The asteroid that carried the eight stealth vessels had burnt up in the plante’s Mesosphere. The final remnants had shredded the sky with violent fire at a height of fifty-three kilometres. The intended target for the vessels was a building in the industrial sector of the city, but in the high level compound area. The exact landing spot for the first wave was at a height of four kilometres. The stealth suits needed to slowly drift forty-eight thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine metres to that point.
The suits moved at a rate of fifty-nine centimetres per second placing their total journey time at eighty-two thousand six hundred and eight seconds. Which was a shade under twenty-three hours. This was in addition to all the time spent within the asteroid. At least in the cocoon of rock they had a limited communications relay provided by a fibre connection so they could continue to practice the assault and indulge in discussion. But all communication stopped twelve hours before the insertion into the atmosphere to reduce to almost zero any chance of being detected.
For Marsh the wait seemed like a lot longer, it gave him too much time to dwell on the events that had brought him to this point and too much time for worry. He would have preferred immediate action or some mindless drug-induced narcotia. Instead he was wide awake with the demons of his consciousness.
Drick was calm. They had used the first hour to organise their thoughts and run over the sequence of the plan once again. Making sure that they had given enough options to allow for unexpected events. A tightly scripted method of assault, a definite objective, agreed upon routes of exit, but enough leeway in the instructions to allow changes in the field.
Once Drick had done the required thinking, and made sure to script the changes into the combat log that would be run when they reached the objective, they spent another thirty minutes preparing the body for maximum rest. It was going to be a long slow journey so it was a good time to get some deep relaxation. Drick set an internal alarm to bring them out of rest in fourteen hours so they could prepare for the coming mission with body toning exercises. At that point they could also take the nutrients, supplements, medication and fluids needed to keep them as sharp as possible.
