—
They were quick in their craft, but fashioning the armor to alien body specifications still took nearly a week. Rhidi and the rest of the troopers had already received their inner ballistic suit, a form fitting, flattering piece of kit that acted as both transmitter and second layer of armor. The IB suit was far more technical than the armor, bearing a soft plate along the chest that held all of the medical gear; When the suit sensed that a round had penetrated the armor, or that a munition had damaged the body within, it reacted with a set series of protocols.
First the suit would figure out how badly wounded the body was by reading biological emissions of the nervous system, calculating out how it should react. If it was a graze or minor laceration, the suit mostly ignored the wound and simply injected the body with a coagulant to stop the bleeding. If the body was deeply damaged, such as a large caliber round punching through the body, multiple needles spat out of the suit and injected “the micro medics”.
These smart, micro-robots were injected into the body and sped around via the trooper’s circulatory system, popping out where needed and getting to work. A single AI on duty during combat actions took control of the micro-robots and directed them, averaging out a mere two minutes in getting a wounded trooper back to combat readiness.
The micro-robots were highly painful though, as hundreds of tiny robots speeding around in blood vessels burned “like the devil himself was pissing into the veins”. An answer to that malady was the soft, caressing hand of morphine, and an IB suit could carry a lot of morphine.
An issue arose after a trooper sustained five major injuries, or if they were greatly wounded, in which the suit would broadcast a signal to the nearest medic. Medics were both beloved and feared for their proficiency; Should one of the red and olive drab suits of armor find you still alive but brushing off your boots in front of death’s door, you were in for a world of hurt.
Medical treatment within armor started with a hard jab from the mocambre into any available flesh. Mocambres were a long, thick medical spike that slid out from under the palm of the medic, and were the first step to healing a critically wounded trooper. When stabbed deeply into flesh, the mocambre shot Aloe-8 into the body, normally flowing straight into the heart. Not even morphine can dull the roaring blaze that is Aloe-8, the heavy duty healing solution causing even the most hardened veteran to scream out in agony.
Aloe-8’s hard reputation came from its duty; Aloe-8, simply enough, kept a living creature from dying. Filled to the brim with a concoction of drugs, stimulants, adrenaline, vitamins, and even more robust nano-healers, it simply did not allow the body to die. The trade off was feeling as if you wanted to die, the entire body (muscles and nervous system included) inflaming with the passage of the Aloe-8.
Worst yet, Aloe-8 did not absorb like the micro medics, instead having to be expelled via more “natural means”; If a trooper was lucky, the Aloe-8 might gather within the colon to be expelled out of the body. If they were unlucky, it might gather within the bladder, or worse, the sinuses. This particular side effect was why medics carried around a plethora of sprays, gels, and medical plugs, only using the mocambre if really needed.
Besides being an aircraft carrier for medical tech, the IB suits were rated for munitions up to 10mm before bones were broken, or the round simply punched through the suit. The suits also retained water for consumption, even being able to filter urine, but that filter required constant changing in order to make sure the water was actually drinkable.
While waiting for the main armor suits to come in, Rhidi and her fellow drop troopers trained in their IB suits in the cooling, early Autumn months. The suits had an advanced Drafritti acceleration technology, multiplying the force behind a trooper’s movements by five percent. Rhidi remembered Drill Sergeant Prince saying this meant that a normal, solid punch from a trooper would be increased by an average of “one hundred and eighty six newtons”, which after being converted into IDC measurements made a lot of the Kafya perk up their ears. This in turn was transferred into the OBP suits, which increased the momentum of the trooper’s movement by almost forty seven percent.
It was a lot, and explained to Rhidi why Humans were absolute monsters on the battlefield. Normal Humans wearing these suits, with all their natural muscle mass and combat prowess, were matched by only the Skalathir and Kojynn in terms of raw destruction. Even then, neither the Skalathir nor Kojynn wanted to face a Human with or without armor; Humans in general were dangerous, and many a cocky Skalathir had found themselves easy prey despite the difference in size.
Many tests had been done on Human muscle, comparing it to the brawnier Skalathir and Kojynn, and despite being smaller, Humans had denser muscle than either race. Humans were tightly packed, coiled balls of brawn, all mounted to a very devilish meat computer that was prone to extreme modes of violence.
Human brains in general were feared, this fear coming from the witnessing of multiple R.I.S. Battalions active during the war. Humans may be the kind, unerring fist that many star-citizens knew of, but Humans had their own monsters they had to deal with.
Lacking most of that madness, Rhidi focused more on mastering her IB suit. Kafya body armor was focussed more on shielding and round deflection, and were more or less giant batteries. These Human suits acted more to amplify the natural aspects of the wearer, and it was an interesting thing to feel.
Melee training was carried out while wearing the IB suits, and while Rhidi felt both stronger and faster than she ever had before, she truly began to understand how dangerous Human soldiers were. All that strength and raw attitude was amplified to the point Rhidi could barely keep up with Shorsey, the orange-red haired hellion constantly keeping the yellow Kafya on the backfoot.
The Pwah were obviously going to suffer the most, but they did come to appreciate their own gain in strength.
Rhidi had been sparring with Rhodil for a change of pace after getting trounced ten times by Shorsey, and the two idly chatted as they practiced their guards and strikes.
“It’s no wonder why they keep such a tight control over their armor.” Rhodil panted, angling his practice blade to parry Rhidi’s. “It’s nearly half of their battlefield presence!”
Rhidi nodded, smacking her practice blade against Rhodil’s and bringing it around into her own guard. “It may be half, but the other half are the Humans wearing it. Have you sparred with one of the males yet?”
“Only once.” Rhodil said with a panting laugh, striking at Rhidi and going through the guard again. “I learned that it is a poor decision to make.”
Rhidi and Rhodil cackled in good natured laughter, and this kind of training continued all the way to the morning of their armors arrival.
—
The memories popped away from Rhidi’s mind like a poked bubble as the loud shudder of a delivery APC rattled the ground, docking with the armor reception building and auxiliary armory. It was probably for the best, as the memory of her tail base getting laser hair removal had been… eventful.
Rhidi stood up, along with a few other troopers, eager to see their armor come through the unloading pathway, but they were instead met with the sight of the massive Skalathir smiths talking to themselves.
These Skalathir were a mix of red and blue, but color did not matter much to the Skalathir, not like the Kafya. Three of the Skalathir were males, nine foot tall draconic monsters that rippled with large muscles. Their tails were not as long as the Lilgaras, but they were thicker and stronger, likely weapons in their own right. Rhidi had only seen one Skalathir before, their blue-scaled teacher Miss La, but she found herself fascinated in these armor smiths.
Like Miss La, all the Skalathir had four eyes, two pairs per side and stacked in the vertical. The lacked any real kind of hair, mostly scale ridges and long, backwards-curving horns, but did have tendrils of scaled flesh that dangled down the sides of their heads. The three female Skalathir were monsters in their own right, laughing and giggling to themselves as they came in behind the males. They were a mix of blue and red scale as well, and likely had the strength to break Rhidi’s hand if she shook one of theirs.
They were not… ugly, per se, but radiated a different flavor of gorgeous that Rhidi had never fully taken in, only really seeing it with Miss La. They lacked fine features or other natural denotations of beauty that would be common amongst the races of the stars. All the same. Rhidi could not call them monstrous or hideous, unlike some of the other more brutal races of the stars.
“Good morning!” The shorter of the male Skalathir called out, holding up a massive, scarred hand and smiling with all four of his eyes. “We have come with your armor, fresh from the forges.”
Rhidi and the other troopers were now all standing, clapping their hands and letting out little, cheeky cheers.
The taller female Skalathir held up her hands for quiet, but was smiling as well. “We do have to let you all know, as we always do, that while your armor is fitted for you, it may still contain elements from other armors sent in for recycling.”
“This is true.” Said the shorter male, who crossed his arms happily. “The armor plating is completely remade and is brand new, but the materials may not always be new. When you retire, or if you fall in the field, your armor will be consumed within the reclamation forges for reuse, all in order to arm future troopers. You may run into a piece of your armor that has small scratches, or remnants from old battles on the underside of the armor, but do not fear. The armor is completely up to standard in all the ways that matter.”
The Drafritti engineers, who had been trickling in behind the Skalathir in twos and threes, were talking soundlessly to each other as one of them peeled off, tugging at the hem of the taller female’s forging robes.
The female Skalathir raised her arm. Her scaled brow ridges raised as she looked down at the pink Drafritti.
“Be’shure ta’ tell’am ab’aht tha’ helm’ats!” She said sweetly up at the Skalathir, then skittered off to join her engineering friends.
“Ah, yes.” The female Skalathir said, snapping her fingers as she stood and turned to the shorter male. “Cuirass engineer Gibili is correct, the helmets.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that whole thing. So when it comes to the Lilgara and the Kafya, we needed to make your helmets mildly adjustable due to how… weird, all of you are.”
“You’re a giant dragon man!” A female Pwah cried out, and Rhidi recognized Marides’s voice. “And you’re calling other people weird?!”
“I wouldn’t mind plundering his dragon hoard though…” A pair of female Humans whispered behind Rhidi, and their words nearly made her snort out a laugh.
“All of your ears and hoods are different lengths.” He plowed on, ignoring both Marides and the two Humans he very clearly heard due to his fine hearing. “So your helmets will need manual adjusting by us and the engineers, it’s why there are so many of us here. You will first get fitted into your armor, then fitted into your helmet. Afterwards you will complete a series of mobility tests to make sure everything is working properly.”
The Drill Sergeants, having been too busy tapping away on their data-slates and logging the armor suits to yell at Marides, looked up for a moment.
“Form a line!” Drill Sergeant McPhiston shouted, gesturing at the Skalathir. “Follow them and obey their commands!”
Drill Sergeant Prince let out a small curse in Spanish as she continued tapping away at her data-slate. “I hate this part! Why does it always have to be us that does this?!”
“Because the Army believes we need to suffer more.” Drill Sergeant McPhiston muttered angrily, then turned back around to the his troopers. “On you go then! Hurry up!”
In quite possibly the fastest time yet, Rhidi and the rest of the training Company came into formation in front of the Skalathir.
They were led in a long line down the hallway towards the auxiliary armory, a place in a constant flux of noise and movement. Their olive drab painted armored suits were being loaded up into arming racks, the whizzing and quickly moving mechanical armory arms putting them all into place within the ready-slots; The arming racks had particular tools that allowed them to take apart the armor far more than usual, and getting armor off of an arming rack to put together was a chore.
More advanced arming racks could quickly put together armor in case of power loss or other such emergencies, storing power in a backup cell, but they only had enough power to put the armor back together, not mount it. Then the trooper would have to slip into the armor piece by piece, igniting the starlight battery manually so the armor could sink against itself and lock into place.
Rhidi was buzzing as they were led around, both she and the other Skógarskera bearers being called out into a separate line.
Even though many of the Humans had qualified, only fifty names were drawn from their ranks, one of which was Rhidi. She stood alongside the forty nine Humans around her, and oddly enough none of them were Shorsey or Morris.
Rhidi startled as a Skalathir armorsmith strolled by, calling out in her booming voice.
“Private Rhidi, SOBP-19621983.” She shouted, then tapped at her wrist computer as four Drafritti engineers loomed into view.
A black male Drafritti pulled the top off a small crate, tossing the lid over his shoulder with bored enthusiasm. “Prav’it Rhee’dee, Kaf’yan OBP hah’met KAF-19.”
Rhidi leaned forward, her eyes wide as she spied her own dagger-helm held in his large hands; It looked a lot like the ones the Humans wore, but just as they said, the nose of the helmet protruded just a smidge more, along with the ear outcroppings.
A gray female Drafritti stepped in front of Rhidi, then tsked her long fangs as she wafted her hands towards herself. “Cam’an dan’ heah’, Kaf’nyah.”
“Oh.” Rhidi mused, then squatted down onto her haunches, resting her forearms on her knees. “Like this?”
The look on the Drafritti’s face was less than amused. If anything, she looked rather peeved.
“Why’yah squatt’an dan’ aht’ me?” She asked tersely, her eyes narrowed and lips pursed.
The female Skalathir chuckled as she checked the arming-racks. “Oooh, squatting down to Engineer Hamya’s level. You’re asking for trouble, Kayfa.”
“Er…” Rhidi mumbled, looking around her at the grinning and quietly laughing Humans. “Should I…”
“Jast’ ben’dan!” Hamya barked, stamping her large foot with hands balled above her knees. “Dan’skwat a’me, A’hm na’tha sh’art!”
Rhidi instantly sprang to full height, then cleared her throat before bending all the way over at the waist. She kept bending until her ears were level with Hamya, who let out a satisfied grunt.
“Bett’ar.” Hamya said happily, then measured Rhidi’s ears.
After her measurements, and while all the Humans got their far more normal helmets, the Drafritti engineers were huddled around her helmet, adjusting the ear outcropping lengths. After about twenty minutes of tinkering with it, they presented Rhidi with her new helmet.
As she took it in her hands and held it up in front of her face, Rhidi couldn’t help but let a wave of exhausted satisfaction wash over her. She had been on Earth for months, toiling in the Georgian Summer, getting bashed three ways to Wednesday for weeks on end, and tore up her muscles so badly during the suit trials that she had to go to sick call after eating her hamburgers…
And now she was finally here, holding a helmet made just for her. As she tilted it back and forth in her hands, a purple male Drafritti chuckled and walked up next to her.
He tapped the helmet on its armored crown, talking to her in a more polite tone than Hamya. “G’wan ‘den, try it’ahn.”
Rhidi happily stamped her paws with giddy glee as she slipped the helmet over her head, her ears sliding into place and the visor flickering to life. Her face was bathed in blue light as the helmet came online, communicating with her IB suit as the text scrawl reflected along her bright eyes.
Words and numbers started populating her visor, the largest reading “Private Rhidi: Online. Status: FFA” across the middle.
“FFA?” Rhidi asked, looking around at her visor and watching all the tech come online.
“Fit for action.” Came a reply from the female Skalathir, the words filtering into her ears from speakers in her outcroppings. “You’re gonna learn all the phrases in the next few days, but there are some major ones everyone knows. NFA means ‘not fit for action’, such as if you are wounded and no longer able to fight, and of course the ever present KIA-”
“Killed in action.” Rhidi murmured, her voice softly projecting out from the helmet via her cheek-mic.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The Skalathir nodded, then tapped at her wrist. “Normally the rack will hand you your helmet at the end of fitting, so I’ll hold that for you as you step in. Go on in and stand in the middle of that white circle.”
Rhidi leaned to the side, peering into the bristling arming rack, and sure enough there was a white circle on the decking.
Wouldn’t be the first time she would have had to stand in a white circle, and Rhidi let out a short, airy laugh.
Her armor pieces were poised and ready, the cuirass split in half by the more advanced machinations of the armory arms allowing such a thing, and the same was done to her arm and leg armor.
Rhidi thought it was rather comical how her suit of armor was rather… short, compared to the Humans around her, and the much taller Skalathir made the armor look as if it was made for a teenager. Rhidi shrugged, handed her helmet off to the Skalathir woman, and stepped inside of the arming rack.
As soon as she stood still within the white circle, a display screen to her right flicked on with a crisp click of the mechanical armory arms twitching, Rhidi’s IB suit broadcasting her biological signature to the receiver.
Her suit and the armory rack spoke in a grinding, thudding “language” for a moment, then the screen started displaying words:
“Private Rhidi, SOBP-19621983: Confirmed
- All armor pieces accounted for
- All armor pieces showing 100% functionality
- Armor rating: 100%
- Ammo load: N/A
- Deployments: N/A
- Confirmed kills of record: N/A
- Drops: N/A
- Current assignment ship: N/A
- SOBP record: Clean”
The armory arms gave another jitter and the screen displayed a new message.
“Knees apart, arms out.”
Rhidi breathed out an “Oh!” in surprise, and quickly held up her arms while widening her stance. The arms began to move as soon as she achieved the correct arming stance, and the pieces of her battle plate began to move.
The chest plate split apart and came around her chest with deft and direct stabs from the armory arms, the chest plate whizzing as the locking bolts came into place and tightened down around her IB suit. The arm and leg armor pieces came on next, clicking and hissing into place with no wasted movement. Her pauldrons came down from the top of the rack while her armored skirts came from the front, snapping into their sockets with satisfying clunks of the armor plating.
The arms continued their duty until the entire suit began to move in a writhing mass, buzzing and lightly vibrating as all the pieces sank against each other and married together. Plates moved over each other like a swarm of snakes, moving into place and adapting further to the IB suit until they all settled.
In what felt like only several breaths, Rhidi was fully armored in her own Skógarskera Onslaught Battle Plate, along with the tail bag that was locked into place at the base of the IB suit.
Rhidi waited for the command from the screen, and when it simply displayed a green check mark, she took a few steps out of the rack; She felt… powerful, and the armor felt like a second skin. It didn’t even feel heavy, and she took a few hops just for the fun of it.
The weighty impact of her boots against the deck made her ears perk up, and she lifted up an armored boot to see she had put a divot into the metal.
“Oops.” Rhidi breathed out, answered by a giggle from the Skalathir woman.
“Try not to do that too much.” She said, holding out Rhidi’s helmet as her thick tail swayed. “You may feel weightless, but the things around you won’t.”
Rhidi had the good graces to look embarrassed, but took her helmet and slid it on over her ears. This time the helmet gave a rubbery hiss as it locked into place on the IB suit, sensing the armor locked into place, and a new readout crawled along the left of her vision.
“Seal: 100% locked, stable.”
“Huh.” Rhidi chuffed, then walked as carefully as she could over to a large mirror.
She had never seen herself in armor like this, and to be fair, her mere visage scared her a little bit. She looked like she could do damage, even as she did a slow turn and saw the slot where her ammo pack would sit, along with where the control arm for her MG111 would be locked into place.
A thought crossed her mind as Rhidi looked into the mirror, the other Skógarskera clad troopers walking up and clapping their gauntlets together as they saw both her and themselves.
She was, at this moment, the deadliest Kafya known to her kind.
—
With armor achieved, Rhidi and the rest of the training Company set into their paces. The first few days were normal stuff, such as getting accustomed to the armor in how it moved, felt, amplified strength, etc.
The entire first day was just picking up stuff, with the mighty egg being their main adversary.
What had been a simple feat with the fingers and hands was now an exercise in common sense and discipline, though many eggs fell in the line of duty to clumsy trainee fingers.
Rhidi herself crushed twenty eggs before figuring it out, getting so mad halfway through that she smashed one on purpose out of aggravation. Then came the soda can tabs, with each trooper having to open a can of pop without spraying their armor in sticky, sugary libation.
The tabs were of course given to Shasta, who had his own dedicated “can loop” for his armor as well as his person.
Alias and Rhidi were sitting side by side on a suit-bench as they attempted their final trial: Threading beads on string.
Simple, for normal hands, but a massive pain in the ass when wearing giant, armored gauntlets. It took hours, but they finally managed the task and presented their bracelets to their Drill Sergeants, earning them a pass.
This success earned Rhidi a new duty: Assisting Marides in handing Inthur more beads.
Inthur had been at it for so long, Rhidi could hear her angrily sobbing inside her helmet, the shuddering gasps of air only barely audible in her cheek-mic. She eventually got her act together though, with Rhidi rolling her eyes as she realized what took Inthur so long; The blue bimbo had been trying to get the beads to say “blues are best”, though to what end Rhidi did not know, nor care to find out.
With all the get-to-knowing ironed out, they started in on the pods; The drop towers of Fort Benning were now relics, a standing reminder of Humanity’s fondness for falling out of the sky into combat. The old thirty-four foot drop towers still stood, along with the old swing training centers, but they were kept as they were after somewhat surviving the war against the Pactless. One of them still stood on its original foundations, while the other two needed restoring.
Their proper training stations lay in foundational locations around the old airborne paratrooper training stations; The hundred foot “shaker”, the three hundred foot “slammer”, and the five hundred foot “stomach sucker”. All such stations were sitting on towers, controlled by a drop rail and several failsafes that made each training session as accurate as possible.
Rhidi did not find these names… particularly pleasant.
Every morning, they would all file into the Company armory and get fitted, their suits being planted onto them in quick fashion. Every once in a while, they had to get into their armor manually, which took far more time than the arming racks.
After arriving on site in much heavier and beefier transport vehicles, they would begin training; The shaker got them accustomed to landing, and was their first time being attached to the g-racks, a collection of more machines that held the armor and compensated for the shock of hitting the ground.
The shaker was aptly named, and Rhidi had many days where she needed a quick jab of pain killer from a nearby, bored Human medic. After every day of training, medics would scan their spines, hips, knees, and ankles for damage, none ever being found thankfully.
The g-racks and armor did their job well, it was just the “failure” drops that really rattled Rhidi’s brain. The Drill Sergeants wanted them to know what a bad drop would feel like, such as if something went wrong with the pod, and Rhidi said a small prayer, to whoever was listening, to not let her slam into the ground and get turned to paste.
After the shaker, came the slammer; The slammer had more air to it, letting them all get a good free-fall going before they came onto the ground. These pods played the humm and whine of the Ascender Engine, as well as simulating the eyeball pulling shock of it kicking on.
After ten rides on the slammer, came the sucker.
Five hundred feet felt easy breezy while in a ship, but when attached to a set of rails and dangling in a g-rack… it felt a lot, lot more dangerous to Rhidi. The free fall from these training pods was stomach churning, though they had been warned to not vomit; The helmet was sealed, after all, and that vomit had nowhere to go except for the neck of the IB suit.
Some learned that lesson the hard way, Rhidi included, which led to them cleaning their suits later in the evening. As normal with Human designs, they had a rather amusing trait of being easily hosed down when needed.
They spent weeks on the stomach suckers, building their resistance to the falling feeling in the pit of their bellies. These pods simulated the chug and thud of the auto-rotation fins as well as the Ascender Engine, all brought together by the g-rack rattling thud on the ground.
After nearly a month of getting their brains rattled by training pods, they were all finally ready to do their proper, actual drops; Three from in-atmosphere, then six jumps from vacuum, one of which had to be at night. All drops would land in the historic Fryar Drop Zone, converted from the paradrop parade ground of old into a sophisticated drop pod landing site.
Rhidi took one long night before their first drop reading the history of the field, and she felt both nervous, and proud; All parachute infantry of Human history made their jumps onto this field, falling from “airplanes” and descending to the earth in chutes of silky cloth.
Video after video let Rhidi see just how insane Humans were in such a practice, and she had never even heard of such a thing in all her life. No other species on star-record had ever implemented such a combat tactic, let alone on such a high gravity planet like Earth. Videos from inside the aircraft were just as insane, with long “chalks” of Humans standing up and checking their completely analog gear before their fall.
With just a click of a parachute hook, Humans just… fell out of the aircraft, their chutes dragging open via the static line and unfurling in the air.
Compared to drop pods, it was just as neolithic as most other Human war practices of old; A Human with the title of “Jump Master” would lead all the chalks in standing up, usually through hand signals. They would then tell all the Humans to “hook up” and complete an equipment check, with all the paratroopers checking each other.
Warnings for time would be echoed out as the aircraft neared the drop zone, and after more commands, Humans would jump out into the air with nothing more than fabric connected to them by strings, and cord.
Such combat jumps had been extremely effective against the Pactless, as ramshackle C-130 aircraft pulled from museums dropped melee paratroopers over targets in the dead of night. These drops were at the bare minimum altitude, allowing Human melee specialists to drop directly on top of Pactless bases and eradicate anything they came into contact with.
Such lightning attacks were the first downfall of the Pactless invasion, as Humans began slowly cutting the head off of the writhing mass of snakes that was the Pactless command structure. There were better ways, obviously, but the Humans had three things in spades: Aircraft, bodies, and things those bodies could smash the Pactless with.
Combat footage from the rare, surviving body camera displayed Humans choking Pactless fighters to death with their own chute risers and shroud lines. Other Humans blinded Pactless fighters with their chute canopy nearly as soon as they landed, holding the thin fabric over their mouths while beating them to death with maces, bars of steel, or stabbing them to death with daggers.
Swarming Pactless bases with airborne paratroopers became so effective the Pactless began to become terrified of the night, keeping horrified watch over a smoke-filled sky and fearing the sound of droning aircraft engines. Adapting, the Human military began doing high altitude jumps, letting their fighters drift on the wind and landing soundlessly on even more Pactless points of power.
It never ended well for the Pactless, the first domino of the Human fighting spirit smashing them across the chin and then shoving a boot knife into their hearts. It was the one thing the Pactless lacked; They had all the stolen technology, the upper hand where they thought it mattered, but they lacked the spirit that made warrior races what they were.
This tactic of hot-dropping paratroopers continued all the way up until the arrival of the Kojynn, and with the invention of the drop pod and landing shuttle, airborne parachute infantry finally found their rest in the annals of history.
Now, Rhidi got to land in the same tilled dirt as millions of Humans did before her, and carry on their legacy.
—
Despite the drama of early parachute drops, their own flight was quite relaxed.
Rhidi and the rest of the drop troopers in training were armored, armed, given a full combat load of ammunition, and were slowly shuttled up in modified Boeing C-117 Atmo-masters; These aircraft were massive creatures designed for resupplying tender craft sent down from destroyers and other, larger spacecraft of war, powered by a bank of four Kojynn Hashkut VTOL engines. They also dealt with moving large amounts of supplies from base to base, and were a daily workhorse of the UAA military.
These C-117s in particular were outfitted as drop pod trainers, sporting a bay of six pods that were launched from the belly of the aircraft. These pods were then retrieved, refitted, checked for fault, and then put back into cycle.
Dozens of these aircraft were on duty today, with fresh pods being placed back into their bellies as soon as they landed. When a C-117 would taxi over a refitting area, pods would slide up from holding batteries and be fitted into place through the drop doors, making it a smooth and timely transition.
Rhidi found herself on the sixth aircraft up, having watched one C-117 drop its pods and followed them to the ground via observation scopes and the information scrawl on her visor.
Her “chalk” was mostly Humans, as she had ill-timed her approach to the line and ended up leaving Alias and Shasta behind. These Humans were a rambunctious lot, punching each other on the shoulders and rustling Rhidi’s armored ears with their gauntlets. They all sat in reinforced jump seats as the C-117 took off, though the Humans didn’t shut their mouths the entire way up.
When they were getting towards the top edge of the stratosphere, the amber light turned on and Drop Instructors started calling out for them to stand up through their helmet radios.
As they all stood as one… a Human started to sing.
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
Rhidi’s armored ears trilled as she perked them, the motors twisting and turning with the commands of her helmet.
Another voice joined in on the first, both of their voices carrying low under the commands of the Drop Instructors.
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
Rhidi was completely confused; Were they going somewhere? Was something happening with the pods?
As she looked around in bewilderment, all the Humans seemed to have lost their “funny edge”, sobering up as soon as the amber light came on.
More voices began to slowly drone in, first ten, then thirty, then sixty…
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
Rhidi looked around until she saw a pair of Pwah and three Lilgara, holding up her hands and twirling her fingers in the air as if asking if they knew what was going on. They all shrugged in response or made the same motions with their hands, as they didn’t dare speak in case this was some kind of Human ritual.
Soon over eighty Humans were droning into the radios, all singing the same four words: “Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
A single command from a Drop Instructor cut over the droning, his voice booming into Rhidi’s ears. “Rack up!”
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…” The drone continued on, nearly matching the footsteps of the armored troopers entering the bods.
Rhidi leapt up into the pod, turning her back to the g-rack as it hissed and shuddered towards her, the locking arms spinning into place on her armor.
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
Rhidi’s feet left the ground as the g-rack picked her up, and she shuddered in her armor as she was locked into her landing position. Her helmet displayed “g-rack locked” in green on the upper left hand portion of her screen, while the other section laid blank and unused.
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
All sixteen g-racks in Rhidi’s pod locked back, suspending sixteen Heavy Onslaught Infantry in their chariot of death.
“Doors up!” The Drop Instructor shouted, crossing his arms over his head. “Prepare for drop!”
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
Rhidi’s pulse quickened as her door rumbled up from the deck and swung closed, encasing her and the other three troopers in a wash of pale light. They hung there in the racks of their flanged mace of a drop pod as the Ascender engine began to whine; Rhidi remembered they were too low to use the chute, so the C-117s primed the engines themselves, allowing the fins to deploy as soon as the pod was dropped.
“Rhidi!”
Rhidi turned her head and jerked back as she saw it was Shorsey sitting next to her, the Human having already scrawled her name along the side of her helmet.
“Rhidi, put your arms up!” Shorsey cackled as she held her armored arms above her head.
Rhidi shook her helmet while laughing. “What are you doing?!”
“Falling down of course!” Shorsey laughed back, then she let out a shrieking cackle as the pale light turned red and the pod was launched from the C-117.
There were no rails, nothing to keep them nice and straight, just the pod and the air hammering against it.
The shuddering and jostling was far worse than the training drops, and Rhidi recoiled into herself, drawing her knees up to her chest. “Holy shit!”
“Wooo!” Shorsey screamed giddily, her arms still held above her head and waggling to and fro with the jostling of the pod. “This is so awesooome! Ahahahaaa!”
Off the rails, the sensations of dropping were far more intense, even as the auto-rotation blades began thudding above them. The sound was deeper than the simulations, a constant buzzing rumble that slowly began to grow in volume. The drop itself was around the end of the Angel-2 stage, the blades thudding overhead and building RPMs, but Rhidi thought the vibrations were maddening.
Shorsey howling in glee beside her only added to the madness.
The grinding buzz of the flanged blades correcting the pod’s descent may as well have been creatures outside the drop pod’s hull grumbling, desiring the canned meat within. The whine of the Ascender Engine picking up more speed filled the entire pod with a keening, growing whine, like the pod itself was afraid of the creatures outside its protective shell.
Time was passing so quickly that the change of the lights to amber caught her off guard, and she quickly looked around the thundering drop pod. A minute passed by so quickly that the klaxon warning ambushed Rhidi’s ears, causing her to shout out in fright and sink back against the g-rack.
With a lung shuddering heave, the Ascender Engine burned to life, halting their speed into a bone rattling slam into the ground.
The bell rang, and the doors were launched forward by the slamming of projection rods into their releases, allowing the armored barriers to turn into ramps as they slapped into the tilled soil of Fryar Field.
By the time the ramps were half way down, the g-racks had already released their charges, heavily armored feet slamming down onto the decking of the drop pod and running out of the doors.
Rhidi felt a little woozy as Shorsey went laughing past her, running out into the soft ground of the landing zone, but she managed to stagger out of the pod in good order. The dynamic plating of the OBS armor came into play further here as she ambled down the ramp, as even her Skógarskera knew when to open up its plating and allow her to properly move.
They all ran to a mustering area, and were already back onto a transport within minutes.
Rhidi had thought they were done for the day, a single jump and then a rest period, but the transport was instead travelling back towards the loading area for the C-117s. It clicked into place that she was going to be doing more than one jump when she was unloaded at the loading site and was once again ushered into a C-117 that had been waiting on standby.
She slowly sat down into a reinforced jump seat, setting her rifle into a holding rack, then took off her helmet with a hiss of the seal being broken.
Rhidi looked over to the Human beside her with apprehension, slowly blinking as she spoke. “We’re doing… all three today? At once?”
“You thought it was going to be one a day?” He asked, turning his helmet towards her. “Nah dawg, they get these out of the way all in one day to save on gas money. Did you not read the training schedule?”
She stared half-lidded at the Human; Normally, she relied on Alias to do that, but they had been separated most of the day.
Rhidi let out a sigh and slowly pulled her helmet back into place, the visor coming back to life with a click of light and humm of noise, and her ears picked up something else as the C-117 began to rise.
“Zoom zoom zoom zoom…”
With an inward sigh, she laid her helmet back against the bulkhead of the passenger compartment, her helmet wiggling back and forth as the C-117 continued to climb. Rhidi closed her eyes while crossing her arms over her chest, all while the Humans continued to hum into her ears.
“Zoom… zoom… zoom… zoom…”