Doing well, the Royal Officers seem to be adjusting to the battlefield along with the militia and resistance fighters under their command.” Ariana added as she refocused her attention ahead. Her eyes lasered onto the hallway entrances that would lead them deeper into the Palace, deeper into Maw controlled territory.“I am sensing many strong Force signatures, as well as several deranged minds.” Ariana spoke as she closed her eyes, clenching them as tightly as possible. After taking a moment to breathe in deeply she opened her eyes, Ariana clenched her fists, ready to fight ahead.“Let’s move in.” Ariana then stood up and charged straight ahead.
Rusty followed, the other SIA operatives and resistance fighters close behind. As Ariana led the forces in, the soldiers covered the flanks, gunning down Mawites in groups of two and three, scrambling to secure their rear. Rusty kept close to the VIP, his Carbine at the ready. While he was focussed on a nearby stair, Ariana spotted several Mawites in the path dead ahead.
Her fists glowed with a faint white hue, almost like a short burning flame that enveloped her arms. Ariana connected with her left uppercut into the gut of the first Mawite, the body lifting up from the ground and before it crumpled; Ariana already swung her right hook directly into the face of the next Mawite. She felt their life force disappearing, fleeing their dead mortal bodies. Eyes wide, Ariana clenched her eyes shut, but only for a moment. Her expression grimly determined to take back her home, to retrieve justice for her father.
Rusty caught up to her, making sure the Mawites were dead. Before he could say anything, his sensors picked up a large group of two dozen in the adjoining passageway.
"Let them all come to the throne room. Every last outsider, Usurper, traitor, and defiler of the Tetan Empire that wants in let them and let them come to the Throne room. Tell the Maw to retreat and leave this place."
"Yes, gather your fellow witches and warlocks. Warn the deserving and let the enemies through all the gates. Let them claim their prize and then make this palace their tomb."
"Don't worry about me, it isn't the first time I have been buried under these palace walls. I will go down with my empire now go send out the message to the Maw tell them to leave the palace." Dyans turned and looked at her throne and taking a deep breath she took a seat back upon it. Her witches left and sent out a signal to all the Maw to retreat from the Palace let the Jedi and Alliance take.
<"Contact right! Foot mobiles moving parallel!">
The soldiers aimed their weapons to the hallways heading to the right, and sure enough a large group of Mawites shuffled past, loaded down with equipment. The resistance fighters opened fire, gunning the Mawites down and sending the rest fleeing. One of the Serjeants signalled to his posse and they gave chase.
<"Front, twenty metres!">
Rusty aimed back in the direction of original travel, hunkering beside a pillar. Almost thirty Mawites and Krath in their distinctive clothing barged out into the passageway, seemingly fleeing. The soldiers opened fire again, but this time the Mawites continued, charging them.
"They're heading for the exits! In the name of the Empress, do not let them pass!" Serjeant Wosal cried out.
The Mawites were upon them in seconds, charging through the blistering hail of fire. Rusty dropped his carbine and drew his pistols, gunning a Krath warrior down through the mask. Another was upon him, blade flashing, and the agent dodged back, and again. He raised his left pistol to get a shot into the warrior's ribs, but the warrior was faster, blade flashing again and stabbing towards him-
Searing heat and a deafening blast sent the agent flying into the nearest pillar. Shaking his head, he struggled to his feet, trying to find his way through the smoke. Someone had set off one of the plasma detonators, clearly, as he spotted the Krath warrior, armour melted, dead on the ground. His helmet's sensors peered through the smoke, but even before it identified friend from foe Rusty had clambered for the nearest weapon, one of the R14 Kaitai Combat Shotguns dropped by a fallen resistance fighter. Racking a spent shell out of the gun, Rusty spotted the nearest ongoing combat: it was Skinner, struggling with a Mawite. The latter had a revolver pressed against the agent's helmet even as they grappled on the ground.
Rusty charged forward, raising the shotgun, but it was too late. the revolver went off and the back of Skinner's helmet burst open, and he fell limp. All at once, a lifetime of horrors on the battlefield poured into Ronval's mind, breaking through all the barrier he'd put up to the pain.
Not again... not again!
Mindlessly, unheeding and unhearing, adrenaline and fury surged into Rusty as he charged, screaming. At point-blank range he fired, again and again, the shotgun blasting holes in the Mawite's armour, then her body, then her organs, splashing out of her and into the ground much as Skinner's brain did.
The shotgun ran out of shells, and Rusty began using it as a melee weapon, swinging it like a club into the back of a Krath warrior. He felt rather than heard his spin crack, and he fell upon him, rolling on the ground, knife out and sinking into the flexible neck guard of the warrior again and again.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Again and again. The last of the Mawites, routed, fled back where they came, and Rusty crawled on the ground on all fours for the nearest gun, his armour slick with viscera, his vision tinged in red. His hand, shaking in rage and clawing the ground, gripped the nearest pistol and he raised in, firing into the back of a fleeing Mawite.
And then it was over. Half a dozen resistance fighters lay slain, and Skinner with them, surrounded by upwards of twenty Mawites. The red tinge in Rusty's vision faded and he collapsed on his knees again, heaving for air. He took his helmet off, and the smell of blood, charred meat and discharged Tibanna gas hit his nose like a punch. But he did not retch, no. He had spent too long on the battlefield to know the smell as anything other than a reminder he was alive. He slowly got to his feet walking over to Skinner. Chatal came up, draping a specialised canvas sheet over the armour and corpse, wrapping it up. They knew the drill: Skinner's body would be erased without trace as the armour released a fast acting agent. Within 24 hours the SIA agent would never even appear to exist.
"
Sergeant..." Carmina walked up, limping. Her ankle dangled at a bad angle, but was otherwise fine. She looked at the sheet, and she too knew, and a gave a solemn nod.
Rusty returned it, and walked to Ariana, who had come out of the fight largely unscathed. The comms were buzzing with reports: it was clear the Maw was abandoning this place, but the VIP target
Dyans Keto
was nowhere to be found yet. Which meant only one thing: she was still here, and in the throne room, deep inside the palace where Alliance forces had not yet breached. They would right this wrong.
"
Miss Du Couteau, may we have your permission to embark on a seek and destroy mission to eliminate the leader of the Krath in the palace?"
Ariana Du Couteau
