Sphereberrant: Rules of War Part 1

The strains of Londenium revival flow rock thundered through the helicopters infantry compartment as it zoomed across the jungle. Pane checked the action on her armour's shoulder mounting for the fifth time, running another diagnostic check and then wiggling the arm a bit to make sure it had good play before slotting her payload gun back into it, then glanced up at the other helicopter two hundred meters off to the right to check her helmets range finder against the helicopter's sensor systems. Everything matched up fine.

Her helmet automatically switched down the music as the pilot spoke up ahead "Three minutes."

"Three minutes!" Pane relayed to the rest of the crew "Everyone set?"

Each of the other rangers in the cabin checked her gear one last time then gave a thumbs up. The group were heavily laden, hefting backpacks almost as large as they were, along with their payload rifles and armour, but nobody seemed to be struggling. Pane was a little worried about the new signals officer, Tan-Xuan, a blue. The woman had passed selection, but Pane worried how she'd do in the jungle. In her experience Blues had limited endurance, though Tan-Xuan seemed eager to prove herself.

"Hey Lt!" Liya, one of the platoon's point walker pair spoke up. Even among rangers, point was an elite position, so you could forgive a few oddities "We've got a betting pool going on what the fuck it was that sent that signal. Reiko over here thinks it'll be some Violets trying to steal extranet. The Sergeant she thinks core special forces, I recon posthumans. You want to place a bet?"

Pane smirked a bit "I'll go with core infiltrators for ten."

"Phew! Long odds sir." Sergeant Jan spoke up next to her.

"Yeah, but if we do end up in a fight with the SAS at least I win the bet right?" The ready light came on in Pane's helmet "Alright, Liya, Rain, this is your stop!" The two point walkers rose. They were far less loaded than the rest, carrying only their personal weapons and webbing. The rest of the squad split the point team's heavier stuff between their own backpacks so they could stay stealthy. The helicopter's speed dropped to a near hover, and the two dropped out of the sides on the already down smart ropes on the side, the lines stretching under the weight to allow them all the way to the ground. The pair landing on the jungle floor before the helicopter sprinted away again. It had been pulling sprint/hovers for a while now as part of its search pattern, so another one shouldn't be too noticeable to any watchers.

A status update burst told her both pairs had inserted successfully.

A moment later the other chopper dropped its point walkers and then both headed off towards the primary LZ. "Stand!" Sergeant Jan yelled as the helicopter began to drop low, then "on the ropes! Go go!" The rangers grabbed on and slid down, Pane was first out on her side a small portion of the rope's heat transmitting to her hands through the armour's nervous system as she slid down and bent her legs to absorb the force of the impact, moving forward to her position at the side of the dispersion with practiced ease. The two squad's four gun drones had dropped first, sliding down on their spider webs from the helicopter's storage areas and deploying to cover the rangers as they deployed.

The last ranger dropped down and ran forward to her position. Pane pressed the status update button on her arm consol, updating command and the platoon's other two squads (White) that her element (Grey) had reached the ground. The element formed up into platoon column and moved into the woods. A moment later she received the same status update from White. Landing was perhaps the most dangerous part of the operation, as they were using a pre-existing clearing. If there was going to be an ambush, that would have been the most logical, and nastiest, place for it. Now all they needed to do was march across the twenty miles separating them from whatever had sent the metric disrupting signal that command was so concerned about. It should take about five hours. The rangers deployed their drones and began to move into the forest.

Pane just hoped Tan-Xuan could keep up the pace. "Hey Tan-Xuan." The blue looked over at her "You've got a hard lock on the satellite?" Pane told herself she was questioning because the newbie was a newbie, not because of her caste, which would be foolish.

There was faint irritation in the private's voice "Yes sir. The tight beam is locked onto Sat-9-Alpha-Bravo as its primary, Sat-11-Alpha-Bravo as its secondary, tertiary links at the high altitude UAVs above us. I'm also pulling in data from those and from the orbital collectors to your minimap."

"Right. Carry on Private." Pane turned away, feeling slightly ashamed of herself and the march begun.

Several Hours Later

Liya moved through the bushes slowly, careful not to shake them unduly. It was difficult to move like this, and still more difficult to do so quickly enough that, even with the head start, the element you were moving ahead of didn't run into you. She was crawling, staying low, drones (the new kind that could move in these conditions) fanning out before her. She'd been moving this way for over two hours, almost invisible in the forest gloom due to her careful movements and the stealth systems built into her armour.

Her partner, Rain, was about a hundred meters off to her left. "Elysium-One-Green-One, this is Green-two, over."

"Green-one, send."

"The sniffer on my lead drone has a chemical trace. Uh, it's human blood over."

"Copy. Move up and confirm, I'll flank left, maintain dispersion, break, Elysium-One-Six, this is Elysium-One-Green-One, over."

"One-Six copies."

"One-Six be advised, we have possible human chemical trace. Moving to investigate now." Liya unslung her payload gun and began to move forward, flanking around to the left as her own drones got the scent, then moving forward cautiously, sending one drone high and one low. The high drone saw it first, and Liya took an involuntary deep breath.

"Uh, One-six, this is uh, Green-One. Move up to our position over. You're going to want to see this."

Ten minutes later, Pane looked around the clearing under the canopy and shook her head, mouth dry. She took a long drink of water, trying to keep her gorge down. Behind her, the platoon's first squad fanned out, weapons pointed at the jungle, perhaps for comfort as much as anything. The clearing was full of corpses.

This had been a band of violet nomads by the look of it. The collapsed tent showed they'd made camp. Various ruined equipment and several hunting weapons were strewn around, along with corpses. A lot of corpses. There were at least twenty bodies here, glistening in the rainforest wet. Liya was kneeling by one of the largest tents. "This was a medical station." She pointed at the seal flaps "See, air sealed for causalities." The door whispered aside, over the corpse of a woman in two pieces, revealing more bodies, torn apart, and shattered medical equipment.

She knelt by the corpse at the door "It doesn't make much sense though. There's some bodies just torn apart, some shot in the head." The point walker gestured "Over there, three entire families, knelt down and shot in the back of the head. Kids too."

"That one doesn't look like a bullet wound." Pane looked down at the body in the doorway.

"No, I think maybe scavengers got at some of these." Pane could see Liya didn't believe it through her helmet "They're torn up like... like a shark was in here." She ran a hand across her head "We're in the middle of fucking beta continent though."

"There's big animals on Beta too... it was probably scavengers. Whatever happened this is a whole new game. Get moving, we'll give you your head start while I contact command."

"Roger that." Liya headed off to collect the other two point walkers as Pane tried to think how to report this all to command.

She turned and beaconed Tan-Xuan. The private trotted up, seeming still energetic, though her eyes looked tired. "I need to punch video of this through to command. What's the likelihood of signal scatter from the canopy?"

"Minimal sir." Tan-Xuan looked around "If there was some it'd be very short distance, however, if you wish to be truely secure I can easily have a drone run an antenna up one of the trees."

"Alright, do it." Pane waited until the antenna was in position then knelt and opened the video tight link "Dawn, this is Elysium-One-Six over." She took a deep breath "Reporting civilian causalities."