M Absolon's Court: Act 1: Memento Mori

(I do not own the song or any intellectual property within the song.)

Medusa Expanse: Kilo sector, Adrasteia Tower, NDC Outer rim.

The extravagant halls of Adrasteia tower, Echoed with the boots of elite guards adorned in their gilded armors. all but the newly recruited Mercenaries of the Wrathful Gaze were preparing for departure, both the public docking stations as well as The Marquis' private docking bays were being utilized to move companies of his most trusted troops, while thousands of NPS combat drones were being loaded onto their newly acquired ships. The towers populace had pup on parades, cheering for their soldiers, and for the protector of their planets and beloved tower. as the systems conviviality seemed to grow as hours turned to days. As the 3rd day came, the face of their leader covered with a mask seemingly made of a tree bark, gilded with fine metals in vibrant colors matching the Adrasteia crest, joining both the royal flag and the colors of the tower and her sister system." Attention across the systems controlled in the Kilo and Heilisian systems." a voice boomed." This is your beloved Marquis D'concillion. as many of you have seen, in the last several days many of you in the Kilo system, have seen a mass of regimental guard and supplies move to this beautiful tower I call home. our neighboring system to the Northwest and on our sibling planet of Heilis, there is a group of ungrateful, superstitious zealots. wishing to do harm to both our people and our way of life. we will treat this as nothing more than treason. Against both our governance, and to the Royal family. With a swift and decisive fist, we will quell this insurrection, and bring peace and stability to our systems. so today...we will celebrate, and within the year we will return to our peaceful lives. Until such time, this will be seen as a judiciary action until then. I thank you for your support, without you our prosperity would not be possible." His visage disappeared from the monitors, falling silent among the roaring crowds.

Those three days for many, were a rush of activity, and hard work. For the logistics officers, it was moving and loading supplies, as well as bringing in all that was needed by the other units. For the warriors, it was weapon checks, gear checks, stock up, and drilling. Intelligence was just it's usual black box of activity, searching for all the information they would need on the unknown, just how it should have been. Getting opposition numbers and supply estimates, hard points, landing zones, threat estimates, weather reports, and documentation of the whole operation with the whole process notated.

All condensed and simplified into a tidy report for the Marquis's desk, which Trager made sure to have at least one day in advance on his desk. For those first two, he had handled an influx of said paperwork and analysis, on top of having his own requisitions handled for his coming involvement. The final was handling the preparation of said supplies for not only himself, but his recently completed frame now birthed in the tower's hanger. Originally the knight would have preferred simple adornment and finish, yet this was meant to be an extension of representing the Marquis's power manifest. So much to his mild displeasure, the frame's hull was likewise, gilded to the same manner as the guard and tower.

The man himself, full helmeted mask and knight uniform, crouched in the cockpit cavity. His gloved hands fiddling with a small terminal jacked into the great machine's systems, running checks, while he also did physical maintenance on a few innards of the cockpit itself. It would likely have been seen as tedious, and something left to a technician, but he still held to the royal practice of maintaining his own arsenal.

Medusa Expanse - 014030:9 (Adrasteia Tower, Kilo System)
Assault Shuttle 'Gates of Hades'

With so much spare time on her hands, Karen found herself with plenty to focus on. She had some last minute checks for her teams equipment, finalizing the registered and confirmed targets and how they would hit them. As it was, she was leaning back in her crash chair, looking up at the roof of the shuttle. Of course, two days ago, there'd been more of a fuss.

---
Two Day Prior
---

"Here's the list of supplies my team and I need to be ready for our part in the operation ahead." Karen said, handing over a tablet with the list of parts they needed and the other basic supplies she expected to burn through during the duration.

The Quartermaster took the tablet, having already been dealing with all sorts like this and he couldn't help but grumble at yet another one. Looking it over, he blinked. "Wait, you're Kerebos? But I don't see anything on here for a mech suit or the like."

Karen huffed. "Why the hell should I need parts for a combat system I don't even have?"

"But aren't you a Knight? You're supposed to have one." The Quartermaster replied, confused.

"Oh for... I may be a Knight, but a mech would literally get in my way. Me and my team are urban warfare specialists. A mech would only get in our way. Do you have the parts we need or not?"

"I mean, yeah, but..."

"No buts. Either you get us the parts we need or tell me who I should talk to to get the parts." Karen snapped, already not appreciating what was being stated.

"Errr, y-yes ma'am!" The Quartermaster replied, hurriedly.

---
Present
---

The supplies had arrived yesterday, and they'd already made sure their gear was in top shape and ready to go. As it was, it was now just a waiting game. One she hoped wouldn't last much longer. Of course, since they had the best job in her opinion, they also had the most dangerous one, so they were all suited up and ready to go the second the order was made. It was why she was in the crash chair. Just more comfortable to sit in while armored up and everything.

A long sigh reverberated inside a cockpit, only the little and sparse leds of the interior illuminated what was concealed, the figure of someones gloved hand reached slowly for the command pannels, with the press of a button a very basic and slightly distorting UI activated. Its activation illuminated the figure of a young woman with silver hairs, she was wearing a mithril body suit, the emblem of a iron rose shined on the right side of her chest, her helmet was placed on her lap. She seemed very slow to react at the sudden flash of light, as she moved an arm to cover her emerald eyes while mumbling something of unspecified.

"Good morning lady Cassandra, Klaus would like to know why you have been asleep inside the unit for a considerable amount of time." A synthetic voice spoke from the inside speakers of the cockpit, it was a male one and its pronunciations had a very elegant accent, typical of the western continent of Heilis. Even if such was in complete contrast with their history.

"Yeah... Good morning sir Klaus..." A yawn cut her in mid sentence "I would like to tell you, but it takes to much time..." Her eyes now adapting to the light looked up on the UI to see the in timezone date. It was one and an half hour before the starting of the operation. "Yeah we don't have it." Her voice sounded very sleepy and tired, it should not be as she was trained for years to wake up very early, but as of lately she was more tired than normal. most surely because of what was happeing. "As you wish lady Cassandra" Klaus simply followed with her saying.

" Sir Klaus, activate logbook" While speaking, she opened a case next to her seat, her hand moved to pick up rapidly the only two things contained in it. Specifically an energy bar and a thermos. "Logbook activated" The synthetic voice informed her as she started to eat the bar, she degluted before speaking "Activate recorder, voice only" She took a sip from the thermos before recieving a "Recorder activated, you may speak, lady Cassandra."

The young woman took her time to finish her fast breakfast, she calculated roughly the time taken for it and then she finally spoke "I still don't understand how is it possible that the church is fomenting a riot. It is unthinkable, they are pacifists to begin with. Yes they may be traditionalists, but is it a bad thing? Even the term traditionalist is something weird for me to say, it's foreign by all means..." She cleared her throat, finally getting more and more awake "Sure my duty demands to not ask emotional questions, but i can't deny my thoughts... and my feelings... Its furstrating, the motivations are bland, the informations sent to me are completely plausible yet unbelievable. And my father? I don't even want to think about it, he just go along with all of this. I personally didn't remember the church being our enemy. They even stayed outside the conflict..." She gave a long and exasperated sigh before closing the logbook and her morning rant. Then she activated the intercom with the military command.

Cassandra didn't want to kill her people, and even more without an actual believable motivation, but it was her duty, and the pledge of allegiance. She felt worried about all her friends on the planet, not because of what was already happening, but for what they will have to behold soon, very soon.

"Iron Rose ready."

The three day buildup is occupied in the Gazes usual manner; seemingly endless gear checks, layouts, emergency repairs, trips to the market for supplies, weapon recalibration, and last minute Trainings. The small size of the unit allows them to cycle rapidly through their tasks, repeating some several times until satisfactorily done. Through it all Karlotte maintains a strict eye on her troops. Each mercenary has more freedom than most soldiers in their loadout and each team and squad is slightly different in operation based on their individual strengths and experiences, but even so she spends most of her time observing their drills and bringing them in line with the overall order of the company. What time she doesn’t spend with her own men is spent meeting with the Marquis or his assistants to finalize the companies objectives and strategy once they hit the field.
As the final day slides past and all troops boarded their ship to wait for the green light, Karlotte sets herself into the command chair just behind the helm of the old freighter. Her armour is freshly cleaned and charged up, her weapons likewise spotless, her hair combed out and braided up into cadenettes, and her complexion almost glowing from the last hot shower she’s likely to have in awhile.
She flicks the controls for the holoscreen idly, scrolling through her pesonal files to kill time; head leaned on one gauntlet and expression fully bored.
„Personnel files, Finances, Combat Reports,“ she mutters as she scrolls, „Gear Aquisitions, Maintenance reports, Porn, Music, Recorded shows, Casualty lists.” She sighs and looks at the timer ticking down to the estimated step-off before she flicks the screen over to the Marquis’ comm channel.
“My Lord, the Wrathful Gaze is fully ready to move at your orders,” She flexes her legs, sending a shudder through her body, “just give the word and we’ll earn our pay.”

Kilo system
Adrastea Tower
Day 3 hours before departure.

As the Marquis walked the halls, his double no doubt finishing any last minute meetings and paper work, Absolons private channel made a brief notification, as Karlotte's voice rang through his modified Geist. “My Lord, the Wrathful Gaze is fully ready to move at your orders, just give the word and we’ll earn our pay.” as she spoke, a devilish smirk began to grow on the man's face, "wonderful news Captain, your band will be my personal retinue for this deployment. Relatively easy I'd say, have your ship in formation adjacent to our flagship until planet fall, then assist Kereboros with clearing a beachhead. I'd like the first defensive positions completely taken by the end of the day." As he finished speaking so too did the Geist cut off his audio to the current conversation. Patching into the joint network made for his Knights." We shall be departing now, make your peace, say your goodbyes and let the operation begin."

Upon his final words, as if on cue. Multiple ships pushed off from their respective bays, his flag ship lastly. The small fleet seeming to be massively overkill for such a small uprising. Within the day and a half travel it seemed to go by uneventful, ships stayed their course, the stars seeming to be a never ending ocean of twinkling light. Before the three planets of the Heilis system began to come into view.

Medusa Expanse - 014030:9 (Adrasteia Tower, Kilo System) to 013030:2 (Heilis System)
Assault Shuttle 'Gates of Hades'

Settling into their expected game of wait and see, the urban assault team that followed Kerberos milled about as best they could within the suits for the next day and a half during the flight to the planet in question. Most of the way, they slept when they weren't handling anything else that needed done during the journey. There was no sense of dread, no fear of what was coming. Just bored expectation. About the only person in the team who really couldn't stand sitting still was Kona, one of the genemods that had come from the same combat unit she had back during Hassan. But this was an old and longstanding thing. She just didn't do sitting still very well. But soon the pilots gave had the cabin lighting flash from the normal white light to red, getting everyone's attention instantly and thusly settled back into this seats and patiently waiting for the next step. Sure, they weren't over the planet just yet, but they would be ready to storm off the shuttle as soon as the craft settled into a hover over their target destination.

"Remember, we need the ATC and pads intact and operational when we secure the spaceport. The pads are top priority but the ATC is classed as a secondary. I want both. Kona, you lead Bravo Team to the ATC. Once it's secure, get someone with CCT experience in place to start directing the rest of the forces down. Alpha, we're going to sweep the pads clear and then push to the military facilities attached to the port to prevent any possible aerospace forces from launching. Any Triple-A encountered is to be destroyed on the spot. Gates of Hades will be providing CAS so if you encounter a target too touch for your weapons to hit, call it in. We've also got four tertiary objectives - Securing the terminal building, the hangers, the fuel dump, and the maintenance wing of the port. Don't overstretch yourself to secure them. I'd rather lose those objectives than throw away our lives trying to secure them without the manpower or firepower to do so properly. ROE is simple - Anyone with a gun that isn't one of ours, is hostile. Anyone who reachs for a gun, is a hostile. Anyone who resists instructions, is a hostile. Anyone who is caught in any of the above by being in the wrong place, is just a statistic." Karen said, giving one final briefing and rundown to her team inside the crew space. Would they intentionally attack unarmed people? No. But if they got caught in the cross fire, well, shit happens in war. And urban conflict was infamous for how easy it was for non-coms to get caught up by the combat and end up dead just as well. And so she and her people just didn't even think about it at any point. 'Innocent people' died in combat all the time. If they didn't want to risk it, they'd have made sure to keep the soldiers well away from them, instead of housing or helping them. Simple as.

Turning on her comm link, Karen smiled while she waited on the light to go from red to green. "This is Kerberos. Gates of Hades ready to deploy and secure beachhead objectives. Give hte word and we'll begin securing the spaceport and related facilities in the vicinity for our forces to use." She reported in through the appropriate channel, both on the official chain of command line and the joint network run by Absolon himself. Better to make sure the ignorant grunts not think her running wild off her leash publicly while she did the Marquis' will in reality.

"As planned, upon arrival, spear will proceed with H.A.T.S. maneuvers. Stage one will be pinpoint bombardment of AAA elements to reduce their coverage for Kerebos's unit. Second stage will be dispersing of countermeasures for the descent of the main force. Final stage will be remaining back for support, and acting as shield for initial LZs.", the knight recounted to his own units for this operation. Once that was done, he likewise switched to a direct line with the marquis with one last readiness update as the fleet was underway, "All units' datalinks to the battlenet are up to date and being tracked. Spearpoint unit is all statuses green, and awaiting deployment." Trager was more reiterating for the sake of verbal confirmation, seeing as it was commonly done out of formality by most. Honestly, why it was done instead of reading the mission outline, was beyond him. However, he wasn't going to say anything against it, as it had its own merits surely.

Once that had been addressed, he switched his output to private once more and relaxed in his cockpit as much as were possible. It was times like these that he was reminded of the mercy of his helmets hook ups. Currently there were two lines hooked into the back of the helm he always wore, with one for nutrients and water entering his feed as needed, the other supplying oxygen with drug supplements. Right now those compounds consisted of a mixture that lowered bodily activity and sensitivity, but sharpening his mental acuity when needed. In this drugged state, he could focus his strongest asset, his mind, on what was before them. But it also numbed the searing heat and agitation of his own burned skin, which bothered him at even the touch of his mithril bodysuit.

Relieved of such things to a degree that relaxation was possible, he gave a soft prayer, before setting one of his mixtures on a timer and trigger. If he was called, or they arrived, it would cut and dispense with a stim instead. Leaving it for him to restart or cancel as needed afterwards, it would put him in a drugged state akin to sleep for the journey, resting for when he would be needed the most in full capacity.

LOCATION : Star Castle "Tore des Himmels" / Planet Heilis Orbit.

The Star Castle was a flamboyant way to explain the large space station built by the marquis and gifted to the High King of Heilis around a decade ago. It was a sturdy yet very simplistic structure, with many modules attached to a main core that with its high spikes resembled the towers of the castles of old. Upon the spikes holograms of the royal banner of the High Kingdom were shone with their Iron Rose embraced by a golden dragon. The docks were actually the most important part of the Star Castle, together with the Order of the Wyvern chapter house. Usually it was overflowed by many small cargo ships of the heilisian merchants selling their goods around the outer rim, only private docks dedicated to the NDC and the Marquis were usually untouched.

But this time was different, no defense turrets in place and no vessels activities registered for two days straight... except one.
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6 HOURS BEFORE THE OPERATION

A completely clear station was awaiting the arrival of five small military transports bringing the emblems of the royal army, a rose crossed by two halberds. Inside the leading ship two men watched with disdain the orbiting structure. "Lord Captain, the sensors confirms that the defense systems of the star castle are still operational." A pilot at the consoles of the vessels spoke while keeping eye contact to his monitors. One of the two men, the one with more friezes adorning his armor sighed longly "Those dunderheads of the merchants guild...". The one next to him followed the affermation of the lord captain "It is expectable that the militia of the guilders is still armed, m'lord." The higher ranking man turned around while walking away "Then we will make them understand what infringing a royal decree means..."

Medusa Expanse - Heilis Atmosphere, Heilis System
Assault Shuttle 'Gates of Hades'

Soon the light turned a slow pulsing red. "READY UP!" Karen barked out, lifting herself just slight while shifting back, before aggressively dropping herself onto the hook in the little 'pod' space of the shuttle. The rest of the team did so as well. The team could feel the shuttle as it shifted left and right to swerve out of the way of the oncoming weapon's fire. The pilots not only knew their stuff, but had proven it time and time again in far worse conditions.

Soon the light began to do a double pulse every ten seconds. "10 minutes to DZ!" The loadmaster in the back with them called out over the radio, whilst holding up a finger and making a circle with their hands. Underneath the urban assault suits, the hatches that kept the interior pressurized opened. This caused her full combat jumpsuit flapping around her EVA bodysuit underneath, the crew harness with it's combat load on her chest helping hold some of it down, while the helmet obscured her face from view.

Soon the roar of atmosphere fully erupted into the troop bay, the wind blast strong enough that speaking normally without the radios were effectively impossible. As it was, the troopers could just look down and see the rising fire from below, as the defenses around the space port opened up with everything they had to perform their jobs and keep people, like Karen's little band of 'HellJumpers' from reaching the surface.

This would be the sight and sound that surrounded the shuttle as it continued it's insane scream down, down, down. Never slowing, only swerving to avoid bursts of lucky, accurate fire sent up their way. Soon the double blinks changed to a single blink every five seconds. "Five minutes to DZ!" The loadmaster reported, holding up a hand with all five fingers outstretched. They'd fully hooked themselves to the shuttle's interior with a security line, and were also holding onto the control panel that would instantly drop all 12 troopers to the ground below.

The fire was growing more intense and more accurate as the shuttle continued it's descent, as the gunners got their bearings and began to hone in on the singular target dropping faster than terminal velocity towards them. And still the pilots flew with expert skill to avoid anything more than a mere glancing scrape on the paintjob of the shuttle.

Now the light was blinking every second. "1 Minute! Prepare to drop!" The loadmaster called out, moving a hand over the large button, and keeping their gaze firmly on the bulkhead in front of them, down the full length of the troop bay. Karen grinned. "Where are we going Jumpers!?"

"Into Hell!"

"And how are we getting there?!"

"FEET FIRST!"

"Damn right! And what are we gonna do when we get there?!"

"KICK THE DEVIL OUT OF HIS THRONE!"

"FUCK YES!" Karen howled in delight at the old school back and forth as the light turned green.

"DROP! DROP! DROP!" The loadmaster yelled, slamming their hand down and watching as all twelve suits immediately fell out of the shuttle towards the ground, the guide wires keeping them at least recoverable in the chance of a bad drop.

"I CALL DIBS ON HIS BITCHES!" Kona called out on the radio as she was launched out of the Gates of Hades.

1KM. 750 meters. 500 meters. 250. "JETS!" Karen called over radio, and felt herself be ripped out of freefall as the jet rig mounted on her suit kicked in and rapidly decelerates her from just above terminal velocity to around 15 km/h, which wasn't 'safe', but it wasn't deadly. If you landed wrong, it would hurt like hell and you'd be combat ineffective, but that's why the guide wire existed for recovery.

But her people knew their business. The jets kicked off at the right time, they had the right length of drop, and they all hit the ground the right way. On top of that, they also had the B-Bag's fired out of the bottom of the jet's to serve as a 'landing pad'. Hitting the latch to disconnect the line, they rocketed up and back into the shuttle as it made it's first gun run while working back to a 'safe' altitude for a moment to seal itself back up.

Karen grinned as she settled herself onto her feet and pulled her weapon from it's lock-down straps with gusto and raising it to her shoulder, and firing the SMG with precision at the enemy forces trying to shoot her. While her weapon didn't have nearly as much power by nature compared to the rifles firing at her, but her weapon was also fairly advanced and she also knew how to correct with it to hit her target effectively.

"Alpha! Move out! Bravo, get going!" Karen barked, getting responses from her team in unison as they began to sweep out from their landing points near the center of the 'green belt' that existed between flight lines of the port.