[Colonol Dekker]

I stared, looking up from the rubble.

As the sky burned blood red, from the horizon above a mountain range breaking a vast expanse of desert towards the ruined fortress standing in the centre of the capital where I was standing. I heard landing thrusters kick in from behind me.  “Colonel!!!” it piped from its external loud hailer, “Colonel We need to leave right away, enemy forces have zeroed this position, and we’ve got about forty seconds to strap you in.” At that, an external door hissed open and folded up and out from the now hovering vehicle and a steel cable ladder, not unlike specialist training centres used, was unfurled obviously meant to be used in haste. A young Lieutenant leaned out, a look of fear and confusion in his eyes. He strained now, holding onto an external hand-rail as the shuttle was caught in a crosswind. “Sir!!” he leant down stretching out an open hand ready to assist... As I looked around before I said goodbye to Rosewood. Two troopships lifted off and one tank carrier hauli8ng two Merlins managed to lift off on three engines. I noted several corpses littered the remains of our position, some still thrown over their stations, some clutching their weapons without a head. some lined up under sheets. I caught a glimpse of the fire strewn throughout our airfield a few hundred metres to the west. Trenches had been dug marking the Perimeter of the base; it was nearly full of the dead, ours and theirs.

I’d lost myself in the moment, I was thinking back to a few years back, quite a few in fact when this whole planet was in its prime. Verdant green fields, clean water and docile, easy times for all. It was the garden of the Empire. People came here for holidays, retirement and the annual remembrance parade. Nothing lived here now, we held out for as long as we could, even after their final solution... A rumble in the distance, our artillery, what was left of it was delaying an advance two, maybe three hundred kilometres towards the horizon, snapped me back to the present.  Assailing the ladder I took the young officers assist and found an empty seat in back between a man missing an arm, and someone with a blood-soaked, bandage covered face. I unslung my weapon, made it safe. Crossed my arms over it and let the sleep take over....

[Colonol Dekker]

“COOPER!” a lump of chalk hit me in the side of the head, I looked up from the Jazz-mag hidden in my text book to see the whole class staring at me. Mister Allen did not look impressed. “For god’s sake James, if you ever want to pass this class and get into the Academy next year you NEED to learn the material.” As the now fuming teacher approached my desk I hurriedly closed the history book and abruptly blurted out “what was the question again sir?” at this the teacher seemed to defuse and simply resumed his position by the back-screen. He produced a control-unit and waved it in my general direction. “Now you lot, some of you at least (cursory glance in my direction) know that towards the end of the unification war, the North American Protectorate was at a stalemate with the East-Asian Block and” I have to admit at this point I knew what was coming, the whole Armageddon bit, Britain rising up to seize control, the century war ending separatist ambition in the colonies fifteen years back. Nah, history was one thing I didn’t need to brush up on. Instead I snuck a glimpse of page 65, a rather nice blonde sporting the new “quad” implants which would quite frankly, keep a family of five well fed for upwards of a month. After class I met Jenny for a smoke and we discussed things young stupid people in teen induced states of lust discuss. I can’t remember more about that period, it was too long ago..

I obviously made it through New Sandhurst Academy, third in my year in fact. I’ll go over that later for now I felt bump as exo-atmospheric flight engaged. The shuttles engines bucked wildly and I cracked an eye open.

[Hellstryker]

How odd, I was working on a story much like this awhile back.. perhaps you've inspired me to continue...

[Retsof]

Is this a fanfic for something or is it your own universe?
Also, I thought he (you, I, whatever) was daydreaming about battles when he was supposed to be in class.  And what is a Jazz-mag. *looks at the sentence about implants and figures it out*

[Colonol Dekker]

Class=flashback/rememberiing earlier times.

This is just an own universe thing thats always been rattling round my head.
More will come as it gets written down.

[Retsof]

Okay ... cool.

[Colonol Dekker]

From where I was sitting I could see past a still unconscious serviceman on some sort of medical drip pumping him full of luminous yellow **** which cast a dim glow over him and his neighbour, a n obvious fluke survivor. A boy, barely out of his teens. You could tell the sort, he was meekly slumped back in his seat, harness loosely buckled and he was stuck in a cross between a soft high pitched mumbling and gassing for breath on the verge of breaking down into tears. 

Irrelevant, I’d seen hundreds like him over the years and you either hack it or you don’t. Anyway I was more interested in the view behind them, through the now rapidly moving shuttles window I could see the sun falling back behind Rosewood as we pulled up away from it. Of the three main equatorial continents I could only see East Angelica and most of it was on fire. I was still thinking of the victory parade at the end of the century war when the internal comm. Piped up; “Brace for max Q, repeat brace for max Q” Standard procedure was to tighten harness and straps to prevent flying around like a lottery ball when any ship punches full sub-light engines, I just did my belt up tight and started to nod off again............. Except the young private at that point, started screaming at the top of his lungs: “THEY’RE HERE THEY’RE FOLLOWING US! FOR F*CK SAKE GET US OUT OF HERE” I woke back up with a start, a grizzled Sergeant under one of my Captains, the last of his platoon in fact unstrapped himself and made a move to obviously help the lad get some sleep early. I smiled and once again started to close my eyes when the shuttle did sharp 180 roll and dived still at speed. The Sergeant was flung headfirst into the screaming minor and broke the poor lads jaw with his shoulder.  “What the hell is going on I thought?” As if to answer my query the combat shuttles pilot over the comm replied “Hostile fighters eighty kilometres out closing fast, they’re trying to cut us off” At that we seemed to level out, the Sergeant regained his balance, rubbed his shoulder, and knocked out the young lad with a well placed head-butt.  In a deep west Angelican accent (a mix between cockney and West Country if you can imagine such horror) “Apologies for the boys conduct sir, I’ll appraise the situation” He was trying to reassure me or show some sort of leadership in front of the men, but he didn’t know jack about exo-atmospheric combat as far as I knew, besides I wanted to see myself. “Sergeant take a seat, I’ll find out myself, and thanks for keeping the noise down.” He seemed taken aback by my formality but I didn’t care I was already on my feet and using the overhead rails to get some stability as I made my way to the cockpit.

The cockpit was large enough to hold two pilots sitting next to each other, the two pilots in question were Major Carter who I’d worked with before and a young co-pilot. My arrival wasn’t noticed until I spoke up.  “How’re we doing Carter?” not looking around Major carter replied with a hurried calmness that serving with the Royal Aerospace Force seemed to drill into its officers. “James nice to see you , forgive the short welcome, We’ve two enemy interceptors , they’ll be on us in less than half a minute, I’ve broadcast a general alert to the ships still breaking atmosphere” I thought back to the Tank Carrier, the CCL-180 wouldn’t have a chance.  “Any support in the area besides the Victoria?” I was getting edgy now, we’d lost the airfield on the planet’s surface, and any pilots still trying to get to VTOL craft as we left were probably subjected to the Neutron Artillery that had us zeroed when the shuttle picked us up in the first place. As we pitched towards the planet again I could make out the shapes of the two troopships and the CCL-180 which was limping along debris flaking off where it had lost its rear port exhaust. High pitched rapid alerts filled the shuttle as the two Interceptors streaked overhead and made a beeline for the Tank Carrier. Both the craft were about sixteen feet long, angular, narrow and had a silvery black sheen to them. “****” I said blankly as one of them loosed three missiles towards the carrier they were a good fifteen 5 Kilcks away, silhouetted against the burning continent of East Angelica, and for what seemed like at least an age the missiles tore through empty space, finally tearing into the starboard side of the utility ship. A violent explosion rocked the craft causing it to roll around its keel bringing the two exposed  Merlin heavy tanks into view, smaller explosions rippled throughout the ship causing the Tanks to break away tumbling helplessly through space. A few seconds space and then giving up a final sigh of defeat the CCL-180 erupted into a massive fireball as its fuel store ignited. “**** indeed,” Major Carter responded with despair, I agreed at first with what I thought was a response to the fireball, but then I noticed what the Flyboy had seen with his RAF flight path foresight. The blast had thrown the two Merlins wildly towards the two Troopships. The two enemy birds still in tight formation had vectored towards the heavy transports and were lining up for an attack run when over the ship-to-ship “##YDAY MAYDAY” the muffled screams of about a hundred and sixty service personnel were audible in the background even through the panic stricken pilot chatter. The transmission cut-off as in the distance one of the heavy tanks tore into the command deck, no more than the size of a modular habitation unit, about six foot by three the much larger tank burrowed into the Troopship from bow to stern. We all waited for it to emerge from the other side but nothing happened, the Transporters engines simply died and it just hung there drifting along lazily. At this point the two bogies opened up on the remaining Transporter, raking it with gunfire,  they passed over it, rolled and banked, turned, and repeated.

[Colonol Dekker]

The gunfire was only marginally effective against the hardened hull, the majority of the shots deflecting off into space. By now our dropship had turned away from the hostiles and was making a full burn for our rendezvous with the Cruiser Victoria in high orbit near the Harrington moon.  “You’d better get back to your seat,” Carter express with just a hint of anxiety. I looked at him with raised eyebrows as if to say, Are you sure? He just turned to the junior officer and started going over the LIDAR on one of the MFDs.  I had a glance as I left the cockpit and noticed our last transport flicker and disappear. I was about to ask if there was any word on support when a warning chime sounded. Carters Junior opened up internal comm.”Alert, BRACE, BRACE, BRACE, Missiles Incoming. Adopt crash positions!!” As ordered I braced myself in the now open dividing doorway, took a deep breath and held it. The breath wasn’t SOP but it made me a little calmer on the inside. Both pilots pulled down on their sticks and rolled over to port, Carter flipped a yellow safety on the ceiling console and hit the switch under it. There were series of audible clunks as external chaff dispensers fired off their full payload. I turned sideways in the doorway and gripped the door jamb for dear life, as the shuttle pulled a high-G sideways turn throwing my back into the doorway behind me sending searing pain up my spine. I felt all the blood pool into my feet and I started to grey-out. I clenched my teeth and groaned as my ears started to go cold. I was about to pass out as Carter levelled out... I let the breath out and followed it with a much needed gasp. By now the shuttle was beginning to shedder quite badly, even by my standards. “Backups arrived” the junior pointed out of starboard towards the Harrington moon. My eyes weren’t up to RAF standard, damn gene-therapy. “What? What am I looking at goddammit?” I was beginning to feel sick from not only the acrobatics but my earlier exertions on the surface....
Over the comm “This is Condor flight from the Victoria, moving to assist.” I looked at the LIDAR and sure enough, six green chevrons were moving in from two o’clock at quite a rate. The two red diamonds were half that distance away though “Roger that Condor flight, we’ll try and keep them off us until then.” Carter replied. “How long?” I asked, “Half a minute”.  I thought back to the initial attack on rosewood, I’d seen massive craft, each easily the size of a football field raining down merry hell for what seemed like forever. Endless streams of bomblets completely decimating outlying cities before returning to orbit.
One of the enemy fighters passed us wide on the port side and circled around, it was the second fighter as far as I could tell as it still had its remaining two missiles visibly slung on its tiny wings. It banked and lined up on us about two hundred klicks ahead of us. It looked nearly invisible apart from the engine glows halo. But it felt like it was right on top of us. Carter started to yaw to the right as a missile screamed right through the enemy fighter and it exploded in the distance. Just a puff of green, then nothing.  Trademark enemy blaster fire, like jagged forks of pulsed maroon lightning flashed past the cockpit and by now I was starting to genuinely consider a transfer to the catering corps.

Two of our flyers shot past us on the left, as they did we felt a wake from the four Dassault-Mercedes ion-plasma turbojet engines. A second or two later there was a crack of gunfire and a dull “thoom” sound. “Targets down, Shuttle X-Ray Kilo five, we’re moving to assist forces leaving the planets dark side. Condor two will remain on escort all the way to the Victoria.” I patted the junior on the head and looked at Carter, “Thank ****” with a smile.  At that I turned to make my way back to my seat for half hours sleep.

[Stormkeeper]

I spy NAP. Starsiege related somehow?

[Colonol Dekker]

I always liked the term, NAP kinda doesn't exist anymore in "Dekkerverse" it was just a cool sounding name

[Scorpius]

Starsiege, its good to hear that name again! I am still mourning my missing compendium.  The story is exciting and I hope to see more expanded upon it.

[Colonol Dekker]

I spy NAP. Starsiege related somehow?

Not reelated to Starsiege at all, thoguth i should clarify please don't stop reading though, my ego needs the fuel.

[Colonol Dekker]

“Sir, sir we’re there” I let out a quite audible yawn as I stretched out my arms and legs from my comfortable cast iron bucket seat. I opened my bleary eyes to be met with the sight of a Sergeant with a purple bruise the size of a watermelon on his forehead. All around the shuttle people were un-stowing their gear. The injured were being assisted by the comparatively healthy. A combat Scout and a Lance Corporal were helping the (still) unconscious panicky young private to his feet and trying to rouse him. I sat up a bit straighter and adjusted my uniform. “Thanks Sergeant, what’s your name by the way?” I asked him as I took my Webley-Chambers IR-44 combat rifle from its holding rack below my seat. “Staff Sergeant Green sir, under Captain Sharpe, Three-Three Platoon” He looked vacant as he said it. I could see the fatigue in his face and I noted a series of fresh scars just starting to appear from beneath his collar. I hadn’t picked up them earlier.  “Come on Green, let’s get these men off. They need some rest.”

The Dropships engines were still cooling off as I stepped down from the loading ramp at the rear of it. Steam from ice crystals picked up from leaving the upper atmosphere was pooling off them. I looked around appraising my surroundings. I’d not been aboard the HMS Victoria for seven years and the old girl was still showing to be hardy. The receiving hangar was maxed out, gantries lined several levels around, some stacked with crates, others feeding pipe work to the decks below them. Twelve lifts, eight set into the rear wall, and one in each corner of the bay itself were taking crew to and fro. The four larger lifts were for moving craft to the other decks dedicated to maintaining, re-arming, refuelling, storing and launching anything from a Sparrow scout to a Deacon Artillery transport.  As the remnants of my regiment filed into some semblance of order.  I noticed Major Carter and his junior going over the outside of the shuttle that got us here with some engineering staff and deck crew. I nodded my appreciations and received a casual wave back. 
Platoon and Squadron commanders (Squadrons being the recognised term for a body of technical soldiers) approached awaiting the order for dismissal. They came to attention as did I, “REGIMENT, REGIMENT SHUN!” called the RSM and although there were only a few dozen of us in total, I always got a warm fuzzy feeling from the satisfying stamp on a regimental parade. The Officers Commanding saluted, I returned it. “Sir, Two Two Three, Tactical Assault Regiment awaiting your dismissal SIR!” I held the salute, “Dismiss the men Regimental Sergeant Major, and carry on” and dropped the salute.  RSM Joseph Ulentko dropped the salute so fast you could hear the air being cut, and then after the appropriate pause and curt “very good sir” he turned on the spot so damn sharply it looked like was wearing a broom handle internally. “TWO TWO THREE REGIMIMENT” the Regiment braced awaiting but not anticipating the order. “REGIMENT, DIS-MISSED!” We all made a right turn, paused, three marched steps and that was it. I turned back to approach the individual commanding officers. I’d not had much chance to talk to them. The makeshift squads we’d broken into after the assault back on Rosewood had made it back to separate pickup points and got back here by different means. From over a hundred and eighty men, about thirty were still standing. 

[Colonol Dekker]

I'd forgotten about this. I need to do more to it. . . . If there's interest?