Maple Logistics Authority
Ludibrium, Ossyria
24rd April 2042
0325 Local Time

Ben lounged around the common room, taking a deep draught from one of Private Tyler’s cigarettes. Lazily he glanced at his wristwatch before extinguishing the butt of the cigarette on the wall. Slinging his battered machine gun over his weathered arm, he cooling sauntered into the airconditioned hallway, his combat boots thudding dully on the white floor. There was about ten minutes before the mission started and everyone else had probably already assembled on the flight deck. That meant he had ten minutes to complete his task.

Private First Class Anni watched sourly as the irksome mercenary wandered past her field of vision. She detested mercenaries and that particular one she loathed even more, given his past actions. As soon as Ben disappeared her attention snapped back to her section commander Sergeant Ganzicus, whom was going through the mission briefing one more time with her. Anni admired Ganzicus, having served under his command before; she knew his tactically precision and level headedness. Ganzicus had just paused, looking at her expectantly. The medic’s cheeks went scarlet as she realised that her mind had wandered and was about to apologise when Deena Ray ran into them – literally.

The submachine gun clattered noisily onto the floor, the woman stumbling back in surprise. Private First Class Deena solemnly deadpanned an apology before scooping up her dropped Uzi. Mentally she cringed. Great, my fault again. Why is everything always my fault. James, help me. Why is everyone against me? It’s not fair, James. Absently she ran her cold hands along the pressed steel of her weapon, feeling every ridge and groove. Suddenly she slid back into reality.
“Sorry, sir. I was looking for the armoury to do a once over on my weapon, sir.” She explained, her aqua blue eyes darkening. Ganzicus nodded knowingly.
“Third door on the left, then follow the yellow markers.” He instructed, smiling.
“Thank you, sir.” Deena replied, giving him a little grin in return before saluting and striding away.

Private Tyler glanced shiftily around the corridor before procuring a pack of cigarettes from his shoulder pocket. He quickly slipped one out and paused, eyes zeroing in on the packet. He gritted his teeth as he realised that that mercenary must have pilfered one in the change rooms. A shadow loomed around the corner and Tyler furtively stashed the packet back as the woman walked past, heading to the armoury. As soon as her footsteps receded, he whipped out the smoke and put it between his lips, patting his trouser pockets for his trusty lighter. He was so absorbed in checking his pockets that he did not notice another figure striding towards his position.

The small light flickered as Private Dark held his lighter invitingly to Tyler. The smoker flinched in surprise, eying him warily before leaning his head forward slightly to light the cigarette. Dark grinned, spun the lighter deftly in his hand and slid it into his fatigues.
“Flamethrower’s best friend.”
“Smoker’s best friend too.”
“Sure as sure.”
Dark stared meaningfully at the cigarette.
“We’ve got a few minutes before show time, better ditch that before the Sergeant smells it.”
Tyler sighed and reluctantly took the indulgence out of his mouth and stared at it mourningly, stubbing it out on his sleeve and saving the remainder later. The engineer muttered something about promethium mixes as he wandered away, probably to check the fuel composition used in his tanks.

For the third time the hands disassembled the gun piece by piece, cleaning each one with a grimy rag. There was a hydraulic hiss as the armoury door slid open, causing Corporal Steve to look up from his work. In walked the other recon, preoccupied with her weapon. He could not remember her name for the moment so he kept his mouth shut and continued checking his own Uzi. Steve was just starting to reassemble the weapon when in walked another member of the Maple Elite Strike Unit Lambda. Now this person he could remember. Private Dark was the only non-commissioned flamethrower engineer ever and was held in high regard for his skills. As Steve fastened on his webbing, Dark fixed on the weapon of his trade – a gauntlet and canister called Prometheus.

It was a unique weapon, the canister was divided into two sections and feeder tubes ran from each to the gauntlet. One section contained compressed propellant, and the other compressed mana. As weapons go it merely enhanced the users power by multiplying the force and speed of the magic. Spells were summoned regularly with mana impulses activating the gauntlet, causing it to release the stored mana and propellant from two separate nozzles at the tip of the gauntlet. Dark strapped the canister to the back of his webbing and adjusted the ratio of mana/propellant before walking back out.

The feathered and skin wings quivered slightly as the figure made his way down the corridor, M1 Carbine hanging loosely by his side. Private Jason frowned and tried to keep his wings still. Personnel at the Logistics Authority had gotten used to his abnormality but there were always some junior attendants which could not stop their jaws from flapping at the sight of him. Although his Carbine was pretty old, it was the first weapon he had ever owned and it had served him well over the years. His one had been modified with a M8 grenade launcher, its newness a stark contrast to the worn barrel and stock. Entering the flight deck, the boy was greeted with the mass droning and whirling of mechanically apparatuses and engines.

Junior attendant Andy could only look stoned as the winged figure stalked past him. He was overcome with dread as the soldier stared into his eyes and he could have sworn that the soldier had looked into his mind. It was his first month working for the Logistics Authority and so far he had a promising career ahead of him. But for now he was a messenger, bringing mission files to the flight deck. Glancing down at the manila folders, he lazily read the top page out of boredom.
Mission Level: Vermillion, Location: Grid 033/092, Active Units: ISS Division 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, Inspection Squad D11 and the MSND 303rd. Passive Units: MESU Zeta and Lambda. Communication Channel: Phi-Beta-Seven…
Crash.
Andy staggered back and the manila folders went flying as he collided with something hard and heavy. Dazed, the junior attendant stood up shakily and was greeted by a friendly smile.
“Sorry there mate. You okay? Should look where you’re going eh?” The friendly figure told him, helping pick up the scattered folders. Andy blushed and nodded furiously as the man handed them back to him and left. The first page was still the same, except that now the Communication Channel now read: Gamma-Phi-Four.

Fenrir stroked his coarse shaved chin as he checked his cards. Although the flight deck was noisy as Free Market One, it save him time from actually walking there later. Fuji Lee had called it lazy, he called it pragmatic. The bounty hunter looked expectantly at the mercenary before flipping over another card. Fuji Lee’s face remained impassive as the card revealed itself to be a Queen of Hearts. Slowly the veteran showed his cards.
“Royal Flush.” Fuji muttered, smoothing out his matted hair. Fenrir scowled and dropped his cards.
“Nothing, how odd of you to bluff like that.” Fuji remarked, looking at the loser’s cards.
“Yeah, well. I was going for something different.” Fenrir argued sulkily, pushing the winnings across the table. The two hired muscle were friends with competitive streaks, wanting to outdo each other on the battlefield. Needless to say, their actions have caused as many tragedies as triumphs. There was a scraping of chairs as a newcomer sat at the makeshift table.

“What’s the buy in, mates?” Ben grinned, propping his M249 next to him. The ammunition belts clinked repeatedly as it swayed into the chair. All three of them were not directly associated with the MESU although they all worked for it. Apparently the pay was good when you considered the risks involved.
“Five hundred mesos.” Fuji answered, shoving his winnings into a leather briefcase. Ben reached into his webbing and pulled out several meso bills. Fenrir chuckled.
“Right, let’s get a quick round in before the Sarge gets here.”

Sergeant Ganzicus flexed his hand experimentally, letting off a hiss of propellant as he did so. He knew it felt awkward now but in a few minutes time it would be like a second skin. Private First Class Anni was still beside him, multitasking, hurriedly packing her medikit whilst walking, whilst eating a blueberry muffin. Ganzicus just rolled his eyes as she got confused and shoved an orange into the medikit and attempting to peel a vial of saline. To her credit she was an exceptional healer but her sarcastic attitude and laxness had caused her to lose more than one promotion. Ganzicus reckoned that if she tidied up her act she would have been a Sergeant at the very least. He even remembered why she was in his squad in the first place.

Then – Five years ago
Fel’Quas

They did not wait for daybreak. They did not wait for clement weather, or a favourable turn in the winds. They did not wait because they were greater than the weather and more powerful than the winds. They were brighter than daybreak. Along the west coast, down the line of seafaring towns and cities of Ossyria in a territory called Fel’Quas, the sky went white. It was an off white, a sour white, and the whiteness pressed down on the high stone roofs and solid walls. Visible static charges gathered like ivy around the raised barrels of the weapon assemblies standing idle along the fifty kilometre fortress city.

A door opened out to the west, out over the ocean, and frigid cold air rushed in like a herd of Kargo. In seconds it had grown into a gale, a blistering, eastward belt of wind that lashed across the tilted ground, the courtyard mosaics, and knocked street dealers off their stalls, bent the trunks of wiry trees into trembling right angles, and stacked the sea up, a frothing frenzy of white crashing upon the eroded banks of Fel’Quas. As the hurricane winds reared up over the coast, the earth below shook, as if the gods above had stepped down, and there was a noise, the loudest noise a man could hear that would not kill him. It was the sound of the atmosphere caving in as millions of tonnes of metal fell into it like rocks into a pool.

As tears of heaven the dropships scorched and punctured clouds, and were picked up and carried by the titanic winds slicing in from the sea. Countless assault ships spurted like shoals of fish. Clouds of fighters billowed like grain scattered from a farmer’s hand. The defenders of Fel’Quas began to fire, although their efforts were merely feeble spits of magic against the deluge. Then the heavy weapon assemblies woke up, and sprawling magic detonations went off above the coast. At last, substantial amber flames began to splash the sky, twisted into streamers by the monstrous gales. Bars of black smoke streaked the air like a thousand dirty finger marks.

The blizzard of crenellated assault ships fell upon Fel’Quas’s burning lines. They came in droning like plagues of locusts, and struck like the hurricane of a bow master. Furious scribbles of lightning and ice launched themselves into the sky in an effort to repel them. Thousands of Avengers strung the air like necklaces. In the steep city walls, gunports oozed with light like infected wounds as arcane weapons recharged and then sprayed out their ribbons of light.

Dropships burned in mid air. Some melted like falling snowflakes in the falling sunlight and some exploded in noisy, brittle flashes and pelted the city with metal hail. Some fell into the sea, trailing plaintive smoke, or buried themselves like crossbow bolts into the towers and tuberous buildings of Fel’Quas. One great tower, signifying the occupants resistance to Wizet, half collapsed after such a collision, and left just a part of itself standing above the billowing dust, a gnarled finger of stone with a broadening crest like the a giant thigh bone rammed into the ground. Some dropships made it to the ground intact.

Ganzicus Reid saw nothing of this. He suffered the awful turbulence of descent, rattled like a bead in the bare-metal casket of the dropship. He heard the shrill whine of the engines, like the howling of the damned. He smelled and tasted the fear; acid sweat, rank breath and bile. Fear made some men weep like new borns, and others as silent as granite. Ganzicus saw a dead look in Deena’s eyes, in Dark’s too. It was a sunken look, and it showed how totally hope had left them, and how deeply their personalities had withdrawn to hide in the very depths of their heads. All around them, there were eyes that looked the same. Ganzicus was pretty sure his own eyes shared that dead look too.

Their unit medic, a bright enthusiastic girl called Anni, was singing ‘Fired Up, Feels Good’ and encouraged others to join in. Many of the MESU Kappa were singing it along with her, some gabbling fast and loud, as if they were anxious that they would not get to the end before they died, or before they forgot how it went. Others sang like they meant it, meant every word with every fibre of their wills; while others did it like a charm, a superstitious rhyme you recited to bring you luck. Others just murmured the lines, probably not even knowing what they were saying, just fastening their scalded minds to something other than sheer panic.

Amisha, the administrator, sat silently in her restraint harness, watching the rows of troopers from the end of the cabin. She looked as if she was attending a particularly tedious dinner. Beside the administrator, Sergeant Mkoll listened to his microbead and then reached up and yanked on the bell lever vigorously. Mkoll was in charge. Major Marche DeQuincy, their newly appointed CO, was riding in another dropship.
“Unit, stand up!” Mkoll bellowed, racking the slide of his M4A2.
Joshua, the trooper two seats down from Ganzicus, bowed forward and vomited heavily onto the steel floor between his boots.
“I said stand up, not throw up.” Mkoll barked.
Ganzicus released his restraint and shouldered his M4A2.
Thirty seconds.
He saw administrator Amisha take something out of her pack and lay it, ready, across her lap. He had never seen any administrator carry or even heard of using.
It was a steel whip.

There was a timid tap on his should her Sergeant Ganzicus jerked, head up. Private First Class Anni was next to him, turning around. Lost in his thoughts, Ganzicus as inadvertently overshot the flight deck and found himself amidst maintenance personnel in a workshop. The medic laughed at his apparent terrible sense of direction and dragged the section commander back towards the flight deck.
“Come on, as the Colonel says, the clock is ticking.” Anni quoted, doing an over exaggerated impersonation of the high ranked leader. At this Ganzicus checked his wristwatch and cursed himself silently. It was almost go time.

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Diamond Class Clearance: Glossary

Astropath– A mage, usually a cleric, whom has strived to perfect long distance doorways. A set back of this technique is that it only allows sound to travel twixt these large distances, essentially becoming a communication service between frontline soldiers and base tacticians. It is practically not possible to transmit objects during the links as the strain on the astropath would cause their body to spontaniously combust under high mana pressure. It is difficult to become an astropath and as such, there is a dedicated guild for it. Requires at least second job and it is recommended that you should be at least third job before attempting to master astropathy as it is a very delicate skill.

Microbead– Small mana powered devices possessing a fragment of a power crystal. Basically a short ranged transmitter which translates speech into varying mana waves before being decoded by another microbead on the similar manalength. Much faster to use than an astropath and more compact, trading distance for practical use. Requires frequent crystal changes and can be damaged due to the fragile wiring used to harness the crystal’s power. Designed by Nexon technicians and engineers.

D77-TC Pelican Dropships– After years of magical engineering, the dropship allows for the transportation of personnel or large cargo. It trades heavy armour and offense for space and speed, its only protection a extensive magic guard genetated by one of the four mana engines. Requires at least two functioning engines for a standard flight although mana valves can be manipulated to boost either speed or shielding, depending on the situation. Has a rear ramp access point and can carry up to thirty soldiers, ten cargo pods or two secure lockdown cells. Due to the compression of mana in the engines, concern has been raised after a magic bolt managed to hit an engine, causing the dropship in question to explode. Several prototypes have been created to rectify the armour weakness around the engines and a new D78-TC is expected to be unveiled sometime in August, 2042.

FEAR Prologue: Ambient Wonder
FEAR Chapter One: Trace Amounts
FEAR Chapter Two: Opening Suite
FEAR Chapter Three: Dust and Echoes