The Phoenix Chronicle Book 2: Like a Phoenix from Ashes.

[DarkPhoenix141]

Chapter 10: Remembrance

Phoenix (While unconscious) quickly remembered a point in his life, so close in time but so far away. He stood in a dark grey room in front of a monitor, many familiar faces around him. "Sinvet, who do we have here?" The commander asked, over the monitor, "Commander 'Legend' we don't know who he is or where he came from. He came out of no where and assisted us from escaping the desert and served us while we fought there for the past week." Sinvet said dubiously. "Well welcome back Commander. On behalf of the Federation I say it's glad you all came back from the Prospect Desert in one piece, but there's no time for vacation, it's time to get back to work." The High Commander said, "We have lost contact with a rim-world colony for some time now, it has recently been revealed through lost scouts that the colony that they were embroiled in a deadly civil war, between 3 factions for control of Xendra Prime. The faction emerged victorious only recently, and the military is advanced and veterans of the civil war. They declared independence from the Federation and this is an incursion we cannot afford to allow continue. Xendra Prime was a major mining colony with many natural resources and was extremely easy to colonize due to it's earth like properties. The Phoenix Colony cannot be allowed to continue this incursion against us." The commander said, showing images through drones relating to everything he said as he said it. "Sergeant of the squad, accept these orders." he continued "Your objective is to assault the control room and destroy it, destroying the controls for everything around the area. The control room is currently in atmosphere and will remain there for at least a week." he stated "Bathe the control room in flames. Do not allow these rebel scum to continue their incursion against us. No matter the cost, this will be done." he finished "Allow me to introduce you to your team." he continued. "Captain Sinvet Argonious. Specialist in medium range combat. Corporal Terrance Romero, specialist in scouting and short range combat. Private Oscar Cross, specialist in breaching and holds the heavy flamer required for this operation. Captain Vincent Carter, specialist in hacking and medium range combat." He stated "For honor and glory destroy these rebels!" he continued.

They boarded the large scout ship. The Commander's plan was simple: Launch a suicide crash into the station, using homing missiles to destroy anything guarding the station, jump out as the ship breaks through the station and clear out the hallway, charge into the control room, burn it, purge the rest of the station. They were silent as they put on their respirators and helmets, thirty seconds to impact, they thought quietly, twenty seconds, they readied rifles, ten seconds, they prayed, five, four, three, two, one. The ship didn't collide or crash, they launched two homing missiles and destroyed two fighters, then impacted, they leaped out of the cockpit window, the Commander with a hood over his helmet. They touched down on the edge of the station's remaining section and shot two rebels "FORRRWAAARRD!!" the Commander yelled, charging toward the traitors, shooting one and kicking another. Sinvet and Vincent stood on top of some rubble shooting at soldiers down the hallway while Romero and Cross tried desperately to open the control room door. Yellow lasers and red tracers filled the air while Vince and Sinvet continued their valiant engagement, however 5 minutes later, the door finally opened. Cross placed his flamer in the entrance to the room, and filled it with fire, killing the operator and shattering a few terminals with it's heat.

The air shattered as the bulkhead behind them closed to ward off the air suction, they proceeded about the room, no idea what to do next.

They ran for the escape pods, fire broke through the walls and soldiers ran about, only to be slain by any of the Federation soldiers engaging them. Over ten minutes passed until they finally reached the pods and entered them, felt the impact of them launching, and escaped. Missiles and laser fire chasing the renegade pod as it entered the atmosphere, impacting the ground with a loud thud. They opened the door to exit the pod, Vince looked to the sky only to see the station detonating. "Well great, we're stuck on a hostile planet. I'm pretty sure we can't apologize for destroying whatever it is we just destroyed. Fantastic." Cross said, kicking the ground. "We have to move, stay low and hold fire" The Commander said, motioning for his companions to follow him. They traveled among the grey ground on the wastelands of the planet moving from boulder to boulder for hours until the neared a large mountain, where they stopped.

Sinvet took up a radio and made a simple request "We need backup RIGHT NOW" he yelled. Minutes later, pods dropped from the sky, containing multiple squads of soldiers. "Right lads, this has gone from covert sabotage to guerrilla warfare. We are going to charge the planetary command center and render their orbital defenses inoperable. Let's move out!" He yelled to his new soldiers, moving toward where he assumed the planetary command center was. They ran for thirty minutes, before finally ending up near a large outpost, they crouched in some overgrowth looking around for soldiers. Hushed whispers filled the air as the small battalion of soldiers prepared to engage the few guards standing on top of the buildings. Then, suddenly a red flare shot into the sky, illuminating the entire outpost, every soldier ran about the area, randomly, explosions and laser fire drowned out even the loudest of orders or conversations, the clashing of metal and the loud bangs of laser fire while the air smelled of charred skin and metal, screams of pain filled the large haze of combat and horror, blood splattered.

Minutes later, the firing ended, the charred smell subsided, the screams stopped short, the laser fire ended abruptly. The next thing Legend remembered, he was standing in the middle of corpses and rubble, Sinvet and Cross beside him, Romero and Vince behind him. Multiple other soldiers in the grey armor of the Federation, the corpses of the Phoenix Rebels in similar gear lying about the place. The smokey smell subsided as the soldiers wandered around to find Legend and his team, however long they spent was evident as the sun rose over the trees and grey crags, heating the cold air around the soldiers, who promptly moved on to the next sector, to get aboard a dropship, and off the planet. As they got further away from the cleared base they took a brief period of time to rest, in a grey field with trees of black tinder resting to the left of them, blocking a part of the sun as it rose over the smaller crags. They sat down in the short grass around smaller patches of tall grass in the grey soil and white stones. Legend walked into the center of them all, his hood looking tattered with ash covering it. "Gentlemen, we leave in an hour." He said, softly, sitting down against a cracked stone covered in runes and hieroglyphs.

They rested for an hour, then continued on.

Phoenix then awoke.

But where he did not know.