Starship Troopers: Chronicles of a Mobile Infanterist

Prologue

The great trembling before the drop

What a joke.
There is no tremble before the drop. More like an enticing feeling. You know that this next drop could be the last you ever do. I have this feeling before every single drop. The federations shrink still checks me through beforehand just like i do with my power suit. I check if the servos are working fine, if the weapons are fully loaded and how full the oxygen tanks are. The typical pre-mission checks. Then, when I have put on the armor there are two feelings:
The first is a overwelming feeling of strength and the second one is uncertainty. The uncertainty that the suit can always malfunction and that then, I would be trapped in a 900 pound heavy steel coffin. Of course these suits are what makes a Mobile Infanterist. It is their weapon, their shield and their spirit.

I was sitting in a transport of the Mobile Infantry above an aquatic planet and felt how the planets G-forces started to impact me. The suit compensated the planets G-forces but I still felt them. The HUD showed that the planet had point three G's more than earth, but the suit regulated the pressure to point nine G's. That is believed to be the most effective G-pressure to fight on land. But this incursion was no fight on land, but underwater. The suits had been refitted for this mission. Bigger O2 tanks, underwater thrusters and a special seal to make sure that no water gets in and no oxygen gets out.

"All right, we're almost at the dropsite. Get ready!"

For all the others this was just an ordinary order by their Lieutenent, something which they hear every day. I knew what these words were worth, I saw it as a privilege.
We finally were at the drop zone and I rose from my seat. Normally I would have brought a Tesla Rifle with me. But the usage of this weapon was prohibited for this mission. And there was a good reason for that, electricity and water do not work well together. For this Mission the good old MORITA MK III SAW had to do. The loading ramp lowered and I moved towards the ledge.
The sensors of my armour picked up a pat on my shoulder.
"Hey, you allrite? Ready partner?" I looked into the face of my squadmate, Corporal 1st class Chesapeak.
"Yeah, I'm ready." I answered.
The Lt. always sendy me and Chesa ahead since our armours( the ones of the female infanterists) are lighter and more mobile then the mens Armours.

"Allright Boys and Girls, the mission is a go." the Lt. shouted, "The ladies will be going ahead and do a bit of scouting and we will follow them once they confirm enemy activity. Like we always do it. And now ladies, DROP!"
And we jumped.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, the fall lasted for an eternity, five seconds, six seconds, humidity at 128 percent, seven seconds, federal transport ships six thousand feet above ground, eight seconds, impact.
I began to sink. Pressure increased rapidly but luckily the suit compensated the rising pressure. In these few seconds we were easy prey. If bugs had appeared that very second, it would have been over for us. At about sevenhundred feet depth the thrusters activated and I started gliding through the deep dark ocean. On my HUD I saw Chesas transponder, about 35 feet left and 20 feet above me. Simoultaniously my sonar activated and showed me the reefs walls at about six hundred feet to my left and right.
The next few seconds were a real pain for me, not physically but psychologically. There. There it was. That tremble. Not a tremble of fear, but one of excitement. It signaled, that Adrenalin was rushing into my head. Then I saw them. Positive sensor contacts. about a mile away from me which rapidly came towards me and Chesa. I raised my gun and fired into the direction they were coming from. One bullet hit one of them directly in the head and killed it with one shot. My sensors also picked up weapon fire from Chesas Sniper rifle and her shoulder-mounted precision cannon. I signaled to her to make her report. Thirty seconds and 300 shots later multiple friendly FFI's appeared on my HUD.
In this short moment where I didn't pay enough attention a bug got close enough to me to grab me. I looked into monsters face. The face was deformed, no teeth, only something that seemed to resemble a beak which hid a javelin-like tongue. The insect had fourteen eyes. Six big ones facing forward and eight small ones that it used for peripheral observation. Just when the insect showed its tongue( no doubt it wanted to split my skull with it) I grabbed its beak and, with every inch of strength that the suit was able to provide me in such an inert enviroment, I threw the beast off of me just long enough to raise my rifle and put a chain of bullets in its "head", but something still went wrong. Even though the thing wasn't able to split my skull in two, the tongue still pierced my helmet which then filled with water. While the bitter, lemon tasting water flowed into my helmet, my entire life passed before my very eyes. How I came to the Mobile Infantry. But to get to that story we have to look back two years, just after my eighteenth birthday.