Planetfall

[jammi]

Prolouge: Malborough Pile

There was the distant chime of a proximity alert as the Percheron swooped low, following the line of smog cloaked navigation beacons. Lieutenant Frank Jones knew that there was a corridor for error the width of maybe half his ship, probably a little more if he was lucky. He was flying through restricted airspace, and deviating from his plotted course would cause concealed defence batteries to reduce him and his cargo to little more than a momentary flare of light in the dim Leeds dawn.

He put an announcement through on the tannoy. They had a little under two minutes before landing, when they should arrive at Malborough Pile, probably one of the most important structures on, and under, the planet's surface. His cargo was a portion of the 16th London Grenadier Guards, who had been relocated from their barracks on Planet New London as a part of the planetary defence force who were already bracing to repel Kusari invaders.

Below the ship, the fog parted for a moment, revealing the blackened surface of a tarnished spaceport, seemingly another facility abandoned in the sprawling deserts of the Industrial Wastes. Lieutenant Jones had been briefed on this and engaged several small burners which would guide him down to the surface. Alighting on the pitted and corroded metal, well concealed Grav-Boosters embraced the ship, causing it to hang over the deck like a tethered balloon.

A crack appeared in the sensor-dampened matt surface of the exterior armour, light spilling out from within. Slowly the cargo bay door ground open in a squeal of pneumatics and grinding gears, allowing the filthy air to roll inside. There was a moment of calm, as the mist was buffeted by cooling engines. The silence was shattered by the bark of loud-speaker amplified orders, and the sudden sound of a company of men shuffling to disembark.

Section by section, the men of the Bretonian Royal Army marched off their drop ship, led by their Officers and NCOs. The visors to their inhumanly indifferent gas masks and the metallic components to their enveloping Biohazard armour caught the few weak rays of sunlight that struggled through the smog. Military Percherons had been moving all over the planet for weeks now, transferring troops, munitions, vehicles.

The Bretonian Army was mobilising, prepared to sell their lives should the admiralty fall short. War on Leeds was bound to be squalid, toxic, miserable and if the fighting men of Leeds had anything to do with it, very, very permanent.

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