Richtersveld National Park
Midway along the Orange River
Namibia, South Africa
2828.5334
(22 years later)

"I'm still not sure what we're supposed to be doing out here", muttered [SK] John as he opened the primary hatch and swung his legs over the side.

Up on his feet now, John eyed the sleek black vehicle distastefully. It had been four of the most terrifying minutes of his life back there. He wondered how anyone could cope with an experience like that on a regular basis. It was like those TrumpLand "Super Toboggan" rides back in San Francisco, he supposed - only faster. Much, much faster.

John ran his fingers over the lettering embossed into the side. In the periphery of his mind, a thought occurred to him that the metallic composite material should still be scorchingly hot from the tremendous friction of ripping through the atmosphere. He almost snatched his hand back before he remembered that, with all the layers of his suit, he should not feel a thing.

The words on the side of the module, looking a little melted and out of shape now, read "COPIM-437". The Covert Orbital Personnel Insertion Module did exactly as its name suggested - designed for what the planners called "low-observability" missions, it was a high-speed, one-way ticket from a hundred kilometers in the sky to ground level. The StormTropper infantry who usually were the ones to use this particular mode of tranport had a fitting, albeit inauspicious nickname for it - "COFFIN" - one which was often accompanied by nervous, sidelong glances at those briefings where the names of the lucky "volunteers" picked to carry out the mission would be called.

During the long, bumpy drop down from Low Earth Orbit from the [SSK] Altercation, one of the troop transports in the StormKeepers Fleet, John had been full of burning questions about this strange mission. The hurried briefing by [SK] Louie, and the communications silence ordered by StormAldur Tsoron himself had prevented John from speaking to Ramrod until they had both been tucked in securely into the COPIM vehicles. The fiery atmospheric re-entry into Earth's atmosphere had also cut off all possibility of raising the issue enroute.

Five meters away, a similar module rested on the ground. [SK] Ramrod, leaning over it, was already going ahead with the touchdown procedure. He opened a recessed panel behind the cockpit section and checked the readouts, nodding approvingly as he did so. The single-use force shields had held adequately for the trip. Punching a pre-determined sequence of buttons on the console, Ramrod set the self-destruct sequence. In five minutes the remaining reaction mass left in the personnel module would ignite. The module would melt itself down, and together with some help from specialised disassembler nanotech 'bots, no traces of their approach would be left on the ground.

Ramrod chose to keep his silence, which in itself was rather untypical of him. His armor-encased fingers clicked on a few more of the over-sized buttons. A rectangular package slid out from the back of the re-entry vehicle, which he scooped up and carried under his arm.

Ramrod looked over at John, clad in the same drab-gray StormTrooper Powered Armor that he was, with a short-stocked STLAR-7 laser assault rifle strapped to his right thigh section, a row of PEC-12 energy clips on the left, and a slim, contoured backpack behind.

Fairly standard issue for a modern high-tech soldier, the Standard Trooper Laser Assault Rifle version 7 was also known as the Stella-7 after its initials. Its accompanying ammunition pack, the Personal Energy Clip, was essentially a high-storage capacitor, a military derivative of commercially-available xenium-hydrate technology. It held enough power for approximately 1200 laser bolts, which, at 20 vari-frequency pulses per second allowed for one full minute of continuous fire.

In contrast to standard armor, however, there were no visible markings or letterings of any kind on either of the StormKeepers' suits. To an ordinary observer, they could have come from any of the major squads who had the resources to afford powered suits for their troops.

"Guess I'll learn on the way, huh," said John as he performed a similar procedure on his end, and took another package from his own vehicle. "Well, you're the boss, lead on".

Ramrod started to sprint the kilometer and a half to the designated waypoint. He was guided along the way by a glowing route projected onto his faceplate from the miniature holo-projectors which comprised the Helmet-Mounted Display. John followed closely behind, his own suit keeping up easily with Ramrod's power-augmented pace at sixty kilometers an hour.

Fifteen minutes later, the pair stopped at an abandoned-looking outpost which guarded the mouth of a darkened tunnel. The floor of the tunnel sloped downwards in a gentle incline, seemingly into the depths of the earth.

At the entrance to the tunnel, Ramrod activated the low-light display mode built into the instrumentation of the suit's helmet. He motioned to John to do likewise.

To the two armored troopers, what was at first total darkness turned into a strange landscape of hues of greens and blues as the infra-red imagers and image enhancers in their high-tech head-gear rendered the unlit surroundings in terms of temperature differentials. Image processors looked through the digitised scenery and threw up wireframe representations which revealed the dimensions of the tunnel. Silvery lines demarcated the induction loops of the magnetic-levitation track, leading up to the junction ahead where the disused line joined the main maglev railway approximately three hundred meters away.

The maglev railway was a vital pipeline carrying workers, supplies and equipment to the famed Orange IV diamond mines in the Namibian region of the Southern African continent.

Every morning on working days, trainloads of magnetically-levitated carriages would leave Town Kubus, ferrying miners the 76-km ride to the mines. During the daytime, a different set of carriages would carry raw ore back to the main factory in the town for processing. In the factory, specialised machines sat in neat rows, sifting through the tons of soil. The final products at the end of this process were the precious stones from the rich deposits washed down from the Kimberly diamond-bearing areas by the Orange River millions of years ago.

The cache of diamonds being extracted at the heavily-guarded factory, however, was not what Ramrod had come for today. Just before they reached the junction, Ramrod abruptly turned around and spoke for the first time.

"You know, John, to tell the truth, I'm really not quite sure what we're here for either. Everyone involved in this mission seems to be operating on a real tight need-to-know basis. The transport pilots only knew that we were supposed to do a COPIM drop at such-and-such a location, the real StormTroopers whose power-suits we are wearing were only told to brief us on the proper and safe use of these things."

John was incredulous. "What do you mean, you do not know why we're here? They risk sending a Tempestkeeper and a Fire Rage on this mission, seeing how we've been trained only in HERC's and tanks and flyers, and then they tell us to play foot-soldier, and now you say that even you have no idea what we're doing here, in the remotest part of Africa, of all Darkstar-forgotten places?" He was almost shouting now.

"Whoa, hold it there, John." Ramrod was glad for the sound-dampening effect of wearing the power armor, and the encrypted narrowcast radio link between their suits. If not for those, they might be having an entire security contingent coming toward them right now.

The clarity and force of John's voice which carried itself over the internal speakers however, had made Ramrod take a step back. "All I know is that we've been picked specifically by Stormaldur Tsoron himself. You and I. Spe-ci-fi-cal-ly." He stretched out each syllable, for emphasis.

"Heck, I don't know why. Tsoron wouldn't tell. You know, he never tells, anyway. What I do also know, is that we're out here to get something. Something important. What it is exactly, I have no idea right now. But, yes, it's important enough to risk two senior Stormkeepers out here for. Tsoron's placing faith in us, 'bro. Let's live up to it."

Ramrod explained to John the rest of the mission as best as he could. John continued to grumble for a while more before he, too, accepted that there was nothing for them to do but to continue with their assigned task.

They walked the remaining distance to the T-junction and turned right into the main railway. With some care, the two StormKeepers slowly laid down the packages they had been carrying onto the track.

Proximity sensors hidden somewhere inside the packages detected the ambient magnetic fields embedded in the rail coils. The rectangular platforms sprang to life. They lifted themselves up to knee level, floating half a meter above the ground. Steering columns levered themselves up, and hand grips swung out gracefully from the sides of the columns.

Leaping on to the mag-lev pseudo-carriages, Ramrod and John twisted the handlebars, accelerating themselves to over a hundred kilometers an hour.

"Gee.. this is fun", whispered John over the comm-link. "I wonder..."

"Sshh..." Ramrod cautioned, "be on the lookout for..."

A strident warning tone that suddenly screeched in both helmets cut him off abruptly. Both Stormkeepers reacted instantly, stabbing at the undeploy buttons on their individual maglev platforms. They flung themselves flat on their stomachs onto the track. The platforms continued to cruise along for a short distance before they completed folding back into position and came to a wobbly rest on the rails.

The Stormkeepers had barely made contact with the ground before a multi-ton, ore-laden carriage careened past them and disappeared rapidly around a bend. The rush of air in the confined tunnel whooshing past was picked up by the StormTrooper helmets, sounding loud and clear in their heads, complete with receding Doppler effects.

The bottom of the train had missed their backpacks by mere centimeters. Intense magnetic fields from the train's powerful electro-magnets played havoc with the systems in the powered armor despite the heavy shielding. Bluish-white lightning played itself around the exterior of the suits for a few seconds, and then disappeared back into the darkness, as sudden as it had come.

It was a long while before John regained his composure enough to prop himself slowly into a sitting position. He shook his head to clear away some of the dizziness from the leftover field interaction effects.

"Darn, I think we're both too old for this stuff," John remarked ruefully to his partner. He moved an arm tentatively, sure that he had stretched something somewhere, though he could not seem to locate it at that point in time.

Chuckling softly, Ramrod patted John on the back as he sat up and leaned awkwardly against the tunnel wall. He began to run a series of diagnostic routines on the powered armor.

"Well, there goes another wagonload of raw material," said Ramrod.

The diagnostic finished its run. Finding no major problems with his suit, Ramrod stood up and started to walk ahead. "Come on, we'll have to carry on with it. There's still about halfway more to go."

John mumbled something about the Darkstar Continuum not being able to meet its lofty ideals. "... yea yea, 'We Watch, We Listen', indeed."

"It's okay, buddy," replied Ramrod. "Even our best friends in the DC can't give us the exact train schedule if it's asynchronous like what we've just seen. Foreign intel isn't always exact. You know that."

Ramrod continued, "Just be careful, okay, bro' ... take it easy and all. No sweat. Systems okay over at your end?" John nodded. "Good. Let's get back to it."

The remainder of the journey was accomplished without further incident. Arriving at the end of the line at a large, dimly-lit underground cavern, Ramrod and John flicked on their armor's nanotech camouflage films, merging further into the shadows of the walls. They moved slowly, passing by dozens of workers busily loading the next consignment of materials onto an open carriage of yet another maglev train. The carriage hovered in the air, bouncing slightly as loads of diamond-bearing rock were heaped onto it.

Presently, Ramrod and John arrived at a freshly-dug tunnel. The signs of recent digging were lying on the ground - pieces of broken drill bits, various litter strewn around, and of course, the huge, three-meter-tall deep-tunnelling machine lying at the far corner. The place was deserted. It seemed that all the available labor had been deployed elsewhere.

Disengaging his backpack, Ramrod got down to work. He took out a portable laser drill and began lasing at a spot outlined by his helmet's displays. The precise location co-ordinates had been pre-programmed by Tsoron himself. He recalled Tsoron's simple instructions - "Find this place, dig there."

John looked around nervously. He fingered his laser rifle, detached from his thigh and unholstered now. He swept the area with his suit sensors, covering Ramrod as had been planned.

It took all of five minutes before the laser drill hit something. The twin beams disappeared as the drill's sensors detected a change in the material and cut the power feed, as they had been programmed to do.

"Looks like this is it," muttered Ramrod as he extracted a cylindrical object from the crevice. Fine dust fell to the ground as he shook it.

"What is it?" John asked as he came in closer and peered at the device. It was rust-colored, and came with a carrying handle at the top. Ramrod shrugged as he handed it over to John, who turned it around and looked at it every which way.

"I have absolutely no idea," Ramrod replied. "We'll probably get the answer when we get back. He held up his backpack, "Here - help me stuff it in."

After a brief check to ensure that they had taken all their personal belongings with them, Ramrod and John stole past the busy workers at the still-stationary train again. It looked like the previous carriage had left; the workers were loading up on an empty one.

It was another twenty minutes before the Stormkeepers returned to the junction from which they had come in.

Emerging from the tunnel, Ramrod and John travelled back toward the spot where they had landed. Ramrod was about to comment that it seemed all too remarkably easy when they burst into a clearing - and ran right into a hail of incoming bullets.

"What in the glitchin' -- where did these guys come from?" yelled John as he detached his STLAR-7 from the storage nacelle on his right thigh.

Ramrod, too, had drawn his laser rifle and was taking aim. "Can't be sure - may just be a roving patrol."

"Indeed. Just a roving patrol," swore John as he squeezed off a steady stream of laser shots. The trees at the edge of the clearing burst into flames, as two fatigue-clad soldiers fell from them, screaming.

"Shoot to injure, not to kill," ordered Ramrod. "We have no argument with these people. Probably some hired 'mercs on guard duty."

John answered with a terse "Roj that" as he swivelled his weapon, shooting left and right in tight, controlled bursts. He paused for the briefest of moments to dial back the rifle's power settings, and continued firing again.

The De Beers Corporation which owned the large majority of diamond mines in the area had been a target of pro-green environmentalists in recent months. The activists had charged that De Beers was destroying entire patches of prime cultivatable land in its mining forays into the rich alluvial region of the Orange River, which had remained untouched for generations until new deregulatory laws opened up the land for commercialisation.

Mag-lev railway operations had been disrupted a few times when some of the more fundamentalist types took to short-circuiting the tracks - or simply blew them up. The African governments assumed a neutral stance, and that had led the corporation to hiring local mercenaries to supplement its own security forces.

The ensuing fire-fight that followed was short and decidedly one-sided.

A bunch of twenty-odd green-fatigued 'Mercs armed with obsolete projectile-based sub-machine guns was no match for two Power-Armored StormKeepers firing deadly state-of-the-art rapid-fire laser assault rifles.

Ramrod and John calmly stood their ground, taking the hail of bullets that bounced like raindrops off their suits while aiming carefully and decisively to avoid death or debilitating injury. 'Mercs dropped like stones, clutching busted shoulders, or hobbling away on kneecaps shot out from under them.

The whine of aircraft engines accompanied by a stream of 30-mm LATC shells falling from the sky marked an end to the conflict. The long-range autocannon drew a line of fire between the mercenaries and the armored troopers, ripping the surrounding vegetation into shreds.

The mercenaries retreated as fast as they could the moment they saw the trio of StratoStar aerospace fighters gunning directly for them. They scattered helter-skelter in different directions.

In a few moments, the field was cleared.

Ramrod looked up just as the aerospace-craft flashed past and made a reverse loop. As the fighters turned around and started to descend, he waved enthusiastically, "Hey!! Over here!!"

The lead fighter dipped its wings in reply. Over the Tactical Data-Link, a message scrolled up. "Hi, Ramrod. It's me, [SK] Huh here. Need a ride?"

"Oh yes! Thanks for bringing the transport, buddy-boy!!" Ramrod started to run towards the StratoStars as they extended their stick-like landing gear and came to rest on an open field extending out from the tree line.

John followed closely behind Ramrod, watching as the canopies opened. He paused as he realised that only one of the cockpits was occupied.

"Whoa. You brought all three of these here by yourself?" John asked.

"Yup, sure did. Tele-op," replied Huh as he waved back. "Come on. I've put in StormTrooper seats for you - just climb in!"

John was impressed. [SK] Huh must have slave-controlled the other two StratoStar fighters on his own all the way from Darkstorm Headquarters. It took a lot of co-ordination to fly a single aircraft, let alone three at a time. He sprinted to the closest StratoStar, mounted the side-ladder, and peered in gingerly. True to his word, Huh had indeed somehow installed huge bucket-shaped seats suitable for power-armored pilots.

John climbed in, an awkward maneuver in the bulky suit. The fit was tight, but manageable. He took a cursory glance at the heads-up display. The "Tele-Op In Effect" indicator continued to blink on the HUD for a short while before Huh switched off the remote controller, transferring control back to the local pilot.

Satisfied that everything else was in order, John lifted the aerospace fighter into the air.

"Home, here we come!" exclaimed Ramrod.

"Home sweet home, yea," agreed John, as he turned the nose around to follow the exit profile indicated in the display before him. "Think we could make it back to Darkstorm in time for dinner?"

[SK] Huh called up a timezone display, and punched in a few calculations. "Hey, yeah, why not? But only if we hurry."

"Let's hurry then," said Ramrod. Together, the three StratoStar fighters engaged full afterburners and climbed into the evening sky.

... to be continued