The shuttle vibrated gently from the basic systems. It was something that a passenger normally wouldn't notice. Sevs and his crew only felt the gentle rattle of their utensils as they tried to eat because those were the only systems that had been running for the last dozen hours. When they were getting into position, the engines and other systems caused the whole ship to rattle as they were used to. They were sitting in stealth mode, waiting for their turn to drop.

They needed to be ready to suddenly go covert as they orbited the world below. Sevs checked the time in his display. There was still some time in the normal operation. As soon as they got the signal, they needed to be ready to jump into action.

The main team's mission was already underway as they moved to grab the intel. Unfortunately, having coms on wasn't exactly stealthy, so they couldn't just check it.

The only person acutely working was Soshal as she monitored all the open frequencies decoding what was going on by piercing bits of reports together. Sevs had no idea how she did it, as everything interesting from both sides was directional and encoded. But still, she was able to give out basic status updates.

Twenty minutes ago, she worked out that the main team had just reached their directive. Something that was rather a soft target. Information not critical to the defense of the planet wasn't stored in the same location. Things like ecological surveys and politico maps were in less guarded locations.

The Tarlaki's objective when it came to protecting information was more about keeping the information that would expose a critical weakness. They never thought that they might get attacked for their information. It was an oversight Sevs was certain the system slipped in there intentionally.

Still, part of the information they got out of the captured ship indicated that there was something essential in their planetary survey department. Sure, they found new planets all the time, but certain things were redacted about it that didn't make sense. The data they really wanted was likely in that top-secret vault that just wasn't in their capabilities to get at this time.

Still, the rest of the data that would be there would be enough to get them in the right area. And the humans would be able to piece the rest together themselves.

Right as Sevs was putting down his fork, they got the call. In a clatter of motion, they all stood up and grabbed the weapons and kit slung across their chairs. They all hurried to the pod, and as they closed the hatch behind them, they heard the sound of all systems coming online.

Captain Walters' voice came over the system across the ship. "All teams strap in we are away in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1."

Sevs braced himself as the clamp holding the drop pod to the deck unlocked, and they fired away like a bullet. A small number of similar releases happened from the ship all at once. Those releases, though, were masked with the unloading of thousands of missiles and even more flack.

All this junk floated down toward the planet unpowered, so it was impossible to tell decoy from reality. Dozens of silent orbiting ships mimicked this all around the planet. With just cover and support, the Tarlaki probably thought their entire planet was under attack. But that was because it was.

Some of the missiles targeted civilian areas, others power plants, and military bases. Nothing was held back. If everything was allowed to hit unhandled, the planet would be devastated and likely uninhabitable for millennia. That was not going to happen, though. Counter missiles were launched, and their algorithms worked on identifying the junk from the payloads.

This started to be shot down. They could see that a few of their fellow teams wouldn't be making it to them just yet. Sent for respawn, they would have to be part of a second wave. That wave was only two minutes behind the first. Another one followed every two-minute interval after that.

The defense networks worked overtime, and when the systems of the missiles came online, the majority were removed in seconds. All the missiles were shot down before they had even got into positions above their targets.

A little later, the second wave activated, and they made it a little further. A few of the less critical missiles got through as the Tarlaki were forced to choose what to protect. This was a practical choice on their behalf as they were able to protect everything that time, but they would have started to fall further behind.

Sevs and his team still plummeted to their target as they watched nearly countless decoy missiles get removed. The pods fired up at the last possible second, redirecting them to their targets. Only then did they begin to be targeted. Sevs saw two other pods headed in the same direction as theirs.

They were lucky to have so much of the force after landing. Their target was a small spaceport, but even a small one had over a hundred people in sight. A major one on the planet would have tens of thousands. This was a private one, as far as they could tell. There were advantages and disadvantages because of that. First, it wasn't high on the protection list, so the teams targeting larger targets would get a lot more attention. The smaller port would also have fewer guards.

However, as it was a private place, they figured that it might be proportionally more heavily guarded. Potentially it would also have better-trained guards. These were all things that Sevs would take in an instant. It meant they had a much higher chance of all coming out intact, even if their mission's success rate was slightly lower. Also, it seemed that this would likely be the secondary extraction point. So it might actually be of some use.

They all saw the pod next to them go up in flames, and all those inside got sent for respawn. Death strangely had changed a bit for them as they had spent so much time in combat without the safety net of the ship. Now that the ship above them was still intact, it was back, but Sevs didn't really feel like it was. It still felt like, at any moment, they would be sent to a random location far, far away.

Having the respawn point right above the planet, though, gave the humans a distinct advantage. They could afford to send waves and waves of soldiers down. Only really limited by the number of troops total at any given point. Only when the actual expense of sending down missiles and landing pods got too high would they have to consider retreating. The only other way to be forced off was to threaten their ships.

And if this system had allies, it would take them a while to get here. If not, then their own ships and defensives would eventually push the humans away. As much as they were inured to troop casualties, the humans losing even a single ship was a huge loss.

As they all braced for impact, Sevs queued up some actions. The bone-rattling landing all shook them, and a second later, the door opened. Unclasping the harness, they dashed out. The messages Sevs queue up are sent out to the other leaders. Based on the responses he received, he knew what he was working with.

He had his squad rush for the door next to the one targeted by the only other squad. Their commanding captain was in the pod that was taken out, but the other Lieutenant had seniority over Sevs. Of course, there wasn't much cooperation needed yet, so it likely wouldn't come into play.

They needed to take the command tower. From there, they could lock down all automated defenses and prevent ships from leaving. After that, they would need to clear out the guard positions. But first came the bridging command down, so they threw all their weight against it.

Sev's team crashed headfirst into the side of the metal building. Bexy slapped a few things onto the slightly recessed door. They all shifted to either side and a couple of heartbeats later, the reinforced door went rocketing inside. They still hadn't started taking fire, but Sevs figured that would change any second. He then rushed everyone inside, Robert taking point.

Inside there were the remains of a four-man squad of guards that had taken defensive positions at the doorway and completely obliterated. The hall was slightly wider than the door, but the door had not stayed in one piece. Sevs wasn't sure how she managed it, but Bexy had turned the door into what was essentially a claymore.

The far corners of the adjoining hallways were completely shredded. Once they made it into the cover. Everyone started taking positions as Soshal checked over the bodies.