WRITTEN RECAP
The First Drop begins at the end of a war.
Humanity has spread across the stars, fought two wars against the alien Tawni Collective, and somehow managed to survive both.
Ghost, Nyx, Cipher and Valk have technically joined the winning side.
Technically.
All four come from Worcester Prime, the enormous eastern megacity better known to the rest of humanity as Worm Town. Somewhere along the way, each of them made the kind of life decision that eventually ends with a Marine recruiter offering alternatives.
They became Drop Troopers.
Training was supposed to last eighteen weeks.
They got eight.
Then the war ended.
With no reason to finish training thousands of newly recruited armored troopers, the military certified them, shipped them to the edge of civilized space and found useful things for them to do.
This is how four people wearing some of the most destructive powered armor humanity has ever built end up doing maintenance calls.
Their latest assignment appears to be another one.
A remote sensor station on a barren rock has stopped transmitting.
This is not unusual.
The squad has already handled similar calls. Usually the problem is a burned-out relay, damaged equipment or some other mechanical failure that requires sending heavily armed Marines across interstellar space to discover that someone should have brought a replacement fuse.
So nobody expects much.
The drop ship sets them down a few hundred meters from the station and returns to orbit.
Immediately, something feels wrong.
There is no chatter from the station.
No maintenance traffic.
No drones.
Only static.
The sensor complex itself still has power, but the antenna is struggling against something, rotating slightly before stopping with a repeated metallic clank.
Then the squad notices the hole.
A tunnel has been cut through the ground near the station.
Nyx examines it and determines that whatever made it probably used machinery. The marks are too regular to have been created by an animal.
That is strange enough.
Then the sensors begin picking up faint movement.
Ghost orders the squad into a two-by-two approach toward the station while Cipher and Nyx send drones ahead.
The front door has been cut.
Not broken.
Not clawed open.
Cut cleanly through the locking mechanism by something resembling a plasma or energy weapon.
Before they can spend much time wondering who did that, Nyx's sensor burst detects movement everywhere.
The ground erupts.
Creatures come bursting out around the squad.
They are insectoid, armored and fast, with claws capable of threatening even a powered battle suit. Some of them can launch themselves into the air, which immediately ruins the reasonable strategy of simply getting above them.
The squad's first real combat begins.
It is also humanity's first contact with anything like these creatures.
Nyx gets onto higher ground and starts firing.
Cipher puts his combat drone to work.
Valk uses his jump jets.
Ghost discovers that fragmentation grenades are extremely effective against creatures that have gathered politely into groups.
The new troopers are still learning exactly what their armor can do, but the basic principle proves sound.
Plasma beats bug.
Eventually the last creature goes down.
For their first real battle, nobody has been killed.
This is considered an encouraging beginning.
Then Cipher examines the bodies.
The creatures are not in the military database.
More importantly, their genetics are wrong.
Human scientists believe much of known life shares ancient genetic connections, possibly because of the mysterious Predecessors who seeded habitable worlds long before humanity reached the stars.
These creatures share none of that.
Their DNA is completely foreign.
For the first time in their lives, the squad may be looking at something genuinely alien.
They briefly consider naming their discovery.
"Worcester Tunnel Crawlers" receives consideration.
So does "Clinton Crabtoads."
Science will presumably settle this later.
For now, the Drop Troopers still have a sensor station to investigate.
They approach the damaged entrance.
Outside, claw marks cover the equipment and cargo area, but the creatures do not appear responsible for cutting through the door. Their damage is crude.
The door was opened precisely.
Inside, the distinction becomes even clearer.
Emergency lights flicker across rooms filled with equipment that has been deliberately destroyed. Metal housings, fiber systems and relay components have been sliced apart with controlled energy fire.
Someone came here.
Someone disabled the station.
And whatever attacked the facility afterward was probably not the same thing.
Then Nyx's sensors light up again.
Surface movement.
A much larger creature erupts from beneath the station.
It resembles the smaller tunnel crawlers in the same sense that a tank resembles a bicycle.
The thing is enormous, heavily armored and astonishingly fast.
It comes out almost on top of the squad.
Weapons open up.
Plasma fire strikes its hide.
Some of it barely penetrates.
For the first time, the Drop Troopers discover something on this world that can take their weapons and keep coming.
Ghost considers the tactical situation.
He is standing extremely close to the creature.
Several members of his squad are also standing extremely close to the creature.
His solution is an anti-armor missile.
There is a brief discussion about whether this is wise.
Ghost fires it.
The missile launches upward, turns and comes straight back down onto the creature.
The resulting explosion is approximately the equivalent of dropping a two-thousand-pound bomb on the squad's own position.
The creature dies.
So, nearly, does everyone else.
Cipher's armor is disabled completely and he suffers injuries inside the suit.
Ghost's armor is torn apart badly enough that one arm stops functioning.
Nyx is battered.
Valk manages to jet away from the worst of the blast.
The station itself does not particularly appreciate the experience either.
There is some discussion afterward about the tactical wisdom involved.
Ghost's defense is essentially that a giant monster was standing next to him.
This is apparently sufficient.
The squad spends time repairing suits with onboard nanotechnology and whatever engineering skills they possess.
Cipher gets his armor functioning again.
Ghost's suit is patched back together.
Nobody is dead.
Again.
They contact the orbiting ship, Maverick One, and send everything they have collected: combat recordings, scans and genetic data.
Ghost's missile launch is now also part of the permanent military record.
History will decide what to do with that.
The mission could probably end here.
The station has been destroyed.
Unknown creatures have been discovered.
The squad has reported everything.
Then they find the tunnel beneath the dead giant.
It is much larger than anything the creature could have dug.
The squad also finds evidence that heavy machinery passed through the area.
They could return to the drop ship.
Instead, they go underground.
The tunnel descends into a cavern containing the shattered remains of a large digging machine. Equipment lies scattered around it. Cables have been torn loose. Crates appear to have been unloaded in a hurry.
There are signs of a fight.
And footprints leading deeper underground.
The machinery looks vaguely familiar.
Possibly Tawni.
Before Cipher can investigate properly, something enormous bursts from beneath the ground, swallows one of the drones and disappears again.
This creature is even bigger than the one Ghost just bombed.
The squad quickly realizes it may be tracking vibrations.
The obvious response is to get onto hard rock and stop stomping around.
The less obvious response is to begin experimenting with drones, gunfire and missiles in order to determine exactly where the creature is.
Eventually the thing attacks.
The battle becomes a running fight through the cavern as the enormous burrower dives beneath the ground, erupts somewhere else and absorbs punishment that would obliterate ordinary targets.
The squad pours fire into it.
Cipher's drone joins the attack.
Nyx and Valk maneuver for firing angles.
Ghost tries, at least briefly, to follow an actual plan.
Then the heavy weapons come out again.
A missile punches through the creature.
The explosion cracks the cavern ceiling.
Ghost survives partly by getting beneath the carcass of the thing he has just helped blow apart.
Chunks of ceiling begin coming down.
At this point Ghost finally gets an opportunity to demonstrate the other half of being squad commander.
He orders everyone to run.
For once, they listen.
The Drop Troopers scramble out of the collapsing section and continue deeper into the underground complex.
What they find ahead changes the mission completely.
The rough natural tunnel ends.
The walls become black stone and alien metal.
A vast chamber opens before them.
At the far end stands a massive structure built into the rock.
The architecture is recognizable.
Tawni.
But old.
Very old.
Ancient barricades stand across the chamber. Bioluminescent growth has spread through sections of the ruins. Whatever this place is, it was here long before the sensor station above it.
And it is not abandoned.
A reconnaissance drone moves ahead.
Plasma fire destroys it almost immediately.
Nyx sends out a sensor burst.
Contacts appear throughout the chamber.
Tawni shock troopers.
Heavy gunners.
Military positions.
The war is supposed to be over.
Nobody told these soldiers.
The squad opens fire.
The battle is completely different from fighting the tunnel creatures.
These enemies use cover.
They shoot back.
They jam targeting systems.
Their weapons were designed to penetrate armor.
Missiles lose their locks.
Heavy guns hammer the squad's positions.
For the first time, the Drop Troopers are fighting the enemy they were actually trained to fight.
And somehow, the half-trained Marines from Worm Town begin winning.
Heavy gunners go down.
Shock troopers are blown out of cover.
Grenades arc into defended positions.
Return fire starts working exactly the way everyone hoped it would when the rules were explained hours earlier.
One by one, the Tawni defenders fall.
Eventually the shooting stops.
The chamber is quiet.
The Drop Troopers move toward the enormous structure at the far end.
They have survived unknown alien predators.
They have discovered machinery beneath a supposedly insignificant sensor station.
They have found an ancient Tawni installation.
And they have just killed Tawni soldiers in a war that has officially ended.
Then the door opens.
Two figures step out.
They are wearing Tawni battle suits.
Not the lighter armor used by the soldiers the squad has just defeated.
Full battle suits.
The Tawni equivalent of the armor worn by Ghost, Nyx, Cipher and Valk.
Nobody has seen one since the war ended.
The squad has never seen one in person.
Someone studies the towering alien armor for a moment.
Then comes the most important tactical observation of the entire First Drop.
They look cooler than ours.
The First Drop ends there.
Four barely trained Marines were sent to repair a broken sensor station.
They found a species humanity has never seen before.
They found evidence of a hidden excavation.
They found an ancient Tawni installation.
They found Tawni troops operating after the ceasefire.
And standing between them and whatever is behind that enormous door are two enemies wearing armor built to fight them on equal terms.
The maintenance call is officially over.