POST 1
//MYGEETO //Objective 1: Battle in the Frost Cyclone // Sith Imperial Banking Clan Vaults At Southern Mesas//
//Location:// NIO Imperial Force Corps Encampment Mesas Tower A, Southern Mesas Towers, Mygeeto//
//Action:// Assaulting No Man's Land Bridge One, Assault on Sith Defensive Positions [See Full Action Summary at End of Post] //
//Allies-in-Vicinity:// Cai-Lan Raeth,
Jekadius Lawson
,
Cameron Farwell //
//Enemy RP Partner://
Taeli Raaf
//Accompaniment:// Imperial Force Corps Knights Battlegroup Aegis// LINK TO KNIGHTS BATTLEGROUP ORBAT [x]
//Equipment:// [LINK] //
[Flashback - Weeks Prior]
Nirauan System Space
First New Imperial Crusader Fleet [Imperial Force Corps Base Fleet]
Aboard the Invictus-Class Battlecruiser the Nobilissimus
Pant. Pant. Pant.
Her breathing was low, purposely elongated and dragged out. Each breath contorted her throat in a taught tense clench as she exhaled the physical pain and soreness of her muscles. Her eyes were closed and her lips pressed together in a firm flatline, while the entirety of her head hung down pointing at her lap. The dark locks of her hair dangled over her face in a black curtain that was sodden with sweat, making the strands clump together in ragged daggers. Beads of perspiration wept from her brow and trickle down to her gold armored chin before plummeting onto dark durasteel tiles, leaving a pattern of speckled blotches in the gap between her folded legs.
Pant...Pant...Pant.
The breathing was slower now, artificially reduced by the powers of the Force that High Knight Marshal Zovesa conjured within her. The pervasive and invisible power wrapped itself around her lungs and heart, dulling their busy work and swaddling the Chiss in an almost stasis like trance. Her heavy breathing nearly subsided, the once loud pounding of blood pumping that echoed in her ears faded, and heaving exhales of her nostrils became silent slithers of air. Zovesa had entombed herself in a Force guided state of Meditation of Emptiness, coupled with a dangerous method of healing the mind and body by slowing its bodily functions to a near halt, a Force Hibernative Trance.
In that still moment, Zovesa began a different practice session. Unlike the Combat Practice Droids laid strewn about her personal dojo, her opponent was the dark things that lurked in the corners of her mind. Suppressed emotions and moments of rage and terror, back when she was pressed into the Sith Academy as an enslaved Acolyte to their Sith Masters. Weaponized for their use and savagely reprimanded in failure. But, Zovesa’s crime was worse, rebellion. The Sith Masters had offered their power, and repulsed by it, she rejected it. She was punished.
Her jaw, throat, and an arm were sacrificed in order for Zovesa to survive that punishment. Ever since then she had vowed to crush the darkness that tried to consume her, tried to mold her into one of them. But, yet she struggled. Center. She had to find her center. The Imperial Force Corps she had founded were built on this concept of Center, a Center devoid of dogma and monastic obligations. A Center austere void of singular purpose. In this hibernation, Zovesa found that center. But, felt something else. An intruder. She opened her eyes and the Chiss red irises focused on a Miralukan that had entered.
He was dressed in a white robe and veil over a white Imperial tunic. His dress was a contradicting combination of Imperial austere uniform and the religious garb of someone from the ancient remnants of the Guardian of the Whills. He approached Zovesa and crouched before her, kneeling to sit cross-legged with her. Zovesa greeted the Arch Asklepior, Chief Doctor of the Force Medics of the Force Corps Knights, with a motionless stare.
“What did I say about your clandestine empathomancy, Kalassa,” Zovesa growled.
Dr. Kalassa smiled and tapped the black steel visor that covered his empty Miralukan eye sockets.
“I see when even I do not want to, Marshal,” Kalassa replied.
“What do you want?” Zovesa said.
“To ease my worry,” Kalassa said, reaching out with his white gloved hands to rest them where Zovesa’s were clasped around her knees.
Zovesa felt Kalassa’s warmth, the warmth that came from his super empathic powers. As the Arch Asklepior he taught the Force Nurses and the Force Hospitaller’s, the Nurses’ combat sisters, the ways of healing the mind, soul, and body with the Force. He was a mysterious master of using the Force to peer into people and mend what broke them. In Zovesa, he saw two visages in the Force. The stalwart High Knight Marshal that dared not break her facade of stoney determination for the sake of being a bulwark of the New Imperial Order. The other was harder to see, it's image blurred and barely glimpsed. It was of a frightened young woman, much younger than Zovesa is now. A young woman, who creeps in the depths of the soul hiding from the darkness and weeping tears no one else will see.
Kalassa shook his head and pulled his hands away,
“You can’t smother her forever.”
“Don’t lecture me Kalassa,” Zovesa hissed back.
“Emotions need to be exposed. Especially trauma,” Kalassa said.
“Like any wound, if the bandages are too tight and the flesh covered too long, it’ll fester in the damp darkness...and kill the patient.”
“You don’t have to be an iron maiden all the time, this kind of affliction will not go away until it is confronted.”
“If I don’t keep it held, it will end me,” Zovesa retorted.
“I will kill it in the darkness. And it will vanish from me. I just need to focus.”
“You won’t and it will kill you,” Kalassa warned.
“Darkness cannot be smothered, it can only be faded by light, let it meet the light.”
Zovesa smashed her fist into the durasteel tiles between them. The Force that had guided her meditation snapped it her fist, denting the tile, as her voice boomed in a thunderous clap.
“Enough!” She howled at Kalassa.
“Leave, now.”
Kalassa sighed, and cupped Zovesa’s fist. It was shaking, betraying the threatening power it had previously emanated.
“You cannot run from this. You will face it sooner than later. Especially when we face the Sith in battle. In that time you will face not only their evil but your own. Why double the foes you must face Zovesa?” Kalassa pleaded.
Zovesa’s lips bent and twisted and she almost added tears to the droplets of sweat that were shaken from her face.
“I...can’t,” she confessed.
Kalassa smiled,
“There are those who can place your trust in them. Marshal. Those you have dived into the abyss and swam back.”
“Like the Lord Executor?” Zovesa picked up on the reference. It wasn’t the first time he had recommended her to seek out his consul. (
Vaulkhar
)
“Perhaps,” Kalassa said coyly.
“Trust in those that have consumed and survived that which you fear. That is your duty, to face what you fear the most.”
[Presently]
Imperial Force Corps Encampment
Mesas Tower A (Aurek)
New Imperial Army Mygeeto (NIMYG)
Southern Mesas, Mygeeto
Kalassa’s words orchestrated long drawn out visions that unfolded in the imaginary sight of Zovesa’s meditating mind. Displayed on the backs of her close eyelids, his nostalgic image repeated his words back to Zovesa. “That is your duty, to face what you fear the most.” What she fears the most. The Sith did not make her fear, she knew them well. But, she knew them too well. She once almost became them. That is what she feared. Even now it bothered her. “Trust in those that have consumed and survived that which you fear,” his words echoed once more. “Zovesa. Trust him. Trust him,” the echoes reverberated.
“Zovesa.”
“Zovesa!”
The last echo was loud and had a sudden reality to its vocalization. High Knight Marshal snapped from her trance, jolting in a shivering flinch. Shocked back into the real world, Zovesa looked up hurriedly to see that the echo had come from Lieutenant Colonel Riktor Dreggs. The Commander of the Aegis Knights Battlegroup 4th Heavy Assault Regiment. He was staring down his old war-sister with a confused and worried look. The two had been together for years. Ever since they were both Sith Imperial Legionnaire conscripts. Dreggs rested his hand on Zovesa’s shoulder and gave her a slow shake.
“You alright?” Dreggs said,
“You look out of it.”
Zovesa blinked slowly a couple of times and batted Dreggs’ arm away.
“I’m alright, was just lost in thought.”
Dreggs nodded sarcastically and replied suspiciously,
“Uh-huh.” He wiggled his fingers at Zovesa, gesturing the motion of an over exaggerated Force push,
“Doing your Knightly magic?”
“Meditating, Lieutenant Colonel,” Zovesa hissed back, “
Now report.”
Dreggs shrugged and shook his head. Bracing against the wall he took a tired seat beside Zovesa. He dropped onto a makeshift bench of supply crates with a tarp draped over it. He slumped backwards and rested the back of his head against the durasteel walls of the Mesas Tower midsection lobby space, now converted into the Force Corps HQ Encampment.
“It got worse,” he said.
“Before, we could barely see down Bridge One. Now we can’t even see the schitting bridge. It’s a complete white out.”
“Winds are worse. They’re pounding so hard even the repulsorcraft are finding it rough to stabilize.”
The Chiss said nothing and only listened, absorbing the details, calculating and recalculating. The frost cyclone had blown in suddenly overnight. It smothered the entire Southern Mesas in gale force winds, thick blizzard snowfall and a blinding blanket of heavy clouds. Visibility had dropped from several meters, to a handful, then to nothing. The Sith occupied Mesas Towers across the main bridges of combat were gone by dawn and by the afternoon the bridges themselves became a uniform opaque wall of wind and snow.
It was only thanks to periodic scouting raids down Bridges One and Two, the no-man’s land between the two forces, and probe droid deployments that they had any readings on the enemy. In the meantime, the siege continued. For a month or so now. They had been entrenched in the foothold they had gained in the initial landings and offensives across the Southern Mesas. Force Corps had taken control of a ring of Mesas Towers and their bridges in the advance towards the Sith Intergalactic Banking Clan Vault Towers (SIBC-VT). While other NIO Forces had established control over other Mesas Tower complexes. Now all that was left was the two networks of bridges, One and Two. Although a modestly kilometers long stretch of bridges. After a long siege, it felt like a lightyear between them.
Zovesa eyed the rest of the encampment in the lobby space as Dreggs continued to curse the weather and the Sith. Imperial Force Corps Knights and their Auxilia Trooper accompaniment were huddled by heaters powered by Gonk droids hooked to them through a cluster of large wiring. Supply crates lined the walls and were bunched together to form benches and rest areas. Communications arrays dotted the cavernous space in islands of cylindrical holo-projector modules holding court with the Gonk and Mouse Droids that powered and maintained them. The entire space had the air of crypt. The only sounds were the ambient blips and whistles of droids, hushed chatter of soldiers and the oppressive howling roars of the storm winds outside. With all of them swaddled in thermal insulated blankets, they might as well be mummies slumbering in their besieging tombs.
But the push was coming. And soon. Zovesa hoped it would be the last one. The siege had lost its momentum and the narrow bottlenecks of the bridges were proving deadly chokepoints. The signal would come from War Master Kor Vexen in tandem with an airborne gunship assault, deployed by Inceptus Assault Ships who were due to arrive through the atmosphere. They had to be ready. They had to rally. Or they would break. It was the duty of the Imperial Force Corps and their Auxilia to be the vanguard force that would break Sith defensive positions so the gunships could execute airborne assaults. They had to move. But, the waiting had dulled their edge. It worried Zovesa.
Still looking around, Zovesa caught sight of a communications alert blinking in the holo-projector module before her. ‘Finally’, her mind gasped with relief. Zovesa pressed her palms down on her knees and stood up, as she did she threw off the heavy blanket around herself. Dreggs leaned forward eyeing her rise, the last sentence of his complaining report dangling from his lips and tumbled into a silent death.
“Open that channel alert,” said Zovessa, flicking a pointed finger at a comms-officer sitting beside a holo-projector module cupping his tin cup and kaff.
The officer laboriously rose to attention and swiveled around to press some commands into the touchpad array mounted to the sill slopes of the module. A blue haze disgorged from the projector ballooning into a static and storm obstructed holographic visage of a naval officer.
“This is Deliverance to Azure Queen,” said the naval officer,
“Do you copy?”
Zovesa nodded and approached the module, placing her hands down on the edges of its sloped sills and leaned closer.
“Copy, this is Azure Queen,” Zovesa said.
“You have an ETA for me?”
“We’ll be dead over you within the half-hour. I also have a message from the War Master,” the naval officer’s rippling and crackling voice barely replied. (
Darth Bellum
)
“Aurek. Aurek. Aurek.”
The coded command made everyone in the encampment freeze. Dreggs rose up sharply and rushed forward standing right beside a silent Zovesa. Aurek. Aurek. Aurek. An aurebesh NIO coded command which when translated had a simple meaning - Attack. Attack. Attack. It was a devastating order for a full offensive assault. No holding back, committing all forces. All means. All personnel. Zovesa didn’t know whether the War Master was supremely confident in his strategy or the siege had made them desperate. But, such an order was never to be taken lightly. A charge could break a siege or it could break their army.
“We’ll be dropping gunships soon Marshal,” the naval officer concluded,
“Goodluck.”
The visage dissolved away and the bright blue retreated back into the module, leaving Zovesa shadowed by the dim light within the encampment. Zovesa straightened her back and left the module to march towards the exit of the encampment, Dreggs followed closely behind. He watched her scan the blizzard and the barely noticeable long promenade of the bridges before them.
“What’s the call Marshal?” Dreggs asked.
“You heard the War Master,” Zovesa grimmly replied.
“Fire up the Homing Beacons for the Gunships to follow,” Zovesa continued,
“And contact the Knights Battlegroups and give them their orders.”
“Aurek. Aurek. Aurek.”
Dreggs didn’t need to give his reply, that was all he needed. He rushed to bark commands at the comms officers at the other modules. Howling at them to begin relying orders to the other Imperial Force Corps - Victrix, Ballistar and Praeventors. As well as the other NIO infantry forces. They would launch out in a frontal charge to break room for the gunships to make their way to land. Zovesa turned on her heel and looked at her equipment, placing her weapons and rifle energy caps into the combat vest strapped to her Force Corps Knight white armor.
Along with her lightsaber, nestling it to the shoulder mounted pouch on her vest. Around her stormtroopers engaged in their pre-battle rituals, busily checking their weaponry, their gear and bantering about finally moving or silently praying that the charge would be their salvation. Zovesa, despite her icey disposition, heard and saw it all. She was always watching over her men and she knew what she was about to send them into. They would be like a wave crashing into a shore. The resistance would be harsh. Even with the zero visibility assisting their advance, once the Sith noticed their assault they would stop at nothing to end it. The Sith didn’t care much for their soldiers. Their soldiers were shields and bulwark. It’s easy to defend a position when you can disregard the lives that absorb the fire with their bodies.
Zovesa finished her prep and strode out of the encampment. She was met with ferocious gales. The wind was sharp, relentless, and bitterly cold. It felt like a thousand vibroblades slashing micro-lacerations across her cheeks, nose, and lips. The snow pelted her face so much she had to place her helmet on so that she could see. The frost cyclone was just a threat as much as the Sith now. Reaching redoubt that had been constructed in the open plaza semi-sphere platform that led to Bridge One, Zovesa hailed the armored regiment that guarded. Lined up was a
Turbo Tank team along with flanking
Cataphract Tanks.
“Osk-Mern!” Zovesa yelled at them, while slapping the hulls of their armored craft.
“Osk-Mern let’s go!” The tank crews rushed into their units, and activated their engines, weapons systems and scanners. Meanwhile the Auxilia Troopers of Zovesa’s own Knights Battlegroup Aegis, moved to her position. Heavy Gunner Troopers, carrying
Reaper Chainblasters, as well as Shield Troopers outfitted with heavy
Blastshields flanked them with other Auxilia Troopers following behind led by Force Corps Knights. As they filled in behind her Zovesa walked among them carrying out battle orders.
“Task Pattern Reek,” Zovesa said while pointing to her men, “
Turbo and Cataphracts take lead, I want fire teams in two column low profiles following tightly behind. Shieldbearers and chainblasters on the outermost flanks and Squad Shield runners in the center. Each column should have a few Knights as Force Cover. We keep it at rolling fire alright? Tanks pummel, we follow and cut down what’s left."
“Understood?”
“Copy Ma’am!” the commanders of the various Aegis Regiments replied.
“Good, go!” Zovesa said.
Zovesa moved into her own column behind the Turbo Tank who’s entire craft hummed with the pulsing echoes of the tank’s
Pressor Field Generators. There in her column, she addressed the Knights with her (
Jekadius Lawson
&
Cai-Lan Raeth ). “This is. Remember you are Knights. You protect the men and lead the charge. Do not falter. Have no fear. May the Force be with you all.”
Over her internal HUD comms, Zovesa gave the order. One every bridge that made up the stacking network of bridges of Bridge One and Two, all Imperial Force Corps Knights Battlegroups began their advance. Using the latest data from probe droid recon, they gunners in the thanks angled the long barrels of their armored attack crafts and awaited the command to fire. As they passed the safety of the redoubts, and moved into the bridges proper they began to pass the bent, warped and scorched remains of countless other offensives. It was a graveyard of debris, shrapnel, and smoldering metal carcasses that polluted their advance. Getting closer and closer down the bridge, Zovesa gave the order.
The barbette mounted particle cannons of the Turbo Tank and the
MegaCaliber Six turbolaser cannon of the flanking Cataphracts blasted their volleys forward. Their flying arcs of fury briefly illuminated their paths across the blizzard as they slammed into the Sith defensive positions across the bridge in the opposite towers. Each flash of bombardment dyed the snow in bright hot halos of color, giving short clear glimpses of the other side. The only confirmations of their shot landing was the distant rumbling thunder of explosions and blooming flowers of fire ahead.
The final charge had begun. Now they would fight bitterly for the gunships to land.
//COMBAT ACTION SUMMARY:// PLEASE READ POST BEFORE READING SUMMARY //
Imperial Force Corps Knights Battlegroup have begun assault across the unlclaimed bridge's between NIO and Sith positions; i.e. No Man's Land Bridge Networks, labelled Bridge One and Two
Zovesa and Knights Battlegroup Aegis advance across initial sections of No Man's Land Bridge One, with tanks screening advancing trooper contingents
Tanks have opened fire on defenses across the bridge
Inceptus Assault Ships inbound to deploy gunships
Irveric Tavlar
Imperial Warlord Zovesa
Darth Carnifex
Ellie Mors
Telis Taharin-Zambrano
Lyra 'Sybila' Voikryt
Republic Engineering
