//------------------------------// // Planetfall // Story: The Descent into Madness // by FenrisianBrony //------------------------------// Applejack “So, this is yer new suit, lass,” Koghad began as he stepped back. “A bit better than yer old one I might add, some of mah own work after the Ethereal was through givin’ his orders fer it.” “It feels different,” Applejack moved her back legs experimentally, finding that she was being met with resistance. “The joints are sticky.” “Oh, my mistake, I must have forgotten to turn it on,” Koghad muttered, walking back over to Applejack and fiddling with the oversized backpack on the armour. “Alright, try it now.” Applejack nodded, moving her back leg again, expecting it to be as hard as last time. Instead her back legs shot out faster than the eye could see, sending her toppling to the floor. “What was that?” Applejack grunted, slowly getting to her hooves again, careful to move slowly, feeling something working with her back legs rather than against them. “That, Applejack, is experimental tech,” Koghad sounded proud as he spoke, folding his arms. “T’au high command bid the Earth Caste to make Fire Warriors stronger, a fusion of regular armour and battlesuit technology. It isn’t any stronger than normal armour, but it does have muscle-fibres built into the legs, makes it much easier to carry heavier loads.” “Or kick harder,” Applejack guessed. “That is a side-effect, yes,” Koghad nodded. “For most Fire Warriors kicking isn’t big on their list, but for you, lass? Well, word is Aun’Vesa himself secured permission for you to be one of the several warriors who got to wear prototypes.” “So ah just get to use this new tech? No strings attached?” Applejack asked sceptically, experimentally extending her legs and feeling the suit assisting her. “Ah find that hard to believe.” “Well the idea is you come back with it this time,” Koghad smirked, before catching sight of the foul look Applejack was giving him. “I’m sorry, lass, that was, out of order.” “Yer damn right,” Applejack glared at Koghad, before picking up her helmet and slipping it onto her head, mostly so Koghad couldn’t see the anger growing in her eye. “Weapons?” “Rail rifles, two,” Koghad indicated the two weapons on a rack beside him. “With yer new suit ya should be able to lift ‘em easier than ya lifted one in yer old suit. They can be fired one at a time or both together, although that takes more time for you to readjust, otherwise both shots won’t hit the target.” “I think I can work it out,” Applejack shrugged as she picked up the weapons, linking them to her helmets heads up display. “Anything else?” “Yer new eye,” Koghad pushed a small box towards Applejack. “Easy to be put in and take out.” “Thanks,” Applejack muttered, picking up the box and glancing inside at the small cybernetic. “Ah think ah can work it out on mah own, Koghad. Ah should get back to mah squad, the Shas’Ui wants to teach me some more before we get to our destination.” “Ah’m sorry if ah offended ya, lass,” Koghad sighed, watching as Applejack turned and left the room. *** “This is our target,” Aun'Vesa pointed towards the holo-projection of what looked like a massive ball of ice with a few black spots dotted across its surface. Applejack and the rest of the Fire Warriors had assembled in the main mess hall on-board the ship, the usually noisy room now completely silent as every one of them hung off of the Ethereal's every word. “Mylock, an unassuming ball of ice, now held by a contingent of Orks. So far our Intel suggests that these Orks have not yet unified under a single Warboss, and infighting is keeping them in a weakened state. If one tribe rises to prominence and brings the others under his control however, this may rapidly change, and the flank of the expansion would be at risk.” Aun’Vesa took a few moments to collect his thoughts, before continuing on again, making sure to look at individual Fire Warriors as he spoke. “Our task is simple, to keep this infighting going. We are only a splinter of the Pa’Laa Sept, but if we can prolong the situation on Mylock, we can bring down the full force of your Sept and break the Orks. If we can drive them from this world, we will have a strategically valuable staging ground for future incursions into enemy territory. Are there any questions from all of you?” No one raised their hands, Aun’Vesa looking around for a good five minutes before finally deciding that if anyone had wanted to speak they would have done so by now. “You are here because myself and Shas’O Shan'Ta have heard good things about you. Each squad has been hand chosen to be here, we believe you are the most suited to the task at hand. You are not here to go on a full offensive. You will be split into smaller forces, and each of you will be tasked with taking and holding an area of value. Once taken you are to fortify it in any way you see fit and hold out until reinforcements get here. You are holding our enemy in place, mighty Fire Warriors, allowing us to wind up for the killing blow. As there are no questions, you are dismissed. Those Fire Warriors under the command of Shas’Ui Ko’Min, Rulfod, Wenik and Qre’Na, please report to the arming bays immediately, you are being re-equipped before the mission.” With that, Aun’Vesa left the room, his bodyguard close beside him, and the general din of hundreds of voices filling the room once more. *** The Or’es El’leath Class Battleship shot out of the space between realspace and the warp like a hot knife through butter, its black hull blending in against the blackness of space. Applejack and Ko’Min stood together, the rest of the squad standing quietly behind them in the ships hanger. Applejack had finally gotten used to her new armour, and by the looks of it the others had too. Each member of the squad now sported the same style of armour as Applejack did, larger amounts of kit weighing them down, and yet they did not struggle under the loads, easily staying upright as they approached Mylock. “Why did we get these things again?” Diaoh asked shaking his leg warily. “It feel’s…different from the armour I had before.” “Think of it as a test,” Valnoth smiled. “If they perform well then it could make these things standard issue throughout the Fire Caste.” “Which would make our armies more efficient and therefore speed the spread of the Greater Good,” Ko’Min finished. “We have been given a chance to be at the forefront of development for the Third Sphere Expansion. That is well worth feeling a little…different.” Gra’us nodded slowly as Diaoh rolled his eyes. “So this is why we were pulled away from the forge world? To be lab rats?” “Partially,” Valnoth nodded reluctantly. “But we were also chosen by the Ethereal and the Shas’O. You do realise that that has essentially marked us out for greater things?” “If you say so,” Diaoh huffed. “I would still prefer to do these greater things in my old armour, this doesn’t feel right, like I’m going to make a mistake that leads me into an Ork bullet or something.” “No one is taking an Ork bullet,” Applejack shook her head. “They’re Orks, and close to feral at that. As long as we stick ta the plan then they should stay divided enough for their numbers not to make a lick of difference.” “Is that you or Ko’Min talking, I seem to be struggling to tell the difference. Besides the obvious accent differences of course,” Valnoth laughed. “At least you seem to be doing a good job teaching her tactical awareness, Shas’Ui.” “Well she seems to pick it up quickly,” Ko’Min shrugged. “I…” A klaxon began to blare just as Ko’Min started talking. “It can wait,” Ko’Min looked towards one of the five Mantas in the hanger. “Mount up and strap in, we’re approaching mission start.” Turning, Applejack followed after Ko’Min, her armour hissing slightly as she walked up the ramp, heading towards one of the seats that had been specifically redesigned for her, allowing her to sit far more comfortably than before, and being strapped in much tighter. As the bars came down, anchoring her to the chair, she reached into one of the pouches on her armour, pulling out the mechanical eye and glaring at it for a few moments, before bringing it closer to the socket port. She had only put it in a few times before, and t took her a few moments, but soon she managed to get it seated properly, her vision on the left side flaring into life, momentarily disorientating her, before her two eyes properly synched and created one single image. Applejack had to begrudgingly admit that the eye was very good, interfacing directly with her brain and displaying tactical data. Her helmet did much the same thing, but this gave her a much greater degree of accuracy due to it being directly attached to her, rather than just scanning her like her helmet did. “Is your eye seated properly?” Valnoth asked from across the isle of the Manta. “Yeah, it’s workin’ fine,” Applejack nodded, before sealing her helmet into place and lapsing into silence. This was the first time she had seen combat since the forge world, and her nerves were rising quickly. It seemed odd to her that that drop had only been a month and a bit ago, and how much she had been forced to change in that short amount of time. She had avoided thinking about it since the incident, but she now had to face the fact that this was what Rainbow must have felt like after her disfiguration. The idea of fighting and carrying on with the life you had before with part of you missing was just odd to her, almost intolerable. “Applejack, are you well?” Ko’Min asked in the final squad checks, even as she felt the Manta lurch upwards off of the deck of the ship, her eye displaying their relative speed as they launched into space towards the planet, a time to destination counter beginning. “Ah’m fine,” she nodded grimly. “Let’s see how that holds up in three minutes thirty one seconds.” Applejack cut out the noise of Ko’Min asking the others if they were ok, instead focusing on the two sets of numbers in her vision, the speed continuing to rise as the time until they would be released from their chairs thundered towards zero. The craft began to shake as they passed through what Applejack assumed must have been the atmosphere, feeling like it was going to come apart completely for a few seconds, before smoothing out once more, the relative speed in Applejack’s vision being replaced by a much smaller value labelled as air speed. “This is it!” Ko’Min roared. “Get ready, we come out shooting.” “Thirteen seconds out!” Applejack raised her own voice, looking around the troop compartment and getting herself ready, doing one final check on her weapon’s and armour’s systems. “Five! Four! Three! Two! One!” Applejack bellowed, before the craft slammed down, the rear ramp instantly dropping down as the restraining bars rose away. An anger Applejack couldn’t quite explain rose up in her chest at the thought of the imminent battle, and she let out a snarl before setting off at a gallop towards the surface of Mylock, Ko’Min, and the other members of the strike force doing the same thing as they sped to meet the Orks in open battle.