Ladies, Gentlemen, and others: for your reading pleasure, I bring you yet another fan fiction story. I realize one about Alpha Squad has already been done, but hey, it's all fanfic. The possibilities are endless. Please do enjoy, and give me your thoughts. This series I hope to continue all the way to the Core.

I looked out of the window of my pod as it hurtled away from the dark abyss that was the cosmos and towards the surface of a strange planet. I could see, from where I fell, the Skylark – wreathed in flames as it entered the atmosphere, plunging down, further down.
First Isora, now the Skylark.
Would we ever keep a home?
We’ve got a temporary one now, at least, I thought, glancing down towards the planet surface. It was made of strange plates that were ever-shifting, slowly grinding around each other, locked in a strange, exotic mechanical dance. Through the cracks, near where plates had separated enough, I could see further down to the mysterious depths of this place.
To darkness.
I switched my gaze to the altimeter that was rapidly decreasing. 1000 feet. 720 feet. 550 feet. I took a deep breath, bracing for the impact – at least, the one I hoped was coming. 305 feet –
WHAM!
The pod shuddered as it took the impact it was designed to withstand – and withstand it did. I waited a few minutes afterwards, then unbuckled my safety harness and blew the hatch.
Normally, safety procedures dictated that once escape pods had reached solid ground, the encapsulated knight should stay still and activate their emergency beacon, waiting for rescue teams.
Unfortunately, this time I WAS the rescue team. Or part of it. I tapped the comm on the side of my helmet, hoping I’d get a signal. To my surprise, my receivers weren't greeted with a rush of static like I had expected. But there wasn’t anything else, either.
It was just…silent.
“Alpha One, signaling all members. Give me a holler, knights.”
For a moment the silence persisted. But then “Coming in loud and clear, Chief,” came a voice over the comm. “I seem to have landed on what looks like a tundra continent.”
“Lucky you,” said another, more feminine voice. “I got some kind of poisonous-looking bushland.”
“I’m in an abandoned castle of some sort.”
“I’m in a forest,” I replied, taking a look around. “Stay put – we need to get SCOM’s locators before we go traipsing around.”
“No problems there, Chief.”
“Won’t complain with that.”
“Yes, sir.”
I switched over from the squad channel to a more general one. “Esscom, this is Alpha One. I’ve landed successfully and am waiting for locators. Do you read me?”
Static.
I sighed and switched back to the squad channel. “Alpha Squad, I can’t raise Esscom. Can any of you?”
After a slight pause, all three replied to the negative.
“All right,” I said. “Sit tight, then. They should be tracking our pod beacons as we speak.”
Right after I finished that sentence, a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see the Isora’s Arm hovering over me, the shuttle of the Skylark and personal vessel of SCOM – Spiral Command.
“You’re early,” I muttered.

Thirty minutes later, I stood in front of SCOM’s finest, listening to a debriefing by Kora, our main intelligence officer.
“The planet we’ve landed on seems quite peculiar, due to its constantly shifting design,” Kora said, pacing back and forth and fidgeting with her spectacles like she usually did when thinking aloud. “Captain Ozlo went down with the Skylark on the northern hemisphere, around these coordinates.” She pointed to a location on the screen showing the map of the current planet. “We have been able to remain in communication with him due to the direct link we have with the Skylark, but all general channels seem to be down.”
“What about the rest of the knights?” asked Vaelyn, head of Bravo Squad. “Why aren’t we picking them up as we speak?”
Kora gestured at the planet. “We are on our way to the Skylark as we speak. We’ll set up a base of operations there, then launch the Isora’s Arm to pick up the survivors once SCOM has been established.”
Vaelyn frowned, her dark eyes slanting in disapproval. “And meanwhile, we leave the recruits to get ravaged by the unknown dangers of this planet?”
“We must first secure a foothold before we can run willy-nilly around this place,” Barrus, the head of the Spiral Wardens, replied. “We cannot help those knights at the moment.”
“Then why’d you pick us up?” I broke in. “Seems to me you had plenty of time to get us.”
Kora turned to me, peering at me through her spectacles calmly. “Captain Ozlo ordered that we pick you up so that as soon as we establish our base of operations, you could explore this place further. We’ve picked up a powerful energy source emanating from the core of this planet, something that could easily repower the Skylark. We need you to clear a path to it.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned to Hahn, our lead biotechnician. “Hahn, do you currently have-”
“Any readings on this place? No; other than the large energy source emanating from the core, the only other observations to be made are that the planet has at a minimum seven different types of continental terrain – possibly more – and that all the planet’s levels seem to be interconnected by a set of elevators.”
“Elevators-”
“Yes, each continent has two elevators connecting it to two others. One goes up, the other down. Sometimes the elevators are close to one another, sometimes not so much. This is, of course, not entirely certain, as we’ve only had the opportunity to examine one side of this planet so far.”
Parma, Alpha Squad’s recon, gaped. “You were studying this planet when-”
“Yes, we began observations as soon as the planet came into view,” Hahn said. “But that’s all we have so far.”
Kora looked down at a screen on the table in front of her. “Thank you, Hahn. Everyone, we have approximately forty-three minutes until arrival at the wreck of the Skylark.” She looked back up at me. “Squad leader Euclid, please prep your team. You will be deployed as soon as we arrive.”

We gathered in the armory, checking our equipment, tuning our weapons, packing supplies.
“How long do you think we’ll be out there?” Rulen, my tech expert, asked.
I don’t know. I thought, looking through the viewport at the strange land outside. Days? Weeks? Maybe even months?
“Chief?”
“Pack enough for seven days,” was what I said. Let’s hope that’s enough.
Suddenly the door opened, and Lieutenant Feron – a classmate I’d graduated the Spiral academy with – entered. He bore with him several plain-looking, metal cylinders: recon modules. They were often used for deep exploration missions, when normal communications wouldn’t work, so that they’d leave a trail of their findings in case they got lost, hopefully preserving their discoveries – and leading any rescuers to them.
That fact didn’t really encourage me.
“Since general communications are down, you’ll need to use these as you go.” Feron rumbled in his typical deep voice. “Also, Hahn and his team just discovered that there are different levels to this planet: they’re calling them strata. Each stratum is one level. There seem to be around thirty, including the Core.”
“So…leave these at what, every four levels?” Parma asked, taking the six modules and distributing them among us.
“Leave them as you see fit.” Feron turned to leave.
I followed him out of the armory, putting a hand on his shoulder as the door slid shut behind us. “Feron, do we know yet who or what shot the Skylark down?”
Feron shook his head. “No, but I’ve heard Hahn saying that the energy pulse seemed very similar to the kind that the core of this planet is emitting.”
“You mean the PLANET shot us down?!”
“I don’t know. Just…” Feron glanced around, then leaned in conspiratorially, “be careful, Euclid. There’s some kind of malicious energy here, that’s for sure. It makes me feel uneasy.”
With that, he walked away.
This planet is getting stranger by the minute.
“Euclid?”
I turned to see Vaelyn walking down the corridor towards me. As usual, she was wearing her draped armor, her two Flourishes sheathed across her back.
“Are you all right?” she asked, stopping about an arm’s length away.
“Fine. Just…” I shook my head. “This place. It’s getting to me. Already. I haven’t even really walked around on it yet, and I’m feeling nervous about this mission.”
She smiled, her eyes tilting upwards in a kind expression. “Don’t worry, Euclid. You’ll be fine. If anyone can survive down there, it’s you.” Then her expression turned worrisome. “At least, that’s what I tell myself.” She reached up, sliding a hand down the cheek of my helm. “Just…please, Euclid. Be careful.”
Just then Kora’s voice blared over the ship’s intercom. “Knights, we are approaching the Skylark. Prepare for disembarkment. Alpha squad, standby for deployment.”
Vaelyn leaned closer, her voice lowering to a husky whisper. “Come back, Euclid. Promise me.”
I tilted my head forward, resting it against hers, staring into her deep purple eyes. Eyes I knew so well. “You know I will.”
Her hands slipped from my shoulders, and she fled.

The Skylark was a smoking wreck.
As we circled the crash site, it was clear that whatever had hit it in the first place had been meant to maim, not destroy – it had struck one of our main engines, emitting an electromagnetic pulse that fried the propulsion system, causing gravity to pull the Skylark down to the planet’s surface.
The EMP had also fried our shields, however, and thus when the Skylark entered the atmosphere it had taken the full force of the massive friction caused by entry, igniting the entire ship. Fortunately, the fire-suppression systems weren’t really powered by electricity, and most of the fires seemed to have been put out by the skeleton crew that had stayed aboard with Captain Ozlo.
“Alpha and Bravo Squads, prepare to clear the area on landing,” Barrus’s voice growled over the intercom.
I gripped the handle of my Valiance, enjoying the feel of the weapon in my hands. It was a solid blaster, and could do good damage against almost any substance possible, due to the projectiles’ basic energy composition. My other weapon, that I kept sheathed on my hip, was a Divine Avenger, a sword that could release multiple blades of elemental attacks. It was slow, but powerful, and its aura was almost mystical to behold.
“Touching down.” The main ramp of Isora’s Arm lowered.
“Go, go go!” Alpha and Bravo Squad spread out, scanning the area for anything that appeared hostile. After a thorough investigation of the area, I gave Kora the all-clear.
Several knights greeted us as we approached one of Skylark’s main entrances. Captain Ozlo appeared at the doorway, nodding to us as we saluted.
“Well done, knights,” he said. “Alpha Squad, you have been briefed on your mission?”
I nodded.
“Good.” He pointed towards the portside of the Skylark. “In that direction seems to be one of the elevators Hahn and his team discovered. I suggest you start there.” He gazed intently at each one of us, then nodded, snapping to attention and saluting. “The Spiral Order is counting on you, Alpha Squad. Blaze us a trail to that energy source.”
“Roger that, sir!” I about-faced and started in the direction the Captain had indicated. “Alpha Squad, move out!”