Operation Phalanx
908th Legion, 303rd Forward Security Battalion, 1st Company, 1st Platoon, Temporary Combined Section 1
Location: Nirauan, Fort Yularen, Battlefield
Objective: Enforce
Throughout the front, the sounds of quietly barked orders filled the air as thousands, tens of thousands of Chiss prisoners were slowly processed away from the front. Smoke filled the air from the day of battle, and compared to the roar of battle mere hours ago, the silence that hung in the air, clining to the smoke, was almost chilling.
Moving back and forth along the battlefield, Sergeant Orik Dakari had commandeered an officer's speeder to assist in supervising the movement of prisoners. Instead of rest, now came another, newly draining, part of the day.
His section, and indeed the entire Battalion, were rapidly dispersed throughout the front once the ceasefire came in. First to make sure the Chiss didn't try anything, then to set up the weapons collection points and filtration camps (holding locations in the field for prisoners before they were packed off to proper POW camps) and finally to mark out escort routes from the front to weapons collection to holding locations.
Already Orik had to chase away, arrest, and even execute Imperial soldiers in just the past hour in over a dozen encounters attempting to outdo the Sith in injustice and cruelty. He conducted his duty without relish or hate, though he found the rush of angry justice disturbingly comforting. When he closed his eyes, he could see again the eyes of the confused and terrified Imperial soldiers as they blinked their last by his hand.
The speeder bumped along the torn dirt road, jolting him to focus. With him was Neremus and two troopers, one a driver, the other a stormtrooper manning the improvised weapon strapped to the top. It wound its way along what was the front, and Orik kept a sharp eye for trouble. They move past one of the weapons collection points. A line of Chiss soldiers held their weapons at arms length, handing them over to an Imperial officer at the head of the line, who put the blasters in movable racks that were periodically rolled back to the collection point. These points were not mere pits, but a series of temporary field station to process weapons, explosives, blades and so on. Especially with Charric weapons, they needed to be careful with containment as normal security shields in these field armories did not stand up well to any Charric discharges.
He heard shouting off past the next mound, to the left and away from his supervision route.
"
Take a left," Orik ordered, steeling himself. The driver dutifully slew the speeder left and past the mound towards a column of escorted prisoners.
As with the other columns, they were supposed to be escorted by Imperial troopers with a substantial MP presence. The entire 303rd Forward Security Battalion had been mobilised to supervise the prisoner movement process, and especially these parts were a young trooper with too much heat in the blood might start to get ideas when his column moves behind a sight-obscuring landmark.
Unfortunately, there were simply not enough MPs to process the prisoners of this entire battle, especially since many had been among the fallen. Harder still was Orik's (and really, the entire body of seasoned commanders in the 303rd) demands of strict control of escort personnel and routes: observational angles from afar, escorts per column must come from at least two different units, at least four MPs per column, and at least two that were not 'blooded' in the preceding battle or else one sergeant-and-up who was not. Standards were ordered to be loosened as per Theatre Command directives, and here Orik was already seeing the fruit of that. In the column up ahead, a Stormtrooper was kicking in the ribs of a prisoner by the road while three of his buddies stood guard, manhandling the sole MP in this escort. The rest kept their eyes fixed on the other prisoners who were forced to face away.
"
Throttle up, driver." Orik brushed the dust off the MP brassard of his Combat Armor and checked his pistol, reloading it. Neremus followed his lead and checked his blaster. Now within earshot, he could clearly hear the shouts of the wayward trooper, screaming insults and vengeance. Most painfully, Orik recognised the cracking in the man's voice, the raw pain of grief.
"
Gunner, man your weapon."
The speeder skid to a stop mere metres away and Orik hopped out, blowing into his helmet's whistle. The noise stopped even the trooper that was kicking the lungs out of the Chiss on the ground, and Orik and Neremus strode up.
"
What seems to be the problem, troopers?"
One of the 'guards' stepped up, sneer on his face, probably about to say something theatrically angry, but another stopped him with an arm across his chest. This other one was not wearing his helmet, and his armour was half-undone, bandages across his chest sticking out around his bare shoulder.
"Nothing,
sir-gent."
"
Then get a move on. We're all on a tight schedule." Orik hoped this was enough to defuse the situation. Better they get a move-on than let it escalate. And it was true. While the loosened restrictions were causing trouble, too tight and the same could happen. A slow process makes twitchy soldiers, and emboldened prisoners that were in the filtration points to try something. And of course, more time meant more chances that a freak misunderstanding would spark the start of Kyber Blue.
One of the other troopers gargled and spat on a Chiss corpse lying the road, before they turned away from Orik and continued their escort.
"
You." Orik called to the one that had been brutalising the Chiss. The young man stopped and tilted his head.
"Yeh? Need something?"
Orik holstered his pistol and walked over to the Chiss on the ground.
"
Help me carry him to the speeder."
The soldier looked around at his comrades, unsure, before stepping over to the Chiss. With Orik and Neremus, the three of them brought the Chiss into the back of Orik's commandeered speeder.
"
Neremus, gunner, assist these men bringing their column safe to the filtration points," Orik said once they were done. The stormtrooper that had been manning the gun nodded and got off the speeder. Orik stopped Neremus as he walked past, whispering:
"
Support the other MP. And the next one that pulls something like that gets two in the back."
Neremus nodded. Orik pointed at the trooper.
"
And you, follow me."
"Why? I didn't do anything the alien didn't deserve."
Orik whirled around to face the man, pushing his helmeted visage half an inch from his nose.
"
Deserved? We are at war, trooper. You know what you deserve? A bolt to the brain and nary a letter to your sweetheart back home getting her backwalls blown out by a blueskin after what you pulled. So sit in the front with the driver before I change my mind about what you and your friends deserve."
The trooper muttered something under his breath, deflated at the unexpected venom in the MP's voice, before meekly getting into his assigned seat. Orik took a second to compose himself, surprised at the wave of heat that washed into his head. Neremus and the other stormtrooper had stopped when they heard Orik hiss at the man, but the sergeant waved them away before getting in the back of the speeder with the bloodied Chiss.
The alien's face was swollen, his mouth caked with blood and his body contorted in pain. No medics here. They would have to make a straight drive for the filtration camps.
"
Driver, back to Oh-Seven station."
The speeder gave out while still on the road, passing by another column of prisoners. It stopped several metres from the filtration camp's makeshift gates, falling to the ground with a
thunk.
Orik carried the wounded Chiss to a medic with the help of the trooper he had arrested while mechanics jogged up to the speeder. This filtration camp was better equipped than the other one he had left: proper security around the Prisoner 'cages', which really resembled open fields surrounded by a basic force field and covered by a tarp. This station was where prisoners were given rudimentary shelter, queued up for basic rations and water, and processed out to larger transports that would see them to the actual PoW prisons far to the rear in Fort Yularen and beyond, to be held until they could be sent off-world away from the Reclamation front.
"Come on, MP, no way you're gonna write me up for that," the trooper grumbled after they handed the Chiss over to a medic.
"
First, address me as Sergeant. Second, no, I won't. You just need to cool off somewhere with adult supervision," Orik replied, leading him to one of the prisoner cages.
"
Olphen, heard you're short-staffed," Orik called out to the MP patrolling it. When last he saw her she was being wheeled away from the front, but a short bacta application and the Private was ready for duty again, albeit with oversized bandages around her forehead.
"Yea, looks like I'm the only sleeper runnin' aroun' at this time of day."
"
Here's something to make up for your luck," Orik planted his hand on the back of the trooper he was escorting and shoved him towards Olphen. "
I caught a darter. Spicy one."
"Oh, I hate that." Olphen gestured for the trooper to follow her.
"Bad news, big man. Latrines are full. We need new holes dug, and I ain't doing it again if I cain't wear a propeh helmet with this theng on my head..." their voices trailed off as they moved out of earshot.
Orik let out a slow sigh through his nose, turning back and pushing past the throng of prisoners and security personnel milling about, returning to the speeder, which now saw two mechanics trying to fix its broken repulsorlift, driver sitting on the floor beside.
"
Take ten." The driver silently gestured his thanks and trotted along to the ration queue.
Orik ambled about, checking his temporary platoon's status reports as the messages filtered into his hut. Confirmed KIAs among the MIAs of the company, escorts completed, military justice executed against offenders. The sergeant found the nearest quiet medical tent and found himself a seat in a darkened corner, taking his helmet off. There, among the groans of the dying and the wails of the defeated, Orik put his head in his hands and sobbed.
Rakaan Horne
| Lucien Dooku | Aoki Mira
