Orange Hills of Eron

Incoming balon rockets scream across the night sky, the light from their massive discharges reflecting in web-like patterns off low-hanging clouds. At the edge of the jungle, giant magnetron generators hold the Confederation’s command center disrupter-fields in place. From the orange hills skirting the Pelacci Mountains in the west, strategically placed Tagon-70 cannons pulse intermittently, their plasma capsules leaving yellow and blue tracer streaks as they arc into the dark canopy of the jungle.

Deep in the tangled undergrowth on the fringes of Baker Company’s northwest control sector, Plasma-Fire Sergeant Jerry Wilson and Comm-Spec Seth Thomas lay cut off from their command by Zorlu reconnaissance troops. Sometimes crouching, other times crawling, they work their way through the dense, viney maze. The planet’s clay topsoil, turned to a reddish-green muck by the constant downpour, boils past them in muddy streams.