With his goodbyes said, Marcus strode towards the rear of the craft, carrying his helmet in one hand and his M-28 SMG in the other, grenades and other gear swinging side-to-side on his person as he walked. Despite wearing a full-body suit of edurium plating and titanium-coated tri-weave fibres, worn down even more by power cells in the back, wrists and thighs, Marcus could walk around with ease. The Wyvern Assault Armour moved as he did, its pistons and inner workings shifting in accordance with his actions. However, he still felt the weight and durability of the construct as he walked, its frame seeming to push against him for a split-second before obeying his commands. A strange sensation, but one he had grown accustomed to through his years as a Commando, and a reminder of the power this suit of armour could grant to any man who wore it.

As he approached his position at the head of the company, he set his weapon aside again and, with both hands, pulled his helmet over his head. The coating of thin fabric helped to cushion its interior, but just as with the armour, he could still feel the edurium construction as it pressed in against his temples and snapped tight around his neck.

As he pulled it all the way down, a faceplate and mouthpiece pressed against his skin, enclosing everything between his nose and jaw in an insulating barrier. A rushing of air then blasted into his teeth, chilling and numbing them as his oxygen store opened up.

The helmet was visorless for now, allowing him to see the world around him as normal... but that would soon change.

Marcus took his place beside his CO; at the head of the company. The two platoons stood separate from each other, ready to divide and conquer what they were about to go up against. In Marcus' team was Jennifer, Ferro, Arjun and a few others. All of them he knew well, and all of them he was ready to lead.

"Orbital Commandos!" Kleber stated proudly, his voice travelling through the comms array and rendering him audible even though his mouth was covered. "This is it. We all stand amidst the Galactic League's final push to defeat the Sirthon Republic... and we are the spearhead. We are the first strike that will take down the enemy defences and cripple these alien scum for good!" He brandished his arm and pointed downwards, towards where Kenostros would be, before raising his fist to his heart. "The hopes of uncounted billions ride with us, here and now. The entire Human Union of Worlds looks to us in their hour of need! Do you hear me?!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" A soldier's chorus barked in reply.

"Are you ready to throw yourself into this fiery abyss to defend the future of our nation and our species?!"

"Sir, yes, sir!" The chorus repeated.

"Is anything going to stop us or stand in our way?!"

"Sir, no, sir!"

A pause filled the air as Kleber lifted his SMG, holding it aloft like a victory banner. "Outstanding, boys and girls!" he said shouted confidently before barking an order. "Close visors!"

Immediately, everyone's free hands shot for the sides of their helmets. Marcus did the same, and as his gloved finger pressed into a small scanner, his vision was blocked by the helmet's visor snapping down over his eyes.

For a half-second, everything was dark. But then, a digital display reading 'Activating visual feed' flashed before him in green letters, and then, as the light receptors in his helmet fired up, the sight of the 5th Company lined up before him inside the Phoenix revealed itself, accompanied by a green head's-up display detailing his oxygen supply, thrust fuel and the status of all his suit's various systems.

All of them read green. The picture before him clear as day.

"All systems nominal?" Kleber asked aloud. He was met with a mass lifting of 'ok' hand signals, registering the troop's replies. "Alright, Commandos, initiate neural uplink."

All as one, the two platoons members braced their feet against the floor and reached down towards their wrists, fingers hovering over another switch. Marcus did much the same, but as he reached down towards it, he glimpsed a small red light flashing in the top-right corner of his head-up display.

Next to it was a small line of text which read 'Neural Implant Uplink Offline'. The Major saw it, and yet he calmly paid it no mind. Pushing the button on his wrist would rectify that.

Pressing the simple switch in, the red light turned yellow, the text dissolving into code. Marcus' neck jerked upright as brief jolt filled his head, spreading outwards from the top of his skull. All of a sudden, he felt a powerful force rise up from within his back, while a blazing blue glow radiated from behind him. His wrists and ankles began to shudder, the power cells within firing up to full force. However, they didn't jet just yet.

The neural uplink light turned green. With but a simple thought, Marcus made the jets on his back begin to fire up, his torso suddenly feeling lighter as the plasma energy ramped up, almost lifting him off the ground.

Everything was good to go, and just in time. Beside him, Kleber turned his gaze to Marcus and nodded.

Marcus nodded back before raising his voice "Pilot, open the hatch!" he shouted into his helmet.
"Aye, sir." A reply came instantly. Another heavy clank of metal sounded as the bay door lever was pulled. A howling gale suddenly blasted indoors, shrieking and screaming outside Marcus' helmet, which struggled to quieten the background noise. "Give 'em hell, Major!" The pilot shouted over comms, the Phoenix descending deeper into the atmosphere over the dropzone.

"You bet we will!" Kleber called back, barely heard over the sounds outside.

Marcus cricked his neck and rolled his shoulders. The fate of entire worlds would now be decided in the coming minutes. Whether death and victory awaited, he did not know.

"For the Union!" Kleber cried out.

"For the Union!" the company echoed.

And then, as a team, they charged forward and flung themselves outwards, diving down onto Sirtha Prime. All at once, their jetpacks fired up, propelling the Orbital Commandos into the stratosphere like a hail of flaming meteors.

Marcus' neck was tilted back as he soared down from above, his gaze fixed on the planet below. Falling at incredible speed, his armour's neckpiece locked up to keep the increasing air pressure from snapping his spine. A mechanical plate also slid up in front of his face, it's shaping deflecting the brutally powerful air flow around his head as the popping of sonic booms filled his ears.

He could still see, however. More visual sensors inside this plate fed directly into his helmet, allowing him to view the world clearly even with his face protected.

As he descended from 150,000 feet, the increasing air resistance thrashed at his body, trying to shove him off course and out of formation. Even fixed in place, his helmet shuddered, and he felt the plasteel turn warm against his shoulders and arms as adiabatic compression from Sirtha Prime's atmosphere heated up his armour's exterior. His HUD flared red warnings that showed his armour heating up as he dropped from above; a clear indicator that he was going too fast.

That heat brought on a second-nature reaction in Marcus' brain, and as it did, he felt the upward thrusters in his armour fire up, gradually reducing the speed of his descent. As he slowed, he felt his organs rise up in his chest, pressing into his ribcage and filling his throat with bile.

90,000 feet. The Captain's eyes then glanced at his radar in the bottom-right corner of his HUD. Thirty-nine blips registered in his vicinity, keeping in a rigid formation as the company dropped from the sky. The sight of Major Kleber barely scraped the left side of his vision, but no-one else was visible. The rest of the team followed in their leader's slipstreams.

The Orbital Commandos fell further and further, faster and faster, speeding at a downwards angle and piercing through Sirtha Prime's atmosphere like a knife through warm butter. As they dropped to 30,000 feet, they soon came across a thick, grey blanket of clouds, netting out like a quilt beneath a crimson-coloured sky. Approaching this barrier, Marcus leant backwards, his jets and stabilisers allowing him to level off his descent. Flicking his gaze to the left, he saw Kleber do the same, blue streams of energy blasting from his back and flickering off his knees and elbows as he angled himself upright.

That sight then disappeared as he passed through the clouds, his companion transforming into a flickering silhouette that could only be glimpsed through the planet's overcast sky. It was only for a moment, though. Soon they passed through the clouds and into Sirtha Prime's lower atmosphere, the world below visible at last.

But there was no beauty to be seen here. Instead they were greeted by a sight of all-out carnage. A battlefield studded with deep craters and the blazing wrecks of burning vehicles. The walls of Kenostros, Sirtha Prime's capital, were still standing strong, their cracked and weathered construction bristling with weaponry. Zooming in through his sensors, Marcus could see Sirthon troops manning the defences, taking aim with their blasters or controlling the vast anti-air and anti-ground defences that fired great gouts of plasma that passed straight through the air, pulverising tanks and vaporising flesh in an instant.

Outside the wall, it was a bloodbath. The blackened marshland was coated red, green and white as the blood of every species poured from the fallen bodies. Union tanks and heavy weapon squads, along with Viruun battle walkers, surrounded Kenostros on all sides, their hulls scarred with hideous burn marks while bursts of plasma or solid-slug explosives thundered from their barrels to provide fire support for the advancing troops.

The troops in question, foot-slogging through the swamps, were mostly humans, distinguished by their khaki-brown uniforms and by the bulky plasma rifles they carried. Some were Nalyr, but they were few and far between, with a couple of scattered squads taking cover in sodden bunkers and mould-infested trenches. Viruun infantry were nowhere to be seen, most likely attending to the vast long-range artillery batteries behind the lines.

The Kropen, meanwhile, were the easiest to spot. Their Bloodchargers, towering nine feet high, were clad in full suits of hefty plate armour, painted a garish red that made them easy to see amidst the smoke and scorched earth. With their guns mounted on their wrists, the great beasts still fired up at the wall, bellowing ferociously through their speaker-grills in voices that shook the earth.

Just then, another sound caught Marcus' ear. Multiple rhythmic explosions blasted out behind Marcus and the 5th company, punctuated by the rapid clanking of metal on metal, as if some great machine gun was firing down on the planet from above.

Zooming his vision back out, Marcus threw his gaze to the right, his eyes wrenching around inside their sockets as he tried to look back up at the dropships. Just after the Orbital Commandos had jumped, the escort craft surrounding the Phoenixes had released multiple falling objects of their own. Small mechanical devices, roughly the size of a human's leg, shaped like almonds and made of a glinting metal whose milk-white surface seemed to ripple as the air rushed past. These robotic constructs, roughly one hundred in number, fell through the sky at the same speed as the Orbital Commandos, powering themselves into position amongst the company's formation with eerie precision, all moving at exactly the same time..

High-tech protector drones. Courtesy of the Viruun Technocracy.

Marcus' heartbeat quickened, his fingers clenching by his sides. He hoped those things worked as intended, or they would all be goners.

"Full speed, Commandos!" Kleber's voice filled the Captain's ears, his helmet's radio crackling sharply as they flew amidst the cloudy sky. "We're entering their anti-air's targeting range, and those drones won't last forever!"

"Here comes the thunder, you Sirthon shit-suckers!" Ferro's voice roared belligerently as he taunted the enemy far below them.

The sound of throttling plasma jets grew louder, a tingle shooting up Marcus' spine as several shadows drew closer above him. With but a thought, he felt the air press hard against his body harder than ever, his shoulders being dragged back as he accelerated downwards, his organs and blood seeming to pool in the lower regions of his body.

But he kept his gaze locked on the cityscape, watching as it grew larger and larger, closer and closer. As the company descended, tower-mounted turrets suddenly angled up towards them, their barrels glinting like evil eyes in the crimson sunlight.

"Anti-air's noticed us!" Jennifer yelled out in warning.
"Evasive manoeuvres!" Kleber responded. "Marcus, take your platoon and head for your generator! First platoon, follow me!"
Marcus couldn't nod, but he registered his orders. "Copy that, Major" he replied in an even tone. "Second platoon, swing right!"

The blips on the radar showed the company splitting apart, half of them peeling away to the left as Kleber soared off. As they approached 10,000 feet, a rapid barrage of thundering gunshots peppered the air, hurling a deluge of heavy rounds up towards the Commandos.

Marcus' radar flashed red as three anti-air rounds rocketed straight towards him. However, before he could even react, or before the rounds could strike him, one of the Viruun drones blasted in front of his flight path, a sonic boom rocketing across its liquid body as it did so. As it neared the rounds, its shape suddenly changed. The rounded machine suddenly bubbled out, shifting its shape in the blink of an eye until it was flat as a pancake and wide as a roundabout.

It did this just in the nick of time, for the rounds launched at Marcus were growing ever closer. Swerving to his left, Marcus watched at the drone suddenly slowed, its wide frame catching the anti-air projectiles like a shield blocking arrows. Three explosions all shook the air like thunder, and the drone burned away, but Marcus himself was unharmed.

Relief racking his body as he tried to breath, Marcus refocused himself. He locked his gaze on the towering skyscrapers and shouted an order into his helmet.

"Full speed ahead, people! Get below the skyline and follow me to the generator!"

The words 'Copy that' echoed inside his helmet as a storm of more explosions blasted all around him. The Viruun drones continued to do as they were programmed - speed forward to catch the anti-air rounds, sacrificing themselves to protect the humans. Proximity-detonator rounds and tracking rockets all sped towards the Orbital Commandos in a spectacular firestorm that would shred any close air support in seconds. Without the drones' assistance, they would all be dead.

This array of defences was what they had to shut down by attacking the generators. So the Galactic League could bring in its bombers and assist the infantry below. Then they could take this city and win the war.