I want to thank everyone for the love they've shown this story, especially for a first chapter that even I can admit was slow and kind of boring. Your reward for making it this far is a damn good story which will start picking up.

So as you read this chapter, once again I ask for patience.

And as always, if you like the content make sure you let me know in a review or PM. Any feedback is welcome, whether it's positive or negative and just the knowledge that someone's reading is what keeps this story going.

Chapter 2: Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst

Brittany's POV

I stared out the window as the houses and buildings of Houston raced past underneath us. I sighed as it finally sunk in that we were about to land. It would be quite a while before I ever step foot in our nice, comfortable house in L.A. that I had always take for granted again.

On the other hand, I was giving up comfort for what I knew very well was the chance of a lifetime. I wasn't dumb. I knew what it meant to be the first Earthlings to ever visit Mars. And not only that, but to be able to come back.

I watched out the window once again as the runway was flying by right under our feet. A pit formed in my stomach out of anticipation as it seemed every inch that we got closer to the ground, it felt more and more likely that I was going to feel the sudden jolt of our touching down. I waited intensely as I clenched the armrests next to me. I held my breath until finally we hit the Earth. The jet bounced and rocked, and then vibrating as we slowly came screeching to a slower and slower pace.

"We're here," Dave said.

I thought about saying something sarcastic, but I decided to save it.

It wasn't long before the jet had docked and the captain could be heard over the loudspeakers (interrupting my playlist), "ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for flying with us today. It is currently 98 degrees and sunny in Houston, Texas with slight humidity. If you need assistance exiting the aircraft, then any of our stewards or stewardesses would gladly help you. If not we hope that you enjoy your stay here and that you come see us again sometime soon."

I rolled my eyes. Neither of those are very likely.

As we exited through the gate, there was a man waiting inside the airport with a sign that said, "Chipmunks & Chipettes".

We walked up to him and he knew we were who he was waiting for right away. He politely escorted us to his limousine, closed the doors behind us, loaded our baggage, and drove off.

None of us were astounded by the luxury of the limo, as we were used to that kind of treatment. Or at least, we used to be. To be very honest, despite all of the car's commodities, the best part was the Air Conditioning. It was awful hot out.

It was another hour or so before we reached it: NASA Training HQ. It was a large building in the middle of nowhere, mostly white, with the NASA logo spray painted on one windowless side. That was one thing I forgot to mention: there were basically no windows. And it was in the middle of a hot, barren desert. I gritted my teeth knowing that it only went downhill from here.

The limo driver wasted no time after handing us our bags before speeding away and leaving us.

We trudged towards what looked like the main entryway. I say that because it looked like the only entryway. It was a large, thick metal door with a security camera hovering above it. To the side was a red light and a green light. The red light was lit up.

Dave stepped up to the door and looked up at the camera which stayed fixated on us. Suddenly, the red light went dim and the green light buzzed on. Dave looked back at us and shrugged, then turned back around and pushed the door open. We all followed him inside, as he shut the door behind us.

Inside was a well lit greeting room, with a front desk and everything. There was a man sitting there who looked up and smiled at us. "Welcome!" he said. "They've been waiting for you in the meeting room. Come with me, I'll escort you there."

We obliged, following him up a short flight of stairs, around a corner, down a hall, three doors down to our right.

"This is the meeting room," he said. "Go ahead in. If there's anything you guys need let me know."

"Water?" I asked.

"I've been instructed not to let you guys drink water just yet," he replied, still smiling at me.

I gulped down my thirst and nodded.

With that he nodded at us and walked off.

Dave opened the door for us and waited for us to hop in before walking in behind us and closing it. Inside the room was a nice-looking round wooden table. On the other end of the room sat Tom, the bald man from the video chat. Next to him was a short but stocky brunette woman with a hardened face and her hair in a pony tail. She wore a sleeveless gray t-shirt and sweatpants.

"Come in!" Tom said to us. "Sit down, please."

We all did as he asked.

"Allow me to introduce Captain Raegan Megyesy."

"Call me Captain Megs, to save time," she cut in. Pretty sure her voice was deeper than Dave's.

"Fair enough," Tom said. "Anyway, she'll be in charge of your training and will be completely responsible for making sure you six are ready for everything you can and will encounter on your journey. With my supervision, of course."

Captain Megs nodded.

"How long will this training last?" I asked.

She smirked at me. "Until I say you're ready," she responded.

"We're very excited to be working with you little guys," Tom said. "Dave, you'll be able to watch their progress in training at most designated time, but I'm afraid you won't be able to have direct contact with them until their training is complete. If you'd like to say so long to them that'd be great, then I'll show you to where you'll be staying."

Dave nodded then looked at us. We all quickly ran in for a giant group hug. "I love you guys," Dave said to us. "I'm so proud of you. I know you guys will do great."

We broke up the hug as Dave stood up. Tom walked over to him and put his hand on Dave's shoulder, before leading him out the door. But just before he shut it, Dave called, "just remember, I'll be watching you guys!" And then the door shut.

And so we were left in the room with Captain Megs. She smiled down at us, all standing on the table. "Alright look you guys," she said in a less than feminine voice, "you're in for some pretty intense training."

I caught Theo and Ellie giving each other worried glances.

"And that doesn't just mean physically, either," Megs continued, "although I love me some good PT. My job is also to push you to the limit mentally and psychologically. Because I've been in the shit. I've been up there, in space. Even if there were ever a mission where absolutely nothing went wrong, which will never happen, you need to be on your guard 24/7 and always need to be able to make smart decisions. My training will be actively saving your life down the road, while you realize it or not."

I liked something about this woman. She got to the point. She didn't dick around like those other two guys.

"The main thing to keep in mind," she continued, "is that no matter what I put you through, we know for a scientific fact that you can do it if you push yourself. The key will be being mentally tough. Any questions?"

No one said a word.

She smirked again. "Then follow me."

The first place she led us was down the stairs, but still well past the greeting desk. We came to A giant glass window, through which we could see inside a large white room. Inside the room was a chipmunk-sized shuttle simulator, a mud pit, some sort of a rope course, and a few other areas obviously meant for training.

"This is where you'll be spending most of your days for a while," Megs said. "We'll be conducting the vast majority of our training exercises in there."

We moved on to a room on the other side of the floor. It looked to have a sliding door with the letters "FES" imprinted on it and a small window up at the top that none of us except for Megs could see through. "This is the Flight Elements Simulator," Megs said. "Anything we do in there won't be pleasant, but it'll make you mentally tougher."

Our last stop was on the very top floor, in what seemed like the far corner of the building. "This will be the room in which you will sleep," Megs told us as she opened the door.

We all walked into the dark room, with small flashing colored lights all over the place. Megs flipped a switch which illuminated the whole place instantly. There were six beds, perfectly sized for chipmunks, sitting across from each other. Other than that, there seemed to be nothing in the room besides random flashing lights all over the place.

"The room will be kept at 60 degrees Fahrenheit at all times, including when you sleep," the Captain said as she watched us look around the room while rubbing our arms for warmth.

"I have a question," I said, raising my hand.

"The answer is no," she said smiling. "These flashing lights will never be stopped either. These are all elements to get used to while you're sleeping. Which reminds me…" she trailed off as she walked towards one of the beds, which we just now realized had seatbelts on them in the shape of an X. "It's very important that each of you guys strap yourselves in," she continued. "Every night. In your own bed." She emphasized that last part, glaring at us. "These are the conditions you'll be facing on your trip."

It was only 9 pm, but we were already exhausted. Not from training or anything, because that didn't start until tomorrow. We were just wary.

We all changed into our specialized space pj's, despite how cold our room was, and buckled ourselves in.

Just as I was about ready to fall asleep, I heard Alvin say to us, "we got his guys. Never look back."

I lifted my head, trying to get a glimpse of him, but I couldn't raise my head enough because of my constraints. I sighed, laid back down, and fell asleep, shuddering from the cold.

Just when I finally felt comfortable in my sleep, the whole room came violently alive with sirens, the main lights flashing on and off, and an electronic voice repeating the phrase, "ALERT! URGENT ATTENTION NEEDED! ALERT!"

It all happened so fast. Even the bed was shaking. In a panicked state, I scratched at my seat belt until I found the release button. I freed myself and hopped off the bed, the noise and flashes still going. I covered my ears and looked around. It looked like Alvin had fallen off his bed and onto his back, having been shaken off by the vibrating beds. Probably didn't buckle up last night.

Through the flashing lights I could see everyone else safely hop off their beds while Alvin picked himself up painfully. I couldn't help but smirk at his being outsmarted. I walked myself over to where Simon and Jean were standing, all of us still with our ears covered.

"WHAT DO WE DO?" Jeanette screamed so that Simon at the very least could hear her.

"WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" he yelled.

We all scrambled over to the lone door that was our way out. We pushed and pounded on that door as hard as we could, desperate to get out of this loud room, to no avail. I looked around the room. There had to be a way to open this door. I suddenly noticed a small button all the way at the other end of the room.

Without hesitation, I scrambled across the room with the others watching me curiously. As soon as I had reached the button I slammed my fist into it. I turned and looked and sure enough, although the noise and flashing lights didn't stop, the door slid open. The other five wasted no time in sprinting out the room, with the exception of Alvin who kept his head inside to watch and make sure I got out. I began running towards him but without warning, the door slowly started sliding back closed. I picked up the pace, sprinting as fast as I could. The door was almost closed. As soon as I was close enough I dove forward, coming to a skid and painful stop just before the sliding door had completely closed.

Suddenly, the noise stopped and our bedroom seemed still. But before we could let the ringing leave our ears, a man's voice spoke quietly through the loudspeakers: "Chipmunks and Chipettes, Captain Megyesy is expecting you at the FES as soon as possible, please."

We obeyed these directions and made our way down the stairs.

"That was fucked up," Alvin said. "There was no need to wake us up like that."

Simon rolled his eyes. "You're just salty, Alvin."

"Why would I be salty, Simon?"

"Because you disobeyed orders and didn't buckle up last night, so you fell on your ass. That's why," Simon retorted.

"That could have happened to anyone," Alvin insisted. "What if I had badly injured myself?"

Simon pretended to think about this for a second. "Well, they probably assumed that when Captain Megs told you to strap yourself to your bed, that you'd listen."

"Well their first mistake was to assume I'd listen to anything," Alvin chuckled.

"Well," Simon said, rolling his eyes again, "looks to me like it's more your problem than theirs."

Before the arguing could go further, we arrived at the room that had FES printed on the doorway.

"Morning, cadets!" We all jumped and turned around at the sound of Megs's voice behind us.

"Morning!" Theodore said politely.

"How'd you guys like your wake up call?" she asked, chuckling.

"That was your idea?" Alvin asked, looking almost betrayed.

"Oh, hell no." She laughed. "That's how this facility has woken up its trainees since before I was going through the same program as you guys."

"Is that going to be how we wake up every morning?" I exclaimed.

"Better believe it," she replied. "It teaches you to be calm in the face of emergency. It's another thing you get used to, trust me."

I groaned, but she ignored me.

"I have a couple important things to say to you guys before we get started. First things first, I want to say that you Chipettes are just as capable of doing anything on this mission as your boyfriends. And to prove it, you're going to split up into two teams."

We all looked up at her with wide eyes. We hadn't really felt like competitors in forever. She smirked at us.

"It's simple: 'Munks vs. 'Ettes. You see this?" She dug a weird large bronze coin out from her pocket and held it up so we could see it. "This is a shower token. Worth ten minutes in a hot shower. Trust me when I say this thing is going to feel very valuable after today, as well as every other day of training after that. The catch is that every exercise we do will be a competition, and the winners will be awarded with a shower token each. Any questions?"

The Chipmunks and Chipettes all looked at each other. For the first time in a long time, we weren't completely on the same team.

"Good," Megs said. "This brings me to your first training exercise." She walked over to the FES and pressed a button to open the door. "Go ahead in and take a seat, side by side with your team."

We walked inside and I thought that it looked like the inside of a roller coaster simulator. The back of the room had an obviously fake image of space through a "window". Then there were six chipmunk-sized seats, 3 on each side. We did as Megs told us to, sitting girls on one side and guys on the other. We each buckled up without even being told to.

"Here's the deal," Megs said from the doorway. "It's going to get really cold in here. Not cold enough to cause any damage to you guys or anything, but you'll be very uncomfortable I promise you. Above each of you is a button. Press that button, and it's all over. But the first person to push that button loses a shower token for their whole team. Good luck." And with that she closed the door, and there was only us, buckled to our seats.

I didn't like the idea behind this challenge at all, and as I looked around me, I could tell that everyone else expected me to be the first one to push that button.

I felt the temperature in the room drop, from room temperature to cool, from cool to chilly. The whole meanwhile the fake window at the far end of the room was becoming "cracked" and "icy", adding to the effect.

Not today, I told myself.

The temperature continued to drop until it felt like I was outside, butt naked in the snow.

Alvin could probably sense the discomfort on my face, and was definitely eager to end this, so he said, "gee, this really sucks, doesn't it Brit?" He had that stupid sly grin on his face that I had secretly fallen in love with years ago.

It was so cold now that we could see each others' breath. "Nah," I replied. "I could go all day." Unfortunately the uncontrollable shuddering kicked in right then.

Alvin smirked knowing he had done his job.

Jeanette leaned over to me and said, "look, Megs specifically said that we could stay in here as long as we want and not get hurt. We just have to ignore the pain."

I nodded but didn't speak to conserve body heat.

"This is pointless," Alvin piped up again, steam spewing from his mouth as he talked. "Everyone knows men have a higher pain tolerance than women."

I glared at him. "Call me when you've given birth, hun."

"Call me when you've given birth, hun," he snickered.

Eleanor chuckled. "Pretty sure you'd wanna know about a baby a littler earlier than that, Alvie."

The four of them laughed. Alvin chuckled nervously. I stared at the floor awkwardly.

The pain of my toes going numb was starting to get into my head. I was able to rub my fingers against the seat belts to save a little bit of warmth, but my feet had nowhere to go. And the worst was knowing that every time I took a breath, my body heat was flying away. But I wasn't going to quit. It wasn't even about the shower tokens anymore. I just had to beat Alvin.

"G-guyss-s…" Eleanor said, shuddering violently, "I-i-i don-don't think I c-cann go mmmu-much lo-onger."

"Yeah, you right," Alvin said, also shaking a little bit. "That oozy, painful feeling in your toes really bites, doesn't it?"

"Alvin," I snarled, "Sh-shut thefuck… u-up."

He let out what was as close to his devious laugh as could be through the hiccups and shudders.

Eleanor started to sniffle. "I have to d-... ta do iit." She slowly started raising her hand towards the giant, friendly-looking yellow button above her head.

Suddenly, a button was pressed, but it wasn't Eleanor's. It was Theodore's. An electronic woman's voice said, "Exercise completed", as the door to the room was raised and the temperature slowly began rising again.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we all unbuckled ourselves and slid to the floor.

"Theodore!" Alvin exclaimed. "Why the hell would you do that? We were about to win!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Alvin slapped his forehead. "Those were easy shower tokens!"

"Salty, Alvin?" I said grinning slyly at him.

He turned around to face me. "I mean, you lowkey had to cheat to win. But it's cool," he said shrugging.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "Cheat?"

"Mhm. You had to pay Theodore to be a traitor. But it's no big deal. Now that I know Theo's on your side, I can put the team on my back and get the win."

We had no more time before we were summoned to the main training room.

And so we competed, non stop, every day. For 27 straight days, we would wake up to that awful ruckus, but every time we would be more and more ready for it and dealt with it more and more smoothly. For 27 straight days, we raced through obstacle courses, struggled in simulators, memorized key combos to solve problems. We got dirty, sweaty, frustrated, but always persevered and enjoyed every last second of whatever shower tokens we earned.

Captain Megs was right. Every day, we became tougher, smarter, quicker. Our pain tolerance went up drastically, as she often pointed out, based on the FES competition that we did every 3 days.

Simon and Jeanette were our head pilots. The rest of us were each given our small assignments. We finally felt ready for this mission. The only problem is, Megs didn't. At least, not yet.

Well, I did NOT mean to make this chapter this long. I really appreciate you if you made it this far. I hope you can appreciate what I'm setting up here in terms of build up.

This story will continue to get more and more exciting, just give it time.

Once again, if you like the content, or just wanna give any sort of feedback, make SURE to hit that review or PM button and let me know exactly what you think. You guys are what keeps this story going. And just knowing that one person is interested is good enough for me (although the more the merrier XD).

You'll be catching the next chapter in another couple of days.