Siren's Elegy Volume 1: Orphans of Ashen Earth

Chapter 1: Infiltration

May 11, 4021 02:00 [Filoc Valley]

The torrential downpour in Filoc Valley battered Indra's head incessantly as he sat prone, shivering behind a small thicket of underbrush atop a craggy precipice. Cold droplets bit at his face, forming frost on his fingertips, disregarding the thermal suit shrouding his small frame and masking his facial features. Indra had been waiting for over five hours, scanning the muddy hills below for his comrade's signal through a pair of night-vision binoculars.

"What the hell is Mirai doing?" he mumbled to himself. In the distance, past the liquidizing mounds of dirt, stood a large complex at the peak of the valley containing an array of buildings and towers looming over the land below. Mirai should have cleared the area in question and sent a message by now, but not so much as a peep had been heard over the radio. The mission was a simple surveillance operation that Indra's team had been running along the Desolate Coast. Mirai's job had been to clear security outposts of personnel while gathering technology and new information on Coalition activity; a routine order for a reconnaissance scout.

The Coalition moniker represented an insurgent group in direct opposition to Lunar Gate, the company Indra and his team worked for. 'Employed by' became the phrase he would often use when asked what his association with the company was, but truth be told, Indra had spent a great deal of his life raised in one of the military Matriarchs owned by Lunar Gate, as did the rest of his comrades. As a defense contractor, Lunar Gate had been tasked by the country of Yuèliàng to settle land and resource disputes, preferably using conventional means of mediation. However, should conventional negotiations fail, the company had been sanctioned to settle disputes by any means they deemed necessary.

Naturally, groups like the Coalition rose in opposition to independent contractors such as Lunar Gate in the "misperception that the company was overstepping its jurisdiction," as Lunar Gate's representatives put it.

There were always issues with one self-proclaimed humanitarian group or another. It seemed like every week a new rebel group sprouted up only to be culled the very next. The complex in Filoc Valley was no different, exemplifying yet another military base filled with a few thousand insurgent soldiers that needed to be quelled.

In order for the current operation to begin, Mirai had to clear out the surveillance outpost located directly in front of the complex so that an ambush fleet at the lower end of the valley could seize control of the Coalition naval base stationed along the coastline. Yet, after five hours of sitting in the rain caked in mud, suspicions that Mirai had been captured crept into Indra's mind. It's not like this is the first time he's been taken hostage, even in training his camouflage works haphazardly.

"For a guy who's supposed to be good at sneaking around quickly, he sure as hell ain't convincing me!" a voice erupted.

Indra turned around frowning disapprovingly at the source of the outburst. Sitting pressed up against a large boulder was a lanky-looking man dressed in a similar getup to his own, sporting a jet-black thermal suit crowned with night vision goggles. The man stared at a thin translucent strap that sat upon his wrist, projecting a map of their current location. His wispy white hair spilled out from underneath his hood as his pale face contorted into a grimace, flashing bright rows of serrated teeth.

"Keep your fucking voice down, Akula!" Indra stressed.

Akula flinched, looking up from the projection. "Sorry," he mumbled sheepishly. "It's just that he's never taken this long. What if he got caught? You think we should notify Colonel Jìguāng?"

"As much as I would love to contact Jìguāng and have him chew us out for screwing up a simple mission, we can't do that. They're bound to have signal interceptors monitoring every frequency in this district. The moment we open up comms to contact him we're gonna light up on their dashboards. It'll be easy for them to pinpoint our location from there, not to mention that if we do end up connecting with Jìguāng the surveillance operatives will find out about the ambush fleet he's leading. The only way to check Mirai's status now is to head to the outpost..." Indra paused for a moment. His brow furrowed as he scrutinized the situation, trying to think of a way to avoid direct confrontation with the Coalition before letting out a defeated sigh, resigning himself to the inevitable conclusion he had hoped to avoid. "I guess we can just get him ourselves."