Chapter 5

Alan gestured to his teammates. Two – one at ten o’clock and another at two o’clock. There were two members of another group covering their position. Although his hand-signals wouldn’t seem very specific to an outsider, the members of team Spear – Alan, Demitri, Chad, and Michael – had been working together long enough to know what Spartan O-34 meant. If the men were to reach their objective, then they would have to move as one, as if a single mind controlled all four of them.

Alan often dreamed of this exercise – it was his favorite of all the training missions during Spartan training, and unbeknownst to him, one that every Spartan had gone through at some point in their lives.

The object of the game – if you could call it a game when teams of cybernetically enhanced supersoldiers-in-training fought one another with guns equipped with rubber bullets – was relatively simple. There was a large playing area, with thick forest occupying most of the field. In the middle, however, there was a clearing with a large pole in the center. Extending out from the pole in several directions were rope bridges that connected to the trees, for arboreal travel, and several ramps that lead to the ground. Atop the pole in the very center of the course was a small brass bell. The aforementioned object of the exercise: ring the bell, by any means necessary.

As team commander, it was Alan’s job to direct his men to victory. Again using the short, silent hand signals, he instructed Demitri and Michael to flank around to the two enemies he had spotted before, and take them out before moving up to the rope bridges at three and nine o’clock, respectively. Chad would stay with him and watch his back, making sure that no one would catch him by surprise as he went straight up the closest ramp to ring the bell.

Mere moments after Michael and Demitri were given their tasks, shots rang out, followed by cries of pain from the targets they were sent to eliminate. They appeared atop the rope bridges to the right and left of Alan’s field of view, giving a thumbs-up. Chad tapped him on the back, and the two of them approached the pole at the center of the clearing, slowly, scanning for enemies.

Just as they began to climb the ramp, however, shots were fired at them from a multitude of directions. As Demitri and Michael had ascended, another team moved in for an easy steal. But the Spartans-in-training of team Spear didn’t give up that easily, and weren’t going to be the losers that got to skip dinner that night. Chad quickly took out the closest opponent to him, and Alan turned and fired a burst, peppering another man’s chest with rubber bullets. Michael and Demitri took out the other two team members, and they were in the clear.

Alan climbed up the ramp, his legs tired from the kneeling and running he had done hunting down other teams during the exercise. As he pulled himself up to the platform atop the pole where the bell sat, he was ecstatic. He had strived his hardest to win this game, and now he had. He closed his eyes as he went to ring the bell, but instead of a nice metallic ringing, there was the loud call of the siren.

As he put on his armor, Alan thought back to the exercise he had just been dreaming about moments before. It was time to be the leader again, time to accept nothing less than victory, and time to take no prisoners in defending humanity.