AN: Next chapter! And yes, inspiration for this chapter does come from the epic Orbital Drop Shock Troopers of Halo fame (aka ODST's). Also, from the Space Marines of Warhammer 40,000 fame. And the actual air drops in Normandy and Holland.
...point being, there's a lot of sources I drew on for this chapter. Hope you like it :D
Oh, and to those that have reviewed, thank you very much for the supportive comments.
The mustering bay where all the remaining Imperial troops awaited on the HMIS Invincible was abuzz with activity as the ship-wide communications systems had previously relayed the message which started the whole mess.
"Attention, Attention," the female voice had said through the speakers. "Airfleet Task Force Alpha through Delta have been granted leave to move forward towards the target. All personnel within these Task Forces are to prepare for future drop into combat."
That announcement alone had caused the waiting troops in the mustering bay to snap out of their lethargic vigil and into action. Soon, where groups had previously been formed to play cards or chat away the time, soldiers—male and female—were running to and fro, quickly gathering gear and ammunition and gathering in their respective sections.
It was interesting that none of the men in question wore the khaki uniforms of the Imperial Army. Instead, they were loose, black uniforms, with all major body sections specifically tailored so that in the event that it becomes necessary for emergency bandaging, the required piece of cloth could easily come off with sufficient physical force.
At the very back of the massive mustering bay, surrounded by the fleeting forms of running soldiers, was 21-year old Victoria "Vicky" McVey, a new recruit into her present company, though by no means a new recruit overall. She had already participated in so many numerous engagements that the brown-eyed, raven-haired young woman had the typical detached look of a soldier who'd seen too much already.
Yet, sitting on the floor and watching everyone rush one way or another, she suddenly felt like she was back at training camp. She was totally unfamiliar with how things ran in this particular company, used as she was to the methods of her previous Captain. Said Captain had always been in the middle of everything her company did. If a mustering call was issued, she was right there in the middle, barking out orders and organizing the troops with lightning-fast reflexes. If the company deployed, her old Captain would always be first on the ground and last off. Frankly, she had grown to admire her Captain, and it had been nearly heartbreaking when she had been informed by said Captain of her transfer to this new company.
Not that it wasn't an honour—it really, really was. In fact, she was certain that her Captain had seemed a tad envious at the fact that it was a subordinate and not her who had gotten the transfer approved. Nonetheless, she felt out of place in this new unit, and it showed with her lethargic reaction to the announcement.
Unlike her new comrades, she had not jumped to her feet and dashed towards the gun racks or the armour stands. She hadn't even moved from her comfortable seating position against a heavy metallic crate that she guessed was full of ammunition and/or explosives such as grenades. To be quite honest, she didn't care, either.
All she saw at the moment—all she could see—was chaos. So unlike her own former company, and yet these people were supposed to be better—much better—than her former colleagues. She couldn't see it, personally. After all, what kind of commander allows his troops this much freedom just before deployment? Especially when this deployment was the first of its kind?
Vicky gave a depressed sigh. She wanted back with her unit, which she had no doubts was being ordered into ordered parade-ground formation by the ever-sarcastic and order-loving Captain Juliana Mendez. At least with Mendez, you knew where you stood from the get-go. Not like this rabble.
She was quickly brought out of her reverie when a large shadow caught her attention. Looking up, she was graced with the annoyed expression of a woman carrying golden Sergeant stripes on her upper sleeves.
"What do you think you're doing, Corporal…" the woman glanced down at Vicky's tag, "McVey?"
Vicky was depressed, but not stupid. She wasn't about to mouth off to her superior officer, no matter how reticent she felt. Despite her feelings, she was still a soldier, and a damn good one to boot. She wasn't about to sacrifice her long career now just because of some feelings of attachment to her old company.
So instead of back-talking the sergeant, Vicky shot to her feet and went to attention, saluting. "Ma'am!" she barked out respectfully. "I apologize, ma'am! I'm afraid I've just transferred to this company and, well…" she paused for a moment in order to gather her thoughts. "…well, I've found myself a little thrown off by how chaotic things seem to be," she finished, hoping she had been as diplomatic as she'd sounded in her own mind.
The sergeant seemed to mull her answer for a moment before deciding to let things go, albeit reluctantly. "I see," she replied. "So you're the new girl," she observed unnecessarily. "I guess you've not been told your section assignment yet?"
Vicky shook her head once firmly. Total economy of movement—the sign of a trained and experience soldier.
The sergeant sighed, placing her hands on her hips and looking down exasperatedly. "God-damnit, Anderson!" she mumbled audibly before looking up and giving Vicky a sympathetic look. "Sergeant Anderson should have told you your assignment."
The sergeant brought a hand up to take off her red beret and with her other hand ran it across her shortened, bob-cut raven hair. In doing so, Vicky noticed the sergeant's patch once again, except this time she noticed something she had not previously—a crown above the three chevrons.
'Oh shite!' she thought. 'She's the bloody--!'
"Staff Sergeant Miller," the sergeant introduced herself, giving Vicky a stiff salute. "The captain's second in command," she elaborated before sighing. "Though that should technically fall on the lieutenants' shoulders…but none of them want the job."
Vicky had a sneaking suspicion she knew why. Miller confirmed it seconds later.
"Unfortunately, the Captain's way of doing things is just too chaotic for their tastes, and frankly, it really tests most of our men's patience. Still, it works for him," she allowed. She put her beret back on and gave Vicky a forlorn smile. "Anyway, I imagine you want your assignment now, yeah?"
Vicky gave a respectful nod, followed by a short, "Yes, ma'am!"
Sergeant Miller waved the formality off. "At ease, soldier. No one in this Company stands on formality with me unless two things happen: we're on parade orders, or you've pissed either me or the officers off," she stated plainly, and Vicky couldn't help but compare such laxity to the strict, by-the-book regulations enforced in her previous Company.
Miller wasn't done, however, and she pointed to her right, where a group of black body armour-clad troopers were apparently waiting for instructions. "That's your section. The blonde-haired one is Sergeant Jones, your immediate superior. His immediate superior is…well, none of your concern, really," she amended suddenly, as though realizing the pointlessness of forwarding that knowledge. "He'll tell you if he feels like it, though, I suppose."
Sergeant Miller then turned to point at a rather large stack of opened crates and armour stands. Vicky recognized it as one of the many such equipment dumps that the others in her new Company had been raiding while she watched. "You can get your gear there. Make sure you have all your protective gear and communications equipment. With the ward down, we're restricting all comm chatter to encrypted mechanical frequencies."
Vicky nodded in acknowledgment, and Miller continued with her introduction. "Considering what we're being dropped into, I suggest you hook yourself up with an SA80, plus whatever the hell else Jones wants you to haul around."
Vicky once again nodded, this time speaking up. "Thank you, ma'am," she said gratefully. In truth, she had felt a bit lost before, and thanks to Miller, at least she now had a direction and some instructions to follow.
Sergeant Miller gave her newest charge a once-over before nodding. "You're welcome, Corporal. Now, I suggest you get a move on, before Jones starts wondering where his latest transfer's gotten to."
With that, Miller gave Vicky a sharp salute—which Vicky quickly returned just as sharply—and turned on her heel and marched over to where another group of soldiers seemed to be lounging as they waited for further orders. Vicky noticed that said group seemed much…rougher than the rest. Or perhaps the word was grim? Either way, they practically radiated an aura of experience. Sergeant Miller, Vicky further noticed, seemed to blend in just fine with the group, herself apparently adopting that same aura as she stood amongst them.
Vicky's assessment of the company was quickly evolving. At first, she had written them off as chaotic and overrated, but she was now understanding that behind the curtain of chaos and disorganization were able and experienced soldiers. She wondered how her own new section would be; would they be like the company as a whole—unpredictably laid back and disorganized? Would they be stricter?
Silently pondering these things, Vicky made her way towards the equipment dump that Sergeant Miller had pointed out to her. The gear itself was quite new, she noticed absently; but then, so was this whole concept of warfare. In fact, so recent was this development in warfare that General Headquarters had determined that only a single Company—her company—be used to test it out, just in case things went horribly wrong. Not that this comforted her—quite the opposite, in fact. Did they really expect her to be alright with using her life, and that of other soldiers, as guinea pigs? For the Empire or not, she wasn't all that eager to go meet her Maker just yet.
Focusing on her task, she calmly checked that all her needed equipment was present. Fully enclosing titanium-wrought battle helmet: check. Lightweight ceramic body armour: check. Lightweight ceramic shin and wrist guards: check.
As she ticked off the readiness of her equipment, Vicky wasted no time in clasping on the body armour, preferring not to don the helmet until it was time for the drop. She had to admit, she'd never imagined that the armour would feel so light. In fact, it made her somewhat suspicious as to its actual toughness, but a vicious jab at her own breastplate told her that the material was quite sturdy. Shrugging off her disbelief, Vicky then went for a pair of form-fitting black gloves that would finish the ensemble. On their back were stitched the same motif that she now wore on her upper arms: a grey sword pointed downwards with twin golden wings at its side. The difference was that the motif on her arms also had a motto written in golden fabric to go with the design: Rain Death From The Skies.
"Oi, rookie!" someone shouted, causing Vicky to turn abruptly to face her caller. As she expected, it was one of her squad; more importantly, it wasn't Sergeant Jones, so that meant she probably wasn't in much trouble for not being ready yet. Unfortunately, however, she hadn't yet hit the weapons cache, so she was currently unarmed, and she had no idea how her section-mates would react to that.
Hell, she was already the FNG, so to speak, so she was sure she'd get some flak and sass from her teammates, but being unarmed before a major operation? That was just inviting mockery in the armed forces.
Still, there was nothing for it; she was mostly responsible, given that she had spent much of her time moping about rather than trying to actively figure out who she was supposed to report to and what gear to take. Grabbing her helmet and holding it dangling from her right hand, she trudged her way to her section, her expression serious and grim.
The man who called her, a taller, bald man with a nasty looking scar on his left cheek, grinned at her as she came close.
"Oho!" he crowed. "Look at this, lads! We've got ourselves a real warrior in our midst!" he said before booming with laughter.
The other ten members of her unit responded with varying degrees of amusement as well—from polite chuckles hidden behind a fist to outright, booming laughter. Vicky was completely caught off-guard, yet again. These soldiers, allegedly some of the best the Empire has to offer, were being very laid back, considering the gravity of the ground situation and their own impending mission.
The big, bald man that had initiated the whole episode quickly—more quickly than she'd every believed him capable of—went to her side and slapped her back in a friendly fashion. "Come on, now, rookie! Lighten up!" he said encouragingly. "We don't bite!" he added jokingly, before seemingly giving that statement more thought. "Well, Adams would, maybe."
"Hey!" exclaimed the offended party, though the redheaded man had an insolent grin on his face as he protested. "No need to spread that around!"
The bigger man ignored his comrade and kept his attention on Vicky. "Name's Fred O'Reilly, but everyone calls me Tank. We're on the same fireteam."
Vicky, somewhat flustered, accepted the greeting with a simple nod. "Nice to meet you. Victoria, called Vicky, if you know what's good for you. No call-sign yet," she then introduced herself, giving Fred a playful glare. All it did was send the rest of the section into guffaws.
"Careful, lads! This one's got a temper!" Fred called out, and the laughter intensified. Despite the booming laughter, however, a woman with silver-blond hair that reached down to her nape—way beyond regulation lengths—approached her with an extended hand.
"Ignore the brutes, Vicky," the woman said with what sounded like a French accent. "My name is Michelle, call-sign Snap. Also on the same fireteam," she introduced herself.
"French?" blurted out Vicky incredulously. She hadn't ever imagined that the French had a presence in the Imperial forces, but her outburst deeply embarrassed her, so she gave Michelle an apologetic look, which the blonde laughed away.
"Close," she admitted with a grin. "Quebec, actually. My maman is French-born, but papa was from Quebec," she explained, before motioning to a grim-faced, dark-haired man. "Viktor here, on the other hand, is from Europe. Bulgaria, in fact."
"Viktor Krum, also on the fireteam," the man introduced himself. "As my lovely comrade has mentioned, I am not from your distinguished Empire. My family moved to Harrisburg in order to flee from the civil wars in Eastern Europe and I enlisted there. My call-sign is Vlad, by the way," he mentioned, before giving a sidelong glare to his comrades, who were all snickering.
"Inside joke," Michelle assured her, though the small smile she was desperately trying to hold back behind her small hand kind of ruined the seriousness with which she had spoken.
"And I'm Francis Jones," a man wearing sergeant's stripes on his upper arm sleeves. "Sergeant in command of this peanut gallery," he said gruffly, his very person seemingly out of a cliché war movie. Though without a beard, his blonde hair had grown into a noticeable stubble and he had a lit Cuban cigar between his teeth. His ice-blue eyes were piercing, but not unkind, and they spoke volumes of the experience he had that seemed to contradict with the appearance of his unit.
Vicky sharply saluted her immediate superior and gave a barked, "Sir!" as she came to attention. Jones quickly waved it off.
"Like the Staff, I'm not one for standing on ceremony. Call me Sarge, like the rest of these clowns," he told her while jutting his head in the general direction of his unit. He used his teeth to move his cigar around for a bit as he gazed at Vicky. "You got a specialty, Corporal?"
"Specialty, si—Sarge?" she quickly amended, remembering his suggestion.
Michelle decided to elaborate on the sergeant's behalf. "Weapon specialty, chérie. Every fireteam in this Legion has to be self-sufficient, you see, so we have our fireteams arranged to allow for easy independent manoeuvring." She gave Vicky a smile. "For instance, I'm best on a sniper, thus the call-sign Snap. Fred is amazing with heavy weapons, so Tank."
"And Vlad?" asked Vicky, curious. Said man blushed—whether in embarrassment or something else, though, she didn't know.
"Like I said, inside joke," said Michelle with a smile. "Viktor is best with conventional assault rifles and carbines."
Vicky nodded once before thinking on the matter a bit. She didn't want to blurt out a specialization only to then figure out on the battlefield that she hated it. Truth be told, she was good at assaulting positions, so in that respect she was on the same wavelength as Viktor. Her stature also didn't allow for much hauling around of the heavy weaponry that Fred seemed to favour, and she didn't have the patience for sniper work. Assault weapons it was, she supposed.
"Assault weapons," she stated simply. What the hell, right? You could do a lot with those. "I'm good with assault weapons. Rifles and submachine guns."
Jones nodded once before glancing at Viktor. "You got a problem with having another assault specialist on the fireteam, Krum?" he asked bluntly. "Not what you were looking for, was it?"
Viktor shrugged. "A demolitions specialist would have been good, but we can always go for the mobile assault build," he said thoughtfully before glancing at the third fireteam leader. "Would you have a problem becoming the demolitions intensive fireteam, Beckett?"
The chestnut haired woman in black body armour shook her head taciturnly, and Viktor responded with a thankful nod before returning his attention to Jones. "I guess that settles it, Sarge."
Jones nodded. "Good," he said before turning his gaze on Vicky once again. "That settles it, then. Your new call sign is Bolt," he decided then and there. "Krum's the lead Corporal in your fireteam; you listen to him, and if he's dead, you listen to Fred. If he's dead, then odds are so are you, so go nuts at that point," he concluded gruffly.
"Just full of sunshine, he is…" Vicky heard Fred mumble under his breath, causing her to stifle a smile, just as Michelle was.
Obviously, however, Jones had heard, given the glare he sent Fred's way. "I ain't here to mollycoddle you bunch of crazy fools, Tank! Want to hear an inspirational speech? Go play back some of the Duke's!" he snapped at the much larger man. Despite the rebuke, however, he did give a feral grin. "I could be persuaded to lead us all in prayer, if that's more up your alley."
Vicky didn't know what to make of that, so she just went with the flow when most of them nodded, all of them with a small smile, as though privy to some private joke. Michelle, however, motioned towards her first.
"What is it, Snap?" asked Jones gruffly, taking out his cigar and shaking off some of the ash at the end.
"Bolt has no weapons yet, Sarge," the Quebecker reminded her superior. "Perhaps we should arm her before the drop?"
Jones grunted in agreement before looking towards one of his own fireteam members. "Perkins! You always carry too much crap! Give Bolt your SA80 and one of those extra service pistols you always lug around!"
The man in question seemed uncomfortable with the request but readily obliged under his superior's piercing gaze. First he slung off the SA80 from his back and tossed it over to Vicky, who deftly caught it with one hand and then slung the strap over her shoulder. She then received the pistol from him—a Beretta 92, 5'9"-barrel variant. She goggled at the sidearm.
"Isn't this…?"
Perkins nodded. "Just like the ones the Duchess uses. Please take care of it," he requested, his eyes conveying just how much he treasured that sidearm. Vicky nodded in agreement and he nodded back in thanks.
Jones, for his part, just gazed at the two and then rolled his eyes. "Bunch of crazy crackers," he muttered. "You two done?"
Vicky and Perkins nodded as they straightened up—Vicky's new Beretta tucked snugly in her hip holster and her SA80 on her back…for now, anyway.
Jones nodded. "Good, now let's get this service going, shall we? Before the drop?"
The entire section nodded again, and soon all of them followed their sergeant's example and bowed their heads reverently as the sergeant guided them in their "prayers."
"Oh, Lord," intoned Jones, his cigar still in his mouth. "As we descend upon our enemies like angels of death, we beg thee, oh Lord, to look after our sorry asses."
Vicky blinked. Did the sergeant just…?
"We beg thee, oh Lord, to guide with Thy hallowed Hand our drop pods onto some heathen scumbag, that we may enter battle with already a kill to our name," the sergeant continued, eyes closed, though his tone of voice had gotten more grandiose sounding.
Vicky tittered slightly, trying to contain her laughter at the makeshift prayer—apt though it was. Everyone else seemed to be smiling, too. The sergeant was perhaps the most serious looking of them, and she was sure he knew the effect he was having on his men and had done this just to elicit such a response.
"Oh, and Lord? Ignore the prayers of our enemies, misbegotten sons of whores that they are. They're heathens anyway…and probably soulless, to begin with," he added thoughtfully. "This we pray to thee, oh Lord, with the humility of our hearts, and the cans of whoop-ass in our hands."
The sergeant opened his eyes then and gave the section a sombre look. "And lastly, oh Lord," his voice had gotten quieter now, and everyone opened their eyes to truly stare at the ground. "should we fall in battle, our bodies hopefully surrounded by the heathen dead, we commend our families to Your mercy, and our souls to Your judgment."
It was perhaps the most, if not only serious part of the entire "prayer." No one was smiling now; everyone was grim-faced and truly praying at that point. There was no joking or laughing now. Everyone knew the risks, and while they wouldn't back out now, they were still very aware of just how much the odds were stacked against them.
"Amen," the sergeant said, and everyone followed suit.
"A-fuckin'-men," Vicky heard Fred mumble from beside her, his usually jovial expression dark and sombre.
Vicky was about to ask him something when the whole room was suddenly awash with red strobing red light, followed by the resurgence of the announcer woman's voice.
"Attention, Attention" said the woman, "Drop zone imminent. First Legion, First Company to the ready room." The message then began to repeat.
Already the members of her section were on the move, grabbing their helmets from the ground or from on crates or benches—Jones was currently shouting at them.
"Alright, ladies and gents! This is it! Move like you got a purpose, damnit!" he barked at his troops, who all began to trot towards the mentioned ready room, which was behind the pressure-locked, steel double doors at the very far end of the room.
Though she was ready to go, Vicky waited for the rest of her fireteam to get their gear first. Viktor was the first to join her, while Michelle went to help Fred haul the heavy weapons he was going to be carrying down into combat. This included a grenade launcher, an FN MAG general purpose machine gun, most impressively, an L2A1 heavy machine gun that he had strapped onto his back; and a slew of ammunition belts hanging off his shoulders. Vicky could see why he was called Tank—it was an apt name for the heavily armed man.
Still, it seemed like a bit much for them to carry between two people, so Vicky went to help, and without asking took the grenade launcher from Fred. "I'll help, too," she simply said, slinging on the grenade launcher onto her back. Fred merely grinned at her appreciatively and Michelle gave her a blinding smile.
Together, the four-man fireteam made their way to the ready room, which Vicky had assumed was a briefing room. How wrong she was. Rather, it was a single, long walkway that ran the middle of the room, and to its sides were two long columns of what looked like pods. Vicky felt her stomach drop as she realized that the sergeant hadn't been exaggerating or making things up in his prayer. They really were going to drop into combat via pods. Had General HQ gone mad?! How could anyone survive such a thing?!
At the very end of the room, past the two columns of 125 pods each, Vicky could see Staff Sergeant Miller talking with a man wearing the three pips of Captaincy. She supposed this was the famed Captain Lyles who had led elements of the Royal Northern Army while it was under the command of the Duke, prior to the coup. She heard he, along with a Captain McAllen, had been present during the attempted rebellion in '97, and had been captured and imprisoned by the rebellious Ministry of Magic, only to then be released when the RNA returned from taking Serpent Fortress. He was a legend within the Armed Forces—a living symbol of the pre-war Empire.
He didn't look like much, she had to admit. He was average in many ways, she realized. There was very little about him that stood out, but what really got to her—what told her he was every bit the soldier described in the history books—was his eyes. Though he had a smile on his face as he discussed something with Staff Sergeant Miller, his eyes contained very little joy and a lot of experience. He was always looking one way or another, as though on a battlefield, and everything about his posture screamed ready to fight.
"That's Captain Lyles," Michelle whispered to her, confirming Vicky's guess. She motioned towards Miller with her head. "Word among the lads is that the Captain and the Staff are, y'know…" she gave Vicky a knowing glance. "…like that."
Fred snorted behind the blonde woman. "Like hell," he mumbled.
Michelle glared back at the bald man. "Why do you say that?" she rebuked him. "It's possible! It'd be cute!"
Fred visibly rolled his eyes. "It's also impossible," he told the two women bluntly, and Vicky could see Viktor nod ahead of them. "The Captain's about as straight ruler as you can get. He wouldn't toe the line if it danced in front of him naked and offered herself to him."
Vicky grimaced at the vivid—not to mention crude—imagery. "Thanks for that, Tank," she muttered.
Michelle and Fred both ignored her, however. The pretty blonde was currently arguing that the Captain was just as likely as anyone else in the company to act on his feelings, while Fred kept dismissing such arguments almost out of hand. Thus left without discussion partners, she turned her attention to Viktor and asked, "What do you think, sir?"
"Call me Vlad," Viktor responded instantly, giving her an amused look. "And about the Captain? I agree with Tank. Even if there's attraction there, nothing will ever happen," he opined. "The Captain's followed rules and orders to a point where he's practically known for it in the Legion. Even if Miller threw herself at him—and she won't; too proud—he wouldn't do a damn thing."
Vicky gave her superior an askance look. "So why's the whole Company so…" she searched for a word that wouldn't offend her superior, though she needn't have worried.
"Disorganized? A right mess?" supplied Viktor with a wry smile. "It's the way he is, I guess. He has no interest in management, so it shows with how chaotic the Company is. As a soldier, however, there's not many people who can rival his experience record."
"RNA for the entire duration of its existence, part of the BNLF from its conception to its incorporation into the Loyalist Alliance, then part of the British Imperial Armed Forces when the throne was restored. He's been in this war since the very beginning and survived, which is something many of his contemporaries can't say," Viktor told her.
Vicky watched as Lyles smiled and then seemingly chuckled at something that Miller was saying before shaking his head in amusement. The way the Captain and Staff were standing near each other, the somewhat intimate body language—it was all there, and yet Vicky could see what Viktor meant. Neither was making a move. Neither seemed willing to make a move or even expecting the other to, for that matter. They seemed…comfortable with whatever relationship they already had, even if it was a superior-subordinate one.
"Story of the Army, I'm afraid," said Viktor with a shrug as he led his fireteam towards their pods. "If you've got an itch in your nether regions, you ignore it until you're either on leave or discharged," he explained plainly before glancing back at Michelle and Fred, who were both still arguing. "Or you make damn sure you don't get caught."
Viktor seemed about to say something else when he suddenly stopped, seemingly surprised that he'd arrived at his destination already without having noticed. "Ah, here we go!" he exclaimed, noticing the pods with their call-signs tagged onto the hard, magically-enhanced titanium shells.
To Vicky, they looked like coffins, and the mere sight of one up close gave her the chills. All of them had their hatches opened, and the crash seat that was to be her way down to the ground was not particularly inviting, either. Still, it was way too late to back out now, however, and so she just turned her back on the pod and stood at attention in front of it, as did the rest of her fireteam and then the rest of the Company.
"Company!" shouted Miller all of a sudden, "Attention!"
Instantly, the sound of 250 pairs of boots stomping the metallic floor resounded in the room. Every man and woman in the Company had gone stiff-backed, and behind all of them were their individual drop pods.
"At ease, soldiers," Lyles countermanded almost immediately, causing the 250 soldiers to take a step sideways and relax their posture, although everyone's hands were kept clasped behind their backs.
Vicky watched as Lyles took a place at the very end of the room, atop a small elevated platform that was undeniably made for the addressing of troops. As he made his way towards the middle, she saw him flash an instantaneous smile at Miller, who, besides blushing imperceptibly, made no reaction. Lyles, one of the oldest veterans of the Dark War, then turned to address his men, seemingly oblivious to his Staff Sergeant's reaction.
"Ladies, Gentlemen," he began, "We are on the cusp of the most innovative stage of warfare yet, and as befitting those whom the Duke trusts most, the task of seeing it through has fallen unto us—the First Legion First Company," he declared.
Vicky was taken completely by surprise when practically everyone—actually, she was sure everyone but her—stomped the floor once, loudly. Maybe it was a sign of Company pride?
"We have no predecessors from whose wisdom we can draw on," continued Lyles, making no mention of the stomping. "We are the first ones to take this rather drastic jump in warfare tactics—pun intended," he added with a grin, and the crowd tittered slightly. "And it is because we are the first to do this that we shall do it best, am I right troopers?!"
Another foot stomp, and this time Vicky almost managed to time it exactly right.
"The enemy, as we all know by now, is not human. It is not even organic. We are fighting the same, rotten, magically-fuelled machines that razed half the world in their wake before the Throne was restored," he reminded them. "But, as always, we must remember that they were beaten once, and we can beat them again. Hell, it's not even can—we will kick their sorry, magical asses all the way to their Maker and back! Am I right, troopers?!"
This time, Vicky's foot stomp was perfectly timed, although some of the others kept a steady rhythm afterwards.
Lyles' right arm shot out, hand extended in a grasping fashion. "In life, honour!"
The whole room stomped once loudly.
"In peace, vigilance!"
Stomp.
"In war, victory!"
Stomp.
"In death, glory!"
Stomp.
Lyles drew his close-quarters combat sword and held it pointing upwards up in salute. "Imperium Aevitas!"
As one, the group drew their own combat swords in salute and chanted his cry over and over again. "IMPERIUM AEVITAS! IMPERIUM AEVITAS! IMPERIUM AEVITAS!"
It was only when the communal shout had died down that Lyles spoke again. "First Company!" he cried out. "To your pods!"
With a mighty cheer, the 250 members of the First Company pounded their fists in the air confidently and then proceeded to don their helmets, almost instantly causing the helmets' transparent OLED computer visor to flare to life. Vicky nearly stumbled at the amount of information the helmet's visor was providing, and it was only booting up!
As soon as the computer's calibrations were apparently finished, it flashed her a polite message on-screen for her to move into her pod, which she did on instinct, having also noticed that everyone else was stepping back into their own at the same time. As soon as she was inside and sat down, another message flashed.
High-Altitude Personnel Insertion Carrier detected. Please wait while Individual Soldier Identification Serials are matched…
Vicky patiently waited while she saw several ellipses flash on-screen, denoting the computer's processing. She didn't have to wait long—within seconds, a confirmation message flashed on-screen.
HIGH-ALTITUDE PERSONNEL INSERTION CARRIER MATCH CONFIRMED. LANCE-CORPORAL VICTORIA MCVEY, CALLSIGN BOLT, ISIS: HA22437698, AGE 21; FIRST LEGION, FIRST COMPANY, FIFTH SECTION, SECOND FIRETEAM;
Vicky blinked as a passport-sized snapshot of her suddenly blinked into life on her visor screen with all her information written out next to it. To be entirely truthful, she was freaking impressed with the tech boys to have cranked out this kind of sophisticated equipment.
DESIGNATED FIRETEAM LEADER: CORPORAL VIKTOR KRUM, CALLSIGN: VLAD; DESIGNATED FIRETEAM MEMBERS: PRIVATE MICHELLE CARTIER, CALLSIGN: SNAP, LONG-RANGE WEAPON SPECIALIST; AND PRIVATE FREDERICK O'MALLEY, CALLSIGN: TANK, DEMOLITIONS AND HEAVY WEAPONS SPECIALIST.
Just like with her own information, her teammates also ended up on her visor screen, and she couldn't help but compare the grim-faced photographs with the far more lax mannerism they portrayed while not under the spotlight, so to speak. She was surprised, however, when the next bit of information flashed onto her screen—and the pod's hatch hadn't even been closed yet!
…CONFIRMED. SECOND FIRETEAM DESIGNATED FOR SPECOPS. PLEASE STANDBY WHILE NEW ORDERS ARE RECEIVED…
"Wha--?" she started to ask, but never even got the chance to finish as the hissing noise of her hatch's pistons blared to life, indicating that the hatch was being lowered. Before she had a chance to process the fact that she and her team were essentially being hijacked for another mission, however, the hatch had sealed itself shut, and from the tell-tale noise of bolts sliding into place, she was now stuck in her vacuum-sealed insertion pod.
The better side of things was that the communications system in her helmet clicked to life, and she quickly took advantage of that to seek out her team's channel.
"Tank? Snap? Vlad? This is Bolt, over," she spoke into her helmet's communicator, hearing it click when she began speaking. She imagined that it was the helmet's automatic voice-identifying system, although she'd never actually heard of such a thing before. But then, she didn't understand much of the technology behind any of her gear to begin with.
"This…ank…opy?" she heard a voice speaking through the comm channel, although it seemed to get cut off at times.
The sound of the chopped voice was quickly overcome by the melodious laughter of Snap. "This is Snap. You have to activate the transmitter with your jaw before talking, Tank, over."
The next thing she heard was the embarrassed-sounding mumbling of Tank, and Vicky was suddenly glad that she'd somehow managed to blunder her way into making the device work on her own.
"Cut the chatter, team," then came Vlad's voice. "This is Vlad; I am initiating team readiness check; please confirm." he then ordered.
"Roger that, team leader; Snap, green light." came Michelle's response, which Vicky quickly added to.
"Bolt, green light."
"Tank, green light."
"Vlad, green light." Viktor then said. "All team members, green light. Informing the CO now."
Vicky heard a click over the radio and equally saw Viktor's written call-sign on her visor flash off its bolded state. That would be incredibly useful for knowing when they were on the radio or not.
"Tank here; anyone else get that message about a SpecOps mission, over?" Tank's voice suddenly asked after a moment of group silence.
Vicky pounced on the question immediately. "Bolt here," she spoke into her mike. "I got it too. Either of you guys know what that's about, over?"
"Snap here, negative, over."
Vicky heard a grumble and immediately knew that was Tank. "Nothing good ever comes from SpecOps missions…"
"Tank, I'm sure Vlad wouldn't knowingly take us into something he knew we'd have no chance of getting out of," replied Michelle's soothing voice over the comm.
"What's his definition of acceptable odds, though?" mumbled Vicky to herself, taking care not to activate the communication link. Tank had a point—no soldier in their right mind ever wanted in on Special Operations missions. They were high-risk, high-fatality rate inducing, and though their payoff was much larger than regular missions, not many thought the danger asked of them worth it.
"Whatever…" muttered Tank noncommittally over the comm. "How long are we supposed to stay sitting in these tin cans, anyway? When's the damn drop going to happen?"
Vicky was wondering that herself when Vlad's name suddenly flashed bold on her visor again.
"This is Vlad; the CO has confirmed all teams as good to go and is relaying launch readiness codes to HQ. Prepare for imminent drop," he ordered tersely over the comm before then adding grimly, "If you've got a God to pray to, now's the time."
Suddenly, Vicky felt a little—okay, very—nervous about the impending drop. This was the first time anything of this type had ever been attempted, and that didn't sit well with her. The technology she was wearing—the technology she was sitting in was all very experimental, and it would remain so until this drop was carried out. But, given its experimental nature, that also meant that no one was sure whether or not the pod would actually deliver on its promise of a rapid and safe landing. Hell, for all she knew, this pod would also be her coffin!
"Anyone else got a very bad feeling about this drop?" she mumbled to herself, unknowingly activating her mike at the same time.
"Amen, sister," she heard Michelle's soft reply, startling her.
The fact that no one else replied, despite having clearly transmitted her thoughts, told Vicky that the other two probably agreed, or were polite enough to withhold any reprimands.
Just then, her visor flashed in warning once.
WARNING!
DROP POINT IMMINENT.
PREPARE TO DROP.
That was when Vicky noticed a new name flash in her virtual communications "box." It was Captain Lyles.
"Troopers!" the captain called out through the comm. "We are green, and very, very mean!"
Again, her visor flashed, and this time it was a countdown, starting from 10.
She visibly started when she felt the pod shake slightly as it was lowered down until the very bottom had breached the underbelly of the Invincible. As a result, she could no longer see anything but the steel hull of the Airship through the window of her hatch. From what she understood, the Airship was to make a flyby over the grounds and literally fire the pods down towards the combat on the ground. From what she'd heard already, the Imperial Army under General Sulu was making a quasi-desperate last stand near the ruins of the Main Gate, and so far it seemed like they were effectively holding back the horde of enemy troops.
The countdown had not yet started, she noted. Still holding at 10, it almost felt like the computer was taunting her with how much time she had until her death claimed her. She knew that wasn't it, but that didn't mean she could shake off the feeling.
"Tank here; what the bloody hell is the goddamn hold-up?" asked Tank through the comm. Vicky wanted to know as well.
"Apparently, General Sulu has not yet given the order for the airstrike. We are waiting for the order to come before deployment," relayed Vlad.
"So we're just going to hang here until then?!" Snap asked incredulously. "Who's bright idea was that?!"
"We are going to drop, team; that's not optional. But until our ground forces tell us when and where to drop, we can't drop in without becoming liabilities," replied Vlad tersely.
Vicky could see the logic in that statement. Without a coordinated effort between ground forces and their own airstrike, things on the ground could quickly devolve into one side trying to rescue the other, or worse—one group (probably their own) getting massacred after being swarmed by the enemy.
So, impatiently waiting for the order to come for her and her team to drop from the skies, Vicky sat back and closed her eyes, hands still gripping the two sticks on her crash chair's arms.
Hogwarts Main Gate Ruins…
With a resounding boom, the ground near a running pair of soldiers visibly exploded with tremendous violent force—undoubtedly fatal had the two soldiers been running any nearer to it. As it were, they were lucky and managed to reach their injured comrade who was hiding behind a rather large piece of mountain rock that had fallen when the gate was buried.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ!" swore one of them as he slid in the mud and ended up beside his injured brother-in-arms. "The goddamn fuckers are getting more accurate by the second!"
His running companion, a dark-haired man barely a year older than him, glared at him as he, too, slid into position behind the rock. "You think?!" he snapped, before turning his intense gaze on their injured comrade. "Porter, you alright?"
The man in question groaned as he clutched the stump that had once been his left arm. He sent the dark-haired man an intense glare in response. "Oh, I'm just peachy, Connor!" he yelled over the sound of the ground exploding around their cover. "My fuckin' arm's been blown off, you motherless twat!"
Connor glared right back. "No need to get shirty, Porter!" he snapped back—just in time to hear the ground in front of the rock they were using for cover explode. "Fuck!" he cried out, ducking down further to avoid getting hit by any sort of shrapnel.
Connor's companion glared at the two of them. "If you two are quite done with the goddamn pillow talk, how about we get out of here before they zero in on us?!"
"Fuck you, Jacobs!" Porter managed to groan out as a fresh shot of pain raced through his system. Connor, on the other hand, was much more practical about things.
"You cover me—I'll piggy back him back to the camp!" he yelled at Jacobs, who nodded and gave a thumbs up in acknowledgement.
Jacobs quickly got into a kneeling position and, using the rock to cover most of his body, randomly opened fire on the advancing enemy lines as Connor worked to slide the semi-conscious Porter onto his back.
It took about five minutes to make that happen, and by then Jacobs was getting rather impatient with his companions.
"What the fuck are you waiting for, Connor?!" demanded Jacobs as he got back down again just in time to avoid getting diced into a million pieces by incoming spellfire. "A goddamned invitation?!"
Connor glared right back. "He keeps sliding off! He's not even conscious enough to hold on!" he snapped back.
"Then strap him on!" ground out Jacobs before getting back to his knees and once again opening fire at the enemy. He didn't even glance back down as he kept giving advice. "And make it quick! I'm gonna run out of ammo any minute now, and after that, we're all fucked!"
"Jesus Christ…" mumbled Connor as he ripped apart some of Porter's trousers and made a makeshift strap out of it, which he used to tie the wounded man to him via the waist. Eventually, he was ready to go. "Set!" he called out to Jacobs, who merely grunted in acknowledgement and kept up a steady rate of fire.
Taking a deep breath and struggling to get to a crouched ready stance that wouldn't hurt his speed, Connor quickly and suddenly sprang into a sprint towards the Imperial lines, which had slowly receded twenty meters from where they currently were. Not a whole lot, technically speaking, but too damn far when one had to run said distance in open ground in the middle of a warzone.
He was distantly aware of the fact that Jacobs was running behind him, albeit backwards and constantly firing pot-shots at the enemy skirmish line in a desperate attempt to keep their heads bowed and their aim off—automatons though they might be. They weren't unlimited in number, after all, and whoever had conjured them would have to spend significant amounts of magic trying to create new ones to replenish the numbers they'd already lost.
Ten meters left—already he could make out some of his comrades getting out from behind cover to provide the trio with covering fire. Behind him, however, he heard Jacobs swear as he slipped in the mud and fell to the ground with a loud splash. Connor almost turned to help him, but Jacobs quickly shouted that off.
"Keep moving, goddamn it!" he shouted. "You're the one with the goddamn wounded!"
Slipping slightly in the mud, Jacobs nonetheless quickly got to his feet and scrambled back towards the lines, only to then slip again and fall down as he hit a particularly splashy and slippery patch of mud. This time, however, he wasn't so lucky in his recovery, and upon trying to get to his feet, he was hit with a slashing curse to the back of the head, killing him instantly and causing him to fall face-first into the mud.
Connor, however, had no notion of this and instead kept running like all hell towards the lines, where friendly fire was busy covering his escape. Eight meters, seven, five, three…
Helpful arms shot out from behind trench cover to help him get down in the makeshift trench system the remaining Shielders had managed to dig up in record time. With a tug, Connor was in the trench system, face down and groaning, and Porter along with him, his dead weight bearing down on the healthier man. Two men scrambled to him to help take Porter off his back, while the rest moved up to the edge of the trench and readied their rifles.
"OPEN FIRE!" shouted a grizzled sergeant down the line, and the whole line did so, the cacophony of rifle fire quickly drowning out any other speech.
Connor was helped onto his feet by two more servicemen while Porter was hauled off to the nearest emergency aid station deeper within the Imperial lines.
"Jacobs?" coughed out Connor when he got to his feet. The man to his left shook his head. "How?" he asked, knowing exactly that the shake meant.
"Back of the head, Slicer," came the short reply.
"Fuck!" cursed Connor, stomping his foot into the ground violently. He knew he wasn't to blame for Jacobs' death, and that his comrade had volunteered to be rear-guard, but that didn't make the knowledge of his death any lighter on his soul.
Still, he had a job to do, and as much as he wished he could mourn the death of his companion, he couldn't shirk his duty. Grabbing his rifle, he told his supporters that he was alright and made his way down the line to the nearest ammunition dump.
Off to the side, further down the line, Sulu watched as the man he'd seen run to get a wounded man back to friendly lines walked off to continue doing his duty. Over sixty thousand men had entered the valley to retake the ancient castle in the Empire's name, and about 200 of those had died, with 800 or so more lying in makeshift hospital beds as medics did their very best to stop them from dying. Enemy casualties were much higher—which always cheered him up slightly—but their remaining forces were still outnumbering his own. By how much, he couldn't tell, but they were still enough to make him pause whenever the idea of charging into the fray was brought up.
He looked up to the sky—still empty. Well, that was his fault, to be honest. He knew the wards were down for a while now, and he had even received confirmation that their airborne reinforcements were ready to go, but he had nonetheless delayed that for now. Why? Well, quite simply, there was nowhere to land from the skies that didn't end up in the mass of enemy golems that were bearing down on his lines over and over again.
So instead of ordering troop reinforcements, he'd requested ammunition—lots of it. Within minutes, his request had been delivered when a number of large aircraft had flown over their position and dropped several crates of various types of ammunition, plus a little something extra—a couple of Basilisk-class field guns. So far, his people had barely managed to get one of the monster artillery pieces working, and they were having trouble setting up the second one. Rocks had to be rolled over to provide ample cover for them, too, given that they weren't positioned within the trench system itself, but rather on open ground (due in part to their unreasonable size). He'd lost about 20 men setting the first one up, and the casualty count for the second had gone up to 10 in the last few minutes. It'd been nothing short of divine intervention that the count hadn't been just as high as with the first one.
Sulu bit back a snort. That reminded him of how the pilot had announced the ammunition drop.
"Usually," the pilot had said, sounding very serious, "the good Lord works in mysterious ways. But not today! Along with these wonderful crates of holy retribution, the good Lord has seen fit to provide you boys with these here seventy-tons of death-spewing divine intervention! Have fun, boys!"
Sulu had laughed then, and he was hard-pressed not to laugh now. Regardless of the humour, however, the utility of the artillery pieces was unquestionable; one shot from one of them—which would then be followed by about ten minutes of reloading—was enough to blow a crater-sized hole in the enemy ranks. The problem was that since they were so big and difficult to reload, it took an unreasonable amount of time to get them to cause enough significant damage on the enemy. Plus, once the drop happened, they'd have to cease firing altogether.
Still, the pieces did well enough on their own, considering that they had all of their previous artillery pieces when the collapsing mountainsides buried the main gate.
Even worse, he hadn't heard from Neville's detachment since the lake crossing fiasco. He knew that they had survived the cross, and that they had managed to climb the cliff after having vaporized the staircase leading up to the castle, but beyond that, nothing else had been heard from the Brigadier General.
Sulu heard a low beep and looked down at his wrist, where his watch was now blinking as it sounded a beeping alarm as ordered. It was a good thing the damn anti-tech ward had been brought down—it gave him access to a whole slew of new tactics and equipment to use, including an electronic watch he'd pilfered from the ammo dump.
He turned to an aide and nodded. "Time. Check again," he ordered curtly. He didn't need to elaborate, either. It was pretty much routine procedure at this point that at specifically designated times, a radio contact check would be made in order to locate the missing elements of Neville's group.
"Bravo-Golf-Lima, Bravo-Golf-Lima, this is Foxtrot-Golf-Sierra-Zero-Niner; request radio check, over," Sulu heard the radio technician speak into his helmet-mounted microphone. "I say again, this is Foxtrot-Golf-Sierra-Zero-Niner, request radio check, over."
Sulu watched the man wait for a minute before glancing back up at his commander and giving a silent shake of his head. Sulu sighed.
"Keep trying for ten minutes," ordered Sulu. "If they don't respond, mark them MIA and relay the situation to headquarters."
The radio technician nodded. "Sir!"
Sulu then turned away from the man, ignoring the repeated request for a radio check. The black-skinned general glared at the incoming lines of enemy troops from behind the cover of the trench walls. He didn't know how much longer they could keep this up before the Imperial lines were overrun, despite the constant rotation of soldiers to the front trenches. The enemy had no fear of death, after all, and could easily march forward until they reached the Imperial lines. The only reason they hadn't, so far, was because Sulu had his men hinder their movement severely by dropping so many of them that the bodies ended up working as roadblocks. That, plus the craters left behind by a Basilisk shot, had forced the enemy to retreat several times to reorganize themselves.
Sulu cursed. He needed a way to distract the enemy while he reinforced his lines with additional cover and trench works. Ideally, Neville's group would get back into contact and he would order them to seize the second gate, thereby forcing the enemy into a killing zone on both their front and rear flank. So far, however, there had been no communication with Neville, and that left that option unusable. He knew he could order his reinforcements to drop behind the gate and then take it, but by then the element of surprise would be gone the moment the troopers hit ground, and there was an enemy rearguard close enough to the second gate that they would probably reach the gate before any Imperial trooper, dropped or not.
Sulu bit his thumb in frustration as he considered his options. These reinforcements were supposed to be rapid-deployment fireteams that could be used to instil chaos and disorganization within enemy lines, but at the moment, all he could think about was how to use them to capture heavily defended positions—not what they were meant for.
He turned his head towards the radio technician. "Anything yet?" he asked brusquely.
The radioman shook his head. "Sorry sir, zip."
Sulu sighed. That probably meant that Neville was dead. Wouldn't that be a wonderful piece of news to relay to Susan…Sulu shivered. The idea of telling the highly capable redhead of her boyfriend's—or was it ex's?—death was not something he ever wanted to consider, if only for reasons of personal safety.
"Alright, cut the line," he told the radioman, who nodded. "No point in trying anymore. Mark 'em MIA and tell HQ we've lost the totality of the Lake contingent."
"Yes, sir," said the radioman as he moved his hand to click off the mike on his helmet. He was just about to when he heard a light buzzing sound in his earpiece. "Eh?"
Sulu glanced down. "What is it, soldier?"
The radioman shrugged. "Dunno, sir, but I'm getting something over the line. Sounds like interference, though."
Sulu considered that for a moment before shrugging right back. "Someone probably stepped on a mike by accident. Cut the line."
Again, the radioman was about to when he heard the buzzing noise again. Narrowing his eyes, he focused his attention on the noise, and nearly jumped when he finally made out a voice talking through the noise.
"…ay…again…avo…go…ima…ive…five…"
The radioman blinked. The message was butchered almost beyond recognition, but he could extrapolate the full meaning of the sentence easily enough.
I say again; Bravo-Golf-Lima, reading you five by five.
The man's eyes widened as he turned to his general excitedly. "Sir! We've got contact with General Longbottom!"
Sulu's eyes widened comically as he heard the news, and he quickly demanded the frequency the radioman was using and inputted it into his own communicator.
"Longbottom, this is Sulu, respond!" he barked into his own mike. "I say again, Longbottom, this is Sulu, respond at once!"
Like the radioman, he could hear severe amounts of interference over the radio, but also someone talking through the noise.
"…eading…ou…ive…y…five…ulu…"
Sulu sighed. There was nothing for it—this was probably the best he was going to get. He assumed the castle's proximity was causing the group's communicators to go haywire. Still, this opened a whole new avenue of tactics, and Sulu felt quite excited by that prospect.
"General, I've got a problem to my front and no way out to my back," relayed Sulu. "I need you to take the second gate as quietly as possible to relieve the pressure on my line; can you do that?"
Sulu waited patiently before he heard the noise again. "…oger…that…neral…king…eco…ate…" he heard Neville say before the line was cut.
Sulu grinned. This was perfect. If the second gate fell to their hands, then he could order the airborne troops to land behind it and help secure the strategic point. Furthermore, it meant that the entire enemy army would be stuck between his forces and the second gate, meaning that he could also ask for direct aerial bombardment of the area and all they would hit would be enemy troops.
Sulu quickly switched his frequency to that of the Invincible. "Invincible, Invincible, this is General John Sulu, please respond," he said. Immediately, a response came through the link.
"General Sulu, this is Invincible. We read you five by five. What can we do for you, General?"
"We have re-established communication with General Longbottom's missing detachment. I say again, we have re-established communications with General Longbottom's missing detachment. I have ordered him to take the second gate, and upon completion of said mission, I request that the airborne reinforcements drop behind the gate so as to establish a killing zone between my line and the second gate."
A pause as the information was relayed to Admiral Wolf, no doubt.
"General Sulu, this is Invincible, affirmative on airborne redeployment request. Out."
Sulu nodded to himself as he heard the line go dead and turned to his radioman. "Relay orders to all troops: Upon the capture of the second gate, we are to press the enemy back while the Shielders work to extend our lines forward," he told the technician, who nodded and immediately went to work relaying his boss' orders.
Pleased that his orders were being carried out, Sulu sat down on a metal box that had once carried grenades and leaned back against the wet earth that made the back of this particular trench. He had nothing to do now but wait until everything fell into place.
HMAS Invincible Pod Deployment Bay…
Vicky had almost fallen asleep as she waited for the drop to happen. It had been two hours since they had been placed in standby, and all throughout that, she had deactivated her communicator, leaned back, crossed her arms across her chest, and tried to relax her nerves—to the point she kept nodding her head in sleepiness. She knew exactly why she was in danger of falling asleep, too.
She was bored.
At least when the drop was imminent, there had been a fierce inner battle between her nerves and her determination to carry out her duty. There had been the banter between her teammates to keep her occupied—but now there was nothing but silence as everyone was forced to wait inside their titanium-wrought insertion pods.
Hell, she had even tried, out of a mixture of curiosity and desperation to dispel her boredom, to see if her visor computer had some virtual card games she could play while she waited—no dice. She had sung several of her favourite songs to herself as well, but even that got old. She also heard Snap and Tank play what seemed to be a variation of I Spy, only that the targets all were the internal systems of the insertion pods. To be honest, even that had gotten old, and the two had eventually descended into silence.
Then, just as she was about to doze off, her entire pod became suddenly bathed in red light and drowned in blaring alarm noise, jolting her out of her sleepy stupor.
"What the f—?!" she started crying out, but quickly calmed herself when she saw her visor computer turning on. A message quickly wrote itself on her visor, and she felt her heart speed up.
WARNING!
ATMOSPHERIC DROP SHOCK TROOPER DROP BACK ON SCHEDULE.
PREPARE TO DROP.
DROP IN: 10 SECONDS
All at once, the comm chatter of the company skyrocketed as the message flashed three times on their screen.
"Tank here, anyone else get the fire alarm routine?"
"This is Snap; boss, is this for real?"
"This is Vlad; copy that, team. Drop is confirmed. I say again, drop is confirmed. Pucker up, troopers, 'cause this time we're definitely going down!"
Indeed, Vicky watched as the countdown started to go down second by second. She could feel cold sweat forming on her forehead as she realized that this was it. All at once, it felt like every nervous thought she had prior to the delay came back and hit her in full force.
Very dimly, she could hear what sounded like a motor building up power, and her fear doubled.
'Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord…' she thought, her eyes tightly shut. 'This is such a bad idea!'
Then, as expected, the counter hit zero, and Vicky instantly felt her stomach jump. She watched, in fear, as the blackness of the launch tube was almost instantly replaced by the blue horizon of the sky. Looking out her hatch window, she could see clouds far beneath her, and a glance at one of the digital instruments inside the pod told her that she was currently at 59,000 ft and dropping—fast.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ we're high!" she heard Tank through the comm. "I thought the swabbies said we were at airplane altitude!"
Vicky heard a giggle through the comm and immediately attributed it to Snap. "It's pretty! Have you ever seen a clearer sky?"
Vicky had to hand the Quebecker girl that—the sky was pristine blue from where she was, and she could even make out the stars in the blackness of space without trouble. Being born in Melbourne, Australia, she had not had much of a chance to see a clear night sky, so this was a rarity and a wonder at the same time.
"I'm more concerned about what's beneath us, to be honest," retorted Tank, though his response was a bit drowned out by the sound of Vlad chuckling.
"We'll be fine."
Vicky wished she could be as confident about that as Vlad sounded. She really did. However, knowing that she was literally in free fall towards the ground terrified her, and there was little she could do to make that feeling go away.
Then, just as she felt a panic attack swelling up in her chest, she blinked as she heard music filtering in through the comm. It was especially odd in that it wasn't hard rock or anything loud. Rather, it actually sounded like Staff Sergeant Miller singing, and it was in Gaelic, to boot.
"Gafflwn Dihenydd, o'r fuddugoliaeth wiriol sydd…" she heard the impressively soft voice of the Staff sing. "Ni fydd neb yn ein Drechu, Falch ydy ni i drochu traed o flaen i'r Annwn yn y gwybodaeth fe godwn ni…"
She didn't know what it was about the Staff Sergeant's singing that did it, but Vicky suddenly felt a lot less anxious about the drop, careening through the air though she was. It wasn't a song with much variation, either. Those same words were repeated over and over again, sort of like a mixture between prayer and song, and no one seemed to dare interrupt her.
To be honest, Vicky had always imagined that troopers that would willingly careen down the skies in free fall would be some sort of adrenaline junkies, and so had imagined that if they were to have theme music, hard rock would probably be it. Yet, even as she herself participated in the first such tactical drop, she couldn't think of a more appropriate tune to listen to as she fell feet first into hell.
Silently, the Staff's tune still filtering in through the comm, she watched as her altimeter's digital reading dropped phenomenally fast.
50,000 feet and dropping.
As expected, air resistance was making her pod shake slightly, but according to her instruments, it was still very much on target. Her grip on her hand-sticks tightened as she felt her pod shake a little more violently than usual. Yet again, however, her instruments told her everything was fine, and she figured that if she couldn't trust the pod's systems, then she was screwed to begin with.
The wait as she dropped seemed interminable. Then, at 45,000 feet, she suddenly felt the pod jolt and a message on one of the pod's instruments alerted her that it was due to the pod's chute deploying, thereby slowing down her fall. Despite the jolt, however, she could still hear the Staff Sergeant singing—or so she assumed. For all she knew, the singing was a recording.
Still, there was something bugging her, and that was the previous message regarding a special op for her fireteam. Tapping at an exposed keyboard to her right, she quickly inputted the visual communication system codes for her team, bringing up their images on the three screens inside her pod.
"Bolt?" asked Vlad in confusion. "What's up?"
Vicky quickly got down to business. "Sorry, boss, but I was wondering whether you had any idea what our special op mission was," she told the team, eliciting various reactions. Tank and Snap both seemed to nod in agreement with her request, while Vlad shrugged.
"Sorry, Bolt. I'm as much in the dark as you are. If there is a special mission set up for us, I haven't been told about it."
Vicky thought for a moment. "Would it show up if we inputted a request for it in the pod computer?"
She saw Vlad shake his head. "The computer's not linked to the mission control computers on the Invincible. Only our visor computers are, and those only accept a very limited range of voice commands. Headquarters is the only one capable of sending additional information."
Vicky cursed under her breath at her boss' response. She really wanted to know what she was being conscripted into doing.
"Well, whatever it is," opined Tank, "it can't possibly be more dangerous than dropping from the sky in free fall in a big, metal coffin."
Vicky flinched, and Snap's body language told her that the woman had probably grimaced.
"Nice, Tank. Great way of keeping our nerves intact," was Vlad's sardonic response.
"Just sayin'…"
30,000 feet and dropping.
"So here's a question," Snap spoke up. "If we're supposed to be quickly dropped into combat, why drop us all the way up here?"
"No one to spot us coming up here, I reckon."
"I get that, Vlad, but if we're supposed to be quickly dropped in as reinforcements, wouldn't it just be easier to make the drop, say, at fifteen thousand feet instead of sixty?"
"The chutes are probably geared for higher altitude drops," Vicky interjected. "Lower drop means less chance of decreasing our speed in time for us not to become a pancake lookalike when we hit ground."
"Niiice, Bolt."
"At least I didn't call the pod a metal coffin, Tank."
A giggle was heard through the comm.
"She's got you there, Tank," said Vlad.
A grumble, followed by a moment of silence.
20,000 feet and dropping.
Vicky looked out the window and could make out more pods around her own, also falling at similar height levels, although there were some differences, which she attributed to air drag. The chutes had surprised her when she'd first seen some of them deploy from the other pods. Rather than being fabric, they were entirely made out of metal it seemed, and she guessed that the reason for it was that at their speed, a fabric chute would have been ripped to shreds.
15,000 feet and dropping.
Vicky was bored. At first, terrified, sure. But now? Dear Maker, she wanted the whole thing to be over with!
10,000 feet and dropping.
"Hey, I can see something down there!" Tank suddenly said over the comm.
"Tank, for the last time. Colour splotches do not count as distinct landmarks."
Another giggle.
"It's not a splotch! And besides, you can't tell me that didn't look like the castle!"
"Unlike you, Tank, I've actually been to Hogwarts before. That wasn't the castle. It wasn't even grey, for goodness' sake! How did you ever pass your physical with such poor eyesight?"
Vicky audibly snorted. "He doesn't need to see right, so long as he points the business end of his guns at the enemy and not at us!" she jibed.
A bark of laughter from Tank and an appreciative chuckle from Vlad.
"Well said, Bolt!" came the giggling reply from Snap.
5,000 feet and dropping.
"All teams, please be advised: drop site visual is now possible; I say again, drop site visual is now possible," came Captain Lyles' report over the comm. Indeed, looking out the window, she could clearly make out the Hogwarts Valley, and a dark blotch on the terrain that kept shifting imperceptibly on the grounds that she assumed was the enemy army. Plus, the castle was tiny, but distinguishable now—though the second gate wasn't.
3,000 feet and dropping.
Another warning flashed onto her visor.
WARNING!
TOUCHDOWN IMMINENT. DEPLOYING SECONDARY CHUTE.
Indeed, seconds after she'd finished reading, her pod jolted a bit again as she heard two things happen all at once. The first was the sound of something getting detached, and the second was of something opening. Looking out the window, she was barely able to see that several of the pods had lost their metallic chutes and new ones—these ones also made of metal but in an umbrella shape (as opposed to the cross-shaped primary chutes)—deploy right away. To her eyes, it looked like the pods had been suddenly pulled up.
2,000 feet and dropping.
The pod was shaking a whole lot more now, probably as a result of much heavier air resistance as they careened to the ground. Still, her mind wasn't focused on the significant turbulence—it was focused on the fact that another message had flashed onto her visor.
WARNING!
FIRST LEGION, FIRST COMPANY, FIFTH SECTION, SECOND FIRETEAM HAS BEEN DESIGNATED FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS MISSION. DETAILS FOLLOW:
OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVE VIP FROM HOGWARTS CASTLE AND ESCORT TO EXTRACTION POINT. PASSPHRASE: PHOENIX DOWN.
SECONDARY OBJECTIVES: RECON AND/OR CAPTURE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING RANKING MEMBERS OF THE ENEMY FORCES, DESIGNATED "PURISTS":
BARTEMIUS CROUCH JUNIOR
NARCISSA MALFOY, NéE BLACK
ANTONIN DOLOHOV
"Oh, you've got to be fuckin' kidding me!" she could hear Tank swearing over the comm. She completely understood, too—she felt like swearing herself.
"One team to infiltrate Hogwarts, rescue a VIP, get him out of Hogwarts, and capture enemy leaders?" Snap sounded incredulous. "Sir, no offense, but has HQ absolutely lost it?"
"Lost it or not, that's our mission, team," was Vlad's terse reply. "So suck it up and, once we hit ground, grab your gear, check your ammo and mikes, and get ready to infiltrate Hogwarts."
"Fuck," was Vicky's only response to the situation. It was appropriate, too. The mere idea of infiltrating the enemy headquarters was a bat-shit crazy plan to begin with, but this just took the cake!
"Look, if it makes you guys feel any better, I don't like it any more than you do," Vlad sounded exasperated. "But orders are orders, and HQ isn't run by a bunch of monkeys on speed. You gotta trust them to make the right decisions, or else we're really screwed."
1,000 feet and dropping.
The sound of explosions was becoming more and more apparent, and only by straining your ears could you make out the sound of gunfire over the screaming noise of the falling pods.
"Sir, I'm just saying, do we even know where the VIP is in the castle?" Snap was asking Vlad.
The debate on the mission's soundness had been going on since they had first received their instructions, and the team's disbelief hadn't abated since then. Rather, they were all sceptical about their ability to pull it off, and the lack of intel they were given. Where they seriously supposed to just storm the castle and just wing it for the rest?
"I know, Snap, I know," came Vlad's reply. "We'll have to look at all the usual suspects, I guess. The towers, dungeons, and maybe Headmaster's office."
"What about the eating hall?" asked Vicky.
"Too exposed to be a safe place. Towers too, for that matter, but their bases are pretty solidly built. Those might be ideal places for our VIP to be held."
"So we just run pell mell through the enemy HQ trying to find someone whose name we don't even know?" asked Tank. "Yeah, this is going to go great."
"Quit your bitching, Tank, and get set for imminent landing. The moment those hatches blow open, I want us to meet fifteen meters from the castle entrance on my position, clear?"
Various variations of acknowledgement followed from Vicky and the rest of her team.
"Good. Now get set. We're entering the fifty meters zone."
Indeed, the moment they did, the pod shook again as its computer-controlled breaking propulsion system fired up. Though they were still falling quite fast, She noticed that the rate of descent was being slowed down considerably, making her feel more at ease—though it didn't prevent her from squeezing the grip sticks on her chair for all they were worth.
Soon enough, she felt her pod crash into the ground, and she was hard pressed to keep her neck straight, lest she get whiplash from the impact. Still, she couldn't help but let out a nervous giggle that she was still, in fact, very much alive despite the insane drop.
Any thoughts of relief, however, were quickly dismissed as the pod's systems beeped at her in alarm. It wasn't a danger alarm, however—merely a notice that the pod's hatch was about to open. Letting go of the grip-sticks, she turned and grabbed her equipment from the secure slots to her sides. Within seconds, her combat weaponry was all set to go, and when the hatch did open, she was out instantly, already running for the castle's entrance while the rest of her fellow troopers ran past her towards the second gate, which sounded as though it was under heavy assault.
Vicky paid it no heed. She had her own mission, her own team. Within seconds, she noticed Vlad reaching the meeting point first, and quickly sprinted her way to him, kneeling when she got there, as he had.
Vlad nodded at her. "Good to see you in one piece, Bolt," he greeted seriously through the inter-team comm. "Seen Tank or Snap yet?"
Vicky was about to shake her head when two more voices added themselves to the conversation.
"Tank here, I'm on your six and coming up."
"This is Snap, I'll be there in a minute. My rifle got stuck in its slot!"
Soon enough, the foursome of the fifth section's second fireteam was assembled, all of them kneeling and facing each other. Vlad took the initiative then and began to speak.
"Okay, here's what we know," he said, tracing a crude map on the ground. "The front doors seem impossible to open, but I've had a chat with some people from General Longbottom's group and there may be a passageway into the castle from this cliff. We go in through there, see where we end up, and once we get our bearings, we go looking for our VIP, got it?"
"Got it," the three other members said in unison.
"Bolt, you're on point. I'm second, Snap's third, and I want you, Tank, on rearguard. Clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
Vlad nodded once before getting up. "Alright then. Let's rock this place."
Post-AN: As always, please review. Not only do they tell me how my readers feel about what I write, they also tell me when I cross the line or bungle up. Remember, however, flaming is not constructive criticism--it's being a child. - MB