Tommi "Kaiser" Von Beulwitz was beginning to feel the gees stacking up, the Tactical Entry Capsule rocking slightly as it encountered denser atmosphere. For the first time regretful at executing the entry dry, he began to flex his forearms and abdomen as his suit tightened like a python around his legs. The following minutes wouldn't fare well if he blacked out. At the very least it would be an embarrassment.

Kaiser wondered how Lippard was in that moment, and whether she was taking any pleasure in the suit's tightening embrace.

No, no, stop thinking about her, he scolded himself. This was definitely no time for an erection. Getting wood just as his suit was constricting his crotch was a bad way to go.

As the blue-lettered display before his eyes warned at a deceleration exceeding six gees, he began to feel very small indeed. One man inside a g-suit, which was inside a mobile Suit, which was inside the TEC, which was at that very moment penetrating the bloated atmosphere of a planet more than three times as massive as Earth. All that remained was for God to show up and dropkick the planet.

The atmospheric entry had officially begun only three minutes before, the four TECs advancing in single file, distanced ten kilometers from one another as they streaked across the sky at just under eleven kilometers per second. That figure was history by now, the speed bleeding off so quickly Kaiser could feel his eyeballs trying to push their way further back into their sockets. The digital deceleration indicator was no longer blue but grey, although he knew nothing was wrong with his instruments; he was momentarily colorblind, in the graying-out stage before complete loss of consciousness. He also knew that he was only a powerless passenger; The TEC's onboard computer was the current pilot for the flight, and it would be taking care of the entire voyage down to the planetary surface, landing included. But most of all, he knew what would be expected of him from that moment onwards.

And wouldn't it be awkward if his subordinates were met with inanimate silence instead of leadership? Lippard would certainly tease him mercilessly afterwards, although that idea he didn't quite mind. He clenched his fists until his knuckles were white, breathing in low grunts as the moment of greatest deceleration came and passed.

The seconds slowly bled away. Already reverting to its sky-blue coloring, the deceleration indicator finally dropped below three gees. Kaiser mentally ordered the OS to indicate airspeed instead. It was time to get to work.

Visible Light Orbital Images had shown the landing site to be almost entirely forested, with the exception of several clearings, each about thirty meters in diameter and set within a region four kilometers across. There had been no positive identification of artificial structures like those found twelve hundred kilometers to its north-east, but near-infrared imaging had pointed to something else; the area comprising twenty by fifty kilometers was noticeably darker than its surroundings in the false-color images, and was roughly rectangular in shape. The clearings were all within that rectangle, and four would shortly be targets of visitation.

Kaiser felt the TEC wobble slightly and veer towards the side. The capsule had found its target and was presently homing in on it. At least, that was what a flash message from its CPU was telling him via its link with the mobile Suit's counterpart. Still entirely blind except for his OS indicators, unable to establish comms with his subordinates and unqualified to pilot his entry vehicle, he ordered his Suit's OS to offer him instead a countdown to landing, feeling momentarily impotent as he watched the clock count backwards from four minutes and eight seconds.

As the seconds passed slowly by, Kaiser took the time to personally reconsider his orders. They had seemed quite simple when studied from orbit, or at least as far as the commander giving them was concerned, he thought. But when one is hurtling downwards towards the unknown, plan B suddenly becomes just as important as plan A. And plan B, in that instance, wasn't altogether too encouraging. He considered his options. The very thought of them left him decided to do his usual. Carve out a plan C.

The warning beep signaling the sixty second mark returned him to reality. He paused for a moment as he collected his thoughts, and then set about checklisting his status. Given another silent order, his OS responded immediately, supplying him with a virtual stereoscopic HUD upon which were displayed several small rectangular panels. Providing the adequate neural impulse every time he locked his eyes on a panel, thus selecting and displacing it closer towards him, he checked his operational status, quickly arming his weapons and synchronizing the reactor's ramp-up with the moment of touchdown. Aside from the chirpy sounds playing into his ears every time a panel was opened, checked or closed, he was pleased to hear the thrum surrounding him become somewhat louder and higher in pitch in response to his adjustments.

As the countdown continued past the thirty second mark with another loud beep, Kaiser left a final panel open before him, willing himself not to activate it before touchdown. The panel lay in the foreground, almost blotting out the digital countdown and other backdrop indicators, and its coloring was presently azure. In a few moments, the panel's activation would turn it green in color, and then the panel would automatically drop back into the semi-transparent miniature of the initial HUD display below and to his right, where his right pauldron was usually visible beyond. If there was a failure of some kind, it would either drop away red, which would be a bad sign, or maintain its current position, flashing crimson with a corresponding verbal warning, which would be far worse.

A clear, serene female voice spoke out clearly, giving a verbal countdown towards landing as if she were calmly reading the numbers from a scroll. For the second time since having begun atmospheric entry, Kaiser felt his spine tingle in anticipation. His entire body began to key up until, just as the count hit the five second mark, he heard a muffled thump, and then he felt his back suddenly press against the Suit's interior exoskeleton as the g-suit within began to tighten around him once more. The deceleration was much more intense than before and, as he heard the last three seconds being announced, his magnified hearing caught the unmistakable roar of retrorockets firing.

And then the pressure ceased entirely, immediately compensated for by the sudden relaxation of his g-suit. Kaiser hadn't even felt the bump of the landing, so smooth had it been, and yet, just as his OS had been programmed to do, he suddenly gained stereoscopic vision, with display overlays duly set at differing depths of perception, figuring dominantly since the mobile Suit's oculars were still in complete darkness. Kaiser eyed the dominant panel and activated it. The panel blinked, glowing suddenly red, and trailed away towards the miniature HUD, momentarily leaving a crimson streak in his field of vision.

"Scheisse!" he muttered.

A brief flash of blinding light accompanied several loud popping sounds, the sudden light being immediately compensated for by the OS before his eyes had even managed to adjust. The TEC's four petals had released, deploying promptly outwards and freeing his mobile Suit's extremities. The solitary red panel still present in the Op Status HUD blipped once more, turning a verdant green color. Kaiser sighed inwardly in relief; apparently in his zeal he had jumped the gun, activating Suit mobility too early.

He lay there for a moment, a feeling of unreality gradually stealing over him as he contemplated his surroundings. The sky was the same blue as the unchecked panels, effectively obscuring them from his sight. The system automatically compensated for that, offering Kaiser the option to change to an appropriate setting. Duly altered, the unchecked panels glowed a bright purple for as long as the backdrop was blue.

It was certainly the most beautiful of days. There were almost no clouds in the sky, the few present nonetheless whizzing darkly overhead with unnaturally high speed. His immediate surroundings, however, were a hazy brown from the violence of the landing, and he could see at least one of the jettisoned braking chutes clinging to the trees at the edge of the clearing, threatening to blow away due to the strong wind that was ruffling the forest treetops. The sound, however, was quite unlike anything Kaiser had ever heard on Earth.

The chirping cacophony of birds was terribly intense, as avian species of all kinds swooped through the air in alarm at the intrusion upon their domain. To his great surprise, Kaiser found that the clouds he'd seen before were nothing less than massive pulsating flocks of birds seemingly disturbed by his arrival, and indeed as one such flock strayed closer towards him, his magnified hearing clearly caught the intensifying swoosh of thousands of flapping wings until, veering away, the sound abated to a rumble. He was astonished by the awesome, almost exorbitant, display of life, a vision quite unlike anything he had encountered in person before.

Never again, he thought in wonder. Never again shall I set foot on another spacecraft or planet, this is where I will live and where I will die, Kaiser privately promised himself.

His sense of balance told him that he was still lying on his back. He stood slowly, one careful movement at a time so as to leave the entry capsule undamaged, and his eyes assessed the state of his appendages, focusing especially on the pulsed laser platform gripped between his mechanical hands. A massive titanium carbon nitride-coated thumb flicked its selector to semi-auto. Holding the rifle in his right appendage, Kaiser flexed his arms outwards and around in a practiced movement, the feedback to his interior exoskeleton telling him that his freedom of movement was currently unimpeded. Surging forwards, the Suit's heavy pads stomped loudly over the ramp provided by one of the petals, until moments later much more muffled footfalls could be heard as he padded over the clearing's grass-carpeted grounds.

The other TECs must already have landed, he decided. Activating the short range radio comm, Kaiser broadcasted into the unknown.

"RecOp Chain, Kaiser here, Over."

A brief moment later he was answered.

"Kaiser, Lippie here."

He felt his spine tingle at the sound of her husky voice.

"Received, Lippard. RecOp Chain, sound-off, over."

"Lippard here."

"Moose here, over."

"Deadhand here."

So operators two, three and four were currently up and running. A perfect drop, he thought with some relief.

"Chain received. Execute recce as previously established. Stay off the air, over."

Kaiser waited for their acknowledgements, receiving them mutely as he itched to set off on his own.

He had exactly one hour to beat his part of the bush before rendezvous four kilometers to the north-east. Conjuring a semi-transparent overlay of the area, Kaiser dragged it with his eyes to the bottom left of his visual display. Taking a few steps forwards, he watched as the semi-spherical virtual compass beside the map danced about due to interference from the myriad local magnetic fields. The planet's magnetic field was just as weak as he'd been warned. He'd have to keep moving while the CPU computed the mean magnetic average, all just to keep his map's top edge pointed north.

After making the necessary adjustments Kaiser finally set off, making a slow circuit of the clearing as he peered at his surroundings. Magnifying a spot of earth on a foreground overlay, he found it littered with what appeared to be bone-white seeds between the clumps of grass, their number increasing sharply as he neared the center. Kaiser scraped his left gauntlet along the soil, bringing up more dirt than anything else, pocketing the yield securely inside an empty pouch on the Suit's tactical vest.

He then moved into the forest with rifle snug against his breastplate pylon, roaming in a spiral trajectory so as to get a feel for the surrounding area. Despite the Suit's sizable dimensions, the trees were tall and well spaced, offering him a meter of ceiling as long as he carefully chose his route.

The woods had definitely seen the hand of man. They had the feel of a kempt plantation, although the trees themselves didn't have the look of a rapid-growth type.

And what on Earth do you know about trees? He asked himself.

Enough to know that sooner or later they fall, and there simply do not seem to be any of those lying here, he mused as he searched around. Yes, he concluded confidently, despite the overwhelming abundance of animal life the place reeked of mankind.

As he moved along at leisure, stopping every few moments to allow his ears to do some exploring of their own, he happened occasionally upon the local wildlife. Aside from the great abundance of birds, whose panicked calls chafed at his ears whenever he got too close to them, Kaiser crossed paths with a troop of small monkeys taking refuge in a particularly robust tree, and they let out all manner of shrieks as he curiously inspected them. He had never seen a live monkey before. Soon afterwards he also crossed paths with a fleeing deer and a shy red fox, although both made themselves scarce in a heartbeat. If it hadn't been for his system's motion alerts, he would probably never have known they were there in the first place.

For most of the hour allocated to him for solo reconnaissance, Kaiser searched his surroundings, finding not a sign of recent human activity. Despite coming upon some narrow roads, clearly intended for use by tracked vehicles, he had been unable to detect a single tread on them, although all led north-westwards to where the nearest known settlements could be found. Kaiser also noticed at least an earth-year's worth of undisturbed vegetation growing over those roads.

Arbitrarily selecting a tree, he inspected it closely, finding large clusters of seeds bending its taller branches. Detaching one such cluster, he noticed that the seeds were akin to those he had found on the ground of the clearing, although smaller in size and bright green in color. Those seeds also found a place in one of his pockets.

Every few minutes his ears popped, and he would deliberately yawn to compensate for the slowly rising pressure inside his Suit. The air pressure would soon stabilize at over three Bars, and he'd be more susceptible to ear infections from that point onwards, or so he had been informed in his briefings. But the change was unavoidable. Without pressure equalization with the outside atmosphere, he would never set foot outside his Suit again.

Five minutes before the expected rendezvous time, Kaiser arrived at the meeting point, a large clearing of about forty by fifty meters across. The choice of the site had been a vital one, and had hinged on the two advantages it provided. The first was the substantial waterline situated only a short distance beyond its northern border, the second being that it would take the least work to prepare for the next phase of their mission. For the moment, Kaiser remained still at the clearing's center, watching the mission time slowly progress as he pondered on what he had observed over the last hour.

The first sign that he was no longer alone came from the north, where an immense flock of birds suddenly took flight. He knew who it was without having to ask. Less than a minute later, and precisely on time for the rendezvous, a second mobile Suit clambered its way into the clearing. With rifle slung across its torso, the Suit's upper appendages parting tree branches as it progressed, clearly not caring in the least for the pathway of destruction it was leaving in its wake. The V-38 Hellmouth Harrower was nearly as beautiful to his eyes as the driver currently inside it.

"Guten morgen, mein Lippie," he greeted her playfully.

"Morgen, dag, oder nacht? You know as well as I that this rock has no morning, mein Kompaniechef. Are the others lost?" Lippard inquired.

"Lippie, it doesn't pay to criticize our kinder so. They will find their way here in good time. Find anything of interest?" he asked kindly, laughing secretly at the tone of her voice. Lippard had a habit of firing her cannon indiscriminately when she felt rattled by something, and she was certainly rattled at the moment.

"There is no fight here! I was expecting everything, anything, except for that and the verdammte birds. They have shat on my Suit. They have shat on my gewehr. And they've shat on your helm!"

Lippard was met by her commander's raucous laughter, his mobile Suit shaking slightly as he entertained the idea of being covered in guano.

"Silence, you swine! Do you want my report or not?!" she demanded.

"Speak, Lippie," he replied.

Lippard filled him in. Speaking mostly in English, but reverting occasionally back to Germanic as she was prone to do whenever they were alone, his lieutenant informed him that there were no recent traces of human activity to the north of their position, and that she had found three streams flanked by deep ravines, the closest of which was the one previously detected in the orbital images. Other than that, she had found nothing of interest for her commander.

By the time she was finishing, Kaiser's motion alert informed him of movement to the east of the clearing. Unlike his or Lippie's Suit, Moose was equipped with the V-35, an earlier Hellmouth design developed as a heavy weapons platform. Presently its weapon pods were empty, its only operational armament being the laser platform and heavy combat knife that had been distributed to all members of the team.

"Moose here. Apologies for the delay," he stated simply as he sauntered over.

It was quite unlike Moose to say much more than that. That trait had apparently been a source of irritation for many of the soldier's previous superiors, but it was what Kaiser most liked about him. Moose never said more than he really needed to, and he always got the job done without muss or fuss.

"Your report?"

"No local inhabitants. And no one's been around for the last several months. This place feels like a plantation of some kind, but I can't tell what they're growing."

"Trees, perhaps?" Lippard mocked.

They waited for a full five minutes before Deadhand finally arrived. The latecomer closed in not from the south, but from Kaiser's arrival point instead, his V-38 heavily smeared with mud and leaves.

"Deadhand here!" he stated obviously, out of breath by the sound of his voice.

"My dear sergeant, you are very well camouflaged," Kaiser remarked.

"Hah! Well, there was one hell of a ravine to cross. I kept moving to the east for a better crossing, but I didn't find it. So I crossed where the river was wider. Place had a couple of meters of mud there, for certain. I slipped down the opposite bank when the ground collapsed and camouflaged myself in the process. Also had some trouble figuring north. This land must have some heavy-duty iron deposits, 'cause I kept losing my bearings over some points."

"Yes, it seems we must resolve this problem in the future. Very well, Deadhand, any contacts?"