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Kudaarn Drop


Chapter 1: The Drop
The Sajuuk and Makaan floated above the Tiidani world, the Marine detachment onboard filing into their individual drop pods to be jettisoned to the surface, Master Sergeant Nylund among them. He strode into the pod and secured himself with the belt.
“Division 1,” a voice came over the intercom, then paused, ”Drop” The artificial gravity was lost as the pod fell from the flagship into the planet’s gravity well. Looking to his flanks, he could barely make out thousands of other pods streaking to the surface of the Tiidani planet for their assault. Re-entry was, as always, difficult. Flames licked at the hull of the pod and internal temperature slowly rose. The gray hull turned to a molten red as it was thrown closer still toward the planets surface, rumbling and shaking the whole way. Once the shaking mostly stopped, the altimeter read 43.5 thousand feet. At this exact point, a division’s worth or drop pods activated their personal cloaking devices and thermal signature screens, a massive glitch in the Tiidani radar network.
“Funny, ain’t it?” Gunnery Sergeant Arzt said through cross-com on the drop pod.
Nylund depressed the button on his seat and spoke to the air,
“What’s funny, Arzt?” He said, looking to his right, where the gunny’s drop pod was, streaking across the sky somewhere.
“Division 2…Drop” The person must have been on FLEETCOM. The whole HPMC (Hiigaran Planetary Marine Corps) could hear him.
“The calm during these drops, right before we make surface contact and the clusterf**k begins, it’s the most at peace you can ever be.” Nylund shared these feelings sometimes; the thought of imminent death did wonders to calm a grizzled veteran’s soul.
Altimeters flashed, warning lights blazed red, and manual controls rose from the smooth panels. Soldiers grabbed the flight control yokes and guided the maneuverable pods into tight formations; squads banded together and angled the craft toward their designated drop zones. Nylund formed up with the rest of Sigma Squad and pointed the pods directly toward a glass-ceiling building, probably a museum or greenhouse. With only 7,000 feet between him and the ground, he activated his reverse thrusters and drag flaps. The drop pods speed decreased dramatically and Nylund was thrown forward by the sudden drop in speed. At 100 feet, the drag flaps peeled off and the pods crashed through the flimsy glass ceiling covering the building. Large panes of glass shattered into millions of tiny shards by seemingly nothing at all to the now scared civilians.
“Sigma squad has made surface contact, waiting on your mark.” Nylund spoke into the COM again.
“Roger that, Sigma. Engage. Weapons are free.” Nylund’s A.I., Deja relayed to him.
“Sigma squad, going out!” Nylund said on FLEETCOM before depressing the release button on the control console. The door was thrown off the pod and Nylund stepped out with his Diverian MK.2 Assault Rifle at his shoulder, the safety off. Civilians scattered and air raid sirens began to go off. The noises were soon squelched, however, as Theta squad, their espionage agents, sabotaged the power grids. Lights everywhere went out, until only the twilight sun illuminated the streets, along with staccatos of gunfire from building-to building firefights.
Nylund had the men form up, and they slinked down the streets, keeping close to the walls before converging on a building where radio chatter indicated some enemy militia had set up a light machine-gun. Nylund nodded toward Corporal Veritas, who aimed a breaching shotgun at the panel locking mechanism. With a dull thud from the 8-guage, the panel was fried and the doors slid open. The squad filed inside, covering flanks and clearing rooms as Nylund and Veritas moved upward. The two soldiers slid fiber wire out of their thigh holster compartments and pulled the nylon cables tight, wrapping ends around their hands. The soldiers came up behind the gunner and pulled the taught ropes around both his neck and his reloader’s. When Nylund no longer felt a pulse and the body stopped flailing, he set the soldier’s body down and motioned to move forward through the next building through the walkway. The soldiers took out their rifles and crouched down, moving onto the walkway and chancing a look out the small windows, down onto the streets where small firefights were going on, usually ending in the death of a few Tidaani. Nylund stopped for a second and clicked off the all clear using the status light, flashing it three times on his men’s HUDs(Heads Up Display). There was a clicking of boots as the men filed up the stairs and re-cleared the rooms Nylund and Veritas had already gone through before moving behind the two men and tapping them on the shoulder.
“We’re moving on this building, taking out the recoilless rifles so our LRVs(Light Reconnaissance Vehicles) can get through, and we can pound city hall.” The men nodded. “The LRVs can give us a ride toward city hall, but all the fire is going to be concentrated on us. The men acknowledged what he said and Nylund stood upright.
“Move” Nylund instructed, and the men surged forward into the next room. Small rifle bursts rang out some gurgling sounds as a Tidaani was struck in the next and fell to the ground with a pool of blood gathering around his body. The men kept moving and a green light burned on his display. He nodded toward Veritas and the two men continued to move as radio chatter showed good progress.
“Sir, we’re at the guns, just tell us when.” As the private reported in, their IFF tags appeared on his HUD and he looked to see just how far away they were. “Sigma…” a voice came through on the radio, “Be –vised….-or….-vicinity” the garbled transmission informed him.
“What?” he asked?
“SIGMA, BE ADVISED, ARMORED VEHICLE IN YOUR VICINITY!” Just then, a large rumble rang out, a wall collapsed, and screams were heard over the COMs. Three of his squad’s tags went dark, and biometric meters flat lined. One man’s signal disappeared entirely. Nylund swore before regaining his cool. He pulled up a roster to see who had the MPAR in the squad.
“Jenkins,” Nylund said into the COM. “Hit that tank.”
“Roger that.” A PFC said before his tag flashed from blue to amber, signaling an imminent fire.
“Missile Away.” The PFC informed Nylund. A look out the windows and he saw an arc of gray smoke fly toward the tank, then, in a fraction of an instant, there was no more turret. All movement in the armor stopped, and Jenkins reported in.
“Sir, armor has been neutralized.” Nylund again pulled up his roster and checked off his three dead men: Garland, McCullis, and Braeburn.
“Roger that, Jenkins. Gather up the dead and move them to our drop zone with a signal beacon and deploy a stealth field around them”
“Can do, sir” There was a grunt as he and a couple other men hefted the corpses, then walked by Nylund as they moved toward the greenhouse they had landed in. Nylund checked how many people he still had: four men, a fire team. Three dead and three protecting the dead. As Veritas and Nylund moved toward the recoilless rifles, Nylund unwound a piece of det-cord from around his forearm and applied a coating of foam explosives around it, for that extra little bit. He took the cord, wrapped it around the barrel and loading mechanism of the rifle, and had his squad go back into the street, jumping down the small pile of rubble leftover from when the Tidaani knocked down the wall of a building to get a clear shot with the gun. The men dropped into the streets and made sure there were no Tidaani around as Nylund attached the detonator and dropped into the street as well.
“Fire in the hole.” He said as he flipped up the safety cover of the detonator and depressed the red button. There was a small thump and the explosives went off, and the rifle was no more than a memory.
“Wolfbite, you’re free to bring in the buggies.” Nylund informed the other platoon, who was in charge of the safe transport of the Hiigaran ground assets.
“Roger that, Sigma, Wolfbite inbound on your position.” The COM channel was switched off and Nylund’s team waited for both the Lynx buggies, and some sign of Tidaani reinforcements. Something just was not right about the miniscule troop concentration in the city. There was a clicking of keys as Veritas input their sitrep and the Lynx rolled into sight toward the buildings.
There was a screeching of tires as the buggies rolled to a halt and small troop compartments opened up on the sides, two men to each compartment.
“Where’s your complement, Sigma?” asked a Lynx driver as Nylund walked by the driver’s seat of the buggy.
“Guarding the dead,” Nylund quickly replied as he climbed into the bay next to Veritas and the hatch, which silently slid itself shut. The buggy then lurched forward as it continued in the blitz on city hall.
Gunfire was hushed behind the metal plating and the buggy’s loud engine drowned out all thought. Nylund looked to Veritas, who kept a stone stare at the door. Nylund respected the man’s privacy, so he just referred to the small console on his forearm, where the A.I Deja was contained.
“Deja, pull up a map, please.” Nylund said to the computer.
“Certainly,” she said, a small hologram appeared of her and the small space glowed a cool emerald with the A.I’s body. She pulled up the global map, data streams of crimson ran through her body as she went through the frustrating authorized channels. Eventually, though, a holographic map of the city appeared in front of him. Deja also took care to show him both their current position as well as the location of city hall.
Nylund smirked just as the first shell hit.












Chapter 2: Boo-Koo Hostiles

The 120mm artillery shells pummeled the streets and Nylund swore as the buggy shook violently for the 12th time. He looked over to Veritas who had fallen asleep and smirked a bit before shaking him awake.
“Constant beat of shells is soothing, sir.” Veritas said as he regained consciousness and the buggy rolled to a halt.
“City hall, Nylund. GO!” The driver yelled into the radio as the compartments slid open to reveal a shattered city, buildings riddled with holes and artillery shaking buildings apart. Destroyed Beauty, some might say.
Nylund stepped out of the Lynx as it began rolling away to another hotspot in the city, and his fireteam bypassed the obvious command, took positions on the edges of the street, and began moving toward city hall, Nylund leading the way. He peeked out of his cover, currently a wall, and saw the advancing Tiidani Battalion, who broke fire discipline to hit the soldier. He blinked as a reflex as each bullet cracked on the wall of zinged past his head, every time they opened reminded him he was still alive. Nylund sank back into cover and primed a round into the Diverian, a satisfying click sounded as the round fed into the chamber. Keeping his index finger extended across the trigger guard, he melted into the building, semi-active camouflage on his suit diverted to match the eggshell color of the wall and he peeked out of his new vantage point. He took another length of det chord from around his forearm. He had drawn another bit from his pack. He tapped Veritas for a second can of C-12 and gripped the small can. He sprayed the cord and attached the explosives which began to harden to a shell around the cord, and Nylund inserted a detonator just before it became rock solid. He tossed out the cord and the advancing men stopped to eye the anomaly. A soldier grabbed it as per orders and slid it into his rigging before bringing it back to his C.O. to be inspected. Nylund counted his blessings that these guys knew nothing about the Hiigaran technology. As the device switched hands to the C.O. Nylund flipped the switch and pressed the red button again, a large, un-muffled blast and a spray of blood were the only evidence that Nylund could see of the blast. As the men were thrown into disarray, Nylund moved through the buildings to inspect his handiwork. The C-12 had coupled for a perfect explosion with the det cord, the C.O and the LAV next to him were nothing more than a bad memory, and quite a few men were also caught in the blast, men fired at non-existent shadows and Nylund chuckled a bit over COMs. For another bit of fun, he signaled for the men to apply their silencers. The squad all took the long metal tubes from their rigs and spun them onto the threading on the Diverian’s barrel, Nylund doing the same.
“Single shots only, go for center mass. Fire at will.” As he gave the order, there were a few puffs of smoke and an equal amount of puffs of blood as more men fell and more Tidaani fired in the confusion.
“Reloading,” Veritas said as he hit his mag release, and a magazine fell from the Diverian, making a clattering sound as it hit the concrete, but that wasn’t audible over the huge amount of gunfire. He slid another magazine into the well and pulled back the receiver, priming a new round into the rifle. The Corporal the returned to firing into the crowd of Tidaani as a few officers tried to regain cohesion in their troops, but weren’t doing such a good job at it.
“Come on,” Nylund said, tapping Veritas’s shoulder and moving farther away from the soldiers.
“Command, this is Sigma, I have enemy readings, and Deja is relaying them to you now.” Blue data streams passed over his forearm’s datapad as Deja informed the ground force advisor the information.
“Data received, thanks Nylund.” The advisor said into the COMs as he uploaded the information to the entirety of the shock troops on the ground.
“Sigma, this is Omikron team, we’ve hooked up with Delta, Beta, and Alpha, heading your way.” Arzt’s voice buzzed over the COMs.
“Roger that, Omikron, be advised, we are currently in the blown-out building due north-east of the Tidaani troop garrison.” Nylund answered into his headset as another artillery shell screamed through the air and collided with a residential complex, the first of a new barrage. Nylund’s teeth ground together as a shell hit a nearby street, stripping the concrete off the ground as it hit, leaving only a smoldering crater.
“HQ, this is Antares. Where do you want us deployed?” A Voice came over the radio, but he heard Deja giggle. She had tapped into a single beam COM.
“Antares, we need you to land near Sigma’s location, be advised, Sigma cannot know of your nature, much less your presence.” Nylund’s face took a look of surprise.
“Roger that, HQ. Launching pod.” The COM line cut out and there was a loud screaming sound as large, oblong, objects crashed into a nearby building, going too fast for any person to survive without blacking out and dying of internal bleeding, not to mention being crushed upon impact. There were some hissing sounds and he saw figures moving in the shadows, and at huge speeds, blue glowing lifeless eyes leaving trails against the dark of the building.

Chief Petty Officer Jericho Antares made landfall in Kudaarn at terminal velocity, and bruised his leg a bit. The safety cover on his drop pod launched itself off and he climbed out, activating his energy shield and bringing his HUD up, as the eyes on his armor glowed blue. He looked down the street, augmented eyes making his vision pristine, and it was filled with Tiidani troops.
“Hayter, Slavik, S’jet. Let’s move out, we’ve got our work cut out for us.” He ran through the building as he took his Discodia rifle off his back, flipping off the safety as he continued his advance. As he ran, he saw a single pair of eyes staring back at him: Sigma’s CO. He put aside the gaze and tore through a brick wall, right into the bulk of the Tiidani troops. He took out his knife off his lower back and severed one man’s spine with it, flowing right into another’s neck, as Hayter punched another soldier in the face, shattering the bones on contact. He quickly re-secured his rifle on his back and continued with the blade, driving it into another soldier’s forehead, the blade’s ultra-high frequency scrambled the man’s brains as he pulled the blade back out, kicking another man in the small of his back, snapping his spine. Surprisingly, the Tiidani had not even started to return fire yet. Slavik grabbed a private’s chin and bisected it from the rest of his body as the repetitive blast of S’jet’s shotgun brutally tore men apart. Jericho was almost stunned when a bullet finally struck his shield, harmlessly bounced off, and Jericho had an actual combatant now. He took his sidearm from its holster and pulled the trigger three times, the slide bounced back and forth as the bullets impacted on the enemy’s chest and punctured his heart in three different places, causing the unfortunate b*****d to crumple to the ground, obviously dead.

Tiidani screams filled the air, sending chills up Nylund’s spine, those men were being torn apart, from the sounds of things, He moved toward the fight, his men close behind, and looked around the corner to see four men, each around seven feet tall, ripping apart the contingent. He saw no identification, for Hiigara or the Tiidani, but he assumed they were friendly, judging by who they were killing, a squadmate, however, didn’t think so, he fired a shot at one of the men, who simply pulled out his pistol and shot 3 times, each bullet made impact and the corporal fell to the ground. Nylund swore and began firing into the crowd, trying to make the current fight end more quickly, but there were too many Tiidani.
“Winged Moon.” Slavik yelled over the COMs, spamming the vicinity, and one of the solders stopped and looked at him, eyes piercing into him, blue and piercing.
“Sent by Guidestone.” He said as he tapped his neck. The man then charged Nylund, and knocked his whole squad out in a matter of seconds.

Antares administered the last of the drugs to the knocked out Hiigaran regulars, hoping they wouldn’t remember them as they came to.
“Sentinel,” Slavik said as he walked into the small room.
“Ooh-Rah” Antares replied to acknowledge the other soldier entering the room, waving over his back to the soldier.
“Whaddya think about these guys?” Slavik asked, nudging Veritas with his boot, then nudging the prone Nylund.
“They’ll be out of the war—and our hair—for a while, but there’s always a chance. I’m going to wave down Super 61 for a medivac, and then we can continue the mission.” Antares replied as he stood up and walked out of the room with Slavik behind him. S’jet looked up and nudged Hayter, who was cleaning his Tarsok sniper rifle. Hayter glared at S’jet before oiling the slide one last time and re-assembling the rifle. He then looked up to Antares with his rifle sitting across his lap.
“We’re going to continue as planned, warfare in the city until command fins anything else to give to us. Remember, we’re restricted on ammo so exploit everything you can, only use your rifle on what you need to. This goes especially for you, S’jet.”
“Hey, I still have 64 shells.” S’jet replied, completely disregarding the fact that the Sentinels were meant to operate planetside for as much as a week after the assault, far behind enemy lines.
“Whatever, man.” Antares said before taking the frequency blade from its sheath and poking his head from the door of the building.
“Sergeant Antares, command requests that you disable the enemy artillery, shall I comply?” Antares’s onboard A.I. Eva asked him.
“Tell them to send us the SPYSAT uplink and we’ll be on our way.” As he finished his sentence, a topographical 3-D map of the city appeared in the corner of his HUD, with an orange circle near a parking garage.
“Command, this is Antares, we’re currently inbound on the artillery position, keep us informed.” Antares said as he keyed off his COM and began on his way, not bothering to stay in the shadows. He found a Tiidani soldier and dropped him with a round from his rifle.
“Hi, Jericho,” a female voice came through the COMs. He remembered her from training, a constant itch he could never scratch.
“Kathryn. Where is your squad?” He keyed the COM system and entered a single beam transmission.
“I mis-dropped. Can I form up with you?” She asked, knowing Jericho would have to comply.
“Roger that, sending our co-ordinates.” Jericho replied with a sigh before closing the channel and holding up a fist. The men behind him immediately halted and flushed with a nearby building. After a few minutes, there was a clattering of heavy boots and another sentinel rounded the corner. Jericho chuckled seeing Kathryn again. She was only a scant 6 feet tall, appearing diminutive against her 7 foot brethren.
“Just form up behind me, okay?” Jericho asked, not wanting to get into a conversation with her. “And call me Antares” He added, hating his first name, along with its shortened version.
“Yes sir.” Kathryn said in her usual joking tone before the line of men shifted to allow her room, and Antares waved them all forward, passing by a convenience store, which looked quite peculiar to S’jet.
“Sir?” S’jet said uneasily as he continued to scrutinize the store. He suddenly realized what was so wrong about it.
“What is it, S’jet?” Antares asked, wanting to take out the artillery that has been bombarding them for the past hour.
“TANK!” S’jet yelled as the vehicle’s engine kicked to life and it plowed out of the convenience store, quickly firing a shot into the building, missing Antares by a few feet. To Antares’s relief though, Hayter knew what to do and the marksman had disappeared from the fray. The other four sentinels rushed in close to the tank and just began punching the tank’s armor, hoping to distract it. Hayter punched the barrel and dented it, throwing it out of whack and making it unable to fire.
“Move, Antares.” Hayter said over the COM. The sentinels all bugged out and there were four loud shots from Hayter’s Tarsok. The rifle’s magnetically charged rounds made it a miniature railgun, and each round punctured through the armor and into soldiers inside, then through them and into the engine block. S’jet sighed, and Antares knew why: the man had new anti-tank ordinance, but was under special orders only to use it when absolutely needed. S’jet regretfully agreed. Hayter, satisfied with his work, came back down out of the building and laughed a bit as he inspected his handiwork up close. However, he quickly regained his composure and fell back into the formation, which had changed to offer more coverage. Antares and Slavik were on one side of the street, and the others where they started. The sentinels again kept moving and proceeded to the artillery site as night took over the city, and sentinel eyes turned from blue to green as night vision automatically kicked in.
After a few minutes of navigating the street and weaving between buildings, there was a flash of light as artillery fired and their vision polarized to compensate for the flash.
“Well, I guess we found the pieces, huh?” Antares whispered as he examined the ordinance he had taken off that one soldier, Nylund.
"Why can’t we get this stuff?!” He said as he examined the det-cord, his eyes glowing behind his helmet.
“This stuff’s been specially modified, won’t detonate unless an electrical charge of the exact frequency of the detonator reaches it. It’s beautiful!” Antares had almost completely forgotten about the matter of the artillery, until a nearby shell knocked him from his reverie. He took a strand of det-cord from the cylindrical compartment it was stored in and compacted it into a ball, and placed a detonator receiver on it as he snuck up close to one of the pieces and tossed the ball into the air, right into the pieces barrel. Antares flipped the switch on the detonator and right before he pressed the button, the though crossed his mind that he may have put a bit too much explosives in there, he decided against it and pressed the button as the Tiidani fired another shell. Needless to say, there was a crater where the emplacement once was, and Antares snickered to himself as other soldier came to investigate.
“Antares, this is Hayter. I’ve found a forward observer who’s been dialing our shock troops in all day.” It seems that Antares wasn’t the only one who had been busy.
“Do you really need permission to fire?” Antares replied as he took another strand of det-cord from his pack and began moving toward another artillery piece, even though it was completely vacated of men. Nevertheless, he threw the det-cord ball into the barrel and blew that one up too. He liked this demolition tactic, so much nicer than that time-consuming C-7 Plastique the Sentinels were using.
“And I thought we were the only ones who got the good stuff.”