After that brief scuffle, we got down to business.
I chose about 10 people in 7th Battalion to join our squad, and Cobo did the same.
Of course we didn't just randomly chose them directly, we went through the Battalion Leader first and he directed us to his Platoon Leaders.
"Just tell those guys I sent you, they'll understand. Don't worry, you aren't conflicting with anything since we're just on standby for the entire op." said the 7th Battalion Leader to us.
He was a normal human in his 60's.
Thus, we had our men.
We were currently in Secondary Hangar Bay 6, and I was currently giving them a small briefing about our objective. While a person wearing full body armor was just standing in the back.
Before this, I did rock, paper, scissors, against Cobo to determine who was going to give the briefing.
Well, I lost.
The men we picked were young. Most were in their mid 20's, while only a few were in their early 20's or late 20's. All of them were human too.
We made sure to pick people near our age group, as to not elicit a slight sense of awkwardness when commanding people 10 years older than us. Usually those people would be the veterans.
"Right, that's all for the briefing. Any questions?"
A mercenary from the second row, third column from the left raised his hand.
"Speak up." I nodded in affirmation.
"Sir, are we expecting any enemy contacts other than anomalous creatures?"
"Deronia is empty. Expect no other contacts with any lifeform other than the anomalous creatures and surviving wildlife."
Surviving wildlife being mostly the insects that had survived the anomaly itself.
The mercenary dropped his hand. And as soon as his hand dropped, another mercenary raised his hand.
"Go ahead."
"What happens if we encounter a Grade-3 Lifeform?"
"Full retreat. Same thing happens if we encounter five Grade-4 Lifeforms."
The mercenary dropped his hand shortly after. There was a gap of about 7 seconds before the next one raised his question.
"Sir, what actually happens after you go completely insane in this anomaly's influence? The outcome is only stated as "suicide", but not anything specific that leads to that."
Right, good question. It's already well known that the mental effects of this anomaly's influence drives people insane and leads them to suicide. But thats only its first phase of influence. The rest was heavily censored and classified by the government. Only Command knew what would actually happen.
"You turn into a human bell."
"..."
Silence.
"Let me elaborate. You turn into an offspring of the City of Tolling Bells, becoming a vector for its influence to spread even more rapidly. While I haven't seen its exact appearance, its descriptions are enough to tell me how mentally draining it would be for you guys to look at it."
I continued.
"Which is why those pills from those labcoats over at the Medbay are very important. Keep them at all times, and consume one immediately if you feel any weird impulses, or any thoughts related to bells and 'tolling'. They are your, and everyone else's lifeline for this one mission. Understood?"
"Yes sir! Understood sir!"
I nodded, satisfied.
"Any more questions?"
About 20 more seconds pass in silence. Looking around, nobody seems to be raising their hands.
"I take it we're all done here. Alright, briefing dismissed, operation commences in 58 minutes standard time. Take these things to where they belong, go!"
The soldiers immediately folded their chairs, stacked them, and put back all the equipment that was used for the briefing in an orderly fashion.
Aaaah. The joy of being a higher-up.
"Oooh~ Mister Phantom, so elite... He's way too elite and stuck up his ass to carry this stuff on his own."
"Oh I know full well that you'd do that aswell you bastard."
"Atleast I wouldn't be as blunt as you."
'Doesn't matter.'
Cobo was already fully geared up. It was his special anti-heat, fully cooled, enclosed military environmental exosuit. When comparing our height, he was now 1 and a half heads taller than me.
"I wonder how much I can burn this time? Oooh, can't wait to burn one of those aforementioned bells."
"Don't overdo it. Last time you almost burnt down an entire section of forest area. That almost got us in a lawsuit with the planets wildlife activism group."
"Well, it can't be helped, its not like I was trying to burn the trees- They were just in my way, so I cleared the area a bit, you know?"
'A bit... is an understatement.'
Cobo's common sense about flammability, is a bit off. But that's not as bad as his entire character.
"Just a little flame won't hurt anyone, Flames are meant to burn everything... Maybe this time I'll try to burn the entire city while im at it? I mean, its deserted after all, right? I'd be captivated to see the flames engulf the entire city."
Huge pyromaniac.
'I'm not really interested to reign him in, but if he does do that that would be bad.'
I made a mental note to watch him a bit tightly in this operation.
While we were waiting, nearly an hour had passed, and during that waiting two figures alongside the 20 soldiers from earlier entered the room.
Those two people were the pilots, they wore a completely different uniform alongside with their blue flight gear. They came to me and said-
"Nice to meet you sir. I'm Sergeant David, the pilot and this is Corporal Colmo, my co-pilot."
I already knew their names and faces from the Captain's briefing, but I still responded in kind.
"Nice to meet you two, David and Colmo. I trust you can deliver us safely and back intact from the operational area?"
"No need to worry Lieutenant. You can count on us for transport."
"Perfect. Let's get on."
Clap! Clap!
Due to my gloves being a kind of armored glove that had plates on its front and back, the sound reverberated throughout the entire hangar and sounded more like metal plates hitting eachother.
The soldiers took this as a sign to board, and all of them started to enter the dropship.
Once everyone boarded, the dropship doors closed with a slight thud. The metal hydraulics on its back settled in with a high pitched sound. The sound of the door locking sent a small reverberation on the gunship. After that, the AC immediately blasted in full, sending a cold wave of refreshment towards the soldiers.
The dropship we were using was the Star Continental ATG200 Troop Transport Gunship. It was a medium sized, armed gunship that had space for about 30 troops to enter, with a max of two small vehicles aswell. It came armed with a triple barreled 50mm vulcan cannon and came with two missile launchers on its body.
Basically, it kind of looked like the P****** from H***, but with a larger body, a bulkier cockpit, a wider wingspan, bigger engines and a grey-black colour scheme.
I took a look at the time, which was conveniently, a feature in my mask.
3/14/3433, 8:29 AM.
During the waiting, I was constantly hearing radio chatter from other people in Command.
"30 seconds until deployment order. All units standby." There was a gruff, deep voice on the net just now.
That was the Captain.
"Lowlight-1, Lowlight-1, confirm seal."
This time, the radio chatter came from traffic control.
"Seal confirmed tight, no leak."
"Hangar depressurizing, standby."
There was an ominous creaking sound coming from the outside. For me, this was a usual routine. The hangar bays were opening to the silent embrace of space.
From the outside, it would look like a small part of the ship had opened up, showing its inside. Together with our hangar bays, dozens more opened up on its port and starboard sides. The result of that? An inner part of the ship that ran from nearly all of its aft until it reached a more heavily armored part of the bow had split apart, showing the dozens of hangar bays with hundreds of gunships and complementary fighter squadrons ready to fly.
13 Brigades, 13000 men. Thats how much was going to be deployed in this mission.
The rest would stay, only providing support from orbit.
Aside from the Arrejaunt, there were 7 other ships in the fleet, 2 being ships of the same model and type as the Arrejaunt, and the other 5 being support ships like cargo and fuel barges.
A view of these ships would also show that their sides had opened up, the gunships and fighters ready to fly when ordered.
"Hangar fully opened, fly when ready. Safe travels, Lowlight-1."
"Roger that."
After a couple seconds of waiting...
"All forces, commence operation, commence operation-"
The engines of the gunship blared into life with the colour blue, and its heavy mass started to lift up by its massive propellant force.
The mercenaries, who were talking all the time with eachother while waiting, felt a sudden jolt. Me and Cobo were in a seat on the cockpit, and thus was able to get a good view of the gunship's departure.
The mission had started.
Hundreds of gunships , together with hundreds of fighters came flying into space from inside the ships. From faraway, it would look like twinkling stardust entering Deronia's atmosphere.
One gunship strayed just a bit from the main pack, and landed in a more desolate and emptier area.
'We're just about 40 km's away from the main force.'
The main force wasn't too close, or too far. Support would be available if they were to encounter something dangerous.
'Including ground support, we have CAS, Medevac, and orbital bombardment.'
Orbital bombardment wasn't something to be used on a habitated planet, and is even illegal in some places of the galaxy.
Of course, since this planet isn't habitated anymore, its not illegal.
At most we would just kill a couple of insects.
"In-atmosphere." the main pilot said.
"Looks good, no physical influence detected."
"Continue course."
"Affirmative."
Just 3 minutes later, we had landed on the planet. It only took about 10 minutes to touch ground from orbit.
The gunship extended its landing gear, the greenery making way as its powerful thrust pressure bended grass and trees.
The influence of the anomaly had mostly left the nature in Deronia intact since the anomaly itself in essence couldn't target natural plant-based life or beings without self-conciousness.
"Touchdown."
I touched Cobo's shoulder and gestured for us to go outside first. Thus, me and him left the cockpit. The mercenaries were already standing up, ready to recieve their orders.
"Remember protocol, safety first. Don't hesitate to take a pill when you feel strange. Keep your eyes and ears open."
The large door was already opening, its hydraulics shifting and extending as the green view of the earthlike planet Deronia came into sight. Without any context, this would've looked like your average mission in an earth-like planet.
"Call out any contacts over radio, but don't shoot without my orders. Also, watchout- some of those things can be smart."
Thud! The door that served as a ramp had fully opened.
"Alright everyone, lets move!"
The mercenaries, responding to my order, immediately left the gunship with precision and haste. Their motions on exiting the craft was fluid, and clearly trained. They immediately set up a perimeter just as planned.
'Alright. Let's see here.'
On the floor of the gunship, there was something covered in a tarp. It had rope all over it to secure it in place.
There was also a certain piece of equipment that I always usually bring to my operations.
Untying the rope, and taking off the tarp, the magnificent piece of machinery was unfolded in my eyes.
It was a drone, currently unactivated and having some of its parts seperated.
What is this thing for you wonder?
Well. It served as a second eye for my OISS, it having connected to my mask's optical imaging feed.
You can do alot of fun stuff with it. Extended surveillance, designating CAS targets, calling for orbital bombardment... As a bonus, it had a 12.7mm twin machinegun on its bottom, plus hardpoints for missiles.
The drone had the manufactory name of Sunlight Air Spirit A20. I called it Spirit.
Sigh....
I heard a sigh from the Cobo who was wearing the exosuit next to me, who hasn't said a word for the past 15 minutes or so.
"Look at this, such a dramatic moment- Yet you're making it so anticlimactic~" said Cobo.
"They're already waiting for you on the ground, Squad Leader."
"I know, its just a couple of minutes."
I put the drone and its parts over the tarp, and dragged it out with a rope down to the ground.
"Lowlight-1. Package delivered. Clear to move into CAS assignment."
"Understood, Phantom. Switching to CAS. Ready when needed. 5 hour flight time. 30 missiles, 2000 bullets."
"Affirmative, Lowlight-1."
I had already finished setting up the drone by the time the conversation finished.
Ding!
Some words popped up on my screen.
"Authenticated device detected, would you like to connect?"
"Yes." I muttered in a low voice, just enough so that the OISS could hear me.
"Succesfully connected to device - Spirit."
Very convenient, yes? Whoever added all the user friendliness deserves a raise alongside the person who inscribed an AC spell onto this thing.
I set the drone to its default 'Follow' configuration using the OISS.
I could see the camera through its dark-grey glass zooming and expanding out. In just a second, its quad rotor blades had whirred to life, and it began to fly, high up in the air.
Due to certain effects of this anomaly, we won't be using it for scouting-
'It'll be useful for covering us though.'
"I hope that thing gets shot down one day." said Cobo next to me.
"Tough luck. It has stealth and anti thermals."
"Tch."
Lowlight-1 had already flown in the air, and was now currently circling our area of operation.
"Let's move." I said with gusto.