Chapter 2: Briefing

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Jumping to Euphoria
Breifing room 08
USFS Excalibur-class destroyer codename: Stormbringer
January 15th, 2624 AD
0431 Galactic Standard Time.

After walking through the labyrinth of smooth and wide hallways, I've finally reached the briefing hall that my company was assigned to. The room was enclosed with four black walls with sleek white sphere bulbs integrated into its surface. A large holographic map of the Human Space stretched across the room. Thousands of tiny, colorful dots filled the artificial air, with blue ones representing star systems under Earth control and red and yellow representing the PRF and other rogue human states. Fortunately, most of these dots are in blue.

I walked up the flight of stairs in hopes of finding a vacant seat at the back corner. I expected McCord to be here, but he was no where to be found. With ease, I settled myself down, and watched the large entrance doors.

About a minute later, the hall was swarmed with soldiers from the Raptor Rifle Company. The vacant seats were quickly filled up by the one-hundred and fifty men unit, but my friends were no where in sight. Maybe they were among the crowd.

"Alright... alright, settle down people." First Lieutenant Echo shouted from the front of the projector. The tall, well-built man stood firm. He gave an impression you would expect from a first-lieutenant leading an entire company. His dark, craggy, clean shaven face signified his extensive involvement in the war. Though he looked old for his age, he put forth the energy and determination of men half his age. He stood among the group of lieutenants in the front.

The first lieutenant stepped forward, and scanned through the hall of soldiers briefly.

"By now, everyone of you should know that we are heading towards Euphoria as we speak-"he paused, and turned to the nearest lieutenants, "Lipton. The projector."

Lipton punched some buttons on the console, causing the Milky Way to shrink and change, displaying an image of a planet instead. Based on its small oceans, huge urban landmass, fourteen Solar Amplifiers and two moons, one did not need to learn astronomy to know that the hologram is Euphoria.

"4 days ago, the Rukhovian People's Army, along with the support of it's other member states, led a major occupation campaign on the planet. By far, this is the largest PRF invasion force we ever faced since the last five years."

He paced back and forth, hesitant, "Currently, I have also been receiving rumors that some of you wanted the numbers. Fortunately, I do have the official statistics. But unfortunately, the numbers do not bode well."

Shit. It must be worse compared to Atlas.

"The numbers suggests that the Euphorian citizens were in fact, as reported, under direct fire from the Rukhovians. At least 14 million Euphorian citizens are dead since the initial strike and another 5 billion are now either trapped in their assigned war shelters or seeking refuge in friendly bases."

Only a few men and women of Raptor Company gasped after he finished. But most of the company seemed as if they were not surprised.

So the news were true. It was all true.

"As the USF is the most powerful military force in CATO-"

Of course we were the strongest. The USF alone numbered between one to two billion personnel. But the combined strength of CATO is around 7.3 billion, and that's enough to stand against the combined strength of those that wish to see the Earth burn.

"-we're assigned to lead a major counter-offensive against the Rukhovians. Admiral Serin Jensen has confirmed the final Congress approval to execute this offensive. Operation Shatterfall is officially, a go.

"Our mission: To completely eradicate the PRF threat from the system. Any questions?"

Someone in the front row raised his right hand.

"Yes, sergeant?"

"What about strategic support from the other guys, sir?"

"Currently, the IDA (Intercolonial Defense Administration) are mobilising their reserve forces and the ASSC (Arcadian Strategic Space Command's) 46th are on their way. However, reports from the Naval Intelligence Agency indicates that they have met moderate resistance from the PRF's Chinzou Theatre in the Yava System and are currently cleaning them up. The reinforcements from the rest of CATO is expected to arrive soon."

"What about the Intergalactic Council, sir," someone else asked, "I mean, what they're commiting here is mass genocide. Shouldn't the Unified Tau States take action against them?"

"You know the answer to that already private."

The Galactic Council was the Milky Way's joint governing body and the sole reason of why most of the galaxy is living peaceful and prosperous lives. According to the history codices, the Council has prevented interracial conflicts and eradicated racism since the Great Galactic War twenty thousand years ago. At least 1 million species, including us, are members of the Council. It was the bridge between our species and the rest of the known galaxy. It allowed the trade of technology and culture to take place. Although the Council has a peacekeeping force, it's laws states that no peacekeeping force and other extraterrestrial militaries are allowed to intervene with another races' conflict. In short, we are on our own fighting against the PRF.

The image suddenly magnified zoomed in on one of Euphoria's vast continents. It was Euphoria's capital, Revolt City. Details of the artifical terrain and skyscrapers were crystal clear.

"Multiple divisions will execute the operation at the same time. Intel suggests that the Rukhovians have amassed 75% of their invasion force in Revolt, so the entire V Corps will be tasked to retake Revolt City.

At least 14 field armies of infantry and armored units have been assembled to the north and east of the city."

The map zoomed out, and three yellow circles formed around one part of the city. Trails of red, indicating drop paths of drop pods drew upon them.

"Your job is as simple as getting down there and kick some asses. We will begin with Stage 1, which will be initiated by orbital insertion through the fleet battle and directly into Revolt, the Navy will keep you intact. All pods will be inserted at Drop Zone Alpha or Bravo, both landing zones will be covered by divisions from the 22nd Army."

Everyone was squirming in their seats, whisper of doubts were exchanged throughout the hall; everyone knew how dangerous an orbital drop deployment through a fleet battle was, especially when your next destination is a city filled with hordes of psychopathic murderers. Not to mention the extremely capable long range SAM batteries the PRF had at their disposal.

"I know it sounds insane, but these are orders from Colonel.T himself. We will have the fleet and the air force guys to back us up for this one. For now, PRF ground batteries and air force in the region have been weakened. But be advised, there will be heavy resistance from the enemy at this time. Expect multiple detachments of the PRF attack force amassing outside the base. If you and your squad failed to land at any of DZ, you must proceed to the RV point or you may face the risk of capture. However, if you are being captured, your transponders will activate. Do not remove your transponders, or else we cannot get to you. I don't have to remind you that it's better for you to shoot yourself rather than to be captured."

Being captured by the PRF is a soldier's nightmare: You'll be tortured, paraded, mocked and finally executed on live broadcast as propaganda. To them, losing hundreds of men is worth the capture of a lone enemy soldier.

"The entire PRF's Central Military District is bearing down on this colony. Remember, if we don't stop them at the Gap right now, we will lose more colonies, and we will lose way more lives than we can ever imagine. I know this will sound cheesy as hell, but the fate of humanity rests on your hands." He paused.

"You will know about Phase 2 after the completion of Phase 1, good luck."

"Alright everyone, gear up, get ready by 6am. Dismissed," one of the lieutenants yelled.

Everyone stood up and started leaving the hall, but I sat at my seat, not moving as I waited for the rest to push their way out of the small automatic doors that simply couldn't fit the crowd with a size of an entire company trying to get out at the same time. It was an old habit. Since when I was a child, I've always hated crowds. The idea of shoving oneself into a sea of individuals was almost suffocating to me.

"Jesus, Lee, get a move on you little shit," someone yelled.

"Fuck off," someone replied, "I'm short and I have short legs."

It took several minutes before I was willing to walk through those doors.

----------

Middle of hyperspace jump
Raptor Company Quarters
USFS Excalibur-class destroyer codename: Stormbringer
January 15th, 2621 AD
0436 hours ,Galactic Standard Time.

The white LED lamps glared down on every single soldier in the company's quarters. Familiar strangers nodded at me as I walked past their bunks. I hadn't had the chance to personally meet them, yet, they seemed know who the new bloods were.

Raptor Company, colloquially known as the 'Firewalkers', was a part of the 25th Infantry Battalion, 1st Infantry Division of the 3rd USF Army. Raptor Company included three rifle platoons and one heavy weapons platoon with a headquarters section. Each platoon contained three nine-man rifle squads and one nine-man weapons squad. The company has seen and endured almost everything the war has ever thrown at them. Many of the company's personnel were battle hardened veterans with an impressive record of ruthlessness and heroism.

I found myself sitting on a black carbon-fiber weapon crate next to my bunk. The rest of the chairs were either at the bottom of the asses of the other guys, or all the Navy guys just took them away as they lacked chairs. Funny, they can produce enough ships to fill up the entire V Corps, yet they can't produce enough chairs for an entire destroyer.

I sat down, and started cleaning my already disassembled standard-issue M-24A4 assault rifle. I searched the pouches of the cleaning kit, and dug up the photon cleaner. The rifle's lower and upper receiver was already seperated for cleaning. I was reassembling the charging handle and bolt carrier group before I got, well, sidetracked. Now, all I had to do was clean the chamber.

I shoved the sleek white rod down the chamber and through the barrel. With two quick beeps, the cleaner hummed softly. The decomosite cleaners replaced traditonal brushes almost two hundred years ago. It emmits a wave of decomosite, a gas subtance that decomposes debree and dust in the weapon whlist using it's vacuum pores to absorb the remnants. It's like a mini-version of a vacuum cleaner. After several seconds, I removed the cleaner, and placed it back into the pouch.

This sleek, elegant two kilogram 30-round rifle was heavily based of the 20th Century's AR-15 platform, and has been significantly improved by the SFN Ballistics Corporation for the past four centuries. The weapon is made of titanium alloy and poylmer and features a MagRail on the top of the receiver and the heat-shielded barrel. This allowed several military grade attachments to be fitted on the rifle such as close range optics, IR lasers and grips. Unlike it's carbine cousin, the M-12A1, the M-24A4 had a fixed buttstock with built in shock absorbers to counter the recoil when fired. With an effective range of 900 meters, the rifle can hit targets almost a kilometer away; and it fires the trusty and deadly M299 5.56x45mm round at a muzzle velocity of 1200m/s, which is able to inflict massive ballistic damage to armored and unarmored targets. Despite being replaced widely by the carbine variant as the official standard issue weapon of the USF Army, there were still plenty in the inventory. Usually, only rear echelon troops would be issued the full length rifle, but there weren't enough M12A1s to go around.

I dry-fired the rifle against the locked trigger. When it came to actually firing the firearm itself, a centre-mass would kill a human sized target in one or two rounds.

The M-24A4 has a S-1-3 trigger group while the M-12A1 has the S-1-F trigger group, where F stands for fun/fully automatic. Unfortunately most of the M-12A1s were signed out, and only the M-24A4s were available. Even the optics were limited too, so I was stuck with a Argent Plane 1x Close Combat Optic Gen 2 red dot sight, whereas most of the unit had Gen 4 variants.

In conclusion, I'm stuck with last-gen hand-me-down gear until I get new ones

Suddenly, I felt a smack from a long arm to the back of my head.

I turned, "What the hell is your problem?" it was my childhood friend, Midnight.

Although we were the same age, he looked slightly older, with a firmer jaw and arms longer than a beer tower. Also he was two inches taller too, which was something he'd always bragged about when our heights were compared. But this tall bastard of a giraffe was the closest I could have ever called a brother. I've known him for almost 8 years.

He had no family name, he hasn't talked or even mentioned about it since we met years ago. I guess it's his way of coping with loss.

He settled himself down on one of the crates in front of me in full gear with his rifle by his side.

"You're way too early, " I told him, not looking up from my rifle.

"What?"

"Y'know, gearing up," I told him.

"You're just slow," he said.

I laid my rifle down and picked up my scope before looking through it. A red dot reticule formed as my eye grew closer.

"Private...uhh...Midnight?" Someone called out, "Private Midnight?"

Midnight turned to the voice, "Who's asking?"

A young courier walked towards our bunk,"Finally, been looking for your sorry ass for the past ten minutes."

"What?" Midnight asked.

"Messages, as usual, it's for.. uh.. " the courier raised a tablet up to his face, ".. Private Midnight and Private Kimble. "

"It's alright, I got it," Midnight said, "Thanks."

The courier handed him two pieces of paper and walked away as Midnight checked the names.

"What is it?" I asked.

He shuffled the two letters on his hand and paused, "Can't find yours," he said.

I shrugged away the growing weight in my heart.

"Don't bother," I said, "Who wrote to you?"

"It appears, the ladies at home left a mail," Midnight said, opening his.

"They did?" I asked, raising one eyebrow, but my eyes still fixed on the optics, watching the red reticle appearing and disappearing as I alinged my eyes with the sensor.

"Yeah, have a read," he tossed the folded sheet at me.

I caught it in mid air with two fingers without looking. "Thanks," I said before unfolding it.

The text read:

Hey Midnight,

Remember what we told you, you better come back with all four limbs. If you don't, we'll kill you.

We, hope the three of you are doing well and having fun in the Army. We are proud of you. Heading towards Euphoria, yes? We saw it on the news. What those S.O.Bs have done is barbaric.

You heard bout Ezekiel? He seems pretty happy with his job. But he hasn't called us in a week. We'll update you on his progress with his new job the next time we write.

Well, thats all we can write for now. Y'know, military regulations. Good luck and stay safe out there.

Godspeed.

From,
Grace and Max.

"So, you think this insane plan is gonna work? " he asked, suddenly, "I mean, the chances of us getting shot out of the sky is pretty damn high."

As I finished reading and handed him back his mail, I saw his fingers rapidly tapping his left knee, eyes on my rifle. He looked up at me for a brief moment, and then back at the rifle before taking back his letter.

I couldn't blame him though, it was our first operation. Our first combat experience. He was nervous as hell. Back in hight school, getting into tricky situations where he did not had the upper hand often terrified him. But this time, it's different, it's no longer whether he'll be locked in the freshers for the entire day or getting food thrown at him during lunchtime..

.. it's life and death.

"I hope," I replied, "Have faith. All the training should keep us alive,"

Midnight scoffed, "Yeah, I'm sure everything will be just like the simulation," he began reading his letter.

"It won't be easy retaking this one. But like Eze use to say: look at-"

"-the positive side of things," he continued and sighed.

"But hey, at least we get to avoid another Atlas," I assured him.

"That's what we're here for, right?"

"Yea."

I caught Midnight looking over my shoulder before glancing away. I knew who was sneaking behind me: 24-year old Pvt. James Kimble.

With facial hair that grew faster than the regular grooming checks, he was always the subject of grilling by commanding officers during BCT.
To make matters worse, his extremely dry and dark sense of humour had always gotten the entire training company into trouble. I've known him for 9 years, and in that 9 years, he never took things seriously, especially during his time in high school. Humour was his weapon, though, the combat training and the pissed off screams from the drill sergeants had killed some of it.

He tried to sit on the crate my weapon was being assembled. But after realising that my rifle was laying alongside a few magazines of 5.56mm rounds, he decided that it was much wiser to stand.

"Thank god no one checks for grooming standards here," James said.

"Thank god you're not in the navy," I said, "You'll probably crash the entire fleet into a star system or something."

"Piss off," he replied.

Midnight slapped James in the face with his letter.

James smacked away Midnight's hand before noticing the letter, "The hell's this?"

"Oh, uh it's just a recommendation for the Medal of Honor," Midnight said.

James' eyes widened, "You kidding?! " he asked, "But I haven't been in combat."

"You didn't buy that, did you?" I asked.

James opened the letter, "Of course not. Did you really believe that I believed that?" He shook his head, "Jeez, you're gullible one."

I rolled my eyes, "Alright man, whatever floats you boat."

I began collecting my already loaded magazines and shoved them into the ammo pouches on my plate carrier, or what the military nerds would call the Modular Scalable Tactical Vest Gen IV.
Although the front and sides are visually thin, it usually comprises of two layers. The first layer, known as the Protective Outer Layer, is made up of a lightweight, ceramic ballistic plate. The second layer, known as the Critical Ballistic Layer, which consists of liquid armor that slows down most modern projectiles' kinetic penetration by 50%. Despite of the amount of layers used, the vest was still compact, tactical and comfortable.

The vest also came with a Pelvic Blast Harness which is some sort of harness similar to those you would wear in rock climbing, but reinforced with kevlar soft armor. It was designed to stop blast fragmentation and pistol rounds from damaging the soldier's pelvic area. I slipped my legs through the harness' openings and allowed the auto-straps to lock onto my thighs.

At least this would protect my

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