Air-Commodore Coulthard watched the holographic display of the battle-scene. He frowned when he saw the icon of the supposed co-ordinates of the Dark Knight Squadron's STCV appearing dangerously near the planet Acheron.

"Parker, get me a squadron of Tornadoes in the sky heading for Acheron on the co-ordinates of 3.9840 PDQ!" he demanded.

"Sir, we do not have any squadrons available..." The young man replied. Perspiration was running in rivulets down his face as he sat bent over the nav systems.

Coulthard sighed.

It was always the same, he thought. For any other STCV crew there would have been a squadron of Tornadoes available but not for the Dark Knights. They were tanks, scum. The Air-Commodore looked over to the young officer.

"Then make them available, Parker ... I want those birds in the sky now!"

"Bloody tanks," Parker muttered under his breath and got onto the coms.

45.000 MSK above Acheron 0710 Zulu

Woolfe eased himself out of the cockpit seat and made his way over to the hydraulic door, which separated the pit from the rest of the APC. Manually opening the door, he took a deep breath before stepping into the smoke filled compartment.

"Carter!" he shouted, coughing against the smoke from smouldering wires.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to orientate himself in the small room filled with scattered supply boxes.

"Woolfe?" Carter asked and coughed. "Over here!" James scurried over to where the sounds came from and squatted down beside her. Taking away the debris, he swiftly examined her limbs.

"Are you in pain?" he asked, and when he moved Carter's leg slightly she winced and nodded.

"Aye, I think the leg's broken," she groaned again.

"Woolfe, come in!" Chambers barked over the intercom, obviously Andy had established coms again.

"Chambers, Carter is hurt, probably broken leg ..."

"Get her safely strapped in ... trying to make E&E (escape & evasion) towards one of the moons."

"Roger that, Chambers," Woolfe replied and dragged Carter over to one of the bunks in the rear of the APC. After he had safely strapped her in, he returned to the sniper seat and cleared away the debris there. Shortly checking the devices to get an overview of the damage, he switched on the com again.

"Frontsniper is down... only laser rear guns operational. Trying to repair."

"Roger that, Woolfe. Try to do it quickly I cannot hold her for much longer."

Megan strained against the damaged controls, but the gravity of one of the moons already and steadily pulled them into the atmosphere of planet Acheron.

Controls were flashing and through a haze she could hear the shouts of Anne and Andy as they tried to get the retro thrusters to work, giving them enough thrust to extract but to no avail. Slowly, the STCV sliced through the ionosphere and then the atmosphere of the planet, scorching its metal hull along the way.

All Megan could do now was to avoid a hard crash landing to top off this awful day.

"Woolfe, come back here!" she shouted into her com.

By the time Woolfe returned to the cockpit, time had seemed to stretch into eternity for Megan. Her arms and hands felt as if their sinews and muscles were going to burst, rip open as she tried to keep the STCV on a less damaging course with its nose level.

Woolfe assessed the situation in only a couple of seconds. Not waiting for Megan to notice him he strapped himself in behind her seat and gripped the flight stick, pulling it towards her to keep the STCV from ramming its nose straight into what seemed to be a massive mountain range.

Megan could feel her arms going slack as the pull of the flight stick was taken over by Woolfe's arms however, she assisted him with her remaining strength, fearing that if she let go of the controls, the STCV would go into a roll and they would be all dead.

"Anne, find us a flat surface, anything... but get us out of this mountain range!" Megan demanded and clenched her teeth. She could feel Woolfe doing the same behind her, feeling his breath fanning part of her neck and cheek.

"Roger that," Anne Thurston replied as she flicked through the different LIDAR and RADAR charts, the A/SWACS system was transmitting. She soon found something which could be called a plain.

"3.2 klicks away to starboard, heading east ... there is what appears to be a plain... A/SWACS can't get a more accurate evaluation though," she said.

"3.2 klicks it is then ... give me the co-ords, Anne," Megan replied, easing her hands off the flightstick and punching in the co-ordinates Anne was giving her.

"Sir, number 7-2 is down ... either shot down or ..." The voice of the tactical officer trailed away... even though he didn't particularly like tanks, he had to admit that losing a craft no matter with which crew on board was heart-tearing.

Coulthard watched as the electronic beep of the number 7-2 squadron's STCV vanished on the icon which represented Acheron.

Wiping his eyes wearily, he made a mental note that once the battle was over, if he was still alive and provided this tub was still functional he would send out a SAR team. But first things first, the armada of Chig battleships was only slightly retreating and wave upon wave of tri-wings still swarmed around the dreadnoughts and space craft carriers of the United Earth Force Fleet.

The crash was rough, chucking everyone around in the cockpit and the adjoining APC. Andy got hit by a falling control board and was immediately unconscious. Anne banged her head, but apart from a cut above her eyebrow she remained in control of her senses.

Woolfe groaned as he opened his eyes. The cockpit was filled with smoke, one of the pit's front ports was smashed and had showered him and Megan with a fine spray of sharp debris. Wiping it off his face, he only managed to rub this deeper into his skin, leaving a bleeding trail in its wake.

After a short recces around the pit he loosened the straps and stood up. Anne was giving him a shivering thumbs up, when he leant over her.

"You okay?" he inquired.

"I think..." Anne said and touched the bleeding cut on her forehead tenderly.

Checking Andy's vital signs, both were glad that he was still alive and Anne bent over Megan who had been moving slightly.

"Boss?" the flight officer asked.

Meg opened her eyes and took a look around.

"I'm fine, Anne ... what about Andy and Pat?"

"Andy is out cold and Woolfe is checking on Pat back in the APC ... As far as I'm concerned this tin-can won't be making any more flights. The front port is smashed, so be careful when you wipe your eyes or anything ... these bits and pieces of glass are deadly."

"Ta ..." Megan replied and came up short of wiping her face. She let her hand fall down beside her again and opened the straps. Then, when her eyes took in the holes and cracks on the cockpit's front port, she jerked upright.

"Well, at least the atmosphere is breathable," she said laconically.

Anne Thurston grinned.

"I will check the filters ... we have only been out for a few minutes so anything malevolent would have been taken care of by the filters or we wouldn't be here talking."

Megan shook her head at so much nonchalance but nevertheless she handed Anne one of the emergency re-breathers. After she had put one on herself, making sure Andy had one on his face too, she set out to seal off the cracks and the hole with super perma-plast glue.

When she was done, the filters in the pit revved back to normal and the pit was filled with the distinct but soft humming of the air vents.

Meg and Anne hauled Andy over into the APC where Woolfe had already sorted out some of the boxes that had fallen helter skelter around the small confined space. Pat was propped up against one of the racks in the back, punching the E&E code into a TACBE (tactical beacon) but all she got from the radio was a screech of static.

She grinned when she saw Megan and shook the TACBE.

"Imagine, fifty thousand quid worth of equipment and a slight crash takes it out." Pat said.

Megan almost laughed. She was relieved to see that Pat had still retained her humour.

"Alright, let's get a little bit more comfortable here. Let's get those crates squared away and have a look if we can find some firepower and equipment."

Half an hour later, the RAF pilots were surprised that they had hit the jackpot. Most of the equipment they had transported was for ground troops. Besides a good number of fully equipped bergens, they had enough M203s and M160s.

The refurbished M160 with the included M203 grenade launcher was, unlike the M590, a lightweight and for some of the squaddies an antiquity rather than a working weapon. But though the weapon was first introduced into combat back in the late 20th century, it was still manufactured because of its reliability and firepower.

Andy, who had come to by now, had rummaged around some crates in the back and had found MREs and a fair water supply which would make them independent from searching around the country side in need of food and beverages.

Gathering all valuable and still to use goods, Megan reached down into her leg pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper.

"All right, you know the drill," she said, watching her pilots one by one.

"Woolfe and I will pull first guard. Shifts will be two hours with two hours off-duty. Anyone advancing unknown towards the STCV will be challenged with ... " and here she looked down at her before mission report which she had handed in in duplicate form at FleetCom before their transport mission had started. "Whippet and answer is Paulie."

She folded the report and put it back into her leg pocket.

"Whippet!"

"Paulie!" The pilots answered in unison.

The pilots knew that in case of an SAR party advancing to their position the soldiers would expect to be challenged. That was the reason why those before mission reports were issued. Every CO had to fill them out, putting down the preliminary details of the mission, as well as its radio frequencies and passwords. Otherwise the SAR team could be taken for the enemy, and friendly fire was what had to be avoided.

"All right, Woolfe, get your gear ... Andy, Anne, you two try to jury rig the TACBE and contact FLEETCOM."

"Aye, aye, Boss," Andy said while he handed over the two M160's with enough ammo strips to keep a whole Chig squadron well under fire.

"Better be on the safe side," he grinned.

Woolfe helped Meg to get into her environmental suit, tucking here and there and putting the Velcro straps at the smallest possible size. The suits were uni-size and Megan was too small for them - but with the help of Woolfe she managed to just fit in.

Setting up the gear they wanted to take with them was an easier task - Woolfe had found two medikits and ETKs (environmental test kits) and put one in each of the two backpacks.

Megan was glad that their flight helmets fit the air vents of the life support system of the suits, getting accustomed to yet another new item would have put a certain strain on her already not too steady nerves.

"Ready?" Meg inquired and Woolfe, nodding, hit the airlock button with a gloved fist.

The air seemed to be sucked up from hidden vents when the doors to the main APC section closed and both pilots had the eerie feeling of being almost sucked up as well.

Once outside they were greeted by a white sky with a milky globe as sun. There was little to almost no vegetation, consisting of thorn bushes and strange one-stemmed plants, with bright red flowers.

Stepping off the ramp and leaving the artificial gravity of the STCV, the full extent of the heavy gravitation hit both pilots.

"Must be about one more G than on Earth," Megan commented, her voice having a tinny sound through the com device in the helmet.

"You bet. My arms and legs feel as if they are being dragged down towards the ground. I'll probably be an inch or so shorter after this tour." Woolfe retorted in a droll voice.

Megan laughed.

"Wonderful, then I might need a ladder to look over the rim of my lower bunk," she replied. "Anything on the GPS?"

"Positive, at least the sats are still in orbit. We are at 40 degrees longitude and 72 degs latitude - Southern continent of Acheron," his breath sounded laboured as if he had just finished a cross country race.

"Will we get used to this gravity?" he inquired.

"If we stay long enough, certainly," Megan replied matter-of-factly - but they both hoped they weren't staying that long.

"Let's recce the perimeter around the STCV. No good to have a Chig base right on our doorstep without us noticing," Megan commented.

They circled the downed craft three times, widening the perimeter with each circuit.

"Chambers, look at this!" Woolfe had squatted down in front of a bush with nasty looking sharp oblong blades. Beneath it, deeply planted into the sand was the imprint of a Chig boot.

"Well, that answers question number one," Megan said. "There are Chigs on Acheron."

Checking their weapons, they started out to follow the trail of foot prints.

HMS Wellington Air-Commodore's office Zulu time

Coulthard squeezed his eyes shut - trying to block out the LIDAR data of the battle. They were taking a beating - a serious beating. The HMS Connaught had taken the brunt of the initial Chig attack and was floating in-manoeuverable through space. Her captain had already ordered the personnel into the emergency safety pods, trying to repair the ship with a skeleton crew. So far, only a handful of safety pods had been able to reach the other UNEF craft. Most of the pods never had the chance to leave the flight decks as the Chigs strafed the area of the flight decks with constant fire - trapping the personnel - killing them.

The Commodore stood up and walked the short distance to the porthole.

So many good young men and women slaughtered or maimed, he thought as he watched the small flickers and specks of the explosions of lasers and missiles in the black vastness of space.

The lifeless hull of the Connaught came into sight floating silently away from the battle area, ever so slightly getting into a roll which soon would disable the skeleton crew - sending them into unconsciousness and certain death if they could not get the spin under control. - They had already lost radio contact with them and Coulthard was not sure what the situation was on the craft.

Suddenly, there was an explosion on the Connaught, ripping open its outer hull and reverberating through the length of the decks.

Coulthard watched, awed by the sheer beauty of the sight when the shock and terror of what he was just witnessing hit him full force. Stumbling over to his com unit he addressed the bridge officer.

"Report!" He demanded harshly when the voice of the officer in charge came on.

"Sir! We lost ... we lost the Connaught!" came the reply.

"I just saw that ... I want to know what happened!" Coulthard replied trying to calm his racing heart and the drumming noise in his ears as his blood rushed through every vein of his body.

"LIDAR shows that the Connaught was hit by a missile, it went straight through the outer hull and exploded between flight decks thirteen and fourteen - the explosives depot, Sir."

Coulthard closed his eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply. The Connaught lost with almost 3,000 hands ... What a terrible price to pay in a battle where the odds were against the human race, he thought.

Acheron, 17:00 Zulu

"Eight bloody hours!" Andy exclaimed and threw one of the MRE containers into the waste disposal.

Megan sighed. For two hours straight she and Woolfe had to listen to Andy's ranting and every time both of them were sure that he had run out of accusations and bickering he had started anew.

"Andy, we needed to know where this imprint came from. Do you think we risked our lives for nothing? We didn't picnic out there, you know! Besides we had plenty of spare," Meg said and pushed herself to her feet.

"You had about five minutes oxygen to spare and that is not what I consider PLENTY!" Andy retorted.

"But we returned and now we know where the Chig base is and how they are equipped. You are the techie, you know we need all possible Intel to make it out of here!"

Andy cast his eyes down to the metal floorboards. Of course he knew. But those eight hours were the longest he had ever waited. When their com signal went dead, he had almost panicked. If it hadn't been for Anne who had kept her cool, he would have suited up and made a SAR for them.

Megan might think she was expendable, but he knew the rest of the Dark Knights depended on her. She was the only one with slightly more ground op training than the rest as an officer.

"Well let's call it quits," Anne said and stood up. "Andy and I take first watch. While Shorty here bickered and fretted I took a well deserved nap."

Both Andy and Anne knew that wasn't true. While Woolfe and Chambers had been on recce neither had a shut eye.

"Boss and me take second," Woolfe volunteered.

"That's settled then," Anne grinned and hoisted the M203. "Get thee all to bed!" She said while shooing them down the corridor towards the bunks.

Woolfe lay awake on his rack, as did Patricia and Megan. What he and Megan had seen today had disturbed him. From the Intel they had been given at the briefing back on the Wellington Acheron was a deserted planet, too unimportant for either a Chig or Human base. The spooks had been wrong.

"Do you think they have noticed the crash?" Pat asked into the darkness.

"If not they must be more foolish than the spooks back on the Wellie," Woolfe snorted.

"I think they know," Megan cut in. "But they probably think we didn't survive the crash or thought it was a satellite. Otherwise we would have them swarming on our doorstep by now."

"Any chance we can get by unnoticed?" Pat asked.

"Fat chance, Pat. I told you they have laser sensors on their perimeter and a huge LIDAR and RADAR dish on their base. I've never seen anything like that. It is better secured than the Bank of England."

"And don't forget the mine fields," Woolfe added. "I don't know how they manage to get through them, but they do - as if they have a bloody built-in sensor."

He recalled the base site. It had been a huge, triangular construction which seemed to look like the faceted eye of an insect or the honeycomb of a bee hive. On every three to five yards on the perimeter lasers had been erected which reacted in a split second. The unfortunate native animal which had been caught in the sensors while they had recced the place was evaporated before he could say Jack Rabbit.

It was a fortress - and a deadly one too.

Anne Thurston and Andy Fuller had suited up and were guarding their sleeping crew mates. Thurston had scrolled up her NVG-visor of her flight helmet to the highest notch to see better though the landscape she was looking at was a black and white monochrome. She knew that she would be blinded by a sudden attack.

With the NVG visor set up so high even the slightest bright speck would flare like the sun. She shrugged and hefted the M203 in her hands. The weapon felt uncomfortable and unusual in her hands as she was more used to either her flightstick or the smaller semi-automatic pistol all RAF pilots had in case they needed to defend themselves after a crash landing.

The gravity of the planet made her steps heavy and her breath soon was laboured.

"Hey, Thurston, you sound as if you have just lost the Iron Woman competition," even through the com Anne could feel him grinning despite his own wheezing voice.

"You don't sound too good either, Andy," she retorted half-heartedly.

"Point taken," he gave up too easily for Anne's liking but the gravity on planet was heavy and she wasn't in the mood to crack jokes at the moment anyway.

Both RAF pilots circled the perimeter. Careful where they set foot they tried to keep in each others peripheral vision.

"Do you think we will get off this dump?" Andy asked all of a sudden.

Anne shrugged, though with the heavy body armour she was wearing it was a non-recognizable gesture.

"I don't know ... to tell you the truth, I don't want to think about all of this. It is scary to muse about the IFs. Besides, I'm sure the Boss will get us out of here."

"True," Andy replied.