946 dropped silently in the thin high air. To them it seemed as if they were still in space. The stress and sickening feeling of being in the shuttle washed away. They tracked together into a tight group that would facilitate control during descent. Lawrence looked around to acquire the team. He spotted seven of he eight, and performed a quick IFF check to determine who was missing. Freeman. A pang of concern washed over him.

Lawrence knew their low power comm systems wouldn’t carry across to Röt Hafen but he was reluctant to break radio silence. Still, he had to locate Freeman.

“Freeman? Freeman, what’s you position?”

“About 500m below you, Sarge.” Charlie felt a sense of relief. “I was unstable on exit and tumbled like a turkey.” Freeman was jumping the SAW and gyromount, which made a stable exit difficult.

Charlie searched below him, increasing magnification to 2x, until he picked up Freeman’s IFF beacon. “All right I got you. Hold what you got, we’ll be right there.” Charlie signaled the rest of the team. “Let’s delta on down to Freeman. No hot-dogging. Follow Kenny.”

Each man switched his position from arms and legs spread, with back arched to arms straight and tight against the body, legs together. This streamlined position, known as a delta, increased rate of descent. As the team strove to catch up, Freeman continued to hold his own rate of descent steady. The team slid up on either side of him, or passing slightly below. Freeman maneuvered with arms and legs to assume his proper place in the team formation.

Waldek wrestled with the controls of the small ship. She corrected the spin, pitched nose down and picked up some forward velocity. Her precise flight plan had gone to hell. All that remained to be seen was if she had the fuel remaining to make orbit and the reach the Kohl. Her fuel readout was depressing, and a quick check with the computer confirmed she had missed the narrow window that would allow her back on board. She knew Kohl could not and would not alter its flight path to get her. She fought to keep down the panic rising within her at the realization that her chance for refuge had slipped away.

Waldek had enough fuel to get back into orbit, but not enough to catch the passing Kohl. There was no way to make the figures work. Damn. She began searching for a place to set down. A quick glance at the threat-warning receiver showed no activity. Somehow the shuttle had not been spotted. In the convoluted terrain below there had to be someplace to land.

“Coming up on first automatic release, twenty seconds,” said Mellor. “Let’s flatten out and spread.” The team maneuvered themselves so they were all at the same altitude, but at least fifteen to twenty meters between each man. A preselect on their HUD readout gave them their relative hold angle and rate of descent against the primary, Mellor. Opening up the formation ensured there would be no fatal collisions as the drags chutes deployed.

“Drag release in five, four, three, two ,guhhh!” From the main pack tray, a drag streamer deployed, slowing each man’s rate of descent. It had been found that for drops above 40,000 meters, this mid drop slowdown was necessary. The drag chutes remained deployed for fifteen seconds, then were automatically cut away. Once gone, the team would need to reacquire each other and make any necessary course corrections. Each drag chute was interwoven with a magnesium filament, which would ignite in twenty minutes, destroying the evidence.

Mellor watched the cut away timer drop to zero the flash red, signaling a malfunction. He noticed the rest of the team fly past him. Shit. He reached up behind his head, groping for the cut away pull tab with his gloved had, found it and pulled down. The drag chute cut loose, and Kenny stabilized and tracked down to the rest of his team. He pulled up into the lead again, checked his systems, then finally started breathing again.

With everyone once again in formation, it was time to start looking for landmarks. Both Kenny and Charlie called up the drop zone imagery overlay into their HUDs to see if they could find match with the confusing terrain below them. They were plunging into a rocky mountainous region. The ridge and valley patterns looked off. Twenty seconds of searching brought neither any closer to pinning down their position.

“Ken? Any ideas?”

“I’ve got no acquisition of the DZ. Primary release in forty seconds. Let’s flatten out and spread.”

“Fuck it, then. Find us a place to land.”

“I’m on it.” Kenny, having anticipated this likelihood, searched the terrain below and quickly found a contingency DZ for the team. He made some alterations in their track, which the team followed without comment. The ground was now rushing up at an alarming rate. They would have to pull sooner than the automatic release point. “Listen up, everyone get ready to pull on my mark. Quick! Give me a heads up.”

Everyone gave a quick response to Kenny, and he was satisfied they had heard the command. “Pull in four, three two one, pull!”

Eight chutes blossomed in unison, tugging heavily at their burdens. Lawrence breathed a sigh of release at keeping everyone together up to this point. A miracle. Main chutes deployed, 946 formed up into a wedge with Kenny at the point. His eyes on the drop zone, he guided the team into a small clearing between two peaks. They tracked and circled over the clearing as each man spiraled down to a landing. Kenny touched down, gathered up his chute and ran off the small clearing to make room for the others. Kenny fell to his knees, removed his mask, and kissed the rocky soil. He activated the harness quick release, and shucked out of his gear. His L7 was intertwined in the spaghetti of his harness, and he knelt down to extract it. He pulled the duct tape from around the magazine,(It had been there to ensure the magazine stayed in place in case the release button was activated during descent.). It wasn’t until he charged the weapon that he could sit back on his haunches, take a breath, and look around. First order of business was to take a piss. He called up the temperature, 4 Celsius. Despite the cold, he was overheated and sweating profusely from he excitement of the jump, and he dialed down his undersuit accordingly. That complete, Kenny set about unhooking the rest of his gear, then gathering up his parachute and sticking it into a kitbag. In there went also the oxygen bottle, mask, and control panel.

Lawrence appeared at his side. “How’s it going?”

“I’m Ok. Geez what a jump.”

“Yeah, that was a pucker factor of ten, easy.”

Donner joined the group. “Hey have you guys tried digging in this shit? It’s like solid rock. We’ll be here hours trying to bury our stuff.”

Charlie scratched at the dirt with his gloved hand, thinking. They couldn’t afford to take that much time. He didn’t even no where they were yet.

“I’ve got an idea.” Added Gerard, who a just joined them. “We can gather the kit bags up and stash them under a overhang I found, then set the burn timers. We need to get out of here.”

“Agreed, Sir. Why don’t you and Donner see to the kit bags. Kenny, Brooks, and I are going to figure out where the hell we are. The rest will pull security. Let’s be gone in ten minutes, tops.”

“Sounds good. I’ll get you Brooks.”

“Hey check that out.” Kenny was pointing skywards. The sky was blanketed with a shimmering glow. Red, green and blue curtains danced in the night sky.

“What is that, aurora borealis?”

“Or something like it,” said Gerard.

“That looks pretty damn heavy,” observed Lawrence. “Funny I didn’t notice it on the way down.”

“There was no mention of it in the area study,” said Mellor. “That’s another bone to pick with the S2 shop when we get back.”

Lawrence went back to studying their position. “I don’t suppose you recognize any of this on the map?”

“Nope.”

“Hmmm, well we need to get a fix from the satellite then. Assuming Kohl deployed it successfully.” Brooks lumbered up with his gear, breathing hard. “Brooks, we need to activate the satellite and get a fix, so get to work.”

Brooks looked up at the night sky with a quizzical expression. “Well, I hope that fuckin’ thing is up there. Geez that’s a fuckin’ heavy disturbance. Hope it doesn’t screw up the commo.” He shucked off his ruck, opened he top flap and fished out the antenna unit, Setting up the small umbrella shaped assembly on level ground. He connected the cable to the main unit in his ruck, then connected another cable to his helmet. Before activating the satellite, he had to find it. Removing a small card from his breast pocket, he aligned the dish according to those numbers. His first attempt was unsuccessful. He knew they were off course, but it couldn’t be by that much, so he fished around in the sky with the antenna, by moving it in small increments until he received a bounceback.

“Bingo. Reading two by two. Pretty shitty. Interrogating now.”

“Hooray for small miracles,” said Kenny. “Without that thing, this was going to be a real short mission.”

“OK, Sarge it’s active.”

“Download and fix, send up this ANGUS now, then shut it off.” Lawrence handed Brooks a small list of scrambled letters, which represented the ANGUS report. That was the code name for their initial entry report, which hey were expected to send within 24 hours of insertion. It basically said: “We’re here, we’re safe, and we’re continuing with the mission.”

“Done. Satellite is shut down. I didn’t get a very strong signal. That aurora is definitely screwing with communications.”

“Would it also effect sensors?”

“Yeah it would.”

“Well then, that’s good. Anything that helped hide our insertion from the Kra’Vak is a good thing.”

“Here’s your fix. Sarge.” Brooks downloaded the fix to Charlie’s helmet via a little IR eye in both helmets. Charlie passed it along to Kenny. They compared the fix with their map datum, which was in each helmet’s computer. Charlie also had a hardcopy of the map, which he took out and looked at.

“Goddamn, we’re eight Ks off course.”

“The winds were a lot higher than expected. Without the GPS up there was no way to correct during descent.”

“Well that means we got a lot more humping to do.” Gerard and Donner returned.

“Chutes are done.”

“Good, here’s the fix.” Charlie downloaded it to Donner and Gerard. “Tim, you have the point. The adjusted waypoints and route should be on your map. Set your GM angle to 9 degrees right.”

“OK.”

“Let’s get everyone together.”

The rest of 946 tightened the perimeter. As the excitement of the jump faded, they began noticing the cold, and undersuits were turned up accordingly. Each man received the updated map data. “Ok listen up”, said Lawrence. “We’re eight klicks off course. That means instead of moving twenty klicks, we gotta move twenty-eight klicks in the same time in order to make the RV. I know it sucks but that’s life. Look at it this way. You guys were getting over in point eight five gees, so this’ll help bring the universe back in order.”

“Ha.Ha. Very funny,” said Miner.

“OK, let’s ruck up and move out. Direction is due west. We’re going to be moving down this valley f or five klicks. Let’s go.”

They picked themselves up and donned their rucksacks. As each man struggled to put his on, he wondered about the ordeal ahead, the barren inhospitable planet they found themselves on, and the dangerous alien foe. But mostly, they thought on the move ahead of them carrying the heavy burden upon their back. The team set off in loose order, five-meter interval between each man. Donner and Mellor at the point, followed by the Captain, then Freeman, Molitoris, Brooks, Miner, and Lawrence.

They slipped off silently into the darkness, alert and satisfied to be in their element.