Alekhine IV had been a beautiful planet, once, he was told. A wide variety of ecosystems, thriving plant and animal life, the whole nine yards. But, it had tons of mineral wealth below its surface and it became little more than a mining node to the various galactic empires and corporate conglomerates. Edwyn wasn't sure if the planet looked torched on account of the many battles over the years that had been waged for rights to the planet's resources, or if the extraction of those resources was what had done it. Either way, what was once healthy and normal had been made bare, stark, and ugly. 

Where they were, anyway. Supposedly there were areas, in Alekhine's southern hemisphere where you could trick yourself into thinking that the rock was hospitable. Not here. Here, on some nameless continent where the 121st had been ordered to assault a well-defended drilling station, the soil had been made tough, sandy, and infertile. A number of trees still stood and even more lied flatly on the ground, toppled from their stumps, but they were dry and bare. The earth was jagged and broken in many places, as though the ground itself was out to get you. No signs of life beyond the 121st, the well-lit metallic drilling station in the distance, and the pockets of soldiers and anti-aircraft guns that were scattered on the ground between the two. 

The typical per-mission casualty rate of the 121st hovered just around 20%, normally. Of course, that was an average. He could remember times where they had lost only a handful of people out of the whole division. He could also remember missions like this one. Eight dropships had carted them to the surface. Two had been blasted out of the sky, leaving no survivors, and two or three more had been damaged and crash landed. This was bad, but probably was a part of the plan. The mercenary company that owned the 121st, and all the soldiers in it, knew that they were cheap and expendable. Quite probably, they'd been sent ahead just to soften the defenses so that legions of better-trained, better-equipped, [i]actual[/i] volunteers could finish the job. This was unfair, of course, the sort of robotic utilitarianism and profit-oriented policy that he'd fought a war against, once. Taking a stand against the injustice had just exposed him to more of it, and so he'd learned to keep his head down. 

"O'Byrne!" A harsh, sharp shout snapped Edwyn out of his thoughts. He turned to look, and saw Sergeant Reyes waving viciously at him. Maria Reyes was in her later thirties and tough as nails, one of only a handful of people he really recognized from when he'd been forced to enlist, a little more than a year back. He'd heard she was a cop once, and that she'd beat a suspect to death with her bare hands. It might have been total horseshit, but he believed it. "Get your ass over here!" Edwyn raced over from where he'd been, just outside of the dropship's interior, past some makeshift tables where people were busy setting up comms equipment and the like. 

"What do you need, Reyes?"

"I need you to take five people and go check for survivors at the south-west crash site, corporal." She said, turning around and not waiting for a response. Edwyn cocked an eyebrow.

"Er, Sarge, I'm not a-"

"You are now. Felix caught some shrapnel to the jaw when we took that AA round in the air. If you're that terrified of a little fuckin' responsibility we can make it temporary, but you're a big kid now, O'Byrne. Get a move on." She walked away before he could protest. He swore under his breath and ran to grab five people. New one's, people he didn't know. He wasn't expecting trouble, but he wasn't going to be responsible for getting a buddy killed. 

As they hustled to the crash site, he caught a glimpse of himself in the small part of his rifle's metal reciever that was still clean enough to be reflective. Tired green eyes, and dark hair and stubble that were both long enough to get him reprimanded if there was an inspection soon, but there was never an inspection. He stood at least a couple of inches taller than even the tallest of his five companions, his fatigues just a little too short in the sleeves on account of the length of his arms. His attention was pulled away from himself, however, as they approached the smoking wreckage. He grimaced, the outlook for anyone who was inside wasn't terribly promising. 

He ran over as he saw someone crawling from the wreckage. A soldier, a woman, one of their own. He helped her up and gave her a quick glance over to make sure that she wasn't bleeding profusely or that a bone wasn't sticking out somewhere, not that he was qualified to help if that had been the case. He didn't recognize her, but whether she was new or whether they had just never ran into each other, he couldn't be sure. 

"I'm pri- er, Corporal O'Byrne, from Dropship 3. Are you okay?" He said, slowly, maybe a little too loud for how close they were standing. "Do you know if there are any other survivors in there?" He pointed toward the wreckage. He wasn't super confident that there would be, but if she'd made it out, maybe others had, too.