Defiant

Luna-71

2170AD/107AC

When Defiant blasted through the node she was already under hard burn. Her twin drive cones spearing jets of white-hot plasma into the void as she dropped several nuclear mines in her wake.

"What do we have? Passive sensors only." Tiegh ordered standing close to the tactical plot in the middle of the bridge. It took several minutes for the sensor operator to collate the data before passing it to the tactical display.

"Binary star system, Red giant with six rocky inner planets, and two outer gas giants outer. And a smaller red dwarf almost twelve light minutes out from that." The sensor tech said as data spread across their screens.

Defiantnfell into the red giants' gravity well her captain orders the main drives spooled down and relied on the ship's damaged stealth coating and polychromatic armor and continued drifting. Hoping that despite her compromised stealth to buy the time needed to deploy the dropships and jump slingshot to the shadow of the systems ninth planet, that had several active ion storms in its vicinity. With hope, the heavy concentration of ionized particles will hide Defiant long enough for her to call for reinforcement from Galactica's battle group.

Several hours later and thousands of kilometers behind her the Defiant's UEC pursuers exited the alcubiar node. Transitioning from the node the UEC immediately began to ping the area with active and passive sensor pulses in hopes of finding their prey before they went to ground.

"Colonel, clop scanner just pinged us on a sweep. It's coming back around." The sensor tech called out from her station.

Bringing up the information onto his display Tiegh ordered the ship's AI to do a full system scan. And with an agitated sight, all he could do was watch as the progress bar slowly crept pet down the silhouette of the ship.

"Cisco, can we jump?" He asked the ship's AI administrator in a conspiratorial tone.

"No colonel. The sub is still damaged from our escape from the cyber, Lanky battle." The AI responded in his earpiece.

"Sir, sensor cone just passed over us again. I think we've been made." The ship's pilot said from his crash couch.

"I agree with helmsman Napall, there is damage to one of our polychromatic armor panels. No doubt that's where they're detecting us we must be venting atmo." The ships Exo said.

"Then do it, turn and burn, bring us in hot. We'll slingshot around the planet and deploy the Dark ops team." The colonel said before running the calculation and calling down to the barracks.

"Go for X." Came the withered voice of the Dark Ops team leader.

"Get your team ready. We're pushing up our time table, you drop in six hours."

liaison private: Bra'tac

Dark ops kill-team: Viper

Luna-71: Hiporli continent 1

2170AD/107AC

"Alright, people let's go over the details of mission one more time. Just like they did in boot camp." X called out as he clanked to the center of the blackfly dropship. "Situation, under the situation terrain and weather, who can give me the details of the AO?"

Gutsy raised her hand and my sister suiters' commanding officer gesture towards her. "Private Gutsy?"

"The AO is the largest continent on the UEC prison colony of Hiporli. The terrain is hilly and dry similar to your old earth savannah, the weather is reported to be cloudy and humid, and we're supposed to hit at midnight."

"Good, next for information, we have enemy forces, and under that, composition, disposition, location, strength, and capabilities. Who wants it?" This felt just like apprenticing under my Zaltule forbearer, or one of the platoon training sessions Avery would have us do in our downtime.

"We don't have full intelligence on enemy disposition." Wraith answered. "But the UEC is reported to have at least one a battalion of their standard infantry spaced around the perimeter of the colony, with a QRF of what should be light vehicles, with a company of prime guards near the main complex and spaceport."

'Alright boys and girls, hold onto your lunch. Drop-in Three, two, one…' I have never been inside one of the humans' shuttles while it deployed into a gravity well.

"One express elevator to hell coming up!" The crew chief shouted, interrupting captain Rodriguez.

'Drop.' My stomach leaped into my throat as the bay seamed to vanish from the small armor glass window at the rear of the shuttle.

I stared transfixed on the rapidly shrinking form of the Defiant as we fell toward the planet. As I watched two puffs exited the ship's smaller ship bay my armors reprogramed eye display marked them as "Icequeen" and "Doll". With a flash of light red a third of the window was covered by the form of the alien Shiraui, then behind the bio-mech the Defiant dissaperied in a series of flashing lights. Jumping to FTL, and all but abandoning us on this foolish mission.

[Veteran]Gunnery Sergeant: Avery Fallon

Dark ops kill-team: Viper

Luna-71 continent 1

2170AD/107AC

An alert popped into life on my visor and the lights inside of the blackfly dropship shifted from a soft glow to red. "Fifty-second warning!" I shouted.

I scanned a report showing all of their equipment was fully functional but had them double-check anyway. "Weapons check, Verify that your suits are sealed and your bubblers have power."

"Thirty seconds!"

Everyone verified that everything was as it should be and conveyed so with a thumbs up. The pilot of Lucky 13's voice came over the comm with a slight crackle of interference. "Were coming in low and slow over the coastline. About two miles from the shore, engaging drop bay."

The door slid open increasing the noise in the hold as gusts of air washed inside. "Alright, first team get set!" Big Dog's Voice came over our team link. The two of us were equipped with powered armor on top of our Legionnaire hardshell, our buckets clipped into a storage compartment at our waist.

"You get five seconds to activate your bubble shield, do not to hit the water without it. Trust me I ain't fun." He yelled as both of us started stomping down the bay slapping and kicking the team out of their seats.

Finding my place beside the now open drop bay door, I could see the rushing water streaking by below. The ocean was the color of liquid coal, pitch black. I looked over my team all standing side by side, queued up to jump with X at the lead like always.

The lights in the bay changed from a cool red to green. "LET'S GET WET!" Big Dog shouted before jumping out of the bay.

One by one my improvised dark ops team jumped into the hole feet first, arms pressed tight to their sides just like I taught them. They tucked into a ball as soon as they exited the dropship, the motion causing their semi-transparent blue bubble shields to encircle them. The shield emitters had to be small enough and light enough to find room among the bristling array of equipment and weapons. This meant the shields were only strong enough to absorb the impact with the surface of the water. They would dissolve once we submerged.

My team exited the ship until Miiora and I was the only ones remaining. Miiora, my lighthouse, my port in the storm that is this dumpster fire of a galaxy. We stood there for a moment, sharing each other's company in. She somehow even managed to look beautiful in her slender heavily modified legionnaire armor. Miiora gave my hand my real hand a tight squeeze, before leaning in and shoving her snout into the neckline of my armor. "I love you." Was all she said, all she needed to say before she straightened and jumped out of the shoot. A snicker came over the intercom and from the crew chief who sat in the sensor suite in the blackflies hold.

"Trouble?" I asked the pilots and the crew chief who gave me a negative. When the pilots gave the all-clear signal I jumped out of the ship, activating my bubble as I fell.

I felt like a fish in a dry bowl waiting to get wet. The black sea washed over my shield like I was a stone thrown from a rooftop. The thin wall of energy separating me from the ocean seamed to thin, and then it collapsed and a rush of water filled the void completely enveloping me. Sensor reading on the inside of my bucket told be that without the protection of my suit I would overheat and have a heat stroke in fifty minutes. But I felt no discomfort because my armor was fully sealed and insulated against the elements.

I did a quick check to make sure the shatterproof container holding my blaster rifle, M-66c and other equipment was still attached and not floating to the surface, all was as it should be. I released the mechanical shield generator from my webbing and with a flick of my young the light in my helmet tinted green, and I watched it sink away in the darkness towards the ocean floor.

Deploying the airbags to give my suit neutral buoyancy, I panned my head around and quickly saw a shape dart to my side. Acting quickly I drew my knife and got ready to slash at whatever predator decided to try to have me for dinner, but stopped short when the light from my bucket's beam illuminated a humanoid shape with ruby red scales, It was Miiora. She had her helmet off and a set of transparent eyelids shut over her golden eyes, as her kind could breathe on land and in water.

Using a tongue toggle I fired my suits hydro jets. Flashing a thumbs up I began swimming to the predetermined gathering point in order to link up with the rest of my team. Someone had arrived already and had set up an infrared buoy to help guyed the rest of us. Miiora and I moved silently no bubbles rising to betray our presence beneath the waves.

All of my team save Miiora and Bra'tac were breathing pure oxygen. Our rebreathers pairing with carbon scrubbers that took in seawater, separate the oxygen and then dumped the carbon back out in gentle streams. It was like a mechanical set of gills, we could stay underwater almost indefinitely through our mission required us to swim to land, considerably sooner than that.

"Well… This is where the fun begins."

Author's Note

I am sorry for the long wait and short length of this chapter. But a new job and different life situation had given me less time and drive to write.