Lone Wolf had received a warm reception upon touching down. The militia’s band played and the soldiers formed ranks and saluted as we marched our TAC armor out of the dropship followed by the command vehicle and AG vehicles. There weren’t any civilians present. The Red Fang didn’t like to draw a lot of attention and we only gave the militia a half days notice that we were coming. We got plenty of waves and cheers as we marched from the starport to the militia’s base though. Compared to similar planets, the Providence militia was top notch. They had all the latest equipment, including their own squad of TAC armor supplied by the Red Fang and they trained harder than any other planetary militia that I knew of. For this reason, attacks on the planet were rare, but not unheard of. Most chose weaker targets such as the other habitable planet in the system, Prosperity. The name was misleading as it wasn’t nearly as prosperous as Providence and didn’t enjoy the ties to Red Fang due to several botched deals and empty promises on their part.

We were billeted in the barracks reserved for Red Fang forces, which had an attached hangar to house our TAC armor and ample room for the command and AG vehicles. The militia’s base was located a mile west of the planet’s largest starport, on the western edge of the planet’s capital city of Serenity. The base had large training fields which had seen plenty of use and was surrounded by a 10-foot high, heavily reinforced wall. Everything had gone smoothly during the first two weeks. For the most part we ran mock battles, where Lone Wolf was the attacker and the militia the defender. The militia handled themselves pretty well and even won a battle, which commander Jacobs never let us hear the end of. When we weren’t instructing, we enjoyed the local night life that Serenity had to offer. The starport saw lots of traffic and the bars were always busy. Technically we weren’t supposed to leave the base but that rule was generally ignored. We weren’t supposed to fraternize with the locals either, but that didn’t stop most Lone Wolf personnel from finding some local companionship.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Our training mission was interrupted at three in the morning at the beginning of our third week on planet. A series of explosions erupted near our barracks, throwing me off my bunk and onto the hard floor. It was pitch black and the power to the base seemed to be out. More explosions ripped the night followed by the air raid siren. “What the hell was that?” somebody shouted. While others swore and fumbled in the dark before the emergency lights came on. The barracks shook once again and dust fell from the rafters. I quickly threw on my uniform, pushed past some of my slower squad mates, and ran for the hangar and the relative safety of our command vehicle. The command vehicle was heavily armored and boasted some defensive turrets in the front and a missile launcher on the rear of the tracked vehicle. I climbed inside and found that Commander Jacobs was already powering up the systems. This made me wonder if the rumors that the Commander slept in the command vehicle were true. He greeted me with a nod and I pushed those thoughts out of my mind as I hurried to my controller cockpit, which was a pod like unit arranged in a circle in the middle of the vehicle along with three other pods. The TAC armor was kept on standby and would only take a few seconds to power up completely. I closed the cockpit, pulled my interface helmet on, and jacked into the two units under my control. The blank screens in front of me came to life showing the controls for my units. Through thought alone I could change the control panel to suit my needs and place whatever controls I needed at my fingertips. Unfortunately all our TAC armor was currently loaded with training ammunition and the lasers were likewise powered down. I set about kicking off the safeties to give the lasers full power while I waited for orders. No technicians had arrived yet to load live ammunition, but one of my units had lasers so Commander Jacobs ordered it out of the hangar while the other waited to be armed.