SENJO<br/><br/>The UC571-As were simultaneously a blessing and a hindrance. First they were extremely bulky and heavy. Each gun in the carry-drum weighed 35 kilos. The drums were broad deep carbon fibre cases with internal stress bars, carry handles and shoulder straps. Remove the military stencils and they would look deceptively like olive drab civilian luggage. The eight 500-round ammunition cylinders were another 5 kilos each. These were stuffed into two hard bags that slung over each shoulder crosswise, like bandoliers. Giving the second one enough of a swing up and round and the intelligent Velcro seaming connected with the first to form a single centreline load on the back that was essential to be able to run and maintain balance. Together the two hard bags gave the wearer the appearance of a turtle carrying its shell. Without picking up the carry-drums, my ability to move quickly and quietly and take cover behind anything smaller than a one-seater speeder was compromised. I lugged the gun drums in each hand, my pulse rifle was around my neck and secured with a clip to a D ring of my coverall, but until I could dispense my load I was, in terms of usefulness to the squad, unarmed as well as a big target.<br/><br/>The other negative was that the guns took over three minutes to deploy, load and arm. They needed to be sited in tactically useful positions. A poor field of fire could leave dead ground for approaching hostiles to exploit. There were accounts of marine platoons being overrun despite having a perimeter hardened by UC571-As but which were poorly sited. In addition they were a fully defensive weapon. Until our platoon secured a perimeter and set up a base of operations the sentries were almost useless and served only to slow me down and take away one pulse rifle from the firepower of the squad.<br/><br/>The blessings of the guns, however I have already outlined. Would I go into action without them? No. Would I prefer the Corps to deploy them on a small tracked vehicle so they could be manoeuvred more easily and brought into action quicker? Yes. Did I believe that the C&C M557 APC that would have carried them should have been deployed on this mission? That is a problematic question, one I could not answer. The tactical decisions were taken at levels above my authority. Looking at the broken terrain on the display monitors as it passed beneath us perhaps the APC would not have been a viable asset.<br/><br/>I listened to the tactical deployment orders from Sergeant O'Shay and stored them. Private Law I knew. Corporal Morden I had spent less time with. He seemed a cold person, distant though an excellent marksman. The Leftenant was solid. I noted the unbalance between the two teams. The decision precluded fire and move bounds by squads. The situation was still unknown however, we may not be called upon to fight at all.<br/><br/>(http://m.blog.hu/be/belterjnek/image/LV426/LV-426.PNG)<br/><br/>As the ramp lowered and the marines deployed I noted Private Law duck down to the left rear, covering the eight o'clock position. I took up a post in full defilade behind a large rock and faced out towards nine thirty on the clock face. The chemical soup of the young atmosphere was raw and I dialled down some of my olfactory decoders to stop them becoming a distraction. There was a stiff wind blowing, twenty to thirty knots from the south west - from the equator - with gusts up to forty knots. There was also a distracting light rain falling, little more than heavy mist droplets but the winds threw the precipitation horizontally, hampering visibility. I released the gun drums and took hold of my pulse rifle, swinging sideways around the rock to scan down a tumbling narrow<em>arroyo</em>or gully that ran downslope to our left. I remained still, fixing my neck tensioners in a lock and stabilizing vision, my in built motion tracker coming online at a one syllable mental request. I powered it off almost at once, the density of water droplets fogged the readout to the point it was practically without benefit. Observing the<em>arroyo</em>and the sides of the small valley I could detect no movement out to the three-hundred metre horizon.<br/><br/><strong>"West flank clear!"</strong>I called and maintained position.<br/><br/>I called up the surface scanning data and examined it again. The dropship had deployed us on a vector of 297 degrees - north west. The colony was ahead of us where I saw Lance Corporal Beneke moving with the smart gun. Behind us, behind the ship, to the left of Private Law's direction was the unknown structure. Both were approximately 2500 metres distant.