Plans always fail after contact with the Enemy, that's why they're the enemy. - Confed Doctrine, 8400 PG

Any plan that survives contact with the enemy is the plan that gets you fucked in the ass by the Detainee's strapon. - Infantry Maxim, 8480 PG

If you are short of everything but the Enemy you are in combat. - Arch-Demon Murphy's Laws of Combat

Bit.nek looked up from where he was reading on of the FM's on fire and manuever that he'd never even heard of before when he felt a tap on his leg.

On the arm of the chair next to him, a one foot tall green mantid wearing an adaptive camouflage abdominal and thorax wrap was staring at him.

"What's up, buddy?" Bit.nek asked.

--am 299 assigned to bit.nek-- it said over the datalink.

"That's me," Bit.nek said. He smiled and set down the manual.

It was boring anyway.

"What's up?" Bit.nek asked.

--wanted meet you--

Bit.nek nodded. "Good to meet you too. You my battle buddy?"

--affirmative--

"Anything I should know?" Bit.nek asked.

--excited first drop hope we live-- the greenie said.

"We'll be fine. My last greenie survived to retire," Bit.nek said. He thought for a moment. "How long have you been in?"

--just grad fifteenth in class-- 299 answered.

"Hell, that's good. Got a regular genius riding with me," Bit.nek said. "679, he was like 50th in his class, but he kept us running and gunning even when the Detainee slung her tampon on the wall."

The greenie showed a disgusted emoji between his antenna.

"You know much about shade and shambler combat?" Bit.nek asked.

--no not covered-- 299 answered.

Bit.nek sighed and looked around, then checked his chron. It was two hours before lunch.

"All right, sit down, I'll catch you up. You'll want to do some mods to your protective shell interior, keep them from reaching in and snatching out your soul," Bit.nek said.

--roger roger--

Bit.nek adjusted in the seat. "You'll want to keep the following templates in warm storage..." he started.

-----

Admiral of Upper Decks (Warsteel) Michael T'Relm watched as the 197th Fleet made the translation from hyperspace to realspace with the roar of "HEAVY METAL IS HERE!" that echoed through the subspace foam and reality. Vessel after vessel checked in, confirmed no shades had made the translation with them.

The system looked dead. No broadcasts from the planet that weren't automated. No emergency beacons.

He folded his bladearms behind his back and watched as the fleet broke up into discreet task forces, watching the crimson and silver images in the flag bridge holotank.

Taking out the ansibles, hypercom, and needlecast facilities were first priority.

He nodded approvingly as each ship reported that their vessel was locking out the data from the various FTL communication systems.

We don't want some shades jumping to the flag bridge to give their input on what is about to happen, he mused.

He saw the troop transports all notify that their cargo had been brought out of cryosleep with no deaths and only roughly 0.25% injuries, all expected to return to duty.

He lit a smoke and moved around the holotank, looking at the system.

There were hundreds of ships in orbit around the three habitable planets. All of them in parking orbits. As he watched, one started to tumble and go into a bad reentry orbit.

The system had possessed a population of 12.5 billion artificial sentients before Shade Night.

NavInt was estimating less than 10% had survived, putting the possible number of survivors down in the tens of thousands.

There were no Ultressian ships or beacons, which meant that the 197th had beaten them to the system.

He nodded again. Forty-Third Army would divide between the three planets and dig in.

It was more than just denying the Ultressian Empire the territory.

The last thing anyone needed was for something to go wrong and the Ultressian military to carry Shades back to their homeworlds. By the time anyone else knew it, they could be propagating across the galactic arm spur again.

Nobody knew how the Flashbang had been done, so nobody was sure if it could be done again.

So the Confederate Armed Services had to do a ground sweep, clear the stellar system, and prevent the Ultressian Empire from taking territory and keep them from accidentally carrying back a Shade.

The Admiral nodded to himself.

A much more complex mission goal that he was comfortable, but nobody asked him, and fuck him if he couldn't take a joke anyway.

He puffed on his cigarette, blowing smoke rings around his footpads, and just watched the holotank.

The Fleet would do their part on behalf of Space Force.

Groundside was up to the Army and Marines.

-----

Bit.nek looked up from where he was checking his armor's left leg.

"Hey, whose got the Stampy?" he called out across the Ready Room.

Private Kalralk lifted his hand. "I do."

"My armor's not registering your hellbore. Check your Stampy's IFF transponder," Bit.nek said.

The whole bay went silent, everyone turning to look at him.

"Hellbore?" the Company XO asked, stepping forward.

"Yeah, the 60 or 80 millimeter hellbore that a Stampy runs with," Bit.nek said, frowning. He couldn't figure out what the big deal was.

"The 'stampy' as you call it, is loaded with a 20mm autocannon," the Armorer said stiffly.

Bit.nek noted that the stick in the armorer's ass had apparently made it through cryo.

"If I needed Madame Three-Eighteen's support, I'd just pack one myself on a gunnery harness," Bit.nek said. He looked around. "What, you don't run a hellbore on the stampy?"

The XO moved up, looking down at Bit.nek. "We'll be fighting on a planet we'd like to keep."

Bit.nek shrugged. "Chase the elves out of the orgy pit and make them earn their pay," he said.

"Nobody's going to authorize hellbore usage on a friendly planet," the XO said.

Bit.nek shrugged. "Your call."

"You expect me to believe you were using hellbores on a semi-autonomous gunnery drone?" the XO sounded personally offended.

"Tukna'rn heavy infantry usually packed a 30mm shoulder mounted hellbore," Bit.nek said. He shrugged again and went back to checking the knee on his armor. "Had a Novastar using Grind-haw-veh-lar rounds more than a few times. You'd roll through where the Knight Aesir had been slamming and see tanks that were squished to about four inches thick and a thin smear of jelly that had been Dwellerspawn."

The XO's eyes bugged out slightly. "You expect me to believe that?"

Bit.nek just shrugged, frowning at the return on the diagnostic on the knee. "Up to you, sir."

"Lieutenant, a word," the CO called out.

The XO marched over to the CO of Kilo Company, Captain Vergreskit. "Yes, sir?" he asked when he reached the other officer.

"You know where the private was before this, do you not?" Captain Vergeskit asked.

"The Lanaktallan Contested Zone," Lieutenant Xel'van answered.

The Captain, still staring at Bit.nek, who had the leg open on his armor and was talking to his greenie and the armorer both. "Not exactly. He was in the Atrekna Contested Zone. Spent three years our time there."

"You actually believe they were authorizing privates the use of hellbore rounds?" the XO asked.

The CO nodded slowly. "Boot privates were authorized to throw atomics. The private there has called down orbital fire on his own position," the CO looked at his XO. "We're an hour from orbit, two hours from drop. Come with me."

The XO nodded, his back straight, part of him blaming Bit.nek for what was sure to be a dressing down as followed the CO to where Bit.nek was talking to the Armorer.

"I added the EPROM blocks because after about fifteen days the armor's systems start suffering buffer overruns which lead to floating point errors on the atomic clock. You have to factory reset the suit then load in your biometrics, but you've lost all the adaptive data. Just two EPROM and three RAM molycirc blocks solve that problem."

"Why isn't it in the manual?" the Armorer asked, trying to push down the irritation at the scruffy looking private.

"Because these are the M984A2T(elkan) Gen-One suits. We were up to Gen-Four and Gen-Five back in the shit. Not sure why you forged up Gen-One, but, to be honest, these are actually more mission flexible, less stuff locked out from user or armorer modification," Bit.nek said. He tapped the knee actuator. "Gen-One has a bad knee joint, most guys I knew had their left knee operated on more than once. Still, they figured out a fix right before we went Gen-Two."

The XO opened his mouth and the CO held up his hand to silence the Lieutenant.

"I used one of these suits about six years, personal, before they ran off the Gen-One-Aye, which had a bad hip actuator and piloting jack locking ring problems. Those were in use like three months before the Gen-Two climbed out of the big ass creation engine," Bit.nek laughed. "Not literally. Not like when a suit of Novastar tried to climb out and scared the shit out of the Third Shop guys."

The Armorer looked at the CO who nodded slowly.

Bit.nek slapped the cover back on the knee joint, looking up at the armorer. "If you want, I've got the Shade Night package that you can use in this old dame," he said. He opened his mouth to say more and stopped.

Lieutenant Xel'van felt a weird sensation. Like his bone marrow was being tugged at by ghostly fingers.

"Detainee's buttered muffin," Bit.nek swore, jumping to his feet. "299! Get in the housing!"

Everyone was looking around, muttering at the weird feeling.

Bit.nek slapped the back of his armor's neck, the suit unfolding.

"Private, what's going on?" The CO asked.

"Big guns are firing. That weird feeling? That's the C+ cannon batteries," the private said. "Fleet's engaged."

Before the CO could say anything else, Bit.nek climbed in his armor and it folded around him.

On the flag bridge, Admiral of Upper Decks (Warsteel) Michael T'Relm stared at the holotank.

"It appears Confed NavInt was mistaken about the Ultressian naval stealth capabilities," he said slowly, watching as more and more Ultressian ships appeared, all of them already firing.

The fleet had their battlescreens on standby, so the Ultressian launch didn't catch them completely by surprise. Admiral T'Relm didn't see any FTL weapons, so his ships all had long minutes to spin up their battlescreens and manuever for combat.

"Get the transports to orbit, alert Army Command that they might be dropping in under fire," the Admiral said.

Back in the Ready Room, Bit.nek turned his helmet to look at the CO.

"They're going to pump the atmosphere any minute. Get everyone in their suits, sir," he said.

The CO turned around. "YOU HEARD THE MAN! MOUNT THE FRAME!" he looked at Bit.nek. "We're supposed to be going in via dropship. Opinion?"

Bit.nek shook his head. "No way. They'll pod us in. Get us off the ship so the ship can get out of low orbit and maneuver faster."

The CO turned to the XO. "Let Battalion, Brigade, and Division know that we have reliable intel that we'll be drop-podding in not using dropships."

The XO wanted to protest, that the word on one PFC shouldn't be reason to alert the entire chain.

More ghostly plucking at his bone marrow.

"Yes, sir," the XO snapped.

Bit.nek's armor turned bright crimson.

The rest of the company climbed in their armor as the CO ran for his.

-----

Bit.nek watched the countdown on his retinal link, the red number in the silver bunk rapidly dropping. He tabbed up three pieces of standard gum, chewing them fast, then using his tongue to put a piece at his molars on either side and then squishing the last piece between his front teeth.

--oh boy oh boy oh boy-- 299 said.

"Take it easy. Standard drop. We'll be OK," Bit.nek said, keeping his jaw clenched. "Might want to bite a piece of gum of plastic, the kick is a stone cold bitch."

--ok--

"Squad, check in," Sergeant Namralak ordered.

Bit.nek just triggered his icon twice.

He was loaded into the drop pod with the squad leader and the other eleven members of the squad. Unlike the Telkan Marine Corps seven man squads, the Confederate Army ran with thirteen man squads.

But then, the Telkan Marines were initially designed to shock troops, the Confederate Army took the ground and held it, digging in hard.

Cross service duty sucks, Bit.nek thought to himself.

The ship shuddered, making the drop pod quiver slightly.

Bit.nek looked up at the window he had open that showed the XO, CO, Platoon Sergeant, Platoon Leader, Section Sergeant, and Squad Leader's faces.

All of them looked nervous to him. The CO was talking, the Platoon Sergeant looked like he was going to throw up, and the XO looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.

The ship shook again.

"The Bartrock Klik'ark is taking a beating," Bit.nek said. "Stupid Navy pukes need to protect us better before we take a nCv volley and break up. I'm not into swimming down to the surface."

--ok-- 299 sent back.

"It's fine, we've got three hundred seconds before we..." Bit.nek started to reassure the greenie.

The icon flashed three times, there was a steady tone, and the counter dropped to zero.

"SHIT!"

The grav driver kicked in, the pod being snatched up and thrown past the troopship's shields.

"Emergency Launch," the female Terran's voice said calmly.

Bit.nek checked, everyone's eyes were wide.

Telemetry was lost on the Platoon Sergeant. A red X covered his icon.

"299, get me pod telemetry," Bit.nek snapped, almost choking on the gum. He chewed quick, making it into a single wad, and tucked it into his cheek.

The Squad Leader, Sergeant Namralak looked like he was going to start screaming.

--locked out-- 299 said.

"Then hack that shit," Bit.nek said. "I need the pod's telemetry. We're off profile, we aren't hitting our LZ."

--will try--

"Don't try, do," Bit.nek snapped.

The pod started buffeting and SGT Namralak's eyes got somehow wider.

"Oh, fuck, we're going to die!" someone yelled over the comlink.

"SHUT UP!" Bit.nek yelled back. "We're just hitting atmo, you idiot!"

The squad's icons went live and Bit.nek noted that three people had vomited in their suit bad enough the auto-systems hadn't cleared their internal helmet cam yet.

"oh man oh man oh man" someone was whining.

--cant cant cant got it-- 299 said.

Bit.nek put the telemetry in the upper right of his helmet HUD.

135,000 meters and dropping by 250 meters per second with the velocity climbing.

Bit.nek threw it up on a timer. 540 seconds was nine minutes. As he watched it dropped to 8.2 minutes.

The pod was still head down, the main ion thruster driving it toward the planet. It hadn't flipped over yet for braking burn.

"299, run the burn angle, I want to be able to see a line where we're going to land," Bit.nek snapped.

--ok--

The pod came out of the clouds and Bit.nek started cursing.

There was a huge city below them and judging by the angle they'd land between the megalopolis and what looked like factory complexes.

There was tiny flashes from the near side of the city.

"Oh, Kalki's clanging balls," Bit.nek groaned.

Two seconds later there was a loud clanking sound and the pod shuddered.

"Fuck! We're going to get shot down!" Sergeant Namralak yelled.

"SHUT UP!" Bit.nek yelled back. "This is an M9E7, those are 30mm rounds. The armor will hold."

More clanking.

50,000 feet, 2.2 minutes.

The pod suddenly flipped, even as the clanking sound got more rapid and heavier.

Sergeant Namralak screamed. "PUNCH OUT!"

"NO!" Bit.nek yelled. "299, stop him!"

--roger--

45,000

There were several explosions that rocked the pod. A glance told Bit.nek that the armor wasn't even degraded. The battlescreen was starting to spin up.

35,000

The thruster fired, braking. Target lock alarms started beeping and more explosions rocked the pod. Bit.nek checked the telemetery and saw that they were anti-aerospace fighter, not heavy rockets.

"WE'RE LOCKED UP! PUNCH OUT!" Namralak yelled.

"DAMMIT, NO!" Bit.nek yelled. "IT'S AA, WE'RE IN A MARK NINE!"

--hes pulling eject lever--

"Override it!"

--cant manual system--

The pod suddenly blew apart and the thirteen man squad were thrown away from the pod.

27,500

--hardlight chute-- 299 said.

"No. We HALO it," Bit.nek said. He swallowed blood and tooth chips, cursed, and checked the terrain.

The pod was still broadcasting telemetry.

"Run our landing arc," Bit.nek said. He put one arm out, cupping his hand, slowing his tumble. He got it under control, arms and legs out, face down.

The line showed he'd land right in the city.

"Can you get me everyone else?" Bit.nek asked.

Twelve other lines showed up.

They were scattered. Six people had already pulled their hard-light chutes.

"Try to get telemetry from other pods," Bit.nek sighed. He thought. "If you can, send a message to Major Tut'el, Battalion XO, give him a sit-rep, full maps."

--ok-- 299 said. --we going to live--

"It's just a HALO, ignore the ground fire," Bit.nek said. "No shields, no em, we'll dead stick it."

--ok-- 299 said. --kind of scared--

"We'll be fine."

8,000 feet.

Bit.nek shifted, sliding to the right, to try not to slam into the side of a skyraker. There was a large building, multistory, that looked like a hab complex. He angled again.

He'd landed on a smaller target.

6,000 feet.

He checked again. The whole platoon was scattered to hell and gone. Kilo Company was worse. First and Third Platoon Sergeants were red-X'd. Second Platoon's Platoon Leder was X'd.

3,400 feet.

900 feet above the hab complex roof.

"RIPCORD RIPCORD RIPCORD!" Bit.nek chanted and activated the hard-light system.

The chute slammed his feet into the soles of the boots and his balls into the crotch of the armor as the system yanked him up. The grav-chute dropped him to only 30mph. He dropped his weapon case from between his feet onto the cord.

feet

calf

thigh

ass

back

roll

ON YOUR FEET!

He came up, slapping off the chute system, yanking the case to stop.

Bit.nek bent down, unlatching the case, grabbing out his weapons and ammo. He shrugged into the gear harness as he straightened up and walked slowly to the edge of the roof.

"External mics," he ordered.

The city was burnt in places, there were crashed cars and debris blowing around on the street over two thousand feet below.

--activating--

The wailing of the damned poured into his ears from the street below.

"Well... shit."