Knightly Promise [OP Dominion of Kal'Shebbol]

[Tasgetius]

At this point Haven's men would have done something that never seemed to be a good idea, splitting forces apart; even more so when the infantry was pulled from their armored cover. Though it would be difficult to get through along the upper pass. The amount of rubble was more than enough to cause a delay of a few hours, even with tanks attempting to blast through it. The men that rushed towards the fortress though were along the lower path, somehow managing to make it through. Through with those that stepped on the mines it caused another smaller landslide. After the first mine went off a series of rocks and boulders came crashing down onto the lower path. This would cut off at least half of the surviving forces from each other with the other half forced to hug the walls of the lower compound.

The problem now though was that they had just wasted their frag grenades and cryoban grenades by throwing them into an already evacuated and cleared area. No one was in the lower side of the temple. Any doors leading into the under section of the temple fortress were also closed off by blast doors. Even the entrance itself was a locked down blast door which could take quiet a bit of time to cut through without the proper tools or equipment to do so. Thus the surviving men were trapped and separated from one another by an unplanned landslide and a mine field. For now they could be left alone, as the larger problem was the tanks firing on the shuttle.

Tasgetius motioned for his men as they pulled out their defenses. The temple fortress itself had no turrets to speak off, the tank seemingly taking off the top of the burial memorial which held the names of the fallen Knights. That act alone would cause the other Knights to become filled with a burning desire to react. Which they would. The quiet thumping sounds were quickly turned into loud whistling as the rounds for a series of mortars came tearing out of the sky and slamming into the ground around the tanks. With their positions zeroed in on, there was only one way for them to go, back.

@[member="HK-36"] @Haven

 

[Haven Pryde]

Haven looked at then building and became tired of the statue to fight against her, she walked away and into the building and then got to a panel and armed a bomb big enough to take out a whole city block... then she walked out sent a force throw into @[member="Miles Varden"] and ran over to her speeder bike and rode off trying to get away from the area as fast as possible.


Her own troops vacated the area as well leaving the building to it's own demise and then rose toward the temple, she was going to take something out and not just a building.

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"]
@[member="Tasgetius"]

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Sarge stopped halfway out of the building, frowning. There was no one around. Hurrying up the stairs, he found the hostages again. "Change of plans. Run. As far and as fast as you can."

They didn't need to be told twice.

Neither did he.

Everyone bolted, aiming to not only clear the building but clear anywhere close to the immediate area. When an enemy vacated a building they'd been planning to hold, no good would come of it.

 

[HK-36]

@[member="Tasgetius"] @[member="Haven Pryde"] @[member="Sarge Potteiger"] @Miles Verden @[member="Jonathan Walsh"] @[member="Syn"] @[member="Iella E`ron"]
When Haven's troopers with anti-aircraft launchers fired, many shuttles took evasive action, they were veteran pilots with years of experience, unfortunately, not all of them were fast enough to evade the rockets. Shuttles busted in fire here and there as they went down, troopers and pilots evacuating the transports, many of them would not make it.
Gunships swooped in on the anti-aircraft positions in a tactical bombing run, infantry squads began moving through the buildings and outskirts of the city as the battle went into that slow but brutal phase of urban combat. Armory on both sounds moving behind the advancing lines of troops, pounding each other and making the ground shake.

The shuttle heading towards the Knights temple was able to land behind the cover of their walls just in the nick of time as heavy fire from Haven's tanks tried to reach it. Its boarding ramp lowered as from withing came forth a squad of heavily armored Iron Company troops and the tall figure of their droid commander, HK.
"Tasgetius!"
He called out as with a whiiiiiz another artillery round from Haven's tanks strike nearby
"How are your men holding up?!"
The shuttle they just came from risen off of the ground as troops and HK went to cover

 

[Aluk Magar]

@Jonathan Walsh
In the space above the planet,
The fleet of Dark Eldorai ships began moving in.
"Strike now."
The words of their Fallen Angelii echoed through intercom as the mass of smaller, but much more nimble, ships moved in in a surprise attack against the larger OP fleet, hopefully, a hit and run would allow them to cause maximum damage and escape before total destruction.
They moved from the darkness of spacial abyss like a swarm of black hornets, quickly opening fire to strike and burn, portion of the raiders swooped down into the atmosphere, aiming to catch the OP forces off-guard and gain air-superiority from them.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

Sarge had stopped long enough to gather up the gear he'd stowed away with the body and made his way from the building after the hostages had cleared. Moving away from the building and towards the outskirts of the city, he found a secluded spot and changed again... only to fade out of sight and away from the battlefield once more.

Another mission accomplished.

 

[Haven Pryde]

Haven stopped riding her speeder and parked it, they were about fifty clicks north of the temple and as it was she didn't want to go in heavy so therefor recon would be needed, she could hear her own men up ahead telling her they blocked the path and so there was a huge failure ratio on that part so she decided to do this by using intelligence, parking her speeder she looked at her men and spoke I'm taking one unit, the rest will wait for my orders to proceed.... she said and her jet troopers walked up to her since it was her personal unit and she began to walk into the wilderness of the planet to utilize reconnaissance to figure out how to get into the temple and deal with the knights there.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Haven Pryde"]
The temple had its defenders, @[member="Tasgetius"] and his men among them. It also had a little bit of...air cover!

Right now, Jorus was flyin' the very ship he'd used in the Protectorate's service for a good bit of time, the Gypsymoth. As it happened, it was the same ship he flew for Rebel Alliance missions. It had far, far too much firepower for its own good.

He'd tracked Haven's speeder on its headlong retreat to a point fifty klicks north of the Temple, but hung back, watching on long-range sensors as Haven set out for the Temple with her small recon unit, leaving most of her force behind. Pirates -- interesting. Why would pirates have such a grudge against OP?

 

[Miles Varden]

//Back tracking because no one decided to wait//

Miles wasn't into making this a full fledged fight, and wanted to stall her long enough for the OP forces to breach the defenses. She decided to run instead of fight. He followed her to her speeder and she fled. Miles wasn't able to track her, and his jet pack wouldn't/ couldn't keep up. Miles gave the chase up for a more pressing matter, the civilians. He raced back into the center of town hoping he could find a way to take down the pirates left and get the civilians out before the bombs wiped out the city.

Where do we stand on the civilians trapped inside the city? I know there are bombs somewhere and I know our 'pirate' has the detonator, and I know which way she went.

@[member="HK-36"]

 

[Aluk Magar]

@[member="Jorus Merrill"] @[member="Haven Pryde"]
A group of generic villainous black starfighters swooped down after the Gypsymouth, firing repeater blasters after the heroic ship of captain Merrill.
Even more problematic, few missiles were fired at the Gypsymouth, however, they would not carry an explosive payload, their goal was to detonate in front of the Gypsymouth and spray the ship with the collection of small buzzdroids they were carrying, droids most wicked, designed to tear apart ships during flight.

 

[Tasgetius]

Hearing his name called brought his attention as he watched the squad disembark from the shuttle followed by @[member="HK-36"]. For a moment he motioned one of his Knights who quickly signaled the shuttle, preventing it from immediately taking off as he boarded; informing the crew that they would need to borrow the shuttle before the Knight stepped back out. Waiting until after the latest artillery round came in, the Knights began to quickly rush a portion of the civilians out of the fortress and into the shuttle. Filling it to capacity before the Knight nodded and motioned to Tasgetius whom in turned looked to the pilots.

"Get these civilians out of here. There's still more that will need evacuation."

He quickly looked to HK-36 before motioning towards the main wall. A couple of the Knights standing with him moved towards it as they set up for another round with the PLXs. Taking potshots at the three tanks that were kept further up on the main road which would prevent them from being as destructive as they could be much closer. Another round of popping noises were followed by the loud whistles once more of the mortar round screaming down upon the tanks as they struck the lead tank of the formation. While not out of commission, it was highly likely that its main gun was no longer of any use.

"They're holding out. We still have more civilians that need evacuating. The lower back gate is under assault, though it is holding. The enemy caused another landslide which took out a good portion of them when they stepped on the mines placed on the path. We also have a series of turrets aimed down from the stairs should they make it through the gate."

Just as he finished he noticed the starfighters "swooping" down on their air cover before he motioned to a couple of the Knights. Their anti-air weapons were quickly trained on the fighters. Firing quick burst rounds to prevent striking @[member="Jorus Merrill"] ship. A few of the Knights even took aim with their PLXs and managed to knock out a couple of the missiles fired at the ship, though were not able to prevent the whole payload of buzz droids from being destroyed. Tasgetius though needed to get the skies cleared for another round of shuttles to make their way to the temple fortress.

@Haven would be hard pressed to find a path through the mountains. Those that she would find; she would find to be very difficult to navigate with winding and twisting, all the while getting tighter and tighter until it was only passable by marching one in front of the other. Most of all a good amount of the paths were also steep, making it much more difficult for anyone not used to the climate to operate. Mistakes could be made and often they were. A simple slip or misstep could send someone tumbling down and it usually did.

 

[Haven Pryde]

Finding the path was now getting more narrow Haven looked at her men and then gave the signal to get up top as she walked down below, they listened and then used their jet packs to fly up on the cliffs and walked along it while Haven passed below, she was used to confined spaces and then watched as one ship targeted another with some sort of special weapon... she watched as she walked along the path allowing the force to guide her.

As she watched she noticed seconds later that a missile was aimed for the special weaponry and blew some of it to pieces and it rained down on her, she used the force to throw it away from her and dodged the rest and then got on her comms Turn back now, they can see us she ordered and then turned around and walked out of the narrow path and met back up with her forces and then looked at the ships above, that's when she noticed some of her tactical response coming with two more tanks and she flagged them down, they stopped and haven and her ops got into the armored transport and headed for the temple, this time she was not going to fail.

@[member="Tasgetius"]
@[member="HK-36"]
@[member="Aluk Magar"]

 

[Syn]

@Tasgetius
@HK-36
@Aluk Magar
@[member="Iella E`ron"]
@[member="Haven Pryde"]

Syn remained very still, or at least that is how he went. The world was not the problem but as he went about letting the white current mask him. He laid in the immersion of it to be hidden in the force, he wrapped it around him to be hidden from sight while he walked. Whoever was leading the rebels on the planet was causing some issues but he believed in HK's words so staying here in the field he breathed in deeply heading towards the previous explosion. The scents in the air of explosions and burning metal. His hand went to the saber on his belt while seeing in the force the woman who was the problem. He would be ready for her before he spoke to his padawan. "Be prepared Iella."

 

[HK-36]

@[member="Syn"] @[member="Tasgetius"] @[member="Haven Pryde"]
HK wanted to have the shuttle off of the ground because he saw it to be in too much risk to transport the civilians, or anyone really, right now. However, he would not refuse the transport to Tas when he asked for it and soon the shuttle would have been loaded with the civilians, the droid just hoped that their journey would be safe.
HK joined Tas on the tiers and ramparts of the fortress
"Running evacuation right now is very risky, Tas, the pirate forces are focusing on your fortress, I just hope they will be able to get away in time, we had hard enough time getting here."
He looked out as Haven with personal team were moving against them from one side, on the other her forces were still stuck behind landslides, but only temporary, and there was still issue of increasing air assaults.
"The rest of our forces are still fighting through the cities, it might be a while before we get any bigger reinforcements, my squad is heavily armored, you can use them to bolster your temple's defenses."

In mean time, the shuttle that had civilians loaded on board raised in the air and quickly began speeding away, hoping to escape any further anti-aircraft fire being thrown their way.

 

[Ghorumgash Khazund-Veranum]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"] @[member="Miles Varden"]
THROUGHOUT THE CITY
Loud rumble and explosion was heard by the Omega forces as the building were the hostages were kept erupted. Unknown to the forces, Sarge was able to rescue to hostages.
Many soldiers yelled out and shook their heads, others, they kept fighting on because that's what they were supposed to.
Fight was brutal and heavy, among the streets and tight quarters of the city. Both standard Protectorate soldiers as well as the heavier armored Iron Company variants.
Picking up the transmission from Miles, Ghor respondent
"Oy! Ay joost saw de buil-ding with dem hoostages blew oop. Not soore how many oof them survoived, awoiting further reports, oover."

In the mean time as the forces awaited more news about the hostages, there was plenty of fighting to be had!
Ghor wiped his large axe, he was in one of the ruined shops, he jumped through the window, slamming into one of the pirates taking cover behind the counter, spinning the axe around, he delivered a good cleave to the pirate's side, sending him flying sideways over the counter with a bloody shower.
Other pirates raised their guns, firing at Ghor. The bolts deflected off of his armor, the arcane metal protecting him, as he stomped hard into the floor, immediately, a large rock plate shot out between him and the pirates from the ground, breaking through the floor.
Ghor grinned and jumped forward, hitting the vertical rock plate with the palm of his hand hard, the plate was send flying against the two pirates, hitting them against the wall as a loud CRACK was heard when the two of them were smashed.

 

[Aluk Magar]

@[member="Haven Pryde"] @[member="Tasgetius"] @[member="Jorus Merrill"]
Well darn, the Dark Eldorai fighters chasing Jorus blew up and some of the missiles were intercepted, however! At least two missiles with buzz-droid payloads were able to get through, and those two missiles Jorus still had to worry about.
In mean time, the fighters that chased him and were not shot down whipped around, escaping any more anti-aircraft fire as they regrouped away from Knight's range of guns and troopers with another wing of fighters, coming in a path to air strike the Knight Fortress, aiming specifically for those soldier emplacement and anti-aircraft positions.

Tooo make things worse, Dark Eldorai barges were beginning to appear in the planet's skies.
The smaller ships, about as big as a corvette, still seemed plenty intimidating in the skies as they began closing in on the Fortress, their goal was to support the fighters in attempt to damage the anti-aircraft positions, thankfully, right now only two were heading to the Fortress.

 

[Coci Heavenshield]

@Tasgetius
@HK-36
@Aluk Magar
@Haven Pryde

She could hear the ground crunching under her feet as she strode toward the point of the explosion. Iella's eyes looked around the landscape, gathering all information to her and becoming aware of it. The Force telling her of several beings located ahead and soon they would be in the thick of it. Her Master, now cloaked with white current, she knew is close by. The only indication of his presence in the field is a slight whisper through their force bond link. She was expecting that, but still it was enough to find him if needed too.

The smell of the explosion filling the air, as she got closer she would see the debris. She smiled, this might prove useful.

Be prepared Iella, she heard him. But she would not reply with words, that would give the situation away. Her respond to him, she simply took hold of her lightsaber and walked beside him.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

@[member="Aluk Magar"] @[member="Tasgetius"]

He dropped a couple of concussion missiles in @[member="Haven Pryde"]'s direction, but overall, these two wings of starfighters -- and the buzz droids! -- were causing him all manner of more pressing grief. Triple autoblasters shredded one of the buzzdroid missiles, but the other disgorged its buzzing cargo all over the front of the YV-929. He rolled, lost one of'em, the others kept at it. Well, feth.

His gunners shredding Dark Eldorai fightercraft, Jorus clawed for altitude, and a good chunk of the fighters pursued. In fact, some of them quite obligingly came together to chase him. He released Connor Net Number Four with not a little glee, and an immense, electrified metal net exploded from the back of the Gypsymoth, wide enough to ensnare squadrons upon squadrons of his pursuers. His gunners added to the fun with, for example, rear-mounted concussion missile launchers. Tripleblasters shredded incoming warheads.

If anything could tackle a fighter pack and live to tell about it, it was a YV-929. At the very least, he'd bought significant time for the Knights' fortress.

 

[Tasgetius]

The situation was beginning to grow tiring and Tasgetius was not pleased at all. The fighters for the moment had been driven off and some deft flying by the vessel overhead bought them some time. Though now they had to deal with the lumbering barges coming their way towards the fortress. Not to mention that the path was soon going to be filled with more vehicles as the pirates seemingly had decided to abandon the town below and force their way up into the mountains towards the fortress. With a heavy sigh he looked to @[member="HK-36"].

"We need some heavy equipment up on the walls. We have at least two tanks left out there whose main guns are operational. We need them knocked out to help keep the path blocked from whatever might be coming up. Now lets keep the air clear."

Tasgetius looked towards his Knights before nodding. Motioning for them to pull out the heavier equipment. The good thing about the two Dark Eldorai barges; they were big, slow moving targets. With their strafing run set up though Tasgetius motioned for his men to move, to spread themselves out rather than remain clustered and in their previous positions. This way it would make it that much more difficult to pinpoint those using the shoulder mounted anti-air missile. As the heavy guns were wheeled out he pointed straight at the two barges.

The gunners on the heavy flak cannons took their aim, the barrels leveled. With a heavy tremble the first of the rounds was fired directly into the path of the two barges. The flak rounds bursting open and sending shrapnel into the enemy vessels. Tasgetius tapped on his helmet before looking to the gunners. Motioning towards the two vessels that were still incoming.

"Aim for the bridges."

With a quick nod the guns were aimed once more. This time the rounds torn through the skies for the bridges of the two vessels. Each round bursting in the air and sending the shrapnel flying into bridges. Hopefully it was enough to take out one ship and make the other think about pushing forward. At this moment it was time that they were attempting to buy. After the flak bursts a series of anti-air rockets found their way up towards the two vessels. Aim just under them to prevent the rockets from hitting any shrapnel or being hit easily in turn.

All the while the mortars that had been firing onto the path seemed to cease for the moment. They had the position zeroed in, though now they were waiting for another push before they would open up once more. Every now and again though a round would slam into the disabled tank, or near it as a warning to keep the other vehicles back. Lucky for the crews at least one of the rounds struck the side of the mountain, sending another avalanche of snow and debris to tumble down. They hoped that it had covered one or two of the tanks.

@Haven, @[member="Aluk Magar"]

 

[Aluk Magar]

@[member="Tasgetius"] @[member="Jorus Merrill"] @[member="Haven Pryde"]
The wing of starfighters that escorted the barges swooped targeting Jorus, he was their greatest threat air-superiority wise right now, being the Millennium Falcon of Chaos Forums, unfortunately, their chase did not last that long.
They were caught by surprise by the Connor Net Jorus was packing, at least the ones that survived the onslaught of his weapons, because who the heck would use a giant electric metal net in dogfight combat?!
Either way,
The net bounded around the starfighters, pulling them down and crashing them together as they began exploding due to collision, the weight and mass of all these starfighters combined made a loud crash and boom as they hit the ground hard.

But there were still the Barges to worry about, and hopefully Jorus saw them as well.
The shields of the Barges flickered and lighted, not doing that much from preventing the flak projectiles from hitting the ships as the flaks were physical projectiles, not blasters.
The first Barge moved to the front, taking most of the hits as its bridge erupted, and the ship began to descend, thankfully, due to the course it was flying to take most of the hits, it would crash somewhere off in the mountains, not the fortress.
There was still issue of the second Barge, however, that one kept on coming after the Fortress from behind the cover of the first one, and this time, it might just be too close to be shot down soon enough. It would not be long before the Barge was in range and would begin firing from its blaster cannon weaponry, aiming for the flak guns emplacements first.
To make matters worse, smaller skiffs began flying out of the barges, they were not as big on firepower, but they were carrying Dark Eldorai troopers, heading for the Fortress, in an attempt to join the ground battle in the siege. Hopefully Jorus would be swinging by with more support.

Meanwhile in Orbit.
@[member="Jonathan Walsh"] @[member="Kaida Taldir"]
The hordes of black starfighters and barges were locked in battle against OP fleet among with pirate forces.
The barges began to send more of those special skiffs, these times they were fitted to do boarding actions, and this is exactly what their goal was. Soon enough, the battle would have been taken to Omegan ships as the Dark Eldorai boarded them to engage their crew.

Aluk was in one of those assaults, next to the Fallen Angelii leading the charge, as the boarding ramp of the skiff opened, he extended his hand, his fingers pointed towards the enemy as he shot out violet lightning, cascading from one enemy to the next, the Dark Eldorai roared in their war cries as they charged.