Kyra came to a stop beside an ancient and rotting tree. The bark was covered with a patchy fungus that phosporessed very slightly. A few of the trees still sprouted sickly looking leaves, hard curled things which looked distinctly unhealthy, but these were in the definite minority. In the distance the rumble of heavy guns could still be heard and the sky flashed blue white as with distant lightning. Each time the sky flashed there was a soft hissing sound in the communication beads they wore as the RF squelch of plasma discharge cut across the spectrum.

From what little briefing anyone had bothered to give her, she had gathered that this operation was supposed to be a surprise landing against minimal opposition. If that had been the case, then the element of surprise had been well and truly lost.  Alekhine IV was deep inside Corporate space, it wasn't some frontier world that needed an extensive garrison to protect it. That meant that the Corporates had the jump not just tactically but strategically, none of which boded well for the surprise assault that the League had planned.

“My rifle…” Kyra began but before she could finish the sentence one of the other soldiers pressed one of the cheap electromotive slug throwers into her hands. The telltale glowed green indicating that the weapon was live. Kyra opened her mouth to ask where it had come from before realising that it must have been taken from one of the fallen troops from O’Byrne’s dropship.

“I’m Kyra, Kyra Sloane,” she said with a sweep of her head to take in the small group of soldiers. All of them were equipped as she was, simple grey green fatigues with plastic/ceramic body armor stenciled with the unit number. She thought she recognised some of them from their abbreviated basic training but couldn’t be sure.

“Sloane?” the soldier who had passed her the rifle asked cocking an eyebrow. 

“You aren’t that fucking Jayser we heard about are you?” before she could respond he grabbed her head and wrenched it sideways, revealing a small metallic implant just behind her left ear. Jayser was a slang term for a small minority of people born with a genetic abnormality that affected their pineal gland. Janikov’s Sarcoma , or J syndrome, had been unknown before humans were exposed to the hostile environment of jump space, the interstitial void between the infinite bubbles of the multiverse. Most fetus that developed J syndrome spontaneously aborted early on in their development, but those that survived exhibited a number of strange mental abilities, low level telepathy and minor telekinesis as well as debilitating migraines. Most major world in the League required prenatal screening and abortions when the markers for the conditions were found. Those that made it to adulthood with the condition were implanted with damping chips to suppress their abilities and, more often than not, ‘enlisted’ into volunteer units.  Although the kind of things a Jayser could do were very limited, wild stories circulated among the gullible ensuring that prejudice ran high,

Kyra drove her knee up into the soldiers groin sending him staggering back. He cried out in shock and began to lift his weapon, but before he could bring it to bear, she drove the stock of her newly unlocked rifle into the side of his helmet sending him staggering back against a tree trunk. She swung the weapon to her shoulder and sighted down the barrel at his chest. The electromagnetic accelerators whined slightly as the weapon came to its read status. 

“Yes I’m the one you heard about,” she growled through clenched teeth. The metallic implant buzzed slightly at her hig

“And if that is a problem for you, I can make sure that you don’t have any problems to worry about every again.”