Well hello there. I'm a new writer to this genre so I do hope you'll forgive the mistakes I'm bound to make. Let's get this started. Any feedback I get would be thoroughly appreciated everyone.

He stared at the rising sun through the small window in front of him. He then groaned while working a kink out of his neck. Despite the space that the Hercules he was flying in had they still lacked one essential thing.

Comfortable seating.

He stood up and worked on stretching his body out more. He grabbed the jacket he'd been wearing at threw it onto the floor next to him. The simple blue jacket matched his sapphire eyes to a startling extent. He cracked his knuckles and went for a light round of shadow boxing. The voices is his head laughed at him but he ignored them. They'd always been this way. Never helpful always looking down on him.

He still wondered why he'd decided to accept this course… sure the pay was good but he still had no idea why this specific activity was his go to choice. He chuckled quietly as he panted and tried to comb his messy brown hair back into its previously neat arrangement. He failed with spectacular results, somehow managing to make his hair look worse then before. After putting on his jacket and ruffling through the pockets in search of a comb he sighed and sat back down in the cargo hold. It was then that he noticed a rather glaring detail… he was the only person in the back.

Sure he'd been half asleep when he boarded and he'd fallen asleep almost immediately upon lying down but he was pretty sure that there had been at least one other person. Maybe he became a stowaway… that sounded cool. Kinda… not really. He then started panicking. His mind created a hundred different scenarios on what would happen when he landed and he ended up hitting his head against the wall in order to stop. He slid down the wall and closed his eyes as he concentrated on the pain.

The thumping of his heart resounded through his ears as he found himself back in that place. Everything stood exactly as it had at the time. The people around him on the ground. The woman in front of him. The gun in her hand.

His vision flattered and he was back in the plane. He hugged his jacket closer to him as he let out a breath. The cold recycled air invaded his senses and sent a chill through his body. He pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming and the chiming of the intercom brought his mind back to reality.

"Buckle up kid. We're landing in five."

He rolled his eyes and looked at the seat with a glare as he strapped himself in.

The sun hurt his eyes. That was the first thought that entered his mind as he looked up at the sky. The clear blue radiance of the sky filled him with energy and he rocked on the balls of his feet before walking forwards. He glanced at the note in his hand that he'd received when the plane had landed.

Meet me in the largest hanger

S

He shook his head as he looked around the airfield… every hanger looked the exact same size. He felt his eyebrow twitch in irritation. He really needed to have a word with her. He gave up on trying to figure out which hanger was larger and resigned himself to slowly checking each hanger. The first few he'd walked past housed a few aircraft and he swore he saw a Spitfire in one of the hangers. He'd stared for a minute before walking past and continuing with his search for the meeting point. The next set had a few trucks with equipment for various vehicles stored neatly around the walls. He shook his head as he felt fate itself start laughing at him. He persevered and eventually came to the second last hanger.

He opened the door and expected to find a plane or something to that extent. Instead he found an odd vehicle.

The front consisted of three angular armor plates placed at different angles to the vertical. The top sheet near the roof, distinguished by a smaller slope.

Middle and bottom, in turn, formed the structure of the wedge-shaped profile with vertical sides. The turret was shaped oddly too with a raised section on it's right where a large gun was mounted. The left side of the turret seemed to bend to give the turret an almost done appearance. Overall the vehicle was smaller then the tanks he'd normally seen. Maybe a few meters in length. The gun itself had a rectangular muzzle break attached and a cupola sat on top of the turret with a view port and hatch situated on the turret at well.

"Ah you found it. The T71 light tank…"

He whirled around to find a woman in military dress smiling at him. Her black hair matched her berret and the glasses she wore gave her the air of a teacher. He rolled his eyes as he laughed.

"It's been a while. How have you been Sarah?"

She hit him on top of his head with a small clipboard.

"You're being too formal. It's only us so you can be a little more casual."

"Um… okay. Hi… I guess."

"Eh we'll work on it. How was the flight?"

"Was I supposed to be the only one on that plane? Cause I think I wasn't supposed to be."

"The others were delayed so they won't be here for another hour or so." He saw her eyes look back at the tank. "You know this is the only version of this ever made right? A 76mm main gun that mounts a three shot autoloader capable of firing 12 shots in a minute. She's a beauty."

He let out a hum as he walked over to the tank and ran his hand across the metal surface. A layer of dust had settled on the hull along with what looked some cobwebs that hung from the tracks.

"If it's the only one of it's type you'd hope the engineers would take better care of it."

"Well they were a little busy keeping this place up to snuff."

"I'm sure they were. Question. Why me? I mean I'm sure there were a hell of a lota better candidates to drive this then me."

"True there were. But let's say I have a bet going on who's the better commander for this thing. I'm hoping you win Lex."

Lex blinked. His eyes seemed to shine in the dark hanger as he looked at the tank.

"I'm not driving? I applied for that though…"

"I saw. But I thought you'd be more suited to commanding. Besides this is a three man tank. You'll get to drive at some point…" she threw her clipboard to him and he fumbled as he caught it. "Your two other crewmates. Learn the faces and memorize the names by the time they get here."

Lex rolled his eyes as he spun around to face the woman. He gave a lazy salute and leaned on the tank as he scanned the dossiers. He froze when he got to the evaluation results. He looked up and saw the Sarah was gone.

She…. She gave me the worst candidates… this guy's the driver and his score was worse then mine… and my gunners not even accurate at three hundred meters… what the fuck!

He propped himself so that he was sitting on the side of the tank as he silently fumed.

An hour went by and he blinked his blurry vision away when the sound of voices filled his ears.

"What should we do?" the first voice went.

"Beats me. The guys asleep." Went the second more gruff voice.

He rose up and blinked in surprise at what he saw. The dossiers weren't kidding when they said that the two people in front of him were his crew.

He leapt off the side and walked up to the two teens in front of him. One wore what looked like a camo top with a pair of green pants. Orange hair that passed his shoulders made his head seem like it was on fire. A pair of matching orange eyes met his sapphire and the guy went rigid. Lex cleared his throat.

"Lets see… you're Stewart Regarious the Third right?"

"Yeah. People call me Nano."

Lez narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Is that because of your…"

"My height yeah." The guy laughed. " well it comes in handy sometimes so I don't really mind."

Lex rolled his eyes as he looked at the other teen. A head of spiked silver hair was the first thing that caught his attention. Next was the almost glowing Amber eyes and finally was the simple grey jumper and pants. The teen gave a half hearted smile filled with a little malice that made Lex tense slightly.

"Your Richy Sutherland I take it?"

"Richard. You don't get to call me Richy." The gruff voice answered.

Lex shrugged. "Fine by me. So let's see… Richard. You're the driver while Nano gets to be the gunner. Sound good?"

He spun around only to be stopped when a hand set itself down on his shoulder. His body was forcefully spun around and he felt a fist slam into his face. He went spirally onto the ground. His vision blurred and he fought against that as he stood back up albeit slowly and shakily.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?"

He found himself glaring at Richard who pointed over at Nano. The orange haired teen shrugged.

"Wanted to see if you were man enough to take my punch. Guess what? You failed."

Lex groaned.

"Last time I checked… getting punched by my subordinates was not on the job description."

"Dude. You're like the same age as us. Don't talk like this is some stupid job interview. We get to drive tanks. We get to shoot guns… it's fucking awesome!"

Nano put his fist next to Richard who slumped his shoulders as he met the fist with his own

"I thought I told you to stop that on the plane."

"What it's fun?"

"For you maybe. Think about how I feel now that I have to do this with you."

"Exhilarated?"

"Try again."

"Enthusiastic?"

Richard eventually shook his head as he gave up. Lex smiled from the corner while he grabbed the medical kit inside the tank. He'd taken the time to look over a few parts of the run down tank and after about five minutes he'd given up when he realized he had absolutely no idea what to do. He double checked that his vision was fine and when he was sure that his nose wasn't bleeding he walked up to Nano and slugged him in the face with a smile on his face. His smile vanished when he saw the ease with which his punch had been caught.

"Nice try… though you might want to mask your presence a bit more. Your eyes gave away your target."

Lex blinked in surprise then nodded slightly.

"I'll take that into consideration…" he then changed the topic " I don't think I've introduced myself have I? "

"Nope."

"Lexerius Vitra. Just call me Lex."

A handshake and fist bump went by before the three teens stared at their tank. Richard seemed to nod slightly as he opened the drivers hatch. He then turned to Lex.

"You tested the engine?"

"Didn't get a chance to no. All yours."

The grin that spread across both their faces when the engine roared to life could've filled the hanger. A laugh filled the hanger followed by another two as the group got into their respective positions inside the tank.

Lex tapped Richard with his foot and the tank slowly moved forwards and out into the sun. He used his hand to shield his eyes from the glare and felt the wind against his face. He felt someone tapped on his pants legs so he closed the hatch and sat down in the chair. Nano seemed to be the one tapping.

"We don't have any ammo."

"I know. It'd be a little stupid to have an inactive tank stocked with ammunition. "

"Yeah but I can't shoot."

"Exactly. I don't need a trigger happy idiot on my team."

"I'm not trigger happy… just… excited to fire a gun of this caliber."

"You think you can hit anything with this? Your evaluation gave you a three out of the for accuracy."

"You know they tested us with twenty millimeter cannons right? Those things have vastly different muzzle velocities then these larger cannons. Once I'd gotten use to the drop on the round I was up to my last shot."

"And?"

"I hit the bull's-eye… though I was a centimeter to the left. "

His eyes widened once again in the day.

"We need to get you a target. I need to see this first hand."

"Its all in your hands chief."

"Chief?"

Alex had expected Nano to answer though instead he heard Richard.

"You're the commander of this tank. So in theory we can call you chief. It's more convenient then Lex in a battle. Plus an enemy won't know who we're referring to if our comms are hacked. "

Lex nodded at the logic before opening he hatch and directing Richard around a few obstacles. He was impressed with the speed that the tank could turn along with the tight circles it could pull he had to say. He was starting to second guess the reports he'd been given. There was no way that someone with a two out of ten rating for tank driving could pull off the sharp corners that Richard was managing with effort to spare. He made a mental note to ask Sarah about this as the tank slowly returned to the hanger.

The three of them hopped out of the tank and sat on the hull. Nano hung upside down from the barrel of the gun while Lex took his spot on top of the turret. Richard seemed happy enough lying down on the hull and a sigh of content went through all of them. Lex then started chuckling.

"All in favor of telling the evaluators to go fuck themselves say I"

"It would be a good change of pace."

"They probably should."

He felt his shoulders droop.

"None of you said I!"

The three then started laughing when Alex heard the hanger door open. He glanced to the side and sent a lazy wave towards the approaching woman. She seemed to be glaring at him though Lex hadn't the faintest idea why. He leapt off the turret and met her halfway. He then received a rather painful whack on the head from her metal clipboard.

"Next time you decide to take a joyride around the base in a tank tell me first. You know how many people rushed into my office screaming about a runaway tank!?"

Lex let out an awkward chuckle.

"Six people if I counted right."

He heard her sigh as she shook her head. She then walked up to the tank and patted her hand against the hull. The three teens noted the far away look in her eyes.

"Be careful with this one okay. She's delicate."

She then shook her head and passed Lex the clipboard.

"You have two weeks. Learn the tank back to front and make sure it's in top shape by the first week."

Lex furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as the woman walked off and he glanced back at the other two who were trying to read over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes and placed the clipboard on the flat part of the hull. He then started reading along with the other two. He whistled when the saw the money figure.

"Four zeros huh. Nice."

"Cute girls too."

He gave Nano the blankest stare he could muster while Richard kept reading.

"So we've been hired to help some school restart their tank training program huh? Anyone else see the flaw."

"Why us?"

Richard nodded as he looked at the door.

"I didn't know we were this cheap."

Lex nodded as he tapped his foot in thought.

"We have two weeks and according to Sarah we have a week to get this thing in full condition… let see… new paint. Maybe a better gun… thoughts?"

"Oooh. How about digital camo?"

Alex and Richard both looked over at Nano who was grinning madly.

"Can you even make digital camo with paint?"

"Give me a week and let's see."

Richard shook his head while Lex rolled his eyes.

"Knock yourself out. I'm gonna go talk with the requisitions manager about the gun tomorrow hopefully. Anyone got something they want?"

He saw Richard tap the hull of the tank.

"New tracks would be nice. Maybe a range finder for Nano. You want one Nano?"

"I'll take it!"

They two of them shared a laugh while Lex jotted down notes on the clipboard with a pen. When they'd finished planning it had turned dark. Nano asked the final question of the day.

"So does one of you know the way to the dorms?"