3476 A.E.

Planet FE-730-74891

Brackett’s World

Freddie Morris took in a deep breath of the fresh morning air. He was standing at the edge of an elongated clearing, cut into the forest like a fjord into a mountainous coastline. The strange trees around him (at least he assumed the strange things were this planets version of the things) were almost a hundred meters high and thick enough to hide an entire assault shuttle behind one of them.

"Freddie? Ah! There you are!", a young woman with bronze colored skin showing the signs of a long time spent under artificial light, walked towards him from under the shadow of the majestic forests canopy. She stopped next to him and looked at the clearing, her eyes moving along the edges of the old forest like a predator looking for her next prey. After a few seconds, without interrupting her eyes from roaming over the clearing, she said "Nice view isn’t it?"

Freddie looked at her, failing miserably at hiding his surprise at the meaningless small talk from her. He had only heard her harsh and demanding over the last months, while they were squeezed into the confines of their ship.

"Uh, I guess so?" He answered tentatively, waiting for the inevitable dressing down he expected for slipping away from the rest of the team. They where deeper into the forest, still busy checking their equipment and preparing it for the forty kilometer march to a, by this planets standards at least, mid-sized city. The small town, with it’s approximately 3000 inhabitants, would have been barely a village on his world.

"Then how about you turn your fucking livestreamer on? You know we have a contract to honor and the Goldenscars won’t violate a contract on my watch, even if some things didn't go as planned! Besides, you should know as well as me that we need the ad-credits we get from it!"

He quickly clicked the red streaming button on the small smartpad affixed to his forearm and the tiny camera on his shoulder resumed it’s livestream.

"Sorry Rose, I know we need the money, I just wanted to enjoy the view for a second."

"Do I look like I care?" She snapped back. Her ice blue eyes stopped patrolling the edges of the forest and locked onto his eyes like life-seeking missiles. "Don’t apologize to me, apologize to the team! You are losing their money too, you know!"

With that she turned around and marched off into the shrubbery. He made to follow her, when his eyes caught a glint at the edge of the clearing, almost 300 meters north-east of him.

"What the hell is that?", he muttered to himself and stopped again. He moved away from the large root he had been standing on, pulling out the palm-sized smartbinos at the same time. He knelt down behind a small rock and pointed his binos at the distant forest diagonally across of the clearing from his position. The sun rising behind the trees to his left was just starting to pluck the foot of the mountainous trees to his north-east from the twilight, but he couldn’t see whatever it was that had reflected the rising suns rays like a mirror or… an old-fashioned black powder cannon and hundreds of men with muskets! Oh crap, he thought as an one kilometer long stretch of forest exploded into fire and smoke.

72 Hours earlier

Golden Chariot, Hermit-Class Long Range Assault Cruiser, Briefing Room

In low orbit above Brackett’s World

"Listen up, people!", Rose De Clare said, looking at her assembled team over the lip of her steaming coffee cup. The excited chatter between the other five members of her team died down so quickly that it felt as if someone had turned on a noise cancelling field in the conference room.

"T-24 hours team! I have made the decision that we will go with site delta-four for the initial landing. Views of untouched nature are always easy to monetize for our ad-unit. I presume all of you are aware what site delta-four means for us?" She looked at three blank faces, one face very good at looking like it's owner was well informed, even though she was sure they had no clue, and one face giving her a knowing grin. She wasn't very surprised by that, in fact, she had hoped for it. They'd probably put up a fight, if they knew that delta-four site would necessitate a 40 kilometer march to the next settlement. She bottled up the savage grin threatening to make it's way to her face inside her, cleared her throat and continued as if she hadn't noticed her teams ignorance.

"Very well. As you already know we will drop in an uninhabited forested area. Although we will hit a large clearing located north of the largest lake in the region. Wouldn't want to get stuck in the trees, would we? We will then proceed to check the equipment that will be dropped with us and start our mapping drones, so that we can get a picture of what's around us and can make a plan on how we are going to play this. Any questions?" She quirked her left eyebrow and looked at her team.

"Yes! I have one!", yelled Julie excitedly, "Why are we not doing the mapping and planning from up here? Where it's nice and cozy?"

"That's a very good question, Julie!", answered Rose with a grateful smile. Julie was probably the only person on the team that could expect a smile from her anytime soon. She knew that Julie had only asked the question for the sake of the newbies on the team. "Actually, we could do it Julies way, but we prefer to do it the old way. Mostly, because that's what the audience expects, but also, because it's a tradition in our outfit."

PsyOps Specialist Lieutenant Julie Tudor sat to her left on one of the six chairs around the slightly oval conference table. Even though she looked bored and was playing around on her smartpad Rose knew that her deputy was actually the only one in the room listening to what she was saying. Not that she would need to listen, she was the only one, aside from Rose, who not only knew the entire plan by heart but had also done this before. Rose was, with two successful captures, still the most experienced person on the team, which was also why she was in command. Oh, and her 847 years of age , not that anyone could tell that she was a day over 30, probably played a role too. Although she had to admit that Julie, with her 326 years, gave her a run for her money. Like all citizens of the Empire of Faron they had received gene-therapy on their 25th birthdays that would stop them from aging for as long as they desired.

Next to her sat Freddie Morris. Just like Julie he was busy playing around on his smartpad, although he did a very good job at hiding that he wasn't actually taking notes. He did have a larger, more powerful, version than the standard-issue imperial military versions the others had. As he was the teams Cyberware Specialist he felt like his first mission would be extraordinarily boring for the first few hundred years. After all the target planets human population was only a tier 4 civilization, which meant that they had only recently began using black powder weapons and were hundreds of years away from even the most primitive of computers. With his 28 years Freddie was the second youngest member of the team. He had spent the first 27 years of his so far unremarkable life on an even less remarkable frontier world that had only been inducted into the empire 50 years before his birth. As it took hundreds of years for a frontier world to get real membership in the empire joining her Majesty's military or one of the PMCs working for the empire as planet claimers, like her Goldenscars, was one of the very few ways to get the sought after gene-treatment, if you were born on frontier world.

Only a few centimeters right of Freddies feet, which he had parked on the conference table in front of him, sat Terry Chambers, the teams 41 years old doctor and biologist. He made a commendable effort at looking concentrated, his skills in this particular area likely honed by decades spent in his worlds universities and academies. He was about as experienced at capturing worlds as Freddie or in short: He had no idea what he was doing, aside from his job, at that he was pretty good, Rose had to admit.

The other side of the table was manned by Joana Austin and Harry Wells, two members of the Goldenscars that couldn't be less alike. Combat Specialist Joana Austin was, at age 24, the teams youngest member. Despite that, she carried herself like an experienced veteran as she had spent all of her childhood on one of the empires oldest urb-worlds and most of her teenage and adulthood working, or rather killing, for one of the known galaxy's largest private military contractors. She was hired as a combat specialist just one week before their departure and had gladly taken the opportunity to escape her homeworlds meat grinder. Aside from Julie, she was the only one on the team who knew of the Goldenscars dubious reputation beforehand. She joined anyway. Rose and Julie couldn't tell if she was just overconfident, had a deathwish or was desperate enough to take any opportunity coming her way. At the moment Joanna busied herself tracing a tattoo on her left forearm with her right index finger. She gave off the aura of a seasoned soldier who'd been through so many briefings that she could hold any that come her way herself. Rose would have to put Julie up to asking her what was up with it. The audience loves characters with baggage. Especially if said characters were female and badass. She put the thought on her imaginary to-do list and trained her eyes on the last member of her team: Harry Wells.

The 28 years old Strategy and Finance Specialist seemed tense like a newbie shuttle pilot during his first atmodrop. He had never before been off his homeworld or even out of his hometown, which admittedly had a larger population than the entire planet they were about to descend to.

"You're gonna break the table." Rose said to him uncharacteristically gentle and with a hint of humor in her voice.

"Uh..", Harry forced himself to relax a bit, he wasn't exactly successful though. "I know, it's just… I…I've never been in space before and now I'm going to jump onto a planet in less than 24 hours? I feel like I'm in a bit over my head to be honest", that had everyones attention, even Freddie stopped doing whatever he was doing on his pad and Harry cowered in his chair like a deer in the headlights of an approaching grav-train.

"Breath Harry", Rose smiled at him, "I've made respectable claimers out of worse fuck-ups than you!" She gave Julie a wink who reciprocated by sticking her tongue out and turned to everyone again.

"Okay people! Tomorrow is the day! I expect everyone in the hangar bay at 0800 hours. Don't forget to bring your personal gear or we'll leave you behind with it! The crew of the Golden Chariot will drop the remainder of the equipment and supplies ten minutes before us. I recommend you all get a good night of sleep, get up early and check your livestream cams' batteries again. We will start the livestream at 0800 sharp and will only turn it off once the place is ours! Any questions?" Terry raised his hand haltingly.

"Yes actually I would have one question" - "Yes?", Rose answered, a bit annoyed by Terrys academical ways. "What do we do if we have to…to take a shit?" The entire room erupted into raucous laughter and even Rose had to fight hard to keep herself composed. Instead she made a stern face and looked Terry straight in his eyes.

"I would recommend you make sure to point your cam in another direction or… you discover you exhibitionist side. Whichever you enjoy more. As you all know the stream won't be censored in any way", with that she winked at Terry, who sunk back into his chair and tried to hide his quickly reddening cheeks. The momentary quiet was ended by everyone, except Terry, braking into laughter again.

"Ok people" Julie had gotten up from her seat at the head of the table. "Now go get some sleep and I will see you tomorrow." Chairs shuffled and clattered over the metplast flooring and the team started to file out of the room.

"And one last tip", Julie said in her most pleasant voice "Eat a light breakfast or you'll have a bad time before you even make it to the planet!"

0755, Next Day

Golden Chariot, Hangar

Very low orbit above Brackett's World

Joana Austin entered the cavernous hangar at precisely 0755 - 5 minutes earlier than ordered. After finally getting away from the overpopulated urbworld she had been born on, she intended to give everything she had to prove herself worthy to Commander De Clare and the rest of the Goldenscars. She had gone to bed earlier than usual the night before, as Julie had advised them to. Not that she had gotten any sleep. She had found out that staring down a horde of stimmed-up thugs was less scary to her to her than jumping out of a starship skimming a planets atmosphere at, to her, unimaginable speeds.

Well, she thought, at least I had the chance to quadruple-check my gear, wouldn't do to have my anti-grav glider crap out on me 30 kilometers above the landing zone.

She walked into the hangar through the door at its long side and almost stumbled, when she saw the imposing curve of planet FE-730-74891 or Brackett's World right behind the energy shield on the other side of the hangar. She estimated that the opening of the hangar was close to 100 meters in width and easily 15 meters in height. The planet on the other side of it appeared so close to the ship she was standing on that she could see the continents, oceans, archipelagos, the snow-capped peaks of the mountain ranges and the green vastness of the large land-mass coming over the horizon chased by the rising sun.

She heard a breathless "Wow" behind her and looked over her left shoulder with some difficulty, as the backpack she had haphazardly slung over her other shoulder made her about as maneuverable as a 140 kg gang thug in a hab-core on her former homeworld Bellerophon.

Freddie had just entered the hangar and stood only a few paces behind her and to her left, backpack on his back and pad in hand as he stared at the planet below or above or whatever, she wasn't really sure. She straightened her shoulders and turned towards Rose, Julie and Terry, who had already assembled in an open area between a few large crates and an osprey-class assault shuttle.

They were busy looking at a large smartpad, held by Julie, and pointing things out on it. She walked over to them and dropped her backpack on the pile next to the rear legs of the assault-shuttle.

"Are we taking the shuttle down?" She asked no one in particular, surprise apparent in her voice.

"Nah, never seen them use the shuttle on us," Commander De Clare answered. "UHALO jumps get us more clicks," Julie answered, nodding towards the anti-grav packs neatly stacked in front of the cases holding their Goldenscars issued light-armor suits. Even though Joana wasn't exactly an orbital dropping pro, she knew that UHALO stood for ultra high altitude, low opening and was the term used by crazy people, like the Goldenscars, as a description for jumping onto planets from low orbit. The grav packs were developed as add-ons to their Cormetall Defense made Mk13A light exo-armor suits. Four of the small yellow packs would clip onto the legs and arms of the light gray Mk13A suits and enable the wearer to slow their ascend down - even if someone were foolish enough to jump out of a starship at the planetary surface racing past more than 100 km below.

She guessed that it wasn't a coincidence they were issued this particular make of armor and anti-gravpack. The manufacturer had probably paid millions of credits to have them use their products.

She walked over to the others slowly. By now everyone had arrived and the six of them gathered in a lose circle in front of the giant planets greenish sphere outside the hangar.

"Okay everyone! Are all of you ready?" Rose called into the circle. A tentative "Yes, ma'am," answered her not very enthusiastically, the worry clearly visible in most of their faces. Well all of them, except my own, Joana hoped.

"Good enough for me." De Clare declared and pointed at a cam technician standing in the back. "Start the stream, specialist!" She then turned to her team. "Let's show them that we are worth the big bucks they pay us, Ladies and Gentlemen!" she added, taking a last look around the circle.

Joana saw Rose glancing back at the tech, who gave her a thumbs up, before she turned and marched towards her gear. When she reached it, she bent down and pressed her left thumb on the lock of the case, which sprung open with a satisfying metallic click and showcased her obviously battle worn armor, the slightest hints of gold visible in the scars dotting its matte gray skin.

Joana knew that the tiny fake gold underlay under the armors chameleon skin was the hallmark of the Goldenscars. The golden lined scratches on the armor would only be visible when it was in parade mode, as it was at the moment. As soon as the chameleon mode was activated the armors skin would take the color of its environment, giving it's wearer the best concealment possible.

After looking at her armor for a few seconds and of course pointing the camera on her shoulder at it coincidentally, Rose said, without taking her eyes of her armor: "What are you waiting for people? Brackett's World is waiting for it's new masters!"

Specialist Joana Austin knelt at the edge of the hangar deck, her gloved hands on the deck in front of her, like a sprinter ready to take off. Except, of course, she wouldn't be sprinting one hundred meters. She would flinging herself down the gravity well of the blue-green giant filling her entire field of vision. She knew that the others were lined up on her left like pearls on a string, waiting for the countdowns on their helmet HUDs to reach zero just like her.

The teams timers had been counting down the ten minutes since the launch of the equipment containers and were now nearing their respective T-0 points. A few seconds before her timer told her to jump she could see the others jumping off first. The first gray figure had to be Rose De Clare, followed by Freddie Morris, Terry Chambers, Julie Tudor, Harry Wells and finally herself.

She lunged forward like a sprinter, launching herself into the void. She would spent the next minutes free falling towards the ground until she reached 10 kilometers above the surface, at that point her anti-grav glide pack would start kicking in and slow her down enough for her parachute to deploy successfully 400 meters above the ground.

As she fell towards the surface she busied herself by checking her companies positions, indicated by small amber dots projected onto her HUD. As they neared the ground, the relatively smooth start turned into a hellish ride. Her entire body was being thrown around and she felt like an invisible fist was pummeling her. What felt like only seconds later she already felt air rushing through her fingers and mentally prepared herself for the jolt she expected to follow from the anti-grav activation.

The anti-grav, basically a scaled down version of the system used to provide artificial gravity on starships and spacestations, would stabilize her flight, or rather fall, and slow her down enough to turn her from a living and breathing unguided orbital bombardment weapon into a marginally more controllable piece of meat encapsulated in a suit.

At 400 meters above ground her parachute deployed and knocked the wind out of her so hard she blacked out for a few crucial seconds.

That was a lot worse than the anti-gravpack, was the last thing that went through her mind when she came to, only a moment before she crashed through the thick canopy of the impossibly high forest into an impossibly high tree and began falling and crashing towards the ground.

0900

East of LZ

Brackett's World

"Combat Specialist Joana Austins! Suit integrity compromised! Action necessary. Combat Spec…", were the first things Joana heard when she opened her eyes almost 30 minutes later. Her vision remained blurry for a moment before she managed to focus her eyes on the HUD in front of her. The visor of her suits helmet had a large crack through it and she could only partially decipher what the red flashing warnings were trying to tell her.

..TACT LO..

EQU.. DETECTED

..W AIR

What she could understand were the suits loud and repeating audio warnings. Not that it mattered. She wouldn't need her suit to be vacuum proof anytime soon or ever again if anyone bothered to ask her.

She started looking past the damaged HUD and tried to find out what the hell happened. When she craned her head to look down she almost puked at her visor. She wasn't lying on the ground! She was hanging 15 meters above the ground, only a damaged wire of her parachute preventing her from making final touchdown.

"Right. I smashed through the canopy." She said to herself. "How did I manage to miss a three by one kilometer clearing? I should have stayed on Bellerophon. At least we didn't have 100 meter high trees!" With that and a bunch of expletives that would have even gotten her old mentor to blush, she started fishing for the knife she carried in a holster on her left thigh. "Ah! There it is.", she looked at the knife as she held it in front of her still helmeted head and noticed that she would have to get rid of the bulky thing in order to see what she was cutting. She made quick work of it by slamming her knifes' hilt into the release latch. The helmet clicked open and she didn't bother catching it before it disappeared into the green hell below her. Visor is broken anyway, she thought.

She then used the knife to make a quick cut through the wire above her head, which, unsurprisingly, led to her plummeting the remaining 15 meters to the ground like a particularly unwieldy sack of rocks.

"FUCK!!!" Was the loudest sound she made when she fell into the muddy and disgusting dirt, flattening her helmet at the same time.

She lay back in the mud and looked up at the giant trees around her tiredly. She couldn't make out the top end of the stem next to her. It had to be at least 100 meters in height. She didn't think that that was a normal height for a tree, but she couldn't be sure. After all she had never seen a real tree before.

I'll have to ask Freddie, she thought, as she started to slowly crawl out of the muddy ditch she had fallen into. When she reached dry ground next to it, she clambered to her feet like an old woman and brought up the smartpad attached to her left forearm. She pressed the send to all button on it and spoke into the mic on her collar.

"Hey guys! Can anyone hear me?" She tried a few times, but to no avail. My radio is working, she observed after running its diagnostic. The trees have to be blocking the signal, she mused.

She knelt down and pulled the disassembled assault rifle out of her backpack. Luckily the package with her gear had automatically been lowered a few meters below her, when the chute deployed, and had miraculously come through her landing unscathed. She assembled the weapon within less than a minute, even though her hands were still trembling, and put its sling around her. While pulling the preliminary map of the area up on her smartpad, she threw the backpack on her back and started walking into the direction of the landing zone.