Asudai Rapux
Iron Marquis
Location: Darkside Rift
Objective: Tie down Maw forces
Tags: OPEN FOR MAW AND EE/GA
Anti-Maw: Ara Sheridan Torrun Vell
Maw: Nyaeli Thomas Barran Ronar
An hour ago...
Lord Asudai Rapux tapped his foot impatiently, listening to the sound of blasted, cracked soil crumple underneath his armoured feet. He was restless, a type of behaviour unbecoming of a lord of the Epicanthix. But he had been forced out of battle for weeks now, after the unthinkable betrayal of some of his own men. He was angry at them, and angry at himself and his retainers for not realising sooner. He had been caught lacking and incompetent at a crucial moment, and had been unable to take part in the next operation.
Here on the hills fringing the outpost Asudai could look into the distance, beyond the malefic scar on Panatha's surface, towards the ocean. The twisted ruins of Canthar, once crown jewel of the kingdom. He hated knowing the Mawites were crawling around it, and had been refused from conducting an amphibious strike against it. In fact, the Eternals were more than lacking in faith in his abilities after the raid in Canthar. Injured, he had been 'advised' to sit out the subsequent efforts against the Mawite ritual for 'observation'. No doubt the Eternals had been working to weed out any more traitors in his ranks. Not that his presence there would have turned the tide, but Asudai would have appreciated being allowed to assist in stopping the corruption of his homeworld.
"M'lord, our transports can get underway soon."
Asudai looked up to the speaker, Captain Chizar. A loyal and reliable retainer, even a friend. She had helped run his family's trade ships for a while, and knew how to handle herself and her fleet in a crisis. A good choice. She'd been briefing him on the evacuation plans.
"Yes, thank you for the report. Go now with grace and good fortune."
"Sir, if you don't-"
"Let's not invite disfortune, shall we? We have our duties to tend to."
Duty. That damned and holy word. The Captain wanted to say something, her cybernetic eye-lens whirring, but she ultimately simply nodded and left.
At least he was here now, to do what he could. The past few weeks since those events had seen Asudai and his soldiers assist the Eternals' and their allies efforts to contain the Maw, to draw their attention and keep it here. Asudai could not care less about the intentions of the large armies, even if he was concerned about rumours of some sort of superweapon; his focus was on shedding as much Sith blood as possible, to tie down their war machines so fewer could be used to intercept the evacuation sites. While Captain Chizar and her crew led the few spaceworthy transports to evacuate his subjects off-world, Asudai refused to leave before his subjects did. The Iron Maquis would be the last of Xanha to leave Panatha. He had nothing else.
"M'lord, our outriders are ready to begin combat operations."
Asudai nodded, turning to face the exits of the base. His men were assembling outside the outpost, a platoon of surplus "Tuco" Personal Walkers, clothed in camouflage and modified to operate in the ruined forests. The rest of his soldiers rode in transports, forming out just outside the outpost. They would move out soon.
The thought of the Maw conquering and occupying Panatha angered him. The world had suffered so much in the past decades, a calamity heralding a more difficult time every time. No more, he would repel the Maw from Panatha or die trying. It was his duty.
"Warriors of Xanha!" he called as he climbed atop his command vehicle. The men and women of his small warband, a pitiful few dozen looked up and waited expectantly. Grim determination writ into the dirt on their faces, the anger in their eyes. They too would gladly sell their lives for Panatha, with or without the command of the many royals that had abandoned them.
"You all know what to expect, and what is expected of every one of you. Our great civilisation lays threatened again, a long string of tribulations wrought by the enemies of our people. They worms of the Maw have defiled our cities," he gestured to the ruins of Canthar in the distance. "They have taken our home-" out to the coast, beyond which lay the smouldering ruins of the Archipelago Asudai called home. "-but the legacy of our people, and our people can never be taken, only lost. Every effort you give, every moment you buy is another that will allow more of our people to survive, to continue another day, and to carry the torch of our civilisation. The monsters beyond that rift- they are know nothing of the ties that bind, of the courage of our people. Show them why they will fall, today."
Wordlessly, the warriors of his command saluted him. There was little else to say after weeks of battle, even today, when the actions of the Maw would decide the fate of the world. Silently, Asudai signalled for the driver to move off, and the convoy headed deep into the forest.
NOW
Asudai roared as he smashed into the Mawite, the momentum of his strike knocking the warrior of his feet and impaling him on a broken tree stump. All around him the battle raged: his walkers stormed forward, laser cannons felling trees flanking the Maw position, tossing ambushers off their forest canopy perches to their doom below. On the ground, the IFVs gave armoured support while his warriors charged into the thick of the Maw defenses. A hastily erected barricade was all that stood between them and the shield generator that guarded the prize: Mawite rocket artillery that had been roaming this side of the rift for weeks; dozens of them infiltrating past the porous line of contact along the rift, then deploying deep on the allied side of the forest, firing, and repositioning in under a minute, hit-and-run strikes that prevented the outpost from moving into offensive operations for too long or from taking in orbital resupply with their shields down.
Asudai dodged a burst of blaster fire and returned the favour with his own hand cannon, downing two Mawites where they stood. Now was a chance: the Mawites frequently reconvened their artillery with supply vehicles on the allied side of the forest to maintain operational tempo, but were almost impossible to detect due to the almost purposely chaotic movement patterns. Until yesterday, when a Mawite scout had been captured and the information wrung out of him.
"FOCUS FIRE!" The nearest walker stepped onto and past fleeing Mawites, crashing through the layer of deflector shields deployed around the artillery. Asudai caught up to it as it fired, destroying first one ammo transport, then a rocket tank, then another transport, before secondaries from the explosions lit up the entire conglomeration of artillery. The blast was so strong as to almost knock the walker off its feet. The Mawites only seemed to become more agitated by the explosions, rallying to push Asudai and his warriors back.
"HOLD FAST!" Asudai dashed across the battlefield, ordering his warriors to form a defensive spread to absorb the charging Mawites. While he fully intended to win this battle himself, he was sure the explosion, whose smoke now breached the forest canopy into the open sky to be seen for miles around, would draw both friend and for alike...
TAGS: OPEN
Location: Allied Outpost starport
Objective: Evacuate civilians
Tags:
On surface: Adenn Kyramud // OPEN
In Orbit: Tegan Starfall Mig Gred Tovald Kahmen’’a Mykel Fellheart Shani Niki Priddy
Unconfirmed: Asanté Tsilor
So now, he and his men were dug in around the primary evacuation port. Technically part of the allied outpost, they were still separated and autonomous. This was both a boon and a curse, for it left them to their own devices, but also left much of the chaos in their hands. However, thanks to their close ties to the Panathans, things would go far more smoothly than with the rest of the defenders. Not to mention, many were more focused on fighting the Maw.
All around the starport refugees milled about, not quite yet in a panic, but anxious to gain quick passage on the transports. Port personnel were able to keep the queues relatively ordered, but it was only a matter of time, Captain Chizar knew. She was on her way back from meeting with Lord Rapux, and she ran the numbers again. Captain Chizar's Insolence and the other ships of Lord Rapux's fleet were filling quickly, the Xanha refugees already having been berthed for days. Chizar checked her calculation again, and was reasonably sure that capacity matched demand overall, but unfortunately the inefficiencies of a warzone evacuation would hamper efforts.
He would continue the ride down, being joined by evac freighters, Med-1, and what piloted fighters they had right now. The Phoenix had been emptied, and even more space for people to stay quickly made in her massive hangers. While the craft flew down, Mig and the Netherhounds would be dropped of at the EE's Evac site to meet up with an old friend... and he guessed technically his father-in-law.
"Captain, Mandos are landing with freighters."
Chizar had been given access to track the landing positions of the in and outflow of ships, de facto becoming assistant transport control on this sector of the starport, but she decided not to interfere with the actual controllers. Still, she wished to check on something first before returning to the ships.
"XO, hold down the bridge for a while loner. I want to check on something."
Past the crowds and the mountains of discarded equipment, Chizar found her way to the Mandalorian garrison commander, waiting at his defences. He had some ties to Panatha, she vaguely remembered. An outsider come to a new home, only to leave it again. She knew the feeling.
"Master Adenn Kyramud ? I am Captain Chizar, and captain the ships berthed near your men," she pointed.
"I was wondering if you could update me on the security situation as of now."
TAGS: OPEN
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