Chapter 2:
Mars
City
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My eyes snapped open as the transport vessel's cryo-stasis chambers deactivated their containment systems. This awakening had little unusual effect on me in part for the numerous times I have had been through this process. I heard the drainage seal snap open as the oxygen rich liquid that surrounded me began to drain from the chamber. I wondered if the newer marines in my squad would awaken without incident, they'd never been 'frozen' before. At the instant that the cool liquid had released my head from its cool, somewhat soothing, grasp I exhaled all of it to be drained. A few minutes later the plexi glass door in front of me slid to the side allowing me to step out onto the cold titanium plating. After exitting my chamber I heard the doors of several other chambers hiss as their doors slid to the side allowing their prisoners to step out.
Private Vasquez and Private first Class DuGalle simultaneously fell from their chambers coughing the remainder of the liquids from their lungs. Corporal Hiate and Corporal Smith stepped calmly from their chambers and stood at attention immediatly until I walked passed them. Shortly after I passed the corporals I heard my Master Sergeant step from her chamber and quickly follow me. I halted briefly allowing her to walk alongside me. After he'd succesfully hacked most of the liquid form his lungs Hiate looked up at the MSgt and scanned her naked figure letting out a low whistle. I glared fiercly down at him and placed my foot firmly into his side. "Sorry Stuko..." Hiate quickly noticed his mistake and corrected himself. "Sorry, sir, I did not mean to stare at the Sarge..." He apologized. "You'd better apologize to her for your lack of self control." I growled before stepping by.
Once I reached the lockers at the back of the large stasis room I wrenched the locker, which had 1LT Kidaj Stukov, open. "Sir... Whay are we being shipped out here to Mars City?" Master Sergeant Helios asked me before gently pulling her locker open. I sighed as I pulled the lower portion of my armour up to my waist. "Mars City requested additional security, we were the 'lucky' bunch who got the call." I replied boredly pulling the chest piece of my armour around me. I stared blankly at the remaining pieces of my armour that hung in the locker. The piece that caught my attention most of all was the helmet. It was sleek and seemed to be visorless, most would think it impossible to see out of. Along the center of the helm where a thin glowing sensor strip was placed '1LT Kidaj Stukov' was painted in white. I pulled the helm over my head followed shortly by the arm pieces of the armour. Each arm had a single silver bar against the sage green shoulder.
After I snapped every seal in place and seperated myself from the outside world I turned to Helios and held my arms out to the side. "What do you think of the new armour they gave us?" I asked as she finished setting the chest plate in place. "Well, it is a lot lighter than the old stuff... more sleek too." She repleid, her eyes seemed to be tracing the acid green sensor strips that ran along several areas of the suit's exterior as well as the polished sage coloring. Shortly after the Master Sergeant and I had completly donned our armoured combat uniforms the rest of my squad entered the small lokcer room, which was almost immediatly follwoed by the departure of Helios and I.
The forward cabin of this transport vessel in particular was far more luxurious than anything me or the other rangers were sued to seeing, the six hundred sixty-sixth rangers and I were each seated in black leather chairs, MSgt Helios was seated aside me. "This is your pilot speaking, fasten your seatbelts we're about to enter the martian atmosphere." A computarized voice said somewhat boredly over the intercom. "You heard the man, fasten your restraints!" I commanded my team through our armour's internalized comm systems. I heard the snaps of several small restraints tighten aroun me, I didn't really care if it'd done the same to the others.
The titanium infrastructure of the tranposrt moaned and rattled when we hit the atmosphere. After merely a minute the rattling had stopped but the starship moaned still under the atmospheric pressure. Within another few minutes I could see the rust red martian landscape begin to shoot by the viewports that'd just opened. We were still travelling at extremly high supersonic veolcities when I began to see large metal structures begin to jut out of the rockface. I was surprised at the ship's rate of decelaeration as we approached a large docking silo. The large doors contianing the Mars City atmosphere from the uninhabitabal martian atmosphere began to open. The tranport lurched downward after the doors were open. This hangar was gigantic several tranports arriving and departing that were similar to this one lined a platform at the side of what had at one time been a canyon.
Before the ship had been grasped by the hangar's stabilizer arms I had assembled my squad at the departure ramp. The doors hissed open allowing me and my men to walk down the ramp that had extended. All of our duffel bags were already assembled at the base of the ramp. As we left the ship I activate dthe internal comm sys again, "I want you all to meet me at Marine command at eighteen hundred hours," I commanded the squad after refering to one of the numerous digiatal clocks around the hangar bay. I was answered by a chorus of 'Yes sir's.
I walked towards a set of large airlock doors that appeared able for a light armour vehicle to fit. The doors opened allowing Helios and I to walk into the small room behind them. The room had a pair of strange devices on the left wall while the right wall was completly made of plexiglass. "Well..." The scientist behind the glass said looking at our shining dark sage green armour. "I'm going to have to aske the two of you to each stand in one of those red squares..." He told us gesturing to the red outlines on the ground. Helios and I nodded and stepped into our respective squares. "Alright don't move now, this'll take a moment." the sceintist added broedly as he flipped a series of switches. The small romo that we stood in darkened as a red beam of light sprouted from the devices behind us. The light moved above our squares and I quickly figured out that the lights were a biological sensors. The lasers retreated back to their origin and deactivated allowing the room to lighten again. I looked at Master Sergeant Helios then at the scitentist who had gestured toward the opposite airlock door. The hydraulics within the airlock door hissed as the radial and barred locks began to unfasten.