Assault part 6

Drop pods photographed by a Unity Officer in command of a AAA unit.

12 hours later they emerged from the wormhole and slid into the Zarahemla star system, and while the confederate 4th fleet finished wiping the Zarahemla defenders from the sky, the Assault group traveled through the star system to take position in orbit of Zarahemla Prime. As every minute ticked by Omar and the other men felt the tension rise. Men cleaned their weapons, made dhiker, or read to try and pass the time. As they got closer and closer to their objective, more and more of the men made dhiker.

The order was given, Omar and the rest of his company assembled outside of their drop pods with all of their equipment. The captain then ordered them into their drop pods and then added, “Remember your training and you will survive. Remember Allah and you will be victorious regardless of the battle’s out come.”

Omar got into his drop pod and strapped himself in. He read the engraved plate, which was just above the go no-go lights in his drop pod. It was a hadith and read ‘The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) once saw the corpse of a woman who had been killed during a battle. He disapproved of it and forbade the killing of women and children.’ It was a final reminder to the assault troops of how they were expected to conduct themselves during combat. The green go light came on and Omar feeling his stomach doing flip-flops recited the basmallah as he pressed the launch button.

The steering rockets fired and he felt the drop pod hit the atmosphere. The pod started to heat up for a short time and then the jerk of the main shoot being deployed, activated automatically by the pod’s altimeter. During this stage Omar knew he was most vulnerable, for even with the pod being invisible to radar and as the heat shield fell away, invisible to infrared the pod could still be seen by the naked eye. The shoot was sky blue but the pod was a dark grey. Attempts at painting them just had the paint burn off during entry.