[b][i]Two days later, Garden IV[/i][/b]

Finally. It took some time to clear the Oort cloud, but the system was declared Ancient free and the landings on the planet have commenced. Some of the other ships have deployed plunderers to go scout out other potential landing sites, but the Rear admiral of the Strike fleet had different idea about the primary site. “Asgypus, permission to come aboard?”

“Permission granted, sir. Expecting you in the transport room. XO, take the ship.” Prefect Nyxeris excused himself from the CIC and headed two decks down to the former storage closet, a two by two room with a radio beacon set up for Faira mindjumpers, awaiting the rear admiral.

“Good morning.” he saluted, “What brings you aboard?”

“I think we can greatly speed up the deployment.” Astra said, saluting him off. “Instead of making multiple roadtrips with the Plunderers from and to orbit, it would be much simpler to use the cruiser itself, per your permission.”

“Not sure I follow, the Vanguard flies about as well as an axe, it can’t be used in atmosphere.”

“That’s where I come in. Very simplified, I can negate the effect of gravity on the ship. With minor modifications to the engines and shield systems, this ship will be able to operate in atmosphere under those conditions. We’ll have to ride from orbit down so the engine have time to decelerate, we launch everything you have with equipment, and then we can jump the ship back to orbit. We have practiced this maneuver with our ships, usually it requires the Helm to take on special life support, but I can perform it on my own… for the time period we’ll need.” the rear admiral explained, “the expedition can be deployed in half an hour instead of half a week.”

“If we prepare everything ahead, we can deploy in… about thirty minutes with some reserve? Sounds about right. Can you reliably keep the ship in the air for that time plus extra if something goes wrong? And what kind of shield and engine modifications are we talking about and in what timeframe? MAYBE we could shorten the deployment time if we clamp the dropships to the exterior so they can all launch at the same time, but I’m not too sure about that.”

“No, we’ll need them inside. The modification is temporarily increasing engine output, I believe with atmospheric air around the heatsinks will be much more effective, enough to take care of the extra energy. The other is putting all shield strength to the front quadrant to act as heat shield and fairing for the  reentry. The Vanguard has good enough shape and armor to survive it on it’s own, but no need to push our luck. Ship this mass… I can give you forty five minutes, fifty if you cool down the room using life support.” she explained.

“Coldest it gets here are the refrigerated storage bays. -4°C, but we could go a bit lower. The problem is we can’t use the launch bays since the Plunderers don’t have a wheeled undercarriage, so we can only launch two at a time through the forward runways. 24 ships, that’s twelve launches with two minutes in between. 24 minutes to get everyone in the air and some distance from the ship. Doable. Send the modifications to my chief engineer and clear it with admiral Cygnus, if you haven’t already. I’ll spare you the talk with the primarch. When do you reckon this can start?”

“It’s mostly software change, disabling some failsafes and rewriting the shield pattern matrix. I’ll give you that much time easily without the cold room, and should something start to go wrong, we’ll abort and jump right back. Which way to Engineering?” She asked, intending to do the modifications herself.

“Down this hall, take an elevator to deck 8 and board a monorail headed aft. Engineering is one of the stops.” he indicated the route on the deckplan displayed on his tacpad. “Or you could just jump there if that is too mundane. Given what we’re about to do, what isn’t? If that is all, I have a primarch to persuade.”

“That will do. Oh, by the way, feel free to offload non-.essentials. I can’t make the gravity perpendicular to the floor during descend so everything will need to be clamped or strapped.”

[b][i]Garden IV low orbit, twenty minutes later[/i][/b]

Astra was done in two minutes plus travel, the rest of the time was spent preparing the ship, so the cooks didn’t blabber about their utensils flying around everywhere again. The Faira had herself mac booted in the middle of the ship on a disabled part of the monorail to make it as easy on herself as possible. The rest of her suit as well as sleeves from the undersuit were discarded in a maintenance access to allow her body to cool down.

When she was given the green, she radioed to engineering: “alright, execute the shield and engine rewrite.” Once that was confirmed, she crouched down, putting her hands on the steel of the ship. Small tendrils of a mindstorm launched from her fingers, following the monorail like a conduit, spreading into other parts of the ship, until it was completely enveloped. “Deorbit burn!” she radioed over, having the ship quite literally in her grip.

Having the ship already on a retrograde heading, the helmsman executed the maneuver, pushing the engines past the usual safety limits to alter the trajectory quickly enough to put the ship on the correct course. Once the burn was complete, they begun reorienting the ship for reentry. That was something no Narix capital ship helmsman ever wanted to do, under normal circumstances anyway. “Burn complete, error negligible.”

“Alright, now just let it fall, let the gravity do the work. Engineering, monitor the shield power drain and adjust accordingly. When we reach the marker on the descend, prepare to engage full burn on my signal.” Astra ordered as the ship started skimming the atmosphere, judging by the vibration that could be felt in the ship.

“Standing by.” the helmsman confirmed and displayed the upcoming maneuver on his HUD “Talk about pushing the limits.”

“Maybe they should’ve used a Vanguard from the Second, all the extra crew accommodations make the Fifth’s ships heavier than the standards.”

Minutes passed as the ship plummeted towards the planet, revealing more of its natural beauty to the eyes of the external cameras, though the reentry caused a whiteout on most of them. “Mark coming up, burning in T minus ten… five… mark!”

The engines switched to high thrust setting came to life, pushing the ship to its intended path.

At the same time, Astra pulled of a bit of Mindspace trickery reserved for special occasions. The entire ship was taken out of normal space, but not all the way. It somewhat limited the effects of normal space physics on such a body, the rest was Astra’s telekinetic abilities and the engines pushing the ship to slow down. “Coming up over the water body, keep the engines on full thrust. I’m adjusting our course to glide over the land.” The Faira called over, pushing the ship slightly off of the perpendicular descent course. In the next two minutes, she gave the order to cut the engines as she guided the ship into the desired position. “Launch the birds.”

“First pair away, next pair in ninety.” the ATC reported, the pilots agreeing to cut the safety intervals somewhat. The first launch was a little rough, the pilots directing those behind them what to expect as they veered away from the ship to make space for those behind them. Eighteen minutes later, the ATC reported the last pair was away and hangars secured.

“Ready to be back upstairs, admiral.”

“Helm, full thrust, let’s clear the lower atmosphere so the jumpout doesn’t cause too much of a sonic boom. Oh and implosion.” the Faira grinned, huffing air to keep her organs cool.

“Might as well let the native life know we’re coming and mean business.” one of the helmsmen grinned.

“Zip it, you sound like the Relics.” the other shot back. “What’s the target altitude?” Another thing one usually didn’t hear in a Vanguard.

“Judging by the atmosphere density, about twenty kilometers straight up, but go on a forty-five degree angle to ease up on the gyro’s bearings. Tell me when to jump, orbit coordinates and please make sure nothing is on the target orbit, thanks.” Astra said, falling silent to focus on flying the ship.

“Bloody weekend soldiers from Third are in the way.” the sensors officer warned, comms already clearing the Discoveries away from the set jump point.

“Approaching target altitude, sixty seconds.”

“Target orbit clear.”

Counting down in her head, Astra smirked when she reached zero exactly when the Helm told her to jump. Reaching out with her senses, she lifted the Vanguard into Mindspace, and after brief travel the ship emerged on the target orbit. “Jump complete. Please return your headsets to your attendant as you deplane. Thank you for traveling with Faira State Spacelines.”

“Never done that, not about to start. A free headset is always useful.” Nyxeris quipped. “That was great, let’s do it again just to show off! And as a friendly reminder, this is the first time a Narix warship has gone into atmosphere. The NSS Legionnaire doesn’t count, that didn’t live to tell the tale. On a more light-hearted note, also the first instance of use of mindspace that didn’t turn the kitchens into bombsites. We’ve just gone down in history. Let’s revert the Asgypus back to its original setup and maybe get the rear admiral a bed?”

“Uuuh, sir? She already jumped herself back to the Longbow without missing a beat. I think she’s doing fine.”

“That was an interesting exercise. Now, XO, start organizing the deployment of the Marines as landing zones are established.” Astra told the chieftain, giving him the ship and heading to the Morale sector to cool off her head.