The soft humming of the fast-attack Hermes' thrusters reverberated through the narrow cargo bay. Two four-man squads were crammed together as close as their heavy armours allowed, each wielding a combat rifle of three feet. The red lights on either side of the corridor winked, signalling the three-minute dropdown.

For close to half an hour the compact aircraft had advanced through the howling typhoon that ravaged this colony planet, and the violent turbulence—which Reith found oddly familiar to what they usually endured during an orbital-to-surface assault— left him and his squadmates hard-pressed for balance, even with their armours' magnetic boots.

Like the other space-assault marines bundled around him, Reith was outfitted with one of Earth's latest combat armours which protected everything from toes to neck. The power armours were black as sin and gleamed in the dim red lighting. Connected from the neck and above were helmets that matched in colour and veiled the marines identities. An annoying aspect was it not for the information presented in their heads-up displays, a limited movement detection ring with green icons for friendly and yellow for superior officers, listed and managed by the microcomputer installed in their suits.

Neat little things, Reith thought as he glanced at the semi-transparent numbers in the corner of his vision: two minutes and twenty-three seconds before the estimated touchdown.

As the aircraft finally exited out of the storm and the marines could relax, the signalling lanterns shifted to a dim orange. Two minutes.

Before the squad's lieutenant managed to bark her orders, the soldiers had already started to insert their magazines, adjust their reflex sights, and toggle the safety switches—a symphony of snaps and clicks that alleviated the tensed nerves of Reith. Although he was an experienced marine by now, the fear and uncertainty surrounding the coming operations always lingered. And it always disappeared in a blink of an eye when they landed, but was a hell to deal with before that.

There was a faint crackle in Reith's helmet as second lieutenant Eileen connected to the squad's internal comm channel. "You okay back there, rookie?" A slight pause, and then, "You better not be pissing in your suit!"

Jack's low-pitched voice followed shortly after another crackle. "Just a little nervous, ma'am."

Reith smiled at the vivid memories of his first operation. "Don't despair, recruit. Even I sullied myself during my first mission. Though I must warn you, maintenance staff don't take kindly to that," Reith said. A couple of the marines snickered.

"Heck, it wouldn't baffle me if your ass still did, sergeant," Eileen said as the lanterns dimmed and darkened the cargo bay. One minute left.

"Ma'am, I think you should take up biology after this operation."

"Snap it, Reith!"

He smiled under his helmet; the previous tension was gone. His squad leader had her ways of calming the marines down, and he admitted to envy that careless attitude of hers, even if it was a façade. There was a beauty under that headpiece as well, unlike himself.

Yes, he would survive, Reith thought, like he always did.

Then the Hermes crested the final ridge and, in the live camera feed from the cockpit at the corner of their heads-up display, the troopers got their first line-of-sight on the mission area; the capital city of the war-ridden planet Urizen, a colony belonging to The United Federation of Earth. Lines upon lines of elegant buildings in all shapes and hues coloured the landscape. A few of the skyscrapers stretched beyond a thousand metres into the clouds. A couple of those towers revealed as partially ruined, with gaping wounds multiple stories large, tracer bullets discharging like slender fingers reaching for the lower levels of the city.

The lanterns lit up to a blazing orange, caught in the reflective metal of their combat armour. The turbulence started again as their aircraft was forced to jerk back and forth to avoid the anti-airs' centipede of bullets. Thirty seconds remaining before the landing, if they survived.

Reith held his breath as the neighbouring bulky Hermes in the corner of the camera feed exploded into a fireball and plummeted into a skyscraper, followed by another explosion as the fuel cells ignited. That was eight space-assault marines and their costly armours gone, millions of earthly dollars and eight brothers-in-arms gone in the blink of an eye. Despite the blasts and rattling of heavy machinery, the sound of Jack's gasp was loud and clear in his helmet's speakers. Not that Reith judged him since his own first operation was a lot gentler than this battle, but fear had a tendency to spread like a plague. "Shut it, recruit. Focus on the mission," he said.

As Jack apologised, the lanterns shifted colour again to a lush green. Ten seconds.

Multiple missiles launched from the aircraft's wings and darted toward its target, and the rattling of the 90 mm gun turret located at the nose increased in intensity. A dust cloud rose at the field of impact of the missiles and served as a screen to the aircraft's approach. In mere seconds afterwards, the ramp lowered, and the dusty daylight of this foreign planet fingered its way inside the cargo bay.

Two corporals were the first to jump out, followed shortly by Reith and another marine. The Hermes hovered roughly twenty feet above ground level, and Reith controlled the descent with his embedded jetpack, while silently thanking the sturdiness of his armour as a projectile ricocheted off his breastplate. Tracer bullets darted above his head, fired blindly through the fog with the hope of finding an unlucky enemy. He lowered his head and—despite his internal protests to run to cover— glanced back at the aircraft.

Lieutenant Eileen and the second-in-command staff sergeant Petterson had already leapt from the bulky machine, their gauntleted hands tight around their battle rifles. Then he spotted Jack and another marine right behind, close to the lieutenant yet with a decent safety margin between each other. But at the same time, a Hawk missile tore through the smoke screen and struck the Hermes. It erupted into a sphere of blazing flames, enveloping the two marines, and the two field officers who were descending plunged down as the shock wave reached them.

Reith was quick to react and managed to lessen the impact of his lieutenant, but the sergeant wasn't as lucky. He skipped twice against the tarmac asphalt, and his limbs splayed, twisting at unnatural angles.

As Reith dragged the whimpering Eileen across the pavement to the closest cover he could find—a crashed car next to a large entrance to a hotel, or at least what Reith assumed to be a hotel—the dust cover dissipated, revealing that they had been dropped into a residential district. The building on either side of the narrow street, which was littered with debris, broken cars and civilian corpses, forced Reith to tilt his helmet to gaze upon the top. In front of him, the source of this mishap and the barrage of bullets was the bunkered manor—the objective of their mission.

Reith quickly dipped behind the cover again as a stationed turret located him and hurled a volley of armour-piercing bullets through the car's doors. One of the shots caught Eileen's headpiece just above the ear, and blood splattered from the opening.

"Fuck!" he cursed and threw himself into the threshold of the hotel. Reith counted the number of dots that coloured his movement detector. Three green dots, his own already morphed into a yellow as the microcomputer had calculated the meaning behind the loss of the lieutenant and the staff sergeant.

He cursed to himself again and spoke into the helmet's microphone. "Fall back to my position!"

Damn Naval Intelligence Agency and their incompetence in failing to report something as important as a stationed reinforced 50 mm turret—judging by the sound. Despite his loyalty to the homeland, Reith was growing more certain on why they had started to lose battles and amused himself with the idea of desertion.

The three surviving marines came into sight around the corner and quickly took cover as another barrage of 50 mm bullets assaulted their position.

One of the survivors tilted his helmet as he looked at Reith and spoke through his helmet's external speakers. "We have no way of destroying that turret. 'Fraid our rockets went with the privates, sir."

The barrage terminated and silence followed, notwithstanding the occasional muffled explosion in the far distance. Reith’s mind raced, as he considered the various approaches to this predicament. A direct head-on-head clash was impossible, and literally a death wish. On the other hand, so was long-distance engagement since they carried neither sniper rifles nor rocket launchers. As for orbital bombardment, the populace on Earth strictly forbid the use of such "cruelty," on the excuse that it was immoral and unethical. Or so they announced as they sat in cushioned chairs and imbibed on high-quality and expensive wine.

Reith snorted and changed the comms channel. "SAM Shadow to Command, do you read, over?"

One of the marines quietly peered beyond the corner and quickly snapped her head back. She turned and shook her helmet.

A crepitation rebound inside his helmet and the voice of a rasped man Reith had never heard followed. "This is Command, SAM Ghost is en route to provide assistance. Estimated time of approach is two minutes and thirty seconds. Stand by and don't lose any more men, sergeant."

Command central was located in outer space onboard the naval fleet guarding there, which was the resting station to his platoon, known as SAM—space-assault marines. What Reith despised with the command centre was their clandestine etiquettes, which dictated anonymity among the commanding officers that perched in the upper echelon of the navy. During operations, these unknown voices oversaw the managing of troop movement and the distribution of available support. And while Reith understood the need for meat shields in a war like this one, where the real enemies were behind and before them, he loathed being personally assigned to such a strategy.

"Copy that, command. SAM shadow out." Reith cut the connection and glanced at the marines, Geoffrey, Erick and Lillian. One was on the lookout, the others fiddled with their weapons, but weren't any less alert judging by their tensed shoulders.

"Ghost is coming to our aid in roughly two and a half minutes. Got to hold our ground until then."

The troopers nodded his way. "Shouldn't be tough, sarge. Those cowards are hiding behind the big turret." The female marine on vigil was distinguishable by her lower height, a full head below her companions and one-and-a-half beneath Reith. A small target.

"Good. Did you chance to notice any concerns during your short engagement?"

She shook her head. "Outside the big one, it seemed in the main to be small-arms and sub-machine guns. Nothing our suits can't handle."

Reith returned to ponder over the approach. He had an idea which could work, but with his mind's eye, he recalled the scene where Eileen was killed despite the cover and doubted the plan's success rate. For now, at least, he would wait for Ghost.

After Reith explained his battle plan to the marines, the calm continued a minute or so until the thick voice of lieutenant Bryan reached the helmet's internal speakers. "Shadow, this is Ghost. We're positioned and ready to provide support."

Reith's eyes lit up; it was time. "This is sergeant Reith, acting team leader of Shadow, we're ready to assault as soon as you blast that damn 50 mill back to hell." When he raised his clenched hand, the squatted marines rose and brandished their battle rifles.

"Copy that, stand by."

Soon after the connection was cut, they heard the thunder of the turret blasting into pieces. And as if the sound pulled a string, the frontmost marine hastened to Eileen's corpse and heaved her in front of him, using the body as a shield. Close behind trailed the others and returned the fire from the barricaded complex. Bullets ricocheted and dented the armour of the lieutenant, but nothing penetrated its sturdiness.

The building loomed as an ashen wall to a fortification, with tiny murder holes scattered across, constantly winking from the muzzle flash of their firearms. In the centre of the building a platform bulged outwards and faced the narrow street in which Shadow team hurried along. Atop the balcony, large fires danced, and metal parts lay strewn about. The surviving members of the Revolutionarist on the balcony quickly dropped dead in a pink mist as a barrage of bullets rained from above. Reith stole a look at the top of the buildings and spotted eight black figures leaning from the parapets, weapons raised and bullets discharged with lethal precision. Exactly how they had reached the roof that quick, was beyond Reith.

They reached the front entrance in mere moments, and the marine hauling Eileen released her and equipped the previously holstered battle rifle, holding its butt tight against the shoulder blade. Reith stepped forward, raised his right leg and booted the metal doors just above the lock with a clank; it didn't budge.

Then he reached for his inner thigh pockets and retrieved two metal hemispheres that seemed to have been cut clean, both of which he thumbed the singular buttons on their crests and planted on the metal. The magnets inside the hemispheres activated as a semi-transparent countdown materialised in the corner of his vision. They retreated and sought cover behind the pillars that supported the platform above their heads.

Reith did not allow their low number to deter him, and as the boom from the thermite charges detonated, he gestured the female marine next to him to press forward. It was shameless, and Reith despised himself for his weakness, but death was too much of a threat with all this uncertainty.

Lillian dived ahead with Geoffrey and Erick tracing behind, followed by Reith at the rear. The room was grand and similar to the vestibule of a mansion on Earth, but any of the typical ornamental and luxurious furnishing lacking, instead replaced by wooden tables tilted to serve as mantlets for the rebels to fire behind.

The Naval Intelligence Agency had reported to expected firm resistance, and the marines stormed hunched low with arms raised. But the rebels carried insignificant weapons whose projectiles clattered off their armour or ever so slightly dented the plate. It was not enough to cripple the marines and shortly after, the sources received a volley themselves.

The marine's battle rifles were decent at best in long-range engagement, but in close-quarters, the armour-piercing rounds shredded ugly holes in the rebels' civilian shirts. Some of the targets dropped like stones. Others seemed to dance along with the impacts and swung in gory twirls before falling lifeless on the floor, the pools of blood beneath making a clear contrast to the porcelain floor.

Start to finish, the carnage lasted less than five seconds, and a dozen rebels lay around them.

Reith nodded to himself and spoke through their squad comms, "Geoffrey and Erick, secure the ground floor. Lillian, follow me to the first floor."

The vestibule had three passages leading farther into the manor. Two passages were in the form of corridors opposite each other, blockaded by wooden tables wrapped with rebel corpses. On the other side of the shattered entryway was a carpeted staircase spacious enough for four men wide as kegs to walk shoulder-to-shoulder.

Reith advanced first this time around and climbed the stairs with Lillian trailing close by his tail. The couple cleared chamber after chamber, finding every room vacant until he reached a double-door of the massive complex, which he assumed to be the final room. Again, he raised his right leg close to his chest and thrust just below the door handle. With a crash, the door flung open, and like hulking crabs, the pair stormed weapons up and scanning.

They entered an ovoid chamber packed with vacant chairs and couches against the white walls. At the centre around a circular table stood four men hunched over a bunch of papers and a spherical holographic display which represented Urizen. As the door flung wide, they snapped their heads toward the sound, immediately shutting up whatever discussion they were engrossed in.

Shadow team's mission was clear; to recover any vital information that may serve as a watershed in their struggle against the Revolutionarist. Instead of investigating the entire complex and allow more deployed soldiers to perish, Reith figured some guidance would be of great assistance. Therefore he decided to leave a few of the rebels inside alive.

And as Reith expected, the occupants inside the chamber carried only thin-barreled automatic pistols, and the female that reached for hers received a quick three-round burst to the chest, plunging her back on to the round table, arms outstretched, twitching.

"On the ground!" Reith bellowed through his external speakers, the rasping turning him all the more menacing and mechanical. Thankfully the three remaining watched in horror and yielded, and Reith brought them to their knees. He immediately went to work and stripped them of arms and bound their wrists behind their backs with synthetic straps. Reith met the gaze of Lillian's dark visor and slightly tipped his head—she was to watch the captives from here on out. Then, without a moment's hesitation, Reith raised his rifle butt and crashed it down on the closest rebel's calves.

The rebel waited a full second before crying out, as if he was shocked by the sound of his leg snapping a moment after he surrendered. Then he screamed at the top of his lungs, long and loud. Reith waited patiently for the man to finish and catch his breath. Then Lillian spoke through the helmet's speakers. "Where's the data tablet?"

Reith had assumed a single destroyed leg would be enough for the man to rat out its location. But the man remained silent and continued to glare at Lillian as Reith lifted the rifle butt again and destroyed his other limb.

Without his legs to carry him, the man collapsed on to the floor, and Reith heard his teeth shatter with a crack like the sound of munching on an apple. Reith palmed the man's jaw, directed his bloodied and teary gaze toward himself, and spoke. "I have all day, you know."

"Storage room! In the storage room." The guttural words gurgled from his mouth and were almost incomprehensible, likely because of a couple of swallowed teeth.

Reith glanced at the lone door in the room, notwithstanding the entry he previously breached, and contacted command centre again. "Team Shadow to Command, how do we manage the prisoners? Please advise, over."

A moment of silence passed before a newcomer unfamiliar to the sergeant picked up the microphone. "How high-ranking do they appear, sergeant?"

With a quick glimpse at their everyday grey attires and recalling their shabby small-arms, Reith replied, "Low."

"Then neutralise them." There was no sympathy in his voice, and Reith reminded himself of what they had done to his wife as he unholstered his sidearm and fired a round against the back of their heads. Blood splattered, and the rebels toppled forward and lay there unmoving.

At the sound of the monotone voice, he raised his head and returned the silent stare of Lillian's impenetrable visor. "Repeat that, Lillian."

But Lillian tilted her helmet at an angle to indicate confusion, "I said nothing, Sarge."

Reith dismissed his own confusion as the weariness from this stressful day. Or maybe it was his age starting to show. Either way, he had a mission to finish and no time for such faffing. "Forget what I said."

He walked toward the wooden door where the objective of his mission was located. There had been no reply from other members of team Shadow, but he didn't brood. Although the rebels were not genius strategists, they knew adequately to recognise the foolishness in not employing weapons capable of repelling the enemy. Only when he reached the door handle and tugged it open, did he realised that he was mistaken.