Kevin Clayton: The Lyria campaign

Our first objective in the operation was to secure a stretch of river several klicks removed from the drop zone. Second platoon had been assigned the to take and hold a small village on the other side the river while first and third would take in positions on other locations both upstream and downstream. Our platoon was driving through the snowy landscape in an infantry support platform, with an armoured personnel carrier scouting the way ahead.
I was sitting in the bunker on top of the vehicle with seven of the marines while the rest of the platoon was sitting below. The huge vehicle was incredibly slow but it housed the AAA so it was unsmart to go anywhere without it in this phase of the invasion. Half an hour before we reached the river Max climbed up to the bunker.
“Any visuals of the objective?” She asked while climbing the last few stairs.
“No sergeant, nothing yet,” a Marine replied.
“We just got word from the lead vehicle they are waiting for us to catch up with them on this side of the river,” Max announced. “They already got a visual on the village on the other side. Get ready. If you got to go, this is the time to do so,”
She kneeled down and peered through the firing slits in front of the bunker.
The snowy plains surrounding us were featureless, but about half a klick away some low hills which lined the banks of the river had come into view. It was a clear day with a crisp blue sky. The temperature outside: minus ten degrees. Although I was sitting on the wrong side of the bunker, I could see a small dirt road running up one of the hills, when leaning forward. Strangely I wasn’t nervous at all about the mission. For the first few hours during the landing I had been extremely nervous about the fact I wasn’t nervous, but even this feeling was gone now. We would see.
As we came close to the hills the vehicle steered onto the road which ran parallel to the river. Many of the men who had climbed down to have, what could be the last toilet visit outside of their suits for some time, had by now come back up. It wasn’t that cold, but taking your suit on and off outside would take too long to be healthy. The road turned towards the river; the vehicle struggled to climb up the first hill. Up until now most of the marines had had suppressed conversations with the men sitting beside them, but everyone had fallen silent.
We reached the top of first hill. Leaning forward to peer through the forwards slits, I was surprised when I could already see the village lying in the distance on the other side of a frozen over river. Max immediately climbed down. I could hear her yell something downstairs. The village disappeared from view as the vehicle drove down the other side of the hill. We stopped just before we got to the top of the next one.
“Everybody dismount!” Max hollered up from below, and so we did.

I carefully climbed down the ramp on the back of the vehicle. The ramp was already pretty steep to begin with but with the vehicle standing on a slope it was outright dangerous. The marines were getting restless.

“Were the hell is Max?” One of the marines started to ask accusingly.
“She went up ahead,” one of the sergeants told him.
“What do we do?” another marine asked.
“She told us to wait here and that’s what will do. Get back to your squad,” the sergeants told him.
A minute later Max came running back.
“Brooke, Hannigen, get over here!” Max ordered.
After both walked over to her, she started explaining to them. From what I could gather the APC was already parked on top of the hill for half an hour. They had had some visuals, strength unknown. I figured if there was anyone there they would surely know we would be here by now. At some point Antonio ran back to where the rest of us were waiting.
“Second squad, on me. We’re going advance to the right along this side of the river under the cover of the bank, while first squad is going to cross here. When we reach the nearest point to the village, they are going to advance on the village, with us ready to support if they make contact. Understood?” Antonio asked as he looked across his squad.
“Sergeant, yes, sergeant,” a few men said; most of them just nodded.
“From now on now more ‘sergeant yes sergeant’. It’s just yes or understood. Understood?”
The men mumbled various affirmations in his direction.
“Excellent, follow me, line formation, keep your dispersion.”
Shortly after they left Max came walking back with sergeant Hannigen.
“Gather up!” The sergeant shouted.
I ran over and joined the rest of the platoon, about ten men, which gathered around Max and him.
“Okay, this is the plan,” the sergeant started explaining. “We cross the river here and hold-up on the other side. Now the idea is,” and the sergeant briefly glanced at Max before he continued, “to try and tempt to any enemies in the village to give up their position…by engaging us.”
Max continued. “If they do, Brooke with the other half of the platoon will be ready to jump in from the other side and the lead vehicle can give support from up here. It’s going to be fine. Let’s go marines!”
We started walking to the top of the hill were the APC was already waiting. As we passed it Max yelled back “Spread it out.”
We walked down the second and hill towards the river edge on a gentle pace. The dirt road had run up onto the river but it didn’t seem to continue on the other side of it. The ice was black; clear from any snow, which I thought was strange. The third guy to step onto the ice, after Max and the sergeant, slipped and fell. As I put my first foot down on the ice myself I understood why. The boots on my suit had suprisingly little grip. Taking small steps I carefully followed the rest of the squad as we made our way across to the other side. The snow on this planet, at least on this part of it, was hard as rock except for a very thin top layer. After we had moved inland for a hundred meter, Max had us stop. There were some bushes around, more like reed, but all white and frozen. The vegetation became more sparse nearer to the village and a hundred meters in front of it disappeared almost completely, but out here it obscured us from the village, or so I hoped.

“We’re going to wait here until Brooke radios he’s in position. Stay on your guard.”
A little later, when most of the men were standing about, Max had walked over to me.
“How’s our pilot doing, Lieutenant?”
“Okay, I guess.”
She closed my zipper on the thick vest we had received before the operation, to wear over our suits.
“Just don’t do anything stupid, alright?” She said smiling.
“I’ll try.” I would.
I kept staring into her eyes and she in mine.
At some point she looked away and grabbed her earpiece.
“Understood, standby,” she replied before she looked back at me, “Brooke’s in position.”
She turned around and walked a few steps towards the village while talking on the radio, “Brooke, hold your position. Lead vehicle standby.”
“This is it people. Battle line, on me!”
I hurried myself to my position in the formation on her right.
“We are going to move up to the village,” Max said after everybody had joined up, “Keep this dispersion. Prepare to engage. Let’s go.”
Max started running at an easy pace and the rest of us followed suit. The reed broke to shards as I barged through it trying to maintain my position in the line. So far I couldn’t see anyone around the village. Our line advanced through a thin band of thicker bushes and leafless trees after which the reed started getting thinner and lower. Suddenly we were under fire. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the village.
“Get Down!” Max yelled.
I dropped down into the snow, not sure if I did so because Max ordered me or was already going for the ground before she did so. I pushed myself flat to the ground as bullets seemed to whizzing over our heads. Around me a number of marines had already started to return fire; I realized I was such a coward. I raised my rifle by stretching my arms in front of me and started firing in the direction of the village.
“Hold your fire. Hold your fire.” Max ordered cool, now talking over the comm.
The gunfire of the marines and me who had started firing died out immediately. The fire from the village did not. I started peering through the scope of my rifle, something I hadn’t done when I was shooting a second ago and saw a number of men dressed in thick all white clothes running in between the houses of the village. We were lying a little over a hundred fifty meters from the outer buildings.
“We’ve got their attention, hold position, Brooke is moving in.”
Looking to the right I could see second squad making their way to the river edge on the opposite side of the river. On this side of the river there was a lot of cover at the point where they planning to cross. I could see what the jest of the plan was here.

The gunfire in our direction which had grown in intensity in the first minute of the engagement suddenly died out fast. Second squad had just put their first few steps onto the river, when I heard Hannigen’s voice over the comm. “They’re coming this way.”

A number of white clothed soldiers started moving forward from the village in our direction.
“Hold your fire,” Max whispered over the comm with a pressing tone. “Hold your fire.”
There were about a dozen of them running our way across the snow.
“Hold your fire,”
The enemy was less than a hundred meter from our position.
“Hold your fire and take aim.”
I brought the front of my body up a little and peered through the scope of my rifle. I tried to keep it on the first person who appeared in it, but I was shaking from the tension. I wondered why Max had us wait so long to fire.
“Hold your fire,” She said once more.
At some point when the soldiers charging us had moved way past hand grenade range, one of them stopped and pointed his rifle somewhere in our direction and started firing.
Like everybody else in the squad I pressed the trigger. One of the enemies fired a grenade launcher which exploded somewhere behind me. We had already killed four of them before the remaining enemies could drop to the ground as well. They opened up on us.
It’s hard to recall the details: I kept firing at the soldier who I had been tracking from the start. Through the scope I saw the first grenade exploded in the enemy’s vicinity, followed by another and another. With all the chaos and the adrenaline pumping my vision was hazed.
At some point I saw the enemy had been firing at roll to his side. He had stopped firing and moved his hands down to someplace on his body. My scope came to rest on him. Without thinking I held my breath and slowly depressed the trigger. The bullets which left my rifle hit home and struck him across his back which was turned to me. It was my first kill.

I started scanning for other enemies but within seconds the enemy gunfire died out. Ours lasted a little longer until Max came in over the comm, “Cease fire, cease fire.”
And that was the Lyria campaign. Really.


As I stood up unharmed after the fight, I began to notice the screaming beside me. On the ground next to me lay one of the marines. His right leg and right side of his lower abdomen was torn open. He was screaming in agony. Hoskin was his name I guessed. I rushed to him while taking off my backpack and kneeled down beside him.
“Medic!” I yelled.
Two big shards had torn open his suit. The one his leg had blood seeping out of it. It was impossible to tell the size of the wound underneath the tear in the armour itself. I tried to peel apart the tear to look inside but couldn’t. It was part of the same amour plate and there was now way I was going to pry it open with my hands. I decided to try to stop the bleeding first before cutting open the armour. I grabbed a spray can of medical foam from my backpack. After pulling out the big shard, which was still sticking out a couple of centimetres, I stuck the nozzle of the spray can as deep in the wound as possible and started spraying small amounts of around in it until the blue foam started to emerge out of the tear in the armour. The bleeding obviously stopped. While I had been doing this another marine, who had kneeled down across from me was just about to spray medical foam into the wound in Hoskin’s abdomen.

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t spray that stuff in there. It’s only going to fill up his abdomen if the wound is deep. Cut open his armour first.”
“Yes, sir.”
I handed him my mechanical cutter while he was still searching his bag for his own med kit.
“Okay,” He said as he took it from my hand and started cutting away the armour around the wound.
As I glanced back, to check the wound in his leg, I saw Max came walking up to us.
“How’s he doing?” She asked.
“Don’t know, piece of grenade went through his armour,” I explained Max.
She looked at me for a moment.
“He’s dead, Kevin.”
Hoskin had indeed slowly silenced his screaming moments after I had started treating him. I looked over to the guys face. Although it wasn’t pale, his wide open eyes and the complete motionless way in which he lay there told me he was very dead. The medical courses, which I had enjoyed in the Navy, had pressed us not to assume someone’s death on first impression, but the people who taught us this had never seen Hoskin’s body lying there the way it was lying there right now.
I looked up towards Max.
“Sorry,” I said, lifting my shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter,” she assured me. “We need to help Brooke secure the village first, leave him here for now.”
That moment my radio crackled.
“Second platoon this is captain Mirtel. We are pulling out. Abort mission.”
After this transmission, which we all heard, Max started looking away in the distance. In my present state of mind, it took me a while to realize she was listening to her radio.
“Understood,” she said firm after touching her earpiece briefly.
“Dammit,” Max exclaimed annoyed. She touched her earpiece again, “Brooke what’s your status?”
A sound of a heavy low engine made me look back. On the other side of the river the infantry support vehicle was rolling down the hill towards the river. The APC was already driving across the ice towards our position.
“Brooke, pull back to the river edge,” Max said, still talking on the radio.

“First squad, pull back towards the river edge, we’re going to be picked up.”
While me and the other marine dragged Hoskin’s body towards the river, the support vehicle turned up onto the ice and drove up to the position where the APC had stopped. One other body, one of ours, was being dragged by two other marines. I looked around and towards the rest of the squad and realized everybody else was still up. There was one other guy who was limping while being supported by another marine. Another one was walking a bit bend over with one arm hanging somewhat lifeless in front of him.

We climbed into the back of the infantry support vehicle, dragging Hoskin up the ramp. “Where do we put him?” The marine asked me. I could see he was shaken.
“You go sit up top, get some fresh air. I’ll handle this.”

I dragged Hoskin’s body to a vacant empty compartment in the front of the vehicle and left him there.
As I returned I saw the two marines, who had dragged in our other casualty, struggle with the same problem.
“Lay him down in the second storage,” I ordered them, and they did.

We picked up second squad as we drove down the river. Luckily they hadn’t sustained any casualties or injuries. The two injured in our squad were light. When I assured they were both taken care off, I climbed up to the bunker on top of the vehicle. Max joined me minutes later.
“Hey,”
“Hey,”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re pulling out. The Sorelos is going to extract us.”
I looked outside. We were still driving over the frozen river.
“Do you have any idea, ehm,” I already knew the answer, “what’s going on?”
“No. Not really at least. We have to drive to Springfield a city north of here. The Sorelos is waiting there to pick us up. Apparently the city is secure. Mirtel, who called me over the radio, didn’t know more, but all troops in the area have to move to Springfield as well.”
“Well, they’re not going to bring down the Sorelos just to pick up us.”
“Big ship?” Max asked.
“Troop transport, one of the biggest which can land on the planet.”
I wondered where they were going to put it down. It would need a spaceport to land.
Or of course some really big flat surface. I distinctly remembered Springfield was situated at a lake.
“Maybe we’ll be redeployed to another sector,” I suggested.
“Something tells me that’s not the case. I could be wrong.”
“We’ll see,”
“We will,” Max said. I could se she was bothered by something.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, never mind. Just wondering what’s going on. No need to get ahead of things.”
“It’s strange alright.”
Somehow I felt we were about to leave this place. There was no way for me to know this, but it was just the inexplicable feeling I had at the time. It was as if some heavy thing was lifted from the sky. It was exciting.
“I’ll get on the radio later on and figure out what’s going on.”
“How long is the drive?”
“One hour, maybe two.”
“Excellent.”
“Kevin, if you say ‘excellent’ one more time I don’t want to be held responsible for what I’ll do to you.”
“It’s a normal word. I should be able to use it a few times a day.”
“Brooke also says it a lot,” Max said.
“Right, maybe it’s a Navy thing. In our service there’s bound to be many occasions to use the word.”
“I see,” she said amused. “I’m just kidding; you can say it whenever you want.”
“Really, I’m glad you allow me to do so.”
“Oh stop it, Kevin. You know, you’re bringing this on yourself.”
“What?”
“This.”

“What is this?”
“Me ordering you around. It’s you’re attitude.”
“So you’re ordering me around because of my attitude,” I joked.
“I’m serious,” she said sincere while looking at me.
“Okay, I’ll stop.”
“Great.”
We said nothing for a while, but it was okay. I only knew her for a week, but we’d become friends almost from the start. My second day with the Marines she’d taken some time to get me up to speed, as far as this was possible of course, considering I had less than a week before the drop. She’d been really distant, but we had gotten along okay, but during the day I’d kind of lost my motivation. During dinner in the mess that evening, I had started bitching about my reassignment and how unfair it was. She’d started this whole routine which had a lot in common with the talk I had had with this MEC soldier once on Custodian. I had taken his advice at the time and read up on the stuff, so I recognized it immediately. She’d seemed to be into it, so we started talking about this natural education. I don’t know why, maybe because she enjoyed talking about this, but she had let her guard down considerably. We’d started talking about other stuff as well; mostly war stories, but also some more personal things.
From there on out things went more or less automatic.


We were driving back to the Sorelos, less than an hour out, when Max decided to call captain Mirtel, to try and find out what was going on. When she finished her conversation, from which I had only been able to hear one side, she turned to me.
“We’re retreating,” Max simply said.
“Everybody?”
“Yes, we’re retreating from Lyria. I don’t know why, there’s a lot of chaos. Apparently something’s going on with the Bericold.”
“Something.”
“Yes, it’s all I got.”
“Well, I guess this is it,” I said happy. “Good for Lyria.”
I quickly looked around, but the two marines who were here with us weren’t paying attention. Max had told me about the speech Mirtel had given the troops some time before I got here and I in turn had explained her, what this divide was all about.
“It would be nice for Hoskin and those kids defending the village if command had made up their minds about this beforehand. This sucks.” Max said pissed.
“But they didn’t,” I said upbeat.
“True,” Max said softly. “Thanks Kevin.”
“You’re welcome.”
My radio crackled. “We’re coming up to Springfield, ETA with the Sorelos, fifteen minutes.”
The vehicle made a strong turn. We’d been driving over the river the whole time. Looking through the slide I could see we were now steering to a broad paved road which ran right up to the river side. As we drove up from the river onto the road we emerged on another flat plain. Less than a mile away a wall of big windowless buildings marked the city border of Springfield. It looked like an industrial district. Other vehicles, all military, were driving down the same road to our front and back. Looking over the buildings I could see the black shape of the Sorelos towering slightly above them.

I looked over to Max. She was staring in the distance with a serious look in eyes.
“Guess you’re not so happy your job is over already,” I asked.
“I am, Kevin. I didn’t like this either.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I didn’t know how it was going to be from the start.”
“Right.”
“Besides, I’ll find something else. I’ll guess you’ll be going home.”
I hadn’t thought about it yet.
“Maybe I’ll be court martialed.” That wasn’t a joke. I’d already been thinking what would happen to me when this war was over, especially after what I learned from Max and Brooke. I of course had never thought this war would end so soon though.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Max said, but I could tell her mind was somewhere else.
We’d started the roll into the city. The windowless buildings on the city edge were followed by more of the same. We drove through a long straight street between the buildings until we reached an intersection. The column we we’re now driving in had slowed down to a crawl as the traffic from two streets all bottled up into on. When we reached the intersection I could see why; I was looking into the gaping mouth of the Sorelos boarding ramp at the end of the road. The Sorelos itself was standing on a huge lake, which was largely obscured by the Sorelos itself and the buildings around me. The line of vehicles slowly crawled into the ship.
“Damn,” Max said softly as our vehicle was about to make it’s way onto the ramp. She had something on her mind, alright.
“What’s up, Max?”
“There’s just all kind of things.” She sounded a little worried.
Just before we climbed the ramps I could see many other smaller ships dotted across the surface of the icy lake, most of them taking in troops and vehicles.
Our vehicle drove into the huge cargo compartment of the Sorelos. Right after the entrance various ramps gave access to higher stories. We stayed on the lowest one. A broad central corridor was lined with alcoves on either side of it, within each of these these deep alcoves two rows of vehicles were parked on either side. We rolled up almost to the end of the central corridor of this level before our vehicle turned into one of the alcoves and was parked tightly next to the last infantry support vehicle in the row.
“Second platoon dismount,” sergeant Hannigen said over the radio. We climbed down the stairs and left the vehicle were the rest of the platoon was waiting.
Sergeant Hannigen walked up to Max.
“Brooke is gone.” Sergeant Hannigen said.
“How is he gone?” Max asked.
“He ran off the moment the ramp went down.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know, I lost sight of him. Some of the men heard him talking on his radio on the way here,” sergeant Hannigen continued, “He might still have access to Navy channels.”
“Oh dear,” Max said barely trying to sound sincere.

I didn’t like this at all.
“We’ll go find him, sergeant,” Max said gesturing at me, “you’ll take the rest of the platoon to the…”
“…the deployment area on this level,” I helped.
“That’s right,” Max continued, “Send the injured to a medical bay. Arrange for someone to pick up the bodies from the vehicle later.”
Sergeant Hannigen swallowed a lump. “Sergeant I’d rather take care of them myself.”
“Do what you think is best.”
“Yes, sergeant.”
“We’ll join you in the deployment area, when we find Brooke. Wait for orders there.”
“Sergeant, yes, sergeant!” Hannigen said before turning to the rest of the platoon. “Second platoon on me!”
“Let’s go find Brooke,” Max said to me as the men gathered up around sergeant Hannigen.
“Maybe we should try his radio,” I suggested.
“Excellent idea, Lieutenant.” Max said while she started walking to the central corridor of the cargo deck. “Try to establish a connection to him if you can.”
“Roger. No problem.”
Using the small touchpad on my arm I brought radio options in my visor’s HUD. Because I only had this suit for a few days it took me a while to find select Brooke from the current platoon roster and create a separate connection to him.
“Brooke, this is Kevin. Where are you?”
There was no response.
“He’s not talking. Also, he deactivated his transponder beacon.” I told Max.
“I’m sure he has his reasons.”
We reached the central corridor. Marines were walking along the side of the corridor, while vehicles drove by in search of their designated parking spot. All the marines were heading towards the cargo bay exit in the back.
“I don’t see him,” Max said while she scanned the crowds.
A female voice echoed through the hallways, “All troops clear the storage deck and report to the deployment area.”
As I looked at the entrance I could see some men standing around at the top of the ramp. I couldn’t see who they were or what they were doing there.
“Let’s move into the ship, maybe we’ll catch up with him. We’re not going to find him here,” Max said.
“Fine with me,” I said.
Max seemed to have returned to her confident self again. I was getting more anxious however; maybe I should be trying to get away as well. We headed for the exit at the back of the deck. We didn’t say anything for a while.
“I’m getting pretty worried to be honest,” I finally said. Max couldn’t do anything about it, but I was relieved to get it of my chest.
“Because of Brooke?”
“Yes, exactly. I don’t know if I should go back.”
At that moment the worries momentarily slipped from my mind.
“Never mind,” I said.
There was no point to this; Brooke left, for whatever reason, why should it worry me, and even if it should, it wasn’t helping me in any way right now. “I would just really want to know what’s going on.”

After we left the cargo deck a big flight of stairs brought us to, what seemed to be, a large central hub in the ship. This big octangular room was swarming with people. We headed for an especially big hallway right across from where we entered, with the words ‘deployment area’ printed above it. As we crossed the room I noticed the women walking in front of me. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was my wing commander; she had the colonel stripes on her arms, the long black hair. What was she doing on this ship? If anyone knew what was going on she’d be it.
“Kevin, I don’t feel like going back either,” Max suddenly said casually. “Can you pilot a ship?”
It was as strange question to ask.
“Well, me being a pilot and all. I could give it a try.” I said while I stopped and looked at Max as my wing commander walked on into an elevator. “It does depend on the ship.”
“I wasn’t thinking about a big one,” Max said.
“There are a lot of ships parked outside, we could take a look. There were some people standing at the top of the ramp though. They could be guarding it.”
“Kevin,” she said belittling, “it’s not like you’re a Royal Navy pilot who’s trying to escape court martial or something.” She pointed at my Royal Marine suit.
“Right, I forgot about that,” I said laughing.
“Let’s go.”
We turned around and headed down the stairs back to the cargo deck. For a moment it seemed like we were the only ones walking the other way, but soon I spotted ample other individuals who were apparently one errands on the cargo deck. After a long walk we reached the ramp. The men posted here were all marines and they were definitely on guard duty.
On of them turned to us as we approached them.
“We need to leave the ship, corporal,” Max said before he had the chance to say anything.
“No one can leave. We’re dusting off as soon as possible,” the marine said.
“It’s going to take a while, trust me.” Max gestured at the long column of vehicles waiting outside of the ship.
“Doesn’t matter, you can’t leave the ship.”
“We’re looking for a Navy soldier. We think he’s outside,” I said. “He was reassigned to our unit.” It was a good bet they had gotten similar orders like our company apparently had at some point.
“Did you let a navy trooper walk out of here, say, ten minutes ago?” Max immediately followed up.
“No we haven’t,”
“And you’ve been here the whole time?” Max asked.
“Yes we have.”
“Corporal, is there any other way someone could get of the ship unnoticed?” I asked.
“No, private,” the marine said.
“It’s not my problem, but what makes you think he’s outside.”
“This idiot forgot to turn of his beacon.” I said with a big sneer on my face. I briefly gestured at my visor. The HUD would be almost invisible from the outside, but they would get it.

The marine started laughing. “Well I’ll be damned.”
“Are you sure, no one has gotten past you, corporal?!” Max suddenly asked firm.
“No, absolutely not. Ma’am. No one has gotten out, since we got posted here,” the marine said quickly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Max said. “His transponder shows he’s held up in one of those buildings and we’ve been ordered to take care of it. You have my blessing if you want to call it in, but we need to get outside.”
“Can’t you just leave him here,” the marine tried, not wanting any problems by having to call this in or either letting us pass in violation of his orders.
“We’re not exactly ordered to bring him in,” I said.
The marine seemed to like this. He looked back to his colleagues which had been overhearing the conversation.
“Don’t be long,” he said while he looked briefly back to us.
“We’ll be back in a sec,” I said.

“Good job, lieutenant.” Max said as we walked of the ramp and into the street. “Let’s follow the road for a while and than swing back towards the lake.”
Looking back to the lake, I could see most of the other ships were standing to the right of the Sorelos. I could see personnel busy around them.
“I can’t guarantee we’ll find a vacant ship.”
“We’ll work something out.”
“Even if we would find an empty one, we might not be able to simply take off with it and fly away,” I added.
“We’ll take it one step at a time,” Max said.
“You do realize you sometimes have to think ahead multiple steps. For example if a plan consists of multiple steps.”
“A fascinating theory, but you should have thought of that before you decided to steal a ship.”
“Good point.”
After making our way back to the lake few hundred meters to the right of the Sorelos, we started moving towards the ships. It was busy one the ice. Ships we’re flying off and on, landing on seemingly random locations and picking up troops. Looking along the shore to the right I could see the actual city. It featured smaller buildings which looked more residential and the occasional high rise. Most of the troops the other ships were picking up seemed to be arriving from this part of the city and from the shore on the other side of the lake. It took us a while to cross the distance from the shore to where most of the ships were landed.
“Do you see any ships which might be free?” Max asked.
“Not yet.” I was already lowering the odds of this plan working out.
“Which ones can you fly?”
“Most of the ones here, but we need to find one which won’t attract too much attention.”
“So this one isn’t an option?” We passed by a huge C299.
“No.”
“What about those ones?”
“C144s, they’re alright. It’s the type I fly, or did fly,” I said.
It would be a nice pick, but every ship I saw had already people working on them.

“If were going to do this, we need to find one which we can take without raising immediate alarm.”
“Over there,” Max said, pointing at a row of Hawk’s parked on the ice. “They look empty, no one around.”
“They’re just planetary ships, they don’t have any interstellar propulsion. We’re basically stuck with the C144s or the C61s; Those ones,” I pointed.
“Understood.”
We had nicer ships but none of them were landing here.

We walked between the crowds and the ships for a while. It didn’t look promising, but it wouldn’t matter if this would take some time; no one seemed to mind we were here. Then there was the alternative of just moving into the city, find some place to hide and surrender later, after the fleet has left. If we want to, we could even head back to the Sorelos, but I didn’t feel like doing so anymore.
Max stopped and raised her rifle.
“Got some C144’s, no one around by the looks of it, about a klick to the north.”
I raised my rifle as well and cycled to the maximum zoom. The ships were standing less then a hundred meters from the front of the Sorelos, almost on the other side of the lake. They were C144’s alright. There were eight of them, standing neatly in a row. I looked around to the ships here and the Marine and Navy personnel hustling around them.
“It might be or best shot,” I said.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We started walking the breadth of the lake towards the ships.

“Could they be locked?” Max asked.
We were halfway to the ships by now. They indeed looked vacant, nobody about.
“They can be locked, but it’s standard procedure to leave them unlocked.”
“Also when you land them on a hostile planet?”
“If they’re guarded, yes. You don’t want to have a situation were you can’t use your ship because you lost your key-card.”
“These ships don’t look guarded.”
“If there was any perceived risk of the ships being taken, they would be, and you wouldn’t want to rely on a lock to protect the ships.”
“So you’re saying they’re not going to be locked.”
“Probably not. I still have a key-card by the way. It could be revoked by now.”
“Say we do get a ship. What do we do then?”
“We take off, nice and easy. Leave the atmosphere along a designated flight path, and then find a good opportunity to make a run for it.”
Suddenly I heard Brooke over the radio.
“Luietenant Clayton this is Brooke, come in.”
“Brooke this is Clayton, go ahead.” I looked over to Max.
“Luietenant, I can’t talk long, but if you can get out of here, you should. The Queens been attacked. They’re arresting just about everybody.”
“Already on it.”
“Just wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Thanks. Where are you now Brooke?”
“Still on the Sorelos. I’m going to try to get off the ship.”

“The main ramp is guarded. I’m already on the outside.”
“How do you get outside?”
“I don’t know. We told the guards we were looking for you.”
“We?”
“Me and Max. They let us through.”
“How nice. Don’t think they’ll let me through.”
“I know.” I would love to help him out, but I really didn’t have another way to get outside. “There’s little I can do for you at the moment, Brooke.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Keep us posted.”
“Copy that.”
I looked over to Max.
“It was Brooke. Apparantly the Queen was attacked and now they’re arresting all disloyal personnel. He’s still inside the Sorelos.”
“Can you trust him? You told him a lot,” Max said.
“I think so. He called me to warn me.”
“You should be careful.”
“I will.”
Max seemed to think for a second.
“I just realized, we should have turned off our transponder beacons,” she said.
“We’re such idiots,” I said.
We both laughed. I went through the options of my suit in order to deactivate the beacon, but found out I couldn’t. The option was locked.
“I can’t turn mine off, it’s locked.”
“Mine is off,” Max said teasing.
“Good for you,”
“Let’s keep going,”


About ten minutes later we arrived at the ships. They looked brand new.
“It’s the E-version,” I said enthused and looked over to Max. “Never mind.”
“Are they open?” Max wanted to know.
I walked over to the airlock of the second ship in the row. I figured it was a little more out of sight. I opened a small panel next to the airlock.
“There’s a mechanical lock to prevent the door from swinging open if there’s a sudden pressure drop outside.”
There was a small clank as I turned a valve ninety degrees. The door started to slowly open.
“We’re in.”
“Great.”
When the door was halfway open, I released the valve, and climbed into the airlock.
“Make yourself at home,” I said after helping Max aboard.
They inner airlock door was already open. I sealed the outside door and walked towards cockpit. This was going great.

I had just started most of the ship’s systems when Max arrived in the cockpit.
“The ship’s clear,” she said.
“Excellent.” I had assumed it was.
“We’re ready to go?”
“We are,” I said. There was of course Brooke. “I’m going to make a quick call Brooke to see how he’s doing,” I explained Max, “he said he wanted to try to get off the ship.”
Max took a deep breath.
“He might not be able to get off the ship and there’s little we can do if he doesn’t,” she said.
“I know. I just want to check.”
“Fine.”
I opened a channel to him.
“Brooke this is Clayton, come in.”
A few seconds went by.

“Clayton this is Brooke, go ahead.”
“What’s your status?”
“I’m not going to make it outside, but I’ll be fine.”
Max was right. There was nothing I could do.
“Very well, take care.”
“You too Lieutenant,” He said before ending the transmission.
“He’s not going to make it,” I said to Max.
I checked the scanner. The sky was crowded.
“Better get yourself strapped in.” I said while briefly looking back at Max. I did the same myself. After connecting to the Navy-net with squadron commander’s ID, I made a manual search for my own pilot ID. It came up clean, so I reconnected with my own.
“Just put your rifle on the floor,” I told Max, who had strapped herself in next to me, “You’re not going to need it.”
After she put down the rifle I powered up the engines and took off. I decided to treat this like a super normal flight. I flew right along the rest of the ships on the lake before lining up with the vector most outgoing ships seemed to be following. Within ten minutes or so we escaped the atmosphere.
I froze up when the radio indicated an incoming message.
“Eagle 23 this is command, come in.”
“Command this is Eagle 23, go ahead.”
“Eagle 23, I need you to update your flight plan.” I didn’t have one of course.
“Roger that command.”
“Sending flight plan.”
“Flight plan received.” I glanced over the plan. The destination listed was the Navy station we had departed from a few weeks ago. This was a flight plan I would be willing to follow, “Adjusting course.”
“Roger that Eagle 23. Over and out.”
Max looked a little worried at me.
“Who’s that?”
“My wing commander. She gave us a legit flight.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“How nice of her,” Max said.
I transferred the flight plan to the navigation system and activated the autopilot. The ship made some additional small course adjustment before accelerating out of the system.

We followed the flight plan for a couple of hours before setting a new course. The news later reported one of the Navy cruisers of the task force had fired into the section of the Bericold where the Queen had had her residence. The cruiser in question had subsequently left the fleet altogether, with an unknown destination. There had been many casualties but the Queen was presumably unharmed. A few hours later the complete retreat from Lyria had been announced and the invasion was postponed indefinitely.