with high, dirt colored walls and a small valley with sparse dried grass. On either end, less than a few hundred years, were the red and blue bases.

She and Caboose were sent to stay on the blue base, being that their poor leader died from a heart attack in his sleep.

"Hey rookies!" A new voice called out.

Both newbies turned. Standing on their small base was a teal and light azure soldier watching them.

The azure blue one spoke, "Ok, newbies, first off, before you settling here, we need to clarify some things."

Caboose and Rookie stole a glance at each other before returning their attention to the man.

"First off, I'm Leonard Church, but to you, it's Church and I'm the leader here. And don't any of you numbnuts forget it!"

"Yeah!" the teal one shouted much more enthusiastically, "and I'm Tucker, second in command and master ladies' man!" Tuck then proceeded to make his weird little catchphrase of 'Bow chika bow wow!'

"Anyway," Church said ignoring Tucker, "who the hell are you?" he glared down at the duo.

"I'm Caboose." The blue one said happily, glad to be noticed.

"I'm Rookie."

Immediately, both soldiers attention were on her. "What the hell? They sent us a girl? Sweet!" Tucker shouted in excitement.

"Shut up Tucker!" Church yelled in irritation, "get those rookies in the base and meet out in front, we're gonna inspect the new tank."

And with that Church disappeared out of sight. Tucker turned back to them, "Don't worry babe, you can totally buck with me."

Rookie felt herself cringe inside.

Unknown to the blue base, a pair of red were watching them through a sniper scope atop the high cliffs that surrounded them.

"This can't be good." A maroon colored soldier muttered zooming the sight in on the new comers, "The Blues got some new recruits."

He sifted his gun to the right, "and a tank! Sarge is not gonna like this." He whined.

"Ok I get it." An orange armored man moaned, "Blues got some rookies who cares? I'm tired and I wanna go back to base."

The other turned to him, "Grif this is serious! Besides, you slept in till 2:00pm this evening."

"And that's not nearly enough for me! I need another 5 hour power nap at least. You know I can't function without a 6 course meal and an entire days rest in me Simmons."

Simmons put down the gun, "Whatever; just shut up and get back to the red base, Sarge needs to hear this." He finished as he ran past his orange companion.

"By the way," Grif asked, "aren't we getting a rookie?"