[u][b]Commander Cassius Caspian CVN-069 Blinding Light ( Supernovae Class Carrier) Crusade Fleet Flagship [/b][/u] [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/738863006657806418/797623882625843210/unknown.png[/img] Cassius sighed as he sat in one of the empty chairs on the bridge. The weapons officer was understandably grabbing some much needed sleep as the ship traveled in FTL. No weapons could be fired while traveling at this speed, so understandably no weapons officer was needed. The atmosphere on the bridge was tense however, as they were in line to “travel down the slot” as the crew put it. The move worried Cassius too, they had no relations with these nations and the strict radio silence they operated under made them a very imposing force. On the surface, everything seemed to go to plan. The destroyers and recon craft ahead of the main fleet signaled that everything was clear before they jumped, and Cassius hoped that things stay that way when they arrived. The arrival of the groggy weapons officer signaled the end of FTL travel as the vessel transitioned back into normal space, the glow of a nearby blue giant filling the dark bridge. “ All strike groups accounted for and moving into close formation sir…” the radar officer barked, quickly looking back towards his radar screen “ We are 10k AU away from the nearest planetary body, no artificial structures have been detected” the officer finished. At first, the Admiral was quiet, before an uncharacteristic grin spread across his face “ The gods favor us….” He said, pointing his head towards the relatively nearby blue giant. “ Young stars, a sign of new beginnings…” he finished, looking towards the command display. A series of green lights next to vessel names on the command panel indicated that all ships were now in close formation and ready to travel in between the borders of the OPAO and Union. The bridge was now alive with activity, as crew members were hyper focused on their stations, looking for any sign of sentient activity. “ Any reports from the recon vessels…” the Admiral said, looking towards the communication officer. “ No sir, all quiet….nothing to download on the comm array in this sector…” the officer said with confidence. “ Good, send a message to all vessels over the shortwave radio. All ships, begin max burn on this bearing…” the admiral said as the ship could be felt accelerating. A large timer, appeared on the public display of the bridge reading 12 hours. This timer indicated the amount of time it would take them to travel through the “slot” and to the next waypoint for a jump. This was an important milestone, this was the last jump before entering Dominion space and everyone was anxious to start combat action. Cassius let out another sigh and began walking off the bridge before yawning. He needed sleep ahead of his recon action. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [u][b]15 hours later[/b][/u] [img]https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HAgb9NN7rK8/XKG5NsjcXaI/AAAAAAAABGw/yHwDX7K347kHKmcVt4wc1p1aYEiMKFSLACKgBGAs/w0/sci-fi-soldier-skydiving-uhdpaper.com-4K-68.jpg[/img] “ Commander Caspian……!” a voice yelled through the bulkhead door, violently rousing Cassius from his slumber. “ Commander Caspian, its Lieutenant Junior grade Aquilla….Naval recon commandos…..2nd platoon. Ive been informed that your going to join us for this upcoming OP” the voice continued. Cassius let out a long groan, wiping the sleep from his eyes before speaking in a groggy tone “ Enter!” he said as the door opened The Lieutenant JG was young, almost too young to be leading a naval recon platoon leader. “ Sorry to wake you sir, we exited FTL an hour ago, we are set to recon landing sites soon…” the Lieutenant said in a blank tone, clearly not to enthused that he needed to take Cassius. “ We step off in thirty minutes, im here to get you ready…” Cassius groaned again and stood from the bed, nodding as he followed the young lieutenant down the corridors of the carrier. “ Do you have anything warm?” the lieutenant asked as they walked past troop and weapons bays, looking back at the commander with a raised eyebrow. “ No….” Cassius barked, still trying to wake up “ Recon craft are temperature controlled anyway, and the planet is rather temperate if our analysis is right….” He said, his voice clearing as he spoke. The young lieutenant let out a chuckle and shook his head “ A lot has changed since Mordant.” He said in a jovial tone “ we are jumping from high atmosphere, freefalling to our objective. Your going to be cold..” he finished, letting out another chuckle. “ Ill be fine” Cassius said flatly as the reached the naval recon bay “ Fair enough sir…” the lieutenant answered, pointing him inside “ Your gear is in the crate inside, the rest of the platoon is already prepping the craft so you have the room to yourself to get ready. Ill see you in thirty...” he finished walking down towards the hangar bay. Cassius entered to room and was greeted by a large crate in the center of the room, flanked by a multitude of ammo crates an explosives. Opening the crate, Cassius saw a set of standard issue environmental armor, worn by marine raiders and naval recon. The matte black armor surfaces offering no light reflection. Cassius was a former naval recon commando himself and was familiar with the armor and weapons associated with recon operations. However, it had been a few years since he was operational and he was not as conditioned as he wanted to be. Relying on his training, he was able to put on the armor without any real difficultly, the sound of pressurizing indicating that he had attached all the armor components correctly. A large rucksack took up the majority of the space in the crate and it was already pre-packed by the platoon itself, probably to save the time of telling him what to bring. It weighed nearly 100lbs and included extra ammo, advanced optics and explosives. Struggling to pick it up, Cassius finally got the rucksack on his shoulder before he grabbed the small carbine rifle and began walking for the door. The halls were eerily empty, as most of the troops and crew were still asleep ahead of the recon operation. Cassius always enjoyed the silence, it allowed him to calm his mind before potentially seeing combat. The hallway eventually gave way to the large cavernous expanse of the carrier hangar bay as Cassius walked past strike craft before eventually reaching the lone recon craft that had landed on the carrier. A woman, the pilot, stood next to a technician as the remainder of the recon team was loading their packs onto to ship. The rest of the platoon barely acknowledged the commanders presence as they loaded the vessel, stopping only to exchange professional pleasantries before continuing to work. The platoon was loading all of their equipment into a drop pod that would be dropped with them. Due to the size of the atmospheric parachutes, they would jump clean, with just their weapons and pick up their packs from the drop pod when they land. Cassius did the same and sat in the troop bay, waiting for the rest of the platoon. With the recon craft loaded, it taxied to the hangar elevator and quickly began rising up to the flight deck, the back ramp of the recon craft closing as they reached the vacuum of open space. The fleet was roughly 30k miles from the upper atmosphere of the planet, which looked like a large moon at this distance. The flight to the drop point was set to take a few hours, and the platoon sat in relative silence, only broken by the status reports of the pilot as they got closer to the planet. The planet steadily grew before taking up the majority of the cockpit widow in front of them, the blueish tinge of the upper atmosphere becoming visible. “ 1 minute!” the pilot yelled over the intercom as the crew began putting on their helmets, preparing to vent the oxygen of the craft into space. The recon platoon followed suit, pressurizing their suits to prepare for the vacuum of open space. “ 30 seconds…!” the pilot yelled as the sound of oxygen venting out of the craft could be heard, being replaced by absolute silence as the pressure equalized to the vacuum of space. The rush of oxygen leaving the craft was quickly replaced by the sound of Cassius’s own breathing as the suits oxygen reserves kicked in. Looking towards the rest of the platoon, Cassius watched as they stood and positioned themselves towards the rear of the craft. Following suit, Cassius stood as the rear ramp of the recon craft opened, flooding the interior with light from the planet and its nearby star. The lights of the craft flashed from red to blue as two members of the platoon quickly pushed the gear pod out of the back of the craft before following suit, jumping after the drop pod. The rest of the platoon followed, running and jumping off the back ramp of the craft into the upper atmosphere of the planet. It was always weird to be free falling without the sound of air rushing past your face. Even weirder was the sight of having high altitude cirrus clouds below them as the fell. Looking up, Cassius could see the remainder of the platoon is near perfect formation, their arms spread out in an attempt to use what little atmosphere there was to keep them stable. Slowly, the faint sound of air rushing past Cassius’s ears could be heard before they passed the upper layer of cirrus clouds. The sound of air steadily grew louder before it dominated his ears as they dropped further into the atmosphere of the planet. The drogue chute of the gear pod engaged first, prompting the rest of the platoon to engage their chutes, first deploying drogue chutes before their main chutes opened, jerking them into a slow decent towards the ground. Dawn was just breaking down on the planet, and the majority of the ground below was shrouded in darkness. Toggling his night vision visor, Cassius got his first glimpse of the planet as the platoon drifted down towards the ground, landing together with their gear with minimal noise. The platoon was now truly alone as they began consolidating and burying their parachutes, they had landed in a large prairie, away from any major population center by a few hundred miles at least. The sound of a radio squelch, startled Cassius after hours of silence, followed the by the young Lieutenant’s voice. “ Assassin 1 actual, this is assassin 1-1. We are clean and in position, identification of landing zones to follow…” he said calmly as the platoon donned their heavy packs and began walking off into the night. [u][b]CVN-069 Blinding Light ( Supernovae Class Carrier) Crusade Fleet Flagship[/b][/u] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/31/b1/fa/31b1fa471d17198c49eed47fd45eb5fa.jpg[/img] The message of the successful recon deployment reached the bridge of the Crusade fleet flag ship. Not wasting anytime, the Admiral, instructed the radio officer to send a coded message to Lord Von Zaschen with the frequencies given to them. The message simply read “ Crusade fleet in position, ready to conduct combat operations”