The day began with the blaring of klaxons. The entire officer's barracks exploded into a whirl of activity as the officers in steel gray coveralls started to jump out of their bunks and run towards the armory up the hall. I was one of the last ones to the armory, looking for my weapons locker, My name ‘Aemilius Quintonus’ carved on a gold colored plaque above it. I grabbed my short barreled rifle and sidearm, loading the magazines into both of them as I ran out of the door towards the infantry bunks. Dutifully, I swept the floor, checking rooms and stairwells as more and more officers were equipping themselves with their body armor and rifles. When I was sure the floor was clear, I ran down the stairwell with a few comrades to rendezvous with our regiments. As I got to the floor below, scouting ahead for the other officers, I saw one of the generals standing there with two other soldiers, watch in hand.
He stood there and spoke with a higher pitched voice than I was expecting from how large the man was.
“Two and a half minutes for the first man to reach regimental quarters, better than the last drill. You’re dismissed, go to the mess hall, you have a formation in 30 minutes.”
Something felt off looking at him, but I only gave him a reserved “Yes sir.”
I looked back at him before I walked towards the mess hall, and caught a subtle smirk on his face as he spoke to my comrades. I went to the mess hall and sat down near some other officers. 1st Lieutenant Karian, and Captain Aetos were there to meet me at the table. Seeing the two of them at the same table made for a strange sight. Aetos was older than both me and Karian, he had a receding hairline of jet black hair and a lanky frame, with green eyes. Karian on the other hand has trimmed brown hair, a rather muscular frame, her eyes were naturally brown, but she usually wears contacts that make them a steel blue instead.
The two of them greeted me with Aetos' attention buried in his PDA, while Karian pulled out a set of cards.
Karian cut the deck and the two of us played War before she asked me, “Do you have any idea what this formation is about?”
I responded, “Probably something about the planet Abyss below us. High command has been buzzing about ‘changes to the atmosphere and weather patterns for the last week or so.”
Aetos pulled his head out of the PDA and stated matter-of-factly, “It's another seminar on filter theory or some related finding from R&D.”
Karian asked, “Filter theory?”
I sat back and watched as Aetos became visibly annoyed at the question and began to answer condescendingly, “I know you haven’t listened to half of the formations and seminars, but this one is kind of important. Filter theory is a massive breakthrough in mago-science, allowing us to begin to understand how other planes, like The Pool, for instance, work. It has 3 major parts to it, 1. Magical entities cannot pass between the regular material realm and the magical realm due to a metaphysical barrier between the planes. 2. All if not most magical energy comes from Lay Nexi, which can’t be tampered with. The third is the most…dubious one, this point states that magic casters use some sort of internal or external power source to cast spells that are localized on the planet, or within their being.”
“Soooooo, that means stories of Emissaries are just about really powerful mages and not divine entities like some elves claim they are.”
“They’re a myth, no records exist about mages that powerful in historical archives, nor is anything with reality-bending properties as extensive as the elves describe, even remotely possible. So they’re just a piece of folklore meant to entertain.”
Karian turned to me after giving Aetos a sour look, “The colonel told me you’re going on a special mission of some sort.”
“Really? Did you get any details?”
“A few, you’re making planetfall onto Abyss below us, and….that's about all I got.”
A feeling of dread began to creep up.
“So, I’m going down to land on the planet our proud Scentific order originated from, then left due to how difficult it is to maintain a political stronghold. Did you see or hear why?”
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She chuckled, “Something about weather patterns, and a changing climate on the planet, you can see it out the window at about…3:30 in the afternoon. There was a continent that was a desert only 20 years ago, and now it's heavily urbanized and has become a lush green tropic. Don’t tell me you were so absorbed in those books of yours you didn’t look out of the window.”
I responded as calmly as possible. “I’ve barely had time to even relax, I have other things to do than just look out a window into either the dark emptiness of space or the planet below.”
She smiled before looking at her watch, “3 minutes till formation, I’ll see you two afterward.”
Everyone left the room and got to formation in the meeting hall just down the way. Nothing was of interest during the formation, however afterward I was pulled aside by one of the colonels and handed a file and told.
“You’ve been chosen for a mission on the planet of Abyss below us, you’ve been chosen due to your interest in old languages as well as history, alongside the survival training you’ve gone through as a scout. You’ll be sent planetside tomorrow morning, a guide will be there to meet you and wait here for about ten more minutes for an actual briefing on your mission.”.
Before I could ask any questions, he walked away.
I read through the file, it gave a picture and a physical description of my guide. He was a human, with dirty blond hair and green eyes, somewhere around 6”, wearing a coat made from the pelt of a reptile. I assumed it was from an iguana of some sort. I sat there patiently waiting for the actual briefing to begin, cleaning the weapons I still had on me from this morning. As I was putting the bolt into my rifle when out of the corner of my eye another projector was being wheeled into the room, two infantrymen and 4 officers were carting the projector. Karian amongst them, she took a seat and the presenter began as the projector was getting set up.
The presenter spoke quickly and matter-of-factly beginning with the words “I trust that your colonel briefly told you what you’re going to be doing tomorrow morning, as well as the reasons the two of you have been chosen for this mission. Tomorrow at 0300 hours you are expected to make your way to the hangar to load into a drop pod which will store your equipment. Since we cannot risk the natives reverse engineering our ammunition and weapons technology, you will only be issued your sidearm with a handful of magazines. In your rifle’s stead, you will be issued a sword and will be briefly shown how to defend yourself from attacks. You two must keep your origins a secret, the natives have no idea the moon has been terraformed. You have until tomorrow to come up with a cover story and a set of aliases. The reason you’re being sent down there is to investigate a handful of things, first off is a rapid change in weather patterns and cloud coverage. Violent storms have increased as well as a large increase in cloud coverage, we believe this has a magical origin. This implies a massive increase of mages within the last 20-40 years. Considering we can’t look through a telescope at the planet’s surface anymore, and the fact that the increase of violent storms stops us from using probes, that leaves us with a manual insertion. This is where you two come in, your mission is two-fold, document the cultures on the continent of Urotsa under the protection and assistance of your guide. And see if and how the population of mages increased. Insertion method will be via drop pod and landing on ‘The Great Barrier’ of mountains on the eastern end of the continent. From there you’ll march westward, and you’ll procure a way to get to an island roughly 30 miles away from the mainland. There we’ll send a ship to pick you up and debrief you. Reports are to be made weekly, if a report isn’t made we’ll assume you two have died and weigh our options for retrieval. The main problem you’ll run into is the locals, according to the stories you’ve heard. They are violent, they can be reasoned with, and if you do find yourself in a conversation with any of them keep personal details to a minimum. Are there any questions?”
Karian asked first, “Sooo what do we do with the drop pod after landing, and how does a drop pod make it through the atmosphere when probes don't? Faraday cages? Considering how storms seem to be becoming more common.”
He responded, “Insulation against any outside electrical current, as well as a backup battery to pick up any surplus charge, in case of electricity overwhelming the insulation. The drop pod was made specifically for this mission, salvage the battery once you leave the pod to recharge your radio. The drop pod has a nav computer on it as well, take it apart after you land for the components and leave the pod behind, the natives won't be able to reverse engineer it.”
I asked him “What technological level should we expect the natives to be?”
“Feudal or arquebus level, the most advanced units use muskets so you won’t have to worry about being out-ranged, however, you should get acquainted with sword and knife fighting while on the planet surface. If there aren’t any more questions you two are dismissed”
He walked away before we could ask anything
Before going off on our way to continue our daily routine we asked each other why we were chosen for this mission. I told Karian because of my survivalist background and that I knew the closest approximation to their languages. She told me that it was because of her background in engineering, allowing her to put the construction techniques of the locals in excruciating detail, as well as having some second-hand knowledge of the cultures to help us blend in.
The cover we came up with was a pair of travelers from the terraformed continent, assuming no one knew anything about it we could make anything up about it and not fear correction.