█████ - Rama-Actual
PROTECTORATE INTELLIGENCE BUREAU DISAVOWED
TASK FORCE ████
In the ruins of Yinchorr Academy
Objectives: Imperial Showdown / BYOO
TAGS:
THE TRUE EMPIRE
Michael Barran
The Brotherhood Jordi Massad
He was a shadow in the maze.
The tunnels under the academy were in a bad state- disrepair, deliberate sabotage and incompetent caretakers. Who knew how many dozen self-claimed Imperators had laid claim to this place in-between the IMP's inconstant presence here? More reason the Protectorate needed to be... honed. It had grown soft and weak in the years since the disasters. It may have the dynasty, the institutions, and the cryogenically frozen administrators, but if
unholy usurpers could walk the Galaxy bearing its name, what use was it?
Sylus stopped, watching a few trooper guards of the Dark Empire hurry past the end of the hallway. The fighting outside was inconstant- perfunctory skirmishes punctuated by heavy artillery. A cold distaste rose into Sylus' heart, as he watched the myrmidons of the usurpers march away. How he longed to squeeze the life from them, to break their skulls in their helmets, to burn plasma through their hearts. But he had something more important.
Their presence, and the light from that end of the hallway, signalled that this was near the upper basements. Above, the Sovereign Protectors were stationed, along with a handful of Dark Imperial leaders and commanders. Off to the side passages that led horizontally
into the massif the Academy was built into were forgotten paths, archives, and dead memories.
Sylus eyed the hallway, before turning into the dark passageways. He had a mission to complete.
It was disturbingly easy. The archives and power pumps were in the same place the decades-old schematics said they were. The locks had long since lost power or rusted away. And there was no security in this wing, which made sense given that almost no one would be able to enter the Academy from this way.
Almost.
Sylus unslung his pack, explosive charges primed in a swift motion. The plasma power plant, unused but not drained, was easily sliced, its power systems set to overload with a wrong startup command. He could smell it- the old chemical burning that used to power this place, before even the Empire he served. The older one. Gases hung thick in the air, the HVAC having been depowered years ago.
Next he grabbed the ion spikes, packages so dense with electromagnetically detabilising energy that his fingers tingled as he held them in his gloved hands. In a few minutes, he had set up the explosive and ion charges along the long, low rows of computer terminals and physical records in the adjoining archive rooms. Loose paper was everywhere, and while there was no one else to appreciate it, Sylus allowed himself to recognise the absurdity of a skinsuit commando using a broom to sweep piles of highly sensitive Imperial government documents into a giant pile, trying to keep the pile from falling apart by hemming them in with rusted cabinet lockers filled with incendiary charges.
The last of the charges were placed when something caught his eye-
Gamma flashed across his glance as he swept the last papers. Was it-
It didn't matter anymore, he told himself. But still... he had been undetected. There was no time crunch.
An upswell of annoyance- this was not what was expected of the Master's agents. Lapses of discipline allowed fate to intervene and break the Empire once. The stakes were immesurably more
and less this time- and that was why he could not be found wanting.
Almost symbolically, Sylus flung the broom into the paper pile.
The past was over. Let it burn.
He primed the detonators and ran.
The operative was halfway back at the cave exit when the explosion came- a bone-shaking quake unleashed from the explosion of dozens of grenade-sized explosives, that set off an old powerplant under the Academy, which in turn ignited stagnant gas trapped in the underbelly of the Academy. The screeching, ringing of shorn metal assaulted his ears next, and he knew very soon, superheated gas would flood this hallway.
Two Dark Imperial troopers were at the basement junction when Sylus barrelled towards them.
"Halt!" They shouted, firing. They were clearly shaken by the explosion (and the onrushing vibration of secondaries that they could feel, though not understand, all around them) and missed. Sylus barrelled past them, lazily swiping. He failed to connect, but they flinched, and that was enough.
He was at the cave entrance when the tertiary explosions began, the conflagration finally detonating the plasma power plant and sending superheated gas all across the innards of the Academy, collapsing the lowest levels and incinerating every last shred of data the Empire had left in the Academy during its collapse. The fighting outside, however, seemed to have stopped- Sylus felt a pang of regret that he would not be blowing up more traitors, but that's life.
When he had squeezed his way out of the tiny canyon, to look back on the rising smoke from the Academy, he radioed back with the comm bead in his ear.
<<Tarkin has fallen. Repeat: Tarkin has fallen.>>
There was a moment of static.
<<Return to the mountain.>>
THREAD EXIT
