[All Personnel are advised, that the first round of drops to the Rae 3 Construction Zone will begin in precisely 6 hours.] The announcement startled almost everyone who was still awake and off duty.
None of them intended to be awake at this particular hour, as it didn’t fit with the schedule of either school of thought relating to Drop Preparations. One group maintained that dropping in the middle of your shift was best, so you could finalize any issues before the drop and have the soldiers awake long enough to establish their base of operations. The second, which Max preferred, was to sleep late and begin his shift an hour before the drop so that the unit was fresh and had more energy for whatever was waiting for them on the surface.
The second group made up most of the first wave forces, and those used to being on the front line, who understood that setting up a base is no easy feat when you are the first forces on the ground.
So, Max and the First Battalion mostly didn’t hear that announcement, and woke up four hours later, rushing their morning schedules to get to their Mecha and do a final readiness check before they were loaded into the Landers.
The landers were going to be crammed today, as they always were for a Heavy Mecha Company drop, and it would take some time to get them loaded and balanced. Not only was it the first time these mecha patterns would be dropped into combat, but it was also the first time a crew had loaded them for an actual drop.
Virtual Reality gave the crew confidence in their methods though, and the units were quickly loaded. The only strange part that Max found was that even when all units reported ready, his lander was basically empty, with only his Mecha, Major Miller, one more X109 Fast Attack Mecha, and most of the unit’s spare parts and raw materials loaded into the hold.
It was a strange arrangement, but looking through the data that Nico had pulled up, the Battalion Command Mecha couldn’t go in with a regular Company, the two Super Heavy Mecha together with a Heavy Mecha Wing would put the Lander overweight.
The creatures on the planet weren’t expected to have any anti-Lander capabilities, since the flying creatures weren’t strong enough to damage the Landers themselves, so in theory, the drop was going to be low risk, with Max and his Command Lander dropping last into the middle of the pattern formed by the rest of his Battalion.
Once they had that accomplished, they would establish a base camp, and begin to spread out and eliminate all hostile life forms in the area.
Max had seen the population data, and sending Super Heavy Mecha here was pure overkill. The most dangerous native inhabitant was an eight-meter-tall ape. There were many creatures that were deadly to humans, and a reasonable number that could challenge Line Mecha or Corvettes, but ones that could challenge a Heavy mecha were few and far between.
“Pants on you lazy fethers, gogogo. You have five minutes to get to your Mecha.” Nico was shouting in the hallway, making the Pilots laugh. Until that very moment, this felt like a training assignment to most of them, low risk and controlled, but that shouting felt so much like home that it reminded them that this too was a battlefield.
Boots started jogging down the hallways since everyone was nearly ready anyhow, and First Battalion quickly assembled around their Company Commanders for their final orders.
They weren’t fresh recruits from some backwater planet, these were all experienced soldiers, so the process was smooth and painless, getting everyone loaded and ready a full hour before their scheduled drop even before the transition from faster than light back to standard speeds.
[ALERT ALERT. Klem Incursion has been detected on Rae 5. All Troops will be diverted to defend the Empire against the alien incursion.]
Rae 5 was a binary star system only five light years from Rae 3, a difference of under fifteen minutes at full velocity, but suddenly the ship was decelerating, sending a lot of unprepared troops stumbling, while the Pilots of the First Battalion were securely locked into their seats.
[Our approach vector was set to take us past Rae 5 on the way to our destination, they must have done an emergency translation to get us in position faster once the threat was identified.] Nico informed the Battalion, settling frayed nerves, and getting the hangar staff back on track.
The Klem populated worlds by pods shot into space from their organic vessels, much like deadly data probes that grew into enormous monsters in a matter of hours. Rae 5 had no intelligent life, and nothing that was a threat to humans, but it had a lot of plant life, and that is what the Klem invasion was after.
They only attacked two types of worlds. Those with a lot of biomass, and those with an extreme threat. Their space-faring vessels harvested the rest of the resources their species needed to survive by ingesting small asteroids.
[So much for a relaxing working vacation. Get your game faces on everyone. Company Commanders, find out who in your unit has fought these evil insects before and form a new battle plan before we drop. The pattern will be the same, but after that, we will have to adjust to the situation on the ground.] Max ordered.
They didn’t have enough information yet. Max didn’t even know if the infestation had taken hold or if the pods were on their way to the planet. If they hadn’t landed yet, things would be easier. They didn’t hatch until they had cooled down and after that, they needed to eat to gain strength before they were a real threat. If they were already entrenched on the planet, it would be a nightmare to dig them out.
[Updtated Drop times are ready. The first wave drops in eighteen minutes.] Sergeant Fritz called from the hangar, and Max prepared himself for the very worst.