Halo: The Fall of Reach

John leaned closer and saw his name stenciled on the chest: JOHN-117.

“No slacking. On the double!” Mendez tapped John between his shoulder blades with the baton.

Lightning surged across John’s chest. He sprawled on the cot and gasped for breath.

“I mean it! Go Go GO!” John moved. He couldn’t inhale—but he ran anyway, clutching his chest. He managed a ragged breath by the time he got to the showers. The other kids looked scared and disoriented. They all stripped off their nightshirts and stepped onto the conveyor, washed themselves in lukewarm soapy water, then rinsed in an icy cold spray.

He ran back to his bunk, got into underwear, thick socks, pulled on the sweats and a pair of combat boots that fit his feet perfectly.

“Outside, trainees,” Mendez announced. “Triple time . . .march! ” John and the others stampeded out of the barracks onto a strip of grass.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the edge of the sky was indigo. The grass was wet with dew. There were dozens of rows of barracks, but no one else was up and outside. A pair of jets roared overhead and arced up into the sky. Far away, John heard a metallic crackle.

Chief Petty Officer Mendez barked, “You will make five equal-length rows. Fifteen trainees in each.”

He waited a few seconds as they milled about. “Straighten those rows. You know how to count to fifteen, trainee? Take three steps back.”

John stepped into the second row.

As he breathed the cold air he began to wake up. He started to remember. They had taken him in the middle of the night. They injected him with something and he slept for a long time. Then the woman who had given him the coin told him he couldn’t go back. That he wouldn’t see his mother or father— “Jumping jacks!” Mendez shouted. “Count off to one hundred. Ready, go.” The officer started the exercise and John followed his lead.

One boy refused—for a split-second. An instructor was on him instantly. The baton whipped into the boy’s stomach. The kid doubled over. “Get with the program, boot,” the trainer snarled. The boy uncurled and started jumping.