The Skimmer shot across the desert at the typical blinding pace, Paul hadn't been on Titan long, but he knew better than to sit right by the two side port entrances, where sand blew in fast enough to choke a man to death, right where Paul had the misfortune of sitting. He was forced to life his legs off the ground to stop the sand from getting irreversibly lodged in his boots. Suddenly, the sand stopped coming in, the Skimmer had lifted into the air, about 300 feet off the ground, preventing the sand from flowing in the passenger compartment.

In the break, some men started shifting around, moving some gear and a tarp that covered a specific seat. The shifting of the gear revealed a archaic looking CD player, heavily repaired with Olive Drab duct tape, and affixed to the passenger seat with the same. A Black man fiddled with the buttons on the front a little, and then reached behind the player to retrieve something. He came up with an odd looking Plastic case, glanced at it, and then threw it to Paul.

"Yo, chuck that out the window for me, will ya?" He bellowed across the Skimmer. Paul looked down at the case, there was an image of a blonde woman on the cover with blonde hair, below her was text that read "Mariah Carry: The best of"

"Hey, I fuckin' like Mariah Carry!" bellowed another, as of yet unidentified man holding an M24, identifying him as a sniper. The black man looked back at him, and yelled once more.

"Ya know Tabasco, if it weren't for the fact that you've killed at least 150 men, I wouldn't hesitate to call you a queer." He said with a chuckle. The other and simply pointed to him and made some sort of symbolic, brotherly gesture. Paul wondered what had just happened, but he had the feeling that it was some sort of major happening in inter-platoon politics. The Skimmer made a sudden shift, and tilted backwards a little, with the sudden change of angle, something came out of the cockpit, Paul caught it with his boot, he looked at at, and come to the frightening realization that it was indeed a Beer can that he had just caught with his boot. He had heard that the combat pilots on Titan were "high-strung, yet strangely laid back".

"Yo, Sparky, you sure your alright to drive this thing?" Yelled Animal.

"Shut your sprek hole Animal, we're coming up on Apollo now.

Paul was surprised at the little time it took to travel from the camp to the city. He knew it was about 62 Kilometers, but they mush have been going faster than he originally though. The man fussing with the CD player also looked surprised. He looked out the door, with a sense of pointless optimism that maybe, just maybe, they weren't going into direct combat with the Rebels, maybe they were just relocating displaced civilians, or something else humanitarian like that.

No such luck.

As he looked out the door, what he saw made him sick again, there were thick plooms of black smoke rising up from the street, at least a dozen or so. The skimmer took a sudden drop in altitude, doing little to help Pauls stomach. They crossed close to a burning tank wreck, clearly a Galactic Union configuration. There were dead bodies littered around, charred from the explosion of the tank. The skimmer slowed, eventually coming to a hover over an intersection, it began a slow decent, Paul wondered why they were stopping where they were. There didn't seem to be any combat at the area, and from what he understood about the briefing, most of the fighting was concentrated in the North Western sector of the City, where the IPMC had brought in the fresh reinforcements in an attempt to drive the Glactic Union out of the city. The skimmer came to a hover, about three feet over the intersection, Paul looked towards Animal.

"What are we doing here?" He asked.

"Probably a pickup for a SO team." Replied Animal matter-of-factly.

"SO?" Asked Paul

"Special Operations." Replied Animal

Paul looked outside the door and sure enough, two people, wearing the traditional blanket like, off-white canvas garb that was traditional to those on Titan, came running out of the burned and broken remains of a store. The one to come out first made a straight Sprint for the Skimmer, while the one in back followed, not at a sprint, but rather a trot, swinging there short barreled G36 around in every direction, covering there advance. The first one made it to the Skimmer reached up into the passenger compartment, shoving there rifle in Paul's Face.

"You, take this!" Much to Paul's surprise, it wasn't a Man, but in fact a woman's voice hidden behind the Shegmah covering her face. Paul took the Rifle quickly and threw it into his lap. He turned to give the woman a helping hand getting onto the carrier, but by the time he looked up the woman was already in the carrier, with the other one right behind her. The second one boarded the carrier wit ha little less finesse, whoever it was threw there rifle up onto the deck and jumped into the carrier. They both sat on the floor, backs to the cockpit, the second one scooping up there rifle as whoever it was did so. The woman yelled to the inebriated pilot to life off, the Skimmer quickly did so.

As the Skimmer lifted off, the woman removed her head wrap. Paul looked over in amazement, he had expected this horrible looking woman with scars and cuts across her face, as he was led to believe most of the Titan Special Operations Unit had. She was rather an extremely beautiful woman, she had jaw length brown hair, and striking features.

"He wasn't there!" she yelled to the back of the carrier, to a man that Paul had not noticed before.

"Sergeant, this is not the time or place to talk about your mission." The strange man yelled back. The woman looked at him like she had just been cheated, but didn't put up any further a fight. Paul looked away briefly, and realized that he still had her rifle in his hands. He looked at her cautiously.

"Sergeant, I believe this is yours." He said, passing her the scoped rifle. She received it with a passing glance and a slight "Thanks". Paul looked over at Animal, who just shrugged his shoulders and went back to what ever he was doing. Without warning, a cry came from the cockpit.

"STRIKER! HOLD ON TO YOUR ASSES!" The carrier banked suddenly, and sharply to the right, turning almost 90 degrees in one direction, sending the woman sitting on the floor hurling towards the window.

Paul still wonders what made him do what he did, at that particular time in his life, he was still rather timid, and didn't think himself capable of such feats. Without even thinking, his hands acting with a speed and precision beyond him, he unbuckled himself from the carrier seat, and made a dive for the woman., grabbing her wrist, just as she slid out the door.

In his moment of insanity, Paul failed to think that by unbuckling himself, he too would slide across the sharply banked carrier floor. His only saving grace was the large, rugged hand of Animal grabbing him by his left ankle, holding himself into the carrier with merely a seat strap. The whole thing would have perhaps looked amusing to a civilian onlooker, but to Paul, it was the most terrifying thing he could think of in existence. He looked down as the woman hung onto his wrist with hands, small arms fire tracer rounds and Striker AA rockets streaking below her. But she didn't look panicked, far from it, she merely looked determined to survive this ordeal, treating it as if it were as ordinary as eating a meal, or going shopping.

The pilot yelled from upfront "We're coming up on the drop zone, just hold on your three until we land!" The carrier leveled out a little and flew straight again, no longer turning. Paul noticed that the situation wasn't in fact that dire, that his grip on the woman was firm, and Animals grip on him was even firmer. The only X factor was the strength of the seatbelt, which seemed to be holding firmly. Paul looked down at the woman once more and said the only thing he could think of in his panicked mind.

"Hi, I'm Paul…" He blurted out. She looked up at him with a small laugh and a smile.

"I'm Electra…"

"The pilot says we just need to hold on, we should be landing shortly."

"Ok" she said with a pause "I can live with that."

Paul took a second to look around outside the carrier, he was an intersection coming, heavily fortified with GU soldiers and barricades, he presumed that was there landing point. He saw trenches on all sides of the intersection, fortified with heavy Machine Gun posts, and another Skimmer dropping off what looked to be the rest of Dog company. Paul looked back down to see how the woman was doing, she seemed fine. He yelled back to Animal.

"Animal, how ya' doing?" The response he got was less than pleasant.

"Oh, just fucking ducky, if the fall from my arm snapping off doesn't kill your stupid ass, I will when we land!" Paul looked back down at the woman.

"We'll be fine…" He yelled down to her.

And indeed they were, the Skimmer hovered over the intersection, Paul dropped the woman and she landed cat-like on her feet. Animal felt the sudden drop in weight and pulled Paul into the carrier with such force that he hit his chin on the lip of the carrier floor, nearly rendering himself unconscious. Animal stood up and walked over to him, giving him a helping hand and a look of "What in gods name possessed you to do that". Paul shrugged it off, grabbed his rifle and hoped out of the carrier. Upon landing on the street, he promptly vomited again, much to the amusement of Electra. Paul looked up from his heaving, to see Electra standing there.

"Thanks for grabing me, you must have done some crazy things to consider a move like that… how long you been here, two years or so?"

"Uh actually it's my first time into combat…" Electra looked surprised.

"Well, thank you for doing what you did Paul Miles." Paul looked up at her

"How did you know my last name? Paul asked.

"It's on your uniform dumb ass."

"Oh." Paul replied as the last of the platoon got out of the carrier. Animal walked over to him and stood there with a look of "I'm going to hit you". The woman climbed back into the carrier, assisted by her counterpart who was strangely absent. Taking a note from Electra, he looked at the tags on there uniforms. They read "Volaju" on the covered man, and "Ovilo" on Electra's uniform. Paul watched as the carrier started to lift off, Clectra standing in the door way.

"Don't get killed Paul, I might see you in my line of work one day."

"Feah… yeah right…" He muttered to himself. Looking at the figure in the ascending carrier. Without warning something flew out of the carrier, towards Paul. He caught it, the weight of it hurting him He looked in his arms to see the Womans rifle in his hands. Not knowing much about guns he didn't know what it was, or what company made it, but it looked expensive, very expensive. Paul glanced over to Animal who had a pleased look on his face, as usual.

"My grandpapy warned me about women who know how to use guns." With that he walked off, towards the crowd of soldiers waiting to be told where to set up.

Paul glanced behind him and then did a turn to look at the crowd.

The storm was still coming, and he had no idea what to do.