"My name is Frank Edward Morrison. I was born on March 13, 2515, on the colony of Tribute. That's eight years before these bastards showed their ugly faces and started glassing worlds. Growing up, I remember watching the Holonet in the kitchen of my father's high-rise penthouse, seeing reports of some kind of aliens that were taking our worlds. It was joked about in school, even. But they never made it sound as bad as it really was. As strange as it seems, my the war first became real for me when we could no longer buy Harvest Peaches, my favorite food, in the market. Casualty reports were always many thousands less than they actually were, and censorship ran rampant. The teachers didn't talk about it much- at least not until I was 18. By then there was an entire class devoted to war studies. I joined that as soon as it came out- I was as patriotic to the UNSC as they came. I suppose that was part of living in an Inner colony, but I loved formality and was immediately attracted to military service. The UNSC officer they had teach the class started being more realistic then about how the war was going, and that just set it in stone.

I'd been off-planet only once, to visit family on Reach when I was ten. As the shuttle lifted off from the Casbah starport and we entered space, I remember looking out in awe at the Eridani Fleet doing exercise, Hundreds of Frigates, Cruisers, and a single huge Supercarrier, thousands of Longsword fighters screaming around in the vacuum. I knew then that space, this exciting frontier, was for me. I enlisted the week after high school graduation, at just 18 years old, like so many others. And from the moment I placed my palm on the datapad at the recruiters office, my life would never be the same.

For basic training, I was to be relegated to Reach. Myself and the other "boots" arrived at Casbah Starport and were crammed into coach seating on the first commercial liner out of there. There was no need for Cryo on a trip that short, and so I spent the day and a half it took to get there, in between nervous sleep, researching our enemy and the war I was about to be thrown headfirst into.

The shuttle landed at the spaceport in New Alexandria, and I was promptly loaded on a Pelican with about 15 other recruits. We were given a quick crash course on how to stay conscious in high-G flight, and promptly lifted off and streaked over the city. I fought the darkness creeping in to my vision until; finally, we landed at Camp Gallagher in Eposz.

Three months passed there.. We did standard drills, PT, Zero-G maneuvering, and intensive studies in mathematics and science. And one by one, the class dwindled until just 30 of us remained. At that point, we began transitioning into individual evaluations.

One day I was called into a restricted-access building, flanked by two rough-looking Marine guards.

"Please step inside, Cadet. Someone will be in touch with you shortly."

I stepped inside the door and was immediately interested in what I saw- an array of instrumentation and screens. It was obvious that this was a flight simulator. I took a seat in the Pilot's chair. After a minute, a voice came on over an intercom- the crisp, but unmistakably artificial voice of Horvath, the base's Smart AI.

"Do you know where you are, Cadet?"

I swallowed. "The cockpit of a Longsword fighter. Or a simulation of one."

"Correct. Please take the control stick in your hand and turn your attention to the screen at 12 O'clock."

I did so.

"We are going to start you off with some basic flight simulation ops. Please accelerate the craft and maneuver to waypoint alpha."

I pushed the throttle forward and noticed the reactor readout heating up. Waypoint alpha was 3 Kilometers ahead. I reached it, and cut the thrusters.

"Now please maneuver to waypoint bravo."

Again, I moved the craft to the waypoint.

This went on for a while, the AI gradually stepping up challenges and explaining various other controls until the pilots chair started to feel like a second home. Finally, I noticed a strange purple object on the main screen.

"Cadet, please select the ASGM-10 missile and allow the computer to target the buoy."

I stiffened, but managed to key the anti-fighter missile on the weapons console, directing the computer to target the simulated object, ostensibly designed to resemble a covenant seraph fighter .

"Arm the missile and fire."

I keyed the missile codes and squeezed the trigger on the flight stick. On the screen, the missile left a ghostly plume of exhaust as it streaked towards the stationary fighter. The Covenant craft detonated in a ball of fire.

I felt a small triumph, but knew that in a real scenario, the enemy fighter would be dodging, maneuvering.. Firing back.

The AI gave me another series of tests. After only a few hours in the simulator, I could aileron roll, strafe an enemy fighter, they even gave me scenarios where I would do bombing runs on enemy capital ships. The pilots chair truly felt like a second home, and I could tell this was the career in the Navy that I wanted.

The AI eventually dismissed me back to the Chief and normal drills. The next morning, I was handed redeployment papers. Anchor 12, for basic flight training. I barely had time to be surprised, because I was herded onto a Pelican dropship bound for space.

Another high-G flight.

The pelican had no windows besides the thick, scratched plate of bulletproof polarized glass on the troop bay door. I watched as the clouds streaked past, until, finally, I was overcome with a feeling of weightlessness.

There was a sharp bump as the pelican touched down in a Landing bay. I heard a hiss as the bay repressurized. The troop bay door opened and I stepped out of the Pelican. I stood at attention and saluted the junior officer that came to meet me.

He returned the gesture, and then checked a clipboard.

"You are Cadet Frank Morrison?"

"Yes sir."

"Come with me, Cadet. I'll show you to your rack, you can drop off your luggage, and then I'll take you to your class."

We walked through the halls of the station, passing numerous people and doors, until we reached one that the officer opened. It was a small cubicle with a cot and a chest.

"This will be your quarters for the duration of your stay aboard. I will forward you the station schematic, along with your schedule" he gestured to the computer mounted to the wall.

We walked through the station for a half-hour, he showing me all the important locations, and the class that I'd be attending. Class started immediately after the tour. I stood at attention with 35 other cadets until the instructor, a captain in his 50's, strode in.

It was a similar drill to the one from basic back on Reach. After an introduction from Captain Peterson, for that was his name, he made it clear that, once again, we would receive no sympathy in this class.

"This class has an 85 percent wash-out rate" He'd said. "Look at the man next to you. Chances are, that man will not be a Fighter Pilot in the UNSC Navy."

I glanced at the man to my right. A scrawny kid with blonde hair, he looked nervous.

Weeks of instruction on the art of piloting a Starfighter followed, along with intensive studies in math and physical sciences. As Captain Peterson had said, most of the people I'd seen on the first day were gone within a few weeks. Soon, it was only me and 10 other people.

Eventually, there came a day where we got to pilot an actual training craft. It was only an SKT-13 Shuttlecraft, Which was a slow, ungainly craft, essentially an upscaled version of the Bumblebee lifeboat. I had 300 hours on the simulator on this point, and I was surprised that piloting the craft came almost natural to me.

And after a few more months of simulations, they finally let me at a fighter. We shuttled from Anchor 12 to the CVA-548, UNSC Musashi. The shuttle docked in the large hangar of the carrier, and from there we were assigned a Longsword, and a flight crew. My flight crew met me inside the cabin of the craft. On sys-ops was Cadet Campbell, a tall, skinny kid from Jericho VII, and on Coms was Cadet Rakowski from Mars. We shook hands, exchanged a few short introductions, and got settled into our stations.

I activated the craft's reactor, heating up the engines as I went through my Pre-flight check. All green.

"Criticality. engine heating up. Systems nominal, Comms"

Rakowski hit the com. "Musashi, this is Trainer 1-4. Preflight green, all systems go. Permission to launch."

"Trainer 1-4, Musashi CIC. Cleared to launch, hold for the door."

"Cleared to launch, holding, Trainer 1-4"

The atmosphere in the hangar bay was sucked into massive vents and the expansive doors opened. I deactivated the electromagnetic landing gear of the longsword and teased the engines to guide the fighter out into the blackness of space. This was to be a simple operation, just a series of maneuvers, and a live-fire demonstration at the end. I accelerated to 20% reactor output and proceeded to Rally Point Alpha, just like in my first flight sim back on Reach. The other trainer flights had already cleared the Musashi and were staged at the rally point, station keeping thrusters flicking occasionally. The exercise included maneuvering through an asteroid field, and then coordinated fire from the entire squadron would take out a rock that had been painted on our HUDs.