WRITTEN RECAP
The Fourth Drop begins with Ghost Squadron receiving what may be the most reassuring mission briefing possible.
The planet is called Hellmire.
Nobody likes this.
From orbit, Hellmire does not look like a colony suffering from an insect problem.
It looks like a planet belonging to the insects.
Command disagrees.
The official position is that Hellmire is a Sovereign Alliance world experiencing a temporary infestation.
Ghost Squadron has been assigned to correct that misunderstanding.
There are four primary objectives.
Destroy the active bug hives.
Rescue civilians trapped at a research base.
Raise the SAV flag and defend it long enough to remind everyone who owns the planet.
And activate the strategic missile system.
After that, the squad can worry about getting off Hellmire alive.
Someone asks whether they can simply choose another planet.
The answer is no.
So Ghost Squadron studies the map.
The hive seems like the logical place to begin.
If the bugs are coming from nests, destroy the nests.
Simple.
The squad drops.
Nyx's pod lands partly inside a disgusting organic growth.
This is considered an excellent first impression.
The terrain is covered in insect structures, tunnels and secretions.
Almost immediately, bugs begin emerging.
The mission intelligence says there are nine active hive openings.
Destroy all nine and the colony should stop regenerating.
The important word in that sentence will eventually prove to be "should."
Ghost Squadron moves into the infestation.
The difference between Hellmire and their earlier missions becomes obvious immediately.
The enemy does not have to survive.
The enemy does not have to defend territory intelligently.
The bugs simply keep coming.
Every surviving hive mouth produces more.
Destroying individual creatures is useful only because it creates enough breathing room to destroy the nests producing them.
The squad adapts.
Missiles and grenades become tools rather than emergency weapons.
Atlas brings the Titanfall cannon to bear whenever something large needs to disappear.
Cipher's drone scouts the battlefield and attacks targets from above.
Nyx uses mobility to locate openings.
Ghost tries to keep everybody moving toward the actual objective instead of becoming trapped in an endless bug hunt.
The yellow hive structures begin disappearing one by one.
Each destroyed opening gets marked.
The battlefield slowly fills with white circles showing the squad's progress.
The bugs respond by escalating.
Flying creatures pour around corners.
Larger insects emerge.
The squad keeps firing.
Grenades explode among clustered targets.
Heavy weapons tear apart anything too armored for plasma fire.
At one point the squad looks across the battlefield and believes it has almost finished.
Nyx spots what appears to be the last hive.
He destroys it.
Victory.
Except it is not the last hive.
There is another one.
The intelligence was wrong.
There were supposed to be nine.
Apparently Hellmire had not received the briefing.
Ghost Squadron continues.
The last visible hive opening finally goes down.
For a few seconds, the battlefield becomes suspiciously quiet.
The squad starts asking the natural question.
What now?
The ground answers.
It begins to shake.
Something enormous erupts from beneath them.
The creature rises almost to the cavern ceiling.
It is less a bug than a biological siege engine.
A hive matriarch.
Ghost Squadron opens fire.
This battle immediately develops another recurring Hellmire problem.
The bugs are dangerous.
Ghost Squadron is occasionally more dangerous to Ghost Squadron.
A missile intended for the matriarch also catches Nyx.
His armor is destroyed.
His body goes down with it.
For a moment, Hellmire appears to have claimed its first Drop Trooper.
Then the new survival systems actually work.
Nyx stabilizes.
Barely.
He is alive with ruined armor and approximately one functioning hit point.
There is no time to celebrate.
The matriarch continues attacking.
It lashes out with massive limbs.
It spits explosive biological projectiles.
One blast meant for Atlas hits a drone instead.
The drone's sacrifice is appreciated.
Cipher is nearly crushed.
Armor systems repeatedly fail and reboot.
Repair kits come out.
Nanites crawl through damaged suits.
Troopers who should probably be lying down continue firing because lying down does not kill the enormous insect standing over them.
Atlas uses the Titanfall cannon.
Nyx fires from whatever still works.
Cipher fights while repairing himself.
Ghost keeps pressure on the creature.
The squad pours enough fire into the matriarch to finally bring it down.
The hive objective is complete.
Probably.
Nobody is interested in checking underground.
Ghost Squadron moves to the next assignment.
The Sovereign Alliance has constructed a station whose primary military purpose appears to be possessing a flagpole.
Command wants the SAV banner raised.
Not merely attached to the pole.
Raised.
Slowly.
While patriotic music plays.
And the squad has to stand there and defend it while this happens.
There are practical reasons for military objectives.
There are strategic reasons.
There are logistical reasons.
This is none of those.
This is branding.
The mechanics are simple.
Someone must remain close enough to the flagpole to keep the system active.
If everyone leaves the area, the flag stops.
The music stops.
Freedom itself presumably pauses until a Drop Trooper returns.
The squad takes positions.
The flag begins to rise.
Fireworks launch.
Music starts.
And, as if Hellmire personally objects to patriotic theater, bugs begin emerging from the ground everywhere.
Ghost Squadron opens fire.
The objective is completely different from the hive assault.
There is nowhere to advance.
They cannot simply leave.
The enemy is coming to them.
Someone has to stay with the flag.
The rest form a perimeter.
Small bugs arrive first.
Then larger ones.
The squad uses everything available.
Plasma fire.
Shoulder grenades.
Heavy cannons.
Bombing runs from drones.
Flamethrowers.
Some weapons function exactly as intended.
Others demonstrate personality.
A flamethrower manages to hurt itself.
Drones get shot out of the sky.
Missed explosive attacks wander into areas where friendly troops are standing.
This produces the increasingly common tactical question:
Why do we keep shooting Nyx?
Nobody has a satisfactory answer.
The flag continues upward.
The bugs keep coming.
The music keeps playing.
The battlefield fills with creatures.
At first they are manageable.
Then the ground begins thundering.
Much larger shapes emerge from several directions.
Titans.
Giant insects attracted by the killing of their smaller offspring.
Ghost Squadron is now defending a flagpole while enormous armored bugs converge from multiple sides.
This is apparently what democracy looks like on Hellmire.
The Titans are not easy kills.
Their armor absorbs normal fire.
They crush powered suits in close combat.
They spit biological explosives.
And there are enough smaller bugs still moving around that nobody can simply focus on the largest targets.
Atlas's armor goes down.
He repairs it.
Cipher's armor goes down.
He repairs it.
Ghost takes hits.
Nyx keeps moving.
Drones bomb clusters and die.
The squad begins cycling between firing and emergency maintenance just to remain functional.
One Titan reaches Cipher and tears through his armor.
Another attacks Atlas.
Heavy rounds and explosives answer them.
Atlas's Titanfall cannon finally has targets worthy of its name.
The giants start falling.
But Hellmire keeps sending more.
The battle becomes an endurance contest.
Not because Ghost Squadron is running out of courage.
Mostly because they are running out of things that explode.
Nyx uses Hammer of the Gods attacks against the largest targets.
Cipher's drone drops bombs.
Atlas keeps hammering away.
Ghost holds the line near the flag.
Critical misses become almost as frightening as the insects.
The lower everyone's combat effectiveness gets, the more likely somebody is to accidentally shoot a friend.
Which means the longer the battle lasts, the more dangerous Ghost Squadron becomes to itself.
This proves prophetic.
Friendly fire continues.
Cipher gets hit.
Nyx gets hit.
At one point someone points out that the best part of the system may be accidentally shooting your own squad.
This is probably not going into the recruiting brochure.
The flag continues climbing.
Slowly.
Painfully slowly.
The music continues.
Another Titan pushes forward.
Ghost Squadron concentrates everything on it.
Armor plates shatter.
Weapons hammer the creature from several directions.
It refuses to die.
Cipher's armor fails again.
Repairs bring him back.
Nyx fires.
Atlas fires.
The drones fire.
The giant finally begins to collapse.
And then, almost perfectly timed, the flag reaches the top of the pole.
The final Titan falls.
The music swells.
The mission system announces success.
Ghost Squadron has completed its second objective on Hellmire.
The squad stands among smoking weapons, destroyed drones, shattered insect bodies and damaged armor while the SAV banner waves proudly overhead.
Someone immediately shoots Cipher in the back.
Naturally.
The Fourth Drop ends there.
Ghost Squadron came to Hellmire with four missions and an extraction.
They have completed two.
The hive has been destroyed.
The flag is flying.
Two objectives remain.
Civilians are still waiting to be evacuated.
And somewhere else on the planet sits an ICBM that still needs to be activated, authorized and launched.
The squad is already battered.
The planet is still crawling with bugs.
And the largest strategic weapon on Hellmire has not even entered the story yet.
For Ghost Squadron, that means the mission is only half finished.