• Anti-Aircraft guns roared like thunder, spewing molten plasma at the ships flying above. Three of the Missionary dropships, accompanied by two V-shaped Seraphim fighters, broke off from the rest of the formation, taking advantage of the three second cool down time between the volleys of plasma the AAA turrets threw at them. Each of the box-like Missionary ships was carrying five soldiers, not counting the pilot, and as the ships flew towards the target, the soldiers inside were once again given a last minute briefing.
    “So all that we have to do is get in, blow up the shield generator, and then get out?” asked Kain.
    “That’s correct,” replied the Oracle, a Lesser Intelligence Officer designated to keeping a certain unit alive. “That’s all you have to do. Good luck soldiers.”
    “That works just fine for me.” commented Moret, a strong and rather large solder.
    “Of course it works for you, Moret.” Serik commented “You live to blow stuff up.” Serik was an average soldier in height and strength, but was one of the best shots that any of them knew.
    “It’s the best part of the mission! There’s a fine art to any demolitions job.” Moret countered indignantly.
    “Yeah, yeah, just try not to blow us up, Ok?” Kain laughed.
    The three of them had been close friends since enlisting, and this was their first mission together. They were all tense, but none would dare let the other two know. They fell into silence as the small formation or ships flew close over the battlefield towards the target. The radiant green glow of the shield protecting the enemy base had just come into view when three enemy Reaver fighters came into view. The two Seraphims broke off to engage the Reavers, but a missile downed one of the Missionaries before the Reavers were destroyed. The remaining two Missionaries, and the ten soldiers inside them, decided that they were close enough. The four gyro-thrusters changed their angle to a more vertical position, lowering the ships gently to the ground, where the side flaps flipped down and allowed the soldiers to pour out. Almost immediately after the soldiers deployed, the two dropships began to once again ascend into the sky, and began their trip back to the Avenging Spirit, the fleet ship from which they had been deployed. The ten soldiers began to move towards the green bubble, intent on their objective, and ready to kill any that stood in their way. The soldiers took on a V formation, with another soldier that Kain didn’t know the name of in the lead. In order to get to the shield, they first had to get past a trench, heavily fortified with repeating laser cannons, or RLCs. The soldiers were beginning to talk about how to take the trench when the problem was solved for them by a ballistic round from an Exorcist tank. The Exorcist is a long-range artillery tank that is most often used to destroy turret entrenchments or enemy artillery. There was nothing left of the trench, or the heretics that had been in it, all that was left was a crater about seven meters in diameter. The soldiers rushed across the crater, ignoring the screams of other heretics being blown to pieces be the continued bombardment of the Exorcist. They sprinted to the edge of the glowing green shield, and prepared themselves to enter. There would certainly be a trap on the other side, and they couldn’t see through the barrier. Everyone gathered their nerves, and headed in. Walking through the shield was like falling into a pool, except that the water was hot, and they almost immediately were out on the other side. The first soldier through, the one who had been leading the formation, was falling to his knees when Kain stepped through and he shouted to the others “Sniper!” Serik stepped through right behind Kain, and was shortly followed by Moret, All of them began to seek cover, but there was none between their position and the tower that the sniper was in. The only option that they had left was to step back through the shield, which would protect them from the sniper’s shots. Everyone quickly stepped back outside the bubble and sat down to form a plan.
    “So what are we going to do? If we go in again, we’ll all be killed!” One soldier complained.
    “He’s right,” Agreed another.
    “Well, what do you suggest then?” Serik inquired. All the soldiers fell silent. “I didn’t think that you’d have a plan. Fortunately though, I do.” Serik swung his pack off his back and sat it in front of him. “Give me your helmet.” He commanded one soldier who quickly complied. “I need someone’s jacket too.” One was promptly given to him. “And I need two rocks, some string, and a stick.” That last one surprised the others. There wasn’t much in the way of plant life in the area since it had all been bombed so many times, but one of the soldiers suggested that they take the rifle of the soldier who the sniper had killed. He grabbed the butt end of the rifle, which had fallen half-in and half-out of the shield while Serik started to arrange the pieces into a semblance of the torso of a soldier. He stuck this mannequin to the end of the rifle, and then began to tie the string to one of the rocks.
    “What are you doing?” Moret asked.
    “I’m making a diversion.” Serik replied.
    “And just how is this going to work?” Moret inquired.
    “I get what you’re doing,” Kain interjected, “you’re going to stick the mannequin between the two rocks, and then when you pull the string tied to the rock in front, the mannequin will fall into the shield and fool the sniper to that we can sneak in, right?”
    “That’s exactly right.” Serik replied as he tied off the knot. “This will hopefully buy us enough time to get in, or kill the sniper.” Not everyone was confident in Serik’s plan, but they didn’t really have a choice but to go along with it or find their own way. Serik finished positioning the rocks and stood up the mannequin. It was time to try it out. The group of soldiers, only nine of them now, moved to the right along the perimeter of the shield, unrolling the string as they went. When everyone was in position, the plan was ready to be put into action. Everyone got ready, and then Serik pulled the string. The mannequin fell through the shield, attracting the sniper’s attention and momentarily distracting him just before Serik stepped through the shield, gun at the ready. “In the name of the God Emperor, die, heretic!” Serik muttered as he took his aim. With icy calmness, he pulled the trigger and shot a single bullet. The bullet flew from the rifled muzzle of Serik’s gun, and shot straight towards the sniper’s head, entering his skull through his left ear and exiting about two inches above his right ear. Serik smiled a sinister smile as the rest of the soldiers stepped through the shield and beheld the corpse of the sniper hanging limp over the edge of his tower. Serik let his face once again become an emotionless mask as he turned towards his friends.
    “Great shot!” Kain exclaimed.
    “Damn! Wish I could shoot that good” Remarked Moret.
    “Thanks” Serik replied “but we can’t stay here. We have to move.”
    “Agreed” responded Kain. “We still have a generator to blow up. Let’s move!” Kain fell into a jog and headed towards a building towards the outskirts of the heretics’ camp, the building that was supposed to contain the generator. They once again fell into a V formation, this time with Kain in the lead, and rushed towards the building, shooting at any heretic than came into sight. When they reached the building, they found its door locked, and more heretics were coming. The soldiers formed a loose circle around the door, so better to fight the heretics that poured towards them like a flood.
    “I’ll get the door!” Moret exclaimed as he pulled a standard-issue blasting charge from his pack. He slammed the charge to the seam between the two heavy metal doors and activated the charge, hitting first the top two buttons and then holding the larger bottom one. “Fire in the hole!” He shouted, and then stepped back so he wasn’t hurt by the explosion. The charge blew the doors right open, and the soldiers quickly filed inside, Kain being the last through the door, after firing a final round into a heretic’s chest. Moret, along with the help of Serik and another soldier, swung the doors shut the best they could, but there was still a rather large hole in the middle. Kain spun to face his comrades, and was surprised to realize that only himself, Serik, Moret, and one other soldier had survived, but they had indeed made it to the generator. The generator itself was a large cube with a round protrusion sticking out from one side, humming loudly as it pumped energy out into the shield.
    “So now what?” the unknown soldier asked Kain. “Blasting charges won’t work on that thing.”
    “I know what to do.” Answered Moret. “I need two blasting charges, four grenades, and some duck tape.”
    “What? What the hell are you planning to do with that?” Kain demanded
    “I’m gonna blow up this generator. Duh” was Moret’s response. The requested supplies were quickly handed to him. Moret taped the grenades to the edges of one of the blasting charges, and then took the other and stuck it to the wall opposite the door.
    “Umm… Shouldn’t you have put that other charge on the generator?” asked the soldier with the unknown name.
    “Of course not! Why would I do that?” Moret asked.
    “Because we want to blow up the generator, not the wall” was the soldier’s response.
    “Ok,” Moret responded “Then after that how will we get out of here?”
    “The door?” the soldier replied hesitantly.
    “Oh, right, and the heretics will just let us waltz on back out of there? Of course not. They’re gonna be waiting out there, probably with some RCLs by now. If we step out that door, we’ll get shot so many times that whatever’s left will look like Swiss cheese! So, we blow up the generator and the wall at the same time so that we can get out. And,” He turned to Kain and Serik “I’m not just saying that because I love to blow stuff up.”
    “Yes you are” Serik countered “but he does have a point. If we open that door we’ll get pasted.”
    “I guess you’re right.” Kain admitted. “Well, let’s do this thing!”
    “Yeah! That’s what I like to hear!” Moret shouted. He ran to the charge on the generator and set it to fire off in forty seconds, then ran to the one on the wall and set it to blow in thirty-five. “This way they’ll explode at the same time.” Moret explained “The generator’s explosion will cover up the sound of the detonator on the wall, so we’ll be able to get out all sneaky-like.”
    “Yeah. There’s nothing as sneaky as a bomb.” Serik quipped at him.
    “Get ready to run as soon as the detonators go off” Kain interrupted, and about five seconds later the detonators went off. The generator was blasted to pieces and the wall blew outwards, revealing a formation of heretics that surrounded the building.
    “s**t. Didn’t think about that.” Moret muttered.
    “Charge!” Kain screamed, and began to run at the heretics. They were surprised by this sudden action, and were unprepared for the sudden charge, and weren’t able to respond before Kain had made it into their ranks and began wreaking havoc with the small energy bayonet on the end of his rifle. The other soldiers follow suit and soon they were all running away from the heretic’s camp as fast as they could to avoid getting caught in the orbital bombardment that was sure to begin as soon as the last remnants of the shield had dissipated. It surprised them all when a Missionary swooped down towards them.
    “Hop in! Quick!” the pilot shouted at them. The soldiers didn’t think twice about it, and piled into the dropship, which was beginning to take off again before the side doors had even fully closed. The four soldiers watched in awe through the starboard window as the last green flickers of the shield faded out of existence, soon to be replaced by a rain of red as the bombardment began from above. Kain noticed that the pilot wasn’t flying back towards the Avenging Spirit and was instead on a path that was taking them higher and higher, towards the orbiting ships that were raining death on the heretics below.
    “Where are you taking us?” Kain asked of the pilot.
    “To the Flame of Redemption” the pilot replied.
    “What?” Kain inquired incredulously “the Flame of Redemption? But why? What did we do that merits a visit to the capitol ship of the fleet?”
    “They didn’t give me many details” the pilot answered truthfully “but apparently your Oracle thinks that you guys did a real nice job down there, and he wants you to have a visit with the High Council.”
    “What? Seriously?” Moret demanded.
    “Why would I lie to you?” was the pilot’s response.
    “Sweet! The High Council actually wants to see us! Damn I’m good.” Moret proclaimed
    “Hate to break it to you Moret, but the only reason that the High Council would want to see you would be if you were suspected of heresy.” Serik remarked, provoking a glare from Moret.
    “Well it’s not like they want to see you. All you did was make a little doll!” Moret joshed back at him.
    “Well at least my little doll didn’t end up getting us surrounded by heretics.” Serik teased right back at him.
    “Aww, cut it out you two” Kain interjected. All three fell into silence.
    “Still, we were awesome down there.” Moret stated matter-of-factly.
    “Yeah… We were…” Kain agreed as the Missionary rose higher and higher, bringing them closer and closer to whatever awaited them on the Flame of Redemption.