Mission One: Ciricunius II

Hayha nodded, making his way into his pod, slipping the SOCOM into one of the pods pockets and taking a seat, fiddling with a few of the buttons and switches before relaxing back. He'd trusted these things with his life more times than he could count.

Sinead entered the pod slowly, placing her weapons in the appropriate slots before checking her suit vitals and then running a quick diagnostic on her pod. After all, if Sinead was to die it was the least she could do by making someone dig her a grave instead of the other way round. "It's go time, time to go to class, hit the town, paint the sky red with the blood of the enemy" She chirped.

Jesus stepped into pod, doing what he had been trained to do upon entering such a thing, and got comfortable.

Sasha, while waiting for the drop, had been filled with adrenaline, meaning that she had to fight to keep her smile off of her face. When she did drop, the adrenaline surged, so much that she couldn't smile.

On the left screen was Hayha, on the right, Saint-Nicholas, the other two were audio only.

Hayha looked at the screens before him, a video feed of Saint-Nicholas and Winter, as he checked everything on the pod was still operating properly now that they'd dropped. This was the most dangerous part of any ODSTs mission. You can't fight back. You can't escape. If something goes wrong here, you're a corpse.

Hayha looked out the dorsal window, the visor not polarized, which Hayha had completely forgotten about; he rarely turned it on before landing, anyway.
"Lovely view."

Having landed first, as per protocol, Sasha already had her boots on solid ground.
"Everyone, report in," She ordered, over her helmet's integrated comms.

Hayha swore to himself, hammering all but two explosive locks on his pod, trying to adjust in his position as he reported back to Winter.

"Staff, my pod may have detoured into a cliff-face. My pod landed face down, so I'm sorta stuck."

Hayha pondered how heavy this pod was, wondering if he could hit the next two locks and freeing himself. He decided it was worth a shot.
Hitting the last two green lights, Hayha began to push on the main body of the pod, trying to lift it off of himself.

"Landed."

the front hatch popped off and I stepped out from the drop pod. Grabbing my SOCOM and M7S from there places. I shook out my legs. "Amen."

"Nicholas reporting in." I looked around. "I think I'm close to Hayha's pod, I'm going to check it out."

I began to walk in the direction I thought I saw Hayha's pod land.

"Got it," Answered Sasha, "Report in when you get there. Salazar, Orchestra, what about you two?"

I roll my eyes, tapping back against the sides of the pod.

"Don't come any closer. I'm an Elite. Who do you think, idiot?"

I pushed the side of the pod, planting my feet and trying to find an optimal position.

"Maybe you should lose some weight."

Hayha shook his head, trying to rock the pod over with his pushes. He thought they were getting somewhere, but over time it was apparent that we weren't. Eventually, he stopped, slumping forward.

"Got any grenades?"

"And risk killing you? No."

I look around the area, for something I could use as leverage.

Maybe I can wedge rocks under the pod.

"Can anyone help me out here? This isn't a one man job."

Sinead had been screaming "WOOOOHOOOOOOO!" All the way down stopping only when she hit the ground. She had scrambled out of her pod when the question came through. "Green to go over" For once her voice sounded calm, normal and not infected with insanity. "Should I keep watch while the team helps out Hayha?" She inquired, keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings.

"Negative," Replied Sasha, "Everyone is to regroup at Hayha's pod. Hayha, Saint-Nicholas, one of you needs to give us a waypoint,"

I activate a waypoint on my location.

"See me now?"

"Solid copy" Came Sinead's reply after a second's pause as if she had been tempted to disagree. "I see the way point I'm Oscar Mike, eta soon don't crack open the presents without me" With that Sinead began to make her way towards the location marked on her hud.

Jesus began to make his way to the marked location.

Hayha sighed, scratching his head as he looked at the shattered glass and dented metal around him, and noticed that his SOCOM was now wedged between his seat and the holster.

"Oh great. There goes any chance at self defense."

Sinead made her way to the pod, regrouping with her fellow ODSTs there.

Hayha groaned, now starting to feel the pain of his situation, parts of his seat digging into his flesh, glass lightly peppering his suit and worrying him, his head throbbing a little.

A whole new team, and they were all young. It made them slow. If this had been with his team, they'd already be at the base by now.

Sasha had jogged up to Hayha's position, she had landed a little farther away than she'd have liked to, but it wasn't too far,
"Alright," She said, "Hayha, before we move it, are you wounded? Moving this isn't going to rip a piece of metal out of your leg or anything, right?"

Hyaha shook his head, patting himself down as much as he could, given his situation. He felt okay, overall. He was just getting sick of being there.

"I'll be fine, Staff, don't worry. Just get me out of here."

Sinead stood nearby but she scanned the horizon looking out for trouble.

"On three," Said Sasha, placing both of her hands on the pod and waiting for the others to do the same."

"One," Sasha said, digging her heels into the ground,
"Two," She added pushing her palms against the warm metal,
"Three!" She pushed, trying to roll the pod over.

Sinead with a chuckle threw herself against the pop aiming to help roll it over through force.

"Stand back."

Hayha hit the last explosive key, and with a beep and a blast, the door was launched up into the air, landing nearby with a loud clang.
The Sergeant climbed up, standing in the pod and cracking his neck and spine for a moment, groaning. He'd done some shitty drops before, but he'd never been left in for that long.
Looking down he grabbed his SOCOM, pulling on it, trying to unjam it and failing miserably.

"Anyone got a spare?"

"We shouldn't need them," Sasha answered, "Just secure one later. All right, let's move out,"

"Game time then" Sinead said sounding weirdly calm for a woman who had less than a few minutes earlier look and appear completely insane. Perhaps she was and the only version of normality emerged from the sea of insanity when the time to fight returned.

By this time Hayha had already started to pull off some pieces of his armour, one of his shoulder pads lay back off the road and bits and pieces of his outfit were scattered all over the place.

"Winter, you and your partner thought much on how you're gonna get in the front door?"

Sasha was unstrapping the armour on her boots, having removed most of the top half of her armour,
"The only way that it might happen peacefully is if we walk up and ask," She said, "But we don't know if these innies have a uniform. We could pretend to be potential recruits, but..." She trailed off, assuming the others could guess the risks of an attempt like that.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

It would be suspicious if a bunch of people came out of the woods saying they were recruits, or wanted to join. The Rebels here are probably mostly locals, and if they have the technology, it's likely they have a database regarding their recruits. There's certainly another way to go about this. I think finding a flaw or weak-point in the Rebel defenses would have a greater chance for success.

"We should consider doing something else, or thinking of a plan once we've seen the area in more detail."

Sinead had fallen uncharacteristically silent. Her visor was polarised preventing anyone from seeing that she stared silently into the distance.