Faction Suffer Onto Me

[Tulan Kor]

NEW BAKSTRE


Tulan Kor was the Commander, the senior training instructor, and the senior tactical advisor for Demon Company- one of the many arms of the New Imperial Order's Special Forces apparatus.

Tulan Kor lead his men- formerly Dorn Company, through campaign after campaign.

They shed bled for the Silver Jedi, until they were cast out to save face.

Tulan Kor went into darkness, into hell, to save a Jedi. And he emerged-​

As the Devil himself.

They began to call him the Devil after their formal name change. After all, they were the demons- he was the devil, the great Satan. He was boss- the boss. There was no questioning the Devil's word, for his word was gospel and truth. The men of Demon Company followed him under a new banner, and had not regretted their choice to do so.

But Tulan, was staring at the embers of their ruined base, and more importantly- the scattered, blown away remains of the men that placed their faith in him. The base he could care less about. He could've spent six years building it, only for it to be blown away the second they opened it for business. It was the men inside he cared about. The men he was supposed to protect, supposed to lead. And they followed him into hell, and what they instead received was a death sentence from an insider attack.

Initial EOD estimations was that it was a bomb underneath the barracks- placed their by a local. Tulan watched the flames dance and the fire crews, and the local militias and soldiers attempt to help put out the fire. Demon Company operators assisted in the effort, but it was an uphill battle to say the least. Grieving men called out desperately for their comrades, their friends, their brothers.

The silence was anything but- it was deafening.

Tulan's scarred face was usually devoid of emotion- Nida Perl had seen to wreaking havoc on his once reportedly handsome face, and his ability to communicate non-verbally, with more than half of his face covered in scars and burns, it was hard for him to show emotion. But his eyes- his eyes remained undamaged, and they were desperate for a better outcome, for the joke to be over, for the cameras to stop rolling and the celebrity to come out and point out to him where the hidden cameras were.

But it never came.

The fires raged on, and his men were still dead.

Sixteen, out of the thirty four men excluding himself, were reported missing, presumed dead.

Sixteen had done nothing wrong but gone to sleep in hope of waking up.

They'd been there as a means of a deterrent, and to help train the local detachment of Stormtroopers and those who hoped to became Stormtroopers, on a specialized close-quarters combat shooting package. Demon Company came on good tidings, and so far, their new overlords were pleased with their performance and willingness to train and coordinate with the regular baseline infantry units that they were supporting.

Tulan watched, from a distance, his men burn. The fire came under control, and his Demons stepped back- and began to grieve.

Tulan stared, eyes watering, with only one thought on his mind:

Revenge.

​

 

[Noel Strasza]

A S H E S
THE MAJOR - unescorted
NEW BAKSTRE

Titanium was hard to melt.​

The woman had been here on hold over, waiting simply, for the next ship to arrive in the morning to take her back home. Demon Company had been kind enough to lend her space for the day and night, however ordered it may or may not have been. No one had expected this. ​

But that was the point, wasn't it? ​

Awoken by the blast and thrown from her bed, she had supported what portions of the collapsing structure she could as her more human brothers and sisters fled for their lives. It was all they could do against something like this. Where was the enemy to fight? There was nothing, no one, to shoot.​

Screaming had beset her whirring senses as the barracks buckled, leaving her augmented frame straining against the weight she gladly had shouldered for the others' sakes. And yet, as manufactured as her strength was, it wasn't enough to spare her from getting pressed into the smoldering earth just the same as everyone else. Temperature warnings blazed across her retinal HUD as the flames drew closer, burning away what clothing she had donned for her night's sleep. Strasza struggled beneath the weight piled onto her, metal hands clawing at the rubble to find purchase somewhere within it. There had to be a way- there always was.​

And it was fearlessly by those of Demon Company that she had been dragged out.​

Freed from the crushing grave, Strasza could only sit and watch the flames from the cold ground not too far off, with steam hissing off her mockery of a human body. She looked to Tulan Kor , augmented eyes flicking over his scarred face. She did not know him well. She did not know any of them well. But she knew what it meant to have brothers in arms. She knew how deeply a sense of camaraderie went. How strong that bond was. She thought of her own soldiers.​

Her confusion turned to wrath as she stared at the commander and slowly turned her face forward, washing the sparse flesh of it with the heat of the blaze. ​

"I'm going in." She announced unceremoniously with a rise to her feet. ​

Metal hands brushed the dirt and soot from her joints, freeing her range of motion, and with only that much given, the cyborg rushed with inhuman speed back to the flames, plunging into hell to recover those who had been lost-​

-or what was left of them.

 

[Tulan Kor]

And thus, the silence overtook.

The silence of dead men, great men who had served him well. Their bodies laid out, thanks to the effort of himself, the survivors, and a support asset- a bionic woman, or what was remaining of one-
​

Noel Strasza . Tulan watched with weary eyes over the laid out bodies, flames of the now-smoldering wreckage laid behind him. It cast him in a dramatic light, silhoutted in front of the flames that consumed his men, the wreckage of the past behind him. Flags and gear were laid out over the bodybags, rifles that were carried into battle, carried to the grave.

Demons to the end, they said in mummers of voices.

And before the remaining Demons, in front of hellfire-

Stood the Devil himself.

The New Imperial Order did not train him. They had not trained a single member of Demon Company. Demon Company was forged- made. They came to their new home well equipped, well-trained, and well practiced. They came with a resume longer than the careers of most of the Imperial Officers. Most of the Operators within the group had more time in the field forward deployed than most senior officers had in their official positions. It was because of this that that they had a claim of superiority to some units in the New Imperial Order, and a healthy dose of mysticism and mystique about them. Xenophobic and isolationist, they were shocktroops and hellhounds first and foremost-

And thus, their eyes glaring with hate gave even the more veteran stormtroopers near them reason to take pause.

Elevated on his position, Tulan spoke quietly.

"These people of the planet, do not fear us, or the New Imperial Order."

He paused, the fires behind him beginning to quell.

And then the Devil spoke one more time.

"They will."

He sauntered off, gesturing for one of his men to fetch the Cyborg that assisted them.

Demon Company liked to make new friends and pay back their old ones.

She risked her safety for his men.

He'd repay the favor.