The two squads worked their way through the maze of passages, always trying to get back to their speeder/transports.

"Contact!" said Dante and Mako at the same time, as they were on point.

The squad took cover in the next room, a large storage room. Many boxes were seemingly randomly placed, with many places to take cover.

Gates dropped behind a box that said 'dry rations' and pulled his E-11 from its holster, gripping it in his right hand, while he quickly wrapped up his left. Satisfied with the quick-fix, he pulled his pistol out with his left hand. Switching his E-11 to 'full-auto,' he poked his scope around the corner. A half-dozen men walked in, escorting four un-armored people. Following them were another half dozen, but heavily armored, guarding five men with their hands on their heads. Bringing up the rear was a half-dozen Battle droids.

18-16, and they were out-gunned, at least they had the element of surprise.

"On my mark," said Rizzit, "open fire"

"Mark!" The stormtroopers emerged from their  cover, opening up on the enemy troops, the heavies first. Three fell, as the rest directed fire at the kneeling, prone, and hidden stormtroops. Blaster fire was bouncing off of everything; the boxes were constantly being ruptured, and suddenly, one exploded.

The four un-armed/armoured men ran backwards, and one was cut down by a stray laser. Blood was dripping onto the floor; bodies were everywhere, and carnage was absolute.

Then, just to make things interesting, the spiders caught up with their torturers, hell-bent on vengeance.

"God DAMN IT! Why don't these damn things leave us alone?!" Gates yelled, nerves on edge from the constant arachnoid attacks.

Gates grabbed one out of the air, mid-leap, and chucked it at the enemies shooting at them. It was torn apart by blasts and fell to the ground. A dozen more spiders dropped from the vents, and chaos reigned.

Unarmored men screamed in pain and fear as spiders latched on and bit, sending painful poisons into their bloodstreams. Lasers bounced off armor, melted skin, broke through touch spider skin, and splashed against the walls.

A spider charged straight at Garryll, and he spun, blasting at it. The last three blasts of his clip flew right into the open pincers, blasting the spider to Hell. Already, another spider was all over him. He grabbed his knife, plunging it to its hilt into the spider's head, destroying its brain. He pulled the knife out, then was almost killed again when a bezerk droid almost blasted him.

The scene got worse and worse as even more spiders and enemy troops arrived.

Vince and Ken were watching the settlement for movement when they saw the Wraiths and Iron Horses entering the streets.

"Damn!" Ken muttered. "This close and they haven't heard our reports yet?"

Vince held up a palm and put down his macrobinoculars. "Keep watching the town, Ken -- I'll give them another call."

Vince keyed his mic and transmitted again. "Sarge? Vince here. Do you read me?"

...

Sarge, this is Vince. We see you, do you read?

...

Vince shook his head. "That jamming must be stronger than we thought. Let's move up and get back in with the rest."

Ken smiled under his helmet and nodded. "Alright, let's go."

The troopers stood and moved out of the woods, and were nearly in plain sight of their squad when the firefight began. Ken was stunned for a moment, then realized what was happening and dashed to cover. Vince had already taken a position at the corner of one of the hopefully empty buildings, and was firing on the enemy. Ken tossed himself prone onto the street, and began targeting the unfriendly giants.

Vince and Ken put down suppressing fire down Main Street until the call came over their comlinks:

"*lrigh* squ** ..."

Ken rose to his feet and ducked behind the building. He keyed his mic and made a hurried reply.

"SARGE! This is Ken! Vince and I are OK! Do you read?!"

...

"They're close!" Ken exclaimed. "Let's find them!" He switched his helmet to show him an IR image, and he picked out a heat source too small to be one of those enemy monsters. Ken dashed out from cover towards the trooper, followed by Vince. Watching carefully for incoming fire, the pair followed after another retreating trooper.

When they finally reached relative safety, Ken caught his breath and keyed his mic. "Boy, am I glad I finally caught up with you guys again."

One of the troopers turned to Ken and replied, "You're barkin' up the wrong tree." He jabbed a thumb into his squad insignia and explained, "We're Wraiths."

Lucky and Gio sped along on their landspeeders, Brock right behind them with the sled. Everyone was silent , she had not heard a word from Eclipse in awhile so she decided to break the silence with a made-up carol.

" Oh, the weather above is frightful ,
But the fighting so delightful,
If you have no place to go , let us know , let us know, let us know!"

"If our enemies want to join us,
In the fight for right or wrong,
If they betray us so,
Let us know, let us know, let us know!"

Not finding any other words to add to her oddly versed carol , she fell silent and waited for someone else to continue the song.

The men without armour went down either taken out by the bolts the Dark Dragoons sent towards them or by the spiders which seemed to have followed them as well as the 'Goons.

Orobos let off a succession of shots dropping several spiders and one of the heavily armoured guards who were focusing more of their attention on the spiders who were swarming down the gantry after them. The scuttled over the dead some stopping to make a meal out of the fresh bodies lying in their path.

There was an explosion behind Orobos and he spun around to see the burning bodies of at least thirty spiders in the now battered and blackened doors were a grenade had gone off.

He turned his attention back on the spiders following the guard and just In time too. A few of them were crawling around the boxes to the right of the squad. A trained his heavy blaster on them and shot them to pieces before they were anywhere near them.

"What are we going to do now?" Orobos shouted as more armoured guards arrived from a door with flamers.

They were moving through the seemingly endless swarm of spiders with ease as the living ones scuttled over each other to get away from the flames.

Mako pulled out his flamer and started blowing the flames at the spiders coming from behind. This let the rest of the squad concentrate on the enemies in front of them.

"Once we take car of the ones with guns we'll move," Leon said throwing a grenade over the spiders at the no fleeing guards.

"Roger,"
"Roger,"
"Copy that,"

After the quick set of confirmations the squad returned to firing blindly into the swarm pressing forth despite it's massive losses.

"Where the hell did they all come from anyway and why haven't we seen them till now?" Orobos shouted over gunfire and the screaming of those caught by the eight legged creatures.


"I don't know but we might find out if shoot a bit more!" Tanus replied over the comlink while he blasted a spider away which had climbed up Makos leg from under the crate he was taking cover behind.

"Move up to the next set of crates!" Leon shouted as the last of the heavily armed guards fell under the bursts of fire.

The squad ran up the the next set of crates which formed a square and hopped into it so that they'd provide a kind of barricade against the on-coming spiders. Once all of them were in they started firing blindly into the swarm which seemed to have surrounded them now and were attempting to get clear over the crates.

So the two squads joined up once more. Lucky's group had wandered off to quietly eliminate a camp full of enemies, but now they were back, and they brought gifts.

"That's a lot of crap you guys are hauling," said Gio over the COM. He looked at the other group and saw their sled partially full of scavenged weapons, ammo packs, and food items. He wasn't sure why his ASL was such a pack rat, but he ignored it and went on anyway.

"Well, we might need the provisions." Lucky had foresight, yes. But she was thinking about the situation in the wrong way.

"I don't intend to stay on this miserable ice rock for much longer."

He looked down at his map and tried to correlate what he saw on paper with what he saw in front of him. All he could see was the wind-swept snow clouding their vision, but providing them with much needed cover.

Riqimo's group and Lucky's group were now beginning to get back in their sleds to advance towards the next area of reconnaissance.

Giovanni gave the signal to Wicket and LegiT, and the sled sprung to life.

Snipes was laying back, looking pretty miserable. Dax and Xenos didn't seem to mind the cold as much.

"Ok doc, lead the way" Giovanni opened his COM link with his Platoon Commander.

"Alright, judging from this orbital topographical map, there's an area not too far ahead that shows an unusual looking structure at the foot of the canyons. We think it might be some kind of entrance to an underground facility, or possibly a mountain pass leading to the other side of these cliffs. Either way, we think it might lead us to the enemy."

Giovanni quietly thanked VE intelligence and slumped back in his chair.

We find this thing, we blow it up, and we go home.

Yuka, Northern continent, hostile mine/research complex
9:05:26 Mission Clock
22:23:56 local time

Dante hurled through the room, ignoring the slashes and potshots of his suprised enemies. He jumped over the steaming remains of the durasteel doorseal and landed on his feet, clutching his deece's barrel in his right hand.

As he got to his feet, Darr threw a large, spherical explosive that Dante recognized as an anti-tank mine through the remains of the door, yelling as he did so.

"Everyone back away from the door!"

The mine soared through the air, over the heads and thoraxes of the battling combatants, and landed heavily on the far wall. There it lay for three seconds, before a thrashing spider that was twitching in its dying throes touched the red motion sensor at the center of the anti-tank weapon.

There was a loud beeping noise, and Dante saw the eyes of an enemy trooper widen in combined horror and understanding. The device exploded in a cloud of superheated metal and gas, shaking the entire room and consuming the combatants, sentients and wildlife alike.

The shockwave hurled a local heavy trooper through the remains of the door-frame and into the wall opposite to that of the Raiders and Dragoons. Her armour shrieked as the hydraulics overloaded, and there was a sickeningly loud snap. Dante moved to check on the trooper and found, not to his surprise, that the impact had snapped her neck.

How many more will this war consume? How many more sentients will die because of the Rebellion's brainwashing and propoganda?

Inside the corridor, the half melted remains of the supply crates and the combatants were scattered over the floor. Here and there, there was a pop as a power cell imploded. Without warning, a cloud of dust drifted down, followed by a roar as the ceiling gave way, burying the corridor in rubble and cutting off any pursuit.

The problem is, it also cuts off the possibility of retreat...

Rizzit gestured, and the squad advanced in sombre silence, their weapons held at shoulder height.

Yuka, Northern continent, hostile mine/research complex
9:06:48 Mission Clock
22:25:18 local time

The corridors were quiet and deserted, and blaring alarms echoed through and were intensified by them. Here and there, heaps of oily scrap metal and bloodstained, web-covered armour marked where the enemy had taken a stand against the spiders, only to fall before the numerical superiority of their foe. In some corridors, there were almost enough depleted power cells to walk on, and acidic webbing covered the walls in almost all of them

Soon, the squads came to a set of blast doors, their polished surfaces gleaming. Dante was about to fire at them when Mako grabbed his arm, shaking his head as he did so. He then pointed at the right blast door, and at the ground. Dante took a second look, noting the black mark on the door, and saw the web-covered cadavers lying against the wall. In front of the larger one was an ammo-less blaster carbine, with spent cells scattered on the floor.

Looks like these poor bastards had the same idea I had…
 
As Rizzit plugged his battered and bloodstained datapad and began to slice into the security network, the squads took up a defensive formation in front of him.

It was fortunate that they had done so, as three seconds later a grating covering a ventilation shaft gave way, letting a tide of juvenile spiders fall heavily onto the floor. Not even stunned by the drop, they immediately scurried towards the squad. Spineless bodies popped and foul-smelling gas and vaporized body fluids filled the air.  As soon as the first wave had been greased, another group came down as if eager to die.

"Contact!"

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!"

"Fire, damn it, fire!"

"Someone throw a grenade!"

Dante sent blue death into the hordes, but they still kept coming. Soon there was a hiss as the power cell was depeleted. Dimly, he could hear Darr and Leon shouting, but what they said was unimportant.

What mattered was what he did, in the here and now. It was partly moments like this that kept Dante in the Corps, the rush and the thrill that came from knowing death was inches away and staring you in the face. The fun was starting to wear off, however.

All too often, Dante found his mind running over those he had killed and seen killed on missions. Now there were two new faces on that list. Turning his attention back to the battle, he dropped the deece and drew a  pair of DC-15 sidearms, which he fired into the clusters of enemies.

Legs flailed, jaws opened and closed, and the squads sent superheated blaster fire into the swarms. Several waves later, the assault finally slowed down to a trickle, then stopped.Dante used the opportunity to reload his deece and hoslter his side-arm, as well as wipe built-up alien blood and oil from his visor.

As the troopers stood there, panting from exhaustion and anticipating yet another attack, Rizzit shouted in triumph. As the officer stepped back ,the blast doors slowly slid open like the jaws of a dragon preparing to engulf its prey.

As the troopers filed in, Dante heard someone whisper a curse.

“Minions of Xendor…”

Yuka, Northern continent, hostile mine/research complex
9:10:48 Mission Clock
22:29:18 local time

Just our luck was Dante's first thought. He felt a gloved hand pull him down, and he turned to see Rizzit making a series of gestures. Dante stared for a second, then nodded. Under his helmet, his mouth had tightened into a thin line closer to rigor mortis than humor.

Heavy weapons and sniping. This should be interesting.

There was a quiet hiss as Rizzit deactivated his helmet seal and removed it. Whispering so quietly that Dante could barely hear him, he gave orders to the squads.

"You three, snipe as many as you can. Take out the hard targets such as the tank drivers and the gunners first. All of you with heavy weapons, wait for the signal to fire. After we grease as many as we can, we're going for the light walkers and speeders. They'll be our ticket out of this hellhole. Understood?"

A dozen amber lights blinked, signifying understanding.

"Get going, then."

Dante felt weak and somewhat lightheaded from relief and exhaustion.

A chance to escape, a chance to leave this underground pit, a chance to blast off from this miserable little snowball...

Rizzit gestured, and Dante let his scope drift over the scene, highlighting targets. The scope turned red as he passed it over an officer gesturing from the access hatch of an AT-ST and he gently pulled the trigger once. The man fell several meters, hands clutching his slagged chest and the burning remains of his  uniform.

One down, 139 more to go...

He fired again.

"You're barkin' up the wrong tree. We're Wraiths."

Ken looked back into the village, gritting his teeth. He switched to IR and looked for more heat sources. Nothing at wide angle, so he zoomed in a ways.

Vince performed a similar scan, then spoke up. "Ken, look by that short building on the right. Too short to be enemy, and they're not coming this way. Wait...there's an enemy next to them! Come on!"

Vince and Ken immediately dashed towards the village and the trooper in distress. In moments, the pair burst out from behind the giant. Both troopers put the enemy in their sights and opened fire. Their target had barely turned around to face them before his chest and face were perforated. As his body dropped to the ground, Alan stood and approached the two troopers.

Alan spoke first and asked, "Vince, Ken, is that you?"

"Sure is, Sarge," Ken replied. "Glad we found you."

"You're telling me," Alan said. "Let's get the hell out of here, find the rest, and figure out a strategy."

The partially reunited squad staggered themselves and withdrew quickly from the village, carefully avoiding any more confrontations with the mysterious foe. Shortly after they entered the neighboring woods, Alan stopped to give them instructions.

"I had the squad scramble out when the enemy started to overwhelm us, so the next step is getting everybody else together. Now we need Verlock, Dwarf, and Hunter. We're not splitting up to look, not with this interference in place."

Ken offered a suggestion. "What if we destroy the jammer first? Then we could hear the others easily."

Alan shook his head. "No go. Even with all the Wraiths and all the Horses, that'll be a hell of a fight. We're not going in short-handed."

Vince spoke up. "Then what's the plan, Sarge?"

Yuka, Northern continent, hostile mine/research complex
9:11:53 Mission Clock
22:30:23 local time

The once-pristine cavern's mouth was a battlefield, scattered with the debris of war. Evidently, the spiders had taken enough damage to persuade them to flee. The enemy's combat reports suggested that the remains of the mighty horde had, through pheromones, organized a massive "sentient wave" type attack aimed at the hanger. The ranking officer in the area had realized what was going to happen and had deployed mines.

However, the commander had seriously underestimated the numbers the spiders could muster, and more than two-thirds of the spineless creatures had made it across the explosive covered area. Many of the infantry had been slaughtered by the grotesque creatures within minutes, and the survivors had been forced to retreat to higher ground and throw explosives at any over-eager invertebrates.

As Dante watched, there was a scream and the sound of blaster fire as a trio of spiders climbed up the right leg of a Clone Wars-era AT-RT walker. Although two of the monstrosities fell to the rocky floor, their corpses smoking, the third made it to the top and ripped the unfortunate driver from his seat. Even from meters away, Dante could hear the dull splashing sound the man's disembodied torso made as it fell from the vehicle and was ripped to pieces.

Much closer to the exit, a pair of scout walkers and an AT-PT were firing into the crowd, sending boneless limbs flying in all directions. Unlike their decades old relatives, both designs had enclosed cockpits and were much less vunerable to boarding. Thankfully, the prospect of escape and the attacks of the walkers were ensuring the spiders did not scent the wounded and tired sentients on the ledge above them.

Mako hissed through clenched teeth in pain, and Dante saw that Orobos and Gates were moving him onto an improvised stretcher made from a military standard, olive green tarp and long, lightweight pipes. The other troopers were either watching the situation or scanning the battlefield below for signs that anyone had seen them. Mako moaned again, and started coughing.

It's a miracle he can cough at all. A direct hit from a blaster carbine...

Now that Dante looked at Mako's injuries again, he could almost swear that they looked better, as though they were healing.

Wishful thinking...

Rizzit walked back from where he had been examining the battle below and pulled his blaster pistol from its holster.

"You four..."

He pointed at three Raiders and a Dragoon.

"You support Mako and act as our rear guard. The last thing we need is to get bitten on the ass."

There were quiet chuckles among the troopers, and Dante barely repressed a small smile.

"Everyone else, follow my lead. Remember, time is of the essence."

"I think we’d better go down and take a look and find out just what is going on down there," said Alan.

"Even with just the three of us?" Ken asked.

Alan nodded. "Harder to spot three scouts than a whole squad. Besides, if we aren't gathering intel, we're useless." Alan looked at the woods across from the village, wondering what Wraith Squad would do now that they'd been split up and isolated from each other. He decided they would be fine without his assistance, so he was confident when he ordered Ken and Vince, "Spread out and head towards that building, but stay close so we can hear each other. Don't fire a shot unless you've already been spotted. Squad, move out!"

The three troopers immediately spread out on either side of their Squad Leader, keeping low to the ground and constantly scanning the horizon. Their advance was slow, but as long as everyone stayed alive, Alan was happy.

After about fifteen minutes, the squad could see the building clearly. It was large and wide, with two enormous doors. The north door began to open, and Iron Horse dropped to the ground. Alan watched the door, anxious to discover what was inside, while Ken and Vince kept an eye on the periphery.

"This is fantastic!" Alan exclaimed. "A hangar! Looks like there's more underground, too. What a great target..."

"I see something," Vince said. "A medium-sized wheeled-vehicle is approaching the hangar. Looks like a truck. I see...one driver in the front, and the back is covered up."

Alan nodded. "Good eyes, Vince. I see some vehicles already in the hangar...looks like three airspeeders, unknown type, and another one of those trucks. But I want to know what's underground..."

Ken spoke up. "The Wraiths are Spec Ops, right? With their help, I bet we could crack that nut, easy."

Alan shook his head. "That's what I was thinking. I like the idea, but there's nothing easy about it. First we'd have to *find* the Wraiths again."

“Well, Kand, Nice job, you got him.” Jenny complimented as she took some shot at the soldiers, one wild shot hitting one of the soldier’s wrist, destroying the wrist part of the armor.

“There’s still too many, we need Iron Horses’ help, where’s Arnaut?” Kand shot back too as Jenny reload her rifle with a fresh clip and a voice came from the back door, sounding distressed but excited:

“Kand, It’s me, Dixon, I saw two Iron Horses pass by, they were looking for their sarge, I don’t know where they are now, but I think they’re Vince and Ken, although I was concentrating on these advanced troopers, god, these guys are good.”

“Snipes reporting for duty, what’s up, guys. Had a little bit of enemy trouble, but I took care of it up close and personal, how’s everyone?” Snipes said seriously as he briefly saluted to the ASL, while Tnepres replyed, chuckling:

“Just peachy, we’ve just heard from Arnaut, apparently he’s alone, because we heard only his calls over the short-wave comlink. Everyone’s here though.”

A Grenade blow off near their position, blowing in a snow-covered Arnaut, yelling retreating orders in their ears as Jenny rolled from her crouching position, helmet covered in snow and it was hard to see anything. She shook it off and followed Kand to another building in this stinking village. God, why did they have to ambush us here, are they hiding something here? Maybe it’s that stinking jamming system, god….. I’m so going to kill whoever’s behind this. Jenny thought with anger as she gripped her right hand on her DC-17 rifle, the other reaching for her vibrobayonet in her belt.

“Well, guys, take a look at what I found.” A recruit’s face stared back at them as its head hanged in Arnaut’s hands and a killing wound found on his skull.

“Ouch…. that must be fatal, another goddamn….” Snipes muttered angrily, grinding his teeth like he was almost about to trim them before biting someone to death for revenge.

“Keep your cool, Snipes, we’re not here for revenge, we’re here to destroy that jamming device. Malen’s life has already been sacrificed for this, let his life not be wasted, we need to find Iron Horse and get back to base to report.”

Fire rang through the windows, shattering them in pieces as the Wraiths quickly took cover. Jenny acted on instinct, shooting the nearest enemy soldier with precision, right on the voicebox. The others stared amazed at her while she took cover, only remarking:

“It was a lucky shot.”

“Wraith……Squad….. Do you….. copy… this is……on Hor…., do you copy, serge…..Al…..” Communication crackled over the comlink in static, and the Wraiths quickly were alerted as Jenny saw Arnaut answering in kind:

“Wraith Squad, here, this is sergeant Arnaut speaking, we’re receiving your message, tell us your location, please.”

    “Data……message….”

    Jenny continued suppressing the enemy troopers as two of them flanked around to the back door. Kand quickly hand signaled Jenny and Snipes to take them out up close and it was responded in kind, as Arnaut checked his datapad messages.

    Jenny took up positions carefully near the back door as she holstered her DC-17 rifle and switched the bayonet to her right hand, the door was broken down as the two idiot troopers charged in. Jenny grabbed the one nearest her position and stuck her bayonet in the back of the neck, taking it out after the victim had its dying gasps. Although snipes literally went all out on the trooper, shooting his heavy armor’s weak spots to pieces and firing the whole clip into the poor soldiers’ joints, almost like stabbing him to death. Jenny quickly went over and stopped Snipes just as he reloaded a fresh clip and was about to continue shooting, right on the trigger finger.

    “Sorry, went a bit overboard.” Snipes apologized as Jenny saw him lower the weapon and got back to cover, firing slowly while thinking about what he did. Arnaut spoke up from his datapad:

    “They say they saw someone shooting a soldier in the larynx, they must be nearby, let’s go find them.”

    Wouldn’t it be a surprise if it was me? Jenny remarked to herself, chuckling, as she followed Kand out the building to find Iron Horse.

Orobos stepped into the room sweeping his rifle over the beds expecting enemies to jump up from behind them. Once announced cleared the moved in.

Mako was rushed to one of the beds and laid down while the rest of the squad took up positions covering the doors. Urakai set about wrapping Mako in as many bandages he could lay his hands on.

After a couple of minutes of standing guard a groan came from the other end of the room. Orobos, Garyll and Tanus moved up slowly, guns raised ready to shoot anything which made an attempt to attack.

As they moved past one of the bunks Orobos noticed a technician lying face down on the floor his hand though was scrabbling for something lying on the ground. It seemed to be a pistol. Orobos moved up and kicked the pistol away were it slid under a bed.

The technician groaned again and rolled over. There was a large red patch on white lab coat. One hand clutched his gut as the other one still searched for the pistol.

"Can you hear us?" Tanus asked the man who hadn't seemed to notice them walking over.

"huh?" the man said opening his eyes. After a quick glance at them he shut them tight and curled up into a ball.

"no no no no..........." he moaned as Tanus bent down.

"What's going on down here?" Tanus asked the man. But he carried on his chant of no oblivious to them. After a couple of attempts of communication Tanus grabbed the mans jacket and lifted him up putting his helmet right up to his face.

"Answer me!" he shouted at the man who looked terrified into the black visors on the helmet. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he went limp.

"Em... is he dead?" Orobos asked as Tanus let him fall to the floor."

"No he's still breathing."

"Should we take him with us or leave him here?"

"Leave him," Leon said walking towards the door, "we don't have time for prisoners, especially civilians."

Rogueboy looked around the medic bay; there was a couple of enemy wounded lying on the bunks, three bacta tanks with two of them currently in use, as well as a handful of medical staff a few of them had been injured by the shootout none too seriously. The Raiders assistant squad leader let his A280 hang by the strap that went around his neck, currently the squad was relaxing and healing up as best they could and Rogue found it an opportune time to check his rifle for damage. Pulling out a kit from his pack he dismantled his rifle and began cleaning it careful not to scratch the lens of the scope that he added at a two thousand Imperial Credits cost that he had to pay from his own pocket. However in the long run it was worth paying for your own equipment at times as you can get the choice of what you want to use and to have it especially crafted for yourself.

Rizzit came and sat next to Rogueboy. “We need to get in touch with the base and let them know what we’ve learned about the enemy and to let the other troops know about the spiders. Problem is the ISD Dominion is jamming all frequencies planet side so we won’t be able to use any of our standard gear. Basically we need to get the hell out of here and back to base, dump our wounded, rearm, regroup, and plan an effective means of combat.”

This sounded good to Rogueboy who only wanted a hot cup of caf to keep the cold away. “If there’s a medic bay there’s got to be some vehicles nearby, right?” Rogue did not wait for an answer but continued. “We can commandeer these vehicles and get back to base in without having to necessarily further injure our wounded.”

Rizzit smiled. “That’s why I promoted you to ASL.” He quickly gathered Darr and Leon together and outlined the plan. First they would need to find the vehicles, they have some living prisoners who have the information they needed. It didn’t take long to extract the information out of the terrified medical crew a simple question, a simple answer, and the squads were once again on the move. The vehicles were located in a hangar above the crust of the planet, and one of the technicians was oh so kind as to have the key attached to his uniform. The hangar was accessible via tubelift or a staircase; the squad took the tubelift in order to not strain their wounded.

The transport vehicles were hovercrafts with a wide back that could seat four men with another lying on a stretcher in between. There were two vehicles and one stretcher was thrown out of it as the squads divided themselves, Rogueboy was driving one vehicle with Orobos as his passenger, and Rogue was unsure of which troops were in the back. Together the two squads and Rizzit headed back towards the base of operations.

Yuka, Northern continent
en-route to VE base/command center
09:24:01 Mission Clock
22:42:31 local time


The whining from the hovercraft’s engines almost drowned out the wind and the shouts of the enemy troopers. As the pair of troop transports soared from the carefully hanger and fell several meters to the fields of ice below, beams of red light whizzed through the air and alarms began to blare. As searchlights began to sweep the darkened plains, the vehicles began to accelerate in an attempt to put as much distance between themselves and the enemy mine as possible. Suddenly, about three meters of ice in front of Dante’s hovercraft vaporized in a ground-shaking explosion.

“What in Xendor’s name was that?”

Rizzit replied with a slight edge in his voice.

“Mortars of some kind. We’ve got to take it out.”

As Dante watched another ball of blue energy soared through the air in a graceful arc and impacted on the ground, vaporizing a patch of ice and charring the barren ground and lichens below it. The squads opened fire on the mortars from their seats, but the small arms fire was too far away and spread too thinly to be effective. Dante was on the brink of despair when Rizzit’s voice sounded through the inter-squad com.

“I’ve managed to bring the vehicle’s weapons systems online. Take that damned artillery out ASAP.”

There was a chime and the control systems for a turret mounted between the two rows of seats came to life. Tentatively, Dante touched a circular red button, and the weapon hummed as it powered up. There was a deafening explosion as another shot from the network of mortars landed, this time much closer. His HUD emitted a chime, and a targeting reticule appeared on it as it connected with the weapon’s targeting systems. Dante aimed and fired as soon as the indicator turned red.

The trio of guided missiles left trails of greasy black smoke behind them as they hommed in on their target. The troopers standing on the platform saw them coming, and filled the air with blaster cannon fire. One spiraled down, its shell penetrated and guidance systems reduced to scrap,  and exploded on the icy plain many meters below to cheers from the gunners.

The other rockets, however, managed to evade the fire and blew the enemy mortars to pieces, sending fragments of metal and flesh in all direction. Plumes of black smoke drifted into the crisp and otherwise pristine air as the hovercrafts vanished from view and made a beeline for the base.