Sean jumped and fell out of his bed; he looked over the rows of beds to see the demonstrators banging on the metal exterior of their barracks. All their old clothes were gone; they now had a pair of grey tracksuit tops and bottoms to wear.
"Come on!" a demonstrator called out "time to get a move on"
Sean got dressed as quickly as possible and sprinted out the barracks to where the other children were waiting in line, Sean fell in behind them. He nudged the boy in front of him, the boy turned round, he had mess of curly dark blonde hair.
"What are we waiting in line for?" Sean asked the boy
"Not sure but I hope it's good"
It wasn't. At the front of the queue there were three men each with a chair in front of them and a razor in hand. Sean stared horrified as the man shaved off his mess of dark brown hair, it was like losing a piece of his identity. The man then pushed him off of the chair, he fell to the ground. Then with anger inside him he stood up and punched the man square in the jaw, the man stumbled back, blood dripping from the side of his mouth. Then the silver armoured man came along and shouted "Recruit! Fall in with the rest of the company, now!"
Sean sprinted to where the other children were in lines of fifteen. The silver armoured man walked to the front of this group. When everyone was ready he spoke "recruits, a squad is like a family, you need to understand their every word, their every gesture and their body language. For this reason I am now going to assign you all a squad."
Sean listened intently until his name was called. He joined his four other squad mates.
He recognized the boy he had talked to in the line. The boy started the conversation.
"I suppose we should learn each others names, I'm Diarmuid"
"I'm Sean"
"I'm David"
"I'm Chris"
"Niall"
The five of them sat in silence until "squads!" they all turned "I will now designate your squad name. The silver armoured man moved around pointing to each squad then he reached their squad "you will be squad terra" he said then moved on.
Squad Terra looked at one another, put their hands in the middle of each other and shouted "Squad Terra!".
The silver armoured man returned to centre of all the squads and called to them, "now that you are all in your designated squads we're gonna go for a stroll", he signalled the demonstrators who brought out full pack rucksacks "you will each carry one of these", he held up a pack in one hand, "it is a seventy five litre bag, you will march with this on your back around the compound ten times, then you shall return here for more drills, any squad that is not back here in an hour goes without dinner" he stared around at all the children "what are you waiting for then?".
There was a commotion as the children rushed to get a rucksack and put them on, some struggled to even put it on, several fell on their backs like turtles, unable to move. Sean sprinted out the gate with the rest of his squad just behind him, but they soon grew tired and slowed to a walk. Other squads ran past them, but squad Terra held it's pace. After nine laps it seemed to pay off they were fourth out of ten, Sean then said "let's sprint at the end we might be able to overtake some people", they all agreed and as they rounded the last corner they all broke into a run and they overtook Gamma squad who were exhausted from trying to stay ahead. Terra squad arrived in third, they were very pleased, there were several high fives all round, then the Captain came over and shouted "you're not finished yet! Fifty push ups then fifty sit ups and then you'll enjoy a lovely candle lit dinner".
The squad who were exhausted collapsed to the ground and began their exercises, they struggled through their exercises and nearly crawled to the mess hall because they were so exhausted. That night they slept well because they knew that tomorrow it was going to happen all over again.
Days turned in to weeks, weeks in to years, then it got interesting when Sean was twelve at least he thought he was, he couldn't quite remember Captain Benjamin showed them weapons so everyone could find their strong point.
Niall immediately fell in love with the sniper, he turned out to be a crack shot. Chris was a menace with the shotgun, able to hit targets within twenty feet. David had a taste for explosives and rockets being his favourite, he could find the weak point on any vehicle and get a direct rocket shot on it. Diarmuid could get three hundred and sixty bulls eyes from two SMGs and Sean's best was the ma5b assault rifle, he always kept the enemy pinned down.
One day Captain Benjamin summoned all the squads to the main training field, once all thirty squads had fallen in he spoke, "today, will be the day that you will have to push yourselves to the limits. At the moment we have thirty squads, only fifteen can go through to the bio-augmentation stage, which means fifteen squads will have to settle for becoming bad ass marines." he paused "the way we're gonna decide this is with an exercise, out there" he gestured out and over the compound fence "is a jungle, rivers, caves and other terrain, we have fitted all weapons with stun rounds as well as flash bang grenades. All the squads will be released via dropship to separate areas of the jungle; you will then neutralize all enemy squads. When fifteen squads have been called in as KIA the exercise will be over, only report KIA when the whole squad in down, not just one person, understood?"
"Sir yes sir" all the Spartans replied
"Well what are you waiting for then?" the Captain said "grab your weapons, dust off is in five minutes"
All the squads sprinted for the armoury, Terra was second to it. Niall picked up an SRS99C-S2 AM sniper rifle and six clips of ammunition excluding the clip he slapped in as he left, he also took a new battle rifle and lots of ammo clips. Chris picked up a shotgun and a battle rifle as well with six clips of ammo for each. Diarmuid picked up two SMG's and five clips of ammo for each. David picked up a rocket launcher and a grenade launcher with two packs of rocket ammo and ten grenade rounds. Finally Sean took a ma5b assault rifle and a magnum as well as seven clips of ammo for each. Each member also carried three flash bang grenades.
The squad left armoury laden with guns and ammunition and boarded their pelican. They all took their seats and in ten minutes thirty pelicans had dusted off and were in the air.
Sean got out of his seat and walked to the cockpit area, he leaned on the pilot's chair and whispered "keep the ramp open so we can get a fix on the targets"
The pilot gave him an incredulous look, nodded and opened the ramp, the cool air blow at their ODST titanium A armour, the squad put their helmets on. Sean gave the hand signals to enter a private COM channel. The pelican stopped moving and Sean immediately moved to the ramp to look outside. There was a pelican landing about two kilometres northwest of their position. He clicked his COM on "first target two K north-west". Four acknowledgment lights flashed blue to say they were ready.
The pelican hadn't fully landed as squad Terra jumped off the ramp of the pelican. They had been dropped next to a large rock face with a waterfall behind them and the jungle in front of them.
"Delta formation guys, COM silence from here on" Sean said as they approached the edge of the jungle. The squad's acknowledgment lights flashed. Sean held up his fist to gesture the squad to stop, they fell in behind him. He gestured for Niall to take up a sniping point on the rock face they had been dropped at. His light flashed and he moved out to scale the rock face. He then gestured for Chris to take point and Diarmuid to cover the rear. They all unslung their weapons. The silence was deadly, they could only hear the thunder of the waterfall behind them.
They moved forward slowly. They had only travelled a kilometre when they heard a rustling. They took cover in some bushes and levelled their weapons. Sierra squad burst through a line of trees in full sprint, they had clearly been attacked, there was only three of them left.
David fired a grenade from his launcher into the middle of them, the grenade flashed and the squad were on the ground, Sean, Chris and Diarmuid silenced one each. Sean checked the squad's roster, he marked down the three as KIA, which meant the whole squad was neutralized, he called in an evac.
Niall's light flashed amber to indicate someone was approaching, the squad moved back to their drop point, a flash bang grenade went off, Sean was blinded and disoriented, he stumbled back but stayed on his feet. There were two coughs from a sniper, Sean's vision cleared and he seen a downed Spartan from squad Delta down, Niall was as reliable as ever but there was likely to be four more near by, Delta had always been their biggest rival.
Sean gestured to his squad to take up defensive position around the basin were the waterfall was. They took cover behind some rocks at three sections around the basin and waited.
An hour passed, an hour and a half, two hours then there was a cough from a sniper, Niall's light hadn't flashed, Sean looked up to see Niall's sniper fall in to the basin, David fired a rocket into the bushes and the area cleared. Delta had been in the bushes the whole time. Then all hell broke loose. Diarmuid, Sean and Chris sprayed the area with armour piercing stun rounds, leaves were shredded by the fire, David loaded another rocket, Delta rolled forward and charged, returning fire. Delta had always been the tougher Spartans, only David could match their weakest in a fistfight, the rest of Terra hadn't a hope.
Delta bounded over the rocks and managed disarm Terra with nothing but their fists. David threw one of them to the ground and pushed a stun round into the weaker armour behind the neck, he then jumped in to help Diarmuid, who was up against a much larger opponent.
Chris roundhouse kicked a Spartan in the ribs, the Spartan grabbed his leg and flipped him over.
Sean was going against the leader of Delta, a large Spartan called Mark, he was at least a foot taller than Sean and much stronger. Mark picked Sean up and threw him to the ground, Sean rolled, drew his magnum and shot the one that David and Diarmuid were fighting, Diarmuid moved on to help Chris and David moved to help Sean.
David charged Mark and charged into him full force, but Mark dug his heels in and shoved him off, Sean fired at him twice, Mark rolled and dodged. Then Niall's light flashed amber, Sean looked around.
A warthog crashed through the undergrowth and headed straight for Mark, Sean and David dived out of the way. The warthog rushed past them and collided with Mark, it slammed him and he was thrown back into a tree. Sean fired a round in to him for good measure.
Niall climbed out of the Warthog.
"That was a bit noticeable don't you think?" David said to Niall
"He didn't notice it" Niall replied gesturing to Mark.
Sean sent the signal for evac and a voice came through the COM.
"Congratulations squad Terra you have survived the exercise, evac at your position in fifteen minutes, you've made it through to the next stage of being a Spartan".