Chapter 49: Crucible of the Immortal (1)
A 400 meter long maglev train zooms across the desert close to the speed of sound, it's pure white and smooth surface contrasted the red sandstone wasteland as it few about half a meter above the ground powered by magnetic levitation. The last 2 train cars were different from the others, instead of white and reflective with large windows they were pure black and closed off, covered in alien block like writhing, reading: Military transport, property of combined ops orbital drop troopers. Inside the military train cars were completely dark, and densely packed with inative drones in storage pods. The pods were glass like, with metal reinforcements clearly showing the factory fresh drones suspended in a see-through gel like substance for later transport off world, they were of a brand new type, made to survive atmospheric reentry without assistance being mostly covered in ablative armor tiles. In the civilian car closest restricted military cars was a economy class, packed full of families and long range commuters. They all sat in pairs of 6, two rows of seats surrounding a single large table with closets for luggage above them, 4 tables in 2 by 2 cubes were layered in two stories, with a lounge every few 'cubes' containing a small bar and a cafe in every train car that housed about a hundred people. One of the compartments were a special kind of awkward, on one side were quiet pair with a 5 year old girl in between them, on the other side was a orbital marine in full military dress, currently cleaning a high caliber handgun with extreme care.
The marine had gotten on the train about 2 hours ago when the train had stopped completely unannounced in the middle of the red desert and had hooked on some unknown cargo to the rear. He had gotten on without a word, and for the first hour he had just sat on the opposite side of the table in silence and looked out at the endless red deseret, but suddenly he took out his pistol. Quickly extracting the chambered round he then removed the magazine and then extracted the rounds from the magazine, and then lined them up all the rounds up in a neat pattern in front of him. After lining up the rounds he then started disassembling the pistol, removing the slide and extracting the action he further disassembled that with the help of a small tool bag he suddenly had from somewhere, and quickly ended up with a slew of small mechanical parts arranged in some unknown symmetrical and oddly pleasant pattern. Having finished up disassembling the handgun the marine took of his white insigmaless peaked cap, revealing his short cut dark hair underneath. After also loosening his tie slightly and unbuttoning a single button on the shirt below he took out a small handkerchief with a small sigh and started polishing the small metal parts, a task he was still busy with after one and a half hours.
"Mom what is he doing?"
"Shh Amy!"
"It's okay ma'am I'm not that easily distracted, I must have done this about a million times by now so I know this gun pretty much by heart."
Proving his point the marine looked up from his work and gave the child a warm smile while he still continued to work polishing the gunparts. After a hour he finally finished up and put the handgun back together. When he looked up he noticed that the star had long since set, and the people around him had all converted their seating to beds and went to sleep. Designing that he didn't really need to sleep, the marine went down to the bar that was manned by a automated drone, quickly looking over the selection the marine ordered.
"Rum #3, neat"
Passing his military id over a glowing spot on the bar, the marine was served a pure golden rum that he quickly tasted and then downed.
"Rum #3, neat. Make it a double"
Once more ordering some rum the marine was served a larger glass of rum that he slowly enjoyed. Taking out his bayonet the marine started examining it closely, then he wielded it in a normal grip, then rapidly switched to a reverse grip.
"Way too slow.."
Switching between reverse and normal grip rapidly as his newly installed artificial arm started glitching the marine increased in speed, seemingly trying to be faster than some unknown goal, but all of a sudden he was covered in a exo suit and he found himself on a lunar surface.
["2-4, contact rear, 5 o'clock 10 meters!"]
Reacting to the callout the marine rapidly turned around in low in the low gravity while kicking up moon dust, turning and then pouncing forward while drawing his bayonet he saw an enemy soldier trying to steady his aim on him in the low gravity. Combat in extremely low gravity looks more like a slow motion acrobatic dance than a fight to the death, still shackled by gravity but not enough to make high speed maneuvers the combatants are forced to move slowly and nearly hug the ground as to not accidentally expose themselves in the air to be killed by rifle fire. Firearms are not the optimal solution ín extremely low gravity however, as the high recoil proves problematic unless specialized equipment is used.
"Too slow!"
Managing to close the range before the enemy brought his rifle to bare on him, the marine switched his bayonet to a reverse grip and slashed the throat of the hostile soldier, making blood crystals spray out due to the large pressure and temperature difference.
"Hostile eliminated."
Giving out a almost machinelike callout, the marine sheathed his bayonet and checked the surroundings, before jumping back to his original position where he picked up a high caliber rifle he had dropped earlier.
"2-4 operational again and on station, ready for targets with REX-144-3."
REX-144-3 Custom
A design of necessity as the Galactic Empire was rushed into a war with mostly obsolete weapons, the Rex-144-3 custom is a design combining many elements from earlier designs to make a long range rifle to use in low or no grav environments. The Rex 144-3 is 2 and a half a meters long and relatively thin high caliber smart rifle with a dull black shine that interfaces with standart Empire marine exo suits, allowing it to fire even if the person manning it can't physically press the trigger due to the exo suit. Purpose Built for low grav deployment the 144 dash 3 custom has a series of recoil canceling cold gas thrusters mounted at its center of mass, allowing for deployment of extremely heavy laser guided smart rounds.
["2-4 this is central, heavy counter battery still present, making ship class precision artillery impossible. Unit 4 is having some problems with a armored exoskeleton, orient to heading 155 and ready for immediate firemission."]
"2-4 rogers, standby"
As the marines helmet lit up with a compass and data from the high caliber rifle he wonder how a group of rebelling farmers could afford such heavy equipment.
"2-4 to command, ready for firemission, recoil system engaged, standing by for target data."
["Central copies, unit 4 lasing target, standby for firemission"]
"Confirmed, 2-4 going hot, ready for target at heading 155."
Having confirmed that the rifle was ready for fire, the marine lit up the recoil control system and waited for final target data as the rifle was locked to its current orientation by a series of cold gas thrusters
["2-4 firemission confirmed, target is hot, send 1."]
"This is 2-4, sending 1 times 159 mm AD-LBD HEAT. Firing now."
Squeezing the inside of his exo suit the rifle covered the marine's surroundings in exhaust gas and kicked up moondust as it fired a single high caliber anti tank smart round.
"1 outgoing, telemetry good, confirm satellite handshake."
Watching the round quickly moving towards the horizon, the marine confirmed operation of it as he spotted multiple small attitude control thrusters on the round light up.
["Targeting satellite handover confirmed, 10 seconds to final guidance…. 2-4 firemission going terminal.. Target down. Good work 2-4, relocate and reset"]
"Can't sleep?"
Suddenly finding himself back on the train, the marine was startled out of his memories as a woman called out to him.
"Marines sleep when they're dead, didn't you know that?"
"Ara, that's true."
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"Sure~ I'll have what your drinking."
"Okay then, can I get another number #3 rum neat."
Once more ordering a drink, the marine passed it to his conversation partner as the glass cracked when his new artificial arm glitched.
"Shit, sorry. Let me get you a new-"
"You know what, I'm good."
(Fuck..)
As his hand kept glitching he put down the cracked glass he felt enraged over his lack of control he was forced to remember the mistakes that let him to lose the arm in the first place.
"A invasion with actual feet on the ground sir?"
"That's right. The Gemini system is quite problematic, especially Gemini 5. The planet is not really that noteworthy, being a pretty average type 2 rocky world with breathable atmosphere but some kind of anomaly emerged while the Irongate industrial tried to mine the core."
Bringing up a hologram, the marine and other officers floated closer to an AR projector in the briefing room.
"The problem is the magnetic field, after the failed mining attempt the planet was abandoned as a the field increased to a extreme magnitude, making high bandwidth communication from orbit to the surface and large scale drone control impossible. This is where you guys come in. We will land a tactical class control drone control and command cruiser inside the disruption field barrier that forms in the upper atmosphere and use it to bounce commands around the planet."
"Inside the planet's atmosphere!?"
"Wait, land a tactical class drone command center on a hostile planet!?"
The reason for the marines displeasure was the current doctrine of war. Tactical class drone command centers are among the largest ships one can find in the Empires navy, but does almost universally lack anything more than the most basic defenses with most of the outer hull dedicated to communication equipment as they were usually surrounded by tight defensive formations by escort ships. Sending such a ship anywhere near a hostile planet would normally be a insane suggestion, let alone landing one on a enemy planet.
"I know it would normally be out of the question, but the new lancer class is both smaller and more nimble than previous ships. Plus it's able to land planetside without assistance."
Smaller, as the commander called it was a relative statement. As the Rex command and control ship Lancer was still over half a kilometer long and multiple hundreds of meters wide.
"Why don't we just ignore the system altogether? It's barely inside Irongate space and as you said, mostly abandoned. Wouldn't it be better to just block off the system and starve the defenders?"
"We simply can't do that. Irongate seemed to have planned for this war for a while, and have turned the planet with a natural barrier against invaders into a independent and self sufficient fortress and garrisoned a navy deep inside the planet."
"So we can't simply blockade or bombard it, nor send in drones?"
"Exactly, a full and manned assault is needed to secure LZ for the Lancer. Now I know this is a shit job, but we need to do it. Break out your squads and make sure your will is written, we jump and deploy in 1 hour, I need you marines in transports at that point!"
"SIR, YES SIR!"
Leaving the briefing room the marine hurriedly made his way to the assault hangar were he quickly located his group, consisting of some 50 rangers stood in front of 6 landing craft with their occupying pilots.
"On me!"
Instead of standing in front of the marines the officer went into the middle of them as they formed a circle around him and awaited his next words.
"I'll do all you shiney's a favor and cut the shit up front, this is the worst job possible. We're doing a manned invasion of a heavy fortified planet, and this unit is first wave, not the tinheads. As if that wasn't enough of a fucking shitfest we're guarding the eggheads in their shiny new ship as it's gonna land after us. Any questions?"
"SIR!"
"Yes, sargent Jacob?"
"SIR! permission to speak freely sir!"
"Granted."
"Lieutenant are you taking a piss?"
"Sadly not sargent. Now I know all off you shiney's are brand new off the academy and eager to do some hurt, but the mission is in the end to survive and lose that shine so you all get to shout at your own recuts at some point. This will not be as they taught you at the academy! Some of you will die even before even making it planetside! But I will do my utmost to make sure that is a few as possible! To that end I've taken the liberty of slightly restructuring the jump profile, are you guys with me!?"
"""""SIR, YES SIR!"""""
"Now time for the fun part. Break up and eqip zero G maneuver gear and remember to wear your vests and diapers, we're doing a open planetfall! This ship jumps in 56 minutes, get ready!"
With the briefing concluded the marine grunts split up and went to get their equipment, and as engineers bolted cold gas maneuver thrusters and thermal tiles to their already bulky deployment exo suits some of them started to wonder what they were doing.
"Why do we need thermal tiles?"
The marine gunts question to the engineer made him stop for a second before a grin appeared on his face.
"He did tell you to bring a diaper right?"
"Yeah?"
"That's because your going a 'open' jump. You might not have covered it at the academy, a open is jumping with the landing craft, not inside them."
"What the fuck!?"
"Yeah those Qitons come up with some insane stuff huh? I really hope you brought your diaper."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Gamma420
Gamma420 Thanks for reading, feedback is always welcome :D
Next one is Friday, hope to see you then.
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