by James Rosone
The Delta commander smiled as he got up, his new marching orders in hand.
*******
Standing back in the briefing room, Captain Hopper bellowed, “Listen up, Deltas! Our mission’s changed a bit. We’ve just received new intelligence from one of our drones on the surface, and I have to say, I still don’t fully know what to make of it. So as they say, Semper Gumby. Our new mission is still a recon mission, but now we’re going to use our parabolic mics and cameras to grab as much audio and video of these unknowns as possible. The scientists on the ship here believe our super AI may be able to decipher their languages as we start to collect audio recordings of them interacting with each other. All of this will help our first contact team when it comes time, and us if things end up going south.”
Hopper paused for a moment as he let his words sink in. “When we get down to the surface, I want everyone to deploy your surveillance kits and start gathering the data the admiral wants. When they believe they have a working understanding of the language, then Ambassador Nina Chapman and her assistant will look to make contact with the aliens. The rest of us will monitor and observe things to make sure it all goes smoothly.
“I’m now going to play some drone footage so you can see what these aliens look like. I don’t want it to be a shock when we get down on the surface, and I want you all to know what we’re up against.”
Hopper showed the drone footage he’d seen in the admiral’s office along with several close-up images of the two figures. It was pretty clear in the video that one of the figures looked amazingly like a human. The other figure, however, was anything but. The soldiers started commenting on what they looked like and how large they appeared to be. It kind of blew the myth of little green men out of the water.
Master Sergeant Brian Royce was just as shocked as everyone else by what they had just seen. Still looking at the freeze-frame of the big blue alien, he asked, “Aside from collecting audio and video on these two groups, are we going to seek out their base camp as well?”
Looking at his most experienced NCO, Captain Hopper took in a deep breath and let it out before he replied, “That’s a good question, Master Sergeant. Right now, we’re going to have Fourth Squad stay at the Osprey with our first contact team and a couple of scientists who are going to start collecting some soil and other samples. First and Second Squads will look to observe the aliens around the mine, and Third Squad will look for their camp or where they’re bunking. Once the scientists and the first contact team feel they have enough information to approach the aliens, we’ll have everyone stand by to support that operation.”
Nodding in approval, Royce asked a follow-up question. “What’s going to be the coms situation once we’re on the ground?”
Lieutenant Crocker answered this one. “For the time being, we’re going to use the neurolinks unless things go south—then voice and radios will be fine. Right now, we don’t know if they have any sophisticated communications equipment on them, so we’re not going to chance it with the radios. I talked with someone in the CIC about electronic signals down on the planet. What they told me is, as of right now, they aren’t detecting anything on the spectrums we normally monitor or some of the lesser-known ones. That’s not to say they aren’t communicating with each other or even off-world. It just means as of right now we don’t know if or how they’re doing it. Determining that will also be part of our mission.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Crocker,” Captain Hopper interjected. He then turned to Master Sergeant Royce. “Make sure one of the guys in Third Squad is packing our ELINT equipment. Once we locate the enemy camp, I’m going to need you to deploy it so we can try and see if they’re operating on a different band or frequency. I highly doubt an operation like this is unable to communicate with the outside world.”
Royce nodded his head and sent a quick NL message to one of the troopers to pack the specialized equipment.
The rest of the platoon talked for a bit longer about how they were going to insert into the area and where. While they had initially planned on inserting closer to the objective, the plan changed to drop them further away and not risk detection.
They settled on a new position, a clearing in the dense forest roughly ten kilometers from the objective. With their augmented bodies and exoskeleton combat suits, this should be a walk in the park.
Three scientists were also heading down to the surface with them—a biologist, a botanist, and geologist who’d gather samples from the drop site and begin running their initial tests. Accompanying the scientific team was the diplomatic team that would make contact with the aliens. Unfortunately for the Fourth Squad, they got stuck with babysitting duty at the landing zone with the civilians.
*******
Five hours later, after swapping out some of their gear, they boarded up on the two Ospreys that would take them down to the planet. Unlike the Republic Army troopers, who had their own orbital landers, Special Forces tended to rely on specially rigged shuttlecraft called Ospreys for both orbital and atmospheric landings. It was a different kind of mission they carried out, and they had their own set of tools.
When the First and Second Squad were loaded up with Sergeant Royce and Captain Hopper, the crew chief closed the boarding door and sealed them in. The rest of the platoon was in the other Osprey with Lieutenant Crocker. Minutes later, the pilot readied the craft to be shot out the launch tube. The docking clamps holding them in place released, and the craft levitated for the briefest of moments. Then the magnetic launch tube shot them down and out the tunnel like a bullet from a rifle.
In seconds, the Osprey was racing underneath the Voyager as they descended into the upper atmosphere of the planet. Once they were out of the ship, the sensation of floating in space suddenly returned. Their artificial gravity field was gone, and they were back in zero g.
The Osprey moved further from the Voyager and continued its descent to the planet below. During the initial dive into the atmosphere, it was a relatively smooth ride. Once they dipped lower into the atmosphere, the wind shear began to buffet the body of the craft. The standard fiery glow started to envelop the front and bottom of the Osprey’s heat shield and would continue to do so until they broke into the upper atmosphere and were able to slow their descent.
Looking out the windows, the Deltas watched the colors change from the darkness of space interspersed with the stars, to the shades of clouds and the greens, browns, and blues of the ground below. Somewhere during their glimpses of the new world, the pilots changed their engines to atmospheric flight. The short stubby wings the Osprey had in space started extending from beneath it. Once they were fully extended, the tips of the wings bent up to provide more stability. In less than a minute, the Osprey had transitioned from a spacefaring craft to an atmospheric assault transport craft.
The pilots deftly worked the controls, slowing their flight and doing their best to keep them from crashing through one sound barrier after another. The last thing they wanted to do was announce their presence to whoever was down below with a sonic boom.
The ride to the surface lasted nearly an hour—longer than usual—because they wanted to arrive stealthily. Every so often, the crew chief would announce their current altitude and the time until they reached the objective.
When they got close to the landing zone, the rear hatch of the craft opened up, allowing the soldiers inside to catch their first real glimpses of the new planet. It was incredible seeing the new species of birds and flying animals soaring through the air. The pilots slowed down even more as they neared the landing zone. A drone had found a clearing big enough for them to vertically land both of the Ospreys. Moments later, the nose flared up as the pilot saw the spot and gently settled on the ground.
“Everyone out!” shouted Master Sergeant Royce, and the Deltas from First and Second Squad piled out.
One squad broke to the right of the Osprey and advanced outwards, establishing a twenty-five-meter perimeter around their ride. The two other teams on
the second Osprey did the same as the pilots moved to shut down the engines. For the next five minutes, the platoon of soldiers sat tight in their perimeter, weapons at the ready as they took in all the sights and sounds around them. Meanwhile, their HUDs rapidly built a topographical picture of the immediate area, looking for possible threats.
Royce assumed a kneeling position. One of the first things he noticed was how tall the trees were. Some of them must have been upwards of two or even three hundred meters tall. Having been to the American redwood forests in California, Royce knew what tall trees looked like, but these were something completely different. Plus, their trunks were enormous at the base.
He craned his head to look up at the tree maybe thirty meters in front of him. It was massive. It had to be three or four times the size of the redwood trees he’d seen in California, but at the same time, these trees almost looked a bit like banyan trees with the way their canopies expanded outwards—parts of the branches extended out and down into the soil below.
Master Sergeant, let’s go ahead and get the drones up. I want to get a lay of the land around here before we move out, Lieutenant Crocker said over the neurolink.
Using the same system, Royce directed his two drone operators to get the tools of their trade up and running.
A corporal pulled a rucksack off his back and unpacked several drones. Two of them would stay in orbit above the Ospreys, keeping an eye on them and the surrounding area. One drone was a bit larger and would act as their communications drone, relaying their coms to the Osprey, who’d transmit it to the Voyager in orbit. Lastly, the corporal popped out five smaller drones the size of golf balls. One would scout a few hundred meters ahead of them, looking for any possible threats, while two others would operate on their right and left flanks and a fourth would pull up their rear. The fifth drone would stay right over the top of them, providing the platoon with complete situational awareness of their surroundings.
The suite of drones would extend their eyes and ears beyond what the platoon of operators could do on their own and alert them to any impending danger that might be headed toward them. With their equipment deployed and now integrated into their HUDs, the AI built into the system would help them identify any threats as they moved along.
Master Sergeant Royce assigned the corporal and his second-in-command, Sergeant Wagman, to keep an eye on the drones and handle whatever they saw. Royce wanted to focus on leading the platoon. They were about to enter a new and dangerous part of their mission.
Royce felt he should say something before leading them down the rabbit hole. He linked into the platoon’s NL channel. Listen up, people. There’s a lot of strange and interesting stuff to look at around here. I can almost guarantee we’re going to see a lot more when we get into that forest and head toward the mines. I need you all to stay focused. Keep your heads on a swivel, but don’t let all this stuff distract you. Remember, we have two alien races in our vicinity. We don’t know if they’re friendly or hostile, so stay frosty and ready for whatever may be headed toward us.
Switching to a channel between just him, Crocker, and Hopper, he said, Lieutenant, Captain, we’re moving.
Sounds good, Master Sergeant. Let’s see how deep this rabbit hole goes, Captain Hopper replied.
Standing up ever so slowly, Royce kept his rifle at the low ready as he moved forward, into the strange-looking forest before him. As he glanced down at the ground, his eyes registered the dirt, some patches of grass that had found some light, and some odd-looking flowers and other plants and foliage he’d never seen before.
While they could breathe the air around them, they were keeping their exosuits sealed up for the time being. They needed to let the scientists run a spectral analysis of the airborne particulate matter to make sure there wasn’t some unknown bug out there that could make them sick.
Royce brushed aside some shrubs and made his way deeper into the forest. It was much darker than he had first thought. Looking up, he saw two or more canopy layers, which might explain why it had gotten a lot darker the deeper they moved into the forest. As Royce walked on, he had a hard time keeping his eyes focused and alert. They wanted to wander and drift around, taking in the sights of this new world he found himself immersed in.
Ten minutes into their trek in the forest, Royce saw the oddest-looking creature. He wanted to say it looked like a deer, but it also looked like a horse, almost like a Minotaur. The beast had two small arms near its upper torso, like those of a monkey or even a human, but its head was shaped a lot more like that of a bear, with a medium-sized nose and mouth, as opposed to a long nose and face like a deer or horse. It was so crazy-looking, Royce had to send a message back to the rest of the platoon not to get stuck gawking at it. They had a mission to complete, and that meant they had to keep moving.
Picking up the pace of their march, mostly to keep from getting distracted, they eventually made it to the mining site. It looked to be approaching midday, though they didn’t really have any hard data on what time it actually was on this planet. With three suns in the solar system and a few moons in orbit, their sense of time was completely thrown off.
Once they had reached the location of the mine, First Squad would take up a rearguard position and fan out. They would make sure no one came up behind them and keep their line of retreat to the Osprey open should they need it. Second Squad would take up a wide observation berth around the mine itself. Their goal was to see if anything showed up and observe any work being done at the mine. They’d also be in charge of collecting as much audio and video surveillance on the two alien races as they could so the Voyager’s computers could start to decipher their languages.
The final squad, Third Squad, was on standby. They’d be the ones to try and locate the alien base camp once they knew what direction the aliens had traveled in.
As the squads approached the mine, Fourth Squad sent a quick update, letting them know the scientists were already doing their thing. They’d continue to keep an eye on them and make sure nothing happened to their ride out of this strange new world.
Twenty minutes went by with the various squads getting moved into position. They made sure their camouflage system was turned on. This was a cool new feature that mimicked the user’s surroundings, turning their exoskeleton suits into a twenty-second-century version of a ghillie suit. The discerning eye could still spot them, but at a passing glance, no casual observer would ever see them. Once everyone was in position, it was a waiting game.
An hour later, Sergeant Wagner got bored and decided to fiddle with one of the drones. He found the path that led away from the mine and down toward the house a little further back that they’d seen on the drone feed from the Voyager.
He sent a quick message to Royce and Crocker, letting them know he’d found it and asking if he could use the drone to follow the path and see where it went. The lieutenant wasn’t too sure, but Royce convinced him it might be useful to know how many aliens were nearby. Besides, they needed to figure out where these aliens were staying, and following the trail for a while might just lead them to the camp.
With permission, Sergeant Wagner guided the drone further down the road while doing his best to keep it out of sight. Royce and Crocker watched with bated breath to see what it might uncover. After moving a kilometer down the path, they opted to find a spot to land the little drone and let it keep monitoring the trail while it recharged its solar pack.
As they sat there, killing time, Royce swatted at some unknown bug that jumped on his forearm. They’d been in their hide position for some three hours, and still nothing but these odd-looking bugs had explored the newest visitors to their planet.
Royce was getting bored, and boredom was dangerous. If he felt that way, he was sure his soldiers were on edge, and that wasn’t good. Using the neurolink, he directed the squad leaders to start quizzing their squads on some infantry skills—effective ranges of some of their weapons, when and how to use certain weapons, etcetera—to keep their minds s
harp while they waited for someone or something to show up at the mine.
Then he remembered the bug he’d swatted just a minute ago and looked down at it. It was just sitting there on the ground next to him, not moving. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. It had purple stripes around its black-and-gray body, which he thought was pretty unique. It certainly wasn’t like anything he’d seen on Earth. It almost reminded him of a grasshopper from back home. It was about the same size and had long legs like a grasshopper. Reaching down to pick up the critter, Royce held it a little closer to his visor for inspection. His body was encased in his armored exoskeleton combat suit, so he didn’t feel threatened by it.
Its eyes stared right back at him. Then it opened its little mouth and spat some liquid right at him. Flinching, Royce tossed the little insect as he muttered a few curse words. Then he wiped away whatever spit the damn thing had plastered his visor with.
Just five minutes ago, Royce was going to ask if they could unseal their suits and try breathing in some fresh air. Now, he was glad he was still sealed up. For all he knew, that little bugger had just sprayed him with some neurotoxin or some other poison that was likely to kill him or give him a bad case of gut rot.
Lieutenant Aaron Crocker was propped up against a tree maybe ten or fifteen meters away, looking about as bored as Royce was. Hey, LT. Why’d you switch over to being an officer? Royce asked over a private NL channel.
I ask myself that question a lot. You know, prior to being an officer, I was a master sergeant in the regular Army. I had just finished my fifteen-year mark and knew if I didn’t make a switch, I was going to be stuck as an E-8 for a very long time.
