Several days later…
The hanger of the Fortune's Favored was a network of walled in narrows, designed to funnel the Chem-Dogs to drop ships and allow the armsmen on the pathways above to maintain control and authority. Weapons wouldn't be unlocked until the troops were safely on the ground and pointed at the enemy.
Hundreds of soldiers all talking about their deployment, taunting an unknown enemy, threatening the guards, etc.; the noise was nearly deafening. So much so that it was unnoticed when Corr's team was pulled aside and lead under armed escort down a separate corridor. They emerged at boarding ramp of a Valkyrie. The commissar stood at the foot of the ramp, hands clasped behind his back.
"Reporting as ordered." Corr said. He didn't salute, and the commissar didn't seem to care. He looked over the team with a practiced eye and then produced a datapad and scanned it momentarily.
"When I call your name, step forward." he said. "Briggs, Risha. Corporal." Briggs stepped forward, managing to look both bored and annoyed at the same time. "Sentenced to Savlar for insubordination, assaulting a commanding officer and theft. Step into the Valkyrie." Briggs ascended the ramp and disappeared into the ship without a word.
"Stakely, Dekko. Guardsman." Stakely shuffled forward a step, clearly more interested in whatever he was digging out of his ear than in anything the commissar had to say. "Sentenced to Savlar for looting and the violent murder of a civilian. Board the ship."
"Sure sure." Stakely said with a non-committal shrug. "Stayin' safe was boring anyway."
"Mason, Clyde. Guardsman. Sentenced to Savlar for murder and kidnapping." Mason frowned.
"There's an explanation for tha-"
"Shut up and board the Valkyrie, trooper." The commissar said. Mason sighed and climbed the ramp without another word.
"Callahan, Wren. Guardsman." Callahan stepped forward and smiled broadly.
"Call me Cally, sir." The commissar looked at Callahan, sneered and then returned his eyes to his pad.
"Sentenced to Savlar for murder, assaulting a commanding officer and theft."
"Uh, ya forgot selling stolen goods and attempting to bribe a commanding officer." Callahan added, leaning forward to peer at the commissar's datapad. The commissar took a step back and jerked his head in the direction of the gunship.
"Just. Board. The ship." He hissed. Callahan shrugged and hustled aboard the Valkyrie as the commissar turned his attention to Corr.
"Four days, Sergeant. By then the rest of the force will reach the palace. If it is not rubble by then, the rest of the 66th will be thrown at it, wave after wave, until it is." He said.
"Right, no pressure." Corr muttered, stepping past the commissar and climbing the boarding ramp. "Keep the porch light on. We'll be back before you know it."
"I assure you, I am positively a quiver." The commissar muttered as the ramp shut.
The Valkyrie dropped low, screaming over the gnarled husks that Strontius Prime called trees. Corr sat back in his seat, eyes shut, head bobbing side to side as the Valkyrie searched for viable drop site to offload its cargo of dangerous scum.
"I hate you, Sarge! Volunteering me for this frakkin' suicide mission!" Stakely hissed as he adjusted the straps on his rebreather and took a few testing breaths. Corr smirked and opened his eye a crack to stare at the man.
"Volunteered? You must be mistaken. I ordered you." He said. Stakely respond with a sneer and an obscene gesture that only someone from his homeworld would be offended by. Corr ignored it.
"So tell me again, why the hell are we here?" Callahan said. He leaned forward, snorted and spat a gobbet of yellow phlegm on the floor grate.
"Weren't you listening? This mud ball has a little traitor problem. We're being sent in to burn the house down so the roaches can't have it." Briggs said calmly. Stakely flashed his broken smile.
"Ooh, I do like a little bonfire." He said. "Maybe this won't be so bad."
Briggs shook her head and pulled her goggles over her eyes.
Suddenly the lights in the cabin turned a dirty yellow in color.
"Masks on kids. Strontius has air worse than Stakely's breath." Corr said as he pulled all the straps tight on his mask. The four thick hoses ran over his shoulders on both sides and he shrugged his shoulders to get them to settle in a somewhat more comfortable position. Stale air pumped in and he took a couple of deep breaths to test the rig.
"Man! Dig that fresh air!" Mason called through the vox bead.
"God-Emperor, I hate you..." Briggs mumbled.
"Everyone got their breathers on?" Corr called. A short chorus of affirmatives met his question as the Valkyrie shuddered violently as it suddenly dropped in speed and banked hard.
"This is your captain speaking. We've found a nice piece of swamp-adjacent real estate to drop you in. Tuck and roll folks." The pilot called over their vox feed. The boarding ramp hissed open and dust and fetid air flooded in as the Valkyrie slowed to hover over the swamp. There was a loud grating noise as the sealed crate containing most of their gear slid down the ramp and splashed into the swamp.
"Move it!" Corr slapped his restraint release and sprinted down the ramp. He leapt off the edge of the ramp and dropped twenty feet into muddy water and quickly disappeared beneath its surface. Briggs and Mason quickly followed, but Stakely stopped and peered over the edge.
"Ah man. I got a bad feeling about this." he muttered. Callahan clapped a hand onto his back.
"Choice is this or Savlar, man." he said before stepping off the edge. Stakely swore under his breath before he banged his hand hard against the bulkhead and jumped off the ramp as it began to close.
Extricating themselves from the thick mud proved to be more difficult than Corr would've liked. The brackish crud nearly swallowed their gear.
"We missing anything?" Corr asked as he wiped mud from his breather.
"Think I'm missin' a canister of promethium." Mason said as he hoisted his heavy flamer from the case and dug muck out of the igniter with a finger. The sealed case proved to be not so sealed when it's dropped onto a rock hidden beneath the brackish waves. Briggs sat on the shore, grumbling and cleaning her sniper rifle like a mad woman.
"Aren't those things rated for air drop?" she hissed as she peered through her scope before cleaning the lenses for a third time. Stakely slung his lasgun over one shoulder and looked around.
"Which way we supposed to go? This all looks the same?" he said, gesturing at the swampland. Corr stood and tucked his laspistol into his holster as he moved to stand next to Stakely.
"Intel says it should be two days trek to the north." Corr said, gesturing to an unremarkable stretch of swampland. Once we reach the palace, we'll need to sneak past the defenses and locate the munitions depot. Gotta be somethin' there that'll bring the house down."
"I love it when the plans all fall into place." Callahan said as he adjusted his breather straps.
"Briggs. You memorize the map like I asked?" Corr said, looking over his shoulder at the woman.
"Nah, too much work. I lifted it before we deployed." She said, fishing a hand into her thigh pocket. After a moment she pulled out a folded up map and handed it over before returning to cleaning her rifle.
"Atta girl." Corr said, taking the map and unfolding it to peer at it. "Now look. We're here." He said, jabbing his finger onto the map. He slowly dragged it across it, stopping at the top of the map. "And here's the objective. Now here, right in the middle is an old settlement. We should be able to rest there. We can probably make it there in just under eight hours."
"What if it's not friendly." Mason asked. Corr smirked and pat his laspistol.
"The settlement should be abandoned. But if it's not, we'll have to make it that way. Pack your things. We have a long hike. And I'd like to find some shelter before we need to change tanks."