Admiral Arkin Aether looked at the planet at which the warp had taken them. It looked eerily similar to Old Earth, a time where other types of governments existed and Democracy was only upheld in a few countries. The similarities between this planet and Old Earth ended there. According to the scientists down in the lab decks of her ship, the planet doesn't seem to be rotating to some axis at all, one side of the planet faced its sun while the other side faced the moon. An unusual phenomenon that, apparently, stumped even their lead scientist, Gustaf Brackman.
Investigating the mysteries of the planet's rotational axis isn't her objective here however, Battlefleet Indiana was here for a specific reason: to investigate the unusual signal that was detected by their ships' sensors. She took a deep breath before turning to face her crew members.
"Take us to the planet's orbit."
The sounds of activity filled the main deck of the ship as the men and women os SS Independence followed their admiral's orders, the rest of the fleet followed their flagship like ducklings following their mother. As the fleet closed in on the planet's orbit, Arkin walked up to the war table sitting in the middle of the main deck. The surface of the deck lit up a bright yellow and showed an entire holographic map of the entire solar system. There were five planets in total with only one of them circling around the habitable zone -- the planet which sent the anomalous signal -- the furthest planet from the sun was a gas giant while the nearest one was a volcanic planet and anything in the middle was either a desert planet or a tundra planet.
And then there was the one that sat in the middle of it all, the one that her entire fleet was orbiting around at this very moment. Again, she took a deep breath. Whatever this signal was, was definitely setting her on edge, several questions plagued her mind but the most prevalent question was why.
"Why only now do you send a signal?" she muttered.
She straightened herself, looked back at the crew member and issued her first order since their arrival on this planet. "Pass this message to the entire fleet: I want Eagle Fighters down on that planet conducting atmospheric mappings,"
At the her command, the men and women of Battlefleet Indiana -- especially the ones in the vehicle decks -- moved to-and-fro, pilots hopped on their designated Eagle FIghters, the high pitched humming noises of Eagle Fighters reverberated in the vehicle decks of Battlefleet Indiana. From a distance, small yellow dots escaped from the fleet like spores that emerge from fungi before zooming towards the planet. Back in the main deck of SS Independence, radio chatter was at an all time high as pilots speak through their microphones, relaying their message back to Battlefleet Indiana or making some small talk as the pilots mapped the entire planet.
From the planet's size, it should take around seven to eight hours before the entire surface of the planet is mapped. While this was happening, Admiral Arkin interacted with the war table. The map of the solar system disappeared and what replaced it was the battleship's artificial intelligence, EDEN-18.
"What do you need me for, admiral?" the male robotic voice of EDEN-18 said.
"Call the Helldivers to my bridge."
Jab, jab, left hook, right hook, spinning low sweep!
Her feet collided with the legs of her opponent causing a trip and crash on the foamed platform with a soft thud. She quickly scrambled up from her low sweep and rushed for her enemy who was trying to stand back up. Unfortunately for her opponent, she was quicker. Before her sparring partner could even get up, she planted a knee on his chest and placed all of her body weight on it so that her partner couldn't get up. Her partner struggled for a few moments before eventually giving up and admitted defeat.
Both fighters composed themselves before giving a nod of appreciation to each other for completing a duel. As her opponent left the gym, a new person entered but instead of wearing light clothing suited for working out, he was wearing a uniform. The woman standing in the padded arena took a passing look at the young man before speaking.
"You're in the wrong place private, cafeteria's on the upper decks." She said.
"Actually, I believe I'm in the right place. You're Helldiver Josie Del Rosario, correct?"
"That I am," She turned to face the private. "anything you need from me?"
"I don't need anything from you ma'am. Admiral Arkin wants you on the bridge."
Josie raised an eyebrow. "Another mission?"
"She never specified. She told me to tell you that you have to be there before you ask questions."
"Sounds pretty serious." She muttered before returning her attention to the private. "Thanks for telling me. You can go back to whatever you were doing."
The private -- whose name she won't be bothered asking -- gave her a salute. She made her way to the exit of the gym but not before being called out by the private once again.
"A-Are the rumours true?" He asked, a look of hesitation but at the same time, a dying curiosity. "Is it true that you've liberated more than a hundred threat level 10 planets?"
Josie raised an eyebrow at his question before giving off a light chuckle. "A hundred's an exaggeration, I've only liberated a dozen. You can check in the ship's archives for all of those twelve planets."
The exit door of the gym gave off a loud hiss as Josie left and another hiss as it closed.
A tense look settled on Admiral Arkin's face, one that wasn't missed by Josie as she entered the main deck of the ship, now wearing her Helldiver armor and helmet. She walked up to the admiral's side and gazed at the hologram of the planet that they were currently orbiting. It seemed like Arkin was lost in her thoughts as she realised too late that Josie was already beside her. Clearing her throat, she turned to face her. Josie, for her part, saluted before speaking up.
"What do you need me for admiral?"
"You mission is relatively simple." She began and debriefed Josie about the unknown signal and how she wanted to find out where and who or what sent said signal. When the debriefing was done, Josie took a moment to ponder on her admiral's words.
"You said 'relatively simple'. Any reason why you said that?"
Arkin commended Josie's attentiveness. If she was wincing at those words, she didn't show them. "Two teams will be sent down there. Team One has already reached planetside and is making the fortifications of a base nearby where one of the Eagle Fighters said where the origins of the signal was. The base is situation in a densely packed forest teeming with hostile creatures."
"That all? I don't see those as difficult tasks considering I'm bringing in a whole team." Josie said, her eyebrow raised from underneath her helmet and her hands placed on her waist.
The wince that Arkin was hiding finally showed itself on her face, her gaze moved away from Josie. "That isn't the issue. I said 'relatively simple' because Team One is consisted of these people."
Arkin interacted with the war table, removing the planet and pulled out a list of names. As soon as Josie locked on the first name, the confusion in her face turned into a frown.
Gabriel Lanner
Everyone in the ship didn't need to assume when they took a glance at Josie to know that she was glaring at the name from underneath her helmet. Admiral Arkin winced at Josie's obvious reaction at the name. It was well known in Battlefleet Indiana that Gabriel Lanner and Josie Del Rosario do not mix well together, it's like comparing an unbreakable shield and a
powerful spear, respectively. While Josie and Gabriel are considered to be the best in her fleet, their methods and rules of engagement are polar opposites.
Josie preferred to tackle a situation before it even happens. According to her records, Josie takes out the scouts with deadly efficiency before they could even alert the main army. Josie works quick; moving and completing objectives left and right before the enemy even notices what is wrong, and by time the enemy does notice something wrong, it was already too late. This was how Josie operated on her missions, quick and clean, efficient and resourceful. It's because of this, she's a terrifying force in battle. A problem that arises from this kind of mentality is the fact that Josie isn't that good when it comes to teamwork, because of her rapid actions, some Helldivers struggle to keep up with her, forcing Josie to either slow down or in worse cases, completely abandon her team
"Admiral, I'm pretty sure you know how vocal I can get when I'm paired up with a team, especially if she is going to be working with me." She sternly said.
Despite her intimidation, Admiral Arkin didn't budge. Facing Josie with a glare of her own, she replied to her complaint. "You will be working with Team Two in collaboration with Team One. This isn't a suggestion, soldier, this is an order."
Although, Josie wanted to argue, she can't really disobey her superior's orders lest she wanted to be marked for insubordination. She clenched her fists tightly, took a deep breath before exhaling through her mouth and loosening her clenched fists.
"So," She began. "Where can I meet Team Two?"
Admiral Arkin smiled.
While the exchange between Arkin and Josie happened, on the planet's skies, a lone Eagle Fighter flew across the lower atmosphere. Its belly open revealing a black ball which was the go-to tool for surveying an area. The pilot of the craft, surveyed the skies with clear boredom in his eyes. When the call to perform atmospheric surveillance happened, he had expected some action other than just mapping the entire world. Perhaps some resistance on the ground where he will be called on to provide support or a dogfight against the planet's local air force, hell, at this point he preferred to do anything other than just fly around, letting some black ball--underneath the belly of his aircraft--scan the world.
He took a passing glance at the screen which displayed what the black ball was showing. One of his brows raised up with slight interest and confusion.
A cloud city?
He shook his head and face forward, it must be his imaginations playing with his mind, boredom can really make the craziest of imaginations. A short chuckle escaped his nose at the thought of a city made of clouds, even if he entertained that line of thought, how could the city function?
"A nice cup of Liber-Tea might be good right about now." He thought, he is done with the mission after all.
With the thought of sipping his delicious tea on the forefront of his mind, he flew the plane upwards and activated his thrusters to leave the planet's gravitational pull.
News Flash, a pegasus pony who works for one of Cloudsdale's news paper company, shuffled his hooves nervously as his boss read his news article with a neutral look. He was still new to the media business so he didn't really know what would be considered a 'good scoop'. Nevertheless, he always brought his camera with him to try and take pictured that he believe could catch his boss' attention.
After minutes of deafening silence inside his boss' office, his boss looked up from his article with a wide smile on his face.
"News Flash, I believe that what you have here is definitely going to be the story of the century!"
"You really think so?" He said, his voice suddenly filled with hope.
His wide smile suddenly turned into a frown. "NO!" News Flash flinched. "What were you thinking when you decided to write this article?"
He tried to make himself smaller. "I thought it might be an interesting article."
His boss snorted. "Yeah, for the goonies!" His scolding attitude simmered down when he noticed News Flash practically trembling at his voice.
Dapper Blitz sighed and took another look at the article. It certainly is an interesting article, but one that isn't really well received in the public. Unless their targeted audience are the ponies who are into those conspiracies and theories, he just couldn't see how this article could fly. Then again, News Flash did try his best to find a scoop and he believe that, to News Flash, this might be his biggest scoop yet second only to the Elements of Harmony.
"I'll allow it." He said.
News Flash perked up at his words, his mouth wide open as he tried to formulate words. Dapper Blitz didn't let him however as he continued speaking.
"Paste it somewhere on the lower corner of the front page." He said casually. His stern attitude came back in full swing when he didn't hear the sound of scrambling hooves. "Well?! Are you going to move your flank?!"
News Flash was snapped out of his stunned state and with stammering mouth he replied with a "Yes sir. Thank you sir!" before rushing towards Dapper's office door--nearly slipping along the way.
As the office turned back to its quiet state, Dapper Blitz looked at the paper once more, a short snort came out. "Heh. Aliens."
He slammed the article on his desk. An image of what looks like flying arrow above the city of Cloudsdale. While the picture taken was quite blurry due to the urgency that it needed to be taken, it was clear that this 'arrow' has the distinct color of yellow and black and a trail of white smoke behind said arrow. Below the image was an entire block of paragraph talking about the unidentified flying object.
Dapper Blitz leaned on his cloud shaped chair and looked at his cloud ceiling. "What a ridiculous notion."
