ENEMIES |
TSE |
BotM |
GA |
NJO |
EE |
AC |
Keilara Kala'myr
|
Rowena |
Percival Io
|
The Mongrel
|
Erion Justeene
|
Kyrel Ren
|
Zachariel Steelblood
|
Heinrich Faust
|
Pietro Demici
|
Eina L'lerim-Vandiir
|
Lyrrin
|
Baron Reinhardt Ström
|
Kalie Alverez
|
Blade Ice
|
Aerarii Tithe
|
The Mongrel
|
Jax Thio
|
Ingrid L'lerim
|
Madelyn Lowe
|
Saul Colsan
|
Draco Miles
|
Iris Arani
|
Screams echoed between the towers of the district as the Sith-Imperial brawlers were taken out one by one, or squad. The TodHusars had now the upper hand, and although surprise was no longer their ally, the sheer number of New Imperials made the battle weigh in their favour. The upper levels had been secured ten minutes ago, and the kill teams descended lower and lower to find new targets. The mission was clear, and when fellow Captain Nukth Kelga'an arrived, the progression would be faster even. It was now a question of time before the New Imperial Order secured a route for its tanks towards the Citadel.
Far below every other squad of the company, Yularen's was still abseiling, lower and lower. From time to time, a sniper or a frightened Sith-Imperial would open fire through the window panes, but they were dealt with efficiently. The squad was yet to suffer significant losses. While Jerec continued its descent alongside the tower, the surrounding spires, all part of the High Rise Spires district, remained silent and calm. One could have believed the war had not yet touched this side of the planet. The calm was unsettling for some of the Husars, but the Captain simply enjoyed it. He knew it wouldn't last.
As the squad was now seven meters high in the air, Jerec began to suspect a trap or a complication. No shots fired, no bullets fired from the ground floor. Why wasn't the garrison opening fire? They could have eliminated the team long before they touched the ground. But suddenly, a New Imperial spotted something. Was it cries of pain, or people begging for mercy? Impossible to tell before the last five meters were crossed. The Captain became frustrated with the time they spent abseiling. They had to get to the ground, faster. He quickly unbuckled his grappling cord and fell for a couple of seconds before activating the grav-chutes and landing, not so badly, with a rollover on the floor.
He unsheathed his sword and grabbed a pistol, trying to understand what was going on. He saw them, Maw reavers slaughtering the Sith-Imperials Legionnaires, led by a monstrosity clad in power armour. Maybe a champion of some sort, a chosen warrior to lead the cultists. He swept through the Sith-Imperials with ease, disembowelling the combatants with ease, relentlessly chopping and mauling what stood before him. He was unstoppable, and even a direct hit from a blaster rifle did not make him hesitate. In fact, it only added to the fury inhabiting him.
Jerec joined the fray, his blade going forward with this fluid move refined by Anaxsi scholars. A couple of reavers fell under his assaults before the rest of the squad engaged the Mawites. Quickly, only the monster in power armour and a handful of his followers remained. The latter faced the TodHusars bravely, while the Captain lunged forward and attacked the Chosen. A dart forward, a step to the right... The dance could have lasted a thousand years, but the Sergeant decided to cut it short. A grenade into the neck joint, and the Chosen was gone.
The surrounding fight was brief, but as the last reaver fell to its knees and allowed Yularen to deal the finishing blow, the TodHusars spotted movement inside the spire. Some Sith-Imperial survivors were crawling towards the entrance, most of them gravely injured. Jerec could have given into his sadistic desires and ordered to let them suffer, but he did not want to step closer to the monsters he was fighting. He did not want to become as twisted as the pillager he had just killed. He was better than this. His Husars were better than this. A sleight of the hand, and his squad captured the Sith-Imperials Legionnaires. Five of them could still stay up, but the last two were too badly injured to even look up to their victors. These people were broken soldiers, betrayed and abandoned by their masters, forced to watch as the galaxy enacted its revenge upon the homeworld of the tyrants. They, on the contrary, were just products of this tyranny, forced to fight to the death for a regime they didn't necessarily love or care for. The anonymous warmachine of the Sith had been careless for the troops it bled in pursuit of victory and facing its enemies the last time, it had thrown everything into the living hell of the battlefield.
From afar, the prisoners could have looked like Maw marauders, and not Legionaries. They were young, and most were maybe not past twenty years old. They wore broken pieces of armour collected across the battlefield, some even not from Sith-Imperial origin. None had a helmet, and most leg protections were rugged and heteroclites. However, they were all standing proudly, refusing even with their attitude to back down to illegitimate rebels. They were tired, weakened by their wounds, but still had a fighting spirit at the forefront. If given the opportunity, they would have slit every New Imperial throat of the district without hesitation. But they were no longer in that position. As a Husar began to check their ID chips to collect data and register captured foes, one of the paratroopers began to suggest ways to get rid of the prisoners.
"
Sarge, why don't we force them to dig their own graves? With what the spire's going to suffer, we can even spare blaster bolts and let the rubble do the work for us.
-
I mean, given the orders, we could do that, yes. I don't know if we have a shovel, though..., the Sergeant replied thoughtfully.
-
That'll be funnier even, then! Let us watch them dig with their bare hands on this rocky floor", the Husar laughed, attracting the squad's attention.
They were shared on this proposal to force the Sith-Imperials to dig by hand their graves. Most of them were hilarious at the idea, but some were eager even, their eyes shining with bloodlust as the deads of Bastion, Muunilinst, Vjun, Ziost and many more rose again. It would have been justice to get rid of them that way. The Imperator had already issued orders on how to deal with that kind of prisoner, so why bother giving them a clean death? Pushing the Legionnaires to their psychological limits would be an excellent way to see if the indoctrination was still an efficient way to rule over what little remained of the Sith Empire. In the end, the squad decided to pick one of the captured soldiers and start with him. They chose quickly and opted to take the most scared of them all, pushing him down to the grown and kicking him until he decided to start digging. Then, the Husar who had made the proposal first took his blaster out and coldly stated:
"
Very well, Sith scum. You have thirty seconds to start digging or I'll cut one of your legs off. Or you can choose to abandon now and we will take you on a trip aboard our dropship. What do you choose, scumbag?"
Without a single word, the Sith-Imperial started to dig, trembling as he did. Without any means to open a crack in the ferrocrete floor, he punched, again and again, his fists becoming bloody masses of broken bones and scarred tissues. He gulped once as he slowed down, biting his cheek to bear the pain he was inflicting on himself. And he endured, punching again and again until Jerec stepped in. He forced the Legionnaire to stop digging, made him rise up, and got him back in line with the others. The scan was almost complete for everyone, so the Captain ordered summary executions to begin. He did not say a word, nor to the prisoner, he had saved from torture, nor to the soldier who had initiated it. He did not care about the prisoners, and he did not care how his men could act towards them. The orders were clear.
One by one, the captured men were gunned down, until the last two remained. They had not been scanned yet, but the TodHusars were growing impatient. The ammunition dropship was late, and the explosives were yet to be set up. They had to be quicker if they did not want to be caught in the open. Again, Yularen took matters in hand, finishing himself the scan as the characteristic noise of a TodHusars dropship was heard between the High Rise spires. He got to the last prisoner, the last in life, the youngest. Nothing really designated it as a Sith-Imperial combatant, except the chest plate he wore and the blaster he had been captured with. The fierce look he threw at the Captain made him hesitate to scan him, but he finally decided to do so and brought the device over the boy's arm. For a second, the holograph was blurry, but then, Jerec read something that made him hesitate.
"
Yularen, Odile, 16 years old. 2nd Class Legionnaire. Born on Dromund Kaas..." read the ID chip. Something unexpected was happening there, and Yularen did not know how to react. For sure, the Yularen family was huge, but how could members of it be forced to serve the Sith? The answer wasn't clear for the Captain, and he decided to lower his gun. He grabbed the young prisoner by the shoulder and pushed him towards the landing dropship, ordering his men to take care of the explosives. He would handle something else. As the whole company gathered afoot the building and squads began to report the success of their mission, Yularen was interrupted by a violent shrug of the Sith-Imperial. Without leaving the officer a chance to resume advance towards the dropship, the prisoner decided to take the initiative.
"
Why are you bringing me to the dropship? Have your little friends convinced you to toy a bit with me before pushing me into the void? You can do whatever you want to impress me, rebel, but if you are trying to make me speak some valuable intel, or if you want me to plead for mercy, you are asking the wrong man. I won't bow to you, I won't ask for pity. Kill me in the way you want. I don't care. One day or another, the Sith will rise again to avenge us, and you will be buried under a million deaths serving the Sith. You can't win."
Jerec was fairly unsettled by this combativity, and he reacted the only way he knew: violently. "
You should beg for mercy, my boy, or you'll soon rot in one of Prefsbelt's darkest dungeons, pleading to see the colour of your hands. Resist like this once more and I guarantee you you will never feel your face again. Now, young Yularen. Either surrender and accept defeat or fight back and I'll beat you up enough times to make you regret the day you were born. Your Empire is over, your masters have been murdered, your cities ransacked, your mothers raped. By dawn, tomorrow, nothing on this planet will ever bear the infamous mark of the Sith again. You have lost the war, and the culture you were trying to defend will disappear at long last. So get in the dropship and shut your mouth. There will be no more gentle warnings. Understood?"
The Captain was beginning to feel more and more bloodlusty as he spoke to the young boy. He could kill him and not regret it at all. It was just a Yularen among so many others. Who cared?
But there was a mission to finish, a war to be done with first. He had to be done with this spire. It was almost over here. As he pushed Odile into the dropship and attached him to one of the seats, he heard his second-in-command climb too and ask what else was there to do. He couldn't really know where to commandeer his company next, so he first ordered the dropship to take off. They would see what they had to...
"Barran to Yularen! Send me the meanest Anaxsi you've got... You owe me for Vjun, so I want you to honour your obligation to the Woad - by sending all your toughest bruisers to my exact location. Lance One out!
All Imperials, all Mandalorians - this is Barran! Make your way to the Southern Historical District, it is time we riot together.... Fix bayonets, draw blades, and bring out your knuckledusters! IT IS TIME TO PAINT THESE STREETS WITH MAWSWORN BLOOD!!!! UP-CLOSE AN' PERSONAL!!!! THE TRUEST ULTRAVIOLENCE YOU WILL EVER KNOW!!!! Lance One out"
Well, at least they knew now what they had to do. Get to Barran and join his elite Sabretooth to sow chaos and disorder across the streets of the Historical District. Those tactics never ceased to amaze the Captain. How could a man so rash and looking so impulsive be the Lord General of the New Imperial Army? It was a true mystery to him, and he couldn't help but notice he wasn't the only one, especially among junior officers, to wonder where the crazed Galidraani would take them next. But now was not the time to ask stupid questions. Orders were given. The TodHusars obeyed as always. With a smirk, Yularen picked the comm up.
"
Lord General, it is an honour to see you haven't forgotten us in our spires. The TodHusars are just nearing the completion of their initial objective. The tanks are free to advance towards the Citadel, now. We will join your troops in the massive brawl we are noticing close to your headquarters. While the TodHusars aren't as heavily armoured as Stormtroopers, they can pack a punch in terms of the close-quarters fight. Have you ever heard of the tragedy of the helmless Mawite? It's not a story your senior officers would tell you about. Just remember an Anaxsi with a scattergun is more dangerous than one of your tanks in this kind of battle.
Now, Lord General, you might want to look up to the High Rise spires. We are about to start a little firework you'd not want to miss, at all. Just enjoy the deep nuances of red and fiery orange as we repaint the sky... For the Empire."
Smirking more than ever, Jerec pressed the detonator, igniting the explosives the Anaxsi had packed under the spire, and creating a chain reaction that chopped the building down, floor by floor, as all the detonite exploded, transforming the mighty skyscraper into a fireball before it crashed onto a neighbouring tower that started to collapse too. The avenue was clear for the tanks.
The atmosphere was now very different to what it had been before the first jump. While it had been calm and silent when the AA guns had opened fire, it was now excited and tense, as the paratroopers were now all eager to confront themselves with the Maw and any fool that dared stand before them. Imperial Chaos. Only Barran could come up with this term and find it suited for a New Imperial operation. It was perfect indeed to see the very concept used as a banner by the Maw be overturned and used against them. As the Imperials had bled on Csilla, now would the Maw bleed. No survivors accepted. No prisoners taken this time.
The dropships flew over the battlefield once before preparing the paratroopers to jump. It was essential to find somewhere to make the landing impactful, and Jerec needed to analyse the situation before he decided to do anything. As the carriers began their first run over the Maw, they opened fire to make their presence known. The crowd of cultists, reavers and warriors reacted violently as expected, and some became distracted by the flying attackers that now posed a significant threat to the battle. Explosive darts and scatterguns scarred the land and wounded the Mawites until Jerec noticed Barran, engaged in close-quarters combat. While he seemed to be fine, the Captain couldn't help but find it more interesting to land near him than anywhere else. He could be of some help in the midst of the brawl. He wanted to be there.
"
Very well soldiers, this is how we'll manage that situation. Squads 1 and 3, specialised marksman designation. Jump onto some roofs and do your job. Squad 5, jump with me. Everyone else, find a high ground spot to assess the situation before engaging in anything crazy. Keep your heads cool, sieurs, there is absolutely no need for me to launch another recruitment campaign. We need to..."
It was inevitable for the aerial artillery to encounter some sort of return fire at a moment or another. Jerec's dropship had been hit, and the cockpit was gone. As the carrier began to fall down, the paratroopers all reacted quickly and jumped, without waiting for the order, trying to escape the crashing body of metal. At that moment, Yularen realised one of the passengers had not been evacuated. the young prisoner, still tied up to his seat, couldn't go anywhere. Without losing a second, the Captain somehow managed to get to him and shoot his bonds sufficiently for the boy to free his arms. Then, the Imperial grabbed him and jumped, ten meters high, in a crowd of merciless killers that had sworn to make Imperial blood bleed today.
The crash of the dropship caused an explosion large enough to clear some space where the two last passengers could land on. But as the Mawites quickly got their ideas back into place, the Captain realised he had only one option if he wanted to survive. He wasn't that far away from his initial objective, Barran, but he had still a good distance to cover with a horde of marauders to deal with first. There were two of them on the other side. And one was a prisoner. Could he really trust him? he had been wounded by Mawites in the first place, but he didn't feel very nice towards the New Imperial either. The dilemma had to be resolved now or never. If Jerec didn't choose right, he would pay the ultimate price. With that in mind, he handed a gun to the Sith-Imperial.
"
Try to stab me and I'll leave you with your new friends, okay? It's best if we survive this together, otherwise, we wouldn't be alive at the end of the day. If, after this battle, you still want to slit my throat, I'll make sure we can settle that in an arena. For now, try not to kill me, please."
The hordes of Mawites began to advance towards the crashed dropship, splitting the crowd between the forefront of the brawl, near Barran and his Sabretooth, and an imposing group of cultists trying to claim the Yularen's head. With a bit of luck, the TodHusars would have adapted to the new situation quickly enough to try and get their boss out of there, but if it wasn't the case, then hope was an unaffordable luxury. The best they could do was hide in the carrier's carcass and shoot as many as possible. The Mawites opened fire on the cabin, their crude weapons tentatively piercing the armoured hull. Hidden behind it, the two unlikely allies waited for the right moment before sneaking out and opening fire in return. The reavers were caught in the open, slashed by a scattergun and a dart launcher. A rhypalm grenade was launched, then another weapon entered the dance as Jerec began to use his pistol alongside his own blaster. The cacophony became unbearable, the waves of cultists began to grow closer and closer.
Jerec noticed, in the very background of his mind, shots being fired from roofs neighbouring the battlefield. The specialised marksmen were in place as it seemed. Help was always welcome, but the Captain knew he wouldn't get very far with this little support. Already were the Mawites climbing the hull of the vessel, and the paratrooper was forced to let go of his pistol to grab his sword. It was unsheathed in a fluid gesture, beheading as it did a cultist trying to attack him. The dance of blades began, and Jerec was slowly pushed out of the carcass by the number of enemies he was facing, trying to have Odile as close as possible. Step by step, the two began to walk back, allowing the flow of Mawites to push them closer to the Imperial lines. Even though it put the duo into a precarious position with enemies on their back too, it was a kind of relief for the Husar to see he was coming home at last. But now, as he spotted the TodHusars joining the fray to save their endangered Captain, he could strike again and be on the offensive. He lunged forward, darted and advanced towards Barran, whom he contacted while trying to reach him.
"
Don't mind me, General. Just sowing some more chaos over the place as you ordered. Unfortunately, I'm out of rhypalm. Do you have any spare by chance?"
In the end, Barran's strategy was fun, if not decisively victorious.