Chapter 7

Not long after the battle that had ensued in space, preparations were being made to land on the planet, in a place know as the "Nexus Base". The *Nexus* was the fastest way to transport supplies and soldiers from space, so setting a foothold on the base where the Nexus was located was crucial to retake the planet. Normally, the highest ranking soldiers would be the ones landing with at least three angel squadrons and two platoons worth of *Combat Droids*. But Evan wanted to sit this one out due to him needing rest after being in such a hectic dogfight. Two hours later and three dropships left the cruiser, headed to the Nexus Base. One dropship was carrying Adam and three squads, the other two were carrying two platoons worth of war droids. Both Evan and Sherman were watching the dropships depart to the planet on the bridge when Sherman decided to ask Evan a question.

Sherman: "You lied to Adam, didn't you?"

Evan: "About what?"

Sherman: "About you being 'tired' after a dogfight like that one. I've seen you fight on dogfights worse than this one and you still have enough energy to go in the first wave."

Evan: "OK, you got me, but I did it for a good reason."

Sherman: "And that reason would be?"

Evan: "I wanted to see his skills as a general, his ability to lead not only a squad but a company of soldiers"

Sherman: "And what if he isn't? what if he gets pushed back into the Landing Zone?"

Evan: "I know for a fact he is going to take back the nexus, but what I want to see is if he suffers any casualties"

Sherman: "You know that he risks his own life if it meant he could save his squad when he was a squad leader, so why do you think he is going to risk any lives now that he is a general?"

Evan: "...Shoot, I forgot about that"

Sherman: "Oh my goodness"

Evan: "Well, there's no going back now. So let's just sit back and enjoy the show"

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As the three dropships were approaching the landing zone, projectiles started darting towards the dropships, exploding prematurely and sending massive amounts of shrapnel towards the hull of the dropships, shaking them in the process.

Adam: "Damm flak. Pilot, How's the ship holding?"

Pilot: "Deflector shields are doing their jobs, but I don't recommend landing with this much flak coming at us"

Adam: "Don't worry about the flak, It's going to be gone soon enough. Adam to Magdalen, I need those flak batteries out of commission if you want us to land."

Sherman: "Magdalen to Adam, orbital bombardment is on the way, get ready for things to get less shaky"

Soon enough, three large explosion were heard, and the dropships stopped shaking vigorously. Adam thanked the Magdalen and preceded to get ready to land on the surface. When everyone was ready he approached a man who was in different uniform as the rest of the group.

Adam: "Kalos, you think this is a good place to drop you off on?

Kalos: "Yep"

Adam: "Pilot, prepare to drop our sniper. You ready Kalos?"

Kalos: "Born ready"

Adam: "Very well, pilot open drop hatch 1"

Suddenly the floor where Kalos was standing on opened, dropping him to a mountain near the nexus. Now all that is left is for the ground troops get to the landing zone. Minutes later, the pilot announces that the dropships are nearing the Landing Zone. Adam quickly tells the troops to ready their weapons. When they were close to the landing zone, a loud sound was heard from the ship. This were the Combat Droids being dropped preventively to begin fighting.

Pilot: "Opening hatch in 5 4 3 2 1... GO!"

As soon as the hatch opened, small arms fire began to approach them, with some of them hitting and disabling some of the droids.

Adam: "EVERYONE GO TO THE NEAREST COVER!"

As soon as Adam said this, everyone began to run past the projectiles and explosions around them and took cover on some destroyed building near the Nexus Fortress.

Soldier 1: "Sir, what do we do about the heavy fire coming at us?"

Adam had to think quickly, because if he took too long, it could mean the death of these troops.

Adam: "Alright, I need two squads with shield droids to reveal themselves, which will draw fire to them, then the Lightning squad and I will take them out, you got that L-squad?"

Squad Leader: "Yes we do, boss"

Adam: "Alright squads leave cover... NOW"

Two squads immediately leave their cover and are in the open, taking all of the enemy's fire and not be affected by it due to the shield that was was being provided by a shield droid. Seconds later, Adam and the fast squad jump out and start picking the enemies one by one whether it was with their sidearms or their melee weapons. The incoming fire began to slow down until it came to a complete stop when Adam took out the las remaining enemy. The sniper confirmed that that was the last of the enemies in the area and then proceeded to start the walk towards their main objective, the nexus.

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*Nexus: a device with the appearance of crystal pyramid, who's use is to teleport objects like items or even people from a ship to a planet. They were first used to teleport populations from one planet to another. These were used as a fast way to colonize a planet, where a ship known as a Nexus Ship was used to carry and place multiple Nexus' on colonizable planets. Unfortunately their use is now limited due to a spell that the empire used to cut the distance of a Nexus' teleport distance, on a day that was called "The Shattering of the Nexus'". Before this, space battles were rare, and the Holy order didn't even have warships before, instead they used ships form allied nations, Like the Eleven Kingdoms and the Dwarven Hegemony.

*Combat Droids: Artificial soldiers who serve as the backbone of the Holy Order's ground forces. Even though the angel population has increased over the years, the Order still has not fully recovered from the casualties of the first and second holy wars, where a great amount of angels died. This meant that they needed to find an easier way to fight with large amounts of soldiers without immensely decreasing the angel population. First, the order implemented the squad system, which had a low amount of squads of angels with powerful abilities to decrease the amount of angel losses while increasing the amount of victories. Then they used the ground forces of allied nations, like elves, dwarves etc. Finally, two projects known as the Artificial Intelligence program and the Mechanized Soldier project were completed at the end of the third holy war, which made it available to implement War Droids as a large scale army.

—————-A/N

Why did it take me so long to finish this chapter? I have no clue but in the end I delivered. Hope you liked it and if you didn't, tell me the things that i messed up in.