by Jack Hunt
They were rusty as fuck and they knew it.
“Ah, come on now, this is the best part,” Skinner said. “You could spend your whole life in the brig but what better way to go out than with a knife in the hand.”
He twisted the tip into the edge of his finger. Priest shook his head and checked his equipment for the fourth time. After, he held rosary beads in hand and began to pray.
Reid felt the ship shudder a little and he realized they were entering the asteroid belt. He looked at his team and his mind drifted back to the numerous operations he’d been on with Gage and Bryce. It was hard to imagine that they were actually gone. Both of them had been up for retirement in a year and they’d already made plans to spend it fishing on Earth. The three of them would knock back beers, smoke a cigar or two and shoot the breeze recounting old missions. Now it would never happen. He sighed. There were very few people left in his life.
“Ten minutes until drop,” a voice bellowed over a speaker inside the launch bay.
Everyone dealt with operations in different ways. Gage would do an ammo check, over and over again. He said it kept his mind off the jump, and his eyes on the task of killing. Bryce would hum some tune that his mother had sung to him while he was growing up. Others would try to make light of the situation by cracking jokes, anything to relieve the tension. Reid would simply stare at a photo of Katherine and Sophie to remind him to make it home alive. For the longest time, they had been his motivation, now he didn’t have anything.
All of them sat with their helmets on their laps, getting ready for the ramp to lower.
“You guys ready?” Kane said stepping into the cargo bay where all of them were sitting up against the sides. Reid didn’t even reply or bother to look at him. He had the easy part, remaining on the ship while they dived into hell itself. The atmosphere of Drozleon was tough at the best of times but their sensors had picked up an electrical storm. Fortunately their suits were designed to deal with brutal weather conditions.
“Helmets on.”
He watched as each of them fixed into place the final piece of the suit that would keep them alive and protect them from being killed in the vacuum of space.
An amber light came on, and they rose to their feet and made their way to the rear of the Phoenix. Unless they came under heavy fire, it would take them down thirty-five thousand feet from the ground. Reid cracked his head from side to side and began counting backwards. A ritual since his days in the academy, it allowed his mind to relax and focus before he stepped out into a windswept, violent environment.
“Listen up, guys, switch on your locators. In the event that you get swept off course, don’t sit around, regroup as fast as possible when your boots hit the ground.”
Reid felt a lump of fear in his throat as he watched them hang on his words.
“System check. Gear check.”
They spent a minute or two making sure each of them didn’t have any issues.
“All good.”
“See you on the ground, assholes,” Bulldog muttered.
One by one they made their way over to the ramp that had lowered. Outside the wind roared, but they could feel nothing but warmth inside their suits. Once they were at the right altitude and hovering over the drop zone, the light went from amber to green. Each of them moved forward in unison and jumped.
The sudden surge of his body zipping down, the sense of weightlessness and the sound of wind whipping against his bodysuit brought back a flood of memories.
“How we doing, guys?” he hollered as their voices came over the speaker. Flashes of sheet lightning might have blinded him if it hadn’t been for the dark visor which protected his eyes from the bursts of light.
In a stable free-fall position he felt the wind pushing up on him. He angled his head towards the ground and shot forward ahead of the group until he burst out of red clouds to a rich blanket of green plant life. He caught sight of the others doing the same and angling themselves as he moved towards the area they had given their internal guidance system. Like a guided missile finding its way to the target, they stayed on course cutting through the air.
Twelve thousand feet. Nearly there.
Unlike Earth where large bodies of waters and vast flat plains could be seen upon entry, this was nothing but trees. It felt like he was heading towards spikes. Another patch of red clouds and his team disappeared out of view, then reappeared beside him.
One of them was saying something to him but he couldn’t hear because of the crackle of his speaker. He was getting some disturbance. It couldn’t have been from the electrical storm because their suits were designed to withstand the worst.
Seven thousand feet. He prepared himself for landing. The flight system on his booster pack made a few adjustments on the fly taking into consideration altitude, velocity and timing. He couldn’t begin to think of all the times he had closed his eyes as he allowed it to go full-auto and take over his landings. Manual landings were only to be performed if there was a malfunction. So far his was working.
“It’s not…” Phantom muttered.
The speaker crackled again and he could tell one of them was in trouble.
“Responding.”
Reid looked over to see Phantom in a panic. His gear wasn’t functioning the way it should and he was going to have to go into manual mode. That wasn’t hard for those who dived on a regular basis. They would just switch it off and pull up at the right time, and adjust their speed. This was Phantom’s second time using one.
The problem was, Reid couldn’t help without going manual.
“Shit!”
He knew they only had minutes until they were on the ground. There was no time to think, with two words he switched to fully manual and then veered sharply to his left. “Decrease acceleration,” he shouted.
As he got closer to Phantom he knew this was going to hurt like crap. He basically had to do what someone might if they were jumping without a parachute on Earth, he reached out with both arms and plowed into him from the side. They both fell into a barrel spin while Reid held on to Phantom’s suit for dear life.
Four thousand feet. He could see the ground pushing up to meet them.
“Auto.”
It kicked in and began making last-second adjustments for the additional weight he was now carrying and the fact that he was off course. Both of them flipped, twisted and turned. From behind his visor, Phantom had the look in his eyes that most did when they thought they were about to die.
If it weren’t for their suits they would have surely blacked out. The suits worked with the environments they were in, adjusting to altitude, pressure and the unexpected. In an instant, they felt the boosters kick in, working in unison with their boots to bring them around so they were no longer heading towards the ground head first but boots first.
They vanished into a mass of leaves and branches as auto function slowly brought them down to a speed that wouldn’t break their legs upon impact. Besides the noise of wind, the sound of the boosters working at one hundred percent was all that could be heard. Phantom was saying something but it was lost in the noise around them.
No chutes were used to slow their descent. Small, lightweight but highly durable wings came out the sides of both of their backpacks, turned and worked together with the main boosters to bring them safely to the ground.
Reid was sweating, his heartbeat hammering against his chest but it was probably nothing compared to how Phantom was feeling. Being out of control in midair wasn’t something he would have wished on his worst enemy.
Once they landed, both of them exhaled hard.
“You okay, soldier?” Reid asked tapping his helmet and getting Phantom to look at him.
“Yeah, thanks,” he nodded. He patted him on the shoulder before turning to see the others landing. No time was wasted. On the screen in Reid’s HUD he brought up a map with the location of where the ambassador was being kept. They were eight klicks away, approximately five miles. In the right-hand corner he
could see a clock ticking down from sixteen hours. That was exactly how long they had to trek through the jungle, secure the package and make it back to the extract site, which was even further away than where they were now.
“Phoenix One, we have boots on the ground. Proceeding to target.”
“Roger that.”
Years of experience kicked in, his focus shifted. Now he was all about getting the operation completed. They began to haul ass through the hostile foreign world full of creatures that were liable to kill them long before they saw Draskan’s men.
On the outskirts of Trillium, high up in the forest, deep inside one of their many compounds, Ambassador Powers sat with her back against hard wood that resembled bamboo in color. Sweat dripped down her face from the humidity of the planet. It was like being in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in the summer. The sounds of the jungle were all that could be heard outside. The door to her confined room opened and Sophie was thrust in. She collapsed on the ground and let out a groan.
“Bastards!”
“Sophie,” Powers said shuffling over to her on her hands and knees. “Are you okay?”
She scowled. “I will be once I put a round in their skulls.”
“Did he ask about Kenji?”
She nodded.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. He wants the refugees returned along with the location of the chancellor.” Sophie rose to her feet and went over to the door and peered through the gaps. Outside were four patrolling Echobis. She shook her head and leaned against the door. A wave of tiredness came over her and the thought of winding up impaled in what they had called Death Valley was at the forefront of her mind.
“Don’t worry. They’ll come for us,” Powers said.
Sophie snorted. “The UEDF are great when it comes to offering a hand of unity but this is beyond them. You know it too.”
“They’ve broken the treaty, shot down an SOSR helitank. Earth won’t let this slide.”
“Whether they do or don’t, it’s going to incite a planetary war between us.”
She slumped down feeling deflated and overwhelmed at having failed to ensure the safety of the ambassador.
“I know you did everything you could,” Powers said placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I know, but look at where it’s got us.”
“I’ll reason with him.”
Sophie let out a slight chuckle. “There’s no reasoning with him. Men like Draskan only know one thing — war. That’s the only way anyone is going to stop him. As long as he has you, he has an advantage over Earth. They won’t let you die. Us. That’s another thing entirely. We signed up for this. You didn’t.”
“Actually I did. I might not carry a weapon, Sophie, but I choose to go into hostile territory and work with species that could end my life in a heartbeat. The number of times I have come this close,” she put her finger and thumb up. “Well, it’s not easy.”
“You have family?” Sophie asked.
“A husband. No children. I couldn’t have children.”
“Ah because of the job, I understand.”
“No I actually couldn’t bear children.” Her eyes dropped and she picked at the ground. “We tried everything but nothing. Anyway, that was five years ago. I’m kind of pleased I didn’t after this.”
“But you would have quit, right?”
“Maybe. Perhaps I like doing this work a little too much.”
“Well, I hope they pay you well.”
The ambassador chuckled. “Not nearly enough.”
Outside they heard a scream and Sophie knew they were working Thompson over. She was surprised they didn’t do it to her but only time would tell.
“When did you have the chancellor moved?”
“Before we landed. Our intel was showing that the number of militants was growing. People are afraid, it doesn’t take much to get them to listen. Besides, there are many that are traditionalists. They don’t want to see Drozleon change. I guess it’s a bit like Earth. We fight for ideals until new ones replace them. You have any family?”
“A father, a mother. No siblings.”
“What do they do?”
“My father was a lieutenant within the SOSR. Though he was meant to be retiring in a few days.”
“Alex Reid?”
Sophie cast a glance over to her. “Yeah, you know him?”
“Hard not to. He’s done a lot for the UEDF, you should be proud of him.”
She hesitated before she spoke, “I am.” Her face become downcast as she thought back to the last time she saw him. The arguments and the resistance her mother had shown when she told her that she was going to become an SOSR. It wasn’t like they could run from the military. Everyone on Earth had to contribute in one way or another to the UEDF, even if it was only working in factories. The problem is, she never saw herself as being tied down behind a desk designing the next generation of exoskeleton-armor, or working on craft, or even dealing with administrative duties like her mother. She was driven by the stories of her father. The accounts of war, and the bravery of soldiers who knew they wouldn’t live beyond thirty-five. It was the same fire that she saw in her father that kept her from losing her mind now, despite that fact that she knew the team that had crashed back at the embassy was her father’s.
She’d heard Gage’s voice just seconds before they went down.
A tear flowed from her eyes and down her cheek. All the things she wanted to say, all the time that had passed and she hadn’t been able to say what he meant to her. It was gone. He was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
The team moved at a brisk pace in a diamond formation. All around them the jungle sounded alive. Reid swatted at his neck as an insect landed on him and nipped at his skin. He pulled his hand away to find it covered in purple gunk.
As much as he knew about the Echobi, he was no expert in the type of creatures that made Drozleon their home. There were too many to learn about. He had heard rumors of some nasty ones, he just hoped to god they didn’t come across them.
“Activate NIV,” he muttered and the view beyond his visor went from darkness to a luminous green. It was a combination of night vision and infrared. The exoskeleton combat suit’s internal system would automatically adjust to the temperature of the environment in accordance with their body heat. If the weather was humid, it would feel like spring inside their suit. If it was overly cold, the internal heat system would activate at different points on their body and keep them warm.
Every now and again they would hear unusual noises, ungodly cries coming from the darkness that only increased the anxiety of the team. There had been no time to get familiar with all the dangers they might encounter.
“Phoenix One, Phoenix One, this is Eagle, any traffic ahead?”
“Eagle, our sensors have a unit of Echobi three miles from your location.”
“Roger that.”
They moved silently like ghostly figures blending in with their environment. The only light came from two moons. Over the comms unit Ty “Woodpecker” Jones spoke in a whisper.
“You would think with all the warships they have over this planet, the could spare a few men to come with us.”
“It’s not about how many men they have, it’s how many they are prepared to lose. We are expendable. That’s why we’re here,” Bulldog muttered.
Reid scanned for potential threats. Under the cover of night, he imagined he would have seen more animals or creatures by now, but except for the odd box flies, known for burrowing into skin and eating away at a person’s insides if left on the skin, there was nothing. No heat signatures, no dark silhouettes. It was unnerving. They waded through shallow streams, and began to hear the sound of a fast-moving river. They trekked through the dense jungle for what felt like hours.
“Three klicks out, Lt,” Phantom muttered.
They were getting closer to the target. “Priest, send out the drones.”
Priest pulled out of his pocket a small
case and slid his hand over the glass surface. It disappeared and four tiny drones no bigger than a mosquito rose into the air. They had in fact been designed after them. Small, silent and capable of staying in the air for weeks at a time, they were often used in reconnaissance missions in areas that were hard to get to, or on planets where there was only ocean. They responded to a signal that only the AI’s could register. Once activation kicked in, it acted like a beacon to bring them back. Reid pressed on into the night that wrapped him in a blanket of darkness.
In the top left corner of their HUD they could see a pulsating dot.
Uttering the word “MOS” with a number would bring up a small screen displaying a video of whatever a drone was seeing. It was beautiful technology that had saved lives and helped them to see what was coming their way long before it reached them. Though their systems could pick up militia approaching within a mile radius of them, the MOS could go beyond that and stay high enough in the air to remain undetected.
“Hold up. Did you see that?” Bulldog said referring to a large dark mass that appeared for a moment and then disappeared out of view.
“All I saw was you looking like you needed a shit,” Skinner said before breaking into a chuckle. There were times Reid wished he could turn off the comms unit. The worst was when one of them would stop to take a piss; all the oohs and ahhs were enough to snap anyone out of combat mode.
“MOS1, switch back, engage heat signature.”
Reid pulled one of the drones back and had it engage its heat-seeking feature that would allow it to hone in on anything giving off heat. It didn’t take long for it to spot whatever had been moving fast through the trees, it slipped down into water and whatever signature it was giving off, vanished.
“MOS1 rejoin.”
It turned and within a matter of minutes it would catch up to the rest of the drones.
“So?” Viper asked.
“Nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing and he certainly didn’t want to bullshit them, but right now they weren’t going anywhere near where that thing had gone. They trudged on getting closer to the target.