The signal of life went blank on Helgard. Lyra. Gone. At his great resurgence, his great return into the fray of battle, the venue which had suited him as good as any home he'd ever had, his triumph paled in the vantablack shadow of her supposed death. But in a way, it was the last tether to his truest person cut. Tyrell, Dantooine, Kenth all some of the last.
That progressive breakdown of a mortal man.
It began on Kintan and slowly the marble be chipped away at. From the featureless block in its beginning, to the man imprisoned beneath. As much as he was the feeble man which solely existed within the crude matter of the universe, he would rise to be the demon. To cast the fire at the gods who trembled with each slip of their fingers from the high place. To plummet to their final Gotterdammerung.
"The search turned up nothing, sir." Visek said, as far as the 501st went, he was one of the closer confidants to his command. The Umbaran found himself in that position being one of the few troopers to follow Tavlar all the way back from before Kintan. And his age and veterancy showed in the scars and old tibanna wounds that marred his pale skin.
"Except this..." He turned toward Irveric, presenting the ebon helmet shattered in electric fury with the crimson markings of the Red Riders lining the armor's features. He took ahold of it with a narrow gaze, staring down the armored visage with his own. If he could will the strength, he wanted to shatter the artifact of sorrow in his hands but couldn't command his muscles nor mind to will it to being.
"Continue the search...until every lead is cold."
"Sir-"
"I'll not ask again."
"Yes, sir."
He was as close to the breaking point now as ever, the fuse continuing to run since it began to burn in the wake of Dantooine, in the wake of his failed return home.
Soon, the spark would reach the end. And all would detonate.
Light called. Iron answered. Following the dominant victory of the Order at Helgard, there was little respite before the war machine of the Iron Sun began to turn once more. Ziost. The arid hell of a world. Blank and desolate as all the other rocks that the Sith venerated. Some 'holy land', there was no value in the dust, only in making the Sith bleed more for it than they ever would.
He looked down the rows of Stormtroopers before him. Each face uniform one next to the other. The shared visage of the True Empire. Sons and daughters of Empire. Remaining etched in that duraplast, the numbers and designations of each of the fallen. It was everything short of a 501st tradition by now. Certainly until the fight was finished and this war was over would they pay ode to the fallen brothers. Each set of letters and numbers a valiant soul. A memory.
Within the composite steel belly of the
AT-ATx he stood at the center of the bottom rack of the troop bay, hearing the audible,
foreboding shriek and metallic clatter of each heavy footfall. In these moments, the war felt small. The Galactic positioning of where he was, where he stood in relation to Dromund Kaas, Korriban, the heart of darkness all but a distant thought. All the mattered now was the here and now. That instinctive protectiveness of his soldiers took the center stage of his consciousness. In spite of the monolithic command he wielded, he would make sure his presence on the battlefield acted as more than baltant symbolism. That he stood where the Sith'ari refused to. But he would alter the course as he saw fit.
He who controls the battlefield controls history.
As the Starbird flourished in defiance within its beaming light against the creeping shadow of darkness, the Iron Sun would come to form its eclipse. It was a dogged defense here in New Adasta. Nigh concurrent to the Empire's offensive at Helgard, the Alliance struck hard and fast to compound upon the hard fought victory at Korriban and Felucia. But all light is due to fade eventually.
Iron.
Iron never bends. Iron never falters.
<"The Seventh Marines are bogged down in the middle of it, Sith dropping down all over them...civilians are present, no doubt the Sith'll try and rile them up. Shades of Garang..."> The Stormtrooper Commander, Bastion born human by the name of Gavyn Typhee spoke up in candid agitation.
<"Yeah well- no playing candy ass with it any more...get so much as a scent of some insurgent, you give em the smoke. I'm not losing any of the boys because we hesitated. After all..."> He looked over his shoulder, the direction of the Sovereign Imperator.
<"This isn't Dantooine...those were the Boss's people, they were gonna be ours too, but...Ziost? Kill em all I say..."> He said, glancing to the walls of the assault transport. A few blaster bolts of a heavier payload cracked against the troop bay of the walker, but the constant roaring pace of the walker assured them all their approach would not falter.
Beneath the frigid gaze of his helmet, he was the warrior king once more. Leading from the front. No longer bound to the grey and laurels that the more political demands of his position made of him.
Then, the lights illuminating the troop cabin shined a stark crimson. The hard coded training beat into them to form the foundation of a deep laden instinct took over and they turned from their seats to line up in order to the rappel line which no slowly moved along its hydraulic rail into position. The composite hull yawned open and the fire and fury of the outskirts of New Adasta gave way. The first troopers grasped ahold of the line before sliding down unto the broken ground beneath, unslung their rifles and made way forward. Speeder bikes dropped down from their launch bays and followed in all the same.
The aerial assault of the Sith brought the rain down unto the approaching New Imperials, not like they hadn't heard this music time and time again.
Irveric was one of the last out. And he wouldn't leave Ziost until the work was done.
He walked in line with the rest, his rifle slung over his chest, his posture high and unnerved by the cacophony of chaos and carnage that erupted around him.
It was war.
It couldn't be better.
Demon Company wasn't far behind the Imperator's Fist.
He knew damn well of
Tulan Kor
and the poetic irony that he would be
here, to aid the Galactic Alliance in its most dire hour.
Irveric seemed to have his will about him in battle, unrattled by the nearby shock of turbolasers and explosions. He'd been through it all before.
With the rear of their assault secure, the 501st pressing onward past the AT-SBs which would no doubt act as the New Imperial means of turning New Adasta to the black cauldron in which it'd lock the Sith holdouts within and pound them to dust. He sought Demon Company's Commander personally.
<"Commander."> He reached his arm out to take the former Antarian's with a show of respect and greeting.
<"You don't seem the one to go into battle uninformed but do you know the situation that awaits us within New Adasta? It's dirty, Sith bearing down from ontop of us, civilians, insurgents. But I know you and your men thrive in these conditions..."> Irveric states. He wanted to spark a cigar alight as he spoke in the shadow of the lumbering walkers but relented, he liked the sensory masking of the helmet around him anyway.
ALLIES |
NIO |
GA |
Tulan Kor
|
Tiberius |
DECEASED Erskine Barran
|
Willan Tal
|
Kal Ostan
|
Cotan Sar'andor
|
Captain Raith
ENEMIES |
TSE |
Irina Volkov |
Valen | OPEN