TURN 0:
You leave the room and soon arrive at the hangar's entrance, where armed guards check your identity. They let you pass into an adjoining room where you suit up, and when that's done, you climb the ramps to the zero-G loading station where the dropships are waiting. Some of the brightly lit signs on the rough structural trusses mark out a section for Platoon 56, along with the names of each squad. They already have your CASKETs attached to the appropriate dropships - all they're waiting for is you.
You soon find your ship by following the names on the signs and the directions of the armed guards - it's clamped firmly to the side of one of the vessels, with a disposable heatshield firmly grasped beneath it. The guards motion for you to get in and buckle up.
After climbing into your cockpit, the canopy closes by itself. The controls in the cockpit are dark - you are helpless to command your ship until you arrive. It will be a long flight, too - Sitatha is well out of the direction Tartarus is traveling, and the dropships will have quite a long distance to travel, even at warp 15. The order comes to "PSI Off": You lean back into your seat and hear several soft clicks as your suit's PSI jacks lock into place. As the machines take over, your consciousness fades - and everything grows dark. Before long, everything blanks out, putting you into a dreamless sleep for the duration of the flight.
~~~
Your consciousness switches back on like a light. For a moment, you sit there, half bewildered, blinking as you try to adjust your vision to the darkness. It seems you're over Sitatha's dark side.
"Okay, wake up, assholes. You're five minutes out."
It's SCAMPS' voice - you'd recognize his harsh tones anywhere. Looking out your cockpit's canopy, you see the dark, crevassed surface of Sitatha below you, moving quickly - and up ahead, looming so large it seems to fill your entire view - the hulk of its mother planet, Aerevoh. So far from its orange-yellow Class K parent star, it seems rather dim by comparison of what you're used to. You can hardly see the dim lights of your sister dropships out on either side - the ones carrying the rest of your platoon.
SCAMPS doesn't give you much time to reflect. "The dropships are doing a flyby of the planet. They're not atmosphere-worthy, so they're going to drop you off and let you burn your way down. Quick recap for anyone that missed it: Your mission is to figure out why the fukc Sitatha hasn't fallen apart, find the source and reason for these domes, and bring back the Quantum Orb if it exists." Then he adds, "Pilots, you ready? Three minutes left to drop."
"Roger," you hear the pilots say in response.
"Good. To clarify, dipshits, as I heard some of you were confused... you are not going to the cave systems. That's where I would have sent you. Now the elite platoon gets that job, and you get theirs, on LAMBDA's orders. In case any of you idiots didn't know, they're our high-level labs for anomalous materials. Top secret shit. I think they're a bunch of fukcing retards, but I don't get a vote." He pauses for a few more seconds. "Two minutes left."
"Roger."
"Await my signal."
The seconds pass. The planet appears to turn as you orbit around it, heading to the side nearest Aerevoh. You'll be landing in twilight.
"Thirty seconds. Initiate retroburn sequence and prepare to drop."
As one, the group of six dropships begin firing their thrusters towards the planet. The plan is to throw you off into the planet's atmosphere without them having to enter as well.
Unfortunately, things never go as planned.
At that moment, your cockpit begins to flash with color as bright purple streaks light up the sky.
"SHIT! Receiving heavy AA fire!" one of the pilots shouts. "Trying to evade - oh FUKC!"
Out your canopy, you watch as one of the dropship takes a series of direct hits. It explodes, bursting into fragments and flinging its attached CASKETs in all directions.
"Dropship six is down! Repeat, dropship six is down!"
"Stay your course and get ready to drop! Only twenty seconds left!"
The AA plasma continues to stream past; your dropship shakes from an explosion underneath but stays its course.
"Dropship five under heavy fire!" another shouts. "Where the hell is this even coming from?!"
"SCAMPS, we need the drop order NOW! We're not going to survive another thirty seconds of this!"
There's a brief silence; finally, SCAMPS' voice comes through - shaky with static. "DO IT! DROP!" he shouts. "DO IT NOW and get the hell out of there!"
You hear the loud clash of metal and a sharp grinding sound - the dropship flings you from its side into the darkness, while it continues to rocket upwards and away. The comms fall silent; you hear nothing but your own breathing. The purple plasma continues to flash - but they're firing at the dropships, and not at you. The shots continue to stream past for a few moments, but then they slow to a stop. You check your controls; your ship has power.
Out beneath you stretches the vast, rocky purple-blue landscape of Sitatha. Suddenly, with a pop, a parachute opens above you - the vista rolls in front of you as your CASKET orients itself with the ground, your parachute fluttering in the thin atmosphere. All around you, you see your allies from your squad - and those from another squad - you drift into a close formation as you fall. The heatshields beneath your allies begin to glow, and soon blaze with a fury; your ship shakes, rattling your teeth as you begin to slow down in the dense Sitathan atmosphere. This lasts hardly a minute - the red-orange streaks from the heatshields soon fade as you slow down to more acceptable levels, and another parachute opens; it flips your CASKET upside down and rips the depleted heatshield away from your electromagnetic clamps. The first parachute turns you back upright as you continue your descent, and you use your RCS thrusters to finish deaccelerating.
Suddenly, the air about you changes - everything changes. Only too late do you realize you've fallen into the Quantum dome. You were never supposed to be here - you're falling too far north of the drop point. You start to try to correct your mistake, but then decide that at this point, you can't. You continue falling towards the ground, but put all your effort into making sure you slow down in time.
SQUADS 1 AND 4
The sky about you thickens with dust; you almost think you see some kind of shape through the murky fog - but as to how large it is, or how far away, you have no idea... and you soon fall into a narrow canyon with the rest of your squad.
The comms are dead. SCAMPS' usual annoying voice is silent... which is a pity. It would be nice if you knew what the hell was going on... and where the rest of your platoon was.
You bring your ship down to a hover near the ground, and then catch sight of another squad doing the same nearby. At least you have some friends to keep you company.
SQUAD 2
The sky about you thickens with dust. The terrain beneath you is far too rough for a landing - you shift your CASKET over to the side, following Hema's lead - and your squad all lands in a dark, kilometer-wide pit.
No sooner do you reach the ground, slowing to a stop just above its surface, than a dim bluish glow illuminates the area around you - you crane your neck upwards and see that another dome has formed up above. It looks like some kind of shield. You let your eyes drift downwards towards your surroundings and then realize - this is more than a pit. This is an entrance into some kind of dark cave to the north, lined with what looks to be some kind of structure... perhaps alien. In the very center of it all, not even fifty meters away, is some kind of small, shielded alien building, seemingly generating both shields.
The comms are dead. SCAMPS' usual annoying voice is dead... which is a pity. It would be nice if you knew what the hell was going on... and where the rest of your platoon was.
SQUAD 3
The sky about you thickens with dust; you almost think you see some kind of shape through the murky fog, but as to how large it is, or how far away - you have no idea. You soon slow yourself to a hovering stop just above the surface of a narrow, rocky ridge with the rest of your squad.
The comms are dead. SCAMPS' usual annoying voice is silent... which is a pity. It would be nice if you knew what the hell was going on... and where the rest of your platoon was. You thought you saw them fall somewhere to the northeast, but it's difficult to be sure.
Up to the northwest, though, far across the dusty, windswept ridge, you see something that catches your attention: some kind of small alien structure. It might be worth investigating... but then again, perhaps it wouldn't be wise to go alone.
Just then, you hear a voice over the comms. "Did anyone else make it? This is Kalla - we've landed... God, I don't even know where. It's not on the maps. Can anyone hear me?"
Post
Thu Jun 02, 2016 12:38 pm
#1
REKT: Mission 3: Sitatha Canyons
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