Out in the dark rocky plains, a sleek anti-gravity transporter is hovering 2500 meters above the ground.
It has a streamlined body with sleek black metallic outer shelling, designed to minimize scanner detection and to improve aerodynamics.
Its size is massive, measuring at 32 meters in length, 13 meters in width, and 7 meters in height.
Despite actively hovering over the plains, the transporter emitted no sound, the anti- gravity propulsion units placed along its undercarriage humming silently.
The units were placed strategically, allowing the aircraft to hover at variable altitudes with stability and precision.
Inside the craft, the interior is divided into multiple decks and compartments, offering comfortable seating and secure storage. Although the compartments were primarily built to house personnel or warriors, currently half of them were adjusted to hold different kinds of equipment integral to the mission objective.
At the front of the craft is the command deck, equipped with the best communication and navigation systems available to the empire.
Fitting in all these equipment and the ones in the compartments had reduced the capacity for personnel in the aircraft by more than half but they were simply too were necessary for the success of the mission.
The equipment boosted the aircraft’s communication range by more than 500 km and even though the radius was large, command deck could still communicate with their boots and assets on the ground in real time.
Inside the command deck, Kellan, the strike force commander was standing before the front transparent display of the aircraft, peering down at the dark expanse.
Like the rest of the aircraft, the front cover was metallic as well, but could turn transparent to allow the viewer more sight. The display was digitized and could zoom 200X in on the surroundings.
Since there was no external light outside the aircraft, the display was in infrared and relied on the craft’s soft lights to make things visible.
Kellan was staring at the barren rows and columns of rocky towers below, deep in thought. He was going over the chain of events that had led him to this forsaken side of the planet.
Growing up, he was one of the few lucky ones that had the talent and the makings to join the empire’s military as a scout.
There he had made a distinguished career by scouting or spying on any rebel elements inside the outer sections.
He had quickly risen through the ranks for his service and less than a week ago was promoted to 2nd in command of the empire’s strategic reconnaissance and intelligence department (SRID).
A prestigious position that came with a lot of respect but also more importantly, benefits.
He was looking forward to his new easy life of luxury and comfort in the lap of the empire, when all hell had broken loose.
Just three days ago, the late king Alfzaar was overthrown and deposed in a blatant betrayal, or a special military operation, by his own clan and serving council.
The attack began in the dead of night and quickly escalated into a full-blown battle in the very heart of the empire as the late king’s royal guard, the Jung-jo rushed in to defend him.
Together with the late king, they were the most powerful brigade of the kingdom and as a former scout he had no doubt they would emerge as the winners.
But to the surprise of everyone, the council had the backing of someone even more powerful, the Celestial Union.
They had sent in some of their own warriors for assistance, a very small number, no more than ten.
And they were absolute monsters.
In one single night, just nine of them had wiped out the entire elite royal guard without a single loss, defeating the strongest fighting unit of the empire, as if they were small fry.
Lord Alfzaar, the most powerful warrior king of the empire, someone who could match the entire military alone, was challenged by one of them while the rest were wiping out the royal guard.
He hadn’t seen it personally but from the accounts he heard, the battle was fierce and destroyed most of the regal chamber, resulting in Alfzaar’s loss in the end.
The king of the empire, killed by some random enforcer of the Union.
“And to think they were deluded enough to consider a war with the Union.”
The entire notion was ridiculous.
Even the council, the traitors that they were, had expected a hard fight and not such a casual extermination.
Everything had ended in under two hours, or so everyone thought.
Turns out, a small unmanned gravi-carrier had taken off from the king’s palace during the fight, some new generation tech that was undetectable by the scanners.
The speed of that craft was unheard of in all military branches of R&D.
It had some kind of stealth tech that made it impossible to lock onto it, making it invisible to the border’s turrets.
It was one of the Union’s gravi-fighters that managed to hit it with a shot, but they did not continue the pursuit.
That aircraft wasn’t the only anomaly, five of the Jung-jo’s top guards, including Drystan Ironclad, the strongest of the elite group had gone missing.
Kellan and the council knew from accounts that Drystan was someone who was deeply loyal to the late king, his devotion edging almost on blind fanaticism.
The fact that he wasn’t there with his king during the fight rattled the council members, who arbitrarily decided that he was up to something.
And that is where Kellan came in.
Ironically it was his very talent for scouting and tracking that had caught the council’s eyes.
That very same night, he was tasked with apprehending those ridiculous monsters of the Jung-jo, finding out their plan, and retrieve whatever it was that was on the unmanned aircraft.
For this he was given the latest gravi-transporter, the TitanLift 300, state of the art detection equipment, 100 of the council’s best military warriors, 20 top level healers, 15 specialist/technicians, 15 artificers, and 50 analysis drones.
Out of all these, the analysis drones were especially rare and expensive pieces of equipment. The entire empire purportedly had less than 300 in total.
Using anti-gravity propulsions for movement, they were exceptionally fast and could operate in a huge range of 500 km. Not only that, they could also detect the faintest amounts of DNA or any chemical with just a single scan.
Definitely a must have equipment if one wanted to safely search for something within the hive’s territory.
And so, two hours after the battle, he was on his way with his battalion, heading after the damaged craft into the deep recesses of the dark hive’s territory.
“Why did it have to be the hive’s territory.”
Despite Kellan’s military background, the hive scared the shit out of him.
He had seen some darklings in action once on a recon mission, they had ripped through a regiment of warriors as if they were snacks to them. He still remembered their fang greedily chewing through their skulls.
The sight had given him nightmares that lasted up to this very day. It was one of his prime motivations behind his choice in becoming a scouting spy.
At least they got to stay within the empire’s walls.
Or that was how it was supposed to be.
“Commander Kellan?”
The voice of one of the technicians in the command deck, breaks his contemplation.
It was Faiza, a newly recruited cute young technician. Aside from her cuteness, she was one of the youngest recruits to become a technician.
“Yes Faiza, proceed.”
“The analysis on the samples provided by the drones is complete.”
“Please let it be good news.” Kellan thought inwardly.
After arriving inside the hive’s territory their drones had picked up on signs of a small skirmish between humans and darklings.
Although there weren’t any body parts or corpses because the darklings had taken everything with them back to the hive, the drones could scan the faintest traces of blood in the environment and even collect samples.
“What are the results?”
Faiza opens her mouth to answer but is cut off by Yazeed, a not so cute technician the same rank as her.
“The analysis finds blood traces of three of the Jung- jo members.” He answers.
“Three you say, not five?” Kellan asks, hoping the darklings got rid of them all.
“Yes, the-“
“The blood samples of Drystan Ironclad and Fiora Stormstrike were not found in the analysis.” Faiza butts in, cutting off Yazeed who shoots her a mean look.
“Alright, keep searching for any tracks leading to their whereabouts.” Kellan commands them while dreading inwardly.
“Great, the most troublesome survived. Of course, even a darkling swarm can’t kill them”
It’s been almost 40 hours since the transporter entered the hive’s airspace and during this time he has seen more than enough darklings.
Every two hours, a company of those damn bugs would cross the landscape underneath them, patrolling the empty wasteland for any signs of enemy.
He must’ve spotted about a 1000 of them up till now.
The sensors on the TitanLift 300 were fitted with built in scouters so he could also check their stratus levels and aether counts.
They were obscenely high.
More than half of them had a higher stratus level than him, and he was a 2nd in command officer.
Despite carrying the military’s best warriors, he had no doubt that a single company of darklings could wipe them out without any issue.
Which made it even stranger that Drystan and Fiora were still alive outside in the dark.
Once the darklings caught on to you, there was very little chance of staying alive inside their territory.
“How far away is the battle site?” he asks his technicians.
“About 700 km northeast from our location.” Yazeed answers quickly.
That was barely an hour and a half of travel time for their transporter.
“How old are the blood samples?”
“Close to 24 hours old.” Faiza replies.
“And there were destroyed gravi-bikes found there as well, right?” He asks
“Yes, 4 collapsed heavy-duty gravy-bikes were found at the site.” Yazeed answers.
“That’s so recent……if they ran into darklings just almost a day ago then that means they haven’t been inside the hive’s territory for long. But still where are they? By now they should be swarmed with darklings, even if they have one functioning gravi-bike there’s no safe place to hide out here. Or unless, there is a safe place to hide.”
“Should we set course for the battle site commander?” Yazeed asks him.
“Yes, proceed.” He affirms.
“Commander!” Faiza suddenly yells to get his attention.
“What is it?” He asks, a little annoyed by her sudden loudness.
“One of the drones has found a large mass of darklings concentrating at a single point, but its in the opposite direction.”
“How far away?”
“1200 km north-west.”
“What else does the drone see? Are there any signs of a human?”
“No…..there seems to be some abnormalities with the footage. The darklings are apparently going inside a stone column.”
“Now what could that be all about.” He thinks, pondering over this new information.
“Hmm there’s no signs of a human, so it could be the darklings chasing after some poor local wildlife that’s hiding inside a stone column. Those unrelenting bugs are not known to leave any prey behind; they might simply be digging into the column after it……Yes that makes sense.”
Looking at Faiza he orders.
“Mark down the location on the map, right now we’re going to make our way to the battle site and search there. In the morning we’re going to send two warriors over to that location on gravi-bikes.”
He then turns around, peering back down on the open dark landscape as another company of darklings passes through below.
“It’s probably nothing on that side, the real concern is Drystan. I’m going to need all the warriors I can get to tackle him……..What are you up to Ironclad. Your king Alfzaar is dead.”
