Morning aboard the G.A.M.B.I.T. did not feel like morning anywhere else. There was no sunrise, no soft light creeping through windows, no warm shift in air temperature. Instead, the overhead lumin-panels snapped from dim red to harsh white in an instant, washing the barracks in unforgiving brightness. It felt like being kicked awake by a star.
Danny jolted upright on instinct alone. Swift blinked once, then sat up with quiet discipline. Jade groaned into his pillow until Shadeclaw smacked him on the back of the head. Jake rolled off his bunk, hit the floor, and stayed there for a solid ten seconds before making a noise that sounded like a wounded accordion. Mira stretched, tied her hair back in two swift motions, and stood ready.
Then the intercom crackled.
"CADETS," Staff Sergeant Veldrak Sorn announced, "YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES TO REPORT TO TRAINING CONCOURSE ALPHA. IF YOU ARE LATE, I WILL HAVE YOU CLEANING AIRLOCKS IN YOUR UNDERWEAR."
Jake scrambled to his feet like a man chased by demons.
Danny didn't bother thinking about breakfast. He just grabbed his boots, jacket, and inhibitor band, pulling them on as they sprinted down the hallway with the hundreds of other cadets. The ship thrummed around them—ancient, massive, alive in its own way. Every drill, every footstep echoed through its steel corridors.
They reached the concourse just as Sorn blew his whistle loud enough to crack souls.
The cadets froze in rows.
Sorn stomped to the center of the floor, his cybernetic arm whirring, breath steaming in the cold air. He surveyed the crowd with barely concealed contempt.
"GOOD. YOU'RE HERE. BARELY. I'VE SEEN ASTEROIDS MOVE FASTER."
No one dared respond.
Sorn pointed at the six—Danny, Swift, Jake, Shadeclaw, Mira, and Jade.
"YOU. FRONT AND CENTER."
They stepped forward, forming a clean line.
Sorn circled them, growling low in his throat, as if deciding whether to break them physically or psychologically first.
"I HAVE SEEN WORSE. NOT BY MUCH. BUT WORSE."
Jake whispered, "Is that… a compliment?"
Jade nudged him. "Shh. He can smell fear."
Sorn stopped pacing.
"Starting today," he barked, "YOU SIX ARE NO LONGER TRAINING AS ONE SQUAD. YOU ARE BEING SPLIT INTO FIRETEAMS."
A murmur rippled through the larger crowd.
Sorn continued.
"Three-person teams. Small units. Efficient units. Units that don't trip over each other like drunken rhinos in zero gravity."
He jabbed a finger at Danny.
"You are NOT backup dancers. You are NOT here to impress me. You are here to LEARN HOW TO SURVIVE. AND TO DO THAT, YOU WILL TRAIN HOW BUDDIES FIGHT: IN SMALL, DEADLY PACKS."
He stepped back and snarled:
"FIRETEAM ONE."
Danny straightened out of instinct.
"DANIEL OF EARTH. SWIFT OF THE SILVER DRAGONS. JAKE OF—WHATEVER PLANET YOU WERE SCREAMING ON."
Jake raised a hand. "It was Earth also."
"DON'T CARE."
Jade snorted. Mira hid a smile.
Sorn turned away from them and pointed at the remaining three.
"FIRETEAM TWO. SHADECLAW OF THE NIGHTRUN PACK. MIRA OF THE SILENT VAULT. JADE… OF BAD DECISIONS."
Jade lifted both hands. "Facts."
Sorn ignored him.
He stepped between the teams, voice dropping lower, harsher.
"One fireteam is built for direct confrontation. The other for stealth and strike work. You WILL learn the strengths and limits of your team members. You WILL adapt. You WILL stop relying on pure power and use your brains."
Danny inhaled sharply.
Sorn noticed.
"Yes, DRAGON," he growled, leaning in. "That means YOU."
Danny swallowed.
"Yes, Staff Sergeant."
"LOUDER."
"Yes, Staff Sergeant!"
Sorn nodded once, satisfied.
Then the whistle shrieked again.
"WARMUP. TWENTY MINUTES. FULL GRAVITY VARIATION."
The floor panels flashed red—then gravity spiked.
Danny's knees nearly buckled.
Swift dropped low, adjusting posture instantly.
Shadeclaw dug claws into the floor.
Mira leaned into the pressure without complaint.
Jade groaned like he'd been stabbed.
Jake shrieked as gravity slammed him to the ground. "WHY. DOES. THIS. EXIST—"
He didn't finish because the gravity flipped sideways and everyone slid across the room.
The warmup was agony.
Every thirty seconds gravity shifted direction—up, down, sideways, diagonally—forcing the cadets to adapt their footwork, balance, and center of mass while running laps and dodging stun-bolts fired by floating drones.
Danny found himself bouncing between panic and exhilaration. This felt like flying, but with rules, limitations, and consequences. He caught himself using too much power twice—his hands sparking gold—but forced it back under control.
Swift moved like water, translating his draconic instincts into human movement with surprising grace.
Jake screamed every time gravity changed. Every. Single. Time.
Shadeclaw seemed to thrive, adjusting instantly, sometimes sprinting along walls or hanging from ceiling panels like a shadow beast.
Mira pushed through silently, cataloging every shift.
Jade kept punching drones until Sorn shouted:
"STOP BREAKING THE TRAINING EQUIPMENT!"
When the gravity finally stabilized, half the cadets collapsed to their knees.
The six remained standing—barely—but standing.
Sorn nodded once.
"Acceptable."
He raised a whistle to his lips—
—then lowered it again instead.
The six blinked.
He spoke normally.
"You will now attend strategy briefing with your assigned instructors. MOVE."
The concourse erupted into motion.
Danny exchanged a glance with Swift and Jake. They hurried toward Instructor Vessa Karr—a tall woman with clipped hair and metal wings folded against her back.
She looked them over like she was evaluating ammunition quality.
"So you're the hammer team," she said.
Jake whispered, "That sounds cool."
Karr heard him. "It isn't. Hammers are useless without direction."
Jake deflated.
Karr pointed at Danny.
"You're the shield. You control the battlefield. You restrain your own power as much as the enemy's."
Danny blinked. "Shield? I… thought I'd be the attacker."
Karr burst into laughter so sharp Jake flinched.
"You? Attack? Oh child, if you attack at full capacity, we'd be scraping your teammates off the ceiling. No. You are the most dangerous life form in this room. You LEARN CONTROL FIRST."
Danny felt heat crawl up his neck.
She turned to Swift.
"You're command. You call movement. You flank. You balance offense and tactics."
Swift nodded, already analyzing everything.
Finally, she looked at Jake.
"And you. Bronze baby."
Jake saluted automatically.
"You're chaos."
Jake blinked. "I… what?"
"Chaos," she repeated. "When plans fail, when the enemy adapts, when everything collapses—your unpredictability becomes an advantage. You're a disruptor. You draw fire, break patterns, create openings. It's a role many fail. But you might survive it."
Jake had never been so simultaneously insulted and honored.
Meanwhile, across the concourse, Shadeclaw, Mira, and Jade met Instructor Dray Vos.
He was thin, quiet, almost ghost-like, with eyes that seemed too calm for an assassin.
"You three form the knife-team," he said softly. "Precision. Silence. Control."
Jade raised a hand. "Uh. I'm more of a BOOM-team."
Vos blinked slowly. "Every blade has a blunt side. Yours is… unconventional."
Mira tried not to laugh.
Shadeclaw crouched slightly, tail swaying. "We understand."
Vos continued.
"Shadeclaw leads infiltration. Mira commands movement. Jade applies force when subtlety fails."
Jade nodded. "Yes. When subtlety fails. Or gets bored."
Vos sighed.
Training lasted another hour—strategy drills, silent communication patterns, pressure testing, micro-simulations.
Then Sorn called everyone back.
"FIRETEAMS," he barked. "TO CONCOURSE GAMMA FOR THE SPLIT HUNT."
Danny's stomach tightened.
Jake asked, "Why does that sound like a horror sim?"
Swift answered, "Because it probably is."
Shadeclaw simply smiled.
They followed the stampede of cadets into Concourse Gamma—and the simulation chamber hummed to life.
This room was massive—easily the size of a small town square—filled with hard-light projectors, smoke generators, multi-level platforms, and adjustable walls. Lights flickered overhead. Sirens wailed. Metal groaned in the simulated darkness.
The environment materialized around them:
Broken walls
Twisted hallways
Rusted catwalks
Darkness swallowing corners
It looked like a research facility after a disaster.
Sorn stood on a raised platform, arms folded.
"LISTEN UP, WORMS. THIS IS THE SPLIT HUNT. BOTH FIRETEAMS START AT OPPOSITE ENDS. EACH TEAM MUST RETRIEVE THREE OBJECTIVE BEACONS. THE DRONES WILL TARGET YOU. THE ENVIRONMENT WILL KILL YOU. THE BEACONS WILL EXPLODE IF YOU'RE STUPID."
Jake whimpered.
Sorn pointed at them.
"YOU HAVE TWENTY MINUTES. BEGIN."
The chamber lights snapped red.
A countdown appeared in the air.
20:00
19:59
19:58—
Shadeclaw didn't wait.
He grabbed Mira and Jade by the wrists and vanished into the shadows with them before Danny's team could even take two steps.
Jake shouted after them, "HEY, CHEATERS—"
Swift grabbed his collar and dragged him into motion.
"Danny, shield our right. Jake, watch for drones. Move!"
Danny nodded, projecting a tight disk of golden energy forward. Controlled. Focused. Not lethal.
They advanced into the dark.
Sunlance—Danny, Swift, Jake—pushed through the first corridor, encountering blind corners and faint mechanical clicks echoing above.
Jake whispered, "I don't like this."
Swift replied, "Stay close."
Shadeclaw's group, meanwhile, scaled walls, bypassed traps, and slipped through vents with effortless coordination. Mira disarmed a tripwire without slowing her pace. Jade held back an explosion with chi-braced arms and didn't even grunt.
They secured their first beacon in four minutes.
Sunlance reached theirs at six—but only after Danny disabled a turret and Jake tripped over a fallen doorframe and screamed loud enough to alert every drone on the floor.
They fought through the swarm.
Swift directed them.
Danny protected them.
Jake dove into a drone and accidentally destroyed it by rolling over it.
"CHAOTIC BRILLIANCE!" Swift shouted.
"THANK YOU!" Jake yelled back.
They retrieved the second beacon and hurried toward the third.
Shadowgale, meanwhile, was already capturing their third while Jade muttered, "This one better not explode…"
Mira guided them perfectly. Shadeclaw sensed an ambush seconds before it happened. They cleared the final room gracefully.
Shadowgale finished with twelve seconds to spare.
Sunlance barely made it through collapsing floor panels, hydraulic bursts, and three drones analyzing Danny's energy signature.
But they did it.
They succeeded.
Sorn awaited them at the end, arms crossed.
"PATHETIC," he barked. "BUT LESS PATHETIC THAN BEFORE."
Jake collapsed to his knees. "I'll take it…"
Sorn paced.
"You're improving. Don't get excited. You're still weak."
Danny straightened. Swift wiped sweat from his brow. Mira exhaled. Shadeclaw grinned. Jade cracked his knuckles. Jake whimpered.
Sorn looked directly at all six.
"TOMORROW," he growled, "YOU RUN THE SPLIT HUNT AGAIN."
Jake sagged.
Sorn grinned cruelly.
"BLINDFOLDED."
Jake screamed.
Danny laughed.
Shadeclaw said, "Good."
Jake was still screaming when Sorn dismissed the entire simulation chamber, though it had long since stopped being a scream of fear and become something closer to existential despair—high-pitched, echoing, and very unhelpful.
Mira nudged him with her boot. "You'll run out of oxygen before tomorrow."
Jake curled into a ball. "That's the plan…"
Jade hauled him upright by the back of his collar like a misbehaving cat. "Come on, man. You survived today. Blindfold won't kill you."
Jake pointed at Shadeclaw. "It will kill me."
Shadeclaw considered him and nodded. "Possibly."
Danny sighed. "Shade, please don't make him more afraid."
"I am simply telling truth."
Swift wiped sweat from his forehead and rolled his shoulders experimentally, still adjusting to the familiar-yet-new coordination of his fully human body. "Let's focus. We improved today. That's something."
Danny felt the truth in that. His power had simmered at the edges during the Split Hunt the way a warm pressure might sit behind the skin, begging to be released. But he had kept it under control. Not perfectly—but better.
And Swift… Swift had adapted far faster than anyone expected. Human form. Human limits. Human balance. But the mind of a draconian. It was like watching someone relearn their own steps, except faster and more gracefully with each hour.
Shadeclaw was a predator in a maze. Mira was a tactician without equal. Jade was—well, Jade—but Jade's chi was raw and potent, and when pointed correctly, devastating.
And Jake—Danny smiled a little—Jake was unpredictable lightning. A wild card. A spark of chaos that sometimes saved them by accident, and sometimes surprised even himself.
They were beginning to feel like something real.
A unit.
A team.
Sorn clearly didn't intend to let them enjoy that for long.
He blew his whistle again.
The entire room flinched.
The Staff Sergeant waited until silence fell—complete silence—then spoke without shouting.
That was somehow more terrifying.
"Cadets," he said, voice deep and gravelly, "today you tasted what it means to work in fireteams. Small groups. Trusted groups. Groups that depend entirely on each other not to die."
His cybernetic arm flexed, gears grinding softly.
"Most of you did poorly. Some of you did acceptably. A handful of you"—he looked at the six—"did marginally less horribly than the rest. But I am not impressed."
Jake whispered, "I think he secretly loves us."
Swift murmured, "He doesn't."
Danny muttered, "He definitely doesn't."
Sorn continued.
"For the next month, you will train in these fireteams. You will sleep in your fireteams. You will eat in your fireteams. You will be tested as your fireteams. Fail together. Succeed together. If one of you breaks, the other two carry the weight."
Shadeclaw nodded approvingly.
Mira wrote something in her notebook.
Jake fainted for the second time that morning.
Sorn ignored him.
"Report to the debriefing hall."
He dismissed them with a flick of his hand, as if tired of looking at them.
The six walked together through the flickering corridors, the hum of the G.A.M.B.I.T. vibrating beneath their boots. The ship felt alive—breathing, watching, judging. Every corridor held echoes of past trainees, past wars, past heroes… and failures.
The debriefing room door slid open with a groan.
Inside, two stations were set up—one for each fireteam.
Sunlance first.
Instructor Vessa Karr waited for them, leaning against the holo-table with the relaxed confidence of someone who had survived worse than anything the simulation could offer. Her metal cyber-wings glistened faintly under the lights.
"You're predictable," she began, not bothering with pleasantries. "Predictable means dead."
Danny frowned.
Karr gestured toward him. "You controlled your energy. Good. But you overcompensated. You shielded too much. You hesitated when you should have moved forward, and you moved forward when Swift was already setting up a flanking pattern."
Danny absorbed the critique, wincing internally.
"Swift," Karr said, turning. "Your tactical calls were solid. You anticipate well. But you're used to fighting with dragon instincts. Human reflexes are slower. Every time you relied on instinct, you were half a second behind."
Swift nodded. "I'm adjusting."
"Adjust faster."
Then she looked at Jake.
Jake smiled nervously.
"Your screaming startled two drones into recalibrating their targeting matrices."
Jake gasped. "So that means—"
"That means nothing," she snapped. "But your random movements caused unpredictable combat paths. That can be… useful. Or fatal. Learn to control your chaos."
Jake saluted. "Ma'am, I will attempt to be unpredictable in predictable ways!"
Danny put his face in his hands.
Swift sighed.
Karr pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just go. Drink water. Stretch. Don't die."
The three left the holo-table.
On the opposite side of the room, Fireteam Shadowgale stood before Instructor Dray Vos.
Vos reviewed their footage in silence. Then—
"Shadeclaw."
The wolf assassin straightened.
"You read the environment better than expected. You avoided two traps no one else noticed. Good."
Shadeclaw dipped his head.
"Mira."
She stiffened slightly.
"You commanded flawlessly. Your instructions saved your team eleven times. You adapted instantly to dynamic changes. Excellent."
Mira flushed with quiet pride.
"Jade."
Jade leaned back casually, arms crossed.
"You broke two vents."
Jade shrugged. "The vents deserved it."
"The vents were not part of the mission."
"They looked at me funny."
Vos sighed, then added, "Your chi-based breaching saved your team from a crossfire. But use power minimally, not excessively."
Jade nodded. "I can do minimal. Sometimes."
Vos seemed unconvinced, but continued.
"You three make an effective blade: one edge sharp, one edge steady, one edge heavy. But even a blade dulls if swung without care."
Shadeclaw listened intently. Mira wrote more notes. Jade looked like he was imagining punching the blade.
With debriefing done, the six regrouped in the hall.
Jake collapsed dramatically against a wall. "Today was rough. And tomorrow is… blindfolded rough."
Mira tucked her notebook away. "Blindfolded means Sorn wants to test communication and trust."
Jake sobbed. "I don't trust any of you not to let me run into a wall."
"We will not let you run into a wall," Danny promised.
Swift added, "Not deliberately."
Jake gasped. "Not helping!"
Shadeclaw crouched beside him. "You probably will run into wall. But wall will not kill you."
"Oh good," Jake groaned. "Comforting."
The six walked together through the ship, exhaustion hanging from their bodies like lead weights. They reached the barracks level, entered their shared compartment, and dropped onto bunks and benches with the weariness of soldiers who had lived three days in one.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Just breathing.
Just quiet.
Just the hum of the ship around them.
Finally, Danny looked over at them—his friends, his comrades, his fireteam counterparts—and spoke softly.
"We're getting better. Aren't we?"
Swift nodded. "Yes."
Mira answered, "Much."
Shadeclaw grinned. "Stronger."
Jade cracked his knuckles. "Smarter."
Jake wiped away a tear. "More traumatized."
Danny laughed—a tired, genuine laugh.
He stretched his arms, feeling the pleasant ache of improvement, of control, of growth. Power thrummed through him gently, not wildly. For once, creation within him felt like a steady flame rather than a raging sun.
Swift leaned back on his bunk, hands behind his head. "Tomorrow will be worse."
Mira nodded. "Naturally."
Shadeclaw's tail flicked. "Good."
Jake whimpered. "Stop saying good."
Jade flicked Jake's forehead. "Stop whining."
Sorn's voice blasted through the intercom.
"CADETS. SLEEP. HYDRATE. TOMORROW WE BLINDFOLD YOUR USELESS EYES AND MAKE YOU WORK BY INSTINCT. I EXPECT FAILURE. PROVE ME WRONG."
The intercom shut off.
Danny stood, grabbed his water flask, and drank.
Then he looked around the room once more.
This wasn't the arena.
This wasn't survival.
This wasn't chaos.
This… felt like forging.
Being broken and reforged.
Every one of them was changing.
Growing.
Learning to trust.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow they'd run the Split Hunt blind.
Danny smiled faintly.
"We can do this," he said.
Even Jake didn't argue this time.
Lights dimmed.
The ship hummed.
The six drifted toward exhausted sleep—
—and thus ended their first true day as fireteams.