And so we fought them

Operation Guideful Hand.

The Second Volgoskan Expeditionary Force. Somewhere in Cara 3F6.                                                           10th of May, 2448.

The VNS Nathsika, one of Volgoska's aircaft carriers, flew towards the planet of Chaparodvinsk, escorted by cruisers and destroyers. A few months prior to this operation, the Democratic Union, an alliance of the universe's democratic nations, decided that the largely uncolonized galaxy of Cara 3F6 should be colonized by DU forces, before any fascist nation could get their hands on it.

And thus, the small nation of Volgoska was sending one of its only aircaft carriers towards Chapardovinsk. Previous scans with destroyers had revealed a human presence on the planet. A few xeno species were spotted, but the majority of the intelligent live on the planet seemed to be human. A few cities were spotted, and the whole planet looked like it was in the Medieval era.

A group of Special Forces and regulars would be dropped at a dropzone, where the head of the operation wanted to build a Main Staging Base for the rest of the operation. The special forces would commit reconnaissance operations in the area around the future base, while the regulars secured a perimeter.

One of the platoons sent to the dropzone, was the platoon of Second Lieutenant Kutikova Janna. Kutikova was a new lieutenant. She was quite young too, she had been eight when the nation of Volgoska started its transition into a capitalist nation. This would be her first deployment. Infact, for all Volgoskan servicemen this was their first real deployment. Unlike the servicemen of the New Washington Republic, the servicemen of Volgoska hadn't expected to be deployed. Afterall, Volgoska hadn't been involved in a war or a colonization attempt for decades. Well, times are changing.

Kutikova put her helmet on as she entered the Dropship. It was a UC1 Thunderflight. A Washingtonian medium sized dropship. Volgoska didn't have enough space to surface dropships, and thus Washingtonian congress had authorized the Department of Defense to give Volgoska 2,000 UC1 Thunderflights, and some other dropships. The UC1 Thunderflight could fit twenty troops, and had a crew of four, two of them being doorgunners. Kutikova sat near the rear ramp, so she could get out first. She looked around at her men, they were all obviously nervous. 

Then flight command gave the order, all dropships were to decent to the dropzone. And so the engines fired up, it sounded nothing like a helicopter, it reminded Kutikova more of a fighterjet. Currently all doors were closed, as the troops didn't have any space equipment, and thus the dropship had to keep sealed till they were in the planet's atmosphere. The troops weren't interested by the vast open dark space outside their dropship. They had seen enough of it on the Aircaft Carrier. 

Kutikova recalled mission orders another time in her head. Her platoon would work independently from the company for this mission. They would secure a part of the northern perimeter, and later guard a few engineers as they built an observation post in the Northern hills near the staging grounds. She breath in deeply, to calm herself down. "It's just a simple mission. The enemy doesn't even have firearms." she thought to herself. 

Then everyone felt the dropship hitting the ground softly. They were on the ground. "Opening the ramp. Good luck down there." Kutikova heard the pilot say in her earepiece. And as said, the ramp opened, and she quickly got out. "Form a 360 circle around the Dropship! Out!" she said into her radio. She had only said it to her sergeants, but she trusted they would get their squads in the right positions. And so they formed a circle. 

Kutikova quickly looked at her surroundings, her platoon was in a small valley between a few hills, roughly fifty metres tall. There were a few trees here and there, but it was mostly grass. She quickly checked her map, and then radioed to Company Headquarters that they would move out. And then they did. 

Now Kutikova stayed relatively in the back, with her command element. Her platoon sergeant was upfront. They were moving through the hills, when suddenly the pointman shouted: "HOLD!" And everyone quickly got on their knees and grabbed their rifles. Kutikova quickly walked towards the pointman to see what he had seen. 

The pointman was looking at a small cave entrance, with figures scraped in the walls... meaning there was intelligent live there... "Orders el-tee?" her platoon sergeant asked her as he stood next to her.

The Washingtonian Marine Corps' 37th Recon Division, Darwin Empire territory in the Milky Way.   14th of May 2448.

On one of the Milky Way planets of the Darwin Empire, the Washingtonian Marine Corps had one their "Special Forces Advanced Guerilla Warfare Schools", to learn the art of Guerilla Warfare. Joseph Shaw, the platoon commander of First Platoon, assumed this was a preperation for a deployment in Manona.

Manona had been Washington's main battlefield for eight years now. More than twenty-five billion servicemen were deployed to there currently. More than seven billion of them being draftees. Most of Joseph's platoon was looking forward to a deployment in Manona, as they had yet to be deployed to a combat zone. First Sergeant Dwayne Jones, who was one of the few who had been deployed before, was not looking forward to it. He had been deployed to Liberteria multiple times, and had been shot several times so far. 

Joseph had asked him one time at a bar, why he was still in the Marines. Dwayne looked at him and had simply said: "Sir, I am a highschool drop-out with no experience in the workforce besides the Marine Corps. I simply got nowhere else to go."

Joseph himself, wasn't looking forward to being deployed either. But he didn't hate the idea either. So he couldn't help but feel a little dissapointed when he heard the new orders his platoon had gotten.

Their batallion would be deployed to Chaparodvinsk as the first Washingtonian advisers for Volgoskan Forces... "Great..." he said as he re-read the letter a second time...

"Time to break the news to the platoon."