The next morning greeted him with the sound of howling alarms, Rake was sure being dead would feel better than he was feeling, his muscles throbbed his skin felt like it was on fire and his head was about to crack open.

“On your feet!” Rachel barked, her voice had him snap out of it and sit up, opening his eyes.

The entrance was currently being filled up with packages, steel bars and chairs.

“We are being deployed to the Aurora system! Get this shithole up to travel standards and prepare for receiving your gear!” Leaf was still not around, he hoped she was alright.

Everyone else was getting up and began disassembling their beds, Rake looked at how the others did it and followed their example.

The simple beds were clipped into the floor and were easy to remove, after the entire quarters had been cleared out the chairs were being put in place.

Eight in a row with a broad gap between to move comfortably between them. A total of a hundred and sixty could be put into the quarters. Each chair had a small space next to it to fit a weapons crate into it.

The crates were being delivered as soon as the beds were gone, each crate was roughly fifty kilogram heavy, enough thermite bolts and ammunition for the beginning of a mission together with the standard rifle.

All in all the equipment that was delivered weighed a little over eight tons, it took them well into the evening before they were done.

Lunch was not served until they were done with all their chores, the food were standard rations for deployments.

Rake used the time to ask Rachel about what was going on.

“The Ercinee have managed to aquire a way to speed up travel to faster than light, all ships that have been equipped with the technology is being deployed to Aurora.

The Empire has colonies in the region and only a small fleet with borderline no defenses. We will be there in less than two weeks and begin an assault on the Colony and the fleet.” She sighed.

“As far as I know this will be the largest deployment of troops to date. Over eight million will be the first wave, the second and third should be thrice that size.

The Empire won’t know what hit them and by the time we are done they will know what it means to return to a planet covered in ashes.” Rake shuddered it was hard for him to imagine eight million soldiers all at once, it seemed too much.

He did a couple of calculations in his head and realised they would need fifty thousand such boxes to transport every soldier.

He looked out into the city of boxes before him, there were undoubtedly thousands of them around but it wouldn’t be enough.

“The entire planet will be deployed, this city of barracks will be completely gone, I can’t really imagine the amount of troop transports it is going to take to get all of us onto the planet in one go.” Rachel threw the now empty box of her ration off the side.

“It’s going to take fifty thousand of them…” Rake mumbled.

“Anyway, Leaf is going to sit this one out, time is of the essence now. Form up and move to the armory, time to get our suits!”

The armory was filled with soldiers, there were one hundred of them around the training area and all of them probably filled with soldiers getting into gear.

Above their heads shuttles crossed the sky their engines screaming into the day. Further above were the interplanetary cruisers, they needed to get off the planet and into space.

Once they arrived at the destination it would release the shuttles which in turn could enter the atmosphere and deploy the troops it was carrying.

The armor each Ercinee soldier was given was a half a ton heavy steel plates and exoskeleton.

“Fireteam XII Kalaydo?” The man at the entrance asked. After confirming with the scanner on the side the were lead inside and into the back of the shop.

“Okay, You will be leading the charge, your armor has been upgraded with boosters and a limited capability to survive in deep space and on the fringes of the atmosphere. The boosters are not meant to let you fly though so don’t get any ideas, watch out for shrapnels and you should do fine though. Get into the pods and don’t even think about taking the armor off without one of our pods, the weight will crush you as soon as you disengage the main power.

If you get damaged and can't move the suit will tell the techs on site and they will try to get to you, so just relax and wait for them. I am gonna be honest though anything that will fry this thing will have killed you four times over.”

Rachel, Mint, Sarah, Rake and Nike stepped into the pods and the machinery began first stripping them of their clothes and then cladding them into their new steel shell.

Sarah was marked with white stripes at her sides, the medic arm on her back.

“Okay, your rations are at both sides of your armor, should last you for two weeks after which get yourself to a resupply station. May the Allfather be with you!”

The Fireteam left the armory through the back and returned to their barracks, most seats had been filled in the meantime and the front side was already being sealed for interplanetary travel.

A scrubber was on the ceiling humming softly.

The soldiers already in their seats were hooked up to it and asleep.

“Okay, everyone get into your seat, you will be put to sleep for the travel time to minimize ressources loss between travel. We will be awake for the last twelve hours before our arrival that should give us enough time to get back to our senses before the fighting starts.

As soon as we are on the planet stick with me! Nobody gets separated and nobody die! Understood?” Rachel looked at Rake, who nodded, he had no intention on his first mission.

“And Rake, here take this.” She handed him a knife, Rake wondered about it but took it thanking her.

“This is one of our tokens of sorts, every newbie gets it and engraves his name after the mission is done. This one has been wielded by me, Leaf and Mint so don’t you dare to die while holding on to it… we got the longest streak so far.”

Rake smiled at the group, the Allfather would protect him, he was sure of it.

___________________________

The sleep, if it could be called that was without dreams, for Rake it seemed as if he just went to sleep when he opened his eyes again, his head was a bit better than before but there was a rotten taste in his mouth. Next to him Mint groaned as she spit on the ground.

“Never gonna get used to this abysmal taste…” she murmured and Rake smiled, he felt like a full team member now.

All around them the soldiers were waking up now.

“Everyone, welcome to Aurora! The fleet has just passed by the moon and will shortly attack the enemy. Something screwed with the waking protocol so we have less than an hour to get our wits back before we will be deployed to the Carrier and split into Gunships!

First objective is securing a gateway into the colony currently on top of the forcefield protecting the vermin on the planet! I want all of you to get to the surface understand!

Fireteam Kalaydo XII will lead the charge so it is up to us to draw first blood!

Squadleads get your sets synced up and wait for further orders.

We are being deployed in twenty gunships so move together in the lines you are seated.

Helmets on and breathers hooked up!”

A signal sounded and the helmet closed over Rake’s head, Rachel’s voice was transmitted directly into his ears now.

“Ten seconds until deployment, get rid of the seat belts and form up, just like the training!”

Rake placed his right hand on Sarah next to him and felt Mint do the same.

Then the wall in front of them was opened and revealed a ship right in front of them, the breather set in.

Rake could barely believe his eyes, the stars around the ships were brighter than he had ever seen them.

Sarah pushed off and sailed towards the ship in front of her Rake and Mint following her.

As soon as they left the barracks behind them indicators appeared in the visors as the suit began adjusting their trajectory to safely travel the space between the two objects in space.

Rake looked to the side and saw a Aurora V.

The planet was green and white shining in a beautiful light, to the side he could see a thin dome, spanning over a part of the planet, the imperial colony.

The Gunships in front of them had wings and were designed for both atmospheric and space combat even if they were most efficient on planets.

“The red one is ours, Mint get the gun, Sarah in the middle, Rake protect our medic with your life!”

The Ships were larger than Rake had thought, four wings on the back with a thruster each, on both sides a heavy caliber railgun was placed both wings had small drums filled with missiles and additional railguns for supportive fire.

“Enemy is on the move, get into the ship double time!” Rake stopped staring at the ship and climbed into it, zero gravity was a strange feeling.

When he looked back to the dome he saw something entering it, a small thing that detached from what looked to be a smudge on his visor as soon as he concentrated on it the image got bigger, it was not a smudge, but a ship. A scale appeared next to it and Rake nearly forgot to secure himself.

The thing was enormous, at least ten times as large as a carrier and fully plated. It was a close to a miracle the thing had managed to get into space let alone travel the universe faster than light.

Then something changed as it began to move, side thruster spat fire as it accelerated towards the Ercinee fleet.

“What are they doing?” The imperial fleet was outmatched a hundred to one with no support yet they charged?

“Deploy Now!” Rachel screamed over the comms as the Gunship released and dropped towards the planet below them,

Behind them the carrier fired up its engines in an attempt to dodge the quickly accelerating ship flying straight into the heart of the Ercinee fleet.

As Rake watched four smaller ships were torn apart as lasers hit them and evaporated the hull. The gunship was dropping fast and with a roar the four thruster sparked into life as they followed a group of transporters past the charging ship.

Two Ercinee transporters were struck by projectiles and sailed down towards the planet.

No sound was to be heard as they were too far up for any gas to transmit the sound waves.

“Our objective is eight hundred kilometers ahead! We will be the second wave of attackers to land there. A group of hostiles have set up there and are probably trying to get onto the planet from there!” Rachel opened the weapons pack next to her and the suit automatically took the ammo and bolts out of it as she loaded her gun.

“Lock and load everybody! This is not going to be easy!”

Rake did the same and noticed a small indicator at the side of his visor telling him his armaments, Fifteen bolts, one thousand shots for his rifle and two packs to charge his rifle again in case the connection to the suit got cut off.

A small image appeared in front of him, a metal platform in the middle of space, a figure was on top of it seemingly fighting Ercinee forces, the suit zoomed in and Rake realise the figure was a woman, with a primitive armor and no weapons. When she spotted the approaching gunships she leapt down a hatch into the platform, the Ercinee followed her after assembling the troops.

“We will fly around the platform to try to find a way to fire into the thing without getting sucked into the shield!” a voice sounded over comms and Rachel nodded.

When they finally arrived Rake was surprised to see the platform, it was well crafted, symbols shining on the side in a faint light, below it the strange barrier seemed to vibrate scrambling the view of everything beneath it.

“We got an Angel in play! This will be done soon.” Rachel said as she leaned out of the side. Rake looked into her direction and caught a glimpse of something bursting through a large window on the side of the platform, shortly after another thing dropped from the bottom of the Platform.

“Shit! A group of enemies have escaped, one Ang-” The transmission stopped as the entire midway station was torn apart in front of them, the explosion sent the gunships in the area rearing away from it as multiple projectiles tore through it.

Beneath them the barrier seemed to expand slightly as the station dropped beneath the surface and was torn to bits by the forces keeping the Ercinee at bay.

“All forces resume descent at the side of the dome! We need to capture the gateways our scouts spotted as soon as possible! The barrier will take issue with any large metal objects so tanks and artillery will not be available until we have found a way to extend the hole in the shield!” The voice was one of the commanding officers and within minutes all gunships were gliding along the exterior of the dome.

Rake watched the dome as they descended, the blurred colours of white and green changed to a nearly monotone green colour when they managed to get past the lower atmosphere and the clouds.

Rake gripped his rifle tighter, from now on they were in enemy territory.