[h2][u]Panpacific Empire[/u][/h2][h3][u]Hive City of Ouran[/u][/h3]
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Dae-Hyun hurried along the street toward home. His shift had only recently been called to an emergency halt at the manufactorum, the entire production line sent away with hurried voxcaster announcements to make for home and await further instructions. He wasn’t sure what was happening, and rumors on the factorum floor ran wild with answers. A workers' revolt in the lower levels had prompted a hive-wide shutdown. The hive nobility had called a national night of remembrance for those lost in the hive tunnel 432-A-56 collapse. Narthan Dume was dead. People from beyond the stars were coming to visit. Enemies from beyond the Jade Citadel were closing on Ouran. He couldn’t decide which to believe, and so he followed the instructions the automated voice was repeating over and over, and made straight for his hab-block.

The streets were crowded with the residents of Ouran, and he had to shoulder his way through a number of intersections as he passed into a lower level exchange ramp up toward the hab-zone he called home. As he came up the crest of the ramp and onto the main thoroughfare within his hab level he had to stop short as a column of eight wheeled hive guard transports rumbled past at speed. Once he was sure he wouldn’t be flattened by another transport truck, Dae-Hyun crossed the thoroughfare and made straight for the lift that would take him home.

He rode the lift silently with a number of his neighbors, the emergency order audible in the distance as it repeated off of voxcasters and pict-screens. He hurried to his apartment, fumbling with the physical keys in his pocket for just a moment before he scooped up the right key and made his way inside.

Dae-Hyun shut the door behind him and locked it tight, breathing a sigh of relief as he deposited his work bag on the small crate he used as an entry table. He passed through his sparse apartment and rummaged through his cold-storage for a drink, smiling as he pulled a sojj from the back near the frost vent. He shut the cold-storage behind him and cracked the seal from the sojj as he moved across to the small window that was his only view of the world outside his apartment. He took a swig as he watched flashes of light bloom all across the rad-waters of the eastern sea, probably just rad lightning, he thought. But his curiosity was building as he noticed stark black shadows picked out along the surface in front of the blossoms of light. The day was certainly strange. [hr][hr]

The drone of the landing craft engines had been enough to nearly drown out cross-company vox reports and status updates for the better part of three hours according to the chronometer, but that was nothing compared to the incoming artillery fire from the Ouran hive coastal defenses. Orm Gallius, vox operator of The Emperors Eagles 33rd Company fiddled with the voxcasters bulky controls. He leaned in close, pressing his headset to his ears to pick out the messages coming through as his commanding officer stood perched high in the wheelhouse cupola with magnoculars in hand. 

“Reports from the forward landing craft, heavy enemy resistance, coastal batteries and bunker emplacements are beginning to open up now.” Orm repeated for his commander.

“As expected,” Colonel Kane answered as he waved a hand inside the wheelhouse to grab Orm’s attention, “transmit it on, coastal bunkers are engaging with heavy las and heavy kinetic rounds, several landing craft are aflame well before the shore.”

Orm nodded, diligently relaying his commanders report as their landing craft rumbled forward under the barrage. “Message received sir--” an artillery shell landed close to starboard, rocking the landing craft and peppering its thin metal frame with shrapnel. Orm heard the pained screams of wounded men and women in the troop compartment ahead of them as the roar of the explosion subsided.

“Message received sir,” he repeated as he looked up to Colonel Kane in the cupola. He reeled away from the sight as he realized the Colonel was slumped headless where he stood out the roof of the craft. He noticed with a grim interest that the Colonel's uniform was caught on a jagged piece of metal and was holding him up as blood gouted down his body.

Orm gathered his thoughts and swapped to the company vox channel, “Major Vanders, Colonel Kane is dead.” He pushed the news forward to the next highest officer on the craft.

“Understood,” was the only answer from the dour Major over the vox.

“Thirty seconds!” the wheelman called out as the interior troop bay lights switched off.

Orm could hear the heavy stubber rounds pinging off the front ramp of the craft as the engine pitch rose to a high whine.

A number of blinding red flashes filled the wheelhouse as Orm gripped the handhold to his left. He registered the lascannon bolts only as an afterthought as they incinerated a naval rating directly to his right.

The landing craft bucked to a violent halt as it came ashore at full speed. An alarm sounded and the ramp fell with the help of gravity. The first row of imperial troopers barely managed a step before they were cut to shreds by stubber rounds and las. Withering fire poured into the troop compartment, bodies falling where they’d stood for hours without managing to make any forward progress at all. But Orm watched in amazement as the sheer mass of his company overcame the intense fires.

Troopers spilled down the sides of the ramp, a number of lucky ones managed it down the front of the ramp itself, and Orm punched the emergency release on the escape hatch to his left to follow his fellows onto the beach. He leapt without looking, heavy stubber rounds ripping into the wheelhouse as he fell several meters into the rad-water beneath him. He flailed and sputtered in the toxic water, his voxcaster threatening to pull him back from the shore as he struggled for footing in the sludge of the seabed, but his boots found purchase and he hefted himself out of the rad-water.

Throwing himself to cover behind an anti-landing craft obstacle, he surveyed the beach and shuddered. Flames consumed a dozen landing craft up and down the beach, troopers ablaze spilled from their craft to douse themselves in the toxic water never to rise again. Hundreds of men lay dead or dying as more joined them from the fire of the defenders.

He struggled with his voxcaster as he made himself small against his cover, “First wave ashore, sustaining heavy losses!” He managed out into the command net as a trooper was gutted by a heavy stubber round just steps from him.

He turned his gaze out to the waters, and picked out the silhouettes of the second wave of craft approaching at speed.

“Emperor save us.” He whispered.