Close Chandra Orbit - Republic of Humanity Territory

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The missiles won the race.

Kaya watched as the Champ’s attacker broke up silently on the screen. Its air vented into space, the off-white spray of pressurized artificial atmosphere dissipating as it faded into the void. Then its engines went in a massive, quiet explosion. When the ship burned up in just a handful of seconds, all that was left was a single long tube.

“Send that recording to EAF command, system,” Kaya said. The EAF could reverse engineer anything that another galactic power had turned into a weapon. It’d take a matter of days before they’d built a prototype in Jupiter’s labs, and if the cutting ray that’d obliterated the Champ last loop was viable for use on corvettes or escort dreadnoughts, it’d be in production in weeks.

Relief washed over her as the fighter’s burned-out engines sparked one last time. Then she stood up, checked the holo-map for enemies, and nodded to the pilot. “Good flying. Let’s get to the mine.”

He saluted, she returned it, and she disappeared down the corridor to the drop bay.

For something the whole Briseis-class corvette had been designed around, the drop bay wasn’t much to look at. At the very bow of the ship, it was built around a small, round armory with four rooms off its sides where the drop pods sat ready. Behind those, in the most heavily armored part of the ship, were the clone bays: eight grown and ready clones kept in a coma for each Dropper when they needed them next, and their genetic information to quickly produce more for the next mission.

Every one of the sixteen droppers on board had a small cubby in the armory, just big enough for their current armor set, weapon, and basic equipment; hers had the standard-issue armor, battle rifle, and code input gear, plus a fresh under-armor layer.

She changed into it quickly, then scrolled through the different armors the ship carried.

There had to be something with the scanner and some storage capabilities. She didn’t need as many grenades, not if Gonzales had the launcher, so she could sacrifice those. And the lighter battle armor Rogers wore looked appealing. It didn’t have the coverage she’d trained with, but the plate carrier would still cover her vitals.

Besides, death was a chance to do things better now, not a ticking clock on the mission. And she needed to be perfect.

Not good enough. Perfect.

Eventually, she selected an armor that covered her chest, shoulders, and thighs with ceramic plates and the rest of her torso and upper arms with a shrapnel-catching mesh that wouldn’t do much against a bullet but hardly weighed anything. As the auto-armorer secured the harness snugly around her, she looked down at the yellow highlights running along its plates and the matte-gray third skin underneath. A quartet of ammo carriers attached to the armor’s belt, and she filled two with extra magazines.

By the time Kaya was locked and loaded, the rest of her team had materialized. Rogers stepped into the machine the moment she was done, her scout’s armor popping on, along with a new device in the middle of her chest. “Stealth module. It’s good for fifteen seconds of invisibility to most sensors but a hell of a recharge. The suit battery’s not built for this kind of draw.”

Strathmore wore the same heavy armor he had before, but Gonzales took almost twenty minutes before selecting a heavy armor of his own—one that made Strathmore’s oversized shoulder plate and hulking chest harness look tiny. “Going juggernaut, huh?” The heavy gunner asked sarcastically.

“Yeah. I’m always a target, and I can’t move once I’m set up, so it’s armor or nothing,” Gonzales still sounded shaky, and Kaya regretted not talking to him earlier. The last drop had been rough on him, and she needed him at one hundred percent.

As the machine finished installing his padded, plate-covered pauldrons, she grabbed one and pulled the man aside. “Let’s talk. How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.” Gonzales stiffened.

“That last drop was tough. This one’s going to be easier. If you need some time, I get it. We’ll grab a fourth from another squad. You can take what you need to process.”

“I’m good. I’m good.” Gonzales said.

This time, Kaya could feel his frustration. She lifted her hand and stepped back. “Okay, you got it. If you need to talk about anything, I’m here to listen. If not, that’s understandable.” She cleared her throat and met the rest of the squad’s stares. “We barely met a week ago, though, and if we’re dropping together consistently, I’d like to get to know you all.”

No one said anything. Kaya managed to hold back a wince, but only because she’d gotten very good at keeping a straight face at the Ceres Command parade grounds. Then Rodgers started taking apart her rifle and cleaning it, Strathmore walked over and filled up his grenade dispenser, and Kaya, with the same mental effort it had taken to land on the walker—more, even—started working on her gear.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She’d fucked up somehow. But she also couldn’t start making it better right now. The manuals and training all said to build rapport with the people you dropped with, but they didn’t do a good job of explaining how.

So, instead of saying anything, she spent the next fifteen minutes checking over her weapons, making all the little adjustments to her harness that the machine didn’t quite get right, and stewing about how to make her squad like her.

◄▼►

It was a relief when, at last, the Champ punched into Chandra’s atmosphere. The howling wind outside the corvette’s bow made it all but impossible to be heard, even with shouts. Instead, the ship’s system took over.

[Hello, Droppers! We’re five minutes from the mine. We’ve selected a viable landing zone near the main shaft, and you’ll be dropped there. The last orbital scan showed cow presence nearby, but they hadn’t reached the mine yet, so there’s plenty of time for you to do your jobs, get out, and not get in any fights! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?]

[Just joking around! The landing zone’s probably not hot, but by the time you get there, cows will be swarming around the place. You might have two minutes to get set up. Then all the cow poop’s hitting the plow! Good luck! uwu]

Kaya hurried through the door to her squad’s drop pods. The tension melted off her shoulders as the airlock doors closed around her. Talking to her crew scared her. But this? Now that she’d seen a drop in action? This was just what she did, what she’d been trained to do.

The pod’s doors sealed shut, and she let restraints wrap around her arms, wrists, thighs, and calves. Then her helmet locked into place, and the whole pod filled with crash foam. Her fingers tightened around the rifle strapped to her chest, and she took a deep breath.

Her MRC popped and warbled, locking her into the drop.

The floor fell out from under her, and just like that, her pod was screaming away from the Champ and toward the Chandra vatanium mine.

“Lieutenant Commander, I am glad you picked this particular operation!” General Gorsuch’s voice filled her ears, his shouts barely audible over the howling wind rushing past the drop pod. “I need this vatanium stuff! Most of it’s on backorder for the next three decades, but this represents a chance to get our hands on it. So, when you land, your secondary objective is to gather some samples of it! As much as you can easily bring back to the Champ! Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Kaya’s teeth wouldn’t stop chattering in her helmet, and she bit down on the crash barrier she’d been talking around to stop them from shattering as the shaking grew worse and worse around the pod.

“Don’t you worry about that! Just a little turbulence! My pod used to do backflips on the way down! By the way, your landing zone is socked in, so don’t expect accurate support fire unless you make it accurate! Gorsuch out!”

The pod crashed into something a moment later, the door opened, and Kaya got to work.

◄▼►

Drop pods rained from the sky as Kaya’s squad called in their choice of heavy weapons; by the time it was over, Strathmore’s heavy machine gun, the marksman rifle Rogers preferred, and the brand new GL-67 Puncher grenade launcher she’d requisitioned as a gift for Gonzales had all landed.

Kaya ignored the howling retro jets and thudding supply drops. Instead, she climbed a set of stairs and got her first good look around.

It didn’t stink—at least, not how Micah Prime had. In training, she’d been told that every planet had its own smell and that she’d get used to them. On her first drop, she’d decided that was a lie, but she could believe it this time. The whole place smelled like the tall, scale-covered trees that butted up against the mine’s fence were rotting. It wasn’t a terrible smell: mossy and rich, but with the occasional whiff of something foul that disappeared as quickly as it came.

More important was the mine itself. Kaya couldn’t understand how vatanium—which was supposed to be super-valuable and on back-order for decades—could be left lying around like this. The Republic couldn’t be inspecting this place; it’d never pass a Bureau of Efficiency inquiry! Everywhere she looked, steel barrels of the glowing orange stuff sat unattended and unsecured. The mine buildings were covered in it, almost like the ore gave off fumes, and the fumes had congealed onto the bottom of towers and bridges.

On the plus side, gathering the stuff would be easy. All she’d need to do was find a little of it, slip it into her ammo carrier, and complete the mission. Sample collected! Secondary objective complete!

Specialist Rogers walked past her and up another flight. “I’m setting up in there,” she said, pointing at a crane with a small box for the controller looming high over the strip mine at the base’s center. I’ll call out any cows I see. I’ll take ‘em out if they're alone or in a small group.”

“Thanks, Specialist. Check in before you shoot,” Kaya murmured. Then she took a deep breath. “Strathmore, dig in by the main entrance. If the cows have support, it’ll come up the road. I’m unlocking the [Strafing Run] support code for you. Use it wisely.”

“You got it. Nothing comes through that gate.” The machine-gunner jogged off.

Kaya relaxed. They don’t like you, but they’re listening to orders. You can fix that. It’s just going to take some studying and some work. You’re not a stranger to those, though.

“Gonzales, we’re finding the controls, getting this place ready to blow, and then letting the squad know so we can get out of here in one piece. No drops, no clones, just us. Let’s go.” She dropped her rifle, letting the harness take its weight, then put a hand on its grip.

“Okay. LC, this feels like a bad place for the grenade launcher,” Gonzales said.

She shook her head. “That grenade launcher’s our most powerful weapon right now, but we have to use it right. It'll be up to you if we can’t destroy this place manually. We can’t trust the [Eighty-Millimeter Strikes] to be accurate right now.”

“So you want me to blow the whole place up?”

“Hey, I’ve got a small patrol. Four cows. They’re heading right up the road. Take ‘em out?” Rogers’s voice cut into the conversation.

“No, I want you to blow it up if we have to or if it makes sense.” Kaya flipped her mic on. “Yes. You’re clear to fire. They probably know we landed since the Champ’s hanging out overhead. Engage anything you see.”

She hurried toward what she hoped was the mine’s main building, a two-story prefab that looked like it had been built out of space-dropped supply carriers. It had actual glass windows that weren’t blown out yet, though, and it overlooked most of the operation. Surely, they’d find the mine’s controls there.

The door was locked, but a pair of shots blew it off its hinges, and Kaya kicked the door in. A moment later, a pair of shots rang out from above. Then Rogers’s voice came in through her helmet’s comms. She wasn’t panicking, but Kaya could hear the stress.

“Hey, LC, there were more of them. A lot more. They’re heading up the main road now.”