Freya followed behind One and Done as they walked towards the dropship. One was arguing with Done about why she got some obscure Mech-related skill on her second deployment. Done though the skill was useless and a waste of skill points. It was over Freya’s head, but considering how good of a pilot One was, she thought Done should listen to what she had to say.

“Not that it matters, if we keep winning. We will both end up as someone’s assistant platoon leader either this or our next deployment.” Done said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, I’m going to miss riding in a Mech.” One said sadly.

Freya blinked at the sudden topic change. She looked over at the two and thought about them leaving. She couldn’t picture dropping a Mech without them. She knew that you had to ‘move up or move out’ in the military, but she didn’t expect to see it happen so soon. That made her think about what was going to happen after the tournament. Would people leave? Some, she expected, had to, if they wanted to stay in the Marines.

There was no such thing as a stagnant Marine. With an immortal military force you had to constantly improve or make way for someone who would. With all the time differences, there were always new Marines coming up behind them. There were only so many spots in the military and, as Freya’s drill instructor had said way back at the start of the deployment, the Federation wanted the best of the best.

Freya was still thinking about who would leave and who would stay when One slapped her on her shoulder. Freya looked up to see One pointing at the control window in the hangar. Freya smiled as she saw Diaz behind the window waving at her. She also wasn’t alone. Standing behind her were some of Diaz’s friends from the Navy side of Chivia’s.

“What’s with the crowd?” One asked, still looking at the people in the control room.

“If I had to guess, fans.” Freya said smiling, as she gave them a big wave.

“I knew I had fans, but how did they get permission to see me off?” One asked as she gave Diaz and her friends a royal wave. Freya laughed and gave her friend a push.

One’s head whipped around and she stared at Freya with an evil smile. “Go to your Mech and load up.” She told One as she started to walk faster. One kept following Freya. “Seriously, we need to load up. Come on, One. Go to your Mech.”

One ignored her. Freya panicked and started running for her ship. She turned around to see One hot on her heels. She screamed as One pushed her back. She stumbled a few steps before getting herself under control. She turned around to look for One only to see her running for her Mech.

“Guys, stop screwing around.” Diaz shouted over the loudspeaker from the control room. “Get your vacuum-sucking butts into your Mechs. We still have to get you into your drop pods. Magic, stop being a meathead.”

Freya smiled and gave the control room window a salute before she started the walk around for her pre-flight checklist. The first part of the plan had changed a bit right before they had entered the lobby. Dusty had pointed out that dropping two Mechs right at the city’s entrance would really get the attention of the enemy.

Freya smiled when she remembered the stunned silence he got in return. Torres had hastily changed the plan so that Freya would take the Mechs with her but they would be in drop pods. Basically, the pods were like the OTIDS but fitted so that they could be dropped from a dropship instead of fired from the Monarch.

Freya didn’t have to do anything, as it was the same locking mechanism with or without a pod, but One and Done had to scramble right before the platoon left to get the modification. The reasoning was that it would delay the Mechs’ landing until right before she landed and it wouldn’t give her position away. because she would release them much higher in the atmosphere. Torres also said it would confuse the enemy as they might be mistaken for OTIDS that failed to deploy or debris from some OTIDS that had been destroyed.

Freya had to calculate a new flight path for the misdirection, but it only added twenty seconds to her time until she could deploy. She was not sure about the last minute change, but she was not in charge. She knew that the Monarch would not stagger the drops for the Mechs because it would make them much easier to shoot down and it would paint a huge target where they landed. She guessed it was the only option, but it just seemed so last minute and sloppy to her.

She finished the outside pre-flight checklist and, as she walked up the ship’s ramp, she saw One’s Mech slowly being enclosed in a pod. The pod was painted black and had four maneuvering engines and one main engine on the back. It was currently cracked in half and hanging from the ceiling, but as she watched it was moved behind One’s Mech.

Once it was in place, it stopped moving and started to close on the Mech. Freya smiled and entered her ship. She gave the name plate a kiss before she started her interior check offs. When she was done she entered the last pod on her right and closed the door. Nearly five minutes later, both pods were loaded and she was ready to leave the hangar.

“Monarch, Marine RDS B127 request permission to disembark” She called over the radio.

“Marine RDS B127, you’re good to go. Good luck out there, Magic.” The female control called back.

Freya smiled as the control said her name. It was the first time any controller had done so. “Thanks Monarch. Dropping now.” Freya responded, as she boosted her power and dropped out of the hangar bay.

She boosted out and spun her ship out from under the Monarch. She looked up at the ship as she sped out from under her. She blinked and had to look again as she saw the ship had it’s anti-ship and heavy bombardment weapons out. Even as she watched, one of the heavy bombardment guns fired. She couldn’t see anything with her naked eye, but her sensors screamed at her to avoid the area. Her flight path didn’t go anywhere near the gun’s path, but it was still jarring to know that the Monarch had joined the fight.

“Starchild, to all ships. Form up. Heavy resistance expected.” A voice came over her radio. She looked down at her radio and saw that ‘Starchild’ was the same warrant officer who had been in charge of the ships during the opening ceremony.

According to what she was sent, the close support ships would go in the first wave. The second wave was the assault ships and the dropships would go in last. She formed up in the last position on the left side of the Vee formation of the dropships. It didn’t take all that long for the ships to form up and start towards the mission planet. She did note that the Monarch never stopped its bombardment.

Freya was amusing herself watching the formation move towards the mission planet, when the sensors picked out a large formation of enemy support ships. Her sensors screamed at her as the anti-ship weapons started to fire at them. The Federation support ships increased their speed to intercept the enemy ships. The rest of the formation kept going. Behind them, the Monarch anti-ship weapons started to fire. Freya’s screen lit up in a confusing display of incoming and outgoing weapon’s tracks.

“This is insane.” Freya thought to herself as she watched the display and the support ships closed in enough to shoot at each other.

“B808, remain on course! You are drifting!” A voice that was, according to her display, the lead dropship, yelled out. Seconds later B808 was in pieces. It happened so fast that Freya didn’t see what hit it. She checked her combat log and learned that it had drifted out of the protection of the Monarch’s defensive window allowing the ship to be targeted by planet-based anti-ship weapons. Freya was not sure if it had been a lucky shot or that someone was extremely good at their job, but her palms were sweating as she made sure she was still in the Monarch’s defensive envelope.

Freya watched as the Federation support ships drove the enemy support ships away from the formation. There were some casualties though among the assault ships. There were two holes in the assault ship formation. The other assault ships quickly filled in the holes, but Freya was starting to get worried.

She bit her lip as her sensor started beeping telling her the Monarch had launched all of the OTIDS. She looked down at her sensors and saw thousands of OTIDS racing towards her. It was an awesome sight. They were moving much faster than the formations. A quick bit of math told her that they would overtake them in about forty seconds. It would be right around the time that the assault ships would be hitting the atmosphere.

“By Tom’s Toes, would you look at that.” Done said, sounding amazed, over the radio.

“Done, stay off the radio.” Freya barked at him. She turned on her anti-missile defence and made sure it was working before she set it to auto target. Her sensors were showing her thousands of missiles rising up from the surface.

“All ships, you’re clear to drop on the planet. Good hunting.” Starchild called over the radio.

“Dropships, boost to 41k and close ranks.” The dropship lead called out.

Freya broke formation as the dropship lead sent out a new formation. He wanted them to form up into two Vees. She moved in as close as she could to her new Vee lead which was, according to her sensors, about ten feet. She boosted her ship to an additional eight percent main engine power which was, for her ship, roughly sixty-eight percent of its full power. She cursed the slower dropships as the OTIDS started passing them.

The new flight path had everyone entering the atmosphere at the same spot. It wasn’t all that difficult for Freya to figure out that they were trying to overload the planet's defenses. The flight path ended at the thermosphere of the planet. From that point it was every ship for itself.

Freya flinched as an OTIDS passed within five feet of her as it raced towards the planet. The anti-ship fire had slowed down but with all the OTIDS flying all around it wasn’t as safe as she wanted it to be. She looked at the assault ships as they began to separate and saw that they were down another two ships. She took a deep breath as her sensors told her that she had passed the Karman line.

“Fifteen seconds to break.” The lead dropship called out over the radio.

Freya nervously checked her flight path. The OTIDS were still falling all around her. She could see the last of them coming though. According to her sensors, the last OTIDS would pass by her five seconds before they broke formation. That made her very nerious. Five seconds was a long time in combat.

Freya watched her sensors as the OTIDS wave slowly faded. Two seconds after the last OTIDS had passed her, one of the dropships in the other formation blew up. She was too busy to see what got it as she dodged enemy missiles while trying to stay in formation. Her sensors were screaming at her as the enemy increased the anti-ship defenses.

“It looks like they really don’t want respawn dropships on their planet.” Freya thought to herself.

“Break, break, break!” The lead dropship yelled over the radio, three second before they were scheduled to break formation. Freya didn’t hesitate and boosted her ship’s engines to eighty percent, quickly flying past the two dropships in her formation. She rotated her ship in a corkscrew maneuver to avoid enemy fire and eased her direction towards the ocean. She absently noted that the lead ship in her formation had been hit and was a large black cloud of smoke and bits of over-heated pieces of metal falling behind her.

“Ten seconds.” She called over the radio to One and Done as she dodged two missiles. A crazy idea popped into her head and she smiled. She slowed down a bit as one of the missiles tracked her. She turned off her auto cannons and let the missile get closer. She spun her ship and pulled it hard to the right, but she didn’t increase her engine power. The missile got closer.

“Dropping early!” She yelled out as she turned on her cannons. She waited until the cannons fired on the missile before she boosted her speed up five percent and ejected the Mech pods. She immediately dropped her speed by ten percent and forced herself into a flat spin as the missile exploded behind her. She felt the ship struggle to compensate for the increased gravity.

“Magic!” One screamed.

“On path.” Freya replied as she made sure she was falling along her flightpath. The gravity tried to pull her out of her seat to the left, but her seatbelt kept her in her chair. She eyed the yellow line on her sensors that marked the altitude at which she would be out of view of most of the planet's anti-ship weapons.

The moment she passed the line, she yanked on the controls of her ship, fighting the flat spin. Her maneuvering engines screamed in protest as she slowed the spin and turned the nose of her ship towards the ocean. The moment she pulled out of the flat spin she dropped her main engine to ten percent power and let the ship free fall using the maneuvering engines to push her along her flight path.

About three-hundred feet from the surface, she pulled out of her steep dive and glided north. Because she had reduced her engine power down to ten percent she was still falling pretty fast. She used her maneuvering engines to slow her further. She bit her lip as she rode the very edge between gliding into the ocean and falling out of the sky. Four miles short of where she planned to enter the ocean, she came down. She kept her nose raised as she got closer and closer to the ocean until she felt a bump as her ship hit the surface of the ocean. She was jerked forward as her ship lost a lot of its speed. She let the nose of her ship slowly fall as the ocean reduced her speed even more. Her damaged sensors yelled at her, but her Personal AI informed her that her ship was still intact with negligible damage.

She looked up at the monitor as her ship sank into the ocean. She let her ship sink about ten feet before boosting the engine power up to thirty percent. Her sensors told her that she had about a hundred feet to the ocean floor so she angled her ship to go lower. She only pulled up when she was about twenty feet from the ocean floor. The ocean floor was not flat so she had to occasionally adjust her depth, but for the most part Freya thought it was a pleasant journey.

She had to remain at thirty percent power or lower depending on where she was and how deep the ocean was. She turned on her outside monitors and watched the ocean pass her by. She smiled as she spotted a few seagoing vessels that had sunk at some time in the past. She even spotted a large whale-like creature that was laying on the ocean floor. It was about sixty feet long and about ten or so feet wide. It swam away when she got close. She watched as it swam off into the darkness.

That made her wonder what Earth’s ocean floor looked like. “Probably filled with trash and stuff left over from the war.” She told herself with a twisted smile.

She refocused her attention when her map pinged her, telling her she was getting close to the harbor. She slowed down to fifteen percent and turned her ship in a gentle arc towards the mouth of the river. She checked her mission timer and frowned. She was slightly behind schedule. She was now on track to deploy two minutes late.

She thought about increasing her speed but quickly tossed out that idea as it would make her more visible to anyone looking for her. She adjusted her path to decrease her journey slightly, but that only took off a few seconds. She sighed as she racked her brains on what to do. In the end she accepted that she was going to be late and hoped that nothing bad happened before she could deploy.

“Things must be going good so far as no one is using the respawn pods.” She told herself then frowned and cursed mentally. “I forgot to set the pods to let the whole company respawn.”

She quickly changed it up and, in less than a second, all her pods were full with eleven people in the queue. She checked the list and switched out a few names. The platoon leader from Second Platoon, as well as two squad leaders from Third Platoon, got pushed to the front of the queue. The rest she let go as first come first served. She did program her queue to respawn platoon leaders and squad leaders first from now on before everyone else. It wouldn’t kick someone back who was already spawning but it would set them up for the next respawn. She also had her ship set up so that it would send her a warning when the Batk fluid got low.

The first wave of respawns finished before she got to her deployment area. She watched as they climbed out of their pods and equipped their uniforms and weapons. She bumped a PFC from Fourth Platoon and slotted herself in his position.She checked the distance she had to travel and shook her head.

“A minute and a half before we arrive. We will be about thirty feet down in the river about halfway between the first and third bridge. Standby for flooding. I’m planning on flooding the back ‘cause it's faster than everyone waiting on the airlock.” Freya told them over the radio.

“I hate water respawns.” Grumbled a squad leader from Third Platoon.

“Just be glad we have a respawn point.” The sergeant from the Second Platoon replied in a deep voice before he turned to face the camera in the respawn bay. “How are we with being detected?”

“I got nothing on my scanners and I faked a crash in case anyone was watching. We are currently traveling under the river. So we should be in the clear.” Freya replied as she slowed down again. The river was getting shallower than what the map had projected. She was currently going about nine percent power on her main engines.

“Thanks, Magic. What's the next respawn list look like?” The Sergeant asked. Freya sent the list of who was getting respawned next plus the timer. She then sent the rest of the list of who was getting respawned and when.

“Thanks again, Magic.” The Sergeant said, nodding to the camera after he took a few seconds to read the list. “Everyone listen up. As soon as she drops the ramp, I want everyone to form up with your platoons. You are to avoid the city-side and stay on this side of the river. Also stay the frig away from the edge of the river when you are traveling so they don’t see you. I do not want to hear that you gave this ship’s position away because you were stupid. Understood?”

He turned back to the camera again after he got everyone to agree. “I’ll stay here until the next respawn. I don’t have any of my people in this round.” He said looking into the camera.

“Roger that, Sergeant.” Freya said, slowing down even further as she came up near where she had mapped out to deploy. “Flooding the bay in ten seconds. Brace.”

She watched as everyone grabbed the rod on the ceiling and held on. She found a good, deep part of the river and let her ship slowly rest gently on the river bottom. She opened the vent to the back and the water started to rise up from the floor pretty fast. Twenty seconds later, the back of the ship was fully flooded. She opened the ramp and five of the six people who had been respawned swam out. She took one last look around the cockpit to make sure that she hadn’t forgotten anything before she allowed herself to despawn.