Air as cold as seventeen winters on Earth. Lands as barren as the plains of Astalon V. Mountains were visible even from orbit. Harsh storms as deadly as those in the Kellock Region. No one could live here. It was a wasteworld. E-759-R was a wasteworld.

“That’s another one.” The pilot of a scout ship sighed as he put down the details in his data recorder regarding E-759-R’s status. Then he pressed a button to his side. The cramped observation platform where the pilot was huddled began moving, changing as the gears of the Hermes scout ship grinded along. The observation platform changed into a cockpit for the pilot.

The observation glass that the pilot looked out upon changed into the windshield of a cockpit. Next to him were the controls for the ship.

The ship was the Hermes 9 Scout Ship, its vehicle can be turned into an observation platform. 

Inside the cockpit, before the pilot was about to leave the orbit of E-759-R, he picked up a message in his comms. A faint rhythmic pattern was what he heard. Like a faint heartbeat that echoed out. It was unusual. It was mysterious and vague, as it came without warning. Bad omens, it could be. But one cannot be certain.

With the unusual message, the pilot couldn’t do anything but write it down in his data recorder. He had to mark E-759-R down for investigation, which was not his job. 

With one last look at E-759-R, he saw its storm plagued atmosphere. Its slow rotation. Its lonely demeanor, as no debris nor meteor orbited around it due to its weak gravitation. The nearest moon wasn’t even its own, but the moon of a neighboring planet. 

It was a first for the pilot to see such a planet with no orbiting debris but his own ship.

He then made the engines of the Hermes roar to life. It’s three engines pushing the spacecraft out of the planet’s gravity. He could not take his eyes off the planet though. For if a message came out of it, a wasteworld, life was certain.

E-759-R, a planet in the Hester system, home to many wasteworlds and a red sun about to explode, had life. Freezing beyond imagination and barren. Nothing could possibly live there, not even the citizens of House Ballanor could.

Was it a ruse? A trick? A trap? The last one, maybe. But his radio was limited to the Hester system. So to pick up signs of life or a message in such a dead region... Again, investigating it was not his job.

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“So it seems...” Admiral Stern, the Admiral of the 7th Expeditionary Fleet, responsible for the expedition of the Hessian galaxy, murmured as he stood at the center of the bridge of his ship, the Romulus. His officers were standing behind him, waiting for orders.

Gray silk uniforms, each with a different insignia of rank. The officers stood upright and blank faced, hands behind their backs, urgently waiting for the orders to arrive.

“It would seem that E-759R has an anomaly that requires investigation.” Stern fixed his uniform, a black coat with medals placed on it and white pants to contrast it. He also fixed his gold plated title on his left breast, which showed the word ‘Admiral.’ Stern turned to vice admiral Blake Ackerson.

“Ackerson, do we have companies to spare?” He asked.

“The 104th, Admiral. Ready for deployment.” The young vice admiral spoke to his superior.

“Good, fit them with the winter equipment.” Stern pressed a button from his command table. “Radio the Zenith, tell them to prepare the 104th Company.”

The speakers buzzed throughout the large bridge. His orders were immediately followed.

Flurries of footsteps echoed through the vast hallways of the Zenith. Hundreds of soldiers of the 104th hurried to get ready. Their uniforms were quickly put on as alarms blared all over.

“Hurry up, you bastards! The Romulus expects us to arrive in 2330 hours!” Captain Ader Soln of the 104th shouted as soldiers ran past him, barely fitted for deployment. “To the armory boys! To the armory!”

KG-11s, KG-2s, ESWs, and V-10 armor were taken from the armory to be given to the soldiers. As they ran down the hangar, they passed steel behemoths. Walkers with four legs and a large hull. Some were fitted with tracks instead. Tanks with tracks fitted for snow environments, and speeders with a built-in flare gun at the back. It was like they were gearing up for war.

The soldiers of the 104th lined up near the hangar shields. There, they saw the planet E-759-R coming closer as the Zenith’s engines roared.

In the distance, the much larger Romulus stayed near the moon of a neighboring planet. It was much larger than the Zenith since it was an Engregie-class battleship, a much better class than the Zango-class cruiser. 

The Zenith had smoother edges than the Romulus’s blocky texture. It’s also to be noted that the Zango-class was of House Aran's creation, while the Engregie-class was of House Tharabyss’ creation.

“Have the drop pods launched yet?” Stern, in his living quarters, asked. His room was quite normal for an admiral. Nothing was changed, and it was a standard military room. The comms Stern was holding blared to life as Ackerson would reply.

“Not yet, sir.” he replied, watching the Zenith through the glass in the bridge. Fire and smoke erupted from under the Zenith. Pods fell into the orbit of the planet. The first wave of pods has been launched. Another set of fire and smoke erupted, as did another set of pods. Then a third, a fourth, and a fifth. Into the wasteworld they dropped.

“They’ve dropped, sir.” Ackerson said through the comms. Ackerson stared at the planet. Storms ravaged the skies, making everything on the ground invisible. Ackerson felt bad for them. He too, used to be an expeditionary soldier. And it was hell.

He saluted and muttered something under his breath.

 “Godspeed.”