Chapter 4

Ben did not have such a good time the next day, awoken at two o'clock in the morning by a bellowing klaxon that pounded its annoying sound into his ear. Red lights were flashing all around him, people scrambling into uniforms, and a general feel of chaos everywhere. He quickly jumped up from his bed, practically hopping into his uniform and armor. He ran at a full out sprint to reach the training area he was in yesterday, which also served as a gathering point for the base's several thousand soldiers.

He hurried into his position in the line of warriors, waiting for whatever orders they were about to be given. While waiting, he satisfied his boredom by gazing at the massive Ghaleran vessel that stood behind the base, the very same one he had come aboard to receive his energy treatment. He still couldn't believe the immensity of the thing; it seemed to form a horizon in and of itself, larger than life, so to speak. It was a little over half the size of the ship that hit Ben's town... and suddenly noticing the similarities between it and this ship (Liodammian and Ghaleran design were very similar), he looked away from the offensive object. His eyes next focused on the Ghaleran that stepped up the podium at the front of the field.

The Ghalerans still frightened him somewhat, just from their height. The average Ghaleran height was about three meters tall, well over the height of any human male that Ben had even seen. Another thing that sort of frightened him about them was how they spoke- they used their minds to communicate in some sort of universal language. You could always understand what they meant when they said something, although you had no idea what language they were speaking... and everything was within your head. Having a voice bouncing around your cranium is not the most usual of experiences. It freaked Ben out a little bit.

The unusual bouncing cranium voice came to him, from the Ghaleran at the podium. He convulsed against his will, the voice sending a chill down his spine. What was truly amazing was that he sounded like he was speaking directly to him, even though he could see from everyone else's reactions that that was obviously not the case.

The Ghaleran began speaking. "Soldiers, Warriors, officers... our first major battle is about to begin. The Liodammian forces are closing in quickly. Within hours they will be at your city of Chicago, which is only thirty or so kilometers from this base. If they succeed in subduing that city, they will have won a major checkpoint on this continent. We cannot let that happen. We have no time to formulate grandiose strategies, so this battle will be a pretty simple, although deadly, event. We are going to deploy one hundred Warriors along with one thousand support soldiers in the transports. The transports will be the artillery, and there will be no backup forces. You must succeed. I wish you luck."

A roar of talk broke out among the soldiers and Warriors, all wondering who would be the ones to enter the battle, and who would remain behind to watch over the base. Ben sincerely hoped his squadron would be deployed, as he sorely wanted to get some payback for what the Liodammians took from him.

"Okay, ladies and gents, let's get a move on it!" Morrison shouted over the crowd, guiding the members of Dragon Squadron towards the "landing platforms" (abandoned highways) beside the Ghaleran landing ship. The landing platforms currently contained over fifty transports.

As they cleared the last pockets of the crowd, Ben caught up to Lieutenant Morrison, to ask her a question.

"Ma'am," he began, "I didn't get a chance to ask you previously if there were any openings for pilots that were Warriors. I have a lot of training- I wanted to join the Exploration Forces after High School. I'm fully rated to fly standard troop support transports, as my record will show."

"Good," she responded. "I was hoping one of you guys would be able to pilot a transport. The IDL wants its best pilots in HKs, so we get the bottom of the barrel pilots. You can fly Dragon Transport. There will be two other units flying with us, both Warrior units as well, but the transport is ours- we rated high enough in training that we earned a Commanding Squadron position. Largely because of you, I might add."

Ben nodded, blushing slightly, and ran up the ramp to the transport with a massive blue dragon emblazoned onto its hull. He loved the look of the transports; they were boxed shaped, with only slightly rounded off cockpits, with massive engines on its wings and tail end. The mid-section carried the supplies and troops, protected by a solid grey metal armor. To most people it looked like the ugliest thing in the world. To Ben, it was something with enough firepower to blast away a few of those damned machines and Liodammians.

He found the cockpit to be in much better order than the look of the transport itself. The control systems were state-of-the-art, glowing LCD screens and touch screen controls. He was also pleased to find that it used a flight stick instead of direct computer input- he preferred the feeling of the flight stick to that of pushing buttons. It let you make yourself one with the craft, to let yourself feel every vibration and jolt that passed through it. The engineers said that the direct computer inputs were more ergonomic, but Ben didn't care- he'd take the feeling that he was physically moving the craft by pushing and struggling with the flight stick, over the feeling that he was operating a computer console with rockets strapped to it, any time the choice was offered to him.

Within minutes, they received the order to take-off, everyone else already onboard. He quickly punched the anti-gravs, the shuttle shooting towards the sky at fifty kilometers per hour instantly. The speed increased very rapidly, only the restraining webbing keeping them all from smashing against the ceiling.

Ben punched the thrusters, the transport sailing forward with fifty-four others, at nearly MACH 2. The speed was quite un-necessary, however, as Chicago was only a little under forty kilometers from their starting point.

Ben landed the transport hard against the ground; there was no time for a soft landing, as missiles were coming in from all over, and six transports had already blossomed into flame. He set the transport to auto-defense mode, and scampered out with the rest of his squad, knowing that a vehicle full of various propellants and ammunition was no the best place to be in the middle of a firefight.

He caught his first view of one of the Liodammian war machines upon his departure from the transport. The machine was huge- over fifty meters tall. Massive amounts of plasma flew from cannons on its wrists, physically hurling transports twenty feet into the air. The transports quickly responded, the machine collapsing to the ground amidst a hail of missile fire.