Warfighter: Operation Shatterfall

Chapter 17

2100 hours, PRF controlled sector of Euphoria.

The loud whistling noise of the transport dropship loomed over Andrew Kirov and his fellow comrades. The air was acrid and still, and it smelt like gasoline all the time. Mostly due to the fact that one of the PRF Aerospace engineers accidentally knocked over a can full of gasoline while loading the dropship. He was pretty sure this wasn't up to the higher-up's strict regulations. But who would care? The Party's elites are probably dining and drinking away in the safety of Rukhovia's cities while men like Andrew were getting killed by the hundreds every day. He despised that idea. The state-owned media insists that taking more territories in the name of the PRF will increase the standard of living for all citizens as more resources and planets were available for PRF use.

Lightning flashed outside, painting the dropship's interior and its contents in a purple hue for a brief split second.

You see, state-owned media wasn't accurate. For the things they said, less than a quarter were true. Andrew saw no point in pillaging territories. The PRF had thousands of planets under their control, and Andrew was pretty sure most of it were fully capable for resource gathering. In fact, half of them are illegal and were forcibly occupied. Why invade additional systems when there are enough planets under PRF control. This campaign was pointless.

"Men, prepare to disembark!" Captain Daren yelled.

Andrew snapped himself out of his thoughts. Opinions like that would've gotten himself killed by his commanding officers. He is still baffled by how his father is still alive because in a way, he was the one who told Andrew the truth about things.

Andrew felt the vibrations underneath his feet rattled violently as the how hum of the landing gears extending sounded. He turned his head as far to the right as he could to see out through the window behind him. Among the droplets and the fog he could barely see what was going on, but he was sure they were landing in a suburban area. 

Andrew's body was suddenly yanked forward as the dropship landed not so gently onto the ground. Good thing he had a seatbelt on.  Red lights came above Andrew's head as the whistling of the engine slowly softened into nothingness.

"Bitch, can you land any worse?!" someone from his unit yelled at the pilots. Prompting laughter among the men in the dropship.

"You're lucky we didn't crash in this storm. Now get out of my ship!" The pilot snapped back.

The bay doors opened, and the PRF Ground Forces soldiers were greeted with a gust of wind and water. The men cursed with dissatisfaction as they were ushered out by the captain and onto the cold wet ground.

Andrew looked around in a panoramic fashion. 

There were a lot of PRF troops, like a lot. Andrew estimated that he could easily see a company sized force patrolling about in this neighbourhood  alone. If Captain Daren was right, then this entire residential area had at least two or three battalions worth of troops occupying it.

Andrew had never visted a suburban neighbourhood in Earth controlled territory. But the houses did leave a very good first impression for him. They were big, significantly bigger than the ones back home. Cleaner too. And they were all not in the same shapes unlike the government regulated housing the Party employs. Some had smooth finishes others had straighter edges.

"Welcome to Senora Park, Pvt. Kirov," Sergeant Sergey said beside him, "Nice houses, huh?"

"Yes sir," Andrew replied.

"We're lucky, we're setting up camp here," Sergey replied.

Andrew felt a slight jump in his heart rate. He couldn't wait to see how these houses looked like from the inside. Were they spacious? Were they always clean? Did they have electricity running at all times? Did they have accessible clean water?