“Drop. Drop. Drop.”
I heard Dean call for the team to exit the ship as I did a low approach of the facility, and closed the cargo bay door as soon as I saw the three of them fall out of sight of the bay door camera.
We had spent 16 hours in orbit, verifying and re-verifying the scans of the surface and what little we could see of what lay beneath the surface of the oceans. There was nothing that we could find. No landing pads, no energy collection, no defensive structures what so ever. The complete lack of infrastructure was, according to Dean, abnormal. He had told me about how his team had been after this particular target a number of times in the past, and had always had to deal with heavy anti-air resistance, whether by matching force for force, or using stealth to avoid being attacked in the first place. Having nothing to fight or avoid had put everyone on edge, since the rest of the team being unsettled was certainly out of my comfort zone.
After the three of them spent hours ‘deliberating’ as Dean called it, the entirety of which I was told in no uncertain to stay in the cockpit, they made the call to trust the sensor data and have me drop them just a few hundred feet above the facility and then pull CAS duty. Flying circles around the compound also made it quicker to ex-fil, which Dean said was a necessity with the change in defenses.
Once I had divested the team and closed the cargo bay, I rose to 1,000 feet above the facility and set the autopilot to pull tight circles. I wanted to focus on covering the team, and splitting my attention between my piloting and my weapons would make both efforts worthless. My radio crackled, likely from some kind of atmospheric interference.
“JULIET 4, JULIET 1. SHOW RESPONSE TEAM GROUNDED AT THIS TIME.”
I keyed my radio, feeling the microphone integrated into my helmet brushing my lips as I spoke. “Juliet 1, Juliet 4. Response Team grounded. Aerial standing by.”
“4, 1. COPY AERIAL STANDING BY. BEGINNING OPERATION.”
With that, the line went silent, save for the slight atmospheric hiss. With what I had seen of this group, I expected to get calls for every bit of ordinance I had. Instead?
Radio. Silence.
Over thirty minutes went by with absolutely nothing over comms; no CAS requests, no updates, not even banter. Dean had told me before they dropped that radio silence was important, but it felt like it had been a really long time. I keyed my radio.
“1, 4, radio check, how copy?”
No reply.
“1, 4. Radio check. How copy?”
Still nothing.
“Juliet 1, Juliet 4. Radio function check. How copy?”
Static.
“All radios this frequency, Juliet 4. Radio check, reply how copy.”
“JULIET 4, JULIET ACTUAL. MAINTAIN RADIO DISCIPLINE. STANDBY FOR SUPPORT CALLS.”
Oop. Dean called himself Actual instead of 1; I guess I had pissed him off by violating his radio silence. I didn’t feel all that bad, given that I was new to all of this, and they had just abandoned me to shooting at shit on the ground.
“Theridion, anything we can do to pass the time? I don’t know how one this is going to take, and I don’t want to just sit here and stare at an empty building.”
WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR A STORY FROM WHEN DEINOPIDAE WAS IN TRAINING?
“Fuck it, why not. Tell me a story.”
‘TWAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT, WHEN THE CAPTAIN SAID…
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“DEINOPIDAE! Get your head out of your ass and your ass out of that ditch! Your job is to be a spotter, not to cower. They’re just bullets. Don’t be a pussy.”
Dean didn’t know how to respond to that, so he chose not to. He was just a cadet, after all. This was his first time in the field, and the ancient rifle he thought he had gotten used to carrying felt like and awkward piece of metal and plastic, not the extension of myself it was supposed to be.
And ancient it truly was; the venerable M7A1. Hundreds of years of service with different military and paramilitary organizations has given the weapon a reputation for functionality. Of course, Gravitic Solutions had far better options to give their people. No, Dean had been issued this particular M7, serial number 63M99999, as a punishment.
Between how heavy the weapon itself was and how little ammunition he was able to carry, this particular outing promised to be worse than expected. He had scored the highest in his class in both class work and physical fitness, and was on track to beat the training programs record. His instructors, according to them, wanted to encourage him. Of course their version of encouragement was to saddle him with the worst possible situation every time the could.
A group project? Dean was put with the most fractious, argumentative, pig-headed classmates he had, and told in no uncertain terms that he was in charge. Running in formation? Dean was charged with getting water to anyone who fell out, and only a divine fucking miracle would save his ass if he wasn’t in formation at the end of the run.
This field exercise, which Dean had been instructed to plan, was going to be a shitshow. He was just a regular front-line gunner, without any kind of authority at all. He had planned the fucking thing, and it would go one of two ways; either his plan worked, and whoever was ‘in charge’ would get the praise, or it would go bad and he would get blamed.
Two rounds whistled over his head, and Dean just sighed as he rolled out of the shallow ditch and started through his scope. The wooded ridgeline they were supposed to take was quiet, the rain hammering the forest concealing any sounds of movement and making every bit of low lying vegetation shaking constantly. He turned thermal highlighting on, and saw an outline of someone standing a few feet into the treeline, hidden visually behind bushes. The glowing puddle growing on the base of the tree they were facing was pretty clear.
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“Kilo Actual, Kilo 5-5. One target spotted, locale six. Received fire from same location.” He spoke quietly into his boom mic as he pressed his radio key. He was supposed to be a fucking leader, not a spotter with an underpowered rifle, and the demotion stung.
“Kilo 5-5, Kilo Actual. Verify locale six.”
Dean rolled his eyes as he keyed his radio. “Actual, 5-5. Wooded ridgeline, 500 meters north of insertion. Requesting permission to push.”
“5-5, Actual. Confirm position.”
“Actual, 5-5. Holding at waypoint 2, as briefed.”
“5-5, Actual. Provide visual description.”
That was a weird request. “Actual, 5-5. Latch-key.”
“5-5, Actual. Say again?”
Dean was getting suspicious. Latch-key was the beginning of a verbal handshake to make sure that comms hadn’t been compromised. ‘Say again’ was far from the correct answer, and everything so far had been crystal clear.
“Actual, 5-5. Latch-key.”
“5-5, Actual. Provide a visual description of your current location.”
“Actual, 5-5. Latch-key.”
There was no response. Dean looked at his instructor, wordlessly asking what he should do.
“Are you fucking stupid, cadet? I’m not here. Figure it out yourself.”
Dean nodded, and keyed his radio. “All radios this frequency, all radios this frequency. Comms compromised. I say again, comms compromised. Begin local command, action plan Bravo-Niner. Kilo 5-5, Out.” He released his push-to-talk, turned his transmitter off, and put a round through the head of the person he had spotted, who apparently had the largest bladder in the local cluster.
They dropped, and Dean watched as five other people poured out of what he could only assume was a buried bunker. Using the UV laser on his rifle, he quickly marked all five, and an absolute torrent of mortar fire quickly turned the wooded ridgeline to a smoking heap of dirt and charc…
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The radio crackled to life, cutting off Theridion’s tale.
“4, 1. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE CAS, LASING ONE REINFORCED BUILDING. FRIENDLIES DANGER CLOSE 200 METERS. CLEARED TO ENGAGE.”
Theridion silently selected a munition and printed out the proper reply, leaving me to press the Lauch button and key the radio.
“1, 4. Friendlies Danger Close 200. Tally. Pickle 1, 15 seconds to impact.”
“4, 1. REQUESTING IMMEDIATE CAS, LASING ONE HARDENED ENEMY COMBATANT. FRIENDLIES DANGER CLOSE 100 METERS. REQUESTING CANNON FIRE. CLEARED TO ENGAGE.”
Once again, Theridion printed the proper response while I brought one of the main cannons to bear.
“1, 4. Friendlies Danger Close 100. Tally. Guns.”
With that, I started dumping 130mm rounds into the ground. The target was some kind of treaded vehicle absolutely bristling with weapons, unloading into a hillside behind which two of the team were hiding. The vehicles reactive armor protected it from the first three or four rounds, but one 130mm round every second was too much for the vehicle to absorb. Within 10 seconds, I had turned the target into a heap of scrap, gently smoking in its crater of a grave.
There was a flash, then a massive shockwave that shook the ship as the bomb I had dropped impacted the targeted building. The cloud of dust and debris it sent up blinded me immediately.
“1, 4. Be advised, no visual contact. Aerial support firing in the blind.”
“4, 1. NEGATIVE. DEPART DEBRIS CLOUD, OBSERVE AND REPORT WEATHER CONDITIONS. STANDBY.”
“1, 4. Copy.”
I took over from the auto pilot, peeling away from the circle I had been pulling to fly out and slightly down.
“Theridion, is there a way for us to get this dust cleared?”
I BELIEVE THAT DEINOPIDAE WANTS YOU TO LOOK FOR THE NEXT WEATHER BAND TO HAVE RAIN KNOCK DOWN THE DUST. THE DEBRIS IS FOULING TOO MANY SENSORS FOR ME TO GENERATE ACCURATE METEOROLOGICAL PREDICTIONS.
“And if there’s nothing close?”
Theridion didn’t respond. The ship quickly broke out of the dust cloud, the ocean extending to the horizon bracketed with islands in my peripheral vision. A completely clear view, with not a single cloud in sight.
“Shit.”
TURN AROUND TUGGER.
I pulled a 180º turn, and was greeted with a massive storm wall, angry black clouds reaching tens of thousands of feet into the air unloading sheets of water and constant lightning strikes. On one hand, it was almost to the island and seemed to already be cutting down on some of the dust. On the other hand, I wasn’t confident in pulling CAS while I was the highest thing around in a thunderstorm. Filled with explosives.
“Theridion?”
PRINTING COMMS NOW. I AGREE.
I keyed my radio and spoke as quickly as I could.
“14showCASunableduetoweatherecommendgroundteamtakeshelterfromextremeweather”
“4, 1. REPEAT.”
I took a breath. “1, 4. Show CAS unable due to weather. Recommend ground team takes shelter from extreme weather.”
“4, 1. PROVIDE CONFIRMATION CODE.”
broadcasting
“1, 4 ALPHA. CONFIRMATION CODE NOVEMBER OSCAR WHISKEY NINER NINER. TAKE IMMEDIATE SHELTER.”
terminate broadcast
“4, 1. SOLID COPY. TAKING COVER. IN CASE OF COMMUNICATION SEVERANCE, RETURN TO OVERWATCH WHEN ABLE.”
“1, 4. Copy. Egressing ex-atmo.”
“4,1. ROGER.”
I pulled another 180º turn and started ascending as quickly as I could without losing speed. A lightning strike was absolutely not something I wanted to deal with, so I wanted to get as far away as I could, as quickly as I could.
It took five minutes of stress filled silence to climb above the anvil of the storm. I leveled out and slowed the ship until it was just barely staying in the air.
“Theridion, can you outline the island for me?”
SHIP SCREEN OR HUD?
“HUD. I’m going to go behind the storm. Hopefully they don’t need any help. Actually…” I keyed my radio. “1, 4. Status update?”
“4, 1. IN FACILITY. MAINTAIN RADIO SILENCE.”
Well, alright then. I looked down, and saw the storm was well over the island by this point.
“Theridion, set the autopilot to keep us over the island and above the anvil. No sense in flying past and coming back, if the weather is just going to blow past.”
AUTOPILOT SET.
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It took almost four hours for the storm to pass, leaving behind a sheet of low lying clouds which were kind enough to not dump rain or electrical discharge at every possible moment. I entered as steep a dive as possible without having an AOA warning, and keyed my radio.
“1, 4. Pushing to BP.”
A crackle of static burst through my radio. I wasn’t sure if I heard words in it or not.
“1, 4. Pushing to BP, how copy.”
Another crackle, with more of what could have been garbled words. I still wasn’t sure. Theridion printed something on the comm screen for me to read out.
“1, 4. Unable to understand. Transmit dots.”
The radio burst into intermittent static after that, with short and long bursts. I recognized it as some kind of code, but I had no idea how to translate it. My ride-along, thankfully, understood.
TUGGER, DIVE FASTER AND TOWARD THIS WAYPOINT. A stylized map marker popped up in my HUD, within the outline of the island but just barely. OPEN BAY DOORS AT 500 FEET AND IMMEDIATELY LEVEL OUT. THE TEAM WILL EXFIL WITHOUT YOU LANDING.
“Are we going to crash? Pulling out of a full dive should take more than 500 feet.”
I WILL BE FIRING THE RCS THRUSTERS TO COMPENSATE. IT MAY STRESS THE SUPERSTRUCTURE, BUT SO BE IT. FASTER.
I pushed the throttle until it bottomed out, ignoring the ship yelling at me about unimportant things like ‘Terrain’ and ‘Stall’. I kept an eye on my altitude, and watched my airspeed climb at the same time. I hit 750 feet at Mach 1.4 when Theridion started yelling.
TAKING CONTROL. THROTTLE IN IDLE, RCS THRUST IN USE, OPENING CARGO BAY DOOR. FLARING.
The ship groaned as the RCS thrusters and flight controls worked in unison, rotating the ship in a fraction of a second and shedding hundreds of feet per second from our airspeed. We broke through the cloud cover, dipping just below 300 feet, and I was glad that Theridion had taken over flying; I would have missed the absolute devastation otherwise.
The island’s mounded shape had been demolished, massive craters over a flat topped hill that couldn’t have been caused by the storm. The facility, the one I had dropped the bomb on, was sticking out of the new top of the hill by about 50 feet. It didn’t look like it had been hit by a 4000 pound bomb, save for all the burned concrete.
The marked point we were flying towards… falling towards, really, was next to a massive cloud of black smoke billowing out of the ground. I took control from the autopilot and flew low and slow, dipping down to 250 feet. I was able to make out the three members of the ground team hunkered down next to the smoke, taking a knee with their weapons leveled. As one, they stowed their weapons and jumped.
DROPPING SPEED ROPES.
Three ropes were fired out of the cargo bay, exactly where I wasn’t sure. As the team members superhuman jumps, at least 30 feet up, slowed, they grabbed the ropes and were whipped away from the island as I bumped up the throttle slightly at Theridion’s urging. The team clambered up their ropes faster than I expected and closed the bay door as they pulled the trailing rope in after them.
Based off the camera feed from the cargo bay, it had been a rough mission. Each of the three were spattered with something red; I assumed blood. None of their weapons had magazines inserted, so I was willing to bet they had also ran out of ammunition. One of them, I thought Recluse, had a piece of rebar stuck through their forearm, piercing into and out of their armor on either side of the limb.
They looked rough.
“Theridion, do we have comms yet?”
NEGATIVE. DEINOPIDAE HAS REQUESTED WE MEET IN BRIEFING ROOM ONE IN THIRTY MINUTES.
“Have the autopilot get us to L2. I’m going to see what I can help with.”