Space Odyssey: Spectre

"We are dropping in five minutes!" Jace yelled loudly as he made his way to his drop pod. He was fully geared for the war they would be participating in. The hangar around him was in chaos as the Shock Troopers got ready.

They were making the final preparations while the engineers and hangar bay staff checked everything one last time so the dropping mechanism would not malfunction at this critical moment. Jace walked to the edge of the hangar where the metal door would slide open and where the atmospheric barrier was located. He would be one of the first ones out of the ship.

He arrived at his pod and the pod's hatch opened to reveal a seat along with his equipment. The armor he was wearing was the repaired armor that unfortunately would still limit his abilities. Like the other times he had an additional component to his armor this time he would as well. He would be using a portal hard light tower shield.

As he climbed into his pod he double checked his own gear that he had set up ahead of time. He had a Pyre as a sidearm with a few spare magazines. In addition he had a VE-15 Assault Rifle equipped with sights and a grip to help him in the prolonged battle that would be coming. He has a few magazines for the assault rifle as well.

But the equipment he was really excited about trying were the other things in the pod. The first is the new weapon he had a hand in designing. It is a rotary machine gun design but it uses a hard light plasma ammunition. He planned to use this as the weapons testing ground. Unfortunately it did not have an actual name and instead had the designation that the developers gave it after its completion, Dragon's Breath.

The other piece of new equipment was a simple design. An armored ammunition pack that held a diverse array of weapons and sometimes explosives. But this time he was not bringing explosives. Instead the pack had a set up so he could turn the rotary gun into a gun emplacement. The six barreled rotary gun would be set up so he could lay down covering fire.

Jace climbed into his drop pod and closed the door. It sealed and the door turned into a screen he could see the outside world through. A moment later it lit up as the digital interface appeared and several communication channels and other information appeared. The channels were screaming with static and information as the other soldiers spoke through it. Checking in with their respective commanders.

"This is Spectre Jace, ready for the drop. We will commence in four minutes." Jace spoke over all channels causing silence to reign for a moment.

"Understood, we are 80% complete with preparations for the orbital drop. All chief officers are prepared for the next stages. Agent Vana will be entering the fray with the Infantry when the Anvil lands. The pilots are ready to drop the jamming satellites and shoot down any ships that leave the planet." One of the communication officers told him quickly.

"Spectre Dahlia is ready." Dahlia's response did not cut through the noise as much as Jace's name did.

"Spectre Nina is ready." Her voice was just that of the programmed one she typically used as an artificial external voice box.

"Spectre Anja, Karlson, and Dominic checked in ahead of the rest of you. Dropping in three minutes, we are starting to make the initial preparations. Opening the hangar doors." The communications announced and Jace could hear the metal door of the hangar opening after the noise of the hum from the atmospheric barrier appeared.

Jace tapped a few buttons on the interface that was part of the door. He began pulling up the images that were being streamed live. They were on a gas planet they were now orbiting. There were not even any satellites near the location. There was a good chance that the reason for that was because of Lord Hoodwink.

Lord Hoodwink had probably gained a foothold in the Crystoph Federation. Jace had not learned this until recently but in the information community the country was infamous for their politicians taking bribes. For someone like Lord Hoodwink that was to his advantage, especially with how much they now suspected he made off of biological weapons.

All of the images showed that there was nothing unusual in the space around the planet. Just to be safe they had done a deep scan of both the space around the planet and the gas cloud surrounding the inner planet.

Jace took a moment to suck in a breath of air as he checked which pods had not yet been filled. He found the twelve pods that had not yet been filed. He quickly went through and found out the reasons. None of the reasons were due to hesitation or cowardice in the face of danger.

Their first actual test of combat. Yet none of them were cowering. This is what Shock Troopers were meant to be. An undaunting blade that cut through the enemies of the Vexical Empire. They would be the first soldiers to drop into danger and fight the enemy. They would make the frontlines and make sure that it would be possible for their allies to arrive.

The reasons the soldiers had not gone into their drop pods were varied. A few were having trouble with their drop pods, the last minute checks revealed malfunctions. A few others were just waiting until the drops started to get into their pod, it seems they were at the end of the line. A quick message from Jace and they were getting in their pods anyway, he did not want issues to arise at the last minute because they waited too long to get into their pods. The last soldier was late because he slept in. Jace just moved him to the back of the pack so he would have an extra few minutes before he dropped.

There was discreet noise of moving metal and chains as the mechanism turned so the oversleeper would have enough time before he was dropped. "The drop pod mechanism is leaving the hangars. Two minutes until drop, if they have high orbital scanners they will start to realize something is wrong." The communication officer informed them.

The entire mechanism holding the drop pods and designed to release them began moving and Jace's drop pod exited the atmospheric barrier of the hangar. Hanging over the planet ready to drop.

Below him the planet's gasses were a mix of browns and grays. The swirling mass was just a facade that had probably been naturally created. But it was serving Lord Hoodwink's purposes. Unfortunately, that meant they would have to dispose of the planet to erase everything that Hoodwink had been doing there. Especially because it was in enemy territory.

At the moment however he was transfixed on watching the gases of the planet as they moved. As they sat here he could see the darker brown gases were moving clockwise. While the lighter brown gases of the planet were moving counter clockwise. Then the gray gases of the planet were stationary, or at least on the surface. But Jace could faintly make out the movement of them heading perpendicular to the other gas clouds.

Jace sighed as he realized that to most people the planet might be an awe inspiring sight. But to him, he was just thinking about how to calculate a formula so he could turn the gases into flammable or explosive gases.

Jace took another deep breath as the range to the surface of the planet appeared. "We have one minute to drop! All units, the next time I speak the operation to take Bastion of the Orcus System will commence!" The communication officer was starting to sound a bit excited.

Inside of his drop pod just above the door there were a pair of lights. One is red and one is green. Normally both of them were off. But since he started the countdown at five minutes the red light had turned on. But now that they were at one minute the light had changed to green, indicating that they could get dropped early if necessary.

But that would only happen in the event of the ship being fired upon or another type of emergency arose. Most of the reasons would be because it was too dangerous to have them suspended in space when there was a threat present.

Jace quickly double checked everything to make sure he was not forgetting anything. Everything seemed ready and the percentage of occupied drop pods was almost a hundred percent. Only the soldier that overslept had yet to get into their drop pod.

"No last minute speech Spectre Jace," He could hear Spectre Dahlia ask over the shared communication channel.

Jace rolled his eyes as they had only twenty seconds left before the scheduled drop. "Shut up, I am hungry. So make sure that you do not take long to secure our landing sight." Jace informed them all. He could hear laughter and chuckles from the others. But the communication channel stayed open as they waited for the order.

"Commencing drop and Operation Grimm!"