Orbital Deployment Station Altair, Low Earth Orbit
[14/5/2056]
Ricardo Vega stood on the roof of the world.
A curved window gave him an expansive view of the globe as it turned serenely beneath him. The lights were off in the observation deck, so the reflected light of the planet below softened the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw, and cast his brown skin in aquatic shades.
The Earth turned tranquilly beneath his feet, a polished jewel of brilliant hues. Vast swathes of ochre and burnt orange met the cool blue oceans - and through all of them was ever-present, iridescent green of Tiberium tendrils. It could almost be mistaken for natural plantlife, if you squinted. But open your eyes, and it was clear the planet was dying. Strains of green ran the course of the Nile, choking the once life-bringing river.
Vega looked for familiar landmarks on the night side of the planet. The Blue Belt was a shimmering ring around the North Atlantic. Clusters of light denoted the last major cities. The French Free Zone, Manchester stood out amongst the inky blackness, as did Fort Solomon, where he had trained for gruelling months after being accepted to the elite Rapid Assault and Intercept Deployment Corps.
Even the oceans had taken on a sickly pallor. They were marred by vast algal blooms, which almost blended with the dessicated grey of the diseased deserts. As a new day dawned over the Americas, the Great Amazon Dust Basin was illuminated. Glistening crystalline threads sprawled north towards the Yucatan, like infected veins on a giant beast. His family home was somewhere in that mass of otherworldly green.
Vega sighed. That dead rock was no home to him anymore. Home was a place to live; Earth was a tomb, awaiting the interment of its final occupants.
*Ding*
A light chime roused him from his morbid meditations. Vega looked down at his wrist-mounted comms. It registered his gaze automatically, and the screen blinked into life. RAID Squad: Eagle, suit up for Orbital Deployment and report to the Hangar Bay, said the scrolling text on the screen. A synthesised female voice repeated the message flatly in his ears.
Vega felt a thrill run through him. The adrenaline tingled in his fingertips as he turned on his heel and sprinted from the observation deck.
In the corridor outside, a handful of troopers were stampeding in the same direction.
"Hey, what's the word?" he asked a squat, broad-shouldered woman as she passed.
"Who knows," she replied, jogging backwards briefly as she turned to face Vega. "Probably just buzzing some Noddies who stuck their heads outta their holes." She grinned broadly at the prospect.
"Let's put the fear of god into the fuckers," a tall black man slapped Vega on the back as he passed. "Ooh-ra," he replied.
The armoury was bustling with activity, as the rest of his squad converged on it. Vega dashed over to the locker bearing his name and pressed his palm against a blinking scanner. The sealed container opened with a hiss, and articulated arms pushed its contents forward.
The GD-X looked like a high-tech blend of a spacesuit and Mediaeval knight's armour. It consisted of a sleek black bodysleeve, lined with white ceramic plates, with the outline of a chunky propulsion system built into its back. Its helmet had a wide blue visor that reflected Vega's chiselled face back to him.
He donned the torso segment. With a whir, its articulated plates tightened, fitting to his body and interfacing with his wearable computing devices. The gauntlets and boots quickly followed, and soon Vega was encased in vacuum-rated armour. Last of all was the helmet, composed of a black neck seal and a backplate in its stowed mode. It fit snugly over his head.
Beneath the rack of armour, a separate bracket held a fusion of blocky grey modules and two silver rails. The Multimode Munitions Delivery System was a cutting edge piece of hardware. Each unit cost as much to produce as a Main Battle Walker, and was capable of dishing out just as much damage.
Vega lifted the hefty MMDS. Sensors in his glove interfaced with the weapon as he made contact with its handgrip. A diagnostics panel appeared in the lower left corner of his helmet's heads up display. Across the armoury, the other members of his squad were engaged in similar checks of their equipment. They cut imposing figures, standing a good half a foot taller in their heavy armour, and brandishing weapons longer than a mounted turret.
"Been waiting to test this thing out on some live targets," Amon enthused in an accent he insisted was 'North London', but Vega just knew as 'English'.
"Eagle Squad, hangar bar, pronto!" A terse female voice broke over their squad channel. It had none of the synthetic detachment of the EVA unit's voice, and brooked no disagreement. Without hesitation, Eagle Squad thundered into the corridor.
The hangar bay was a hive of activity. In the middle sat a blocky shape; all metal armour plating covered in tan paint. Flight technicians in grey jumpsuits were clambering over it, detaching black umbilical tubes and sealing hatches.
In front of the Orbital Assault Craft stood Captain Tera Gallagher, her face framed by the retracted visor of her helmet. Her brown hair was pulled back from her forehead in a tight bun. It lent her square face a severe aspect.
"Alright, Eagle Squad," she greeted the soldiers as they came to a halt. "We're dropping right into the thick of it; I'll brief you on the way down. "With that, Gallagher turned and rapidly scaled the rungs on the craft's hull. She swung her legs gracefully through the hatch and dropped inside. The rest of the squad followed suit, their boots banging against the metal gantry.
The inside of the craft was dimly lit, the only illumination provided by low-wattage running lights at ankle height. The space was cramped, most of it taken up by bulky seats surrounded crash cages. The couches would have dwarfed the average infantryman, but in their state of the art power armour, there was barely enough room for the RAID team to move without getting wedged into place.
As Vega dropped into his acceleration couch, the crash cage lowered automatically. Its metal frame embraced the blocky edges of his armour, locking him in place.
He looked to his right. Amon was locked in for launch too. The trooper gave Vega an enthusiastic thumbs up, and his smile gleamed from behind a semi-translucent faceplate. Vega returned the gesture.
They felt a moment of free fall as the clamps holding the Assault Craft released, then a short shove as spring-loaded arms pushed it away from the station. Vega pulled up an external camera feed on his visor. The OrbDep Station was a squat disc, its hangar bay a blocky growth spearing through the centre. The bay doors slid shut, cutting off the light from within.
The OAC kicked on its own engines, pushing the craft into an atmosphere-grazing orbit. Within a minute, the wisps of the upper atmosphere began buffeting it, and the fires of reentry licked at the black ceramic tiles of its underside.
Vega gripped the bars holding him in place, and winced as a particularly rough jolt knocked his head against the hull. The Orbital Assault Craft was built for durability and rapid deployment anywhere in the world; passenger comfort was a distant second priority.
"Here's the situation," Captain Gallagher announced over the squad's comms channel. "A militia in Yellow Zone 1 has attacked a prisoner convoy in the outskirts of Gdańsk. The target is Veselko Lazic, former Nod Science Minister, and currently the primary expert on Tiberium mutation." A mugshot of a defiant, square-jawed man with blue eyes and thinning blond hair appeared on Vega's HUD. "This is not someone we want getting back into the hands of the 'faithful'. Intel suggests elements of the Black Hand are in situ, so we're dealing with something more organised than an angry mob. Our objective is to relieve GDI forces on the ground and take possession of Lazic."
The globe beneath them was rapidly flattening out into a dull brown landscape, streaked with clouds. A greyish scar of concrete to the north of their landing site must be Gdańsk. The city was lit by sporadic bursts of light.
A discordant beeping filled the hold, and the running lights flared red. Signal lock. Vega scrutinised the landing cam. A cluster of brilliant lights had appeared over the brown hills to the south. White streaks of vapour followed them, slowly diffusing in the jet stream.
"LZ's hot," the pilot remarked, as nonchalantly as if he was discussing the weather. Vega felt their craft tip sharply. On his screen, one of the rockets soared past the ship's belly, then turned in a steep burn, to bear down on them. Point defence cannons swivelled to track the incoming missiles. The hull rattled as they discharged. A stream of bright flashes darted out from their craft, a line that swept the sky until it intercepted the glowing point that was the enemy rocket. When the two met, a brilliant sphere of fire flared into existence, and just as quickly faded into a cloud of glittering shrapnel.
A chattering vibration rang out through the hull. Area suppression cannons mounted in the craft's belly were letting off a fusillade, saturating the landing zone with bullets.
"Coming up on deceleration, brace yourselves" the pilot announced.
The OAC's engines kicked hard, and the craft tilted back steeply as it decelerated. The walls of the vessel dropped away, and the frame holding Vega flung him outwards. The roll cage opened up, ejecting him into the open air as his jump-jets activated automatically.
Time slowed to a crawl.
He surveyed the battlefield beneath him like a god, an eagle on the wing.
They had descended into the centre of a maelstrom. The Assault Craft was hovering on columns of blue fire in a depression between two steep ridges. A pothole-ridden strip of asphalt ran the length of the channel. A few hundred feet away, a cluster of armoured transports were arrayed around a gap between two tall apartment blocks. The city's defenders were on the back foot; most of the buildings he could see were little more than skeletons of rebar and concrete pillars.
A cluster of black-armoured figures had disembarked from the trucks, and were advancing towards the structures. Red capes billowed from their shoulders, each emblazoned by an emblem that marked them as elite shock troops of the fearsome Black Hand, fanatical religious enforcers and secret police of the Brotherhood.
Sporadic weapons fire burst from the upper storey of a nearby building, but the implacable shock troops of the Black Hand weathered it without injury. They methodically cleared a path, cutting down soldiers with beams of laser fire as casually as swatting a fly.
From his soaring vantage point, Vega saw several heavy weapons mounted on the trucks, but nothing that resembled the rockets that had attempted to shoot down their landing craft. The enemy could have stealthed assets concealed nearby, waiting for a chance to snuff them out.
Unable to locate the most pressing threat, Vega highlighted the armoured trucks. May as well cut off their retreat. He flicked a toggle on the side of his MMDS. A drum magazine emerged from midway down the blocky weapon. With a twitch of his finger, six metallic darts jetted forward on streams of hypergolic fire. They shot out in a graceful arc before plunging down with an ear-splitting scream. The transports buckled and deformed as six columns of fire bloomed.
Vega let his jump jets carry him in a ballistic arc. He alighted atop the left ridge, and skidded down just below the summit on the far side. Less of a target for whatever is hidden out there.
Its contingent of soldiers deployed, the OAC roared skyward once more. Much of its armour plating had been jettisoned. Its chainguns rattled, peppering the advancing infantry with armour-piercing rounds. One of the caped figures staggered, and was cut down by a second burst. The others scattered, diving for shelter behind the flaming ruins of their armour support, or in the ground levels of the gutted buildings.
The drum magazine disappeared back into its housing, ammunition depleted. Something resembling a conventional rifle barrel emerged. Vega's heads up display automatically enhanced his view of the battlefield. The chitinous, armoured forms of enemy shock troops were as clear as if they were standing ten feet away.
He took aim at the shoulder of one figure as they bobbed into view, and let loose a quick burst. The railgun-accelerated rounds left streams of vapour in their wake, as the moisture in the air was flash-steamed by the supersonic barrage. For all their power, the rounds dig negligible damage, chipping the advanced composite armour but not penetrating. The figure grunted at the impacts, and dropped behind the burning wreckage. Just as rapidly, the crimson barrel of a vicious looking rifle appeared. Vega threw himself to the ground as a red beam of crackling energy split the air. Heat washed over him, and an alarm blared in his ear.
Temperature critical, red text flashed on his HUD. Vega quashed the alarm. The ceramic armour of his upper arm was glowing a cherry red. The beam had gouged a furrow from the thick plate, but hadn't reached the underlayer, or his vulnerable flesh. That laser rifle posed a deadly threat, even with the advanced GD-X environment suit protecting him.
Vega rolled a few feet to the left, and risked peering over the ridge. A laser bolt nearly took his head off. "Tangos have me pinned on the west ridge, requesting covering fire," he spoke over the squad channel.
"Copy, Eagle 3," the pilot responded. Vega saw the hovering craft roll a few degrees, as it circled around the wreckage for a clear line of sight. He patched into the craft's belly cam again. The opposing squad wavered into view through the heat haze rising from their torched vehicles. They peppered the underside of the craft with laser fire. Unfortunately for them, the ceramic tiles that lined its belly were built to survive the fiery temperatures of reentry, and it absorbed the fusillade with barely a mark.
With his foes momentarily distracted by a more pressing target, Vega leaped to his feet. He squeezed out three bursts of gunfire at the unarmoured backs of knees. Three enemies dropped into the dirt as their lower extremities were shredded by high-velocity rounds. Next, he took aim at the bulky power pack which was slung over the back of a fallen warrior. The hefty battery sparked and smoked as his bullets hit, then burst into flames. Liquid fire spewed over the prone figures as whatever hideously toxic materials fueled the weapon ignited.
Even over the din of combat, Vega could hear their screams. He isolated the wavelength and had his suit filter it out. Blissful silence, he thought, before an explosion ripped through the air above him.
The Assault Craft rocked as a missile struck its flank. Its chainguns chattered, but only kicked up puffs of dust. Vega glimpsed a ripple on the ridge beneath the hovering craft, more solid than a heat haze. A beetle-like shape coalesced out of the distortion.
"Stealth tank!" he shouted. It had a hunch-backed carapace with four articulated treads. Smoke bloomed from concealed tubes in its hull, and a salvo of missiles streaked out towards the aircraft.
The ship pitched up too late. The missiles struck with a series of deep whumps. The OAC spun out of control, billowing black smoke, and arced down into the rooftops. There was a flare of jets from the cockpit as the pilot ejected, a moment before the ship ploughed through the side of an apartment. The impact shook the ground and rained debris over the battlefield. Vega leapt to the side, and the jets in his suit puffed once, propelling him away from danger. The spot where he had been standing turned into a cloud of smoke and concrete shards.
He spun to face the tank, but in his evasive action he'd lost his bead on it, and it had cloaked again. He changed the settings of his HUD, and the hillside lit up in bright primary colours. Streaks of bright red crossed his vision, flaring into brilliant white stars as they intersected other coloured blobs. A dark blue shape was barely visible, silhouetted against the paler cyan of the sky.
He flicked the toggle again. With a click, the rifle barrel retracted into its casing. A blocky protrusion swung out to take its place. Ports along its side glowed blue, and it hummed with power in his hands.
Vega lined up the railgun barrel with the dark shape, and pulled the trigger. The thick black cables along the underside of the weapon pulsed like arteries. There was an ear-splitting crack, and a flash of energy like a lightning bolt obscured the target as electromagnetic rails accelerated a tank-busting projectile up to Mach 4. The air vaporised ahead of it as it left the firing channel.
The trail of superheated vapour cleared, revealing the wreckage of the tank. Its armoured casing was cracked open like a crab shell, exposing the delicate innards. The pilot was a red smear across what remained of the cockpit. The gunner, seated to his left, seemed to have fared better. The man frantically unbuckled his restraints with one gore-streaked hand. There was a second, fainter crack, and he slumped back into the cockpit, limp.
"Didn't know I'd be cleaning up your leftovers," Amon chuckled over the radio band.
"Thought I'd leave at least one for you!" Vega called back to him.
"Cut the chatter, comedians," Gallagher cut in. "We've got a lot more folks to kill before we're through here." The Captain took to the sky in an arc of fire. The rest of the squad followed suit, leaving behind a smoking field of wreckage and corpses.