Odyssey of War

Chapter 2: Simulation

I had only been sleeping for several hours before I woke up to the sound of loud shouting, coming from outside the tent. I slowly got out of the thin sheets and went outside, where everyone was standing around Colonel Bryant.

"You have half an hour to pack your gear, then you will head out to the lookout where we will rendezvous with a transport ship. Let's move!" he ordered.

We all rushed back to collect our bags together. I fit almost everything in my pack, not that I had much anyway, and slung it on my shoulders.

Phillip and I were the first to the rendezvous point, and awaiting was Colonel Bryant. The lookout was a massive flat rock formation about a mile from the fort and had been used to drop off supplies and troops. The others arrived shortly afterwards, along with the transport ship. It touched down on the rock, it's glowing blue thrusters creating a draft. The suits were taken aboard to the storage section.

"We are taking this ship into orbit where our larger vessels await, so climb aboard and strap in" Colonel Bryant said.

We took a seat in the back compartment, with the low humming sound of the engines behind me. Most of the wires were covered, but I could still see exposed sections. The interior walls were a light grey colour, with patches of dark grey and black.

We strapped ourselves in, the thrusters coming to life, and the ship accelerated into the sky. Inside we surprisingly could hardly feel the ship rock back and forth as we sped through the air at 28,000 miles per hour.

Watching a screen, I could see we were high above the feathery blanket of clouds. I had never been a fan of heights, but for some reason I was perfectly fine, despite travelling into space.

"Colonel I wanted to ask, how could you hide the destruction of a colony?" Lindsey asked.

"The Senoris colony had a small population, so we spread word that they were having a lockdown due to an outbreak of disease"

The ship reached the Earth's orbit, the engines simultaneously cutting off. It maintained the constant speed, heading towards twelve massive vessels.

On the biggest vessel, the Epsilon, a hangar opened, with two doors sliding off to the sides. Inside the hangar were many different types of small fighters, with a range of designs and colours.

The transport touched down as the doors closed and the room re-pressurized. We weren't equipped to go outside into the hangar, so a walkway extended out to attach to the ship. It would protect us from the large amounts of radiation. Oxygen filled the room, and while going through the walkway, I could see through a window that robots were rushing over to refuel the ship.

Once inside, we followed the Colonel through the large corridors, filled with personnel channeling information. Walking inside the ship felt unusual, due to the lower level of gravity that was being generated, unlike on Earth.

We were led to a huge cubical room, covered in small black tiles. The Colonel stopped in the middle of the room, as the doors closed behind us.

"This is the simulation room, here you will be training in your suits", he said as we were given them, "Put them on, and we'll begin when you're ready".

I began to put on my suit, and I felt a strange feeling come over me. The nanobots in the suit were rearranging to fit me perfectly. The idea of being covered in alien-made nanobots still concerned me a bit.

"You have already been trained as commandos, but these tests will challenge you in different ways" the Colonel explained.

"What happens if we get hit?" Eve asked.