Capture Windrider Island!

The order passed down the encrypted channel, level by level, through the signal converter in the flagship's Communications Center. Within a few breaths, it reached the command terminal of the First Regiment's First Battalion commander.

Xu Chen glanced at the green indicator glowing on the panel, then nodded to his deputy by the hatch.

His deputy fastened his helmet and headed for the rear cabin. Xu Chen gave one last look at the sea chart on the table, a chart overlaid countless times with simulated bombardments. He rolled it up, slipped it into the waterproof pouch at his waist, and went to the hatch.

As the hatch slid open, a wave of heat struck him. Residual heat rolled in from Windrider Island, carrying the acrid smell of scorched earth and molten metal.

Xu Chen narrowed his eyes. A dark red glow still hung above the distant beach, and the embers of explosions drifted down in the sea wind like a rain of ash falling upward.

The First Battalion's Transport Shuttles quickly formed up at low altitude. Ten gray-white hulls lined up in single file, each separated from the next by more than a hundred meters.

The gangways below the hatches had already been lowered. The soldiers had completed their final equipment checks and stood in groups of three on either side of the hatches, Runic Rifles pointed down, goggles lowered over half their faces.

Xu Chen's command shuttle descended into the middle of the formation, holding a position about two hundred meters behind and to the side of the Transport Shuttles. From there, he could watch the entire battalion deploy in real time without crowding the Transport Shuttles' landing approach.

"Are the Second and Third Battalions in position?"

He spoke into the communications terminal.

His deputy's voice came through. "The