[center][b][h3]Kato Okoye[/h3][/b][/center]

The shuttle rocked and buffeted as it entered the atmosphere. The closer the vessel approached the surface, the more the rocking intensified. Blaster shots bounced off the protective shielding making the ride much more nauseating. Kato closed his eyes and thought about the ship in his mind. He focused on it traveling down to the trash heap below, settling relatively unmolested. The thought of dying before they even got into the fight concerned him. He wished the vehicle to the surface, and it was so.

Seated near the rear ramp, Kato stood in a crouched position with his Light Repeating Blaster pointed in the direction of the enemy upon touchdown. Another LRB gunner from the other squad occupied the seat opposite him. They waited for the ramp. As the ramp fell, Kato shuffled forward and dropped to the ground to his left. He began putting fire in the direction of the enemy as soon as he could. He stopped shooting while others scrambled off the ramp. He took time to extend the bipod legs on his weapon. During lulls in the movement of friendlies running across his line of fire, he worked between searching for enemy combatants and placing five to nine round bursts of aimed laser fire at them.

KL-3724 listened to radio traffic as he worked. He heard the recent arrival, an Aquellan warrior named Trooper Malik Skaya or KY-9914, yell out an enemy count. Kato counted for himself and came up with a correction. “I count twelve!” Kato yelled across the squad frequency. The number could be higher, but it was still dangerous. As the squads spread out across the area, their perspective of what was going on would vary.

The squad moved forward. As squad members took up fighting positions further forward, Trooper Okoye stood to advance, leaning into the fire, hoping with each burst that he would survive this ordeal. He never had time to think about how. When the sergeant briefed them on the operation, he did not expected the [i]Junkers[/i] to put up this level of resistance outside the complex. He naively assumed the fight was going to remain indoors.

As he neared the majority of the squads deployed forward, he took a position on the left, quickly resuming his firing tempo of five to nine round bursts. After a few bursts, he recognized the sound of Trooper Trawin’s LRB further down the line. The distinctive sound of the T-21 resonated over the din of battle. He could discern its noise, hearing Trawin’s similar tempo of fire. He waited for Trawin to finish his burst, then called out his own five to nine round-burst. It was as though the two [i]pigs[/i] were talking to each other over the calamitous noise of the firefight--two Imperial squads assaulting into the Junkers’ defensive position. KL-3724 could not see them, but two Imperial troopers perished on the ramp and a third corpse lay in an awkward disfigured tangle amongst the trash piles scattering the landscape.

At least they were on the ground and moving forward. That was good news.


[@Superboy][@Reedethe23rd]