The Reign is Over

Part 5 - Touchdown

The Reignover complex was enormous, claiming the entire width of one block-long slice of the Europa ring by itself. Part office, part mansion, part fortress, the complex was silken wallhangings covering the mouth of Hell itself. The assault transport came to rest in the middle of a wide lawn, fountain spraying decoratively in the midst of an enormous garden. It did so with the same effortless, unflappable grace as the last half of their journey, courtesy of the ISF Hidalgo's gravlance and her nimble crew.

The garden they had touched down in was full of majestic greenery and flowerbeds so rich and flush that they would've cost the annual salary of the entire Organized Crime unit just to maintain on a daily basis. Water-taxes, greenery certificates, not to mention the cost of the potable soil they rested in. Lazlo Reignover was never one to miss out on the chance to shove a symbolic message down someones throat. The garden, the mansion, the attached office complex, all of them shouted one message; Here there is power and wealth.

Lieutenant McNamara couldn't take the smile off her face as she undid her restraints and made her way past the other troops who began to check their gear and start prepping for the ground war to come. The pulse rifles, deliberately dormant while they were in mid-air, began to glow as their owners awakened them. The safeties were still on, but each weapon began to hum and glow with barely restrained malice. She thumped Lieutenant Armsworth on the shoulder as she walked by. He looked up at here with a nod and a tight smirk. He was busy unpacking Brutus from the box it had been secured in until they had made landfall, and he went through the motions with hungry determination.

Brutus was a massive plasma cannon, similar to old Earth bazookas. This was no potato launcher however, and Lieutenant Armsworth was the only one with the experience and strength to wield it during the extended ground action they had ahead of them. Three meters and a hundred kilos of massive energy weapon were about to rip the Reignover complex a new asshole. Lieutenant McNamara started whistling as she strapped into the tiny cockpit of the heavily armored tank that had served as the extra armor for the troops as they had flown, and would now serve to give them the speed and shields necessary to close the distance with the complex. It was an older model, but it was also the same model she had driven into too many border skirmishes and pirates' nests to count. Switches flew and diagnostics flared as she played the control panel like a master pianist.

Lieutenant McNamara let out a full-throated war-cry as she gunned the reactor to full and slammed the accelerator. The sixteen-wheeled monstrosity carrying eighty heavily armed and armored officers barreled down the ramp and across the exquisitely manicured lawn, all of their voices echoing her defiant roar.

To be continued...