He who controls the battlefield controls history.
These shattered pathways of broken dreams and forlorn memories faded into nothing at all at the streaming passes of crimson, amber and emerald blaster bolts passing across the way of the street in the exchange of death and destruction. What might've struck Irveric the most was the overtness in which the Sith allies marched in their ranks.
The Confederacy.
The ever stalwart protectors of freedom and the proclaimed 'spritual successor' to the Galactic Alliance now...here. Amidst the salt and smoke of a bloodbath to make certain that more worlds like Dantooine would be subjected to a regime that regarded its people the same as it did its legionnaires within this context. Combatants, all tools for the state.
Bricks in the wall.
Only had to shove them aside to pull the veil that revealed their true and despicable masters in the cloaked darkness that sent them to embark on their death march.
<"Sir! We'll hold the advance here! We need overlord over Garang."> The Zabrak Captain Krodare Rexargo shouted out in Irveric's direction. One of the 501st draped in their cobalt striping over white duraplast sheened in urban dust to form a dirtied grey, the touch of war made manifest permeating through all of these broken grounds.
Even following
Jaeger Harrsk
's beckon of urgency, to bring the fire Irveric had to light the pyre.
Irveric turned, slinging his rifle over his chest as he pulled back from the tip of his advance and back down the alley way. In a frontline position, once more isolated from the surrounding crack and fire of the pressing war, more of the Imperator's own began to march past him with urgency in their step as they began to move unto point Aurek.
With none of the other Axis callsigns present, Irveric needed to take the reigns of command again. Another one of his subordinates attached to his command squad, Major Savik Krennel guided the Imperator to a stretch of open ground behind the lines enough to breath a moment's respite but still far too close for comfort.
Dropping a holomap projector unto the ground, soon enough Irveric's vision was alight with the state of the battlefield around him in Garang.
<"The 'Spearhead' is making gains but our units dropped into the city are S-O-L until we can regroup. Air is contested, little to no chance we're able to scramble a strike if need be...that...and our fleet needs everything it can get in orbit."> That last remark, drew the arch of a brow from Irveric before he wrenched the helmet from his head, taking this respite to spark a cigar and set it between his lips in a hungry draw of the sweetened herb.
"Our boats outnumbered?" Irveric inquired. The New Imperial Order had laid dormant in months to rebuild the assets sacrificed to grasp the Braxant Run within its iron fist all the while the Silver Jedi and the Bryn'adul feasted on the Sith Eternal. Now the balance of power in orbit, the means by which the New Imperial Order would live and die on this assault was in peril at least far as it favoring the New Imperials had gone.
Krennel nodded, letting a solemn silence fill the air for a moment, Tavlar nodded in reply, accepting the circumstances before moving on with his strategic evaluation. There wasn't anything he could directly do to manipulate the situation in his favor. All the same, he well and truly trusted the Grand Admiral's judgement in the engagement. Air support in force or at the very least, enough to wrench Sith dominance over Garang's airspace was seemingly out of the picture. Voi'kryt's spearhead was moving steadily but had the main stretch of the planet's capital between them and Tavlar's Axis.
He needed that timeline cut down, cut far far down.
Taking one last deep draw from his cigar, he eventually flicked it into the broken ground below.
"The Sith Eternal is a hydra, Major."
<"Sir?">
"We need to start lopping heads..." He iterates, twisting the helmet in his hands to peer into his own metallic visage, chunks of gore, bone and flesh dotting the grey and cobalt surface marred by the burning ash.
He speaks once more as he moves to slide it over his head once more.
<"They'll put every living soul between us and them. Every man, woman and child. No price is too great to avoid the retribution for their crimes. They know what they've done and they'll go down kicking and screaming to avoid their just fate. But justice knows every man's number, Major."> Irveric states. No strategic cost would be too great for the Sith when it came to burning through the ranks of the New Imperial Order's fighting men and women. Were it not for the collective eyes set on Garang from across the Galaxy, painting over the canvas of suffering and tyranny with dogged desperation.
Accompanying the Red Riders, which were a fast moving unit in their own right was the Myrmidons, the sons of Nirauan at the command of
Lucien Dooku
. His commo pinged the Warlord of Nirauan.
<"Dooku. Take your Myrmidons and find
Darth Prazutis
, disrupt the chain of command. Soon as the Sith leadership falters, the foundation they stand on will collapse beneath them."> He utters the first line of the command, understanding the weight that accompanies it.
<"Axis won't be far behind."> He iterates.
But before he addressed his callsigns directly, another line had to be hit. Apollo,
Hunter Blackburn
. The encryption took a moment for Tavlar's commo to patch him through but within the moment, he speaking to Blackburn directly.
<"Apollo. If you haven't already, your cell has the all clear. Disrupt all Sith military activity but our priority target is target designation 'Libra Gold'...do what must be done."> Irveric commands.
Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt
, the 307th and their armored spearhead were well on the move, but the pace needed to be double timed.
<"Vindicate-Actual...Lyra. I need your formation to envelop target designation 'Libra Gold' as its top priority, they've dredged civilians to fight us...continue the push toward the center, leave no quarter to these cowards."> He said in reference to the Sith proper.
Axis.
<"All Axis callsigns, it's time to go. All form up on Aurek. We're hitting the garrison now. "> Tavlar orders, urgency packed into his voice.
<"Patriarch has issued a retreat to his unit, sir."> Savik iterates.
<"A section of Mando'ade should be enough to relieve him."> The Sons of Mandalore were able to move faster and hit harder than most any unit within the New Imperial Armed Forces, that much was undeniable.
<"Copy.">
One final line of communication opened.
Ravraa Vyshraal
<"Moff Vyshraal...I know you're here..."> He says, though not in a tone foreboding but in a voice as stoic as he ever had been toward the Togruta.
<"Take charge of the evacuation efforts, move every civilian out of Garang and past the cover of our advance. Get them whatever they need...but I will not fight the Sith on their terms. Offer reprieve to those caught in the middle...so I can leave no quarter for the wretched fiends that left them here."> It was time for the gloves to come off.
With the aces in their place, Tavlar assembled his unit, moving back down the alley way to his originally compromised position at Point Aurek.
And there it was, the ingloriously meager garrison of Libra Gold, now the Sovereign Imperator's sole aim.
<"We good to go?"> He asked in regards to the unit of 501st Stormtroopers around him, his own.
<"To the end, sir.">
<"To the end. On me."> A surge of suppressing fire from the 501st toward the outside of Libra Gold's fortifications, accompanied by heavy infantry weapons and high explosive anti tank rockets allowed enough reprieve for Tavlar's unit to thread the needle and advance.
But that time of reprieve was cut short, immediately
<"That's him! That's Tavlar! He's gotta go!"> The tank commander nestled within the seat of the repulsor tank sounded out, peering through the sights of the repulsor tank's main weapon.
<"Set down. Pull him in."> He says, dragging the scope of the sights toward the Imperator on his charge. The deflector shield of the tank began to shimmer with the concentrated fire of the 501st infantry unit held back to cover the advance, the super charged round from a TL-60x Heavy Repeater being the coup de grace that withered the right most tank down to the durasteel hull beneath.
<"Fi-"> The command was snuffed out as the shaped charge of a New Imperial missile launcher slammed into the front viewport of the repulsor lift, the high explosive anti tank charge shattering the glasteel and sending an explosive blast of shrapnel through the crew cabin.
An errant burst from the heavy laser cannons of the other sent the 501st trooper responsible for the hit into pink mist, the other tank opting to prioritize the New Imp targets based on their power projection, how much they hurt them in the stead of moving to sever the head from the
snake.
The other tank slowly hovered its way toward the fortified corridor that the 501st held down to secure the advance unto Libra Gold.
With the next man up, another of the Imperator's own took ahold of the weapon.
<"Backblast! Clear!"> One of his comrades shouted as he propped himself unto a kneel, aimed down the sights and fired into the second tank.
Fire, shattered metal and black smoke emerged in its wake, that spare moment needed to advance up the walls.
As soon as he scaled the fortification, there were two less stormtroopers with him than he began with but now he was on the ramparts and a stretch closer to the heart of the beast. Scrambling for any form of cover, Dauntless Commandos were on them immediately, at least two sections here.
An unfamiliar foe, having stared down the barrel of Sith in some form or another uninterrupted for almost four years, seeing soldiers of the Confederacy was an unwelcome change of pace.
But in the end, a new challenge.
<"Form up, as soon as the rest of Axis clocks in, we're back on the move. Until then, we hold our ground."> Tavlar commanded.
All he needed now was the rest of Axis to follow in line.
ALLIES |
NIO |
NJO |
SOM |
Jaeger Harrsk
|
Tyrell Paxxus
|
Djorn Bline
|
Tulan Kor
|
Rika Hiro
|
Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt
|
Tavius Muuaji
|
Daros Karmann
|
Sturit Goan
|
Rynn Vizsla
|
Ravraa Vyshraal
ENEMIES |
TSE |
ELDER COMPACT |
Darth Prazutis
|
Ulrich
|
Luna Terrik
|
Gerwald Lechner
|
Redd
|
Frank Sterling
|
Gnox the Insatiable