“Three minutes to drop zone. Get ready!” Mal heard the sergeant’s voice, but not consciously. He was too bust concentrating on his training. He kept repeating the steps for a drop-off in his head. “Get out, get down, move out. Get out, get down, move out.” He repeated the steps over and over. Mal looked over at the veterans. Surprisingly, some of them were under his command. The regiment he was in, the 7th Air Infantry, had been so short on noncoms when he signed up that he had been promoted to sergeant on his first mission. He outranked some of veterans, but he knew in combat he would defer to their authority. “Drop zone up. Out in 5, 4,3,2,1, and go!” said the lieutenant. The door dropped and Mal was treated to the sounds of battle. Chain guns blazing, the Independents had snuck up on the Alliance in the dead of night. And now this newly minted sergeant was stuck in the middle of it. Mal followed the lieutenant out the door, and was being jostled around by the other people. The group ran from the shuttle and spread out along the front. Mal took a few seconds to take in the surroundings. About twelve shuttles were spread out around the battlefield, firing at the Alliance entrenchments. Suddenly a huge, explosion knocked him to the ground. He looked to his right and saw that every shuttle was a smoking mess. He stood up to survey the sky and just barely managed to jump on the ground before the Alliance skiffs chewed up the ground around him. He gathered his wits and started crawling towards the trenches. He got to the lines and saw a group of his men firing helter-skelter at the advancing Alliance troops. The troops saw him and walked over. “Sir, we need orders.” Said Private Martin. Mal took a few deep breaths and started talking. “Martin, gather some heavy weapons, we need to pin down those Alliance bastards until reinforcements arrive.” Mal was surprised at how easy it came to him. The veterans seemed to understand that he could do his job. “Alexander, Michaels, I need you to call command, try to get us air support. The rest of you, fire on the Alliance troops. We need to-” Mal was cut off by a huge explosion. He looked up, and saw that the Alliance was advancing towards his position. He started to issue an order, but stopped short when he saw that his squad had been turned into body parts. He started to hyperventilate, not knowing what to do. On one side, he was an easy target for Alliance artillery, on the other; he would be picked off by snipers.