[New Conquest Assigned: Reclaim Volea (47%)]

  [Environment: Volcanic (Breathable, 0.1% Hum, 40° Avg. Temp.)]

  [Remaining Hives: 24,567 (All Stabilized, 467 Claimed)]

  [Conquest Rank: 1-2]

  [Personal Conquest Reward Quota: 4,500 Monsters Slain]

  [Squad Conquest Reward Quota: 31,000 Monsters Slain]

  [Total Monsters Slain in Conquest: 278,423,421]

  [Total Casualties: 3,421]

  My boots touch the ground and make a crunching sound against the reddish soil. I take a look around. We have landed on the outskirts of a city. Tall wrecks of what used to be grand buildings lay not far away.

  The atmosphere is breathable so I take off my helmet – and immediately regret it. My nose fills with the stench of sulfur, and I am blasted with a wave of intense heat. There is also a faint metallic smell in the air, that of blood.

  “Idiots! Put your helmets back on!” Stephen shouts at me and Liv. “It's way too hot to not be in armor outside of shelters.”

  “Oh phooey.” Liv says, sticking out her tongue. “Helmets are for losers, a little bit o heat aint gonna hurt.” Unlike Liv, I actually am smart so I put my helmet back on.

  “Fine, but don't go crying to me when you die of heatstroke.” Stephen retorts.

  They fight for a few minutes and then Violet speaks up. “You do realize that we are on a hostile planet and we are all alone without supplies at the moment, right?”

  The two immediately stop fighting and Stephen resumes his leaderly position. “Oh right. The basecamp that we have been assigned to is about three kilometers south, so let us get going. We want to make it there before nightfall. Thankfully, this area around the basecamp is clear of hives and monsters.”

  Groans go throughout the group. Moxie looks especially despondent at the mention of travel.

  “Couldnt Tien have dropped us closer to the camp?” I ask as we start moving. We find a road that should take us all the way to the basecamp. It is quite damaged, but it still beats running over open terrain. My legs steadily move back and forth as we settle into a run at about 25km/h. I try to run beside Violet, but she keeps speeding up to get away from me. It is quite sad.

  Stephen seems to light up, like he was just waiting for someone to ask the question. “The launchers are only so accurate, and we can't risk hitting the camp on our descent. But you better get used to moving, we are going to be doing a lot of it over the coming weeks.”

  “Do we really have to?” Liv groans.

  “I have acquired a transportation aide for us.” Violet says nonchalantly.

  “Woah, so you worked some sort of magic?” I ask, "That's like, super cool.”

  “It's just money.” She mumbles, just loud enough to be picked up by the microphones.

  I drop back to Moxie, who is trailing a bit behind. She is holding her stave in her hand tightly, as if monsters could jump out from anywhere. “How ya holding up, Moxie?”

  “It’s too warm.”

  “Ha, that's it. At least we aren't that idiot Liv running with her helmet open.” I respond, trying to ease her nerves a bit. She smiles at me, so I think It helped a little bit at least.

  “Oi! Do you wanna get a nice fist to the face?” Liv shouts.

  “I am just pointing out the facts.” I reply cooly, which causes everyone bit Liv to start laughing heavily.

  “Not fair, you and your ‘facts’ are too strong.” She says, acknowledging her defeat. Then she joins in our laughter for some reason, which only causes us to laugh more as we run.

  We probably look like a bunch of lunatics. We just arrived on a hellish planet occupied by monsters and we are just running and laughing like it's nothing. Either we have gone mad out of stress, or all that mental conditioning has paid off. Most likely it is a bit of both.

  We reached the basecamp. It takes up several city blocks, making good use of all the ruined buildings as easy places to repair. The thing is designed to house and supply around a thousand Dragon Guard and who knows how many support staff.

  We walk through the barrier and a woman wearing a military uniform immediately walks up to us. “You folks must be Asteria Squadron-172. Please follow me to your briefing room.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  We follow the woman through the camp and we are led into a large building that has been restored from the ruins. The walls are a patchwork of freshly laid concrete and old rusted metal frame. It is like the site of a horror film.

  Which makes sense, because it was once the site of a horror show. One that was far too real.

  The woman leads into a room with several chairs and a large table. Sitting in the largest chair is none other than Tien. “Heya Kiddos, did you have a fun trek?”

  Liv rushes up and plants herself in a chair. “What the fuck was that aim? Couldn't you have just brought us down with you?”

  “Apologies, it's tradition to give new cadets a bit of a trek. Plus, it would take a while for lil ol me to carry all of you up and down. Realistically, it's faster to just launch you. Plus, its preparation for when you are launched into a hostile planet as a part of the first line. There won't be any basecamps to land at then.”

  Liv reclines back in the seat with a sigh. I guess today is just not her day.

  “Alright then.” Stephen announces, “Now that we have reached basecamp, we should figure out our plans, right?”

  “Yep, here take this.” Tien throws a small projector to Stephen, who barely manages to catch it. “It's a map of hives. I have marked a few unclaimed ones close by that should be within your capabilities.”

  Stephen activates the projector and it displays a map of the surrounding region. In total there are 3,000 hives in the region. Each one is absolutely filled with monsters. Or in other words, potential loot and experience for us to reap. Fifty of them have been marked by Tien and my brain quickly goes into analysis mode.

  All of the marked hives appear to be grade one and rank one, meaning they are quite small and won't contain very high level monsters. Which is good, because we are still very unskilled. Taking out a single level 250 orc in isolation doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things. Not when a small hive can throw dozens or hundreds of monsters at you at once. I hear that grade five hives, the largest ones, throw armies of monsters at anyone foolish enough to attack them.

  A lot of the marked hives are quite far away, but the ones that are closer are clustered together, which presents a risk to us should they surge – which occurs when the monsters manage to break through the stabilization fields. So we can either spend a bit longer traveling, or risk getting stuck in a swarm of monsters.

  “I think we should play it safer.” I point to the closest isolated hive. “We don't want to take too much risk for no reason. We can leave the difficult spots to more experienced squads or groups of them. This one is the closest safe one at about three hundred and fifty kilometers away.”

  “That sounds fine to me.” Violet says from her seat across the table from me. I smile at her in appreciation, but she just scowls and ignores me.

  The others agree and Tien even compliments my quick assessment and choice. She says something really embarrassing about being proud of me too.

  We leave the meeting room and are guided towards the supply stockpile. A friendly logistics guy helps us get our Fully Automated Universal Drone (FAUD) loaded up. It's a weird thing, a medium-sized robot with spider-like legs. It is quite durable and comes with an aethershield unit that can defend and hide us from monsters so we can sleep safely. Also it has a pretty advanced cloaking device so it can follow a bit behind us as we make our way through the hive.

  Apparently the batteries are quite limited on it, so we have to be sure to return to basecamp every two weeks or so. Which just so happens to line up perfectly with our term out in this fissure, it can't possibly be a coincidence.

  Oh, and the FAUD also has a functionality that can retrieve our corpses – or whatever might be left of them – and retreat, should we die out in the field. Which is a very reassuring feature to have. At least they might get a piece of armor or a weapon to place in our grave.

  “Wait cadets, there is one more thing.” The guy says and tosses us a datashard. “There was a weird vehicle delivered here last night addressed to your squad. They said to give you that shard. You can find it in Hangar D.”

  Violet moves and catches the shard. “That must be the delivery I ordered.” Without another word, she walks off towards the hangar the guy pointed towards. We all follow her, a bit confused at what she could possibly have delivered all the way out here. Though, it is immediately apparent once we enter the hangar.

  There is a large purple vehicle parked. It starkly contrasts with the silver and white of all the Guard’s vehicles and equipment. It looks like a mobile base. I bet it even has a bathtub inside.

  “Violet, what the fuck?” Liv exclaims looking dumbfounded.

  “I have no clue what you mean.” Violet replies. For a moment I think I see a flash of a smile replace her cute scowl.

  “You can't just pull a multibillion credit vehicle out of thin air like it's nothing. That's just bonkers.”

  Violet moves to the door of the vehicle and hops in. From the door she shouts back. “Well, I can and I did. So let's get going already.” This is yet further proof that Violet is an absolute badass.

  “Well, I am not going to complain about a fancy new ride.” Stephen starts walking towards the vehicle. “So let us indeed get a move on. We've got a decent distance to cover, though I have no doubt this thing will make quick work of it.”

  We all clamber into the vehicle, which is apparently named the Pegasus. I have no doubt that Violet didn't choose the name. Though maybe she chooses the color, I will have to ask her if she likes the color purple. It does match with her name, but that seems too convenient to be true.

  The interior is just as impressive as the exterior. There are five fairly large bunk beds – with convenient privacy shields so that we can have a quiet place. There is a small storage area for rations, which is packed full of them. Unfortunately, Violet didn't manage to get anything fancy. There is also a small lounge area combined with an armory, as you would expect.

  Oh, and of course there is a bathtub. Though it is quite small, like, barely enough to fit a normal sized person. I don't even know if Stephen could fit inside.

  “Woah! This thing is awesome!” Stephen shouts from the cockpit. No doubt he is really enjoying all the fancy bells and whistles. I can imagine this thing is packed with some awesome gadgets. Plus a pretty good navigation system I would hope.

  We all settle in quite quickly. Even the FAUD has a spot on the outside to attach to. I learned from Violet – after much annoying – that vehicles like these aren't actually uncommon. They are just far too expensive for any students to normally have. But luckily, we aren't a bunch of normal students.

  After all, we have Liv.

  I lie down in my bunk and drift off into a bit of a nap. I didn't get much sleep last night due to excitement. Stephen says it'll take around twelve hours to reach our destination. So perfect time for a short nap.

  You are making good progress, mortal. Though, be wary of what you are about to encounter.

  Next Chapter: Monsters Are Very Cuddly

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