This was a gauntlet, an enlisted set of trials more tolling than anything fronted toward him before. And of course, all on his grand return to command. Kway Teow all seemed to be a torture show aligned to prod at his psyche. All while it might have been at its weakest.
He got good men killed on Yinchorr and wasn't even there to reconcile the defeat, being captured, stunned from the fray.
He'd thought he'd doused those flames, silenced those ghosts with the vote of affirmation to his arrival back at the head of the Pack.
Those hopes were dashed in bloodied fury in these luminescent forests of foreboding flora. The jungle as it was so endearingly declared by the Sith over the broadband commo.
<: “Good evening citizens, Galactic Alliance Defence Force, General Treicolt, and all listeners. It is has been a long and dark night, but it will be a bright morning for The Sith. After a month of jungle combat, The Alliance and its soldiers will finally learn the consequences of meddling with the affairs of our Empire. Our will is iron. Watch them crawl from the dark, dash themselves against the rocks if they must. They will come to realise their deaths mean little.” :>
<: “Have faith my fellow Sith-Imperials. Kway Teow shall see the night through.” :>
The wording was targetted. Making explicit mention of Treicolt,
his soldiers.
Where it struck irony was that it'd only be
just now that the Alliance would see consequences for their intervention in the war against the Sith when they'd been along since the start, choosing only to reciprocrate as soon as they arrived in force proper was an interesting task.
All he had to remember was so long as the Sith were here, impeding him, they could not be
there. Korriban, or any where else projecting their depraved rule.
He had to walk and prevail this broken path laid before him. There was no time to reel back in indecision, let that doubt fester and congeal from the dark corner of his mind that Maynard had cast it away in-exile to.
The Sith might have been iron and thus, it would never bend. It would never be swayed into a surrender or brought to the table under reasonable course of action.
It had to be broken.
<"Sir-."> 'Molfmother' relayed through, he was hearing it, everyone was hearing it.
<"What is it?"> Maynard replied, a tinge of bitterness dousing his inflection.
<"It's- you're hearing this right?"> He continued and so too did the music. The music General Treicolt had to face.
"I admit disappointment, General Treicolt, Jedi Knight Treicolt, that you both decided to not come rescue the men and women that serve under you after I gave you the invitation to come get them. It seemed such a simple decision to make, one that would not even impact your assault on Kway Teow as delegation could have meant your orders would still be given out to your assault force. These men and women trusted you with their lives... and this is what their devotion to you bought them. Abandoned to take a meaningless city."
"You may believe this world pacified, that capturing Kway Teow will result in some victory, but you do not understand this planet,"
"Settlements and cities are not the true centers of power. Taking them only means you are surrounded by the jungle. And the jungle... is eternal."
"If you want the swarm to stop, Jedi Knight Treicolt, General Treicolt, you will need to come to the Ancient Abyss and stem the source. Otherwise, every single soldier, every loyal friend you brought here, will die. You will run out of ammunition and men long before the jungle does. I'll be waiting."
But in the fray of the butchering, one of the troopers was able to spit out his gag, a blade forced through his gut he screamed out in agony before speaking defiantly.
"Give 'em hell, Wolf Pack! Every last one of th-" Then that fiery voice was snuffed out with the thrust of a jagged dagger to the neck.
Where lost was frozen in horror, Maynard was ignited in hatred. What had every right to be a straight forward op had been melted down and pounded into this sick game.
<"Everyone's hearing this, General. Everyone..."> Whatever move he made here, amplified.
Loske Treicolt
and
Amon Vizsla were a given...but this folded in
Ryv
, the New Jedi Order as a whole at that. He'd always been the odd man out to an extent, the Jedi Code was not the gospel he vowed to, he respected its ideals but he all in all was his own man, his own values.
If he failed to uphold his more military centric approach to his Creed, he'd have little in the way of merit to look toward in its wake.
<"Yeah- I understand that."> Maynard replies, that bitterness in his tone fully setting in. That crushing envelopment of the situation offered its cold and foreboding embrace to the Jedi Knight.
He wanted to ignore all of it, pursue this sole aim...then she spoke up again, after musing in her discontent all the while he continued the advance.
<This is feeling less right,>
<May, I love you, and I’m gonna stick by your decisions here but I am this close to obliging that woman’s invitation just to kill her myself. Something tells me those drones aren’t going to do the trick.>
<"It's a trap."> He says, in no effort to deflect her, if only to mouth the realization aloud.
<"Shit..."> He says through gritted teeth.
<"We've started working a trace...if I may, General?">
<"Shoot.">
<"None of this sits right...not with me, not with anyone else in the Pack. We'll carry the fight on Kway Teow, at your orders but...if we have to keep hearing this shit..."> The Marine sounded off from the other side of the commo, breathing a deep, wary breath.
<"I know. I'm ending it. Keep up the assault, get a unit out to relieve Viszla, get him at the reins of command, keep a bridge to
Captain Raith
and his unit, don't let up at all."> Maynard ordered decisively. His gaze then fixed to Loske beside him before he relayed his next statement to his command squad Wolf Pack, switching from command frequencies to GADF proper. They all had to know where he was going, the decisiveness of his resolve. They needed to know he wasn't abandoning them, but sending a message in return.
<"Outrider Squadron is hitting the Abyss. Whoever is running the show is getting their scalp delivered to Kaas by the end of the night, Treicolt out."> Bait, trap, whatever it was, Maynard was snatching right unto it. He could only hope the aces were in their places enough to manage the assault with out him.
He anticipated they'd do just fine.
<"Understood, may The Force be with you, General.">
<"Thank you- keep the war machine turning...send me the frequency spitting out this garbage...and Wolfmother, don't give em the chance to breath easy, keep pressing this filth."> The outright vitriol toward his lack of control then shifted to that of the enemy itself.
All the while, each passing moment enveloped him more and more into the horrors of Felucia, the wicked and depraved beasts conjured in the grotesque Sith spawning of the Eternal.
Each new foe was another challenge to endure, another opportunity for Maynard to prove to himself, to everyone else that he would
endure.
His cobalt blade rarely met another rest since he ignited in the first place, cuts, swipes, lunges and slashes of the Jedi's weapon alighting any beast they tangled with and it was then that the weight of
The Swarm began to register. It would be this...until they were gone. And there was no truth in telling when that would be.
GADF command estimated Kway Teow would be the lynchpin, those hopes were thwarted now a month into preconceived plans. But planning rarely survives enemy contact and certainly not of this nature.
Inoculating what remained of his fear, he swallowed deeply, shut his eyes briefly before opening them once more in continuing the advance.
Then, he opened the line to
Eldaah Aderyn
.
<"Your first mistake was assuming that I gave a damn that your world be occupied, Sith."> He states.
<"I'm here to make you all burn.">
Then he cut it once again.
Maynard taunts through the commo to the Sith, all the while, he presses onwards as the Wolf Pack continues its assault even if tactics and doctrine relating to battling the Sith Troopers and their overlords eventually went to the way side of desperate adaption to the monsters the Jungle around them conjured up.
<"Any ping on her location? Soon as we have it, I want exfil, closest we can manage. Maybe your COMPNOR friend can tap in and get a look through their eyes."> He says to Loske, referring to
Djorn Bline
with another sting of bitterness in his tone.