Twelves minutes later, the rumble of engines surrounded Marcus on all sides, his lungs feeling hollow inside his chest as he breathed in the thin air of the high altitude.

He stood within the recesses of a Vampire-class stealth-bomber - a flat, broad and sleek-looking aircraft - as it shot through the coal-black skies of Sirtha Prime, its wings slicing through the clouds like a pair of knives through mist. Equipped with an internal emission sink to cloak its engine's heat emissions, and its body purposefully designed to reflect radar waves, it was near-invisible unless seen with the naked eye.

Perfect for an illegal crossing into highly dangerous enemy territory when your entire nation was on the brink of war.

Marcus didn't mean to sound cynical. I mean, he was about to take Jenn and Arjun into a building they didn't know the layout of, trying to avoid detection by an enemy they didn't fully understand, and trying to locate an alien that they didn't even know was still alive...

But this was what Orbital Commandos were trained to do. When dropping behind enemy lines or diving into the thick of combat, you didn't always know everything. And as was well-known, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.

In the thick of the fight, you had to trust your gut, follow your instincts and do what your active mind thought was best. And after doing that for years meant that Marcus was still here. So he wasn't worried about what they would face.

And judging by the gait that Major Gideon walked around the vessel with, and by the blank, unflinching expression on his face, he wasn't worried either.

What worried Marcus was what would happen if they themselves were captured.

As a sigh escaped his mouth, he looked down at himself, wincing slightly as he shifted his leg in his seated position. The Panther suit clung to his skin with annoying, prickling stickiness, as if it were trying to dig needle-like claws into his flesh. It wasn't painful or constricting, and in most of his body, which was covered up by a skin-tight shirt and trousers, it wasn't an issue. But around his neck, wrists and his gloves hands was where he felt it the most.

Other than that, to his surprise, the suit's elastic-like material fit him perfectly. And the specialised stealth grav-thruster pack that was hung from his shoulders and hugged against his spine barely weighed anything at all.

Of course, that was part of the plan. A slow, silent fall, using the thruster packs to slow themselves down and guide their invisible into Fireheart Sanctuary.

There was a slight beep behind Marcus, and he turned to see that it was coming from the cockpit.

"It's official, Major." the pilot said. "We've crossed the borderline. We're in Xan-Klar territory. Twenty-five klicks to the sanctuary. ETA - one minute."

It wasn't Major Winter who replied, however. Instead it was Gideon, who stood behind the pilot, eyeing the radar and ladar scanners like a hawk watching its prey.

"Good." he said tersely. "Mark the evac point. After we've left the sanctuary, I'll signal you to collect us."

As he overheard this, images flashed before Marcus, and as the words died down, they were replaced by distant, echoing sounds.

Screams of agony, cut off by the whirring on machinery and the rattle of gunfire.

The last time he did a drop into enemy territory over this planet, he was in the company of the forty best soldiers he knew. And not all of them came back.

This time... there were only four of them.

As he sat in his thoughts, he felt a shadow loom over him. And when he titled his head backwards, he saw Gideon looming over him.

"One minute to drop, Major," he said, maintaining his blank expression as his grey eyes gleamed like sharpened knives. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." Marcus' reply came out in an exhausted, weary tone as he lifted his gaze. Glancing to the left, he saw Jenn and Arjun also preparing themselves. They stood a fair distance from him and Gideon, on the other side of a recess in the floor of the ship that led down to to a long, narrow panel painted in the darkest of blacks.

Instead of being in a dedicated dropship, like Phoenix Transorbital craft that SOSC troops usually jumped from, they were hanging around the bombing mechanism that lay in the back of the Vampire. Normally, this place would be filled to the brim with all sorts of robust mechanical parts, all actively aiding an enormous ammo feeder that would normally lay out a deluge of bombs to be dropped at the flick of a switch through two long, narrow openings in the floor, currently covered up by black-painted panels like the one he mentioned earlier.

However, for this mission, those machines had purposefully been removed, as no bombs were to be dropped. The openings would still part their covers, and when they did, the four of them would jump. The gaps in the floor were just about wide enough to fit a person through... provided their grav-jets didn't snag on the edges and break.

Shaking his head, Marcus continued to look over at Jenn. Unlike him, she wasn't hanging her head, burdened by having his leadership questioned by high command. Instead, she looked s she always did - brave beyond description and ready for a fight.

Meanwhile, Arjun was nowhere to be seen... at first. But then, as Marcus watched, a field of air in the shape of a man suddenly shimmered and shifted, the colours of rich, chocolate brown skin, night-black hair, the white of his eyes and the translucent grey of his suit all suddenly flaring back into existence. Where there had once been empty space, there was now the loyal Sitan Liuetenant who had been with Marcus from the beginning.

After practising with his Panther suit, Arjun reached to down the tight-fitting neckline of the garment and gripped something tightly. There was a glint of light on metal, and what the Orbital Commando was holding onto soon became revealed - dog tags.

Two of them, to be precise. One marked with Arjun's name, and the other one marked with the name of a dear friend on comrade. To all of the 5th Company, no doubt, but to Arjun in particular. And as the dark-skinned man looked at them, his face fell, and then he gazed at the heavens before quietly speaking to himself.

"This one's for you, Ichiro..." Marcus lip-read his gut-wrenching words.

The Lieutenant then reluctantly put the tags and their chains aside - both because that was standard procedure, and because no identification could be on their person for this mission, in case they were captured. As Arjun did this, Jennifer approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder, her expression showing the earnest desire to lift her comrade's spirits.

Marcus watched Jennifer with a forlorn smile. Again, she was always there...

"Are you sure about coming, Major?" Gideon's voice sliced through the void that the lack of speech seemed to leave in the room.

Turning his head again, Marcus saw Gideon standing over him once again. And as he was questioned once more on whether he was fit for combat, the Horusan's patience faltered, and the couth shield of politeness that society expected him to hold fell from his hands and crumpled to the floor.

"With all due respect, Major..." Marcus replied, a steady tide of emotion loosing from his gut. "I know the people of my unit better than you do. They trust me, and if I'm there, they'll fight better. As Idriah herself said, we can't afford for this mission to fail..."

His words came straight from the heart, making his displeasure at being considered unfit for duty clear as cut glass. "Also, I've lost more than enough of my company already. If I am to put any more of their lives at risk, I want to be there for them. I'll do whatever I can to help them, and if needs must, save them."

Gideon's facial expression was unmoved by Marcus' statement, and his reply came quick and clean, his words bearing a strong sense of dismissal and apathy. Not so much that it was obvious he didn't care, but just present enough that Marcus could tell.

"Suit yourself."

And he said no more. All he did was reach over and hand Marcus the weapon he would be using on this mission - a pistol, which he dropped nonchalantly into Major Winter's palm.

Gripping the handle, Marcus lifted the firearm up and examined it. It was small and compact, with a square central body, curved handle and a long barrel protruding from the front, made even longer by the attached suppressor. Semi-automatic, the ammo sat in a magazine plugged in at the bottom of the gun, feeding into where the magnetic coils inside would launch the projectile whenever the trigger was pulled.

But the ammo wasn't bullets, or plasma capsules, or shotgun shells.

Instead, it was darts. Long, thin, needle-sharp darts attached to a see-through capsule. Inside, a gelatinous, green-tinted glint gleamed out, the florescent colour beaming straight into Marcus' eye socket.

Tranquiliser.

"Are you sure this stuff is going to work?" a voice asked. But it wasn't Marcus. It was Jennifer, calling out to Gideon from across the room as she held up one of the darts.

Gideon turned to look at her, instantly knowing was she was referring to. "There's enough high-potency tranquiliser in each of those darts to knock out a gorilla," he replied. "It'll do the job, so long as you aim for thin clothing or exposed skin. Eyes, faces... you know the drill."

Jenn took other look at the dart in her hand, her face one of the unconvinced variety. However, at the end of it all, she did slip the piece of ammunition back into its magazine. Then, with a solid click, she slapped it into the pistol.

"ETA 20 seconds." The pilot called out from the cockpit. And as he did so, Marcus, Jenn, Arjun and Gideon assembled, standing together, side-by-side with their pistols sheathed at their waists and their backpacks ready to fire up.

Taking a deep breath, Marcus looked down at his hand and thought to himself briefly. But that thought was all that was needed.

One moment, he was perfectly visible. The next, he felt an electronic buzz course close to his skin through the wires of the suit, making his arm-hairs twitch beneath the fabric for the barest of seconds. Then, as he continued to look at his hand, he saw himself fade from existence.

He was totally invisible until he pulled down the visor of the suit's in-built helmet. As he folded the clean piece of plastic compound over his face, the edges of his hand and arm, along with the rest of his body, were highlighted in a thin sheen of pale blue that danced across his form like spectral moonlight.

So that he could see himself, not have to rely entirely on proprioception to interact with the world.

If Marcus were in a better mood, he would have joked that he looked like a ghost. But right now, he had to focus. Because becoming a ghost was exactly what he wanted to avoid...