"Three, two, one, fire in the hole!"

As the charge blows the door open, I toss the grenade in and wait for the bang. Then I swing around the doorjamb, cutting the pie in a single liquid-smooth movement, fast as a saberdart. Deuce swings in from the opposite side, and Oath is right behind me. Meanwhile, Zero has our backs covered.

Deuce gives the all-clear. A wasted stun grenade. That means that whoever is on this floor knows we're here. Fortunately, the helmet coms and insulation keep things quiet, but no amount of gear in the Katarn system will dull a grenade of any type.

Zero piles in behind us, wipes two fingers off his right shoulder pad, and points at the wall. We understand: instead of going back into the hall and conducting a room-by-room search, we're going to blow through the wall and keep them guessing.

We take positions as Oath scans the wall with his glove sensors. He rolls out a meter of det tape and affixes it to the wall, a straight line perpendicular to the floor.

"We're good, boss. Fire in the hole."

Zero nods and hits his detonator. The tape slices a line through the wall into the next room; before Deuce obscures my vision by plowing into the wall, I can see straight to the other side. He triggers a few shots, and I hear something clatter to the floor.

"Enemy neutralized."

Oath has our backs as Zero and I step into the next room through the hole Deuce made. The commander cocks his head as he reports the kill to Command and Control, then waves us on. My helmet's external mics pick up the sound of Oath reconfigures his Deece into rifle mode; in such close quarters, his anti-armor rounds would likely shatter the entire house.

Zero's voice resonates through my helmet.

"Oh-Three and Two-Two, take the northern staircase. Two-Oh and I will take the south. EMPs in the hall, each of us takes a room."

We confirm Zero's orders.

"Let's move out, Cryo Squad."

Oath and Deuce split off and go back the way we came to ascend to the next floor, while Zero and I creep on ahead. The sarge has point, I'm trailing. We advance almost back-to-back; not a good thing when the enemy might have grenades, but it's the best way to move around in the cramped space, where anything could pop out of anywhere.

Deuce clicks his com twice, telling us that he's reached the staircase. Zero clicks back once we reach the base of our stairs, then a triple-click to tell the other boys to sync up. Then, "GO!"

I turn a hundred eighty degrees and charge up the stairs with Zero, who'd tossed a grenade ahead of him. It goes off just as we round the landing and hit the second floor. He kicks open the door on the left, I barrel into the one on the right; ahead I see Two-Two and Oath doing the same.

"Contact."
"Contact!"
"Enemy sighted."
"Contact!"

I'm firing before I see him. My shots track up the torso and to the head, then up the wall before I let go of the firing stud.

"Enemy down."
"Target neutralized."
"He's cold."
"Confirm one kill."

Then, a fifth voice, but not an unfamiliar one.

"Endex, endex!"

Endex. End exercise. Game over, Cryo Team wins.

We double-check the rooms and head back down the same way we came up, with rifles still armed. The training sergeants were always testing you. If not in these live-fire exercises, then out on the ranges, or during the study periods, or even during the sleep cycles. And don't even get started on the Kaminoans. There's still speculation floating around about that batch that didn't have 20/20 vision that disappeared last month.

We all remember the first time an endex was sounded, and we simply walked out of the Killing House. Forty-Five got a bolt straight to the face. I can still remember seeing his head exploding as I dove to the ground and put a whole clip into the man that we'd not accounted for. That's how we ended up with Oath, who lost the rest of his squad in an exercise.

We exit the blown-open front door and arrange ourselves in a semicircle in front of the House. Nothing. Zero gives the go-ahead, and we all run through the trees to a point designated as the RV.

The second my foot touches down on the triangle displayed on my HUD, the trees disappear, and the House becomes a stark white cube with glass viewports.

Sergeant Bralor appears where a tree used to be.

"Nicely done, squad. Hit the showers, I'll see you in an hour at demolitions."

We all snap to and salute him before going off. We don't take our helmets off until we're in the hall.