Luke sat at a table for two and gestured for me to join him. As I approached the seat I noticed the worried expression on his face.
“I’m worried about you,” he whispered.
“I’m fine,” I replied.  “You don’t need to treat me like I’m your child.”
“I just want to make sure you’re ok,” he sighed.
“I don’t need anyone!” I snarled.
I know I shouldn’t have said that but I get defensive around personal subjects. Even though Luke is my best friend I never really told him about my dreams. He knows they happen, he just doesn’t know what they are about. He doesn’t need to be involved in all of my personal drama. That night as I layed in bed I wasn’t especially fond of how small the two bed bunks were. I always felt cramped, but I shouldn’t complain because at least I wasn’t one of the people who died because of starvation on Earth.
Earth, I miss it sometimes. I miss the trees, the sky, and most of all I miss the warmth of the sun. Here on the ship you can’t feel the heat of the sun rays, just  the bitter cold of the ship. Surprisingly I fell asleep with those thoughts, nightmare free. In the morning my friends and I woke up to a voice. At first I thought that I was imagining it but it seems I wasn’t. My friends stunned faces proved that to me. I figured it was coming from an intercom at the top of the room. Apparently none of them had noticed it was there before.
In unison Josh and Leo asked, “Huh?”
“They called our names and told us to report to the loading bay,” explained Luke.
“I hope we’re not in any troubled,” Josh whimpered.
“Let’s just go and find out. I doubt any of us have done anything wrong,” I finished.
After that last sentence I noticed the smirk on Leo’s face. I remember last week he pranked another orphan by the name of Jack. I don’t exactly know what happened but I heard he came out of his room his room practically bald with a few hair ties on his remaining hair. As I entered the bay I noticed ships going in and out of our ship with cargo. I also noticed that Julia, one of the orphanages caretakers was waiting for us with the well dressed men I saw yesterday. The men approached us and introduced themselves.
”Hello I am Thomas, and these are my colleagues John, Tyler, and Adrian.”
    I continued “Hello I am Matt and these are my frien--”
    “We know who you are,” interrupted John “We are here in order to get new recruits.”
    “Recruits for what?” asked Josh.
    “For the government’s space exploration program of course.” Tyler assured as though it was obvious. “The  government wants young recruits who are smart and talented.”
    “You young men are the four best students, athletes, and mechanics I have ever seen at such a young age,” John added.
    “Will you come with us to our facility?” continued Thomas. “The choice is entirely up to you.”
    “Yes please! Anything to get out of this dump.” Leo added then looked at Julia, “I mean paradise.”
    At the time I didn’t know why Leo was so quick to say yes. Later he told me that two years ago his brother was drafted by these men when he lived on Earth. He had been looking for his brother and now finally had a chance to find him. I could tell this was very important to him because his brother was his only family.
    For some reason I felt as though I could trust these men so I said “We will go with you as long as we can stay together.”
    “Of course,” added Adrian, “you are a very effective team together. I would never split you.”
    Thomas, obviously their boss was a tall man, in his mid twenties. He had black hair, and a little stubble of a beard.  We got onto the their ship that could fit up to ten and we sat down, no one spoke for a while. Two of the men were steering the ship, and other two in the seats in the back with us. Through the side window of the spaceship I could see the sun. I hadn’t seen it for months now. The orphanage ship had no windows, and was about one hundred times the size of this ship but was probably not meant for traveling.
In the corner of my eye I could see Leo telling josh the model and year of this ship and its top speed, and how he could have made it better but I decided not to pay too much attention to them. I was more interested in the two men, John and Tyler sitting with us. A series of thoughts and ideas went through my head. What if these men were spies from another country who were abducted from an orphanage just like this and forced to work for the enemy. No, that’s preposterous I thought. Just as that idea went through my mind I looked through the window on the right side and saw that we were approaching a ship. This wasn’t your normal sized ship, this thing was massive. It must’ve been three times the size of the orphanage ship.

“There it is,” announced Tyler.
“It’s gigantic!” remarked Leo. “The force field on it must be pretty strong to be stretched to that length and protect the whole ship.”
“Those are some giant weapons!” exclaimed Josh.
Josh and Tyler didn’t say anything but they had a smile on their face. The kind of smile you get when watching little kids fantasize about something. Before Josh mentioned it I didn’t notice the weapons. This didn’t seem like a ship meant for battle, but it could hold its own in an attack. This ship seemed like a ship for housing people, kind of like the orphanage ship.
“You guys will do well here,” commented John.
“As you know everyone is at war with each other for resources,” added Tyler. “This is the training camp for our new recruits.”
“Wait so you’re training us to go to war?” asked Josh.
“That’s not all we do here,” added Adrian from the drivers seat up front.
“We also train our recruits to explore space for habitable worlds to live on,” announced Thomas from the passenger seat up front.
We landed in the docking station of the massive ship. There were a handful of spacecrafts loaded with weapons there too, but it didn’t look like they had seen battle. We exited the dock and Thomas showed us around a little. It was like one of the tours the employee at museums would give you when you were at a school field trip. At last he showed us the rooms. He showed us a few of the other recruits rooms and they were pretty impressive. Leo kept staring at all the electronics projects in the rooms.
“Can I examine them?” asked Leo
“No, that is an invasion of privacy,” explained Thomas.
“They won’t see,” responded Leo
“But I would,” Thomas replied.
“You could turn around. You know, ignorance is bliss,” declared Leo
    We all broke out in laughter, even Thomas. Thomas showed us our room which was the size of your average classroom and considerably bigger than our old one. There were four separate beds in each corner, with chests for storing items. There were two bathrooms on each side. There were shelves with tons of books on anything you could need. In each chest there was clothes, a few blank white t-shirts and a pair of jeans. Before any of us could say anything Thomas said, “I’ll give you guys time to settle in,” and closed the door. I was overwhelmed with all the resources and how much space we had access to in our room. I could tell Luke, Leo, and Josh were too.
No one said anything so we all unpacked the very few items we had. As I unpacked I stared at my silver watch. I was told that watch was my fathers. It was an old watch that no longer could tell time, not your average watch that could make calls and project holograms, no this watch had a minute and hour hand. It is one of the very few things I have of my father.
    I saw Leo take out the robot he had made earlier. That seemed like a long time ago. What time was it? I looked at my watch and saw that it was already eleven thirty at night.
    Leo finally broke the silence,” This place is awesome!
    “I know! Our room is like two hundred times bigger!, “ exclaimed Josh.
    “I’m glad we decided to come,” Luke commented.
    “I like it here too. Lets get to sleep.” I suggested.
    My night was nightmare free, I slept like a baby for once. I woke up to Leo and Luke drawing a sharpie mustache on Josh. I decided not to interfere or be a part of it.
A boy about sixteen appeared at our door, “Get ready and change, Thomas wants me to finish your tour of the facility.”
This boy had such a serious yet sad face. His brown eyes looked like they were full of pain and misery but also wisdom and experience. It made me want to learn more about him. His long dark hair covered part of his face and what seemed to be a frown that hadn’t smiled in ages.
“Okay,” I said, “Give us a few minutes.”
“Ten minutes, and that’s it. No more than that.” he replied.
After that he walked away. We woke Josh up. He still didn’t notice the giant french mustache on his face. We all showered and got ready, when it was Josh’s turn to shower he yelled, “Leo I’m going to kill you!”
I could hear Leo and Luke Laughing in their bathrooms while they brushed  their teeth. I couldn’t help but chuckle a little. After we all showered and cleaned up, we changed into our new clothes which surprisingly fit us very well, even Josh. I had’nt noticed that shoes also came with the clothes, I could’ve sworn they weren’t there last night but there they were.
The boy from earlier came to our door again and explained, “You four will follow me as I give you the tour and you will not speak until the end.”
Nobody argued with him, probably because he looked very intimidating, but I decided to ask him, “Can you at least tell us your name?”
“My name is of no importance to the matter at hand,” he replied.
“What’s the harm in telling us?” interrupted Leo.
“Fine!” he exclaimed, “My name is Anthony. Now will you shut your annoying little mouth long enough for me to say something?”
Leo kept quiet. I kind of felt bad for Leo, sure he shouldn’t have pushed him to answer the question but Anthony didn’t have to yell at him and be so rude. Anthony led us out of the room to give us the tour. To the right was a room that looked awesome. I wondered what it was?
“That’s the engineering room, where kids make all kind of useful items to use on their missions.” Anthony said as if reading my mind.
“Missions?” Leo asked.
“Yes.” Anthony responded, “The mentors train teenagers like you and myself to use the equipment and fly spaceships. They also teach us how to collect samples of aliens.”
“Aliens?” asked Josh.
“Yes,” continued Anthony, “But not like those aliens you see on old television shows. These aliens are microscopic like bacteria.”
“Oh good!” exclaimed Leo. “I thought we were going to have to fight aliens and humans.
Anthony continued with the tour. We saw training rooms with mentors teaching kids combat with and without weapons. I saw classrooms filled with equipment that blew me away. I saw teenagers in classrooms changing the gravity to see how it affected the objects.
“A physics guy?” Anthony asked me.
“Don’t look so surprised.” I responded. “What’s your specialty?”
“Combat and weapons,” he said with a proud tone. “I help train most of the new recruits to take care of themselves so they won’t die or injure themselves.”
“How fun,” Leo said in a sarcastic tone. There was obviously tension between the two but I decided not to intervene.

As we continued with the tour we saw kids our age fighting and training with all kinds of weapons. We passed a clear room that took up a good portion of the ship, it was filled with kids dressed in suits that were pretty much skin tight. They had guns in their hands and they were shooting at eachother.
    “What are they doing?!” yelled Josh.
    “They’re training,” Anthony explained. “They are practicing their combat skills. Don’t worry the plasma guns are only set to stun.”
    There was a big scoreboard at the top of the arena that had the number 12 in red and the number 17 in blue.
“What’s that?” I asked as I pointed to the scoreboard.”
“That’s the number of soldiers each team has that are not stunned,” responded Anthony. “Kind of like -”
“So kind of like laser tag?” interrupted Leo.
“Exactly!” said Anthony. “Just like laser tag but when you get shot you are stunned and can’t move.”
Anthony showed us the suits the recruits use when they go into space. He said that these suits were like a second layer of skin and were made from the best technology around and could even emit its own force field. We passed so many more places, like labs and a library as big as a house. The library had any kind of books you wanted. They had manuals for spaceships, explaining what every button did and all the makes and models, the stuff Leo loved. He looked like a little kid seeing their first roller coaster. Leo checked out a book explaining how the ships worked and how to improve them, and I got a book about plasma guns and how they worked. Then we went to a garage looking area where some kids were making their own spaceship. After we saw just about everything he took us to a hallway where Thomas was standing.
“How did you enjoy the tour?” he asked.
“It was awesome!” shouted Leo. “We saw a bunch of ships! Look I even got a new book!”
“Good,” responded Thomas, “I want to show you something. Follow me.”
We followed Thomas to the end of the hallway, and it led to some kind of courtyard. There were roughly two hundred kids sitting down talking and eating lunch. Some of them had matching shirts and jackets. I saw a bunch of big dudes wearing shirts with pythons on them. I also saw some girls wearing shirts with flowers. I counted about fifteen different groups and they all tended to hang out with each other.
“This is the hole,” Thomas explained. “Now before you ask, no I didn’t name it. The kids did, I guess They liked it.” Thomas faced the crowd and shouted, “Listen up! We have some new recruits. I would like you to welcome them.”
“What, those wimps!” exclaimed a boy with a black python shirt. The whole crowd chuckled.
“Silence! You all know what it’s like to be here on your first day not knowing anyone.” announced Thomas. “I want these young men treated with respect, those who do otherwise will have to answer to me. Carry on.”
    The guys and I went to go get food. They had those nutritional, vitamin infused beverages that they had at the orphanages. Then, I smelled freshly baked. I could see the crisped edges where it laid on the burner and when I picked it up I could hear the crunch of the fresh bread. I hadn’t seen solid food since we went up to space.
    “Anthony wasn’t lying,” commented Josh.
“Lying? Lying about what?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember? During the tour he had said that they hadn’t found any habitable planets, but they did find planets with oxygen levels high enough to plant basic food like corn or wheat.” Luke explained.
    Just after Luke said that I grabbed a cob of corn and three slices of bread, as well as one of those drinks. We sat at a table by ourselves and quietly ate our food. Someone began to approach our table, it was the boy that had called us wimps earlier. He was wearing his python shirt, a black shirt with a python in the middle with the word “PYTHONS” across the back of his shirt. He had very short black hair and was almost as tall as Josh. He seemed familiar but I couldn’t remember from where.
    “Don’t ever disrespect me like that again!” exclaimed the boy.
    “We didn’t say anything to you!” shouted Josh as he stood up from his seat.
    “Thomas disrespected me, and since I can’t take it out on him I’m gonna take it out on you.” he stated. “No one disrespects me.”
    “And what shall we call you your royal highness,” said Leo in a sarcastic tone. Usually I appreciated Leo’s jokes but right now he was just causing more trouble.
“Ask Matthew, he should know. He probably doesn’t remember Sammy, the kid he punched when he was smaller.” he said.
Sammy, now I remembered him. He has the same face he had when he as a kid. Right then Sammy punched Josh and as soon as that happened five other guys with python shirts appeared at Sammy’s side.
“This is going to be fun! Courtney!” he exclaimed.
    I saw two guys go after Leo and he dashed through the court and darted around the tables but eventually was closed in by the two boys. Luke leaped from table to table and when he landed on the floor he injured his leg. He tried to run but it seemed to be more of a gallop to me. All I heard next was a thunk then all I saw was darkness. I awoke in what seemed to be a nurses office. Luke, Leo, and Josh were already awake holding ice packs to their heads.
“Oh good, you’re up,” announced a lady behind me. She was dressed like a nurse and seemed to have already treated. Luke, Leo, and Josh. “You were unconscious for quite a while.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We got jumped by Sammy and his gang,” exclaimed Leo.
Luke came up to me holding his ice pack to his head and whispered, “So that’s the guy you punched in the face?”
“Yeah,” I whispered back, “Now I kind of regret it.”
Luke chuckled slightly.
“Why did he call you Courtney?” Josh asked me.
I had never told Josh or Leo that my middle name was Courtney. I always thought that they would laugh, but now they deserve to know the truth about why they got beat up. “He called me Courtney because that’s my middle name.” I told them.
“That still doesn’t explain why we got beat up.” said Leo, obviously trying to hold in a laugh.
“When we were smaller I punched him in the face for calling me Courtney, and now I guess that was his revenge.” I explained.
    “That guy really knows how to hold a grudge,” commented Josh.
“No kidding,” added Leo.
“So you guys aren’t mad?” I asked.
“We can’t blame you for what happened.” said Josh
“Are there any more guys you’ve punched in the face that we need to know about?” asked Leo.
“No,” I chuckled, “Just the one.”

At that moment Thomas walked into the room. He said, “I left you alone for five minutes and you’ve already gotten yourselves into troubled.”
“Sir, it wasn’t my friends fault it was mine.” I explained. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
“You are a very noble person.” he replied.
“Huh?” I asked.
“I know very well of the relationship between you and Sammy.” he responded
“Then you know it wasn’t my fault?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. “That was a very noble thing to do, standing up for your friends and taking the blame.”
“But I won’t be punished?” I prompted.
“Of course not.” he stated, “I saw the whole thing on tape. Sammy will be though, he will not be allowed to participate in this weeks games of war.”
“Games of war?” asked Leo.
“Yes,” he explained, “The games of war are games where the kids put their skills to the test.”
“So like that laser tag game we saw going on when we entered?” asked Josh”
“Yes, Like the Laser tag game.” replied Thomas.
“What’s up with the shirts?” asked Luke.
“I do wish Anthony did a better job with your tour.” he said. “It seems there are many unanswered questions. The shirts signify that you belong to a club our group, these clubs consist of ten to twenty people. During the ‘laser tag’ games clubs team up with other clubs and play against others.”
“Does anyone die in these games?” asked Luke.
“Of course not!” Thomas exclaimed. “What do you think we are? Savages? Now if there aren’t anymore questions, I need to get going," and with that Thomas left the room. We sat there talking and icing our bruises for a while. The nurse offered us water and cared for us. We exited the room with minor injuries, except Josh, he had ya giant bump on his head that made him look even taller. When we exited the room into the hallway a girl approached us. She had brown hair with nice blue eyes.
“I appreciate what you did in there,” she addressed.
“It was nothing baby!” exclaimed Leo.
“Um gross!” she blurted. “I meant standing up to Sammy. He and his club are like the big kahunas here, and it was nice to see people stand up to him.”
“It wasn’t much of a stand up, since we got beat up and all.” added Luke.
“Well to everyone else around here it was.” she continued. “The pythons are always bullying all the other clubs and teasing them because they always win the war games.”
“Think nothing of it sweet thang.”  added Leo.
“Ignore him.” I said. “I assume you didn’t come here just to congratulate us.”
“No, I’d like to invite you to my group.” she declared. “We’re called the owls. We aren’t the best but we aren’t the worst. Where are my manners, I’m Allison.”
“I’m Leo!” Leo interrupted, “These are my sidekicks: Matthew, Luke, and Josh.”
“Sidekicks huh?” she chuckled.
“We’ll consider your offer.” added Luke.
“Okay,” she said, “Offer stands until dinner.”
“When exactly is dinner?” I asked.
“At six.” Allison said as she checked her watch. “So three hours from now. See you then”
Allison slowly exited the hallway.
As she neared the end Leo whispered, “She’s hot. Do you think I have a chance with her?”
“I can still hear you!” Allison shouted from the end of the hallway.”
Right then Leo turned so red it would make a ripe tomato feel jealous.
“Lets part ways, and meet back at dinner so we can vote on the decision.” I offered. “Have your minds made up by then.”
We parted ways to explore our different desires. I walked into a room teaching battle tactics. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to entered, but it seemed to be an open class. People walked in and out of the room as they pleased.
I found I was a natural at it. The room was set like a theater, but at each row there were seven built in touch screens. So roughly about thirty four. I sat at one after some lecturing and began running through simulations. It was like a complex video game and I was its master. It felt like I was playing for 45 minutes, but the screen popped out a holographic warning saying it was time for lunch and the clock said 5:55. I bolted for the hallway but was interrupted by Anthony who caught me.
He asked,”Where are you off too in such a hurry?”
“Well I-,” I began to say.
“Nevermind,” he interrupted, “Thomas wants you in his office right now so lets go.”
“I kind of have somewhere to be.” I managed.
“Trust me, this is much more important.” he explained.
He led me to a room that seemed to be a conference room. Thomas sat next to a young man with a military style haircut, and to my surprise across from them were Luke, Josh, and Leo. Something seemed wrong with Leo, his face looked so frightened he looked like he had seen a ghost. I sat next to him and followed his gaze. He seemed to be staring at the man sitting next to Thomas.
Thomas broke the silence and announced, “I have gathered you all here because one of our senior student officers has requested you for a mission.”
“What kind of mission?” asked Josh while rubbing the big bump still on his head.
“Henry is going to take you on a one week mission to find a planet sustainable for human life.” he explained. “Don’t worry about your safety, Henry is one of our best officers.”
“And why should we trust him?” asked Luke. “We don’t even know him.”
Leo rose, out of his dazed trance and spoke, “We should trust him because he’s my, he’s my-.” Leo began to stutter.
“Because he’s your brother.” I interrupted.
At that moment the stakes were high. Would Josh and Luke choose to go on this mission? Of course they would, that was not the real question. The real question was: When were we leaving?