An HFY Tale: Drop Pod Green

Rhidi whined lowly in her throat as First Sergeant Lower briefed them all on the movements of the enemy; They were everywhere, crawling over the planet like an infection that broke out beyond the bounds of its cure.

Via still unknown means, these jagged faced, bald-headed creatures were landing in the thousands, creating little bases of their own and landing more of their own armor. This included heavy armor, light armor, artillery, mortars, and a slew of other weapons that intelligence were mulling over.

What had begun as a small raiding party was developing into a proper modern conflict, complete with missile batteries and dug in defensive positions. Rhidi let out a sigh of relief with the news of multiple friendly fleets coming in as support, including a Kojynn and Lilgara expedition fleet to help out on the ground. That still left the Humans and the members of the IDC outnumbered nearly a hundred to one… but the Humans didn't really seem troubled by that fact.

If anything, they seemed to relish it.

Rhidi was trained by the Humans, comforting enough to know, but while she was considered Human, she still had trouble trying to figure out why her fellow Human soldiers were so at ease with these combat numbers. By any margin, the Kafya would be shitting enough collective bricks to build a series of new homes with those kinds of numbers staring at them in the face. The Humans? Facing a possible peer to peer foe they had never met before?

Unbothered.

It may have well just been a normal Tuesday.

Rhidi felt a tremble of fear rumble down her spine at the sheer number of the enemy troopers coming down to the planet, a sentiment shared by her fellow Kafya judging by their faces. However, there was an odd, bolstering comfort in the fact that the Humans were not showing any outward fear.

Interestingly enough, each rush down to the planet's surface with supplies or more troops was opened with a fierce battle within the void, shuttles and drop ships speeding through cartwheeling fighters and the flashing batteries from the heavy cruisers. Just the first run on Monday morning saw another unknown enemy ship joining the scrap heap, paired with the skewed loss of several fighters and the light mauling of a carrier.

How the enemy fleets could sustain such losses was another mystery to Rhidi; Even the loss of one destroyer would be enough, but they had sustained the loss of three without even causing an annoyance to the Human ships. Countless fighters and bombers of their design also littered the cold void, their bodies picked up by Human medical tenders and chucked towards the planet in order to burn up in the atmosphere.

The Humans didn't try to do any salvage, just made sure the bodies met a grizzly end and were not recoverable by the enemy.

As the briefing wound down, Rhidi received less than likeable news; They would remain in the field, without racks due to the possibility of losing them, and would have to remain donning their armor the awkward way. Furthermore, they were being used alongside the Regs, bolstering their combat power. Both she and her fellow Droppers would be loping along beside vehicles, patrols, or riding on top of the armored personnel carriers if the distance was too far. At least a Platoon or two would stay behind at the base in order to keep the locals safe, which were streaming in by the thousands now.

The Regs were openly assaulting and moving about the now established combat field, finding their foes to be annoying more than anything, and it was creating a fair bit of frustration with the Human commanders; No matter how many they killed, they were slowly being chipped away at by death or injury, with dozens of enemy troopers to take the place of a single dead. The death toll was still low by Human standards, but it was rising, dozens of different training Companies getting blooded by their first combat action.

So far Rhidi's had been lucky… but that luck would not last forever.

Such luck never did.

Rhidi was in a bit of a dulled mood as the briefing finished, stepping off with the rest of the drop infantry as they made their way back towards their little area of control within the quickly growing FOB.

As the Regs continued to match the advances of the enemy with their own pulse assaults, Rhidi was left twiddling her thumbs more often than not as the days dragged on. These long draggings of boredom were spotted here and there with her walks with Morris, which were growing in length along with both of them telling each other more about their lives, but both Rhidi and Shaksho were starting to become burdened with the boredom of the male and female Kafya.

Shaksho was up to his nose when it came to wrangling the males, and there were many evenings she caught the green furred Kafya nursing a can of beer while pinching the bridge of his snout; Many of the males were falling prey to the female Regs, the Humans finding them quite the curiosity, while the male Humans were getting them in trouble with their escapades, including stealing an entire cake from the officer's mess.

They even had the gall to lay no claim to the cake, despite the icing around the fur of their mouths and the male Human Droppers having icing-dyed fingers.

Shaksho was further thrown under the bus once command figured out he was the de facto leader of the male Kafya, and due to him being a Dropper, meant that the Kafya in the Regs also fell under his leadership. It had come to a head a few times, requiring Shaksho to brawl with a few of the Kafyan Regs in order to get them to fall in line, though his training made that quite trivial.

Rhidi on the other hand had a tight grip on the female Kafya, being both a yellow and the only Kafya that wore Skógarskera armor. The female Kafyan Regs were utterly terrified of her, something that Rhidi relished; Many of the females wouldn't look her in the eyes, fearing to draw the ire of "The Drop Pod Lycan".

To be fair, Rhidi outclassed every female Kafyan Reg due to her workout regimen and training, and she was a nightmare to tangle with in melee scrimmages; Due to their enemy's armor type, the Heavy Onslaught Infantry had been issued a gleen-seax, an energized combat knife that was nearly the size of a shortsword.

It was an odd weapon, a remastering of an older design forged by the Skalathir and their gravity hammers, and the combat "knives" were imbedded with a keen level of Kojynn energy; They did not have an edge in the original sense, forged to be strong enough so that a warrior could balance on the tip of the blade with the entire weight of their body, all without dulling the fine point.

Strong enough to punch through most body armor with the strength of onslaught battle plate, its real power came from the long, dull edge; When a button was activated on the grip of the blade, just below the stubby guard, Kojynn "gleen generators" powered up within the thick hilt itself. An orange string of power is thrown along the dull, thick edge of the seax, generating an extremely powerful edge formed by the Fimloi Effect.

The Fimloi Effect, mastered by the Kojynn, allowed the gleen generators to create a razor thin line of energy that could cut through anything when required, though the energy draw was massive and usually reserved for their ramming attacks via ships. This was given a hotfix by the Drafritti, and with their amber-glow batteries socketed in place, the blades were allowed to function for up to a hundred cuts before the battery had to be replaced.

Naturally training followed, in which the Heavy Onslaught Infantry practiced against both themselves and little swarms of Regs with their capped bayonets.

It was here that Rhidi gained her nickname, as even when being swarmed by eight Regs, they could not get near her without suffering her yellow furred wrath.

Such wrath became widely known after Rhidi found out her fellow female Kafyan Droppers were being naughty behind her back, something that she had been literally blind to due to Morris; When she went off on a walk with Morris, the females would scatter, knowing they had roughly an hour or two to do as they pleased while Rhidi was making goo-goo eyes at her favored Human. They had kept this up for days, hiding in the darkness casted by the glow of Rhidi's happiness in getting one on one time with Morris.

Inthur was the first to get sloppy, becoming a little too tired after spending a long afternoon with an equally tired Reg that she found herself fancying.

This in turn led to her being absent during a head count.

Which of course led to Rhidi going out looking for her.

Ending with Rhidi whipping open the door to an NCO field barracks and finding Inthur snoozing happily beside a Human Staff Sergeant, thick legs intertwined and her fingers tangled in his blonde beard.

The stentorious boom of Rhidi barking out Inthur's name had pulled hundreds of eyes towards the NCO barracks, then people started to scatter when the fight broke out. The Staff Sergeant in question was able to pull on a pair of uniform bottoms and excuse himself from his own barracks room, standing outside in the hallway while picking little strands of blue fur from his beard.

Inthur, on the other hand, was brawling with Rhidi fully nude, while Rhidi was only in her tightly fitting inner ballistic suit.

This fight had been coming for a long time, and when word got out that the two had finally come to blows, a massive number of both Kafyan Regs and Droppers had formed around the NCO field barracks to see how it would turn out.

Afterall, if Inthur won, that meant there would be a new Kholihl.

To the surprise of very few, it was Inthur that came rolling out the front door of the field barracks in a tangle of flailing limbs, thudding down into the grass. She had been hastily dressed in just her smuggled civilian clothing, by Rhidi judging from the fact her shirt was backwards.

Rhidi strode out next, looking thunderous enough that many were surprised lightning wasn't licking along the tips of her raised hackles. Rhidi had a vicious bite mark on her neck that was trickling blood, and she was likely going to have a brutal black eye, but it was clear that she had been doing most of the damage.

Inthur groaned, rolling over onto her side and heaving out a few great coughs, breathing in with a wheeze as she clutched her ribs; She had received mostly punches and kicks, the kicks coming in after latching onto Rhidi's neck, and had an equally painful bite along the bottom of her right breast.

"Should… should we call a medic?" A female Pwah asked quietly, eyes wide as she watched Rhidi grab onto Inthur's leg and start dragging her along the grass.

Anfilid chuckled, as she had run off to go gambling with the Humans and Pwah instead of getting a little hairless nookie on the side. "No, it's fine, she'll get seen to after our Kholihl drags her back and gives her another good yelling at."

"She's probably pissed that Inthur went after a Reg." Oin said through a cheekful of string cheese, slowly pulling another piece free as her eyes traced the drag path of Inthur. "That and Inthur has always been a little… you know, free wheeling."

"Free wheeling?" Imridit asked with a tilt of the head, hands on her hips as she caught Rhidi give Inthur another punch to the ribs when the blue fur kicked her in the chin, out of frustration at being dragged.

Pobilo chuckled to herself, running the fingers of her pawed hand through her hair. "Whorish, Imridit. Free wheeling is Human slang for throwing your fur around at whoever looks at it kindly."

"Oooh!" Imridit replied, clapping her paws together. "Oh, yeah, that fits Inthur to a T. Should we tell Rhidi about the others, or…?"

Oin snorted. "I think we'll leave that humping dog lie, Imridit."

"But then wouldn't we be the lying dogs?" Imridit asked, causing the Humans, Pwah, and Lilgara around her to giggle.

Enflia pinned back her orange ears, bearing the same tell-tale bend that a lot of the Kafyan Droppers were. "She meant laying down, Imridit, not telling falsehoods."

"Come on." Uppil said, shaking her red furred head. "Let's go back to camp and make sure that Rhidi isn't beating her to death with her own helmet or something."

The female Kafyan Droppers stepped off together, working their way through the dispersing crowd as the "servicing" Staff Sergeant went in to fix his room.

They were walking along quietly for a long moment before Imridit spoke up again, tossing her pink hair.

"So… are we, or are we not allowed to do what Inthur did?" She asked, turning to look over her shoulder at the NCO field barracks.

Saffi shrugged, working one of her fingers around her green braids. "We're allowed to, I'm pretty sure. Oin has been reading up on all the Human regulations, I bet she knows."

"She does know." Oin murmured, pulling out a second string cheese from her pocket. "And you will be pleased to hear that the Humans don't really care as long as you fill out a form beforehand." Oin heard the others come to a stop, and her ears went askew with a sigh as she turned, looking over her shoulder as she peeled open her string cheese. "What?"

"You have to fill out a form?" Imridit asked, her smile more confused than happy. "Like, you need to agree to mate?"

Oin shrugged. "Sometimes, it actually varies."

"There are rules to it?" Uppil asked, crossing her arms under her breasts. "Or are there levels to the whole thing?"

Oin rolled her eyes. "If you want to rub uglies with someone who is a higher rank than you, you both need to fill out a SC-21-31 and submit it before you do anything. It's then kept on file for up to a year."

"You have to do paperwork?!" Enflia shouted angrily, then slammed her patrol cap into the grass. "I will not! I will not do paperwork in order to mate with a Human, I won't!"

Saffi turned, grinning. "Are you saying this because you were eyeing Captain Williams?"

"I'm not doing paperwork!" Enflia spat again, then threw a short, hopping tantrum on her patrol cap. "That. Is. Ab. Surd!" She bent down, snatching her cap back up. "How am I supposed to enjoy a weekend if I have to fill out paperwork in order to do it?!"

Uppil suddenly had a small, salacious smile on her lips. "I dunno', be kinda hot filling out the forms together, giving little furtive glances here and there along with the sounds of your data-slates…"

"Ah yes, Kafyan romance." Dimili muttered with a shake of her head. "Nothing gets us going more than flirtatious bureaucracy."

"Don't ick my pick, brown fur." Uppil said, then stuck out her tongue after Dimili did the same to her.

Imridit raised her paw'd hand again. "Is this with all military personnel or only Humans?"

"All." Oin replied, already halfway through her cheese stick. "Including other branches, and it doesn't matter what hardware the other person is packing."

Imridit scowled. "Ew, I'm not filling out forms for a Pwah."

"Classy." A male Pwah Reg said as he passed by, throwing a scathing look at Imridit.

Imridit kept her scowl as she turned to look at him. "Don't you get sassy with me short round, if I'm filling out the paperwork I want a package that can properly fill out the mailslot."

"Did you… did you just mix Indiana Jones and the postal network into an innuendo?" Oin said, eyebrows raised in actual surprise and pride.

Imridit smiled smugly as the Pwah let out a grunt of aggravation, the pink furred Kafya turning to look at the black fur. "Why yes, yes I did!"

"You can make a double reference innuendo but can't figure out the differences in lie via context?" Enflia said with bared teeth, still rather upset that she was getting Human-blocked by the looming prospect of paperwork

Uppil was still daydreaming, thinking of a moment where her hand and a Human's may touch while filling out their forms…

"Is it as good as they say it is?" Anfilid asked in honest curiosity, having been mulling it over the entire time they had stopped, though she opted to ask the question now that they were starting to walk again. "Humans, I mean."

Pobilo let out a lusty chuckle. "Oh, you have no idea Anfilid, it's world changing."

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There was a gathered gasp from the group of female Kafya, though Oin only managed a cocked eyebrow, as gasping was beneath her.

"You went and did it with a Human?!" Saffi stage whispered loudly, punching the blue fur in the shoulder. "When did you even do that?!"

Pobilo shrugged. "As soon as we were out of our training, linked up with a Human out of the 1-19th Infantry Battalion."

"You blues work fast…" Oin murmured, though her ears were perked in joint interest.

"How was it?!" Imridit asked, sidling up in front of Pobilo with her pawed fists held close to her chin. "Do they really only have hair on their stomachs? The Humans call them valuable trails!"

Anfilid let out a hard snort, followed by a short burst of laughter before she tweaked one of Imridit's bent ears. "Treasure trails, Imridit."

"Treasure trails…" Imridit said dreamily, now hanging onto Pobilo's arm.

Pobilo, glowing in the attention as she caught the sounds of Rhidi yelling at Inthur in the distance, grinned in an equally dreamy manner. "Even better, his whole stomach had a light layer of red hair that fed into his… you know. Lower forest."

Oin may have appreciated this news silently, but the other female Kafya let out a soft "Oooh" under their breaths, all of their ears perked.

"Plus, unlike the males of our race, you can use all of him." Pobilo said with a wolfish smile. "All the way down."

Imridit leaned back from Pobilo in shock, while the other females all glanced at each other in alarm.

"The… the whole thing?" Imridit asked breathlessly. "You're not saying…"

Pobilo tilted her head at Imridit, still smiling with hooded eyes. "Oh yeah, I am. Let's just say I felt his fur tickling mine."

"... Maybe… paperwork isn't so bad…" Enflia said quietly, her ears a little more perked than the others and tail wagging back and forth.

They were all jerked from their inner thoughts by a red male Kafya walking their way, his IB suit splashed with coffee that he was mopping up.

"I would exercise caution, Rhidi is on a tear right now with Inthur. Apparently she didn't fill out some form properly and Rhidi has to drag her over to the S-Shop." He said, wiping the last of the coffee away. "Inthur tried to claw her way under a table and splattered coffee everywhere, so that's fun."

He looked up to receive his response, but all the female Kafya were staring at him, eyes narrowed as they looked him over.

He narrowed his eyes in return, looking over his shoulder once before turning back. "What?"

"Nothing, Muidi." Oin said, though she was bearing one of her rare smiles. "They're just absorbing some fresh news. Any word on the patrols?"

Private Muidi nodded. "Yep, half the Company is heading out to help the Regs establish a cordon tomorrow, I know 1st and 2nd Platoon are heading out, the rest are still fighting over who has to stay home to guard the FOB."

Oin clapped her hands together, having tucked her empty wrapper into a pocket. "Alright hussies, enough with the mental explorations. Let's go track down Rhidi and let her know she can't kill Inthur."

—

"Don't think you went a little overboard?" Morris asked Rhidi as they walked along beside each other, having created a private communication link between their helmets far earlier into the movement.

Rhidi let out a grumble, which made Morris laugh, but she was still too angry to enjoy it. "She tagged a Reg NCO! And she didn't even fill out that damn form!"

"The SC-21-31?" Morris asked her, kicking a rock out of her way with his armored boot.

Rhidi rolled her shoulders, her MG-111 held low in front of her with the light whirring of her servo arm. "Yeah, that one. The Reg didn't really seem to care and found the whole thing funny, but Flores gave me a thorough ass chewing because the females are my responsibility…"

"Imagine my surprise, Regs not caring about correct paperwork." Morris mused, turning to glance at the long column of infantry marching with them.

They were doing this all by foot in order to conserve fuel, as there had been multiple anti-vehicle teams laying in wait that had ambushed earlier advances. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Platoons of the HOI's were their support, walking tanks as it was, and were there to help them deal with anything that cropped up. This had meant that multiple HOI's were marching along with anti-armor missile launchers, Shasta being quite proud to have one of them mounted on his shoulder and linked to his targeting array.

"It was the fact she was so lackadaisical about it all!" Rhidi grouched, raising a hand and gesturing around her. "She does it in secret, doesn't fill out the paperwork, over sleeps, what if we were attacked? That NCO barracks is on the other side of the FOB, away from her armor! If she was going to be a little hoe about it all, she could have at least been back in a timely manner…"

Morris' shoulders jerked in laughter, and Rhidi was finally able to smile and glow in it.

"A little hoe? My goodness Rhidi, you have become fully infected by Human language." Morris said, reaching over and poking her in the shoulder.

Rhidi giggled, turning to look at him through her helmet visor; She couldn't see his face, but her imagination did more than enough.

They had been talking and chatting the entire way there, with nearly every other HOI having their own communication links set up. The links turned off as soon as the sensors detected incoming fire, which included someone throwing a rock at your helmet.

It was a humorous way to pass the time, as the communication array reset it back to the default of open channels, which included a few words that could be interesting.

Rhidi had nailed Imridit with a small stone earlier, but "treasure trail" was not a phrase she expected to hear from the pink Kafya.

The Regs wore helmets as well, though their armor was lighter and more "front towards enemy", so nearly every entity in the movement were chattering away about whatever they could to pass the time.

"So, Rhidi." Morris began, shaking Rhidi away from the thought. "I wanted to ask you something."

"What's that, Morris?" Rhidi replied, turning to look at him again.

Morris tapped his finger along his rifle, the SR-113 letting out a metallic "tink" as he did. "So… when we're done here, whenever that is, we'll probably have plenty of time off, since we'll be heading back to Earth for a proper refit."

Rhidi's heart went from delightfully calm to panicking, thudding against her chest like a startled bird. Even her helmet knew something was up, and was fighting against her quickly erecting ears. Her voice was calm… but just barely. "Oh… yeah?"

"Yeah." Morris answered. "And I figured… you know, since we'll have plenty of time to burn, if you wouldn't mind burning a little bit of that time with me."

Rhidi stumbled.

Visibly.

Her regaining her feet caused quite a few heads to turn her direction, her yellow tail fraying out in nerves.

Imridit turned, face unseen to Shaksho, quickly establishing a private link.

"Did Rhidi trip?" Imridit asked him, her own pink tail swishing back and forth behind her.

Shaksho laughed dryly, as he had counselled Morris all last evening on how to approach the yellow fur. "Yeah, something like that."

"You… you want to go on a date?" Rhidi stammered, now fully turned towards Morris as far as she could while walking. "On the Moose? Date? Date on the M-Moose?"

Before Morris could reply, a gleaming round zipped in between them, shattering the air with its concussive blast as it blew a chunk of Alias's pauldron away.

"Son of a bitch!" Alias bellowed as he stumbled backwards, Regs diving out of the way of his weight as all their helmets switched them to all comms.

Rhidi let out a screeching howl, turning her MG-111 up and around as multiple target indicators were fed into her helmet via the rapidly approaching surveillance drones.

"You're ruining our moment!" Rhidi screamed, pulling back on the trigger and lacing 8mm Spandau towards the now ducking ambush team that had failed to hit Alias in the visor, all because the Pwah decided to sneeze.

Everyone reacted at once, sprinting or diving out of the road into the brush and cover that ran along it.

Shaksho hauled Imridit along with him, cackling to himself as they both came down into the brush. "She isn't going to like that, he was just about to ask her out."

"Aw!" Imridit cried out, lifting her rifle and lacing three rounds into a one-eyed soldier that had tried to crest his cover. "That's so sweet!"

The Regs were fanning out into a long line running perpendicular to the originating contact point, flooding into the brush to establish their line and get out of the open. Rhidi was still standing open in the road, tail fluffed out in rage as she traced her rounds back and forth along the dug-in enemy positions.

With withering gunfire pinning them in place, the one-eyed aliens that had started the ambush suddenly found themselves trying to dig deeper into the ground, sheltering down in their foxholes to avoid the cracking lead rounds that eagerly sought their flesh.

"Droppers!" A Reg Captain called out, waving his hand back and forth to get their gathered attention. "Recon drones report light vehicles coming down the road and enemy squads moving in towards our rear!"

Sergeant Flores sucked on her teeth, annoyed as she spun around with the reading coming to her. "Roger, 1st Platoon is on it. Shasta, Acici, Troy, into the road, everyone else leapfrog over into the brush."

While Shasta let out a victorious hiss, clambering out of cover and kneeling down in the middle of the dirt road, everyone else fell into their positions. Rhidi and Wheeler hefted their MG111s and turned on their heels, bringing their weapons back down with a whirr of their servo arms.

"Don't miss, Shasta." Sergeant Flores muttered as she stepped over the Lilgaran's tail while Acici, a female Lilgaran, pulled around her extra rocket charges and popped the top off the tubes. Flores squinted through her visor at the opposing brushline, roughly fifty yards away from their position on the road top. "The rest of you, don't open fire until these dipshits come through that tangle."

The rest of the Dropper Platoons spread out along the brush line, slowly pushing out under the cover of the Regs as Sergeant First Class Bloodmourne urged them forward, Lieutenant Brightberry and the other officers kneeling down next to the Captain of the Regs and conversing with him under the command link.

It didn't take long for the vehicles to appear around a curve in the road, opening up with a multi-barreled weapon of some sort and littering the air with the cracking reports of their odd ammunition.

"Locked!" Shasta called out gleefully, pulling his rifle in close and bending forward at the waist slightly. "Clear back blassst!"

Acici slapped Shasta on the shoulder after checking around the trooper. "Clear!"

"Arrow away!" Shasta called out, the launching tube letting out a teeth-chattering 'thwack!' as the warhead left, shrieking up and into the sky with a keening cry.

"Loading!" Acici shouted out as Troy took off his tube as well, cracking open the cap to expose the gleaming rocket inside.

Shasta nodded as Acici slid the rocket into place, though Rhidi kept her eyes on the forward vehicle that was still firing wildly at them; It was a good maneuver, the pincer, but it faltered in the face of heavy body armor and a vicious amount of weaponry.

Streaking forward on glowing yellow grav-pads, the scout vehicle was lightly armored in gray plating, thick armored glass sitting in ovals where the driver's head was, along with the commander and the gunner's optics. They were smart, advanced looking things that shimmered with a shield… but the Arrow gave very few shits about shielding.

The Arrow flew high into the sky, leaving a furling trail of smoke, then came down like a meteor, smashing down into the top of the vehicle and setting off its tandem charge; First a shaped charge laced with anti-shield coating cracked through the first defensive layer, then the second charge sent an explosive penetrator right into the pre-bored hole made by the shaped charge.

The damned thing didn't stand a chance.

Grav-pads flew away like skipping stones as the vehicle just detonated, smoke, fire, and ripped plating shooting through the air like a hellborne confetti popper. The rest of the chassis tumbled and thundered along the roadway, cartwheeling while throwing out gear and components laced with fire.

The other two scout vehicles flared their grav-pads as they came to a thudding halt, turning to try and run out through the sides of the road.

Shasta and Acici however were too quick.

"Locked!" Shasta called out again, grinning under his helmet as his hood flared out as best it could under the IB suit collar.

Acici slapped his shoulder again. "Back blassst clear!"

"Arrow away!"

The air was torn by the flight of another Arrow, Troy handing the next missile to Acici while the targeted scout vehicle pushed through the brush in an open swerve of panic.

"Thank fuck for Onslaught Infantry…" Rhidi heard a Reg shout to a nearby rifleman, the two laughing as the scout vehicle turned into a tumbling fireball that lodged itself into a tree.

Rhidi couldn't comment as her visor began lighting up with drone-fed targeting designations, and she reached out with a balled fist towards Wheeler.

Wheeler fist bumped her back, and they took a knee, sitting above their fellow Droppers on the road.

The enemy infantry, having assumed they were going to set up in the brushline and fire into a panicked enemy, instead found two of their scout vehicles burning, another tearing ass across the field, and a lot of heavily armored infantry staring at them with rifles raised.

"Howdy, dumbasses." Sergeant Flores said over the open channel as she pulled back on the trigger, forcefully evacuating the brain of an enemy rifleman through the back of his skull with a 30-06 Oakley.

Rhidi and the rest of 1st Platoon opened fire all at once, aligning their sights to the indicators that the drones were feeding them. The digital marker lights made snuffing out the now reeling one-eyed infantry trivial, the thin, rectangular drones switching between thermal and pulse sensors.

One drone, however, hovered oddly close to Rhidi, twitching back and forth overhead as it found targets.

Rhidi thought things were going quite swimmingly, her designated pair of Regs running over with her spare ammunition, but Sergeant Flores had taken off running across the road towards the now gathering NCOs.

Rhidi blinked on her microphone, turning towards a Reg behind her. "What are they all up to?"

"Enemy is moving around us." He said quickly, popping off her ammo pack as they both started feeding ammunition into it. "They're zip-zapping all over the place."

Rhidi rolled her eyes, unseen from under her visor. "This is starting to get really annoying."

"Agreed." Said the other Reg, linking up the new belts to the old. "As soon as we were far enough away, all patrols came under ambush and the FOB came under attack. Starcats are dogfighting over the base."

"If you can call it a dogfight." Said the Reg directly behind Rhidi. "More like an aerial pecker-slapping."

The two Regs chuckled to each other as they closed Rhidi's ammo pack, though one quirked a brow.

"They did find an enemy base though, big ol' thing. Think they'll buff it out?"

"Maybe." Said the other, grinning. "The old man has been gathering dust."

Rhidi turned towards them, her tail giving a slight wag of curiosity. "Buff it out?"

"An old friend too angry to die, you'll see." A Reg said, both of them slapping Rhidi on the ammo pack before scurrying away.

Sergeant First Class Bloodmourne's voice cut over the command channels as all the officers and NCOs broke away, running to their own Platoons. "On your feet! We're running to the FOB, the Regs have this!"

"We're running to the base?" Sergeant Flores asked as she rose up to her feet with the other drop infantry, her voice more piqued than admonishing. "Are they unlocking our speed limiters?"

"Yes, we're running at full tilt." Sergeant First Class Bloodmourne called out as all the Platoons began to move. "Get moving!"

"Watch your footing." Specialist Fredrick said, motioning around him as Rhidi stood. "Your suit is going to be ahead of you as you move, pay attention to your suit more than your feet."

With that, the veteran drop infantry took off at a sprint that caused Rhidi to flinch, the suits ripping up the ground with sprays of soil and grass. Shasta and Alias went running by, their suits picking up speed at an alarming rate, so Rhidi started off after them.

The jolt of movement pulled momentarily at her face as her Onslaught Battle Plate sped up to a speed she had never run at before, the armor unlocking with the sliding of armor plates to allow more movement to her legs.

Normally the suits were limited to thirty five UAA miles per hour, but with being unlocked, the suits were now hauling ass at over sixty five miles per hour, their sensors working overtime to keep the suits from tripping over their own feet.

Nose diving in the suit would have been painful to say the least, but devastating if the wearer started to tumble.

Alias, as short as he was, dropped his shoulder and blew through a six inch wide sapling, the wood shattering apart like a cannon shot and throwing multiple skittering insectoid animals through the air.

"The armorers are not going to like that!" Shasta laughed over his communication link, ducking down to avoid a limb that was aimed to bounce off of his launcher.

Alias shook his head, wiping away the leaves and small branches that clung to him. "That was amazing! I didn't even feel it!"

"Is it weird that this is scarier than getting shot at?!" Rhidi screamed out as she had to jump, sailing over a fallen log and coming down onto speeding armored boots.

Oin, having stashed her rifle on the back of her armor, was running with both arms free, zipping by Rhidi with a flailing black tail. "We're going right at sixty five!"

Tearing through the brush like missiles, the Platoons of Droppers had to clear over ten miles of patrol distance, their armored boots churning up the ground like tank treads as they began spreading.

Due to the dense foliage, everyone but the heavy gunners had stowed their rifles, slamming aside trees and limbs alike in order to clear their path.

Lieutenant Brightberry's voice filled Rhidi's ears, his voice both annoyed and mildly panicked. "They're attacking the base in force, and we can't use our rifles, we have to go to melee as soon as we break from the woodline."

"Why can't we use our rifles, sir?" Rhodil asked, the rogue prince keeping pace beside multiple Humans despite his stature.

"We could miss and slap the FOB with our fire, the last thing we need is to stitch up the defenders with our misses." Lieutenant Brightberry said, drawing out his gleen-seax. "According to the drones we'll be coming out right on top of their artillery."

"Artillery?!" Marides called out, also pulling free her gleen-seax from its sheath. "They have artillery?!"

"Not for long." Uli growled, holding two gleen-seaxes as she had requested a pair of the things.

"Form up!" Lieutenant Brightberry ordered, holding up his gleen-seax. "Form a wedge!"

The order came up into Rhidi's helmet, listing her next to Shasta and Alias as all the Platoons came together to form an armored wedge of steel and glowing melee daggers. Not even the alien forest could stand against them now, tree, shrub, and limbs blowing away like a hurricane through the shore.

The wedge advanced like a force of nature upon itself, the Hounds of the Wild Hunt scything through the woods like the myth they were named after. Rhidi could hear the drone still thrusting around her, spinning left and right as it recorded and took in information from the other drones.

Sparkle Otter had the job of recording, after all.

With a whir of her servo arm, Rhidi stowed away her MG-111 alongside her ammo pack, pulling free her gleen-seax with a hiss of dull blade across the leather of the scabbard. None of the Kafya had been particularly happy about the leather sheaths, but it was tradition, so they had to deal with it regardless.

"It is time!" Shasta called out gleefully, both he and the other Lilgara having been eagerly awaiting their first proper melee. "We will crash upon the enemy like the sands of Tich'alk!"

Acici, running next to Shasta, had to resist the urge to take off her helmet, her hood as flared as the other Lilgara. "Blade to flesh! Blood to sand!"

The war cry echoed across the open channel, the Lilgara holding high their glowing blades as they turned on the Kojynn energy waves.

Rhodil, not to be outshone, flourished his own seax-blade, more the size of a proper sword to the stature of his race, holding it down low towards his side. "House Likirit bares their blade! Bleed with me, Pwah of the Ulturuiuam! Bleed on our own terms!"

The Pwah slammed their gleen-seaxes onto their shoulder armor, coming down low and forward as they prepped their first, powerful strike.

"Till the last Pwah falls, to the first Pwah that bleeds!" Rhodil bellowed, resting his blade in the same fashion as the rest.

The Kafya and Humans, however, said nothing, though both races were unconsciously baring their teeth, noses snarled as the light began to break through the treeline towards them.

"For the honor of the fallen, for the ashes of the pyre." Lieutenant Brightberry said in an even tone, more in a light hush than the loud declarations of the others.

"Onto the spear." Sergeant First Class Bloodmourne murmured next. "Unto the halls."

Rhidi saw all the Humans change in their approach, now leaning forward like predators, arms raised, heads tilted down as they glowered out through the tops of their visors; The Humans were in their element, charging into the throng of battle with nothing but knives in their hands.

Just as they had always done.