Chapter 8

It should've been boring, watching the roiling green fog break against the windows, but it had captivated Li since they had entered it hours ago. Even with the impending danger of the planetary mission, the mesmerizing patterns on the window combined with the low rumble of breaking atmosphere was almost soothing. His squadmates were on their screens or restlessly trying to sit still; the atmosphere in the room was too tense for the normal chattering.

Not sure what all the fuss is about, Li thought as he watched the fog through drooping eyes, nothing's been able to challenge us yet, why do you all think this'll be anything different? He let the hum of the ground pod's engine lull him in time with the slow rocking of the craft, watching the green fog billow and puff.

"Looks like that's it, we're through. About ready to touchdown. Aimee, sound off to the air team." The Captain's voice broke the silence and woke Li with a start. Finally ... let's get this started, get some action going already! Despite the tone of his thoughts, Li's stomach jumped.

"Ground team to satflyer, come in satflyer," Li smiled at Aimee's voice as he blinked the sleep from his eyes. So professional, so on top of things, he thought approvingly. With Aimee on the comms there wasn't much for the rest of them to do. In theory they would be checking their gear one last time, but the squad had been far too nervous, they'd done final check an hour ago. Li settled back down and waited, hands folded behind his head.

"This is satflyer team," Li didn't miss the tension that left the Captain's shoulders when Julia's voice crackled back over the comms. She's thoroughly freaked out about this planetary, he observed, bad experience? Or is she still not as confident in us as she should be? He mused as Julia continued; "We've just broke fog as well, ground team. We're activating thrusters now, slowing our descent. We should be in position at one hundred meters exactly by the time you set down."

Li's gaze travelled around the room, taking in the attitudes of his squadmates. Jackson was calm and collected as usual; Li had never seen him rattled in their entire time at the Academy. He vaguely wondered what went on beneath that large dark brow that kept him so collected at all times. Missy was twitchy, of course, her leg shaking up and down and her fingers nervously tapping a pattern onto her readysuit. Li returned his gaze to Aimee, looking her up and down. She looks good in that getup, he noted, watching the armored pieces shift against each other silently as she reached out to tune the communications, in her element, confident, mature. Hot.

"Copy that satflyer, we'll set down in less than a minute," Aimee noticed Li watching her, and stuck out her tongue at him. Li grinned in response. Alright, in her element, confident and hot. Three out of four ain't bad.

The landing was entirely automated, and smooth enough that the jostle didn't even knock the squaddies off their feet. Li was almost disappointed. Captain Appet stood and joined Aimee, helping her at the large control panel. It was really made up of several control panels arranged in a ring that took up much of the ground pod's single room. The rest of the squaddies stood, stretching, glancing out of the small and sturdy window.

"Alright Rooks," the Captain said, a rare smile gracing her face, "I didn't mention it before, but there is a little treat to planetary runs." She flicked the comm switch open again, "satflyer, can you give me readings on the fog? Confirm we are in safe atmosphere?"

"Yes ma'am Captain..." Without any technological interference Marcus' voice was crystal clear over the comms, "there's a lot of information here ... give us one second to ... yes, we can confirm, you are in breathable space."

"Excellent," Captain Appet smiled, and input routines from her station. With a hum, the panels that made up the four walls of the pod slowly lifted, sliding up and locking to form a huge overhang, leaving the room open and exposed to the surface of the planet.

It was almost too much for Li to take in all at once, and in his peripheral vision he vaguely registered his squadmates similarly stunned, dropping their various equipment and gaping; even unflapable Jackson's mouth had fallen open.

"It's so ... green," Li stammered, "so green and so bright."

"All of their light is generated naturally by the star," the Captain was looking around her, hands on hips, the faint smile still on her face.

"Do you smell that? It smells like perfume!" Missy was breathing deeply; Li hadn't noticed until she mentioned it.

"The flora that grows on the surface gives off those scents naturally," Captain Appet explained.

"I don't like it," Li decided, "it's weird ... there are too many colors all over the place. And do you feel that air? Feels like I've got my face stuck up against a vent."

"Wind. Naturally occurring differences in pressure drag the air in currents all along the planet's surface."

"Get a grip, Li," Aimee snapped. It was clear she was enjoying the colors, the smell, the air that slipped quietly by, "I think it's beautiful."

"Hard to look at," Li grumbled, "I'd much rather work with the walls down and locked into place."

"That's too bad," Captain Appet had suddenly returned to her normal businesslike demeanor, "the walls don't cut the drone's range by much, but every bit helps."

Her clipped tone pushed the squad into action again. Missy and Jackson pulled four heavy drones from their protective cases, adjusting antenna and feeding in volatile power cells. Li flicked a few switches, and in the center of the ring of controls a holographic display slowly hummed to life. When he was satisfied with the clarity, he moved back and forth between the drones and the ring, linking the drones and hooking them up to stream holographic data to their pod. Li glanced over to see Aimee slightly pale, fingers drumming lightly and nervously on the controls. Cold feet already? Come on Aimes, you're better than that.

"It's just like the drones back home," Li reassured her aloud.

"'cept now I don't have your tongue distracting me," Aimee shot back with a smile, quietly enough that only he could hear. Li grinned and activated the setup. Don't know why everyone's all quivery. This is fun. The drones buzzed, crackled, and lifted from the ground. Missy and Jackson backed away hastily as small arcs of electricity slid across their sleek back surfaces.

"They look evil," Missy muttered, "like little dangerous flying creatures."

"Good," Li said decisively, letting his fingers slide across his controllers without thinking about it, "they give us Drakes, about time we give them something to be afraid of."

One of the drones moved in perfect response to Li's commands, making a slow circuit around the room. A holographic representation of the room and the squaddies within appeared in the center of the pod, accurate to scale, filled in with the data from Li's drone. The other drones sprang to life as his squadmates joined him at the wide control panel, booting up their own drones.

"They've got our preferences keyed in already," Li grunted appreciatively. His drone moved tentatively out of the overhanging lifted walls, into the sunlight that lit the clearing where their pod had landed. Missy and Jackson were splitting their attention between the drones, the holographic display, and their controls. Beginner's mistake. You've gotta learn to key the controls without looking, and tune everything else out. Huh... Li mused, Aimee and I must've learned more than I thought during our little private training sessions. The drones belonging to the two of them had already moved into the trees and out of sight of the pod. Handling a single drone was laughably easy to Li when he was used to controlling five of them while 'distracted' by Aimee.

"Keep together you four," Captain Appet cautioned, "Li and Aimee slow it down, Jackson, Missy, a little faster please. Air team," she spoke into the comm console she was sitting at, "start talking. We should be getting a pretty steady stream of info, anything you think could help."

"Roger that captain," Tess spoke clearly, obviously the spokesperson for the air team. Her voice was overly official, but Li liked that. Good for everything to sound official, on an important mission like this.

"Marcus has pinpointed the target, definitely artificial buildings about a hundred kilometers west of where you touched down..." Li only half listened to the conversation between the captain and the air team. His drone was behind Aimee's, and as long as she was listening he could just follow her. The time passed, uneventful and somehow incredibly relaxing. The surface of the planet was so warm, and despite himself Li was starting to enjoy the wafts of warmed currents that brushed past his face, even though they felt odd. He was so comfortable with the drones that barely had to focus on controlling them, instead letting himself get caught up in the scenery that they were streaming back to the table.

The trees are the unnerving thing, he decided. Alive but not conscious, similar to flowers but huge, thick, gnarled. The unevenness of the ground was utterly unfamiliar, the few bumps and inclines were the only things that occasionally made him have to focus on his drone. The sharp sudden movements of birds and small mammals was distracting and startling. Jackson almost opened fire on the first one he saw, but the Captain barked a warning and they let the creature pass unharmed. An hour passed by and Li barely noticed.

"You're about three kilometers out ground team," Tess's voice sounded excited, "we've got signs of activity in the buildings but we can't pin down exactly what they're doing, so go in prepared to start fighting. Alex says give 'em hell."

"Tess," the Captain barked, slammed her fist onto the communication button so hard that Li jumped, "Alex is NOT supposed to be on the scanners! I said two people on weapons, TWO!" She actually shouted the last word into the comm. Li had never heard the Captain so much as raise her voice before. Just how rattled is she right now?

"We have Alex and Preston on the weapons Captain, she just yelled that comment from the gun station," Tess sounded a little more uncertain, but she kept up her professional demeanor, "Marcus is covering heat sensors, Julia is handling topography, I'm monitoring the area surrounding your pod and providing communications. Alex and Preston haven't stopped watching the skies since you've left Captain."

"I ... I'm sorry," Captain Appet stammered, "um ... carry on."

The squaddies exchanged glances over their controls. Li was sure the same question was passing through all of their minds, but he put a voice to it.

"Everything okay Captain?" He tried to keep his voice casual, avoiding her gaze by staring intently at the holographic display.

"Yes. I'm sorry," Captain Appet was speaking more like a squadmate than a captain, and somehow that rattled Li even more than her yelling had, "we've been really lucky so far, no attacks, no nothing. We've been on the ground for what, an hour? Hour and a half? Planetary runs rarely get that lucky. It makes me nervous."

"Maybe we're just that good ... they don't want to fuck with Captain Appet's A squad," Li tried to cheer her up with humor, and was rewarded with a half-smile from the Captain.

"Such a fucking stupid name," she muttered, still smiling.

"If it makes you feel any better captain," Tess' voice broke in through the comms, "I've got all sensors up and tuned, and I'm not seeing any life around your pod. Well, I see birds, but nothing that might be threatening."

"Birds?" Li was surprised, "You're sweeping at that fine of a resolution?"

"You may be handy on the drones, hotshot, but Julia and I have scanning down to an art form," Tess' voice was even and confident. After a short pause, the comms clicked on again, "Marcus would like it to be known that he too has scanning down to an art form."

Li chuckled, his foot tapping impatiently on the metal floor of the pod. About five minutes before contact. Five minutes away from my first Terran firefight. Kickass.

"This is excellent," Aimee's nerves had apparently settled, she too seemed excited at her controls, "at this rate we're going to have the smoothest planetary run the academy has ever seen." Captain Appet sucked in a breath through her teeth at the same time that Tess groaned on the comms,

"Aaaw squadpet, why'd you have to go and say that?" Li grinned at the use of Aimee's hated unofficial call-sign. "You realize that now you've jinxed us, we're going to have the worst luck, or some outlandish and horrible fre-"

Tess' voice cut out. The lights along the paneling cut out. The holographic display flickered and faded, throwing off just enough display to show the drones lowering to the forest floor before the holograph died. Li blinked, unsure of what to do as the light from the controls beneath his hands faded.

"W-what..." He stammered, pressing and tapping on the blank screen. The Captain was already moving, yanking out the emergency comms from beneath one of the control panels.

"What's going on? The fuel cells should've been good for another twenty four hours shouldn't they?" Li moved forward to help with the generator, but Missy and Aimee were already at the Captain's side, connecting leads and adjusting cables.

"Should've. Clearly aren't," the Captain snapped tersley, "it's got to be some sort of attack. We lose power, it cuts our communications and our drone control. That's too much of an advantage for me to assume it's a coincidence." Li drew his pistol and peered up the hills that surrounded them, his squadmates doing the same. Behind them the emergency comm hummed to life, instantly filled with static. The Captain was speaking almost at the same time,

"Air team come in, are you all right? Air team come in."

"This is the air team, we read you," Tess' voice was hard to hear through the miserable connection, but it was clear enough that they could make out her words, "are you okay? We read a massive power spike and now nothing..."