It was Tuesday on the local calendar when we first dropped on Axander. Tuesday the 30th of X, thanks to the classicist bent of the original settlers. And it was the beginning of the rainy season.
Our dropper came in hot. We burned through massive swirling storm clouds that dumped never ending sheets of hot rain on the central continent, riding a fusion torch down the well. The good ship Bad Egg belonged to us - Major's Myrmidons - a little in-joke we shared.
"What's the job, boss?" I asked Major Major. I was clutching a maneuver bar as we rattled down through the turbulance. I'm so glad Her Majesty the Queen-Mother made that deal with the Zindari. I remember dropping without e-gravy. Losing my lunch all the way.
"Regime change," said the Old Man. He was strapped into the crash chair at the head of our briefing table. "Pentagram Heavy Industries has interests on this little rimward rock, and let's just say that one of the sides in this here civil war supports our employer."
"Right, so who are the no shoots?" I asked.
"We're supporting the Third Princess in her bid for the throne,” replied the Major. “Their previous king died a year ago and his seven sons and three brothers started fighting almost immediately.”
"What's the catch?"
"The catch is that she's currently under house arrest at her country estate, guarded by Second Prince Moulin's Own Rifles."
"Does she have any loyalists at all?" I asked with a grimace. Putting her derrière on a throne with no local troops cheering would be a bad look. And if it was a bad look, that meant die-hards would keep fighting.
"Some, we're supposed to link up with her Rose Guard after we break her out, but I wouldn't count on them."
"And that's why this is a hot drop?"
"That's why it's a hot drop Smithy. Go get strapped in, I want your hussars off my dropper in 60 seconds."
the prose is fresh and vivid, it makes you want to keep reading