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Drop Mech ExoskeletonThe Drop Mech Exoskeleton (D.M.E.) is a single person glider used by Warspire covert operations strike squads to insert units quietly from orbit to any location on a planet, regardless of atmosphere o... More

Words
Neal Ulen

When : Where
289 DE (2599 CE) : Local Bubble / TerraFollowing the Transcendence Wars (2300-2310 CE), Terra became an inhospitable world compared to its pre-war state. Regardless, huamnity was forced to eek out an existence there with most survivors of ... More / The Zone

Note: This is an unfinished, unedited first draft excerpt from an upcoming Infinispace novel.

The ink black mechgliderThe Drop Mech Exoskeleton (D.M.E.) is a single person glider used by Warspire covert operations strike squads to insert units quietly from orbit to any location on a planet, regardless of atmosphere o... More tore through the grey cloud deck, its leading edges still glowing from the heat of atmospheric re-entry and its hypersonic shock wave leaving behind an ever expanding hole through which faint blue sky could be seen.

The scream of the turbulent air scrubbing off speed tore through the armor of Fortinbras’ helmet. He was just off Hamlet’s right wing who was under direct mirror mode control through his bio.nodeA bio.node is a technology that is integrated within a host's brain and consciousness that acts as a personal communication node to all open parts of the Continuum. The technology is not embedded via ... More link. HamletSummary: Placeholder More had no experience with military drops, or much experience with anything outside the protective social structure of his TechspirePlaceholder Faction: Transcendentalists Exists in: Realspace More, but he seemed particularly adept at utilizing the capacity of his .node with incredible efficiency. Something even the best soldiers struggled with.

FortinbrasSummary: Placeholder More had made the risky choice to leave his ship, The Tempest, safely in orbit lest he be caught in violation of the planetary blockade he was ordered to staunchly enforce. Two stealth mechgliders negotiating a surface drop far out in The Zone was highly unlikely to attract any attention when it was all being focused on the blockade fleet in geostationary orbit over the Techspire.

The ink black mechglider tore through the grey cloud deck, its leading edges still glowing from the heat of atmospheric re-entry and its hypersonic shock wave leaving behind an ever expanding hole through which faint blue sky could be seen.

Fortinbras was putting his neck on the line for reasons he wasn’t quite sure he entirely understood … at least not yet. His curiosity had gotten the best of his rationale after the inadvertent rescue of Hamlet and the subsequent tale he’d been told.  It was either the most fantastical and improbable thing Fortinbras had ever heard, or one of the most sinister and troubling. For the good of the TriocracyWhen the entirety of Earth was plunged into literal darkness and chaos in the years following the Cold Boot, humanity reverted to its most base form ... survival of the fittest and strongest. The near... More it was his duty to ensure Hamlet’s claim be given at least a modicum of scrutiny. If it proved to be true it would make his job, and position within the Triocracy itself, significantly more complicated and dangerous.

The desolate ruin of Earth’s landscape rushed toward him at a startling rate. He’d completed planetary drops hundreds of times and almost felt a sense of boredom as he scanned the terrain below looking for a suitable and secure site to bring Hamlet back home from his short exile.

.FIN.

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