"Wars take many lives away. Humans never forget the grief, but they also never stop the fighting. Streams of blood and tears are only an ornament for their destructive ritual."-Duo Maxwell
<Situation update 381> 21 hours 52 minutes 3 seconds until arrival at New Terra>
[ship status update in progress]
<Central Processing Unit status> nominal
<cryo-storage status> nominal
<life support system status> nominal
<Fusion reactor status> nominal
<Engine status> nominal
<Hull integrity status> nominal
<weapon system status> nominal
<cargo containment status> nominal
<landing systems status> nominal
<inertial damper status> nominal
<navigational system status> damaged- satellite range significantly reduced
<<ship status confirmed as...operational>>
[beginning external navigational scan]
<warning anomaly detected>
<detecting unknown radiation based energy field surrounding New Terra>
[initiating deep scan]
<energy field appears to be harmless to humans and human technology>
<energy field also appears to be providing the planet with the strange energy>
<suggest premature reactivation of crew to further study energy field>
[evaluating situation]
[calculating additional solutions]
<no additional solutions found>
<reactivating crew>
Ryan
Ryan stood in the middle of the desolate hell-scape, lava flowed in rivers across the scorched earth as radioactive ashes danced like snowflakes in the wind of the approaching firestorm. The sea of lava bubbled and cracked as a overhang collapsed into the fiery ocean of death. The ground was smoking from constant heat exposure and radiation, a terrifying screech came from a dark cave in the hell-scape as the abominations awoke from their malevolent slumber. This was the burn zone, the area that was always facing the sun but still cold enough to support life. A hole in the Earth vomited out even more lava and a human skull rolled to Ryan's feet. 'why doesn't this scare you?' Ryan's subconscious asked.
suddenly the environment changed and Ryan was thrown into the nightmare he so desperately tried to escape but still found him every night. The war.
Explosions shook the ground as men jumped out of trenches and were mowed down by plasma cannon fire. Exo marines jumped over the trenches into the carnage. Another round of artillery shook the battlefield and a mans arm went flying. The marines rifles cracked as they fired at the enemy while British decimator tanks crushed the injured enemy forces. A Canadian soldier threw a gas canister into a group of enemy soldiers, only to be torn to shreds the enemy's guns before they succame to the gas. An armoured military jeep armed with a X-D95 SC fired at an Australian soldier, causing his head to explode sending fragments of his skull flying everywhere like shrapnel. Flame-thrower marines burst out of an abandoned building and torched group of Chinese soldiers. Meanwhile two exo soldiers were locked in a round of deadly melee combat until one managed to rip off the others left arm before grabbing him by the shoulders and kneeing him in the face, crushing his skull. suddenly the whole world shook and there was a white flash as a nuke detonated in the distance.
'This scares you.' His mind whispered.
Everything went black.
Ryan awoke with a jump from cryosleep and vomited all over the floor of the cryo-tube. His senses quickly returned to him, his body was cold and numb all over, Ryan's stomach churned again and he bent over and clutched his stomach in pain as he vomited again. His body continued to regurgitate the contents of this stomach all over the floor of the cryo-tube until nothing came out. Ryan felt a searing pain in his head and his fingers and toes were freezing.
Ryan groaned in pain from the aching all over his body.
"I thought this armour was supposed to keep you warm." Ryan wheezed still holding onto the side of the cryo-tube for stability.
Ryan opened his eyes, the red flashing lights of the reactivation sequence hurt his already stinging eyes.
He looked around to see that the rest of the crew were having a similar experience, groaning in pain from the less than pleasant awakening.
The private looked to his left to see Alec vomiting up his 14 month old pre cryo-sleep rations.
Ryan tried to speak but a searing pain in his abdomen caused him to quickly hunch over and grab his chest, he groaned in pain for the second time that day.
He looked at the undigested food he had vomited up, something Dereck told him about how during cryo-statis the body stops producing gastric acid almost immediately but continue making a neutralizing substance for a few weeks.
Ryan wheezed as the pain slowly subsided. He again looked over at Alec and tried to talk again.
"Ahh-Is it just me or does-ahh-it feel like-gah! someone's just ripped out your intestines?" Ryan gasped out.
"Yeah-uhhgh!" Alec grunted.
"Funny how I'd know how that feels." Cole wheezed.
Scootaloo
Scootaloo sat up in her bed and stretched before yawning.
She quickly pulled off the sheets and got out of her bed.
She stood up straight and stretched again, this time spreading her wings out as far as she could.
She had slept like a tap ever since her sleep over with the rest of the crusaders.
She smiled and looked down at her cutie mark.
'Hard to believe its been a year since I got it.' she thought, happy memories flowing back to her, elevating her already good mood.
She yawned again.
"That was the best sleep I've had for weeks." She said out loud.
Ryan
It had been 10 minutes since the less that pleasant awaking from cryo-statis, Ryan's headache was subsiding and the others were in a similar state.
"I thought this armour was supposed to keep you warm." Ryan groaned.
Alec chuckled.
"Not when the temperature settings are designed to cool you down when the cryo-sleep process starts."
"I know but.. could they at least make it a little less unpleasant." Ryan responded
"Now that I think about it, I had a hangover like this once when I was 19." Alec half laughed, half coughed.
40 minutes later-
The marines had recovered quickly from the de-frosting and had begun to fulfil tasks assigned by their squad leader.
Each squad was a 4 man team with the minimum of a medic, two rifleman and a heavy weapons expert. In Ryan's squad the heavy weapons expert was the team leader, no other than Cole, The medic was Dereck, leaving Ryan and Alec as the rifle men.
Ryan set down that heavy crate he was carrying and wiped his brow.
"Is it just me or is it weird that for some we all got in the same squad and we all are best friends with each other?" He asked.
"No, its got something to do with how the trainers observed who we are best with and would be good in a team together." Cole responded.
"You know what I thinks weird, how come Cole gets promoted to a gunnery sergeant and I don't, I don't mind him being squad leader, but how is that fair." Alec said wiping his face with his red bandana.
"Probably because your the type that would rather go on a mission with other staff sergeants than subordinates" Dereck answered.
"Attention all hands this is captain Jones, we have successfully made it to New Terra!"
The men in the hangar clapped and cheered at the news.
"The planet is around 94% the size of Earth but it only has around 78.9% Earths gravity and best of all its a rocky planet with liquid water and a breathable atmosphere. And there appears to be carbon based plant life! There is no deadly radiation and its day is around 23 hours long!"
Again there was a avalanche of cheering.
"In 21 hours we will be in orbit above the planet. However we've detected an energy field surrounding the planet. The navigation satellite was damaged and reduced it range greatly, that is why we were only awoken now instead of 18 hours from the planet. The field doesn't seem to harm us or technology for that matter but it's still under examination. We've done well up to this point, if we successfully land we will be well on our way to restoring humanity. As a final order before the landing I want you to finish any tasks assigned by your superiors and prepare cargo for landing. If your an engineering squad preform a safety check on your designated systems, after that your all done."
There was another round of cheering, that was before the marines fully grasped what the commander had said.
"Umm...did anyone else hear something about an energy field?" Alec said as he looked back to his squad.
Scootaloo
Scootaloo was excited beyond belief, she was barely able to stop herself screaming.
This was the best thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life.
While Scootaloo was on the verge of screaming, Twilight was pacing around in circles.
"I told her to be a Sugar Cube Corner at 9 AM sharp, is that to much to ask for? It's not like it's that early."
Twilight turned to Scootaloo.
"How can you not be mad at her for being late to this, the day you have something important to tell her? This is one of the biggest things to ever happen to you and she's late."
Scootaloo responded in a heartbeat.
"I couldn't care less if she was late, this is the best thing to happen to me ever, just as long as she gets the message!" Scootaloo responed ecstatically.
Twilight was about to respond but Rainbow Dash burst into the shop.
"Hey! Sorry I'm late, I was held up at a wonder bolts meeting. Spitfire is in Manehattan to see her sister, she's sick or something. So they needed volunteers to train the new recruits."
She looked around before asking.
"What was it you two wanted to tell me?"
Twilight grinned. "Scootaloo has something to tell you."
Rainbow Dash looked to Scootaloo. "Scoots?"
Scootaloo couldn't contain herself any longer.
"I was accepted into the Wonder Bolts!" She shouted, her voice shrill with excitement.
Rainbow Dash stared back at her in shock for a few seconds.
To Scootaloo it felt like hours.
She looked up at her sister waiting for her response which came in a sudden cry of joy.
"Awesome!"
6 pm standard Equis time-
The crew of the human ship had completed their tasks hours ago and the marines had been sent to rest to prepare for the landing.
The lights had been turned off save for one at the elevator to the bridge and other stations providing the only light.
While the rest of the men slept, Alec remained fully awake.
Ryan
Ryan shot up from his sleeping bag as the alarm went off. The nightmare he had just witnessed had been a bit more...disturbing than usual, another symptom of prolonged cryo-statis. He shuddered as he remembered the dream, the thing about the nightmare was that it wasn't like the regular ones he had, the nightmare wasn't even about whatever abominations could be lurking on the planet or his own. Instead this particular nightmare had delved into the effect of the human condition on other worlds, no humans fighting each other. instead the exploited his deeper fear, that had developed during his life, significantly more during the war. There were no aliens trying to wipe out humanity, it was humans invading foreign soil, a battlefield. Humans on one side, his species tools of destruction tearing down the weak resistance from the aliens who desperately tried to halt the massive death machine with primitive world war 1 tech. The battlefield of his nightmare changed, showing him dozens of worlds, its inhabitants trying to defend their homes with varying degrees of inferior technology. One world that stuck out to him particularly was a forest planet with 14 foot tall, muscular alien tribesmen trying to defend their village from the invasion force of flesh and metal. A VTOL launched a cluster missile into the primitive aliens. The reactions of the aliens to his peoples weaponry was an obvious fear from the resistance and absolute terror from the fleeing women and children.
Ryan was pulled away from the memory by Coles hand on his shoulder.
"Hey! You alright kid?" Cole asked in his deep and rough voice.
"Oh. Yeah sorry." Ryan said a little surprised by the sudden contact.
"Here,"
Cole threw him an MRE.
"We should be in orbit over the planet now and we're gonna do a few laps of the planet and then make planet-fall in 5 hours. We need to be at our best."
"Ok, thanks Cole." Ryan replied as he looked down at his MRE which he had caught. The MRE's that were issued by the Human Defence Front were the same as the ones issued by the Russians in the war, High nutrient, calorie and mineral content and would meet the daily vitamin quotient for the standard human. Of course after the war the HDF decided to change the amount of food and its nutrient value based on the individual and not the average. However the down side to this was that if the said individual were doing more exercise than standard or had just returned from battle, the personalized MRE's wouldn't be enough to satisfy the bodies needs, thus a high energy bar was developed with incredibly large amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids and non-saturated fats.
However like the MRE's that the rest of world used, they were disgusting. Ryan remembered the first time he tried one it had resulted with him nearly vomiting all over another marines boots.
Ryan chuckled a bit at this memory, ever since then he had gotten used to the disgusting taste, and had actually began to enjoy it.
The MRE's container was just a shock-absorbent plastic box, about the length and breath of a magazine, but much thicker, in an elastic packet. The thing inside that was supposedly 'food' looked like a pile of dried, brown blades of grass that had been pressurized to make it have a similar consistency to steak.
Ryan picked up the lump of organic and synthetic food and took a bite out of it without looking at what it was supposed to taste like.
It had a distinct flavour of grinded up gravel mixed with dirt.
'That's chicken,' He thought. 'Definitely chicken.'
He looked down to the packet.
Turkey.
'Close enough.'
His train of thought drifted back to the nightmare and he shuddered again.
What he had seen in the war would undeniably haunt him for the rest of his life, he luckily never developed PTSD but he had the occasional flashback.
The dream hadn't been outright terrifying for Ryan like the usual ones, but it had touched into his deeper fears, deeply disturbing.
The saddest part about it was that it was a very likely scenario.
He took another bite of the disgusting MRE.
"Hey Tyrone."
Ryan looked up from the revolting food that put his old school dinners to shame in terms of educing prolonged vomiting and saw Alec trying to get the attention of another marine.
The marine turned around, revealing the face of a well shaved black man, Michelson, or Tyrone as he was more commonly known did a full turn to face Davis.
"Wot's up Davis." He asked in a thick English accent.
"I'll trade you your steak MRE for my chicken one."
"Why? Cos' I'm black?"
"Because I know you like chicken."
"Fair enouf, fanks."
They exchanged MRE's and went back to eating.
"You know what would make these MRE's better?" Davis asked.
"Maggots."
"Maggots."
"Maybe a few termites."
The squad responded almost instantly.
"Too bad the Embryos are still in cryo-statis." Cole said.
"Cryonics are pretty cool think when you think about." Dereck said as he stretched and got up.
"What do you think we'll find down there?" He said grabbing some cleaning equipment from his kit.
"Something that's gonna get it's ass kicked if it scratches the paint job on my ar," Davis said.
He pulled out his heavy assault rifle. It was the standard black colour with the words 'democracy' hand painted by Davis on the side.
"I only got this done before we left Earth."
"Let's hope it likes the taste of quartite rounds with a side of plasma and hydro ozone urdite hexa-thermite. Cole said as he lifted out his prized plasma cannon, the thing was a triple barrelled Gatling gun that fired .50 cal and .30 cal rounds, it wasn't even meant to be carried and was supposed to be a stationary turret. It had no noticeable modifications other than the un-ironic name that Cole had given the weapon after one of his slightly...strange political opinions, 'Communism'.
Ryan spoke up.
"Hopefully nothing as bad as the mutants in the burn zone, or the freeze zone for that matter. How do those things even live, I mean, part of them isn't even on the same Higgs field as the rest of the universe."
Ryan thought back to the freeze zone on Earth, the opposite of the burn zone, the side where Icarus detonated.
"Freaks," Alec said suddenly serious. "I mean that's it, really, the only way they can work like...that. Their freaks."
Dereck spoke up "That's enough of that,"
The rest of the squad looked to him.
"We're not here to think about what's back at home,"
home, that word stuck out to Ryan, was back there really his home, was that the same Earth he read about in school books.
Is that really Earth? Is that what we did to that? Images of the destruction that mankind had caused flooded his mind, the rainforests, all those species now extinct, Icarus.
'Did we really do that? We did that?
"Where here to fix the mess we're in, the planet has a habitable atmosphere, there's no ionizing radiation all over the place, theirs clean water, the sky's actually blue! Earth's a message to anything on that planet that has the guts and idiocy to mess with us. If we can survive Earth we can survive here."
Dereck looked too his squad who nodded in agreement and admiration of Dereck's words.
Ryan spoke up.
"Well, whatever we find down their will defiantly be weird after having to live on post war Earth for four years."
"definitely." Alec agreed.
Commander Jones
Some hours after-
"Sir we're in orbit over the planet!" The Helmsman called out.
The sound of clapping engulfed the bridge.
"Excellent work Paul, remind me to buy you a drink if their are any pubs down their. Logan, start a der scan on the planet and that energy field. Paul I want you to take us over all major continents, oceans and anything else of interest, you know the drill. Alexei, drop those satellites over those key areas. Keep me posted on the situation." Will said, pleased by the missions smoothness.
" Sir yes sir!" The addressed marines responded.
Will pressed a button on his captains chair and spoke into his mouth piece.
"All hands this is captain Jones, we have successfully entered orbit over the planet," An uproar of applause came from the earpiece.
"We will be making planet fall in 5 hours if all goes to plan, begin final landing preparations and secure all cargo. Engineering squads begin your final check of the ship and report anything out of the ordinary. I want the chief marines in the engineering,medical and physics department up on the bridge to study the energy field ASAP."
He pushed the button again and cut off the inter-comm.
He looked out at the large blue and green orb his ship was orbiting with a strange pink bubble around it and a moon that was in a close orbit, it too somehow had a breathable.
The planet reminded him of Earth before the war, everything beautiful about his old home, his Birth place, humanities birth place.
In fact, New Terra seemed to be more welcoming and habitable than Earth ever was.
He similed gently.
"Beautiful."
Will turned to his sub-commander, Emilie Hudson.
"What do you think Hudson?"
"Beautiful, looks habitable and seems to have plenty of natural resources if scans are right."
"Indeed." The commander responded.
Jones thought back to when he had first met Emilie.
"Do you understand commander?" General Mourge asked Jones.
"Yes sir. I will do what is necessary for our goals." Jones responded.
"Excellent, Commander this is Emilie Hudson, he is going to be your sub commander for this mission, I will fill in the details later however, I have a very important matter to attend to. I will see you tomorrow." Mourge said as he began to leave the room.
"Very good sir." Jones replied.
He turned to 'Emilie'.
He was tall, but not nearly as tall as Jones was, he guessed around 6 foot compared to Jones' 6'4. His body was muscular and scars adorned his body like most marines. How ever his face was clear of all damage, that looked to be around the mid-twenties with a shaved face and black hair of an average length.
"Hello, I'm commander Will Jones as you probably know, nice to meet you." Jones introduced himself.
"Thank you sir,"
He spoke with light English accent.
"I'm Emilie as you know, I'm your new sub-commander, 'pleasure to meet you."
"Thank you,"
Jones responded tiring to think of a way to ask the question without sounding rude.
"Uh, did you say your name was Emilie?"
Hudson stood and looked at him for a few seconds.
"My parents wanted a girl."
They certainly did, Emilie was the only male child to a American mother who was a feminist and a emasculated British father.
He spent his life as an emasculated, low testosterone man, that was until the war. He refused to join the war effort and was a Chineese sympathiser and so decided to hand himself over to the enemy.
It was only then, when he was trained and abused with other POW's to be soldiers that he discovered his masculinity and love for his two parent countries. when he was sent to the front lines he was disgusted with the POW's for becoming supporters of his new enemy ,enraged by them firing on their own, Emilie killed his entire squad including the Chinese sergeant and for the next 3 days sabotaged the Chinese ammo supplies before escaping to W.D.F territory.
Emilie's response to how he had changed his life long brainwashing was simply.
"War changes people."
The sound of the elevator door opening disrupted his train of thought and he swung the chai around to see 9 marines exiting the elevator.
"Gentlemen, I think you already know why your here, but if you don't. We want you to study the planets energy, find out what t does, how it works, its effects on organic matter and our tech. Understood?"
The marines looked at each other before turning back to the commander.
"Sir yes sir."
Alec
10 minutes until planet fall-
Marines were running around the ship, grabbing gear and strapping themselves into their seats.
However Alec had a different task than that.
Alec was part of the Orbital Drop Reconnaissance Group, or the ODRG for short.
The groups task was to drop into the landing zone, scan for harmful bacteria and secure the area for the landing.
Alec sprinted to the twelve drop pods and quickly jumped into the one labelled STF SGT Davis.
He strapped in his rifle and pushed a few buttons in the pods and the doors closed, a screen in the top right corner notified him of when the pods would depart and until the ship begins the landing procedures. 2 minutes and 32 seconds until the pods left.
There was a crack from the speakers and the captains voice came over the comms.
"All hands, this is Jones. We have scanned the planet and have found a suitable landing area, it's a large island in similar size to Sri Lanka on Earth. Its in the southern hemisphere. It's dry, covered in sand and seems to be the least likely place to be an alien presence. There is no detectable large flora masses and it has a similar climate to north south Africa We will be dropping in in nine minutes and the ODRG will be dropping in less than three."
Adrenalin began to rush in Alecs system.
"Once we get on the ground or objective is simple, secure a the landing zone and set up a fire base. Any sentient or sub sentient lifeforms are to be treated as hostile until proven otherwise. If anyone isn't strapped in I advise you do so now." The commanders voice boomed over the inter-comm.
Alec grinned to himself.
There was a crack from the radio in his helmet and Coles voice followed.
"Davis? This is Markson, I'm just saying don't do anything stupid down there."
"Alright, no promises. I'll see you on the ground."
"See you on the ground."
The radio cracked again and cut the connection.
"This'll be fun." Davis said to himself.
For the next few minutes Davis felt the adrenaline in his system build.
He looked at the count down for the eightieth time that day.
20 seconds left.
Alec felt another surge of adrenaline.
15 seconds.
An air tight blast door folded over the pods to protect the crew from the depths of space.
10 seconds.
The floor under the pods folded away to allow a clear path to the planet below.
5 seconds.
A screen in the pods began to display a flight path.
1 second.
Alec held his breath.
There was a beeping from the monitors and the pods shook as they disconnected from the ship.
The thrusters on the tops of the pods activated and fired the pods towards the planet.
He stared through the glass part of the pod and watched as the pod became closer and closer to the pink energy field surrounding the planets atmosphere.
The pink field of what could be death for all he knew, approached rapidly.
"Hello, ODRG? This is Wilson speaking, you're about to hit that energy field. We don't know what's going to happen when you do, give us a report the moment you pass through, understood?"
"Understood." The marines replied in unison.
The pink energy field continued to approach at a brutally fast pace.
Wilsons voice came over the radio again.
"Breaching in 5..."
Contrary to the last five seconds on the ship, these five seconds were the fastest of his life.
The pods dived through the energy field into the planets atmosphere.
"ODRG, This is command! What is your status?"
Lieutenant Murphy, the leader of the drop troopers spoke first.
"This is Murphy, situation normal, energy field had on effect on me or my pod, running diagnostic."
The rest of the marines responded and reported themselves in an identical scenario to Murphy.
"Commander, their fine, no apparent effect on them or the pods." Wilson said to Jones.
"Team, initiate your micro-organism detectors." Wilson directed the men.
Alec pushed a few buttons and flicked a switch, a screen came alive and displayed a buffering symbol with the words, Searching for micro-organisms.
The pods continued to push through the atmosphere.
Davis looked through the glass again and looked at the ground approaching rapidly.
Soon enough the air brakes and the thrusters activated and slowed the pod down.
The pods crashed onto the ground with a loud bang.
"Command this is Murphy we have landed, all personnel have survived."
"Excellent, stay n your pods until the scanners finish.
Davis looked at the radar tracker built into the pod, nothing outside the pod.
The looked through the pods porthole.
There was a blue sky overhead with no clouds to be seen, the island was flat for as far as the eye could see save for a narrow steep gorge about 150 meters beside them that looked wide enough for the ship to rest on without falling in.
The gorge seemed to go for a mile across and the team had seemed to land half way.
At one end of the gorge there was a stream that went over the edge to form a water fall.
The area was sandy with a light orange colour.
It was beautiful, this type of view completely alien to him since the war ended.
A sudden beeping from one of the monitors made him tear his gaze away, it was the micro-organism scanner, it had finished its scan.
No detectable micro-organisms.
'that can't be right.' He thought.
"Hey, I think I got a glitch here. My scanner isn't detecting any micro-organisms." He said.
"Run a diagnostic, that's impossible." Wilson responded.
"I'm getting the same result." Another marine said.
"And the pod reads fine according to the diagnostic."
"Same here."
"Same result."
The other marines reported in confusion.
"That can't be right. Alright, just put on your air masks to be safe and secure the land site, we'll get a more precise result from the ships filters." Wilson ordered the marines.
"Understood. You heard the man, masks on!" Murphy started.
The marines complied to the order, applying the mask over their helmets.
Alec heard the seals on the mask and helmet seal and cool air began to flow.
"Marines clear the landing site!"
Murphy's' pod door blasted off and he slammed his boots onto the hard ground.
The rest of the marines followed the order, jumping out of their pods with their gauss rifles they scanned the wasteland.
The area was completely baron of life and was completely flat as far as the eye could see, save for the gorge.
The air was hot but not like in was back on Earth, it was a good hot that bared no threat of mutants or developing cancerous growths.
Now that they were no longer on Earth the men no longer needed to take anti-radiation meds.
"Um, guys?" A marine said, a tone of confusion was held in his voice
"What's the problem?" Murphy asked.
"Has anyone noticed that there is zero radiation showing up on the count meter?"
Alec's eyes were once again torn away from the landscape to view the radiation counter in the top left corner of his HUD.
Zero.
"That's impossible."
"That can't be right."
"Command this is Murphy, we are detecting no radiation whatsoever."
"No radiation? Not even background radiation? Are you sure?"
"You have live data feedback from the pods, you tell me"
"Well there was radiation when you were landing, but that must of been from the thruster fuel."
"This just keeps getting better and better." Alec said with dry sarcasm.
Murphy muttered something before giving out more orders.
"You three," He said pointing at Alec and two others.
"Check that gorge."
The three jogged over to the cliff.
On the way to the gorge Alec realized how light he felt, he had been so caught up with the landing that he had failed to notice that he felt considerably lighter.
The marines peered over the edge of the steep cliff, it looked to be around 1000 meters deep.
The waterfall went all the way to the bottom where the stream started again and continued to the other side where it vanished into a cave opening.
Alec reached up to his helmet and pressed the record button.
"Maybe we should record this." Alec said to the other three.
"Nah, it's already being recorded by the ship, they've got live feed from the helmet cams." A marine said.
"Still a great place for a postcard." The other marine said.
The marines musing was interrupted by Wilson.
"Hey you know that massive gorge down there that some of you are standing beside? Well command were thinking that since we have a elevator shaft in the hangar that can fit a tank we're going to land right on it for easy access. So for you guys standing right next to it I would advise moving away so you don't get crushed to death."
"Understood." Murphy responded simply.
"You heard the man, get your asses back over here." Murphy barked over the radio.
The three marines quickly turned around and sprinted back to the pods.
The three broke their sprint when they made it to the pods.
Alec turned to focus his gaze at the sky, waiting for the imminent arrival of his fellow humans.
Ryan
Ryan was having an...interesting discussion with Cole about fascism when the commanders voice came over the inter-comm.
"Attention all personnel, This is commander Jones speaking. We are about to begin our landing. If anyone is not strapped into their cryo-pods then get in now. In the next few minutes we will be on New Terra, treat any alien lifeform with extreme prejudice and treat as hostile until proven otherwise. We will be landing over a gorge for maximum use of the heavy duty elevator for maximum mobility between the ship and the gorge bottom. Remain strapped in until the light above your head goes green. Jones out."
Ryan looked at Cole who had a look of concern and a small amount of, was that excitement on his face?
"Here we go kid." He said as he stretched his right shoulder.
"Any last words or statements before we do this?" Dereck asked jokingly but with a concealed hint of seriousness.
Ryan looked to Cole and the back to Dereck.
"Anyone else think it's weird how the nearest habitable planet is 4 million light years away? I mean, isn't that a bit much. We used to think there were lots of Earth like planets, but once we developed the tech we used to find New Terra, turns out their all dead planets but the moment we turn our gaze 4 million light years away, there are more habitable planets than there are fresh water sources on Earth. If we go 470 light years past New Terra there are hundreds of habitable ex-planets. Isn't that not a bit weird how we are so far away from any other habitable planet and the planets inside that range were like distractions, to slow us down and keep us away."
The other two processed the information.
"Maybe there's something here that we were supposed to leave alone, to protect us from it." Dereck suggested.
"Or maybe it's the other way around." Cole added.
"I think you may be right Cole, after everything humanities done then that may well be the case." Ryan said, this voice sounding deep in worried thought.
He was about to say something more with one of the marines shouted.
"Hey! We're moving!"
Ryan and the rest of the team synced their HUD to the ships external cameras, a small window opened in the corner of his HUD, they were moving alright.
The ship glided through the vacuum with ease and was rapidly accelerating and heading to the planets surface, suddenly the ship jerked and began to shudder as it hit the pink energy field and tore through the atmosphere.
"Here we come Alec!" Cole shouted in excitement, showing that he was clearly having an adrenaline rush.
Ryan noted that this was one of the rare times that Cole seemed to be excited about flying.
The shaking got more and more intense, Ryan closed the camera window and gripped the rails on the side of his cryo-tube tightly.
Ryan noticed that even the vehicles were attempting to free themselves from their constraints.
Jones was clenching tightly onto the command chair as the ship shook furiously as it ripped through the atmosphere.
The landing control room was on the underside of the ship and was a large room mainly composed of reinforced glass. Different crew members sat at different areas, the most prominent being the pilots seat, which was a chair with multiple screens attached and two long metallic arms reaching down from the roof so the user could control the ships descent.
The ship suddenly shook more violently than normal, Jones, sensing the anomaly quickly raised the com-link to the engine room.
"Hey Jameson, is everything alright down there?" Jones shouted over the roar of the ships engines and the shaking of the ship.
"No! Of course everything's not fine, we ran out of fuel a year and a half ago! The only thing keeping us going is our power cores!" A mans voice yelled back.
"But will we make it to the surface?" Jones shouted back in response.
"Yes, we're fine but th-Just what wanted to hear" Jones interrupted.
He quickly turned of the com-link and narrowly avoided a barrage of insults and vile obscenities.
Jones looked back over to his crew to see the Helmsman, Paul seemed to be struggling with the controls.
"Paul, can you land this thing?"
"I'll just say flying this thing is harder than flying an A-42 Clansman VTOL with a thruster severed in a hot zone, drunk and high on Class A drugs." The pilot responded.
"And have you done that before?" Jones replied almost shocked.
"It didn't end well, that's all I'll say." The man responded, somewhat distracted.
The ship continued its course towards the surface and began to slow as the thrusters were engaged.
The ship continued to approach the planet until it was only 100 metres above it.
The hulk of metal slowed above the ground and came to a vertical stop
"Activating landing gear." One of the marines shouted.
The ship now floated down to the ground and the landing gears adjusted itself for the landing into the gorge.
Suddenly the ships thrusters stopped when it was a mere 7 foot of the ground and it fell into place the landing gear quickly adjusting to the terrain and lowering the ship to the ground around the cliff.
The bridge crew looked at each other for reassurance.
"Did you do it? Are we good?" Jones asked Paul cautiously.
"Um I think so." He responded, keeping his hands away from the controls as to not cause any unwanted complications.
The bridge crew began clapping at the successful landing meanwhile in the hangar the rest of the marines were doing the same.
"Good work Paul, if there are bars down there remind me to buy you a drink. Anyway what's the situation outside?" Jones said pleased at the huge feat.
"Well, the island seems uninhabited as the ODRG's said," A marine said as a monitor descended from the celling.
Feed from external cameras lit up the monitor.
"The site looks clear, I'm initiating scans now." The marine continued.
A black window with the ship in the middle opened in the corner of the monitor and the marines terminal, there was a pulse from the ship and as it spread out from the ship a map of the terrain was generated.
The land was flat, dry and sandy with no plants or animals present.
"Looks clear, I'd say it's a good place for a forward operating base. No animals or aliens present to interfere with any operations and according to the scans there seems to be huge amounts or raw materials and rare substances." The marine finished.
"Terrific, give the men down in the hangar the call.
Ryan
The men in the hangar were clapping at the landing, Ryan body was rushing with adrenaline and other hormones.
The light at the top of the men's pods suddenly flashed red before turning green.
The marines quickly lifted up their harnesses and unstrapped themselves from their seats.
Ryan and the rest of the expedition force hastily fast jogged over to the crates for their weapons and combat gear.
Ryan took the lid off his squads shared weapons and gear crate which was strapped in before the landing as others were doing the same.
He lifted out Coles massive weapon and tossed it to him.
'Surprisingly light,' He thought erratically.
'Must be the low gravity.'
He fished out Dereck's assault rifle and handed to him with a nervous grin which was returned giving a feeling of mutual anxiety.
The squad then headed over to the shared military resources.
The men grabbed a few magazines from an open crate while Cole grabbed a chain of ammunition from another net next to the mechanized infantry marines who were loading there exo-skeletons with ammunition.
Ryan had always admired the mechanised infantry, they combined human mobility and dexterity with the heavy armour and weapons of vehicles. the exo-suit drivers had to under go weeks of intensive training just to be ready for the transition between man and exoskeleton.
However he hadn't time to stop and gawk, he needed to worry about himself before anything else.
he loaded his rifle and out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw the commander and a few other men from the bridge crew exit the elevator shaft to prepare themselves for the exfiltration.
Ryan grabbed a few frag grenades before standing aside so that the massive tanks and other vehicles could move through the various lanes to the side doors for exfiltration.
The tanks moved effortlessly to the door despite the fact that some of them were massive forty tonne beasts made of metal with cannons and various other weapons designed to cause suffering on their tops.
The vehicles took their place at the front lines and were flanked by the mechanized infantry.
The rest of the marines then moved into the spaces in-between the vehicles pointing their weapons at the massive door.
Ryan was situated between two tanks with Cole at the front of him and Dereck behind him.
Next to them on their left was a squad of flamethrower marines.
Ryan eyed the two vertically placed massive tanks on their back with another smaller tank beneath them placed horizontally.
These tanks had tubes connected to them which connected to lead into a flamethrower. There were also canisters strapped to their bodies and belts.
The fluid in the canisters was hydro ozone urdite hexa-thermite, the stuff was a lethal acid that could melt through flesh in seconds and when it was ignited it became a bright, sticky acidic fire that could melt through concrete that burned at over 970 degrees Kelvin. In fact the only reason that it wasn't universally deployed was that it was incredibly underpowered against armour
The fact that the stuff could kill him in seconds and that the flamethrowers tended to be psychopathic and ruthless killers on the battlefield didn't exactly made Ryan feel comfortable despite knowing all the marines quite well.
Not to mention the mark II decimator anti infantry tank to his left.
The decimator tanks were developed in secret by the British and looked remarkably like the first tanks ever made, however they were banned due to the tanks in-humane ways of disposing with infantry.
Such as a massive shrapnel cannon on the top that spat hot razor sharp shrapnel shards at the enemy, or how it would spray the enemy with hydro ozone urdite hexa-thermite and then activating its three frontal flamethrowers to burn the enemy to a cinder.
But the reason that the decimator tanks were named Crushers, were because of how brutally they drove over infantry who were either crushed or impaled on the spikes on the under side of the tanks.
That was when Ryan took notice to his own gear, the assault rifle he was holding could travel for thousands of miles if fired into space and fired whole bullets meaning their was no need for a hole for empty cases to escape.
The their was his body armour, it was made mainly out of Physicorum, literally translating to indestructible in latin.
the material was an artificial metal element that was incredibly light and was 60 times tougher than titanium, combined with the fact that it was super dense it could actually stand around six or seven shots from a gauss rifle.
And not only was it strong, it was also unbelievably easy to produce, thus it was put in everything.
Ryan's train of thought was interrupted by the commanders voice.
"Gentlemen! May I have your attention please!" It sounded more of an order that a question.
The commander stood on top of one of the tanks, clothed in the standard marine body armour with his rifle in one hand.
"So, as you know we are here, on this planet with the primary task of securing a beachhead for a battle fleet that will be here in around 60 years. All we know about the planet is that it is very capable of sustaining any kind of life, it has huge amounts of natural resources. The most recent things we have learned may seem nothing short of impossible. When our drop team first arrived, they detected absolutely no micro-organisms, at all."
The men whispered to each other when hearing this before falling back into silence.
"After we tested the atmosphere with the ships filters we concluded that this was, in fact the case. The team also detected no radiation in any amount, not even from the sun."
The whispering started again before the hangar once more fell silent other that the hums of engines.
"Again, we tested this with the ships equipment, this was also the case. We concluded that radiation from the sun was blocked by chemicals in the upper atmosphere. However we are completely clueless why there is now radiation on the planet. And as you already know, there is an energy field that surrounds the planet, it appears to be supplying it with a strange energy, but it doesn't seem to effect us or our tech. The planets moon is also very close to the planet, it appears like our own but for reasons unknown, has a breathable atmosphere."
The whispering started but died faster than it did before.
'Energy field and now this. What's up with this place?' Ryan thought confused.
"But that's beside the point, in thirty seconds that door is opening and we will have the job of establishing a base."
The commander suddenly shouted.
"So let's get this done and make everybody back home proud!"
The marines shouted in approval.
"OORAH!"
The men, now rallied by their commander pointed their weapons back at the door with new born enthusiasm.
The seconds crept in slowly.
There was the sound of metallic clamps loosening and seals breaking.
The massive door which stretched the length of the hangar bay opened slightly to reveal a blue sky.
The marines looked at the opening and stood in awe as the light flooded in.
The marines again began to talk again, dumbstruck by the beauty of the natural sky.
"I haven't seen a sky like that in a while." Dereck said, not taking his eyes off the spectacle.
Ryan took in the beautiful view and took a refreshing breath of the fresh air.
"Now that's something I could get used to." He said indirectly to his squad.
The door jerked again without warning, snapping the men out of their gaze and back to reality.
The door continued to open all the way down to the ground.
Revealing 8 marines standing idly in outside of the hangar bay.
There was silence for a few seconds before a voice, unmistakably Alecs' spoke up.
"Took ya long enough."
Scootaloo
Scootaloo awoke with a jolt, almost screaming.
She was panting and covered in sweat.
She had the nightmare again, only this time worse, considerably worse.
It had started like it normally did.
Her house, at night, there was a hill with an old, destroyed house on the top.
And like always, there were creatures walking from the abandoned house to her own.
As they eerily limped towards her house they disappeared into a thick forest.
That was how all the dreams before ended, but this time was different.
Six of the creatures emerged from the forest, she couldn't picture them but see knew there was just something wrong with them.
But the worse was yet to come, the six creatures reached her house, and immediately began to bash the door with brutal force.
Then, an army of the creatures came out of the forest, they ripped the door off its hinges.
They burst into the house and began tearing things apart.
The army of beasts stumbled up the stairs
The mass of living destruction menacingly fumbled down the hallway, down to her room.
The thing, Scootaloo didn't feel as if they were individual abominations, but a single abomination.
They broke down the door to reveal her.
Sitting on her bed writing her diary only to look up in horror at It.
The mass moved towards her, arms stretched out for her.
She screamed as the mass came closer to her.
But one thing stuck out in her memory.
One of the Things, though she couldn't tell, this one seemed like the youngest and the lowest ranking one of the monsters.
It stared at her, only a few feet away as the mass reached for her.
The thing uttered one word that she heard over the terrifying mass.
"Help."
Scootaloo had to cover her mouth to stop herself from screaming at the thought of the nightmare.
The scary thing about it was that the dreams started after Twilight cast a future vision spell on her a gfew weeks ago to see if there would be a test in school the next day, but the side effects were visions or dreams of the future for a few weeks.
And what scared her even more was that her house and the house on the hill felt like a metaphor for something even bigger, like equestrian.
Or even.
Equis.
It had been seven hours since the landing and Ryan was panting from the work and intense heat.
After the landing the commander had ordered the vehicles to set up a perimeter while the men began to build.
The job was simple, the base needed buildings for things, so the men had to build them.
The thing was, the building materials were thick, heavy, dense blocks that looked like white concrete.
The blocks were damage resistant, anti gauss weapon and were incredible insulated.
The problem was that they were very heavy, even in New Terra's gravity and there was no room on The Pale Blue Pot for construction vehicles
Ryan panted and spat on the ground as Cole lifted another block.
Dereck strolled out casually to the men.
"Wow, five buildings in seven hours, I thought you'd only be starting your third." Dereck said impressed.
"Yeah well we need somewhere to sleep tonight." Alec said as he lifted another block and grunted.
"So, what are the medical tests showing on us after the landing?" Cole asked Dereck.
"We all have six moths to live."
Ryan and every other marine in the area stopped and looked at him in shock.
"I'm kidding! I'm kidding! In fact your vitals improved after we landed."
The marines groaned and sighed.
"You have a nasty sense of humour." Ryan said in-between breaths.
"Are you at least going to help now?" Alec asked after taking a drink from his canteen.
"Not yet."
"What? Why not?"
Dereck took something out of his pocked and threw it to Alec.
Alec looked at the packet and realized what it was.
"Lunch."
Ryan set the massive brick down.
"About time."
Dereck handed him his MRE and gave a thanked him.
He sat down on a stack of the bricks.
He coughed and looked at flag in the middle of the camp.
It was black with a picture of a human skull in the middle.
The flag of humanity.