The heavy blast doors of the primary briefing room hissed shut behind First Lieutenant Orrin Darge, cutting off the low, hum of the
Stryker II's command bridge. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sergeant Major Hamish Horvath, Orrin walked down the industrial steel gantry toward the lift grids, his fingers already flying across his data console to relay the freshly finalized Operation Orders down the chain of command.
"All units, lock it down. We have confirmation from Command. Objective is the deep mountain basin. Strap in, we are going hot."
The comms channel crackled instantly with a secondary, high-priority transmission. The encryption key belonged to the planetside expedition commander, Lady R'ayne Asara, patching a direct frequency straight into Orrin's headset.
Orrin acknowledged Lady Asara's direct orders, confirming the immediate establishment of a defensive perimeter, secure routes, and specialized, high-ground surveillance for the arriving convoy, pledging a hard, special forces screen.
As the turbolift opened, the hangar hummed with activity. Sergeant Major Horvath coordinated the liftoff of Rampart Platoon, directing, in his usual display of practiced, iron-fisted authority, the loading of supplies and pre-drop checklists in preparation for a hostile landing. The platoon acted with swift precision, checking specialized, and in some cases, heavily-armored equipment while preparing their distinctively-marked, battle-scarred gear for immediate action.
Orrin, donned in his tactical, field-hardened armor, walked toward the lead TIE-B class dropship, settling into the cockpit. Following a quick status check, Horvath and the rest of the platoon confirmed they were ready for deployment. With approval, the trio of armored transports disengaged from the
Stryker II and descended, plunging into the dark, uncharted mountainous terrain of Ruisto.
Once they were in atmosphere, the high dorsal fins of the three dropships sliced through the swirling ash-gray mist hanging low over the mountain basin. Descending in a tight, fast-moving formation, the armored hulls groaned as their massive maneuvering thrusters fought against the violent mountain wind. Down on the rocky canyon floor, the approach of the expeditionary convoy glimmered faintly like dying embers through the ancient twilight.
The chin-mounted repeating blaster cannons of the lead dropship tracked orange firing lines across the perimeter walls as the heavy landing landing skids slammed onto the dead earth, crushing stone bleached by centuries of salt and neglect.
As the dropships touched down, their ventral drop hatches slammed open almost simultaneously. Out of the pressurized troop bays stepped Rampart, moving with absolute, lethal discipline. Stepping off from lead dropship, Orrin was instantly pummelled by the biting wind as his helmet's visor began immediately cataloging the terrain data downloaded from Lady Asara's initial scans. Behind him, the massive, towering frame of Sergeant Major Hamish Horvath descended, his scuffed gray chest plates bearing the heavy scratches of a dozen campaigns.
"The wind down here is throwing a three-degree variance on our long-range ballistics, Lieutenant," Horvath rumbled, his voice low and raspy through his helmet's vocoder. He tapped a thick, armored finger against his wrist console.
"Specter is going to have a hell of a time anchoring their scanner pickets on the north tooth."
Orrin paused, looking up at the jagged black ridges cutting into the twilight sky.
"Then we don't rely on the fixed arrays, Top. Have Specter deploy their handheld triangulation spikes. The tech is older, but it'll ignore the atmospheric shear."
Horvath chuckled softly—a harsh, metallic sound over the private squad channel.
"Pragmatic as always, sir. The academy didn't completely ruin your common sense."
"The academy taught me how the book says a war is won, Top," Orrin replied, adjusting the sling of his G-22 as he turned to face the hulking SNCO. He kept his tone respectful, grounded, and entirely collaborative.
"It's your job to keep us from getting killed when the books turn out to be fiction old man."
Horvath nodded slowly, his posture relaxing into a comfortable, hyper-alert guard stance.
"Fair point, boss. Hammer Squad will set up the energy shields at the primary choke points. If anything tries to push through those passes, they'll be running straight into a wall of high-output plasma. Nevertheless Sir, I don't like the look of those cavern anomalies Lady Asara flagged."
"Neither do I," Orrin admitted, his augmented reality overlay tracking the series of erratic, pulsing static spikes along the base of the ruins.
"The scanners are fluctuating too much to be natural. I'm gonna want a 3-man medical team from Siren Squad trailing the main convoy, ready to deploy the trauma rigs if we end up in the Druk."
"Consider it done, LT" Horvath stated, crisp and automated. He slammed his fist against his chest plate in a disciplined salute.
"I'll monitor the line from the gunship pod. Don't keep the Mother of Monsters waiting, sir. Force users get twitchy when the military is late."
"I intend to be exactly on time, Hamish," Orrin said with a confident smile hidden behind his helmet.
"Now get moving."
"Hammer, set the line! Drop those barriers now!" Lieutenant Orrin Darge's voice boomed across the platoon comms network as he stepped down the ramp, his helmet's polarized crimson visor active.
The heavy weapons troopers of Hammer Squad sprinted into the choke points of the narrow mountain passes.
Thwump. Thwump. Multiple Bulwark class deployable thermal shields hissed to life, locking into the bedrock to project vibrant particle barriers across the main entry vectors. Behind them, the heavy repeating blasters were mounted and calibrated, establishing a hard, impenetrable kill zone before the engineering heavy material arrived, and the grenadier prepped his launcher.
"Specter, I want OPs established on the north and south peaks, time now!," Orrin ordered, lifting his G-12 tactical rifle.
"1-4, deploy your drone network and get my long guns staged. We need to clear the shadows." The overwatch troopers unclipped and deployed a swarm of palm-sized Seeker-4 reconnaissance drones. The whisper-quiet repulsor orbs shot skyward into the mist, mapping the terrain and feeding real-time tactical overlays directly into the platoon's HUDs. On the ridge-face, the Specter Squad troops melted into the dark crevices of the cyclopean black ridges, keeping the valley floor squarely in their optics.
With the immediate perimeter locked down to Lady Asara's general specifications, Orrin raised a fist, signaling for the squads to begin their combat clearing patrols. If the engineering corps was going to drop their heavy assets here, those unmapped, ancient foundations needed to be thoroughly swept for localized threats.
"Rampart, Hammer, push out into the sector," Orrin commanded, checking the charge on his power cell.
"We don't call the all-clear until we've personally cleared the grids. Siren, with me!."
He hadn't taken three steps forward when a sharp, static-laced warning tone cut through the platoon loop.
On the ridge line, Rampart Platoons consoles all violently spiked. The Seeker drones dropped their mapping grids as their sensors automatically re-routed into combat-tracking, filling Orrin's HUD with a series of massive, erratic thermal signatures. Something had flared to life deep within the unmapped cavern cracks along the mountain's edge.
The scanner fluctuations Lady Asara had warned them about suddenly turned real. The dead earth beneath their heavy duraplast boots began to thrum with a heavy, rhythmic vibration. In the dark recesses of the ancient ruins just ahead of the advancing patrol lines, the gray mist violently parted. Multiple unknown contacts were bearing directly towards their positions.
Orrin didn't hesitate. He dropped into a tight firing stance, his voice barking over the squad loop with unshakeable military authority.
"OK Rampart, form a tactical wedge! Specter, pull back the drones and start lazing these bogeys. We've got incoming!" As the troopers training instincts kicked in and they formed their various battle positions, Orrin hurriedly relayed the status update to Remnant Command and Lady Asara. He hoped she hadn't met the contacts first.
Tags:
Captain Charles
R'ayne Asara
Ronhar Tane
