The shuttle broke through the atmosphere of Felix Invenire and shook us around quite wildly as we rapidly approached the ground.

“My apologies for the bumpy ride, ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between. There’s a little bit of a rough weather system at our destination. Hopefully you brought an umbrella, otherwise you won’t be keeping things dry.” Our pilot joked as he set in his final approach.

The sound of the rain hitting the shuttle was pretty intense. Oh well, it’s not like a little bit of rain hurts.

The engines stopped roaring a few moments later as the landing struts sank into the muddy ground.

“Parked her right where I landed her last time, Commander.” The pilot turned his seat around and gave me a salute. “Will be waiting here for you to come back.”

I nodded and unbuckled myself from the seat, standing up in front of my marines. “Let’s dismount and make some room for the other shuttles to land near uw.

My marines shouted in agreement and together we dismounted the shuttle into the pouring rain. As the area around us was quite forested I had proposed during flight to clear a bit of forest for the other shuttles land close to ours so they didn’t have have to trek long to rendezvous with us.

Gunny and the other marines quickly went to work setting up clearing charges to clear enough room for a medium sized landing zone.

“Charges are all set, Commander.” Gunny opened up the interface to arm the explosives using his embedded holo stick in his gauntlet.

“Blast it.” I nodded.

With the press of a button an explosion completely leveled the area in the designated blast zone. Always impressive to see, especially because it had been quite a while since using these kinds of methods. Even during the war this was rarely used, only during exercise and basic training was it shortly covered. Generally people in command preferred leveling a forest like this from orbit with orbital bombardment, but that would have been a bit overkill in this situation.

Now, with the landingzone cleared, we didn’t have to wait long in the rain for the other shuttles to land next to ours.

A group of marines disembarked from the first shuttle together with an engineering team, and who I assumed to be, the photographers from the second.

“Welcome to paradise, Master Sergeant.” We all saluted the marines who walked up to us.

“Thank you, Commander.” The squad leader saluted me back and his marines did the same. “I see we brought the good weather along?”

“You definitely did.” I smiled and then nodded over to the engineers who were walking behind them. “What are those backpacks, Master Sergeant?” The engineers were carrying barrel-like backpacks that I didn’t really recall from any training manual.

“It’s a stabilizing agent, Commander.” One of the engineers spoke up. “It’s basically an expanding foam-concrete hybrid. It’ll help reinforce the subterranean structure where it needs to be.”

“Hmm.” I nodded. “That looks interesting.”

The engineers nodded back.

Lastly, the officer responsible for the photography team walked over. “Commander.” The Lieutenant started, looking up at the sky above. “Could we wait for a while for the rain to pass over?”

“Absolutely not.” I replied firmly and instantly, causing the officer to take a step back from me. It looked like he was a bit intimidated by my curntess.

“I’d rather not waste any more of me and my crew’s time. Besides, you’ll be able to get some cool action photographs in the rain. Really accentuates the adventurous aspect about space travel, doesn’t it?”

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“A-ah… Yes, that’s not a bad idea.” The Lieutenant stuttered. “B-but could we at least get some pictures without your helmet on?”

I stared in silence at the Lieutenant for a couple of moments, but instead of backing away he straightened up his posture.

“Please, Commander?”

I sighed and brought my hands to my helmet. Unclasping it swiftly after and hanging the helmet on my utility belt. “Alright, I’ll do at least that much.” The rain that hit my face felt warmer than I had expected. A bit like a summer rain shower.

The photographers immediately took a couple of pictures of me already. They must’ve thought I looked pretty photogeneric.

“I do want to see every single picture you took of me before you send them in for publication though.”

“Of course, Commander.” The Lieutenant saluted. “As you wish.”

I smiled and gave them all a nod. “Now, if you would like to follow my team, the subterranean structure is that way.”

On our way to the subterranean compound the photographers took a couple of action shots of me walking through the forested area. In a way it was admirable to see what had to do to get the shots as my marines and I weren’t exactly slowing down so they had to run quite a bit and it seemed that they weren’t really getting too out of breath.

“Do make sure to keep out of my firing line, guys. Wouldn’t want you to be shot accidentally.” Gunny called out to one of the photographers who immediately froze.

“Gunny… Don’t scare the lad like that.” I replied.

“It’s true though. What if the enemy pops up, rushes at us, just when one of them is running in front of me.”

“C-Commander, this planet is safe, right?” One of the other photographers asked.

I shrugged. “It should be clear, yes. But in our line of work it is always best to assume the worst case scenario.”

“That’s right.” The Master Sergeant from the other ship added.

“It’s an old wisdom that you should go into war well prepared. If you go into war and then prepare yourself, you’ve already lost.”

“Sun Tzu, Commander?” The Master Sergeant asked.

“Probably.” I chuckled. “He has said many things that kind of sound like that.”

“Fair enough.”

Luckily for the photographers, none of them got shot by the time we reached the hole in the floor where Corporal Jones and I took a tumble last time. The rain, which still hadn’t let up, poured down the hole with quite a bit of force.

“Can you send a drone down first to see how watery it is down there, Kasongo?” I looked at our lovely Private.

“Yes ma’am.” She quickly took an orb drone from her belt and connected it to her holo stick, sending the orb down soon after. It took a minute or so before Private Kasongo spoke up again. “No build up of water at all, ma’am. Seems like the water is draining away fine inside. It will just be a little bit wet on the way down.

“Good.” I nodded.

“I’ll take a couple of the photographers down first if that’s alright with you, Commander.” The Master Sergeant proposed. “That way they’ll get a couple of good shots of you when you come down.”

“Sure, I suggest using a rappel-rope though.”

“On it.” I probably didn’t need to mention it to the Master Sergeant as he seemed capable enough. But I wouldn’t want to have made the same mistake I made last time in this selfsame spot.

The Master Sergeant and his team got a couple of the photographers down without a hitch after which it was my turn to go. The wave of water coming down on my neck as I rappelled down reminded me of basic training once more where they would let you rappel down a cascade of water.

I was very much happy that this was fresh water as well though, there was some dirt mixed into it because of the forest floor above, but clean enough in any case and very much free of pollutants.

When I got down I unhooked myself from the rope and lit my flashlight. And when I looked up I saw that the photography team looked very enthusiastic. “Those were some great shots, Commander! They are definitely going to be happy with these!”

“Can I see?”

One of them nodded and pinged my holo stick. When I opened it I saw myself rappel down in a little ‘live picture’ that really showed the amount of water coming down as well. It honestly looked really cool and way better than most propaganda posters they made of me during the war. “That’s well done. With the lighting as well. You should have been on the team during the Unification War, maybe I wouldn't have looked as dorky on those posters as I do now…”

“Most of us were still in Elementary School back then, Commander.”

“....” I puffed my cheeks and looked down the empty hallway in front of me. Pointing down it a second later. “Well, don’t mind me, I’ll just walk down that ancient hallway over there so I feel more at home for a moment…” I walked past the photography team. “Thanks for the picture though.”

Behind me I heard a couple slapping noises after which the photographer I spoke to replied “What, what did I do? Did I say something wrong?”

“Christ, you can be so dense sometimes, Mark.” One of the ladies replied.