The Terran Confederate Space Force Naval vessel Crazy Nick Cage shuddered as it fought with over a dozen Precursor vessels at a range of less than a mile. Its guns were on rapid-fire, even the point defense systems raking enemy ships, battlescreens snarling against each other for only a few moments before the massive troop ship TCSFN Crazy Nick Cage's screens overwhelmed the Precursor's inferior screens and collapsed them, allowing the Cage's weapons to rake the enemy.

Private Kelvak, Bravo Company, 28th Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Regiment, 2nd Telkan Marine Division, waved at his friend Ralvex as he ducked through the door leading to the armor pods, Ralvex heading for 2nd Regiment. He rushed forward, climbing into his suit and pressing his face against the kinetic shock padding around the faceplate. Left foot, right foot into the calves and onto the stirrups, arms into the sleeves. The armor hissed quietly as the back closed and he felt the neural link seek out, find, and lock into the neural jack at the base of his skull.

There was a moment of vertigo then the two pale yellow lights lit up in the visor. Kelvak stared at the two lights as the armor scanned his eyes. He looked left, right, up, down, then forward, then followed the dot.

He could feel the Cage shudder again.

The icon of a mantid head lit up in the upper right, a smiley face emoji flashing and 222 appearing above the mantid head.

--armored up ready ready-- scrolled by his vision.

"Good to see you, Triple-Dee," Kelvak said. His armor was moving through the deployment area, loaded into a shock frame, his weapons attached, and moved to the drop pod bay. His visor cleared and he saw his Terran human CO appear. He was sweating and the picture was vibrating.

"Launch when able, Cage's taking heavy hits. We dropped into a Precursor attack on the planet. They're dropping forces onto the planet, doesn't look like an extinction attack. First and Second Platoon are dropping at a housing area to coordinate and protect Hesstlans while they make for refugee points and shelters," he said. There was a burst of static, when it cleared he was still speaking. "Third Platoon and Fourth Platoon, you'll be dropping into one of the cities. There's Precursors already dropping into the city at light mech size and in platoon sized groups."

There was another buzz of static and the picture cleared up. "We're going to be scattered and scattered bad. Once you land, go to local command, regroup when possible. Scouts, stay mobile, dig in if you can or are forced to," the CO's face disappeared into static.

Kelvak's armor was loaded into a droppod and his faceplate cleared up as the "CONNECTION LOST" appeared on his faceplate.

"Can you get him back, Triple-Dee?" Kelvak asked.

--no-- the mantid engineer icon'd back.

He felt himself lock into the drop-pod and he looked around then frowning as he realized he was the only one in the drop-pod.

"All right, people, listen up," his squad leader, Corporal Helmuk said, his furry face appearing on Kelvak's visor. "We're dropping in thirty seconds and..."

"Corporal, where is..." Kelvak started to say.

The gravity slammed into him as the Cage used the low impulse graviton mass driver to fire the pod at the planet.

Before Kelvak could say anything he felt crushed against the armor's kinetic lining.

"What? Kelvak, you broke up, what did you..." the signal vanished as a battery of particle beams slashed by Kelvak's drop pod, beams passing on either side of him, above and below him, bracketing him as the Precursor ship kept firing even as another salvo from Crazy Nick Cage's guns broke the Precursor into three pieces.

--uh oh-- 222 said.

The droppod was silence, starting to slowly tumble as it fell, unpowered, into the atmosphere of Belvak-8.

"What's wrong with the pod?" Kelvak asked.

--molycircs shorted out ppc too close-- 222 said. --can't fix it locked in armor shell--

"Welp, we're fucked," Kelvak said, looking around. He was the only being in the drop-pod and it had stopped tumbling, the heavy end of the pod leading the way.

--looking up manual not dead yet-- 222 told him.

Kelvak closed his eyes and tried not to panic, trying to clear his mind of all the things that could go wrong with what had already gone wrong. When he opened them he saw 222 had sent him a message.

--run gear check-- the mantid said, watching Kelvak's vitals jump around.

Kelvak triggered the circuits and watched as it came in. He had the support drones for an entire heavy weapons squad of Terran infantry, which meant 60mm Hellbores, 30mm chainguns, point defense, mortars, and battle screen projectors. Two heavy auto-cannons that he'd been trained on, four crew served rotary chainguns, and more firepower. All for Terrans.

--you do airborne-- 222 asked.

"Um, kind of, I've got four practice drops," Kelvak said.

--use grav-chute or hard-light--

"Two of each. Why?"

--gonna have to blow the pod and HALO in-- 222 told him.

Kelvak gulped, nodding inside his armor. "OK. You know better than I do," he said, referring to the fact that 222 had over fifteen years as a Terran Marine Engineer.

--we be ok-- 222 promised. --get ready--

"How long?" Kelvak asked.

The timer appeared, starting at 47 seconds and running down fast. Kelvak swallowed thickly. He hadn't been fond of 'Airborne', which was basically the military version of 'chuting into a zone, and had been glad when that eight week section had been over. He had preferred the 'Air Assault' section, which was basically infantry/striker operations.

I'm infantry, that means feet on the ground, not in a rolling target, not in a striker, not flying through the air like the Amazing Asswipe, feet on the ground and bullets to pound, Kelvak thought to himself.

The pod suddenly exploded apart and Kelvak tumbled for a second, glad that the modern systems used tractor-beams to keep the equipment boxes with the trooper rather than the old rope versions he'd learned about in training.

The whole squad's grabbed him, yanking him around for a moment before he ended up falling through the air with the equipment in a rough circle above him. He looked down and could see the city, brightly lit, filling his vision.

--look around need landing we good-- 222 said.

Kelvak glanced around and saw green rings appear in what looked like a park.

--spread arms and legs-- 222 ordered. --i will put up flight rings do best--

Kelvak managed to get his arms and legs out, just like he was trained. 222 put rings on his visor that he was supposed to try to get through. He wobbled off slightly, overcorrected, almost started tumbling, then got level again.

"Can you help me?" Kelvak asked.

--yes-- 222 said. --try to--

Kelvak slammed face first into something. It resisted for a second, long enough for his faceplate to crack and his systems start wailing, then he was through whatever it was. He hit something else, something squishy, and the world turned purple right before he hit something that held up again, starring his faceshield and setting alarms wailing. He was tumbling head over heels and he saw one of the autocannons bounce off of something in mid-air. The container of pre-fabbed missiles for one of the MANPAD drones hit and an explosion filled the air behind him, greasy looking red and yellow, purple energy flaring out as chunks of debris showered out of the explosion.

"WHAT DID WE HIT?" Kelvak yelled.

--unknown-- 222 said. --level out will help--

Kelvak's right shoulder wasn't moving right, grinding and showering sparks, leaving him unable to get his arm into the correct position. He pawed at his face, trying to get the purple goop off of his face, only smearing it on the cracked and starred armaplas. He managed to get it somewhat clear, good enough to see.

He was dropping rapidly, only a few hundred feet above the top skyscrapers.

--deploy deploy deploy-- flashed on his visor.

The hard light chute cracked into existence, yanking him up, the grav-chutes on the equipment containers spinning up.

Kelvak was looking up when the hard light chute spun up and saw what was wrong a split second before he was yanked to the side. The entire right side of the chute was hazy, indistinct, spread out, one of his shoulder emitters only throwing out a spray of prismatic light. He was yanked to the left, spinning hard, the containers trying to hold their position according to his body and spinning him further.

"OH SHIT!" he got out, right before the side of the skyscraper filled his vision. He crashed into the glass, hitting the floor, still moving at almost a hundred and sixty miles an hour. The kinetic pressure sleeve squeezed him, alarms wailing, and he reacted without thinking, instinct driven into him through hours and hours of drills over the last year. He curled up in a ball, crossing his arms in front of his face and head as he tumbled through the floor, bouncing off a structural beam. He ricocheted around, bouncing off support beams like a pinball, until he was thrown out of the building, whipping across the street at just over a hundred miles an hour, hitting the next skyscraper. That changed his angle of descent and he slammed through thirty floor before exiting out the side of the skyscraper and whipping through the air only half conscious.

On his way out the structural beam caught his shoulder, yanking his arm up, sending him spinning, the centrifugal force pulling his limbs outward even as he fought to keep from blacking out.

He hit something, he wasn't sure what, and cartwheeled the last sixty feet before he hit the ground.

The containers settled down safely with their grav systems, the onboard computers running function checks and flashing the LED's from red to yellow to green while Kelvak laid limply in his armor.

He was back in the shelter, huddled down with the rest of his family, sheltering one of his brood-mommy's with his own body as she sheltered the podlings with hers. The ground shook above them as Second Armor Division smashed aside the Precursor biological weapons that were trying to overrun the logistics base.

His armor woke him with a shock through his implant and a kick in the chest, making his gasp.

Still half-conscious he triggered an armor diagnostic even as he groaned in pain. His back hurt, right above his tailbone, his face hurt, and he could feel blood running down the back of his head. It felt like something soft was rolled up at the back of his neck, something soft and warm and wet. His right shoulder and right arm were a rolling bar of agony.

He tried to take a deep breath to scream but an iron band tightened around his chest, leaving him coughing and moaning for a long moment.

222's icon was amber, three amber rings around it flashing silently.

"Triple-Dee, you there?" Kelvak coughed. It was hard to breathe, his chest feeling tight.

No answer.

"Suit, status of 222?" he asked.

The suit didn't respond, still running diagnostics. The outline of his armor in his upper left vision was showing all of his armor in the yellow, his right shoulder in the red. The medical sign appeared on the red sections on his shoulder and arm.

Worse, a line at the waist was red.

"Come on, Triple-Dee, wake up, I need you," he coughed.

No answer.

flashed on his visor.

"What? No, I just have a headache," Kelvak said. He coughed and got his thoughts together. "Medical status of operator."

Kelvak stared for a long time. He couldn't feel any of. Well, maybe the ear.

"Operator override," he grunted. He gave his authorization code.

He still couldn't feel anything below his navel.

He keyed up his radio, coughing.

"This is Private Kelvak, Bravo Company, 23rd Infantry Battalion, 2nd Telkan," he coughed. "Does anyone read?"

Nothing came back.

"Scan channels," he ordered. The pain was easing in his arm and shoulder.

the suit responded helpfully.

"Great," Kelvak said. He tried to sit up, but his stomach muscles weren't working right and it made him feel like someone was standing on his chest.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them, looking around.

He was in a park. The local equivalent of trees surrounding him. He was only a dozen meters or so from a decorative pond. The skyscrapers on either side were smoking, burning in some places, all of them damaged.

He looked up in time to see fire streaks raining down.

Bad drops, he thought to himself. After a second he realized one streak was getting larger.

Great, I can't even run away, he thought to himself.

The drop pod was massive, the retrorocket sputtering, the grav-chute screaming as it tried to engage. The pod even deployed a drogue chute, to no avail.

The massive pod blew open and the contents dropped ten feet above the surface of the lake.

Kelvak had a split second to realize it was one of the huge warmechs before it slammed waist deep into the water. Something exploded inside and it fell to the side, vanishing into the water.

"Well, shit," Kelvak said.

With a roar, the warmech exploded up out of the water, wobbled for a moment, then collapsed back onto ground, half out of the water.

Both legs stayed in the water, broken off at mid-thigh.

Kelvak turned his head and stared at the warmech, triggering his communications whisker laser. It took a few seconds for the light to go from red to green. "Hey, you alive?"

There was a groan. "Yeah. That was... less than optimal," a male voice replied.

"Kelvak, Second Telkan," he said. "Off the Crazy Nick Cage."

"Major Whimdell, Fifth Mechanized Infantry," the other one said. "Off the Morning Glory."

"You all right?" Kelvak asked.

There was silence for a moment. "I'm in better shape than my mech, but that's not saying much. How about you?"

Kelvak was silent for a moment.

"I'm paralyzed from the waist down."