- Journey to Earth

Due to Gus's small conversation with Jet, he was the last one to arrive on the shuttle bay. His squad and the other squad that they had been assigned the mission alongside, the Blood Knights, stood separate to each other.

As he approached, one of the members of the Blood Knights came up to him. Naturally, he recognised the Blood Knights from classes, but his knowledge of them went no further than that.

"Nice of you to show up. I would have expected someone who is a Squad Leader to at least be here at the same time as the rest of your squad," said the one who came up to Gus.

'Ah, what's his name?' Gus thought. He knew the name, he had to. He just could not remember it, for whatever reason.

"The name's Mykolos," he said. "I'm glad you're here first thing in the morning. I take it you've taken a look at the situation already?"

"I have," Gus replied. "Although, I wanted to wait before coming up with a definite plan."

Following the allocation of the mission last night, Gus received a package. Inside the package were multiple sheets of paper that contained information regarding the mission.

The rally was happening at 14:00 Earthen time. While people still referred to a twelve hour clock for the sake of simplicity, the official clock was a twenty-four hour clock based along the Greenwich Meridian, which was level with London, Earth's capital. Therefore, they had enough time to survey the area and come up with a plan regarding the rally if they reached the area it was taking place in early enough.

The rally was taking place in Africa, on one of the many protected plains that the continent contained. While some regions of Africa grew alongside humanity, and became massive monuments to human strength, with buildings so tall they seemed determined to reached the atmosphere, others did not. It was not because the development was not desired, but instead humanity saw the need to protect some of the natural beauty of the world.

It was not as if this land went to waste, however. As the number of humans grew, so too did the need for food required for human life. And, rather than see the space go to waste, the decision was made to turn the areas into huge farms. Naturally, the climate of the continent was not suited to the growth of crops, so the aid of technology was required. Huge domes were installed over the areas, with each maintaining an ideal climate designed to assist the growth process of crops.

Gus could certainly see the appeal of the plains for the rally. The space was open, meaning a large crowd could be assembled there. The advantages of a crowd were obvious. It would give the leaders of the Unified Way an opportunity to gauge the overall level of support that they had. It also acted as a display, showing outsiders just how strong the movement of the Unified Way was. Of course, this could backfire drastically, but for the most part it was a smart strategy.

A stage had been assembled for the event, as so was designed with the rally and the unified Way in mind. From three directions it was inaccessible, with huge, thick walls protecting those who would be on the stage. There was also meant to be a large amount of Earthen Defence Forces present at the event, providing the bulk of the security.

As far as their role would be on the mission, Gus and his squad would only be there to plug any holes in the security of the Defence Forces. They were likely to be in charge of perimeter security, and would have to screen any who wished to enter the dome to see the rally in person.

"Alright, good," Mykolos said. "What can your people do? We need to know each other's strengths."

"A couple of strength cybernetics, someone with a swarm of nanomachines, and the rest have nothing notable," Gus responded. "Yours?"

"We have someone with an arm cannon, and a couple of intel people," Mykolos replied.

'Arm cannon? Intel? That seems too vague, not that I can complain about that given what I said,' Gus thought to himself. Mykolos must have been thinking just like him. While knowing what each squad did would be helpful, they would still have to clash in the games that the academy ran at some point. Giving away too much information could be a negative, and could reveal things that they had not used yet.

Gus must have made a face, showing his confusion, because Mykolos opted to explain to him the details of the cybernetics.

"The arm is entirely robotic. On command, it can open up and reveal a cannon, which functions like a precise sniper shot, only it packs a whole lot more power. As for my intel gatherers, one of them simply has a long ranged eye, that comes with a heat detection module. As for the other, he has a neural link to a drone that follows him around. At will, he can take control of the drone and use it to scan the area, ignoring standard limitations put on a human such as the surroundings."

"It seems like we're going to want you to stay as close to the stage as possible, then. Or at least, certain parts of you. We also have a guy on the Reapers, he's a pretty good shot, so maybe we pair him up with you air cannon guy," Gus said.

Once everyone was ready, they boarded the shuttle and headed down to the planet. After the necessary journey of landing at London and boarding the flight to Africa, after their credentials were validated, they arrived at around noon.

'Plenty of time to survey the area,' Gus thought as he stepped out onto what was a new continent for him.