Hossin: Loyalty Until Death (part one)

[Firefly]

This took me a couple of hours to write, proofread, and check for errors. It's six pages on Times New Roman font-10 for MS Word. So have fun. Please provide as much imput and critique as possible.

CREATIVE LIBERTIES: I am a practical-minded person and do not believe in a lot of the "in-game" plots, ideas, or storyline elements. I took creative liberties with the following:

I don't agree with the whole respawn thing. When you die, you die. I changed it into a "transporter" sort of thing, which helps explain creating weapons out of thin air. I also tinkered with darklight, because in 'real life' you wouldn't have some giant glowing icon near your name. I took creative liberties with the motion alarm and the Spitfire turret, and a majority of this was done to make it somewhat more feasible.

Like the Spitfire turret: if it's ammo-based, when where is the ammo coming from, stored, ejected, etc? Same with the ACE... that's Transformers bullshit. I made them all separate devices. MAYBE the Boomer would have a two-stage mode where it was a standard mine and also a triggered mine.

As far as the MAX acronym, I changed it because exo-suit was used for all of the personnel armor. How is the mechanized assault exo-suit any different from the reinforced exosuit, if you were just reading it without knowing the turf? So I went with exo-armor... it was a toss between that and exo-skeleton, but exo-skeleton sounds more like a framework design than a MAX armor unit.

As far as damage goes, it's impossible to fathom, tolerate, or believe that some of the in-game weapons do limited damage. So I went with realistic damage, where a bullet is a bullet. No such thing as dumping a dozen missiles into something and it not killing it outright. Kinda like when the Reaver rocket was a piece of shit and it took two 24-shot salvos to waste a MAX at point-blank range.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I did not create Planetside, I do not own stock in SOE, I do not work for SOE, and this work is titled "fan fiction", meaning no profits will ever be made from it. Please refrain from suing me because I am a soldier and thus have no money to give.

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CAUTION: may contain graphic violence and profanity.

Hossin. For the most part, the continent was swampy bug-infested backwater or a solid mass of jungle-covered muck. The Terran Republic had carved out select portions of its highlands and then established bases made of pre-fab shelters, which were ringed by thick steel-plated concrete walls to keep out the jungle predators and bayou beasts.

When rebellion erupted and spilled across the planet of Auraxis, the anarchy forces under the New Conglomerate stormed onto Hossin and overran the few manned bases, using the empty facilities as the lynchpin in their assault. Such was the rapidity of their swift assault that the Terrans on that continent were completely and utterly caught off-guard and split in two. One group of soldiers massed around the Ishundar warpgate to the northwest, while the other group hid in the hills to the southwest, a small concealed force consisting mainly of irregular forces and mercenary units.

Major James Baird of the elite irregular outfit Black Widow Company took command of the cut-off remnants. He had at his disposal only a hundred or so rag-tag warriors, most of them bloody and battered from fighting the horde of gold and blue New Conglomerate traitors. He had no heavy armor, no air support, and one solitary Advanced Mobile Station. The AMS was currently deployed in a deep, narrow cut along a series of high hills. Its cloaking field had been tweaked by an enterprising technical engineer to give a broader field base, allowing the hundred men and women to cramp inside the translucent bubble- all of them just barely fitting in.

�We have a unique opportunity,� the officer said to his troops assembled around him. He termed them �his� men because, as ranking officer among them, the combat field doctrines of the Terran Republic allowed him to temporarily consolidate them under his leadership and will.

�The NewCons have left a small garrison at Zotz, which is just west of here. I have scouts watching the walls and they report a platoon guarding the base at best, backed only by a pair of Enforcers. If we can secure Zotz, we can raid their weapons lockers and use them against the enemy. We also may be able to set it up and defend it until help arrives.�

A hand shot up. �Sir, how do we know help will come?�

Baird grinned. �Ever heard the term �Loyalty Until Death�, son? There are still loyal troops here on the continent. There�s no way that every soldier on Auraxis abandoned the Republic. Ever hear of radios? We announce on Republic Command that a base is ours, and our brothers will come to rescue us.�

They broke down into small squads of ten soldiers each. Those who could not operate the heavy mechanized assault exo-armor would carry rifles and wear armor. Those who were trained scouts and could perform recon would use infiltration suits and slip into the base. Stealthers were generally solo operators, specially-trained commandos who were used primarily as scouts, demolitions experts, assassins, and hackers.

Major Baird knew how to use those, in particular.

A young lieutenant in the Terran Elite Guard by the name of Geoff Donal had volunteered to lead the stealthers into the base. There were a dozen of them, and at Lt. Donal�s signal they keyed their cloak fields and disappeared with a shimmering metallic hum.

The infiltration suit was nothing more than a form-fitting body glove arrayed with thousands of miniscule warp conduits that bent light around the suit. The "stealth suit" allowed the wearer to cloak themselves on the battlefield to avoid visual detection. It provided no armor protection and had very little space to carry anything, and the wearer could not holster anything larger than a pistol. Despite those limitations, it was an extremely useful suit for reconnaissance and stealth. A cloaked stealther could remain completely undetectable by the naked eye if they but remained perfectly motionless. Moving had its drawbacks- rapid movement did not permit the conduits to bend the light fast enough to synch with surroundings, and a faint shimmer was the indicator that a quickly-moving stealther was nearby. Only by running slowly or walking were they less than slightly visible, and even then highly-trained troops had a chance of spotting them.

A cloaked infiltrator survived by his wiles to save him from death- the body glove offered no protection from anything but rain. As such, only a handful ever elected to lead life as a stealther, and only the smartest survived long enough to claim mastery of the trade. The ranks of the Republic war machine was full of men and women who�d had near-death experiences from going to war as a stealther. Most who made it through recon school and the Republic Army�s infiltration course gave up on wearing the suit once they�d been in battle a few times.

Lt. Donal was one of them. He spent four years as a supply puke, ferrying equipment and materiel around in a converted Sunderer heavy transport. After his mandatory stint in the Republic war machine, he attended the officer�s academy and then joined the Terran Republic Special Forces, where he learned all he needed to know (and more) about the art of unconventional warfare. After being recognized for his elite skill and innate grasp of battle tactics, the War Department transferred him to the Elite Guard.

Donal led his commando team out of the hills and down into the thick, stagnant muck of the swamps. Zotz was situated on a low island in the center of that filth, and the assault force would be cut to ribbons by the base�s automated defenses trying to traverse the ooze. Lt. Donal�s job was to kill or incapacitate the base defenders, neutralize the automated defenses by hacking into the computerized command infrastructure, hack into the communications grid to gain continent-wide radio coverage, and lower the drawbridges and tank-trap guards that acted as gates to the base. Four tasks for his twelve-man squad meant that three troops could cover each task.

--to be continued--