The landing had been planned for months. The details finalised, in as much as any battle plan could be, for weeks. And yet, when the time came for the troops to assemble for the drop, there was chaos. The different detachments rushed all across their transports, trying to get organised in their drop bays. Well. Most of them did. Those forces known as the Clans, scattered across the fleet, were ready. And had been, for hours. Standing, fully equipped, gear stowed, in perfect formation in their bays. Not a sound did they utter from the moment other units began rushing in until all were assembled.
Every bay seemed to have representatives of all of the Clans present. The tall, slender Akh’Pietr, acquiline of feature, with their hair-like feathers, taloned nails, and creamy eyes. The lithe, powerful Fey’Liada, with their shaggy manes, and almost furred skins patterned in yellows, and oranges and browns and blacks. Rank on rank of the lean and rangy Khan’Dayle, grey haired or red, yellow-eyed, with an almost feral look stood next to rows of the short, powerful Khar’Khar’Dun and the lighter, perpetually cheery Udun’Khitai , both hairless, with strange waxy skin, sunken ears, and the former with black, soulless eyes. Even full regiments of the stocky, massive Ursk’Eyna, lazy eyes peering through mats of unkempt brown hair.
To Flight-Captain Gyre, Sergeant-At-Arms of the Khor’Veed sept of Akh’Pietr, the other confederation troops were an undisciplined mob as they rushed into the bay. He had been standing in his rank, at the head of his flight, since an hour before the notional ‘dawn’ maintained on board the transport. An unruly lot, the Confederation forces, in his opinion. Take for example, this infantry squad rushing in. Their uniforms were a mess, rumpled, crumpled, seals undone. They had no semblance of a formation, their gear was all out of order. Every man and woman of the Clans had been in uniform and had all their gear packed, to the degree that only a Clan NCO would have found issue, afore they even thought of leaving their quarters.
And as for the accomadations. Absolutely disgraceful. Most Confederation troops were bunked not more than four to a room. And that same room on a Clan transport would house at least a dozen, with no furniture bar a footlocker for each warrior. But then again, Clansfolk were at once closer and far more distant than any pureblooded human, that was for certain. A consequence of how the Clans had come about. But there was no further time for his woolgathering. His head snapped back around as the Confederation commander appeared projected on the bay doors. He was making some sort of speech about the rightness of their cause, and how what they were doing was in the defence of Mankind. No Clanner would ever take anything like that at face value, not after what they had been put through in the name of ‘right’.
He knew why he was where he was, and it was nothing to do with causes or right. No, he was Clansfolk. He fought for pay, and the joy in battle, and his sword-kin, both those sworn, and those unmet. And above all, he fought because he was a Clansman, born to battle, bred to the defence of the Clan. Finally, the speech was ending. The image of the Confederation officer faded, and immediately, orders sounded. From his commander, a roar of “SLIP THE JESSES” had every one of his warriors loosing raptorine shrieks of approval, as they swung their kitbags onto their shoulders and rushed to their positions. For Gyre, that was his beloved strikefighter, his key to the flight his blood forced him to lust for, but that his form denied him.
At the same moment, Fey’Liada commanders were crying “LOOSE COLLARS!” and Khan’Dayle officers were calling “OFF LEAD!” With much the same response. The Ursk’Eyna strike-leaders settled for bellowed “MOVE!”s, whilst those who lead the Khar’Khar’Dun and Udun’Khitai contingents settled for toothy grins, and beckoning their men forward. It was almost a full minute after the Clan forces were in motion that the rest of the Confederation officers belatedly gave the orders for their men to take their places, and by that point Gyre had already flung his bag in behind his chair and vaulted into his fighter. A toggle of a switch and the first layer of cockpit shielding dropped down, surrounding him in blackness. He could hear the next layer sliding in its rails, as his cockpit began to fill with the inertial gel that would help counter the gravitational stress he would undoubtedly be feeling shortly.
It took a lot of getting used to, slowly being covered in the gel, having it seal up around your mouth, your eyes and your nose. Tiny tendrils of nano-machines fed themselves through his pores, linking to his nervous system, and suddenly, he was no longer surrounded by darkness. All around him he could see the bay, hear what was going on. His strike fighters sensors fed directly into his neural cortex. He could see to the far reaches of the spectrum, he heard each of the various com systems in common use. He could feel his surroundings, the pressure of the bays atmosphere, the slightest traces of motion in the air. He quivered with the urge to take wing, as it were, but forced himself to wait.
He ran a diagnostic on his weapons systems, the twin missile tubes, the lone energy torpedo launcher, the anti-fighter beam packs. The Laser Anti-Missile System, Chaff launchers, decoys, ECM, everything. It was all in working order, as well it should be. Like every Clansman, he took extremely good care of his own gear. Contented that everything was in order, he checked on his flight. Everyone came back, informing him of their preparedness, their impatience to leave. Impatient Ack’Pietr pilots are bad, so he arranged a distraction. A thought triggered a brief scrambled transmission, which, when translated from digital code to thought wave to audio would appear as little more than screeches and shrieks. The Akh’Pietr tongue. And on those orders his flight began plotting targeting solutions on every target in the bay.
Fortuneately, the bulk of the pilots were Akh’Pietr, who were busy doing the same thing. And the rest were Confederation pilots who were still coming online when the bay doors began to open, and every Akh’Pietr pilot found his attention riveted on the void, and the glowing orb silhouetted against the blackness. He measured the opening gap minutely, willing himself to lift from his cradle, anti-grav floating him high enough to be clear of it. As soon as his fighter was able to clear the slowly receding walls, he accelerated, his cry of pleasure resounding throughout the ether, answered by his flight. This was what they lived for, the Akh’Pietr.
Behind him, he could feel the emissions from the shuttles and dropships that would ferry the troops down to the surface. He oriented himself, tracking the center of the gravity well as down, and stooped towards the fighters rising to meet him from the surface. Scores of them rose, hundreds, and he grinned, wrenching around into wild, seemingly random corkscrews, as they began to throw fire at him. Missiles looped past him, erupting in his wake, and he activated his countermeasures. The LAMS began to spit back, invisible to the naked eye, but glowing rainbow flashes to his heightened senses. And then he was amongst them. He suddenly flipped all his thrusters in conflicting directions, and flipped a hundred-eighty degrees.
Skidding backwards, he was staring at the vulnerable drive-fields of his foes. The tiniest nudges of his manouevering thrusters shifted his nose enough that the bolts of radiation from his beam cannon were able to shred multiple targets, afore he began to accelerate again, never holding the same course for more than milliseconds at a time. Behind him, his flight were doing much the same, and the expanding balls of radiant plasma that marked their successes were marked by high screechs of triumph. As suddenly as they had dove in, they leapt back towards their transports. As they did, each of them wobbled slightly, scattering a field of ions behind them, screening their movements. It seemed an eternity afore they whipped back around, and this time the broad heavy wedges of assault shuttles, and the great, blocky dropships accompanied them, the little knifelike fighters weaving around them in complicated patterns.
The last of the defending fighters scattered before this onslaught, and down below, on the planet, the defence centers began their final preparations. Cannons were readied. Not the huge anti-orbital cannons, that could crack a warship in two, were it in a close orbit, but the lighter anti-craft guns, restricted to targets in atmosphere, but capable of felling even the sturdiest of dropships. Troops that had spent weeks on high alert rushed to their weapons, and their posts. Prayers were uttered, charms grasped firmly, men gazed skywards with fearful eyes. Sensors scanned the heavens, selecting targets, locking them in, following them until they entered range.
And all of this had been expected. The attack plan had accounted for the casualties that would, inevitably be caused by the defenders, but Gyre had a plan. Every craft in the first wave had an Akh’Pietr pilot, and none but the Akh’Pietr could understand their tongue. His shrieking, screeching orders shrilled from craft to craft as they drew nigh to the atmosphere. Targets were locked. At the last moment, every fighter under his command let loose with everything they had. On a patch of empty space, right on the boundary of the atmosphere. As soon as the ordnance was away, they looped round, cutting out their sensor feeds, blinding themselves, and with good cause. For mere seconds a blaze lit the sky of their target like an artificial sun. Sensors were burned out, every system lost its target lock, and then, before anything could recover, the Ack’Pietr came diving through that blazing inferno like the birds of prey they resembled, like the hawks and falcons and eagles they purported to be born of.
Shimmering energy fields extended from the sides of the strikefighters, granting them the aerofoils they would require to manoeuver in air. The Assault Shuttles and Dropships had been designed with such activity in mind as a regular thing, and so had no need of such aids. They settled to the ground, and began to disgorge their loads of power armoured warriors and heavy vehicles, as the fighters streaked overhead, raining fiery death on fixed emplacements. Pulling up, his weapons spent, Gyre gazed down on the field below, marked by the flashes of heavy weapons, already cratered from the opening barrages. Today had been a good day, he thought, wheeling round. A good day indeed.
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