Subject: [FANFIC] Phoenix Company : Chapter One Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 19:13:04 GMT From: ryanwolf@erols.com (MKSheppard) Newsgroups: alt.startrek.vs.starwars Mucho Thanks to: Rob Wilson and CmdrWilkens for graciously editing it for me and pointing out errors in the story that no self-respecting military man would do. ------------------------------------------- PHOENIX COMPANY by Mark Sheppard ------------------------------------------- [Draysan IV] "Papa Company, Report! Repeat, Papa Company, Report!" With a growl, the Lieutenant commanding the second armored platoon of P Company smashed in the radio. "Cocksuckers! There's no more Papa company, you slime pools!" said Lt. Mark Sheppard of the Imperial Army as he frantically pulled his E-11 out of it's niche in the smoke-filled turret of his Oppressor medium tank. The stench of burnt flesh assaulted his nostrils, permeating his grey Army-issued Jumpsuit and matching body armor. The horrible smell was enough to make a man retch. "By the Sith, they're gonna pay for this!" he yelled as he climbed out of the ruined turret, almost slipping on his gunners' guts on the ladder, where they had been blown by the medium blaster cannon bolt that had penetrated the turret armor, killing his gunner and his comm technician, but leaving him miraculously unscathed, a mistake that was going to cost them dearly. If the turret had been a slaughterhouse, outside it was Hell. Burning tanks stretched as far as he could see in the thick oily smoke generated by the very same burning hulks he saw. Shriveled bodies lay in pools of burning fuel, trees were blackened stumps, and bodies were everywhere. Some were Rebel; some were Imperial, but the Reaper had forgotten Mark Sheppard. Suddenly, out of the gloom of the smoke came a figure clothed in Rebel gear. Sheppard raised the E-11, and squeezed the trigger like a whore's tits. No cleansing bolt came from the muzzle to exterminate the Rebel Scum before him. Cursing, Sheppard dropped the weapon and grabbed an entrenching tool from it's slot on the turret, opening and locking the blade into place. With a grunt, he leapt from the turret and onto the surprised rebel, who wasn't expecting any survivors in the hellish inferno. Gripping the spade in the way it had been taught to him by his close- combat instructors: left hand on the handle, and the right hand on the base of the post (where it meets the shovel head), Sheppard silently drove the tip of the spade into the base of the Rebel's throat (the V notch above the sternum). As the rebel's eyes widened, Sheppard pushed his left hand down on the handle. The rebel screamed an inhuman cry of pain as he fell to the ground in agony. As the rebel scrabbled frantically at him, Sheppard looked into the scum's eyes which were bulging out frantically. "See you in Hell, you Sith Spawn!" he breathed as he drove his foot down on the shovel, driving the blade through the rebel's throat, decapicating him like a chicken. Breathing heavily, he picked up the rebel's own E-11. "By Vader, they'll pay for this!" he growled from between clenched teeth as he checked the rebel's E-11. Noticing that the charge on the E-11 was pretty low, he turned the weapon sideways, and hit the mag release, dumping the worthless mag. As he scanned the horizon, he slapped in a fresh mag from his belt and raised it so he'd be able to hit the next Rebel rat he saw. Leaving behind the 22 burning tanks and 200 corpses that had been his Company [writer's note: an Imperial Attack Armor Company has 16 Heavy Tanks or 28 Light Tanks], Sheppard walked slowly and stealthily through the shattered forest, in which every third tree had been blown to shreds by blaster bolts. Suddenly, he heard voices. Quickly hiding, he saw a group of four soldiers in rebel uniforms. An idea forming in his head, he clicked his E-11 to `stun' and aimed it at the rearmost man in the group. He fired, dropping the man like a rag doll. As the others in the group turned to see what had happened to their comrade, Sheppard flicked the selector switch on his E-11 to 'kill' and sprayed the others with fiery bolts, blowing the other three soldiers' chests into steaming vapor. The E-11 beeped. He'd just overloaded the cooling system. The E-11 was now useless for the next 2 minutes. Damn. Dumping the red-hot E-11 to the ground, Sheppard cautiously advanced to the forest clearing, where the gooey red messes of the three rebels lay steaming on the ground. Pocketing the rebels' power packs and two of their E-11s, he set out for the one he'd stunned, bringing his combat knife out of it's sheath on his hip. Rebel Lt. Kant slowly came to. The first thing he saw when he woke up from the stun bolt was the sharp tip of a combat knife bare millimeters above his left eyeball. Out of the other eye, he could make out the fuzzy outline of a man wearing an Imperial Army Tankers' uniform. "Imperial Lines? Direction and distance. Likely patrol routes for your friends? NOW!" Sheppard accentuated the last word by lowering his knife just oh so slightly, so that it was actually touching the Rebel's eyeball. "Go to Hell, Imperial." "You first," rasped Sheppard as he grabbed the rebel's head. Bringing his knife to the man's throat, he sliced a nice deep furrow in Kant's neck, where it would bleed a lot, but not be an immediate threat to his life. After all, the rebel was his only source of info. After holding the blade over the cut for a few seconds to get it all nice and bloody, he brought it in front of Kant's face, causing the man's face to pale visibly. "You...you..." gasped Kant. He tried to get up, but couldn't since his arms and legs were bound. "In case you haven't noticed yet, I've cut your Carotid artery. If I do nothing, you will bleed to death in about eight standard minutes. If you tell me what I need to know, I'll put this onto yer neck." Sheppard waved the bacta patch in the man's face. "You...you...all right, the frontlines are at bearing zero-two-one from here, about fifty klicks," moaned Kant, already feeling the loss of blood. "What's the comm frequency you guys use?" Sheppard asked, playing idly with his now-bloodstained knife. "The...frequency is...3215.12.7 - I told...you...what...you...wanted to...know...give...me...the Bacta patch!" moaned Kant, scared shitless from feeling what appeared to be a half-gallon of blood all over his chest. In reality, it was merely a flesh wound, but Kant didn't know that. Sheppard nodded, then peeled the bacta patch's protective covering off and slapped it onto a nasty looking cut on his face as Kant looked on in disbelief. "You...you...promised!" gasped Kant. "I lied." With that, Sheppard pulled out a Coruscant, the most popular brand of cigarette in the Empire. Taking a strike anywhere match from his tanker's survival kit on his belt, he dragged the match on Kant's face to light it, making the rebel gasp in pain. Bringing the lit match to his mouth, Sheppard lit his cig up, then threw the match onto the red mess that had once been a rebel soldier. Taking a few practice puffs, Sheppard then inhaled deeply and blew the noxious smoke right into Kant's face, making him choke. Sheppard's eyes hardened, and he quickly plunged his knife into Kant's side, and then with a sickening tearing sound, worked it out towards him, cutting pretty much every major artery in the man's neck, plus his windpipe. It was all over in a minute. Crouching over the the bloody corpse and the attendant blood-soaked ground, he took a few more hurried puffs from his cig, and then put it out in the now-dead man's left eye. Unclipping his compass from his belt and opening the cover, Sheppard quickly found his bearings with the computerized compass, which automatically corrected for the local planet's magnetic field. Looking around one last time, Sheppard extended the butt of his new E- 11 and placed it on his shoulder, the muzzle held slightly low as he walked deeper into the forest on bearing 0-2-1, taking pains to present a minimal silhoulette on the skyline. [Years Later...] A cold wind whipped across the bleak landscape, and over the hulking white forms of Dominator heavy tanks dug in at the treeline of a heavily-wooded evergreen forest. Fifty meters behind them, hidden amongst the trees, were white-painted speeder bikes and light repulsorlift transports. Mounted at the front of a few transports were E-WEB heavy repeating blasters, ready to fire. In a forest clearing even further back, under white camouflage netting and hidden in the treeline, were two Golan SP.9 self-propelled medium anti-infantry blaster cannons. Next to them was a white-painted Leveler I medium concussion missile launcher. Capable of firing 28 concussion missiles simultaneously, it was a devastating weapon if used properly. Next to the Leveler I rose a white mountain of durasteel; this was a Speizoc v-188 heavy-antitank blaster cannon mounted on an Aratech 440 Super-Heavy Armored Chassis - one of the heaviest energy cannons ever to see field combat. Behind it was it's equally massive power trailer, allowing 50 shots from the gargantuan cannon before recharging. Puny-looking next to these giants, 200 troops stood in the treeline, milling about, and casting nervous glances into the sky for aircraft. In the windswept skies, twilight was rapidly approaching, casting purplish colors onto the men. All of the extraneous chatter stopped as a white-suited man wearing the three red bars atop an equal number of yellow bars of an Imperial Army Captain stepped out of the HQ tent. Walking up to the portable holo-generator that had been hastily set up for a field briefing, Captain Mark Sheppard studied the men of P Company, 1072nd Armor Battalion, 57623rd Assault Regiment, 366th Reinforced Battlegroup, 799th Atrisian Corps carefully. It had taken two years, but P Company was now back in business. Sheppard glanced around the wooded area at the men of his company. He'd called everyone here for a special briefing before he began the standard O-group briefing for the officers. "Gentlemen, As this unit is unique in all the Imperial Army, I've decided to drop the standard alphabet/phonetic designations for companies and go for an individual name, like the Hell's Hammer's armored unit did. Since we're about to go into combat, I decided to do the renaming now. With a flourish, Sheppard pushed the `play' button on the holoprojector. A flaming phoenix appeared clutching the broken symbol of the Rebellion. "We are now Phoenix Company. It's fitting, and it'll let us evade notice from the higher-ups, since it begins with a `P', so we can still use our old designation on official stationery and reports. To my right, we've got several boxes of the new logo in varying formats, sizes, et cetera. If you want to, you can grab decals for your vehicles or self-bonding patches in both camo and regular schemes for your uniforms." Sheppard paused for a moment before continuing. "That's all. Report to your units now. Platoon commanders, stay here for the CO's O-group briefing." Sheppard waited until all the various enlisted men and lower ranking officers had left for their units before continuing. In front of him now were Phoenix Company's five platoon commanders, and the company's staff officers. Pushing the `advance' button, a holo of Tikrit, the planet they were on, appeared. "As you all know, three weeks ago, this shithole of a planet rebelled against the gloriousness of the Emperor's New Order," Sheppard said that with a healthy dose of cynicism. Of course, nobody believed that shit in the military, except the Stormtroopers and those mindless fanatics at COMPFORCE. "Now that we're done with the required political indoctrination, lets get down to brass tacks. A week after the uprising began, the 799th Atrisian Corps [that's us], was dumped onto the planet with orders to retake it. We and the other units of the 366th Reinforced Battlegroup were sent, along with the 327th Reinforced Battlegroup and the 401st Armored Battlegroup to wrest Tikrit's main settlement, the capital city, numbering two million civilians, from the rebels. Our Task Force as it is, numbers 43,000 troops, nearly 75 percent of our Corps. The 61st Battlegroup, which consists of the rest of our Corps, is spread over the planet, suppressing the smaller settlements." "Things were going well - we were crushing the scum, until we tried to take the city." The holo shifted to show the area surrounding the city of Tikrit. It was a low rolling plain with a few mountains rising to the southwest. "Those mountains there contain a secret military complex built by the planetary government. We didn't know about it, but by tomorrow, it'll be a pile of slag." He pushed another button, and the holo zoomed in on the mountains. Known enemy emplacements appeared on the side of the mountain as rock slid away to reveal heavy energy weapons. Their locations had been learned the hard way - in blood. "From the intensity of the firepower we're taking, HQ thinks there are at least upwards of two hundred weapons of all sizes and calibers in that mountain, from Atgar P-Towers -" everyone snickered at that. The P-Tower was a Clone Wars-vintage energy weapon that posed a threat only to lightly armored vehicles like the AT-ST. "- to Turbolaser System Is. They even have a fucking KDY-150 ion cannon in there." Everyone groaned at that. TL System Is could kill even AT-ATs with depressing regularity. The reason for the lack of reinforcements also became clear. Sheppard voiced what many of them were thinking. "Yes. The cocksuckers have virtually shut down the orbital paths overhead. Ships have to stop in the outer system to unload their dropships from there, making them highly vunerable to Rebel muggings from hyperspace-capable craft. That's why you haven't seen our attached TIE Ground Support wing much recently. They've been diverted to protect and escort the dropships in. TIE losses are becoming unacceptable since the Rebels are no longer sending old Y-Wings, but those damned new B- Wings. The two SPCs the _Avenger_ dropped off when she made a stop-over are gone - taken out in the first raids." He paused. "In short, it is of paramount importance that something happens to that mountain. That 'something' will happen in two hours' time at 2000 hours IST (8 PM). At that time, our regiment and the 701st Regiment will assault the base under cover of darkness. A brief but intense artillery bombardment will precede the assault by a few minutes. Even though we estimate the the Rebels in and around the mountain to be at battlegroup level - 14,100 men in all - most of them are inside the base, manning the guns themselves, leaving only 7,000 men to guard the entrances to the base itself. Of those, only 5,116 are actual combat troops." All around him, grins began to appear on the faces of his commanders. "It gets better, boys! Apparently the Rebel commander decided to split his force between protecting his base and his ride home; we've detected starship-level repulsorlifts in a valley near the base. Both the transports and the base defensive facilities have at least 2,500 combat troops." "Here's where the bad part begins, men. In order to overwhelm the forces guarding the base and at the same time, block their escape route, compromises were made." Everyone groaned at that. "The decision was made to detach our company to provide armored support for the 912th Line Battalion, which is detached from the 701st Regiment. Together, our combat strength is only 731 men against the 2,500 troops guarding the transports. This allowed HQ to mass nearly 4,400 troops to smash down the frontal defenses, giving us the 2-1 ratio deemed necessary by the ISOD for winning battles." "Now, you're probably asking 'If we can win it, why are we here, and not with the assault force?' From what I've heard, HQ is determined to prevent another Hoth." Even though the Empire had won, the Rebels had evacuated with most of their equipment. "In order to prevent this from happening again, HQ has decided to launch a TIE Bomber squadron to destroy the transports. However, if we just destroyed the transports right away, the Rebels would just hole up in the mountain and fight to the death." "So...in order to catch the most Rebels out in the open for the TIEs, HQ put us here. Here's the orders they gave me." With that, Sheppard motioned towards the holoprojector. The holo of the mountain disappeared, to be replaced with a highly- detailed holographic topological map of the hills and valleys behind the mountain that housed the Rebel base. "The base is here -" Sheppard said as he pressed a button on his remote, causing a mountain in the holo to flash red. "Imperial scouts have discovered highly-localized repulsorlift emissions here, ones that match the signature of the most common transport the Rebels use." On the holo, the golden outlines of transports appeared in a mountain valley near the base. In the middle of each outline was a question mark. "We haven't actually visually confirmed they're there, but our forward- deployed scouts have located four significant concentrations of enemy forces." Pushing another button on his remote, the blue- colored symbols of the units of P Company and the 912th Battalion appeared where they currently were. Moments later, reb symbols began winking in, concentrated near the base. Pointing to a hill to the west of the bases' rear entrance, Sheppard began to call out the enemy's strength and OOB. "On this little hill, a Line Battalion has dug in." He then pointed to a forest to the south of the base's back door. "Here, another Line battalion has dug in. To it's north, a Heavy Weapons Battalion has been heavily entrenched in several lines of interlocking trenches around the rear entrance to the base. Northwest of it, a Repulsorlift battalion patrols the area for intruders like us." Pushing another button, two glowing lines covered the holo, the bottom one skirting the hills that kept them out of sight from the Rebels, while the upper one crossed the trenches around the base's rear entrance. Pointing to the bottom one, Sheppard spoke. "As soon as this meeting is over, we have to start moving in order to reach our jumping- off point, Phase Line Charlie, before H-Hour. HQ estimates that around H-Hour plus 30 minutes, the Rebels will begin withdrawal efforts. Our orders are to wait at Phase Line Charlie until 'A reasonable amount of Rebels have started towards the transports.' Unofficially, we wait until a whole fucking horde of Rebel scum has fled the base and are running to their transports. "Once that happens, we jump-off towards Phase Line Echo," with that, Sheppard pointed to the topmost line; the one where the Rebels were - "and enage the enemy with 'All Reserves'. I've run it through the TacSims several times, and all of them go like this." Sheppard then pushed a button on his remote. In the hologram, a counter appeared, reading 'H-Hour plus 0 minutes'. On the map, the Imperial forces were massed behind the hill at Phase Line Charlie. Suddenly in the middle of the hologram, large block letters appeared, reading 'SIMULATION START'. On the holo, the symbols of the Rebels began moving. For a few seconds they moved leisurely, but suddenly sped up, moving frantically about as the counter ran. At H- Hour plus 40 minutes, dozens of Rebel symbols began pouring out of the rear entrance, heading for the golden transport outlines. Minutes later, the Imperial symbols crested the hill, and began firing at the rear-most rebel units, those closest to the base entrance. Bright flashes began popping up all over, and units dropped from company-level to Platoon-level, then to Squad-level and finally, into oblivion. As the minutes wore on, more and more Rebel symbols winked out, along with Imperial ones, but the Rebels had more units. Just as it was down to three Imperial Platoons against thirty Rebel ones, the symbols of a squadron of TIE Bombers appeared, loosing concussion missiles into the transports and dropping clusters of thermal detonators into the Rebel units, wreaking havoc. Once the bright flashes of the holo-explosions had diminished, only 2 squads of Imperial infantry stood against 15 Rebel Platoons. Two simulated minutes later, the last Imperial trooper died and the sim ended. The Imperials had been totally wiped out, but the Rebels were now stuck on Tikrit, and at least 6,000 of them lay dead. "Six thousand Rebel dead against a thousand Imperial KIAs. Technically, we kicked ass, but the cold hard truth is something like 75% of the Rebel casualties came from that TIE bombing run. HQ wants to use us as a speedbump to slow down the Rebels' retreat long enough so lots of Rebels are caught in the open, completely unprotected when the TIEs come in for the transports." "HQ thinks we are 'acceptable casualties' to get the Rebels to slow down," Sheppard said in a now-icy voice. "People, I did *not* rebuild this company only to see it thrown away again. We are going to follow the plan...up to a point. As you are well aware of, we have our own artillery support in the form of a Speizoc SP v-188 and a Leveler I. Through...certain channels, I have obtained a reasonable quantity of...'special' weapons for the Leveler I. Everyone smiled, in particular, the Lieutenant who commanded the Special Missions Platoon. As soon as the barest hint of a grin appeared on his scarred face, everyone, even his own men, began inconspicuously moving away from him. "Heh Heh. TIme to have some fun with the good stuff," remarked LT. Hit- Man. _Shit, this kid keeps surprising me._ Hit-Man thought, remembering his first meeting with the Captain a year-and-a-half ago in a seedy bar on Corellia. The LT. had been celebrating a sucessful raid on a Rebel cell in the nastiest dive he could find in Corellia, when an Imperial Army Captain had siddled up next to him at the bar. Normally, he had no use for the Army. Those gray maggots almost always slowed down his stormtroopers. The Captain tried to strike up a conversation with him, but an icy glare fixed that problem. Before he could take a sip from his glass of 120-proof Corellian Ale, a trio of Trandoshians had surrounded him and the Army guy. "Your kind isn't wanted here, Imperial." sneered the leader as he gave a shove to Hit-Man's right shoulder. Hit-Man snarled, the glow of his cyber-eye deepening to a dark crimson - the color of blood - matching both his anger and the red haze beginning to obscure his vision as the bloodlust of the Dark Side took hold. Before he could wreak his brand of unholy havoc upon the Trandoshians, the Army Captain suddenly raised his mug in salute and shouted, "Long live the 7th Line Corps!" at the top of his lungs. This bought an immediate response from the Trandoshians as the 7th Corps was the Army unit that had just wrapped up a highly sucessful COIN (COunter- INsurgency) deployment on the Trandoshian homeworld that had resulted in the destruction of priceless Trandoshian cultural and religious objects and buildings along with the deaths of nearly three million Trandoshians. This sent the trio off the deep end. With a roar, the leader slugged the Captain, causing him to spill all of his ale over his Army dress uniform. "You just made the last mistake of your miserable life!" the Captain snapped just before he smashed his now-empty but still very heavy mug into the leader's face at a particular point, shattering the alien's skull, and driving bone fragments into his brain, killing him instantly. The Trandoshians started to draw their weapons, but the one nearest to the Captain suddenly found it quite hard to continue higher brain functions with the hilt of a Commando Knife sticking out of his left eye. He crumpled to the floor, and his friend joined him moments later as the Captain suddenly produced a compact hold-out pistol with integral suppressor and shot him squarely between the eyes virtually noiselessly, the subsonic round being barely audible. In just a shade under ten seconds, the Army guy had killed three heavily-armed Trandoshians almost silently. This caused Hit-Man to rethink his earlier hostility towards this Army puke. "I woulda made 'em suffer more before I iced 'em," Hit-Man said, playing with his own knife, caressing the blade like a woman's tits. "But that'll do. Now, what was it you wanted? People don't do small talk with me cuz they like my charming personality. You need a rival assassinated so you'll get that promotion? Sorry. I don't do that shit." "Neither do I," said the mysterious Captain. "However, I have a proposition for you and your men." There was a pause, then Hit-Man spoke. "Proposition? Don't make me laugh, Army boy." "Very well. Arcus Four," replied the Captain, referring to a battle two months ago in which Hit-Man's Company had taken 50 percent casualties. Only his platoon had escaped relatively unscathed from that inferno. "Correct me if I'm wrong Lieutenant, but wasn't your company supposed to have been assisted by light armor company on Arcus Four?" Hit-Man growled, his cyber-eye reddening menacingly as his rage rose. "'Supposed', Captain, is the operative word. Those cowards left us to die so they could rack up some Rebel GAVs for their turret sides!" "Relax," said the Captain, putting his hand on Hit-Man's shoulder in an attempt to calm him down. It didn't work. "The same thing happened to me on Draysan Four six months ago. Twenty-Two heavy tanks, all lost because some fool at Regimental HQ thought a single company could hold off a battalion of Rebels long enough for a Heavy Armor Regiment could arrive and finish the job. That regiment never came. It was later that I learned that it had been deliberate - seems the ISB was suspicious of our Captain - so they decided to get rid of him using 'white' methods." Hit-Man nodded slightly, recognizing the old 'He died gloriously,' method of eliminating officers covertly. "I was the only survivor, and as luck had it, a non-entity to the ISB, so they gave me the job of rebuilding my company. I'm rebuilding it into a combined-arms company. Your platoon is one of the pieces I need. Interested? "This is highly irregular...Captain," Hit-Man said. "Just what would our role be?" "Your platoon has the explosives experts I need sorely. You'll be the ones who crack open fortifications, and roll bombs into the openings to clear a path for our Line platoon to enter the fortifications to clean them out of Rebels." "And what will we be supported by?' "Right now, I'm trying to find a Scout platoon and an Artillery platoon. I already have the basic components - a Heavy armor platoon equipped with four Dominators, and a Line platoon. The plan is to provide covering fire with the arty and tank platoons, allowing the Line platoon and yours to reach the objective with minimal casualties. The scouts will provide us with long-range detection, allowing our arty to be much more lethal." "Interesting. And what will we use?" Hit-Man asked, by now showing a little interest. "For your snipers, I've procured a crate of BlasTech A280s. Perhaps you've heard of them. They can blow a fully-armored trooper in half at medium range." Hit-Man's face twitched as he remembered the Rebel with the A280 who'd blown his right leg off, leaving him with a cybernetic leg. "The Combat Engineers will get new, experimental E-11s, such as the E- 11/F/A, an E-11 with an under-barrel flamethrower that feeds off a canister on the trooper's back, plus full auto fire. Quite handy in confined spaces. E-11/A/40s will be general issue to all non-specialist troopers. They have a 40mm grenade launcher slung under the barrel, along with a newly designed collapsible stock which is far, far more sturdy than the old folding stocks. They also have the ever-popular full auto mod." "Your demo experts get the Mk 39/A, a fully automatic 40mm grenade launcher based on the E-11 reciever, capable of accepting either 12 round drum magazines or a linkless belt of 100 rounds per belt. Mounted along the Mk 39/A's barrel is a light blaster roughly equivalent to the Merr-Sonn Quick 6 in power, allowing the user to defend himself while reloading without the hassle of a second weapon." "How will you hide all this from the higher-ups?" Hit-Man asked, teetering on the edge of a decision. "My S-2 (Company Logistics Officer) is working in co-ordination with my SC4 (Company Technical Officer), who is a quite accomplished hacker, to hide it through bogus reports and database editing." "Sounds good," rumbled Hit-Man. "Count me and my men in. By the way, what's your name, Captain?" he said, extending his cybernetic left hand to the Captain, who shook it enthuastically. "The name's Sheppard. Mark Sheppard, and welcome to P Company!" Snapping back to the present, Hit-Man resumed listening to the mission briefing. "Among these 'special weapons' are Fex-M3 nerve gas and Plank gas, which we'll be using on this mission. The M3 goes to those two line battalions and the heavy weapons battalion at the base entrance. The Plank goes to the repulsorlift battalion. We expect the enemy to suffer heavy causualties from our chemical strike, because unlike us, the Rebels do not wear armor or even carry chemical suits. Everyone started to giggle evilly at that. The Rebels would pay for their foolishness and short-sightedness. "Okay, calm down, everyone." Sheppard said, raising his hand. Once the noise had died down, he resumed speaking. "When this briefing is over, we're moving to Phase Line Charlie, where we will wait for H-Hour and the inevitable flood of fleeing Rebels before we attack. Our attack will be preceeded by a barriage of 28 concussion missiles from our Leveller I. Each enemy battalion will be struck by seven missiles carrying the chemical agents. As soon as the missiles strike, Lieutenant Dalton and his platoon of tanks will move in - buttoned up, of course; and kill the survivors. If Sergeant Sutton and his v-188 find any good targets, they will exterminate them with the gun - remember, you only have 50 shots Sutton, so make them count!" Pausing, Sheppard thought for a moment. "Lieutenant Seifert and his men are already forward-deployed at Phase Line Charlie, giving us up-to- the- minute reports on the enemy's disposition. His scout platoon's orders are to harass the enemy. To this extent, their speeder bikes have been modified to carry up to fifty kilograms of equipment. They have several sniper rifles, Plex Twos, and man-portable ion cannons to allow them to harass the enemy from range. After firing a few rounds, they'll mount their bikes and move to a new location before resuming fire. If you need a particular tank or soldier zapped by Seifert and his men, designate the target in your HUDs with the Baker tag. For v- 188 targets, use the Able tag." "Once the chemicals have dissipated enough; which should take a minute or two, Lieutenant Dice will move his men in towards the base entrance. The reason for waiting is because I really don't trust those NBC suits the Army gets. By this time, Lieutenant Hit-Man and his SpecWar platoon, being in Stormtrooper armor, will have advanced considerably with Dalton's tank platoon and they will sanitize the base entrance to allow Dice's platoon to breach the base." "Through certain channels, I have also arranged TIE ground support on demand for us. Don't ask how I got it, but when I give the order, at least one TIE will split off to support us immediately." "Your final directive is thus: Take no unneccessary prisoners. I don't want a hundred Rebel grunts; I want a Rebel SpecForce officer! Got that?" "Yes, SIR!" roared back the commanders of Phoenix company. "Good. Head for your vehicles. We jump off for Charlie in an hour." Silently, the meeting broke up as everyone headed back to their units to perform company-level briefings. Behind Sheppard, the HQ tent was being dismantled, and artillerymen were scrambling up ladders on the sides of their vehicles and into the warmth of their fighting compartments. After a minutes' jog, Sheppard and the members of Alpha Platoon (Armored) reached the looming white mountains of their Dominator Heavy Tanks. Scrambling to the commanders' hatch on the turret's top, Sheppard undogged it and sat down in his chair, which was hydraulically powered. He didn't have to climb in and out of the turret by standing up on his chair - the chair rasied him up instead. Moments after the driver, a Specialist Stubbs, had reached his hatch, which was flush with the turret's surface just in front of the commander's cupola, the tank rumbled to life. Flicking on the power to the commander's cupola, Sheppard ran through the start-up checklist for his position. Commander's Independent Sensor Network (CISN).....Check Satellite Uplinks....Check Cupola drive........Check Commander's E-WEB Heavy Repeating Blaster....Check With the checklist completed, Sheppard pushed the 'up' button on his chair. It raised him so his upper body was out of the hatch. A sharp 'klack!' to his left drew his attention. It was only Sergeant Waylon, his gunner, readying his personal weapon, a pintle-mounted BlasTech T- 21 light repeating blaster for use. Behind him, Sheppard also heard his loader, Private Pipes, readying his T-21 too. Looking down at the bank of status lights on the controls below him in the turret, Sheppard saw they all were green. It was with great satisfaction that he donned his tankers' helmet and snapped the chin- strap closed. Plugging the lead from his helmet into a socket on his chair, he plugged into the tank's optical network. Automatically detecting his presence outside the tank, a clear visor rolled down from it's niche in the helmet. On the visor's surface, holographic status readouts began to appear, including the targetting reticle for his cupola-mounted E-WEB. Bringing the helmet boom mike to his lips, Sheppard spoke. "Tank, Status report!" "Stubbs, all green here," said his driver. "Waylon, same here," the gunner said. "Pipes, A-OK here," said the loader. "Makel, situation optimal," said his comm-tech, SP/4 Makel. Only command tanks had comm- techs and the necessary equipment needed to handle C^3I duties. "Alpha Platoon, report!" The helmet AI automatically routed the call to Alpha platoon. "Dalton here. All peachy, sir." "Atti here. Check!" "Suko, Reporting in!" "Darklighter, A-OK!" "Beta Platoon! Report!" "Hit-Man here...sir." "Charlie Platoon, Report!" "Seifert here - A-OK. Nothing new from the Rebels." "Delta Platoon, Check!" "January, A-OK!" "Sutton, READY!" "Varj, Check!" "Lorl, All ready, sir!" "Echo Platoon, Report!" "Dice here. We're all ready here, sir!" All the platoon lieutenants (when it was a simple infantry platoon) and their subordinates (when it was an armor platoon or artillery company with multiple large-scale units) had checked in. Time to get this show on the road. But first, he had a little matter to take care of. "Rob," he said, the helmet AI recognizing the recepient's name and routing the call to his helmet speakers. "What's up, Shep?" Dalton said, waving to Sheppard. Across the forest, Sheppard saw one of the tank commanders waving to him from his open cupola. Returning the wave, he replied, "Nothing much, Rob. Once the defenders are dead, I'm dismounting to follow Hit- Man's and Dice's boys inside. When I dismount, you're the platoon CO. Got that?" "Yah. Is our bet still on?" asked Rob. "Sure is. Whoever kills the most Rebels gets that 1,000 ImpCreds," replied Sheppard. Suddenly, Hit-Man's voice burst over the comm-net. "I heard that, you scum-sucking maggots! Good luck ya pansies in trying to get MY money!" With that, Hit-Man went off the air with an omnious click. Both Dalton and Sheppard slumped dejectedly in their cupolas. Somehow, the LT had found out about their informal bet and had hijacked it from them. Both of them saw in their mind's eye, the 1,000 creds sprouting wings and flying away. Sheppard took a deep breath. Time to employ the only known remedy to a Hit-Man inspired slump; killing lots of people, preferably Rebels. Sighing, he dictated the fateful orders that were to propel him and his men on an as-yet-unknown journey into a strange land. "All units, move to Phase Line Charlie and hold until my command." Beneath him, Sheppard felt the 90-ton behemoth rumble into life, taking the lead position towards the hills in the distance. A sudden flush of energy invigorated Sheppard - the energy that comes from booming over hill-and-dale with unimaginable firepower at *your* hands. An observer at the foot of the hill would have seen a white colossus of durasteel come rumbling towards them at speed, it's treads kicking up a spray of snow; three supremely self-confident men hanging out of the turret hatches, their hands on a deadly array of repeating blasters, eyes constantly searching for the enemy. But most of all, they had malevolent grins on their faces from the knowledge that all who opposed them would be exterminated by nightfall. Moments after the first tank passed, another one roared past, this one the same as the first, except that it was Rob Dalton's gloating body that hung out from the commander's cupola. Minutes later, several repulsorlifts holding Hit-Man and Dice's platoons floated by, every man alert for possible dangers. Finally came the slow rumbling hulk of the v-188 SP, followed by a pair of Golan SP.9s. Inside the v-188, Sutton laughed manically. He was buttoned up because the side effects of firing the huge gun were deadly to any unprotected personnel within 60 meters. Already Sutton was fondling and caressing the joystick for the gun like a hot piece of ass, eagerly anticipating utterly vaporizing people from several klicks away. Sutton's subordinates looked at each other warily. Word was it that the Captain had dug up the Sergeant because he had absolutely no qualms about employing high-energy weapons on *anyone*, even women and children. Deep behind the Rebel lines, a soldier unzipped his fly and created some steaming yellow snow. A kilometer away, a clump of bushes shook as Lieutenant Seifert took careful aim at the Rebel with his heavily- modified BlasTech A280. It had been modified to carry a high-powered electroscope that linked directly to his helmet HUDs. A longer, heavier barrel with a built in bipod had been mounted along with a new focussing array that tripled the effective range of the weapon. Seifert itched to be able to pull the trigger and blow a hole in the arrogant Rebel's head to let his brains boil away, but orders were orders. Looking to his right, he saw the other four men of his scout squad crouching, Plex-2Ms on their shoulders, waiting patiently like him. 230 meters to his southeast lay his other scout squad. His remaining two infantry squads had been left behind with the Leveller I some 465 meters to his rear to provide protection for the vunerable unit. "Seifert here, no change." Every so often, his eyes would flicker to the lower right of his readouts, to the digital clock counting away the seconds to H-Hour. [465 meters to the rear] Lieutenant January scratched the back of his head as he began laying in the targets for the NBC strike in the red-lit command compartment of the Leveller I. Out the drivers' windows, a light snow was beginning to fall as night took hold, the only remnants of the sun was a purplish light that dimmed every secodn towards blackness. _Just like my heart,_ thought January. Had it been a year since his family had died in a rebel attack? It seemed like only yesterday to him. Of course, being horribly maimed made it easier to remember when, each morning, as you got out of bed, you saw silvery cyber-legs instead of flesh. As he designated each target, he had to press the 'accept' button each time he added a target, because the computers required additional verification that yes, you wanted to launch nerve-gas filled missiles. Normally, only the Moff of that sector could authorize the use of NBC weapons. In the Army you had to attain battlegroup command (i.e., be a High Colonel) before you could command NBC release independent of high command. This was mostly to prevent political fallout from indiscriminate use of NBCs during a pacification campaign. _Glad I'm not the Captain_, January thought. The Captain was gonna take hell for somehow laying his hands on the stuff and then using it without authorization from a Moff or High Colonel. Rebels would die anyway, which would make it easier for him to handle the ISB interrogations sure to follow. It took January six minutes, rather than two, to lay in the targets for all 28 missiles because he had to handle the additional procedures involved with handling NBC weapons. Finished, he sat back, his eyes wandering to the digital clock on the bulkhead, which was counting down to H-Hour. [1 hour, 33 minutes later] Through his helmet HUD, Sheppard observed the movements of the Rebel forces in the valley below. He yawned. Same old patterns that he'd been watching since his tank had manuvered into an advanced hull-down position on the away ridge of the hill. The only thing showing to the Rebels was a small cupola. Next to him, the other four tanks were in similar positions, along with the v-188 and SP.9s. They'd been waiting here for the last hour in their jump-off positions along Phase Line Charlie. Glancing at the digital clock in the lower right corner of his HUD, he saw it was only 5 minutes to H-Hour. [Five minutes later] Sheppard watched the counter click down to zero. An eerie silence hung in the dark night a second before the entire night sky over the base erupted in white light from the Battlegroup's Leveller Is ripple-firing their payloads. Moments later, reddish-orange fireballs erupted on the horizon as the missiles found their targets. Finally the sound reached him, a low rumble that reverberated through his body. The sky now filled with an eerie green glow that reflected off the overcast sky from the bolts of the line-of-sight guns that were now joining the bombardment of the Rebel base. The distant thunder of weapons fire settled into the background, never quite flaring, but never quite disappearing either. [Inside the Rebel Base] The walls shook, causing the cheap plaster to rain down onto the panicked Rebels inhabiting the base. Cat naps were broken abruptly, and people ran from the mess halls, leaving what was to be their last meal in this life uneaten. Some were in even more...ahem, shall we say, 'compromising' positions. Belt buckles were snapped closed, and spooge on uniforms was frantically wiped off. Kathryn Jordan, commander of Theta Base, was sitting on the toilet the moment the walls shook and the lights went out, to be replaced moments later with the dim glow of the battle lanterns. "Godfuckingdammit!" she cursed as she frantically reached for the toilet paper, but finding none. Cursing even more, she finally resorted to that old standby, the left hand. Clutching her uniform pants in shit-stained fingers, she hopped into the corridor outside the head, and quickly pulled up her pants, ignoring the disgusted looks on her fellow Rebels' faces. Several minutes later, she reached the command center, which was deep inside the mountain, and all but impervious to anything below a Imperator-class Star Destroyer's heavy turbolasers at full power. "What the fuck's going on?" Her XO turned around, and wrinkled his nose. "What the hell is that smell?" "Shutup! Answers! Now!" "We're under heavy bombardment by Imperial forces, sir," said the man, saying it 'cur' as a sign of disrespect. "Damage report!" One of the technicians turned away from her console. "Sir, we lost several of the more lightly shielded batteries in the mountain face. Casualty reports are still coming in from the units outside that were caught in the blast." "Uncage the big guns!" "Yessir." [Gunnery room 123A] The klaxon started to wail in a 'aaoogah-aaaooogah' sound, signifying that they should get into the action. The gunners assistants, clothed in hazmat suits, clambered all over the massive turbolaser, checking for leaks in the coolant and tibanna gas lines, as this was an old and second-rate unit. Finding no leaks, they shouted for the gunners to fire the bitch up. Another kind of klaxon began to wail and rotating yellow lights came to life around the gun shutter as coolant leaked around it. Suddenly, in a blink of an eye, the shutter opened. Almost instanteously, the huge turbolaser belched red flame, sending a massive bolt towards the Imperial forces. Even before the coolant gasses had begun to filter through the slightly glowing barrel, the shutter flew closed again. The entire sequence had taken less than two seconds. [10 km away] The massive Imperial AT-AT walker marched relentlessly towards the mountain, its cannons spitting out green lightning, which struck the Rebel forces several klicks away with uncanny accuracy, killing dozens instantly. Inside the walker's head, the gunner suddenly noticed a bright red ball approaching them rapidly. "Oh krif--" The gunner never had a chance to finish his sentence, for at that moment, the bolt slammed into the walker, atomizing the walker commander, the gunner, and the assistant gunners instantly. The 40 Army troops in the troop compartment in the belly of the walker lasted a few millionths of a second longer before the plasma from the bolt ate through the durasteel and incinerated them. The walker then simply exploded as the on-board tibanna gas reservoirs detonated, tearing apart the thick durasteel plates that made up the walker like tissue paper. All around the walker, dozens of Army troops fell to the ground, some dead from the explosive shock wave from the walker exploding, others from the flying bits of durasteel that had once been part of the walker. [Lead AT-AT - Red Platoon] The Lieutenant cursed as he saw his wingman explode in a fiery flash. Out of four AT-ATs in his platoon, he now only had one other, plus himself. "Enemy weapon located, sir! Am bringing main cannon to bear, maximum firepower!" screamed the gunner as he centered his targetting reticle over the section of rock which he knew was really a concealed shutter for the deadly turbolaser within. The AT-ATs targetting computer then took over, synchronyzing the firing of the twin chin-mounted heavy laser cannons with the opening of the shutter. [Gunnery room 123A] Loud crashing noises reverberated through the cramped fire control center as weapons fire slammed into the side of the mountain. The gunners were all in good spirits, for their first shot had taken out an AT-AT. "Prepare for second shot!" screamed the Gunner 1st class as he saw the hazmat suited gunners assistants give the go-ahead signal. The firing sequence went as before, but the instant the shutter flew open, a pair of laser bolts flew through the shutter and struck the turbolaser. It exploded in a massive explosion that sent shockwaves through the mountain complex, and the blast blew a 10cm thick durasteel door off it's hinges and roared down several corridors before incinerating a mess hall full of wounded. [Rebel Command Center] The walls shook omniously from the explosion. "What was that?" asked Mulden. "Sir, we just lost a TL One! Damage coming in... we lost several adajent gunnery rooms...casualties heavy...apparently the blast was channeled into a mess-hall that had been converted into a triage ward." "Damn." [TIE Bomber Zulu 0-9] Lieutenant Nathan Yates looked down at the mountain as his TIE Bomber squadron prepared for another attack run. A huge explosion had partially collapsed a section of the mountain, sending a massive rockslide down onto what appeared to be Rebel trenches. _Damn. Buried alive. Shitty way to go_ thought Yates. He then heard his Squadron commander's voice over the tac-net. "This is Zulu leader. Target the rebel trenches - don't bother with the weapons emplacements. We don't have a good enough angle, and they open and close too damn fast for us. Leave them for the ground-pounders. Select cluster munitions. It's time to mow the lawn." Yates cracked a small smile behind his helmet. 'Mow the Lawn' was an euphemism for simply flying wingtip-to-wingtip as they rained down cluster munitions. Done right, a squadron could literally turn a several klick long swathe of land some 400m wide into a moonscape. Suddenly, a sharp 'deedle-deedle-deedle' filled his ears and the red "MISS WARN" indicator on his status panel began flashing. The deedles became closer and closer until they blended into a continuous tone. All this had happened in less than two seconds. On his status panel, "MISS WARN" went out, to be replaced by "MISS LAUNCH". In the threat display, a red box appeared in his rear sensor display, and the words "Akd_3t3" appeared under it, indicating that it was an Arakyd 3t3 missile, which was usually fired from shoulder-mounted PLX- 2M launchers. Suddenly the letters began flashing red, indicating that the missile now had a gravity wave lock - which was nearly impossible to break. Grunting, Yates threw the TIE Bomber into a hairpin turn, and cut out the engines. He watched his airspeed rapidly drop to near-zero and the big bomber quickly stalled, the amount of lift being generated by it's stubby wings insufficient to hold it up. It dropped like a brick. Yates saw the ground rushing up to meet him, and at what seemed like the last moment, he kicked in the ion engines, and pulled up, the belly of his craft scraping the treetops. Behind him, a section of the forest exploded in flames as the missile slammed into the ground, having lost target lock. Yates pushed a button on his throttle, and the computer began tracking back the missile to it's launcher. A few seconds later, a holo of a rebel soldier running through the snow with a PLX-2M slung over his shoulder appeared on his target display. Snickering, he turned the TIE Bomber around, and dropped below tree-top level as he bore down onto the sonofabitch who had had the balls to shoot at him. Several seconds later, the Bomber shuddered imperceptibly, and Yates pulled up, and watched the psychidelic patterns on his cockpit window swirl around as the gooey red mess that had been a Rebel was wiped off by the wind. His radio crackled to life. "Zulu Nine, you okay?" asked his commander. "I'm okay. Just had to see a Rebel make like a bug." [Phase Line Charlie] Sheppard cracked his knuckles nervously as he watched the tiny stick figures of the Rebels running frantically towards the transports, in order to prep them for immediate take-off. "Seifert, new targets. The techies at the transports. Slow down that warm up stuff, fast as possible. Out." Seifert grunted in reply, and shifted his rifle from the Rebel defensive emplacements towards the stream of technicians running for the transports that he couldn't see, but knew were there. _Moving target, 1.1 klick distance...difficult shot...but then again, I didn't join the Imperial Army to have it easy._ thought Seifert as he settled his rifle onto a running technician, their uniform easily identifiable by the lone blaster pistol in a hip holster and none of the military gear the other Rebels carried. _You're already dead, mofo, but you just don't know it._ [Rebel Command HQ] The HQ was a shambles. Rebel wounded were lying against the walls in the corridors leading to the HQ, moaning in pain, as there weren't enough bacta patches around for everyone. Heavy thuds sounded throughout the complex as the Imperials bought more heavy-caliber weapons to bear on the mountain. "Imperial forces at the 5 klick mark!" shouted a sensor tech. "Shit! Blow the perimeter line!" screamed Mulden. "Yessir." [The 5 km perimeter line] The Imperial forces, now pretty much unopposed, marched right over the invisible line on a map marking a 5km distance from the base. However, the Rebels had used automated tunnelling machines to tunnel under the line, and several thousand tons of explosives had been placed in the tunnels as a last ditch defense against an Imperial invasion. A timed signal was sent from the Rebel HQ to the untold amounts of explosives buried under the ground. [112th Line Company] Sergeant Laffery was screaming at the men in his Line squad when it happened. All of a sudden, the earth in front of them erupted in a massive explosion. Scores of troopers were knocked down, dead before they hit the snow, from the concussion of the explosion. More troopers simply dissapeared inside the inferno of dirt. A few survived, but mostly as arms and legs flying through the air. An AT-AT that had been right on top of the line when it detonated fell to the ground, cut in half by the primary shaped charges that had detonated before the secondary charges of plain explosives. The smaller AT-STs were vaporized or reduced to charred lumps of metal. The Imperial advance ground to a halt as hidden Rebel machinegun (yes, the term was archaic but was still used when referring to automatic blasters like the T-21) nests opened fire through the smoke, cutting down the dazed survivors of the trap. The advance, which had been going so well, stopped as the scared troopers huddled behind the hulks of destroyed or damaged vehicles in a frantic effort to stay out of the deadly hail of fire the Rebels were now unleashing. As fresh units were brought up, they provided covering fire for the shattered remnants of the original assault force to withdraw. [Rebel HQ] "The Imps have stopped!" "Damn good idea, Weyoun, on how to get rid of all those surplus explosives we had!" Mullen then slapped Weyoun on the back with her left hand, which caused him to shrink back visibly and frown in disgust. Still frowning, he took a deep breath and spoke. "General, we've only stopped them momentarily. They'll soon bring up the *really* heavy stuff. I recommend we evacuate the base now. There's nothing further to be gained by more deaths." "Agreed. Send the evacuation orders." [The Rebel Lines] "Fall Back! Fall Back!" was the order shouted over and over by the sergeants to their troops. Soon, everyone was running through the trenches to the secondary defensive lines, except for a few troops who stayed at their post. It was they who had the unenviable job of keeping up the covering fire so that the rest of their comrades could man the secondary trenches. This was virtually a death sentence, but not one man flinched from his duty. [Imperial Scout Trooper Witz - 550m from base entrance] Colin Witz fought down the growling of his stomach and watched the rebel scum pour out of the base entrance. In the corner of his display, a estimate of the people in his vision clicked upwards, driven by the powerful shape-recognition software in his helmet tac-comps. When the number hit the magic mark - about 4,000 scum, Witz broke into the Company com-net. "Smokey. Enemy movement figures 4 Kilo, say again, figures 4 kilo, out." "Big Dog. Hunter, confirm four kilo, say again, confirm four kilo, over." "Hunter. I confirm. Four kilo, say again, four kilo. Permission to start the music, over." The reply was the stirring first few bars of the Imperial March blasting out all over Phoenix Company's Comm-net. [Writers note: From this point on, I'm putting my implant on and writing this to the Imperial March :D ] "Nothing like a good Search and Destroy to get the blood flowing...flowing in rivers, that is!" cackled LT. Hit-Man as he slammed a hi-cap 300 round clip into his battlescarred E-11 and checked his underbarrel flame unit to see if the electrical ignition system was working. All around him, his men repeated the same procedure. Tank commanders sent tibanna gas into their main gun firing chambers in anticipation of activity, while the men manning the transports warmed up their automatic blasters. Drawing a bead on a technician, Seifert slowly exhaled and pulled the trigger of his A-280. It jerked back into his shoulder, sending a deadly bolt of plasma towards the unwitting rebel technician running for the transport. Time virtually slowed to a stop for Seifert as he watched the bolt strike the rebel. He watched as the rebel's head exploded like a watermelon hit with a sledgehammer, spurting blood all over the pristine white landscape. The moment the corpse hit the snow, he shifted his rifle to the next technician running for the 'ports, unaware of what had happened to his compatriot behind him. Squeezing the trigger again, Seifert sent another rebel falling to the snow with their head a steaming mess, watching the whole thing through his A- 280's false color scope, which automatically compensated for inclement conditions, such as darkness, making night appear like noon. Suddenly, the entire landscape lit up in a brilliant white light as January's Leveller I ripple-fired it's payload into the snowy night sky. [Rebel Trenches - in a forest east of Seifert's position] Lieutenant Atti screamed as the treeline he was watching for signs of Imperial activity lit up in a brilliant white light, blinding him and any others who weren't wearing their night vision equipment. [Note: I'm referring to advanced 3rd or 4th gen PNVGs with built in light blocks that respond faster than the human eye, preventing people from being blinded by sudden increases in light] >From the edges of his blinded vision, Atti thought he saw a dozen or so white points of light rising rapidly into the night sky. The 28 Arakyd 12.23tA2 Concussion missiles' ion engines boosted them to nearly 20,000 feet before shutting down. Invisible in the night sky, they tipped over and small aerosurfaces began to move, guiding the missiles to their targets. When their radar altimeters showed their altitude to be 150 feet, a electric charge was sent to the warhead in the middle of the missiles. The missiles exploded with a thunderclap in the sky, spreading their deadly payloads all over the unsuspecting Rebel units below them. Atti blinked. What was wrong with him? His vision was blurring. He gasped and grabbed the lip of his foxhole. Gas! It only had to be gas! Before he could even move his hands for the MOPP suit he carried on his back, his vision dimmed to nothing, and he died. All over the rebel trenches protecting the evacuation, hundreds of men died in seconds as the deadly Fex-M3 nerve gas spread by the missile warheads wafted down onto them. Others managed to sound the "unknown bombardment" alarm before they died, while still others managed to fully suit up. Meanwhile, several hundred meters to the northeast, the two Rebel Repulsorlift companies, slowly patrolled the perimeter around the vital transports. Suddenly, all over the Rebel comm-bands, agonized shrieks could be heard from the men inside the repulsorlifts as the Plank gas ate right through their vehicles and into them. The stunned survivors of the horrible Imperial bombardment raised their heads just as Sheppard's tank crested the ridgeline. "Driver, HALT!" yelled Sheppard as he grabbed the sides of the hatch to steady himself as the tank ground to a sudden halt. Behind him, the rest of Phoenix Company came to a halt. Sheppard sat there, savoring the moment, despite the sub-zero temperatures swirling around him right now and the fact that it was in the middle of a blizzard. As he hung in the cupola, watching the deadly clouds of colorless gas waft through the Rebel lines with his helmet visor (the gas was UV- tagged), causing men to twitch and fall to the ground dead, a parable came to him. "It makes no difference what men think of War. War endures. War was always here. Before man was, War waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner." "CHAAAAARRRRGEEE!" Almost immediately, from the external loudspeakers on all the Imperial vehicles, blared the Imperial March at full blast, shaking the entire valley, and causing micro-avalanches with it's intensity. Every surviving rebel stopped what they were doing and looked up at the source of the hated Imperial anthem. Fear settled into the pit of their stomachs, like a festering flesh-eating virus, ready to explode at any moment into sheer unremitting terror. As his tank began to pick up speed, Sheppard mashed the 'seat down' button on his keypad, sending his seat back into the turret with the whine of smooth hydraulics. The hatch closed and sealed itself over his head, making the tank a completely self-contained unit. Making himself comfortable, he glanced at the trio of displays in front of him. The leftmost one was displaying a map of the surrounding area, enabling him to check the location of every man in his company at a glance, while the center display was a direct feed of what was being fed at the moment to the gunner's sight. The rightmost display was the one that had all the miscellaenous errata, such as a listing of his company's objectives, mission elapsed time, etc, along with being capable of showing a real-time vidfeed of anything anyone with the right equipment (such as a Stormtrooper helmet) was seeing at the moment. "Charlie, report, over." Seifert grunted in reply. "Stat report, ASAP, over!" "Big Dog, enaging targets now, no time, out." For a moment, Seifert's voice was drowned out by the roar of his A280 rifle. "Big Dog, One less target to do the warm up, out." "Big Dog out." replied Sheppard. Seifert looked around, and motioned for his men to bring the PLX-2Ms up from their speeder bikes. It was time to have some live-fire practice. [Beta Platoon - LT. Hit-Man Commanding] "AWRIGHT, YA MAGGOTS! LISTEN UP!" "Make abso-fucking-loutely those damnned suit seals are tight! I'll personally kick the ass of anyone who's seals are leaky!" Everyone shuddered, even though they knew that if any of the shit got through, even with their suit MedComps pre-loaded with the andidote to the Fex-M3, they would have at best a 50-50 chance of surviving. If you had asked them, they would have been emphatic in their agreement that yes, the LT could track you all the way down even after you were dead and still kick your ass. In the red-lit troop compartment of the repulsorlift transport, every trooper clutched their weapon like their life depended on it, which it did, because the penalty for losing your weapon without recovering it later or securing an replacement in LT Hit-Man's outfit was...death. Suddenly, there was a loud bang that shook the entire transport, and the red light snapped off. Moments later, it flickered back on, illuminating a sizeable dent in the side of the transport that was glowing slightly from the residual energy left from whatever the hell had just hit them. Still they ground on, several dozen meters behind the tanks of Alpha Platoon. [Echo Platoon - Lt. Dice commanding] The grey-suited Imperial Army troopers tittered nervously in the back of their own transport, which was well behind both Alpha and Beta platoons. Normally, they wouldn't be sulking so far behind the Stormies, as they were always ready to prove that they didn't need full body armor like those pansies in white. However, as they always did when going into combat in a NBC (Nuclear,Biological, Chemical) environment, they decided that it was safer to err on the side of prudence, as their grey jumpsuits and chest armor, while being treated to allow minimal NBC protection, weren't as comprehensive as the Stormtroopers' armor. Dice smiled, despite this seeming slight on the honor of Echo Platoon, because the Captain had given them the task of clearing out the Rebel base. Close quarters combat was the hardest test you could put a man to, and rightly so. Finally, he would get a chance to use his custom vibro-sword, which he had had designed by one of the Empire's leading experts in edged weapons. The blade was unique in that it reassembled itself using nano- technology in a manner similar to that of a lightsaber being activated, allowing him to carry a full-size broadsword into battle without the weight and size penalty. His smile took on a sinister tone as he muttered, "Soon, Doomslayer, you will be christened with the blood of my enemies." [50 kilometers away - 401st Armored Battlegroup HQ] The young lieutenant sipped his coffee slowly, savoring the rich, creamy taste. Suddenly, without warning, his monitor blared to life with a piercing klaxon sound, causing him to spit hot coffee all over his impeccably tailored uniform and the monitor. Cursing, he made a frantic effort to get as much of the coffee out of his uniform before it set enough to stain it, when he saw what had interrupted him so rudely. What he saw on the monitor made his blood run cold. -NBC WEAPONS DETECTED IN 57623rd ASSAULT REGIMENT OPERATING AREA - -ANALYSIS COMMENCING- AGENTS USED: Fex-M3 Nerve Agent Plank Corrosive Agent MOST LIKELY USER: IMPERIAL FORCES -CHEMICAL WEAPONS NOT AUTHORIZED FOR RELEASE- As the last sentence flashed on his screen in all it's omnious power, the young officer screamed for his superior, and prayed deep down in his soul that the ISB wouldn't go too far in it's inevitable purge of the unit. [600 kilometers away - 799th Atrisian Corps HQ] An ashen-faced aide rushed up to the Major General in charge of 799th Corps, and handed him a message that had just come in a minute ago. "Yes? What the hell do you want?" growled Major General Strowbridge. As he glanced at the message, the anger in his voice trailed off to nothing, and fear replaced it. Pure, unadulterated fear. Fear of the ISB, and fear of what they had been known to do to certain Imperial Officers who had overstepped the boundaries of their orders. Clutching the sheet of flimsiplast tightly in his hand, he balled it into a fist, crumpling the message. "Get...me....the...leader....of....that...unit....NOW!" [Command tank - Alpha Platoon] The rightmost monitor was beeping insistently. In annoyance, Sheppard glanced at it. Yep. Old man Strowey, as they called him was on the line. Mashing the accept button, he barked out in machinegun stattaco his response before Strowbridge could reply. "Am pursuing Rebel units. Enemy routed. Transports will be in sight soon, out." With that, he mashed the "end message" button, and then locked out any messages from Corps command. Back in his command post, Strowbridge fumed. How dare that...that...son-of-a-bantha do this! He would make him pay. Oh yes, he'd make him pay. But that would be for later. Right now, he had a war to win and a ass to cover. "Major General Strowbridge, what is the meaning of this unauthorized release of special weapons?" asked a silken voice behind him; a voice that made his blood run cold. Oh Sith, the ISB was here already. [Rebel Command Center] "Imperial Armor sighted on the west ridge! They're headed for the transports!" screamed a commtech. "Goddammit! Send a message to all units, protect the transports at all costs!" screamed Jordan, her uniform by now heavily laden with sweat. Suddenly, over the base loudspeakers came the voice of the computer. "CHEMICAL WEAPONS RELEASE DETECTED. REPEAT, CHEMICAL WEAPONS RELEASE DETECTED." There was a stunned silence that hung in the air for a few moments as everyone let that sink in. Then there was a frantic scrabble for NBC protection gear, causing vital messages to go unanswered as the Rebel HQ staff fought for their NBC protection. [Charlie Platoon] "Yess....a little bit to the right..." muttered Witz as he watched one of the few surviving Rebel repulsorlift vehicles head unwittingly towards the crosshairs of his PLX-2M launcher's scope. As soon as the Rebel vehicle was squarely in the middle of the crosshairs, a low growl sounded in his ears, signifying that the missile was locked on. "EAT THIS!" he shouted as he pulled the red trigger. With a whoosh of compressed air, the PLX-2M missile flew clear of it's launcher. Once the onboard safeties had determined that it had travelled a safe distance from the launcher, it ignited it's micro-ion engine. With a low roar, the back of the missile lit up in blue flame, and it rocketed at incredible speed towards the rebel vehicle, just over a little of a kilometer away, covering the distance in a fraction of a second. Witz smiled as he saw the repulsorlift's sides blow out from the warhead's detonation inside the fighting compartment, killing the crew instantly. Moments later, the onboard reserves of tibanna gas blew, lighting up the white landscape for a few seconds in an explosion so fierce that you could see it almost two klicks away, despite the furious blizzard that hung over the area. [Alpha Platoon - Tank 02] Dalton was sweating now, despite being behind a full meter and half of the best armor the Empire could produce. The Rebels had seemed to recover from the NBC strike, and were fighting with a ferocity he had never before seen in them. Perhaps the Captain had miscalculated when he had decided on using the Fex-M3. There were still a significant number of the scum still alive - something like a thousand, although that was much better than having to face 3,500 in the first place. A sharp 'deedle deedle!' caused him to look at the right MFD. Oh kriff. About 20 PLX-2Ms were heading towards him and the other three tanks of Alpha Platoon. Slaving the commander's cupola E-WEB to CIWS mode, he overrode the gunner and took control of the big gun himself. Centering the gunsights on a bunch of scum gathered around a missileer almost a klick away, who were reloading him, he pulled the trigger, sending a main gun bolt crashing downrange, obliterating the gaggle of Rebels in a blinding flash. Above his head, he felt the *thump thump thump* of the E-WEB firing. Moments later a series of loud explosions rattled the tank. He was just starting to relax, when all of a sudden, the entire tank shook as a PLX-2M slammed into it's glacis plate and detonated, the warhead not being powerful enough to penetrate the two meters of armor, but being powerful enough to knock the tank around. Rob momentarily snapped. With a scream, he mashed down onto the firing stud on his joystick over and over, ignoring the ever-strident warnings of the computer that he was overheating the main gun. Rob just ignored it as he handled the tank's big gun like a burp gun, hosing down the rebel trenches with bolt after bolt. Screaming at his driver to hurry the fuck up, Rob in his momentary insanity watched the speedometer climb from 55/kph to 90/kph. [Sheppard's Tank] "What the fuck is Dalton doing?" asked Sergeant Atti, the commander of Alpha-03. Sheppard glanced at the map display and saw that Rob had veered off from the rest of the platoon and was now heading towards Hill 93 instead of heading towards the base entrance as they had planned. "Goddammit. Reform around him." "Sir?" "You heard me. Reform around him. I'm not losing him because he's a fucking moron." "But, sir..." "I've spent a lot of time getting you people together, and I'm not losing you unneccsarily. Besides, the tank is worth more than that cocksucker's life." With practiced ease, Alpha platoon reformed around Dalton's Tank-02, and the rest of the Company did so. Less than a minute later, they had reached the base of Hill 93, and their drivers throttled down as they negotiated the change from level terrain to an incline. On his CISN, he saw that the woods of the hill were swarming with Rebel Scum. In fact, there was a trench full of them 50 meters to their right, and the Rebels hadn't detected them yet because of the blinding snowstorm and because they had no advanced sensor equipment. "Driver, come to bearing 090, full throttle." Sheppard felt his body strain in the full-point harness that held him to the seat as the tank swung around sharply. As he watched the distance counter in his sensor display count down, he slaved both the gunner's and loader's T-21s to spray fire in predetermined arcs, because their motor systems weren't advanced enough to individually track targets - you needed a live body clutching their handles for that. "Gunner - Weapons Free!" shouted Sheppard as he lined up a bunch of Rebels with his cupola mounted E-WEB. The rebels never knew what hit them, as the looming behemoth suddenly broke through the snowstorm, spitting death from the numerous automatic blasters it carried, cutting down scores of men in the first instants. The main gun then boomed, a ear-shattering sound to all who were nearby, immolating the trench that the Rebels were cowering in with hot plasma, burning them alive. The horrible screams of the wounded were drowned out by the 90 ton monster as it rumbled over the trenchline. "Driver! Full Stop! Mashing Time!" ordered Sheppard. Specialist Stubbs grinned evilly as he brought the twin joysticks that controlled the treads to neutral, then he viciously mashed them up and down in opposite directions. >From the wounded, horrible screams rose as the trenchsides collapsed from the tank's rocking back and forth, and the great duralloy treads ground them into steaming red paste with it's 90 tonne mass. After several seconds, Sheppard was satisfied that they had caused enough damage. "Driver! Cease Mashing! Ahead Full!" The tank then lurched forward, grinding the bodies of the Rebels to dust beneath it's treads, leaving behind a burning, shattered position. [100 meters to the south - Southern tip of Hill 93] Captain Ferl listened to the frantic reports on the comm-freqs about a strong Imperial armored attack towards the postions of the three infantry companies deployed on Hill 93. Ferl and his company of Repulsorlifts had been lucky. They had been inside their vehicles when the Imperial missiles had struck. Because of the infantry there, the missiles had been loaded with Fex-M3, and not Plank, unlike the ones that had landed on the other two repulsorlift companies that had been patrolling the valley to the east of Hill 93. It had been horrible though, to watch the unprotected infantry deployed around them clutching their faces and gasping for breath. In fact, a man had died gasping for breath on Ferl's windshield. However, the 31 vehicles of Ferl's company were intact...mostly. Some vehicles still were equipped with open cockpits, and their crews had died from the Fex-M3. So far, 7 of his repulsorlifts hadn't checked in, leaving him with just 24 operational vehicles. Toggling his comm on, Ferl sent his orders out. "Cp'nee, turn to bearing 290 and proceed at best speed and enage Imperial forces! We've got to buy more time for those transports." As the repulsorlifts started up, their energy signatures appeared all over the Imperial nets. [Speizoc v-188 Penetrator - Sgt. Sutton commanding] The mighty cannon on it's Aratech Super-Heavy Chassis had slowly traversed the ridgeline between them and the rebel base, and it now had a clear field of fire for virtually all the battlefield. Through his excellent sensors, Sutton easily picked up the transmission from the Rebel leader ordering his company to assault. Zooming in with the powerful sensors, he located a repulsorlift that had more antennas than normal. That usually was the commander's vehicle. He began to laugh as he lined up the massive energy cannon that the v- 188 was on the vehicle. "Die," was all he said as he pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash of the v-188 lit up the landscape for almost a klick, and all over scopes, a massive electromagnetic 'bloom' appeared, obscuring sensors almost completely. Ferl never knew what hit him as the massive bolt from the v-188 slammed into his vehicle, atomizing it completely, and causing residual shock damage to the other vehicles near it. Around it, vegation caught flame, sending a flaming datum into the air marking the location of the rebels. A few seconds later, a rebel artillery piece in the mountain replied. The bolt hit the v-188 dead on, blowing a glowing chunk out of the frontal armor. Sutton swore. The bad thing about this toy was it was a gunfire magnet. Lining up where the bolt had come from, he replied with the booming crash of the big gun, silencing the offending piece forever. "Driver, ahead full!" barked Sutton. Slowly, the 185-ton monster began to move. [Alpha Platoon - Command Tank] "Kriff." growled Sheppard. Not only did he have to deal with a diminished (if powerful) infantry threat to his tanks, but he now had to meet an enemy armored thrust. Thankfully, the rest of his company had followed him closely in his mad dash towards Hill 93, giving him options. He chose to employ one of those options. "Beta platoon, dismount and clear Hill 93 of hostiles. Am engaging potential enemy armored threat. Big Dog out." [Beta Platoon] The repulsorlift whined to a halt, the rear ramp dropping down to reveal a snowy night lit by the fires of battle. "Ya heard the Captain! OUT OUT OUT!" yelled HIT-MAN in his third most threatening voice, the one that he reserved for door-to-door insurance salesmen. Slinging his E-11 across his back, he grabbed the new toy he had been playing with for the last few weeks: the BlasTech Mark 39/A automatic 30mm grenade launcher; belt fed. Wrapping a long belt of 30mm ammo around his shoulders, he leaped out of the transport and into the snowy night. Running like a posessed man, he quickly caught up and left behind the rest of his men as he made a beeline for what he knew were rebels. Behind him, the transport opened up with it's light blaster cannon, raking the hill with blasterfire, using the vehicle's considerable blaster gas supply to pour fire into anything that looked like it could hold a rebel. [Rebel Trenches] "Imps in the wire! Imps in the WIIIRE!" came the scream from their forward deployed scouts. Mercifully few men had survived the Fex-M3 strike, but there were more than enough to give a single Stormtrooper platoon a stiff fight, even though they were doomed from the start: They had LT HIT-MAN fighting them. That was enough to insure their deaths. One of the few men who had a functioning scope on his BlasTech A280 peered through it and picked out the stormtroopers running up the hill through the blizzard. Aiming the bolt at the man's head, he pulled the trigger. HIT-MAN felt the man next to him die; his head blown off completely by the powerful A280 bolt. "Stupid fool," he growled as he aimed the Mk39 uprange and squeezed off a couple of rounds towards the spot where the shot had come from. The advanced targetting computers contained within the 30mm grenade(s) detected a lifeform that matched the parameters set into it's memory as targets. A further picosecond passed, and it confirmed that the target wasn't emitting an Imperial IFF signal. Networking with the other rounds, the grenades' multi-directional shaped charge warheads detonated, catching the Rebel in a deadly crossfire of duralloy fragments, shredding him completely and reducing him to steaming hamburger in the snow. HIT-MAN heard a 'bing' sound, and in his HUD, a counter appeared, reading '001'. "Hear that everybody? I'm getting those 1,000 Creds, whether you like it or not! Heheheh!" Running up the hill, he spied a Rebel that had popped up from the trenches, and was frantically aiming a PLX-2M at them. He raised his Mk39 to shred the scum, but before he could fire, a bolt slammed into the rebel, burning his face off instantly. "DAMN YOU SEIFERT! THAT WAS MY KILL!" roared the LT. "So what? Bite me. That bet isn't yours yet." dryly remarked Seifert as he resighted his rifle, looking for another target. Growling fiercely under his breath, he called upon the Force, and zipped up the hill in a burst of Force Speed, leaving well behind his men. His men just shook their heads. Damn, the LT really hated the Rebs. Nobody knew why. Either way, they really didn't want to know, considering the LT's rather bloody history. As his men ran up the hill, trading blaster fire with the Rebels, HIT- MAN leaped onto the lip of one of the primary rebel trenches so fast and silently that the Rebels didn't know he was there until he whispered in a soft voice "Bye bye assholes!" He savored the fear in their eyes, the knowledge that they were about to die, and he smiled as he pulled the trigger on his Mk39, and then disappeared in a burst of force speed. The grenades that roared out of the weapon had automatically been set to fragment in a forward arc when they were 4 meters from a viable target. Dozens of grenades detonated, sending a literal wall of durasteel flechettes down the trench, the walls of the trench confining their path and actually increasing their lethality. 'Brrrrrp' went his counter, as it flashed repeatedly, the numbers rapidly climbing upwards. Laughing, he ran forward, past additional lines of trenches, hosing them all down with a full belt of grenades, some 40 in all. When the dust lifted, what was left in the trenches no longer resembled sentinent beings. Rather, it looked like meat that had been shredded. His counter read 31. Hit-Man took his time in unslinging a fresh belt of grenades from his shoulders and loading it into the Mk39. Suddenly, with his enhanced senses he felt the presence of an enemy. Whipping the Mk39 up, he squeezed off a single shot with the underbarrel Quick-6 blaster there for protection when reloading. 100 meters away, a Rebel screamed and clutched his face, and fell to the snow, his right eye a bubbly mess. The Quick-6 bolt was rather weak, but lethal at 30m or less, at 100m, it was marginally better than a dart. That was still enough, as far as the LT was concerned. With a 'snick!' he slammed down the loading cover on the belt and cocked the first round into the launcher. Playtime again. [150m to his rear] Sergeant Wilkens jogged up the hill as fast as he could, despite the fact that he was being bogged down by nearly 20 kilos of flamethrower fuel on his back, plus 10 kilos of explosives. Around him were three of Beta Platoon's seven engineers and five of their 16 sharpshooters were escorting them up the hill. Together, they made up Wilkens' squad. As they slogged their way up the hill, they came upon the ever increasing carnage wrought by their fun-loving LT. Wounded men were screaming, their piercing cries shattering the night sky, standing out above the various sounds of war. Suddenly, about 14 rebels jumped up, yelling, "We Surrender! We surrender! Is he gone? Is he gone?" Wilkens slowly approached the surrendering rebels. "Trooper, are there any officers in the group?" "No sir," replied one of the men in his squad. Wilkens then pointed his E-11/F/A at the gaggle of prisoners and pulled the trigger. Liquid flame shot out of the nozzle under the barrel of his E-11/F/A, and quickly enveloped the surprised rebels, who began screaming in pain and rolling on the ground in frantic efforts to quench the fires that were consuming them alive. Within moments, they were smoking corpses in the snow. "Remember, the Captain wants officers only!" barked Wilkens. "And get those kriffing E-WEBs up here ASAP!" At the base of the hill, the 8 man E-WEB squad was lugging Beta Platoon's four E-WEBs up Hill 93 using repulsorlift sleds at a pace far too slow for Wilkens. [Echo Platoon] Dice snarled, watching the fun that Beta platoon was having, flaming the Rebel scum alive. _That should be me_, thought Dice. Goddamn this Fex-M3. Beta platoon's suit sensors were still reporting minute quantities of the gas, enough to keep his platoon from deploying. Above his head, the light blaster cannon of their transport opened up, providing extra suppressive fire for Beta platoon's assault. [912th Line Battalion - 700m to the southwest of Hill 93] The Major in charge of the battalion growled. This was supposed to be an easy textbook operation. Never mind that casualties for his unit were projected to be heavy. It would be all grunts, not the HQ unit that would take the casualties. But instead, those retards from the 1072nd Armored Battalion, Papa Company, who had been assigned to support his battalion's assault, had instead gone out on their own - even laying hands on special weapons and using them. Right now, his battalion was encamped on Phase Line Charlie, waiting for the "official" start of the operation. In the distance, they could see the flashes and low rumbling sounds of battle on Hill 93, where Papa company was enaged with, according to his intel, a full battalion of four companies. To the south of Hill 93, he could see scores of corpses and burning vehicles from Papa company's unauthorized special weapons strike. Suddenly, the pair of Golan SP.9s that had been detached from Papa company to support his battalion's advance opened up, spraying the rebels in the distance with hundreds of deadly antipersonnel bolts. Furious, the commander ran up to the lead SP.9 and banged on it's hatch with the butt of his pistol. "What? What the kriff do you want, asshole?" snarled the commander of the SP.9 detachment. "CEASE FIRE YOU SHITHEAD! YOU'RE GIVING AWAY MY LOCATION!" "Hey shithead, we're slaughtering them - and besides, we don't take orders from you. You ain't our CO. If you don't like what we're doing, then assault the rebels yourself. We sure as hell ain't doing all the work ourselves!" With that, the commander of the SP.9 slammed closed the hatch, leaving the Major to fume silently. He then made a snap decision. He wasn't going to let that scumbag, Captain Sheppard, steal all the glory here. Running to his command vehicle, he hooked into the battalion net. "This is Major Lored, advance! I repeat, advance!" Slowly, the troops and men of the 912th Line Battalion began to advance against the shattered rebel forces holding the line in that area. [Alpha Platoon - Lead Tank] "ENEMY TANK SIGHTED!" screamed Sergeant Waylon. Actually, it was really a light repulsorlift combat car, with some decent weaponry bolted on, but Sheppard wasn't going to niggle about proper target ID right now. "GUNNER, AT!" "UP!" "FIRE!" "ON THE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!" Alpha-01s main gun roared, and a split-second later, the lead Rebel Freerunner repulsorlift vehicle blew up and began to burn fiercely, slowly burning off it's onboard tibanna gas reservoirs, lending a hellish light to the armored battle. "Gunner, you are weapons free, repeat, weapons free!" barked Sheppard as he switched his center display away from the main gun over to his cupola mounted E-WEB. Centering his targetting reticle on another rebel vehicle, he pulled the trigger. Above his head, the E-WEB began to thump. The dull thumping of the E-WEB was suddenly drowned out by the roar of the main gun as Waylon found another target. After three seconds of concentrated E-WEB fire, Sheppard's target began to burn, and he looked for another one. [Alpha Platoon - Tank 02] Dalton yelled in excitement as he claimed another rebel vehicle with his E-WEB, while his gunner got still another. _Damn, this was a fucking turkey shoot - 35 ton repulsorlift cars versus 90 ton heavy tanks,_ thought Dalton.. _Like a fly hitting a windshield at 90 KPH._ [Delta Platoon - v-188 Penetrator] Sutton squeezed off another bolt at the rebel repulsorlift company, before they got too close to the tanks of Alpha platoon for this kind of long range fire with such an immensely powerful weapon. For a few minutes, he amused himself by loosing bolts into the group of surviving rebels who had survived the Fex-M3 strike and were still running for the dubious safety of the transports. "Delta 02, repeat Delta 02, come in." crackled his comm. "This is Delta 02," he replied. "Delta 02. This is Echo 04. Fire Mission. Over," the voice over the radio said. "Echo 04, Delta 02. Fire Mission, Send. Over." "Delta 02. Hill 94. Forest edge. Gridline 0123.4567. Over." "Echo 04, Confirmed as hill93. Forest edge. Gridline 0123.4567. Over." "Delta 02. Target. Dismounted infantry. Trenches. Heavy woodland. Over." Echo 04, Confirmed as Target. Dismounted infantry. Trenches. Heavy woodland. Over." "Delta 02. Fire for minutes, 2. Start minutes, 1. Over." "Echo 04, Confirmed as Fire for minutes, 2. Start minutes, 1. Over." "Delta 02. Ok out." Sutton then signalled for the driver, who was sitting next to him in the v-188's fighting compartment to swivel the massive vehicle around to the south. Flicking on the radio, Sutton spoke. "Echo 04, this is Delta 02. Shot 10. Over." 10 seconds later, the first bolt from the v-188 landed in the middle of the forest. "Delta 02. Echo 04. Shot on. Over." "Echo 04, Commencing. Out." The massive gun began to fire at a steady rate, the massive muzzle flash lighting up the battlefield through the snowstorm like a strobe. [TIE Bomber Zulu 0-9] Yates swung around the back of the mountain, and was surprised at the fierce fighting going on at the moment. An entire section of forest was in flames, lighting up the landscape for hundreds of meters Even though the snow was limiting his visibility, he could see the small streaks of color on the various hillsides as the troops fought their way up the hillsides, centimeter by bloody centimeter. Suddenly, his AN/PRC-26Z-2 commpanel chirped, indicating that he was being hailed by a ground unit. Pushing the button on the control panel by instinct, Yates waited to hear what they wanted him to do. "This is Sheppard. You know what to do." crackled the radio, Sheppard's voice occasionally muted by the noises of a tank in combat. "Roger, keep your heads down," replied Yates. [Hill 93] The E-WEB crews were just finishing setting up their weapons, exhorted along by Wilken's curses and threats of bodily harm. "Echo Alpha ready." announced the lead E-WEB crew as the cryogenic power generator came on-line. [Further up Hill 93] "About damn time," muttered Wilkens. After LT Hitman's initial carnage, the Rebels had rapidly reformed and were pouring down a respectable amount of fire from several automatic blasters. Slowly and carefully raising a small periscope he carried around with him, Wilkens peered over the edge of his cover. Looking through the periscope, Wilkens tagged the location of the rebel MG nests on his HUD before putting the periscope away. [E-WEB Alpha] With a 'beep' the first target marker assigned to them appeared on their HUDs. "Ready," said the man manning the generator. The gunner nodded and squeezed the trigger. [Rebel MG nest] Private Guardian laughed as he saw the E-WEB bolts streak past his position. The fools. They weren't even sure of his position, and they were still firing, giving away their position. Resighting his T-21, he let loose another burst at the Imps below him. Below the nest, Wilkens watched the E-WEB bolts fly over the Rebel's head. "Wilkens. Echo Alpha, fire is overshooting. Adjust by 100 meters and fire for effect, out." Several hundred meters behind Wilkens, the E-WEB gunner slowly adjusted his weapon, and resumed firing. [Rebel MG Nest] Guardian gasped. The E-WEB had suddenly adjusted, and the bolts were now walking down towards his position, chewing up the ground near him! Ducking down, a bolt missed his head by bare centimeters. Meanwhile, the other men in Wilkens' group had manuevered into position, and began lobbing high-explosive rounds from their underbarrel grenade launchers into the rebel position, with a little willey pete included to spice the whole thing up. Guardian screamed horribly as a WP grenade burst only a meter away from him, showering him with burning phosphorous, the metal rapidly burning through his skin. Screaming, he grabbed the T-21 and tried to displace away from the WP that lay on the ground, burning him. Wilkens saw movement above him, and let loose a short burst of automatic fire with his E-11. There was a short scream, followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground. Wilkens waited ten seconds. When the MG didn't open up again, he slowly stood up, and slinked up the hill after telling the E-WEB crew to cease fire. Crawling up the hill, he saw a crumpled body over a T-21, it's chest and face a mass of cauterized flesh from his short snap shot, along with still-smoldering burns from the phosphorous. Checking the T-21 under the body, he saw it was battered, but still operational. Slinging his E-11 over his back, he pushed the body off the T-21 and picked it up, along with the accompanying power generator required for long periods of automatic fire. He motioned for the rest of his men to follow him up the hill. Suddenly, only dozens of meters above his head, screamed a TIE Bomber, engines at full thrust. [T/B Alpha 01] Yates watched the fighting in a small section of the hill die off as he roared over it only 30 meters off the ground. Below him, the hill fell away, revealing the transports in the valley below him, engines glowing brightly through the blizzard. Lining up on one of the transports, he loosed a pair of concussion missiles at the engines, causing half of the transport to disappear in a catastrophic explosion that rocked the TIE Bomber. _Those Gallowfree Yards 'ports are dangerous pieces of shit,_ thought Yates. Jinking to avoid a piece of airborne debris from the first transport, he put another pair into a second transport. This time, there was no big explosion, but a huge section of it disappeared, exposing the cargo bay to the outside, rendering it unspaceworthy. Suddenly, a missile streaked past him, barely missing him by meters. Some smartass had gotten his hands on some anti-air missiles. It was too dangerous to hang around this part of the battlefield any longer, so Yates simply triggered his port and starboard spreaders and stayed over the transports just long enough to insure an optimum spread pattern. The moment the spreaders' status light winked from yellow to red, indicating they were empty, Yates threw the big bomber into a sharp turn and poured on the juice, leaving the 'ports behind. He hadn't been able to destroy all of them, but at least he had inhibited their use temporarily. "Big Dog, some big T's still functional. Use inhibited however, over." "Alpha One, good job. Perform CAS, out." [The Transports] Rebel Technician E1701 ran towards his assigned transport. Due to the blizzard, he didn't notice the bottle-cap sized APT-12B cluster munitions scattered on the ground around the transports until one took his right leg off. Screaming for his mother, E1701 fell face first onto the snow, triggering several more APT-12Bs, blowing his chest cavity inside out, and maiming his face horribly. He bled to death moments later, his blood staining the ground bright crimson, melting the snow slightly. [Hill 93] Wilkens gave the hand signal. The engineer nodded, and slowly crept to the armored door that was the entrance to the Rebel battalion HQ bunker they'd found at the top of the hill. Taking out a can, the engineer shook it vigoriously, and then slowly but surely sprayed the Foam-Ex around the door frame in a rectangle pattern inset about eight centimeters from the frame. As the foam explosive dried, the engineer took out a detonator from one of his belt compartments and pushed it into the explosives. Setting the timer for 15 seconds, he ran away from the entrance yelling at the top of his lungs, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Moments later, a plume of flame and dust roared out of the entrance. Using his built in visual aids, he saw that the door had been blown off it's hinges. With further hand signals, he motioned for another engineer to rush the bunker. The man slowly crept to the smoking entrance. After an initial flame blast from his E-11/F/A, immolating anyone who was hiding in the doorway, the engineer threw in a flashbang, and rushed the entrance, counting on his stormtrooper armor to protect him from the effects of the flashbang. Seconds later, there was the sound of several stun bolts being fired. The engineer re-appeared in the entrance. "Good luck, Sergeant. We've got a Major and a few Captains here." Wilkens smiled under his helmet. Nabbing a Battalion commander and his staff; that would go down well in the after action review. Suddenly, out of the smoke surrounding the hilltop, a lone stormtrooper appeared, running at an impossibly fast rate down the hill. Ten seconds later, the figure re-appeared, this time toting of all things, a E-WEB and it's power generator. As fast as he had appeared, LT. HIT-MAN disappeared into the smoke. "I've seen everything now," muttered one of Wilken's men. [The Hilltop] Hitman ran down the hill towards the transports, using the Force to avoid the deadly bomblets scattered all over the place by Yates. In the distance, a blaster bolt whined, and another man fell to the ground, his head a smoking mess. "You ain't getting the money that easy, Seifert!" growled Hitman as he swung the E-WEB at a gaggle of rebels wearing doctor's uniforms. "Don't Shoot! We're doctors!" screamed one of them, a woman. "I'm a doc too," said Hit-Man, in a voice that made the doctors piss their pants. "A doctor of DEATH!" With that, he fired the E-WEB at the bitch who had spoken. The massive bolt disengrated the woman's torso completely, causing her limbs to fly all over the place. Laughing, he gunned down the others, reducing them to a pile of steaming limbs in the snow. "I LOVE THIS GUN!" roared Hit-Man. With that, he began to stalk the landing field, shooting anyone he saw, and shooting the transports in strategic locations with the E-WEB, his muscles already aching from the massive recoil of the weapon. [Charlie Platoon] "FUCK!" Seifert was pissed. Pissed that the LT would beat him and get the cool grand of ImpCreds. No. He wouldn't let the LT beat him. "Smokey, this is Hunter. You're in charge of Charlie Plat. I'm going in with Echo Plat. Out." Before Witz could protest, Seifert shut off the commlink, and began packing up his A280 on his speeder bike. [Alpha 01] Sheppard watched his gunner dispatch the last Rebel repulsorlift. At the same moment, his commlink chirped. "Big Dog, Wilkens here. Hill 93 is secured, say again, Hill 93 is secured, out." "Wilkens, where's your platoon commander, over." "The LT's in a duel with Hunter. He ran off by himself, out." "Fuck....GODAMM THOSE TWO ASSHOLES!" Sheppard began to hyperventilate. Slowly he got his breathing back under control. "Wilkens, re-board your transports. Move to the base entrance, out." "Yessir." [Hill 93] "You heard the Captain! Get on those transports. Now! NOW!" yelled Wilkens, clutching his captured T-21 like the trophy it was. [5 minutes later] Seifert roared over the frozen plain towards the base entrance on his speeder bike, cursing the piece of shit motor as he watched the LT use force speed to outrun his bike. Far behind the two dueling protagonists, rumbled the tracks of Phoenix Company. [Alpha 01] Sheppard growled as he saw both Hit-Man's and Seifert's location indicators wink out, meaning that they'd somehow entered the base. Several minutes later, the 90 ton tank whined to a stop near the base entrance. After checking his environmental sensors for any traces of the Fex or Plank, Sheppard opened the commander's hatch and felt fresh air for the first time in a half-hour. Fumbling around the turret, Sheppard finally found what he was looking for - his E-14 PDW (Personal Defense Weapon), a chopped down version of an E-11 designed for pilots, and tankers. Slinging a bandoleer full of mags around his shoulder, Sheppard took his tanker's helmet off and put on a normal Army helmet. Pressing the 'chair rise' button, he raised his chair to hatch level and simply stepped up out of the turret. Glancing over to where Alpha 02, Dalton's tank was, Sheppard gave Dalton a thumbs up. Overhead, Yates' TIE Bomber circled in a pattern, watching for any Rebels to show their heads. Walking to the base entrance, he watched Sergeant Wilkens' men attach breaching charges to the nearly three meter-thick blast door that sealed off the base entrance. "How much longer?" "Oh, two more minutes, and then another one to double-check." Nodding, Sheppard then walked over to where Echo Platoon was. Lieutenant Dice saw Sheppard approaching and saluted. "At ease, Lieutenant Dice. How are you and your men feeling about this?" "Fine sir, they're still pissed they didn't get to do any of the fun shit that Hit-Man's boys did." "Don't worry Graeme. They'll get the chance in oh, three minutes," with that, Sheppard motioned to where Beta platoon was setting up the breaching charges. Bringing his personal commlink to his mouth, Sheppard gave one last order before he joined Echo platoon in waiting for the door to be breached. "Big Dog here. Alpha Platoon, move out and secure a perimeter 50 meters from the entrance. We don't want surprises, and watch out for any firing ports in the mountain that we might have missed. 0ut." [Rebel Command HQ] "Report!" snapped Jordan. "Ma'am, our forces in the rear were utterly decimated. We're still holding out well enough against the frontal assault, though," replied Weyoun. "Sir!" screamed one of the technicians at a workstation, attracting both Jordan's and Weyoun's attention. "Section Delta One reports sounds of charges being set up on the blast door in the rear entrance!" "Fuck!" cursed Jordan. "Send a company of troops to that section of the base! I want those invaders stopped at all costs!" "Sir! Security reports that two intruders are already in the base!" screamed the technician again. "What? Where?" "One of them is in the hangar area," with that, one of the vidscreens changed to show the main hangar. It was wreathed in smoke, and blaster bolts were streaking through the smoke. "And the other?" "Sir, one of our ventilation shafts is showing a red light. Best cause is someone levered it open." [Rebel Hangar] Hit-Man strode through the smoke, E-WEB blazing away on full auto, taxing even his force-enhanced strength. In front of him, dozens of Rebels fell like flies. [Section 10-Alpha - Main Gunnery Control Room] "I'm sorry sir, but you don't have a sufficient security clearance to enter the control room." rumbled a burly security man. "But, they said they needed a tech to fix a broken conduit!" whined a man in a Rebel Tech's uniform. The guard looked across the door at the other guard. He shrugged. "Wait here while I check with the section chief." The tech shrugged. "Fine by me." As the guard turned to enter the control room, the technician suddenly produced an E-14 and gunned down the other guard, and then the first guard while he was still spinning around to face the unforseen threat. "Fools," muttered Seifert. Taking the rank cylinder from a dead guard, he waved it in front of the door, and it snapped open. Walking into the Gunnery Control room, he simply began spraying blaster fire over every person in the room, slaughtering them where they sat. The E-14 beeped. Seifert dumped the dead mag and slammed in a fresh one which he proceeded to empty into the banks of computer equipment, ruining them completely. Taking a cylinder from the technician's case he carried, he set it upright in the center of the room, and activicated it, making sure to set the delay to allow him time to get out. He then quickly turned around and exited the room, leaving behind 20 dead bodies. As Seifert stepped into the turbolift to take him to another level, he saw scores of security troops running down the corridor towards the room just before the turbolift doors snapped closed. Moments later, the turbolift shook from a massive explosion, causing Seifert to smile. The fools had tripped the A-45 Area Denial Mine he'd left behind. [The front of the mountain] Impossibly, the big Rebel guns slowly stopped firing for several seconds. Energized by this inexplicable lapse by the Rebels, the Imperial troops surged forward. Even when the guns resumed firing, albeit at a much slower rate than before, the Imperials couldn't be stopped now. [Rebel HQ] "Sir, reports coming in! Someone sabotaged Main Gunnery Control...switching over to Auxiliary Gunnery.....now." "Damn," said Jordan, by now *really* sweating. "Sir, patrols just found Technician Kaef dead in a janitorial closet. Completely naked too." "Fuck! Put the alert out!" [Corridor A12] Seifert ran down the corridor at top speed, ignoring the other Rebels running the other way. Suddenly, the loudspeakers came to life. "Attention! Attention. Intruders are in the base. It is believed that one killed Technician Kaef and took his clothes. If you spot any suspicious technicians or ones you do not know, detain them. That is all." Everyone had slowed down to listen, but only Seifert had actually stopped. A troop looked Seifert in the face for a second, before his eyes widened in shock, and he began to draw his BlasTech DL-44. Seifert however, was quicker on the draw and burned the man's face off in a spray of blasterfire which left an interesting Rorsach patten on the wall. _Fuck! My cover's blown! Oh well, it was great while it lasted._ thought Seifert. [Base Entrance] "Five....four...three....two....one....FIRE IN THE HOLE!" screamed Wilkens as he pushed the detonator handle down. The base entrance disappeared in a cloud of sparks and flame. Even before the smoke had cleared, Everyone was firing their weapons into the hole using their HUDs. The Rebel defenders on the other side never knew what hit them. First, the door exploded, and then all of a sudden, hundreds of blaster bolts were pouring in through the hole, eating away at the makeshift barriers, and killing people. If that wasn't enough, the dozens of 40mm grenades launched into the hole provided the piece de resistance. "Echo Platoon, FOLLOW ME!" yelled Dice as he drew Doomslayer and charged through the hole in the blast door. Rushing through the door, Dice was blind momentarily due to the heavy amount of smoke still in the corridor, and then he was through it. Dozens of rebels littered the floor, their faces, chests, arms, and legs blown off, staining the walls and ceiling with their blood. One of them moved weakly, and Dice decided to test out Doomslayer on him. The man emitted a horrible scream as the blade sliced through him cleanly, splattering Dice's grey armor and tunic with hot blood. Screaming, Dice let the bloodlust take him over, and he whirled the blade around, dismembering rebels left and right, decorating the pristine walls beyond the entrance with blood. Sheppard and the others followed quickly behind Dice, shooting the few survivors of Dice's crazed assault. They came to a intersection and stopped. "Which way do we go?" asked a trooper. "Dice, you take half the men, and I'll take half the men, OK?" ordered Sheppard. [Rebel Command HQ] "Imperial Troops have entered the base. Say again, Imperial Troops have entered the base." Every rebel dreaded those words. And now it was happening here. Kathryn Jordan's bladder gave out on her at that moment, staining the front legs of her pants, and causing everyone to back away in disgust. "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT? STOP THEM AT ALL COSTS!" [Corridor 10-Echo] "Fuck," muttered Sheppard. Resistance had intensified all of a sudden, and they were now stuck in a brutal grinding assault, inch by bloody inch. Turning to a frightened young soldier, he began to give orders. "Corporal, get up there and provide us with some fire support!" "Yessir!" with that, the young Corporal inched forward, firing his Mk- 39/A down the corridor, the flashbang grenades set to detonate 2 seconds after impact, blinding the rebels, who were then finished off easily by the Imperials as they groped around, disoriented. As the corporal crept forward sweeping the corridors clean of Rebels, Sheppard crawled back and found what he was looking for: the E-11/F/A of a dead private. Removing the weapon and backpack fuel tank from the corpse, he crept forward to help the corporal. "Sir, They've got us pinned down from a security station down the corridor!" _Shit_, thought Sheppard. Taking a deep breath, he began to give orders. "Corporal, you're in charge if I don't return. I want you and the rest of the squad to lay down some fire support for me, OK?" "Yessir." With that, Sheppard and the squad slowly inched down the corridor until they found the troublesome security station. It was heavily reinforced with durasteel shutters and a pair of remotely operated turrets swept the intersection that it was located on. _What I wouldn't give for a man-portable ion cannon rifle_ thought Sheppard as he crawled down the corridor. "Ok, do it!" ordered Sheppard. With a yell, the men of his squad rushed around the corridor and began firing at the turrets, putting down enough fire so he could sneak around the turrets. One of them removed a cylinder from his belt and pushed a button on the top before rolling it down the corridor so it came to rest directly under the turrets. With a fizzle, it detonated, sending a highly localized EMP pulse into it's surroundings, scrambling the control linkages for the turrets long enough for Sheppard to make it to the base of the security station. Taking out a portable fusion cutter, he began to cut away at the armor plate surrounding the station, praying the rebels inside didn't notice what he was doing until it was too late. [Inside the Station] The rebel security guard slowly panned the turrets across the corridor, letting loose with short bursts occasionally to keep the Imperials' heads down. He didn't notice the actinic blue light coming from the vent at his feet, as he was too absorbed in what was on the monitor. "IXJac, tell HQ we've stopped one of the Imperial attack teams here." said the man controlling the turrets. "You got it, boss." replied IXJac as he opened the comm line. [Rebel HQ] "Yes? What is it Private?" asked Jordan, visibly irritated at being interrupted in her clean-up efforts by a lowly private. "Ma'am, we've stopped a Imperial team at Junction 12 Beta." "How long can you hold out?" "All day, ma'am. Doesn't look like the Imps have any heavy weapons." [Security Station] Sheppard slowly eased the section he had cut through to the floor, and looked inside. Hmm, looked like he had cut into an air shaft of some sort. Sheppard tried to visualize the shaft's location with the standard security station design the Rebels used. Yeah, this looked feasible. If it didn't work, the backblast would burn him alive, but what the hell, he hadn't woken up this morning thinking he'd be alive by now. So many things could have gone wrong in the first place. Poking in the barrel of his E-11/F/A, he pulled the trigger. [Rebel HQ] "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! IT BURNS! IT BURRRRRNNNN........" screamed IXJac over the commline as he burned alive in the station, visibly upsetting the people in the command center. [Security Station] As he flailed around, burning alive, IXJac hit the shutter control button, and the durasteel shutters opened up, giving the Corporal and the rest of Sheppard's squad a front-row seat. "Don't shoot! Let them burn!" shouted the Corporal. [Level 04 Sickbay] "PLEASE! I'll tell you EVERYTHING! Just don't kill me!" wailed the medic. Hit-Man simply smirked as he slammed the heavy bulk of the E-WEB into the medic's head, spreading brain matter all over the muzzle. Dropping the overheated weapon onto the medic's corpse, Hit-Man surveyed what he had just walked into: a sickbay full of wounded Rebels. Excellent. [5 minutes later] Hit-Man stepped out of the sickbay, leaving behind a charnel house with blood, limbs, and brain matter splattered all over everything. It had taken him 10 rebels before one of them finally told him what he wanted: The location of the Rebel Command Center in the base. Smiling evilly, Hit-Man walked down the corridors of the base, force- choking anyone he met hard enough to make their head explode. [Auxiliary Gunnery Control] Seifert looked around, grinning at his handiwork. The entire room was a blackened smoking mess, where charred corpses that were barely little more than ashes were slumped over ruined consoles. It was amazing what a minature thermal detonator could do, he thought. [Front of base] The guns had now stopped almost completely, with only a few sporadically firing. The rebel trenches were by now completely overrun, and the Imps were preparing to breach the front entrance. [Command Center] Weyoun looked at the map of the base nervously. Junction 12B was dangerously close to the command center. Looking around furtively, he began to back out of the command center. Let that stupid bitch Kathryn get captured by the Imperials. She wasn't worth shit anyway. Without anyone noticing, he slipped out and headed down the corridor towards the emergency hangar bay, where a shuttle was already warmed up to allow the high-ranking officers to escape. Well, he *was* high-ranking wasn't he? After going down a few levels, Weyoun was already starting to feel better, and he began whistling a little ditty to himself. As the only survivor of the base, he would inevitably get promoted due to the loss of high-ranking officers, and he'd get a cushy job on one of the Mon Cal cruisers doing nothing but filing reports. Lost in his thoughts, he walked right into someone. Cursing at the idiot who had gotten into the way of his superior officer, because he knew the Imps hadn't gotten this far, Weyoun looked up from the floor with a smug look on his face. It lasted all of 0.01 seconds. The last thing he saw before unconsciousness took him was the sight of a horribly scarred man with a blood-red eye boring right into the center of his being. [Junction 12B] Graeme looked at the men Sheppard had led into harms way. They were pretty much OK, except for one who had been shot in the legs. "The Command Center's that way," said Sheppard, pointing down the corridor with his arm. "How do you know that?" "Cause that's what it says on the wall." deadpanned Sheppard, pointing to a flame blackened sign on the wall. Graeme simply grunted and motioned for his men to follow him. Turning to speak to his platoon sergeant, he began to give out his orders. "Get 2 section up here to secure this corridor as the ingress/egress point for the platoon. I'll take 1 section on to the command point, you use whats left of 3 section as mop-up of the other corridors." [Command Center] Intruder alerts were now sounding all over the base as Imperial troops entered through both entrances, and reports of fighting were widespread. Everyone in the Command center was now watching both entrances to the center, dozens of weapons trained on the door, ready to cut down the first Imperials to enter. Kathryn Jordan however, was not one of those holding weapons. When confronted with the reality of the situation, she'd suffered a nervous breakdown, and was now rolled up in a fetal ball on the floor, whimpering. Suddenly, all of the lights in the center went off, leaving them in the dark. They however, heard the sound of a door opening, and the distinctive 'snap-hiss' of a lightsaber. [Outside the Command Center] Dice and his team stood ready at the door to the command center. "We go in on 3." "1...2...3!" With that, the team rushed into the center, and was suddenly confronted by a stroboscopic light show of muzzle flashes and screams. "GET HIM!" "AIIIIEE!" "GO GO GO!" "DIE!!!" For ten seconds, it was pure chaos, lit only by the muzzle flashes of their E-11s and the blaster pistols the rebels carried. All of a sudden, the lights blinked back on, and Dice found himself with a half-dismemebered rebel on Doomslayer, blood and body parts everywhere, and the LT standing there with his inky-black lightsaber on, completely covered in gore. Hit-Man slowly walked over to a still-functioning comm panel, and pulled the dead rebel off it. "This base is under Imperial control. Surrender Rebel scum, and you *might* live." All resistance pretty much stopped after everyone heard Hit-Man's chilling voice over the speakers. [1 hour later - Outside the Base] Sheppard looked down at the shallow trench they'd forced the Rebel prisoners to dig, before shooting all the enlisteds and lower-ranking officers. It sure cut down Imperial expenses on feeding POWs. The only POWs they had left were Kathryn Jordan, apparently the Base's commander, Weyoun, also apparently the base's 2nd in command, plus several other mid-rank officers. A large tent had been set up with a sound-dampening field for the purposes of interrogating the POWs. Sheppard preferred to get the information while it was still fresh and in context, rather than the insipid watered down crap Imperial Intelligence and Military Intelligence usually gave them. After staring at the pitiful crap before them, Sheppard walked over to Hit-Man and whispered in his ear. "El-Tee, I think it's time we got around to working on our new 'friends'." At that moment, the low whine of a transport filled the sky. Both Hit-Man and Sheppard looked up at the source of the noise. A lone Stormtrooper Transport was descending through the overcast clouds. All of a sudden, from nowhere came a streak of light that barely missed the transport. Sheppard sighed. "Apparently we missed someone in our sweep of the area. Send Sergeant Wilkens and a squad to check it out, along with a Dominator." The transport jinked a little more before it slowly landed on the flat ground in front of the interrogation tent. With a hiss, the airlock in the rear opened, and out stepped a blue-skinned alien woman in what appeared to be an ISB uniform. After quickly trying to make himself presentable, Sheppard walked up to the ISB woman and saluted. "Captain Mark Sheppard, and what brings you to our little corner of this god-forsaken hellhole?" The blue-skinned woman simply ignored Sheppard and walked until she stopped in front of the prisoners. "Them." [5 hours later] Sheppard watched the patrol he'd sent out earlier return. Strapped down across the bow of the Dominator was a corpse in a Rebel cold-weather outfit. Wilkens walked up to Sheppard and saluted. "Sir, we found this... human garbage out in the woods with a empty Plex Two launcher." "Good work, Sergeant." At that moment, an ISB officer walked up to Sheppard. "The Commander wants to see you now." [Inside the Interrogation Tent] The moment Sheppard stepped into the sound-dampening field, he heard the pitiful moans of a beaten person. Turning his head, he saw a sight that made his stomach do several double back-flips. Kathryn Jordan was lying on a torture rack, and a little over half of her skin was gone - flayed off. The ISB commander put down her bloody knife and motioned for Sheppard to sit. "Hello Captain, as you can see, the interrogation has been going splendidly, although she refuses to tell me anything." "Kill...me..." gasped Jordan. Sheppard started to squirm in the seat, despite the fact that he had sat through dozens of interrogations before. It was the sight of the Commander drawing the knife back under Jordan's skin, and flaying yet more skin off. Sheppard suddenly got up and walked up to the rack, pulling out his BlasTech E-13 standard officer's sidearm and pointed it at Kathryn's head. "Tell me everything, and I'll end it." Sheppard saw the glimmer of hope in Jordan's eyes - not at being able to live, but to have an end to the intense, unbearable pain forever. For the next hour, they listened to Kathryn spill the beans on everything she knew. Finally, as he always kept his word, he shot her in the head. Sheppard slowly holstered the pistol, visibly shaken at what he just had to participitate in. He was suddenly jolted back to reality by the harsh sounds of hands clapping. He looked and saw the ISB Commander clapping her hands. "Good work, Captain. I never thought I'd get the information out of that bitch. This was a nice variant on the 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' strategy. Torture the person until they're willing to do anything to end the pain." "Oh, and before you leave, I'd like you to have this," the ISB Commander threw a package at Sheppard, who caught it easily. Examining the package, he found a skin-tight suit inside. But there was something odd about the suit. He suddenly realized that it had been Kathryn's skin from the color and texture of it. Dropping the skinsuit in disgust, Sheppard promptly proceeded to puke all over it. "What...what's your name?" croaked Sheppard. "My name...is T'hel'aeaoduro in my naitive language, or just plain simple 'Thelea', in yours." "Well, that's a relief, because you, Thelea, are a *bitch*!" rasped Sheppard as his stomach continued it's dry heaves. "And you, my dear Captain, are a *traitor*! Take him away!" Out of nowhere appeared a pair of burly ISB goons, who grabbed Sheppard and manhandled him into a pair of manacles. "You haven't seen the last of me, Thelea! I'll be back one day!" yelled Sheppard as the goons dragged him out of the tent. After Sheppard had been removed from the tent, she picked up her commlink. "Send in Lieutenant Hit-Man." Ten seconds later, a very pissed off LT Hit-Man was led into the tent. "What the kriff is the meaning of this?" snapped Hit-Man. Several dozen ISB agents had filed into the tent behind Hit-Man, and a rare piece of equipment had also been brought into the tent as well. Out of the corner of his eye, Hit-Man noticed that it was a force cage, used to detain Jedis. "Lieutenant Hit-Man, you are under arrest for high *treason*." "Like kriff I am!" he yelled, bringing out his lightsaber in one fluid motion and igniting it. The sight of the slightly looney lieutenant standing there with his inky-black lightsaber gave some of the ISB goons second thoughts. Seeing this, Thelea attempted to regain control over the situation, and in her most authoriative voice, yelled; "In the Name of the Empire, STAND DOWN!" Hit-Man simply flipped her the bird, and began to hack into the ISB agents around him, causing limbs to fly. Not liking the looks of this, Thelea screamed into her commlink, causing more and more ISB goons to pile into the tent. But they all went down by the score. Slicing the head off the last of the ISB goons, Hit-Man began to advance onto her with hate in his eyes, his cyber-eye's laser turning on and nailing her right between the eyes. With pure malevolence in his eyes, Hit-Man raised his lightsaber to end the life of this miserable blue-skinned insect. "Before you kill me, you should know that the Emperor himself gave me a direct order to bring you in." All of the hate in the LT's eyes immediately dissipated, and he cracked a grin. "Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" "You didn't give me a chance to say that," replied Thelea in a fearful whisper. Hit-Man then turned around and left the tent, laughing maniacially as he did so. As he left the tent, he saw that everywhere, the remaining ISB officers were arresting the men of Phoenix Company. All except him. [4 hours later] Hit-Man sat in the guard's chair in Cellblock One of the heavy prison transport that was transporting both the Rebel POWs and the men of Phoenix Company to the VSD _Hellbore_, where they would be taken to the Imperial Academy at Carida to face court martials for high treason against the Empire. However, the Rebel POWs would simply be dropped off on the _Hellbore_ for further interrogations. "So who won the bet?" asked an obviously bored Rob Dalton, staring at the cheaply painted walls of his prison cell. "I did," replied Seifert. "No, *I* did," rumbled Hit-Man. "I killed a hundred," Seifert retorted. "Well, so did *I*, jail-bait." replied Hit-Man. "Who gives a kriff?" snapped Major General Strowbridge, obviously *very* annoyed at his new position as a lowly prisoner. "Shut up, Strowey," said Sheppard, infuriating Strowbridge enormously. Sheppard's cellmate, Nathan Yates, smiled at that. They had arrested him the moment he landed his TIE at the Imperial Garrison. Hit-Man sat back in the comfortable guard's chair, watching the prisoners along with a still-nervous Commander Thelea. After a moment's thought, Hit-Man got up. _I've never lost a bet, and I'm not gonna start now._ he thought. Walking through the corridors of the transport, he found the one he wanted. Opening the solid durasteel door, he dragged Weyoun out of his cell and manhandled him past Seifert, and an increasingly worried Commander Thelea. "What are you doing? We haven't even interrogated him yet!" protested Thelea. "Do I look like I care? I want my money." With that, Hit-Man manhandled Weyoun into the aft airlock. Several minutes later, Hit-Man re-emerged from the airlock, minus Weyoun. Walking back into the main cellblock of the transport, he stood in front of Seifert's cell. "Looks like I win that bet." "You...you.." growled Seifert. Meanwhile, Commander Thelea stood openmouthed, in complete shock at seeing Hit-Man coldly execute a prisoner simply to win a bet. "But, seeing as I'm a nice accomodating person, I'll give you one last chance to get that money." "Wha?" asked Seifert, by now totally shocked. "It's something I picked up from my last *real* C.O., a Captain Valberg. Burn or Choke?" asked Hit-Man. "What?" Hit-Man's grin became wider, and everyone involuntarily inched away from him. "Right now, Weyoun is in a suit and in a decaying orbit around that shithole of a planet. Will he burn up in the atmosphere, or aspyshate?" Seifert licked his lips, thinking over the variables. The suit Weyoun was in was probably a cheapie emergency vacuum suit, so there wouldn't be much of an air supply. "He chokes." [10 minutes later] "...Damn...you....imps..." Weyoun gasped. Hit-Man had tuned a survival radio into the frequency that Weyoun's suit radio was transmitting on. Over the last few minutes, Weyoun's voice had grown weaker, and he was still far away from burning up in the atmosphere. He frowned, causing everyone to back away from him in fear. It looked like Seifert was gonna win his bet, so with a flourish, he produced a small metal cylinder with a red button on one end. "Boom, Seifert. Looks like *I* win," mocked Hit-Man as he mashed his thumb down onto the red button. [Space] A red light on a bandolier strapped around the gasping Weyoun flicked on as the detonator recieved the signal from the transmitter in Hit- Man's hand. Nearly 100 pounds of MET explosive detonated, causing a small star to briefly flare in the cold vacuum of space as Weyoun and the suit he was wearing was reduced to it's component atoms by the fury of the explosion. [Seifert's Cell] Hit-Man waved the transmitter in front of the window into Seifert's cell, savoring the feeling of victory. "One hundred and *one* to your hundred. I win. Again." [END CHAPTER ONE] Phoenix Company Chapter 2 [2 days after the events of Chapter One] The Victory-Class Star Destroyer _Hellbore_ hung motionless, suspended between the Lap system's binary suns, which bathed the white hull in both red and white light as dozens of smaller craft came to and fro from it's hangar bays. While not as big as the Imperator-class vessels, the Victories formed the bulk of the Navy's mid-size fleet as the centuries-old Rendilii StarDrive Dreadnoughts were slowly retired. With a flash of cronau radiation, the bulky slab-sided prison transport _Shattered Souls_ left hyperspace with her load of prisoners from the recently crushed Rebel base on Hopta VII. >From the _Hellbore's_ hangar bays came six more TIE Interceptors, to join the other six already on BARCAP. Rebel prisoners were in the area, and where there were Reb prisoners, there was almost always inevitably a rescue attempt. Nearly on the dot, a squadron of Y-Wings dropped out of hyperspace on an intercept vector with the _Shattered Souls_. [Cell #144 - Cellblock A - ISS _Shattered Souls_] Sheppard woke up to the piercing wail of klaxons, and shook his head, trying to get the gunk out of his eyes, as he watched guards run past his cell through the meal slot in the door. "What's going on, dammit!" shouted Dalton from his cell next to Sheppard's. "Shut up! The Rebs are inbound!" replied the guard as he hit the emergency lockdown button on his panel. All over the cellblock, emergency vacuum containment doors slammed down with dull booms, and the meal slots were closed off, leaving all of the prisoners to sit nervously in their cramped cells, listening to the sounds of battle. [Badger Squadron - Lead Y-Wing] "Form up on my wing. Section one goes for the prison ship, section two keeps the TIEs off our backs." ordered the leader of the squadron. Intel had said that a shipload of prisoners from their fallen base on Hopta VII were about to arrive on the _Hellbore_ for interrogation. It was their duty to try and rescue as many of them as possible. A scratch force consisting of a single Y-Wing squadron and an assault transport loaded with troops had been thrown together hastily. The window of opportunity was that short. They had arrived at the right moment. The prison ship was at best, 10 minutes from docking with the _Hellbore_, and the TIEs were 2 minutes out. It was time to go to work. With that, the 12 Y-Wings split up smoothly into two sections of six craft each, one headed towards the transport, and the other for the TIEs. [T/I Gamma One] "Y-Wings. Execute attack pattern Delta." rasped the squadron commander, as he pulled his Interceptor into a smooth corkscrew towards the oncoming Y-Wings, preventing the Y-Wings from getting an easy head-on shot in the opening enagement. [Badger 4] "Shit, I can't get a lock on them! They're too damn slippery!" shouted the rookie pilot, who was frantically trying to lock on to the lead TIE with his warhead launcher, which was loaded with concussion missiles. [T/I Gamma One] Keeping a steady foot on his etheric rudder in order to 'skid' across the sky, the commander made it through the initial closing enagement with the Y-Wings unscathed. Others in his squadron weren't as lucky. One took a direct hit from the Y-Wings full array of weapons and exploded, while another collided head-on with a Y-Wing that completely destroyed the Interceptor, but left the Y-Wing a floating hulk, with the cockpit area completely shredded. Putting his dead squadronmates out of his head, the commander spotted a Y-Wing twisting through the sky, and smoothly moved the stick, rolling in behind the Y-Wing like he was on rails in an amusement park ride. Taking his time, he loosed a full volley of supercharged bolts from his quad lasers into the Y-Wing's starboard engine, blasting through the area's weak shielding and completely shredding the fusial turbine, which then blew apart violently, spraying the rest of the Y-Wing with high-speed radioactive shrapnel. A moment later, the Y-Wing's other engine began to spin out of control due to shrapnel damage. The cockpit area was suddenly wreathed in an explosion, and the rebel pilot shot out of his crippled fighter on his command chair. The commander let the drifting pilot go. There would be time enough to pick him up at their leisure after the battle, where he would become a 'guest' of the Empire. Around him, he saw the remaining Y-Wings tangling with what was left of his squadron. A minute later, it was all over. Six Y-Wings destroyed for the loss of three TIE Interceptors. Turning around, he saw the prison ship wreathed in shield glow as the other six Y-Wings traded ion cannon fire with the ship, taking pains to attack from the lower front, avoiding the quad laser batteries in the command section, which was at the very end of the ship to ensure inmates couldn't take over the ship's armament. Seeing that their compatriots had been utterly wiped out, and that they had 9 TIE Interceptors bearing down on them, with their target's shields still at 60%, the remaining members of Badger Squadron decided that discretion was the better part of valor and gave the abort order, breaking off their enagement of the _Shattered Souls_, and trucking it to their pre-calculated hyperjump point as fast as they could. At the edge of the system, the 40 Rebel commandoes on the Assault Transport groaned as they heard the abort signal come from the surviving ranking pilot of Badger Squadron. They wouldn't be able to save their fellows this time. It was with heavy hearts that they entered hyperspace. [ISS _Shattered Souls_] Slowly, the heavy containment doors raised from their closed positions, and the guards began circulating through the four different cellblocks of the prison ship and doing a new headcount, to ensure that the prisoners hadn't been able to take advantage of the confusion to attempt an escape. It took nearly three hours because a guard fucked up on the *first* count, and then someone *else* had fucked up on the recount, neccisating a third. Only then was the _Shattered Soul_ allowed to complete docking with the _Hellbore_, and the transfer of the Rebel prisoners to begin. The _Hellbore_ was a new type of ship: the Victory I (G) type, which consisted of old Victory Is upgraded with new engines and modern turbolasers, along with trading off some big guns for quad laser batteries, and troop space for an on-board prison. It had come about due to the increasing successes of the Rebels in springing their compatriots from Imperial prison ships en route to prison worlds. Strong enough to fight off most of the capital ships in the Rebel inventory, and capable of keeping it's shields up long enough against a Mon Cal to run away, as well as packing enough quad laser batteries to defend respectably well against the typical Rebel hit and run starfighter assault, the retrofitted Victories had served quite well, and were routinely assigned to sectors where heavy combat with the Rebels was occuring. Several hours later, the _Shattered Soul_ undocked from the _Hellbore_, and slowly moved away, three out of her four cellblocks now empty. Several minutes later, the _Shattered Soul_ jumped. A short time later, the _Hellbore_ also jumped to an unknown destination, where the interrogation of the Rebels could continue uninterrupted by their friends. [3 Days later] The blue tunnel of hyperspace faded away, to be replaced with blue streaks of starlight, and then simple pinpricks of white as the prison ship reverted to realspace over the Imperial military world of Carida. Carida; where every Stormtrooper was trained, and where most of the Imperial military's elite academies were also housed. It was also the home of the Imperial JAG Corps. [_ISS Shattered Souls_ - Cellblock Alpha - 0400 hours IST] The guards walked down the corridors, banging their batons on the steel walls as the cellblock came to life again, after five tedious days of watching the men and women of Phoenix Company stew in their cells. Sheppard woke up to the bright fluroscent overheads snapping on, and the guards shouting over the cell's PA systems. "GET UP! Stand away from the door!" snapped a harsh voice over the overhead speaker. Slowly, trying to shake off his sleepiness, Sheppard stood in the farthest corner from the door, and watched as the door unlocked with a heavy 'thunk' of bolts retracting from the frame. A trio of guards was standing in the doorway, their uniforms masterfully tailored, but failing to hide their bulging inseams. One was holding a freshly pressed uniform. "Out!" ordered the leader, as the guard with the uniform shoved it into Sheppard's hands. As Sheppard shuffled out of his cell, he looked around, and saw that several other cells in this corridor were open like his, with three guards around them as well. The lead guard then pointed a baton towards a bank of cubicles down the hall, which were open. Escorted down the hall by the guards, he saw that they were shower cubicles. As he stepped into the first cubicle, the guards closed and locked the door behind him. Putting his clothes on the rack, he saw that the cubicle consisted of two sections: a section with a bench and racks on the wall for clothes, and another section separated by a shower curtain. Stripping naked and stepping into the shower, he saw that there were no temperature panels, or knobs, just a big red button. It was with some trepidation that he pushed the button. Gallons of icy-cold water poured over him, causing him to scream involuntarily. A 'binging' noise attracted his attention, and through the cold water, he saw a timer begin counting down from 5 minutes. [7 Minutes later] A visibly shivering Sheppard stepped out of the shower, fully dressed and shaved. A furtive glance down the corridor revealed Dalton, who was also shivering too. Their escorts quickly fastened the Mark XXI Prisoner Transport System around their necks, and in bored tones, began a speech they had done many, many times before. "Some of you may be thinking that you might overpower us, or that your Rebel friends will save you. You are sadly mistaken. Guards! Get the demonstrator!" A pair of guards down the corridor nodded, and walked away, disappearing behind one of the prison ships' corridors. It was several minutes before they reappeared, this time dragging a babbling wreck of a man, who had the same collar around his neck that was around theirs. They chained him to the floor, and then slowly stepped away from him. He began to babble in pleading tones. "The name's Knight! I didn't do anything wrong! They had it coming! Honest!" The lead guard scowled. "Observe this piece of trash. Utterly worthless. THIS is what happens if you attempt a jailbreak." With that, he pressed a button on a stylus he was holding. A small explosion battered their eardrums, and Knight's head disappeared in a red mist, and the now-headless corpse clattered onto the deckplates, staining them red. "Take them away!" With that, the guards jostled them down the corridor for several minutes, before pushing them into one of four holding tanks. Sheppard found himself competing for scarce seating space in Holding Tank #1 with Dalton and Strowbridge. For the next two hours, nobody said much of anything, as more and more people were led into the holding tanks. Finally, when everyone was now dressed and in one of the tanks, the guards performed a head-count. An hour later, the head count was finished, and the guards began to bring people out of the holding cells one by one, handcuffing them together with magcuffs after frisking them throughly for concealed weapons. The prisoners were then attached together to each other by threading a chain through a hole in their magcuffs and in this manner, groups of five were chained together, to prevent individual escapes. "You got the food?" asked one of the guards, a heavy set man with TROMP lettered out neatly on his nametag. "Yep, right here," replied another, holding up a thick container with the symbol for food stencilled onto it. "Thirty field rations which expired about a week ago." "Only thirty?" asked Strowbridge, elicting a dirty look from one of the guards, who gave him the look reserved for people who asked glaringly obvious questions. "We don't need to put you and that entire company on trial, 'General'", chuckled the man known as Tromp. "The high ranking honchos are more than sufficient." "What about my men? Aren't they entitled to individual trials under the Imperial Army General Orders of Courts Marshal?" asked Sheppard. Tromp and the other guards laughed. "You haven't heard? The Emperor himself suspended the General Orders six months ago. We don't need to put everyone in your company on trial, Sheppard. Just you. We can just cut and paste your sentence to the others in your company." "What a nice mess you've gotten us all into, Sheppard." snarled Strowbridge, who still hadn't come to terms with his sudden demotion from Major General leading a division of 14,000 men to a prisoner leading just himself. "SHUT UP!" yelled Tromp, who promptly pressed a blue button on the stylus he had used to kill Hutchins. Instantly, every prisoner began to scream as 60,000 volts of electricity coursed through their bodies from the Prisoner Collars they wore. "From now on, no one talks unless they are told to!" As the stench of ozone filled the room, the guards led the first group of prisoners out to the loading ramp, after first leading them through seven ceramo-carbide doors. Sheppard and the other people were then forced to wait in the near-freezing loading hangar while the guards searched the modified Lambda-class shuttle they were using as a prisoner transport for bugs, bombs, and other non standard material. When the guards were satisfied, they lowered the rear prisoner loading ramp, which allowed the prisoners to be kept in a totally separate compartment away from the pilot compartment up front. "In." snarled Tromp as he poked Sheppard's back with a stunrod. Slowly, Sheppard began to shuffle forward, towards the shuttle, leading the pack of four men who were chained to him. Inside, the prisoner compartment was nothing but a solid featureless gray, with benches rising out of the floor. The only ornamentation was a lone light in the ceiling, and a sliding window between the pilot's compartment and the prisoner compartment, so the guards could check on the prisoners in complete safety. Sheppard continued to shuffle towards the end of the compartment, and then sat down on the bench. Looking down, he saw that Dalton and Strowbridge were in his prisoner chain. For once, Dalton didn't have any smartass comments, while Strowbridge was silently fuming. The minutes went by, and six more prisoner chains were bought up and seated in the compartment, all under the watchful eye of a MandalMotors Prisoner Control Droid, which waved it's built in E-11 over everyone menacingly, stopping every so often on someone to make them sweat. Finally, the shuttle was loaded with it's cargo of human flotsam, and the Droid was withdrawn, it's glowing red eyes the last thing everyone saw before the massive armored loading door clanged shut, dropping the entire compartment into darkness, save for the thin sickly light burning in the ceiling. Beneath their feet, the ion drives thrummed into life, and clanging noises were felt as the landing skids retracted into the belly of the shuttle harshly. It was obvious that this shuttle hadn't been well maintained. Deep down, everyone was praying that they didn't have an 'accident'. The horror stories had always been there, about prisoners who slowly suffocated to death in orbit of a dead prison world, while their jailers were rescued. As the shuttle moved towards Carida, Sheppard looked at the others in the shuttle. They all had hardened looks on their faces. Many had the characteristic cold-dead eyes of the LT, while others bore wicked scars. These were the worst offenders in the Imperial military; they knew the fate that awaited them, and they were ready to go to their deaths with a sneer on their lips. One of them fixed his eyes on Dalton, and licked his lips. "Hello my pretty, if we survive this, want some action?" With that, the prisoner began to inch closer to Dalton in the most obscene manner possible, causing everyone in the prisoner compartment to avert their eyes in disgust. Dalton's only reply was to lunge out with his chained feet, dragging everyone else chained to him along with him as he caught the offender dead on the lips, causing a tooth to be knocked out with a crunching noise and a splash of bloody saliva. The pervert roared in pain, and snarled in a low voice, his blood dripping from his ruined mouth as he spat out the tooth in a bloody gob of spit. "No....one...fucks.....with Wes Hutchins like that!" With that, Hutchins lunged towards Dalton, dragging the rest of his chain along with him, but he hadn't counted on the still-strong bonds of the men of Phoenix Company as Sheppard joined in on the battle, wrapping his wrist chains around the man's neck and squeezing. So involved in their fight were the prisoners that they didn't notice the small window at the front of the prisoner compartment opening and closing. Up front, Tromp turned to his friend. "Nothing to worry about. Just a minor squabble. With any luck, they'll all kill each other and we can go home early." "Can't we just blow the cargo doors and space the whole worthless lot?" asked the co-pilot, causing Tromp to chuckle. "Sithspit, who do you think you are? Lord Vader? Even if we spaced them, we'd still have to do the paperwork concerning accidential deaths." "Until they're convicted, they're still Imperial officers." [Back in the Compartment] "DIE, YOU........KRIFFING....SHITHEAD!" spat Dalton in between pained gasps for breath as he slowly tightened the chains around Hutchins' throat, with each breath, tightening the chain of steel around the worthless kriffbucket's throat, causing his breaths to come out in slow, ragged gasps. Next to Dalton, Sheppard was pulling on the other end of the chain, until Hutchins caught him in the happy sac with a brutal kick, causing him to roll onto the floor gasping and moaning in pain, stars swimming before his eyes. "Oh, for Vader's sake," muttered Strowbridge as he watched Sheppard go down. "Don't they teach you young upstarts anything about hand to hand fighting in the academies today?" "You never get involved with your own bare hands, morons." With that, Strowbridge removed his rank insigna and worked it with his hands, revealing a hidden blade. "This farce has gone on long enough, and I'm tired of hearing your pathetic squabbling with that cretin," he said in a detached voice as he fingered the insigna knife and in a sudden motion, lept forward, jabbing the blade into Hutchin's right eye, causing the man to convulse in pain. In a few short motions, it was all over, and Hutchins' body sagged to the floor, and a horrible stench filled the tiny compartment as the dead man's bowels released. Strowbridge took note of his handiwork, and removed the knife, wiping Hutchins' eyeball and brains off the blade with the dead man's uniform. "Now, can we have some peace and quiet for once? I have a headache." The stench from Hutchins' body quickly grew to unbearable levels, and everyone began to cough and gag. "Sithspit, why did he have to eat the fucking beans they gave us this morning for breakfast?" Sheppard said as he tried unsuccessfully to hold his nose. "Shut up, Sheppard. You're the reason we're in this kriffing mess, what with you and that unauthorized nerve gas use." snapped Strowbridge. That shut Sheppard up, and the rest of the flight to the Imperial Military Justice Complex on Carida was made in stony silence, everyone looking nervously at Hutchins' corpse, and trying to avoid the dead man's piss from getting on their shoes Several minutes after everyone had felt the shuttle land , the door clanked open, and Tromp and the others appeared in the doorway, when they suddenly rocked back in disgust as the fetid stench of shit rushed out of the sealed prisoner compartment. "Sith........Spit!" shouted Tromp. [1 hour later] The heavy door clanged shut behind Sheppard as he sat down in his temporary holding cell deep in the basement of the Complex, along with Dalton and Strowbridge, waiting for their turn in the courtroom. "How much longer?" he asked one of the guards as they walked down the corridor on their routine cellblock checks. "Kriff yourself." came the sharp reply. After what seemed like several hours, the guard re-appeared again, this time holding the expired MREs that Tromp had packed for them. "Here's your lunch. Eat hearty." said the guard as he shoved the MRE through the food slot in the cell door. Sheppard looked at the MRE warily, as the expiration date was stamped prominently on the pouch, and it had expired a week ago. Sighing, he began to open the pouch, when a foul stench hit him, and caused him to collapse to the floor, retching. The spoiled food in the MRE reminded him of Hutchins' corpse and he threw the MRE onto the cell door, splattering spoiled meat and sauce everywhere. [30 minutes later] "SHEPPARD! DALTON! STROWBRIDGE! Up and at them! Your turn is up!" shouted the guard as he prepared the chains for the three prisoners. Within minutes, all three were chained together and led into a small side elevator which took them up to the 100th floor of the Complex, where they were then put into a smaller holding cell next to the courtroom. After fifteen more minutes of waiting, which seemed like an eternity to the three prisoners, the door to the courtroom opened and several guards came in. "Court's in session. Get out here." As they were led out, they saw on the judge's podium, the name "Wesley Hutchins, Senior" "Oh kriff me to hell." muttered Sheppard. "Let's get this over with." snarled Hutchins, Sr. "The Charges against you are Violating the Imperial Surface Officers' Doctine, and the maximum penalty allowable is death. Do you have anything to say before sentence is passed?" Before anyone could say anything, Strowbridge spoke up. "Sithspit, I can't see any resemblance between you and your son, except the fact that you're both worthless scumbuckets. You should have heard him squeal when I scrambled his brains." As Judge Hutchins' face turned beet-red, Strowbridge continued to talk. "Kriff it, we all know this trial is a farce, designed for consumption to cow officers into meekly submitting to the ISOD. Well, Kriff the ISOD. The damn thing is a piece of shit. So, kriff you and kriff your son." Before Strowbridge could say any more, he was interrupted by the banging of the Judge's gavel. "I pronounce the sentence; DEATH for you three, and twenty years' of hard labor for your men!" shouted Hutchins, Sr. "Take them away!" finished Hutchins, spittle flying from his lips as he screamed. As the guards grabbed the trio and manhandled them out of the courtroom, Hutchins got up and quickly left for his judicial chambers. The entire trial (all three minutes of it) had gotten him really worked up, and he needed something to help him relax. As he entered his chambers, he locked the doors behind him and activicated the anti-bugging devices to ensure his privacy before he opened the hidden compartment in his desk. His heart skipped several beats as he saw that his secret supply of Spice was missing. He began to look around his chambers frantically, and stopped when he heard a dark voice behind him. "Looking for this?' Whirling around like a man possessed, he saw a blue-skinned woman sitting in his chair, holding the vial of precious spice in her hands. "It would be horrible, a terrible SCANDAL if knowledge about your spice addiction were to become public knowledge, along with how you used your own son as a spice mule." Hutchins licked his lips nervously. "What do you want?" "What I want, my dear, is for you to commute the sentences on those three to life imprisonment and place them onto the prisoner transport _FCG-2244_." "But...But....I can't change the sentence!" protested Hutchins as his eyes followed the vial of spice as the mysterious blue-skinned woman played with it. "Oh yes, you can. Paragraph 653a of the Imperial Judicial Doctrine, specificially allows a judge to recant an earlier sentence if the Emperor so desires it. Are you willing to go against the Emperor's Will?" "Er...Ah...no." sputtered Wes, thin beads of sweat forming on his forehead. "Good. Hopefully, I shan't have to see you again...if everything goes well. The Emperor does not look kindly onto those subjects who defy His Will." The woman spun around in the chair, and when the chair spun back around, it was empty, causing Hutchins to do a double take. He immediately turned around and burst back into the courtroom, his eyes locking onto the Clerk of the Court, who was typing the final details on the trial into the Empire's criminal database. "Clerk! CLERK! Change the sentence to life imprisonment, and have them loaded onto transport _FCG-2244_!" "But sir, I thought you..." stammered the clerk, annoyed at having to redo all the work he had done. "I THOUGHT WRONG! CHANGE THE SENTENCES NOW!" screamed Hutchins, causing several guards to poke their heads in from outside the court. [5 minutes later - Death Row] "I had to say it, men." muttered Strowbridge as he was strapped into the distengrator chamber, in between Dalton and Sheppard. "It's been nice knowing you all. See you on the other side," remarked Sheppard as the guards closed the door to the chamber. "When I come back, I want to come back as a Hutt, all they do is eat for half their natural life, and then spend the rest of their lives screwing like crazy," said Dalton as the distengrator coils came to life with the faint smell of ozone and a slow humming noise. As the coils began to build up in energy, so did the humming noise, and it rose to a shriek...when all of a sudden it stopped. "Are we dead yet?" asked Sheppard. Distengration was the fastest method of execution known to humanity. The door clanked open and the guards came in and began unstrapping the trio. "Your sentence has been commuted to Life Imprisonment," said the guard with a look of definite disgust on his face. He liked distengrations - seeing the offender scream in primal agony as his body was distengrated one molecule at a time at an exponental rate. [1 Day Later - The Emperor's Palace - Imperial City] "Halt!" shouted a young man wearing the stylish purple clothes that identified him as one with money. Hit-Man simply smirked. "Out of my way, fancy-pants." "You dare speak that way to an Imperial Inquisitor?" snarled the man as he snapped forth with force lightning from his fingertips. Hit-Man simply grinned as the lightning crackled all over his battle-scarred white armor, dissipating harmlessly. Then, with a short brutal motion that happened so fast that if one had blinked, they'd have missed it, he clove the Inquistitor's head from his body in a blur of black light. >From within the Emperor's chambers, Hit-Man heard an evil cackle, and slowly, the doors opened, and the Emperor shuffled forth. "Excellent work, my young apprentice. Inquisitor Shymel was proving to be more of a problem than he was worth." Hit-Man knelt before his God, the Emperor and bowed his head. "My Master, I live only to serve you and the Dark Side." Palpatine courtesied with a wizened hand for Hit-Man to rise. "My Dear Hand, I have a new mission for you. You will once again go undercover in my Stormtrooper Corps, this time in a new galaxy." Hit-Man nodded in interest, for the Emperor would explain everything to him. "The details are trifling," continued Palpatine as he walked back towards his throne, with Hit-Man at his side. "You will find a holo with everything you need to know about your new mission in your quarters." "What I have called you here for, is to act as my Will in this new Galaxy, as conventional HoloNet transmissions will not be able to reach it. You are to pay particular attention to the leaders of the expedition, Admiral Sonnenburg, Surface Marshall Shimazaki, and Commander Thelea of the ISB." Palpatine turned around to face Hit-Man, his yellowish eyes boring into the LT. "You will not allow them to become...too independent. If they show signs of independence, terminate them immediately." Hit-Man nodded. "Thy will shall be done, Master. Is there anything else you wish of me?" Palpatine nodded. "Yes, there is. The Hutts have become too independent-minded. Make an example of them before you leave for this new galaxy." Hit-Man nodded again, the faintest traces of a grin breaking across his his scarred face. Palpatine saw it, and cackled inwardly. Hit-Man was proving to be one of his best tools, perhaps as good as the late, lamented Darth Maul. "Begone, I wish to meditate on the nature of the Dark Side." finished Palpatine, motioning with his hands and the Force, causing a doorway on the side of his chambers to swing open. Hit-Man nodded and knelt once more before his liege lord before leaving. He had a mission now, and everything, even sex, was now subordinate to fulfilling his master's wishes. After several minutes of mediation, Palpatine felt the essence of yet another one of his Hands. "Welcome, my dear Hand." he croaked in his wizened voice towards the blue-skinned woman in the background shadows of his throne room, her twin eyes glowing like fire rubies in the darkened chamber. "I have a new mission for you. You are to continue with your present duties as an officer in my ISB, only this time, you will be enforcing my Will in another galaxy." Thelea nodded. "And would this duty involve keeping watch over certain Imperial Army officers whose names end in 'Strowbridge, Dalton, and Sheppard'?" "I sense you are disturbed at my sparing of these officers, my dear Hand." "Certainly, my Lord. They have shown a willingness to ignore your Will, and you are handing to them such a momentuous task?" replied Thelea, her eyes narrowing into glowing slits. "I spared them at the insistence of Grand-Admiral Thrawn. If you wish to take fault with my decision, consult with the Grand-Admiral first." replied Palpatine. "He is the one who discovered this galaxy, with all it's opportunities. The races that inhabit it are much less advanced than we are, and it will be an easy addition to my Empire." Palpatine paused at that, and leant forwards, his sickly yellow eyes boring into Thelea's. "You will ensure that it becomes part of MY Empire, not Admiral Sonnenburg's nor Surface Marshall Shimazaki's." Palpatine added almost as an afterthought, "And above all, keep track of Inquisitor Voltrick. He is travelling in the fleet undercover as a Lieutenant in my Stormtrooper Corps by the name Hit-Man. You are to watch him carefully as well, to ensure he does not try and seize power of his own Dark Side Empire, far from MY reach." "My Lord, if you truly wish me to keep control over your Inquisitor, I will need at least a dozen male and female Ysalamiris and the habitats for them." replied Thelea. Palpatine's eyes widened ever so slightly. How had SHE found out about those cursed creatures? "Certainly. They will be delivered to your quarters within a fortnight." replied Palpatine. _These Chiss were getting to be too much trouble than they were worth_, he thought. "Good. As you well know, My Lord, no one stands a chance against a fully-trained Sith Lord without Ysalamiri. If you truly do want me to keep track of Inquisitor Voltrick, without getting killed in the process, it is a necessity." Palpatine grumbled at that. "Be gone. I wish to meditate." was his reply. As Thelea left the same way she had entered, Palpatine briefly thought about having her terminated, but banished the thought as quickly as he had entertained it. She was a cut better than most of the bumbling fools in the ISB, and she had stopped one of the many assassination attempts against him. That one had come much, much closer than the rest. Palpatine cackled at the thought of such insects actually killing him. What they did not know was that he had already died many, many times before, and that the body that he now inhabited was not his original body, which had died a long time ago. Death was merely an annoyance to him. [1 day later - Nar Shadda] A cloaked figure strode through the steamy neon nightlife of Nar Shadda, and everyone from the highest pimp to the lowliest street thug kept a wide berth of the figure after one of their numbers had tried to accost the stranger and had gotten their head removed for his trouble. The figure looked up at the towering slab of durasteel before him - the Carral Hotel. The one relatively safe place to hang your hat on Nar Shadda without having to worry about your neck being slit in the middle of the night for a quick cred by street scum. The figure smiled. Actually, the safety of the hotel and it's occupants didn't have to do with it's security systems, however formidable they might be. It had to do with the fact that the hotel was run by Parga the Hutt as a front for his many crime schemes, and it was an open secret that Parga's lair was deep inside the hotel's sub-basements. Parga in turn looked down very harshly on people who interrupted paying guests, often assigning bounties on those who attacked guests of his hotel. The tactic had worked, and quite well at that. Every scumbag for a hundred kliks around knew about the hotel and not to fuck with it. The Emperor didn't really care about aliens, nor their business, unless they were skimpy with their taxes. Parga had embezzled quntillions of credits from the Imperial Treasury, and he was an outright figure of defiance for untold trillions of beings slaving under the Imperial Tax Burden. This was unacceptable. There were also rumors that his shipping companies were supplying the Rebellion with highly advanced weaponry, for a price of course. No one thumbed their nose at the Emperor like that and got away with it. His intransigience had persisted, despite repeated Imperial Envoys, and the other Hutts were starting to get ideas. This was also unacceptable. The figure stopped before a guarded doorway on the 102th level of the hotel that his intelligence had indicated was one of only a few entrances to Parga's lair. Standing in a transparisteel booth with windows several centimeters thick, were two guards, a Rodian and a Human. Both of them looked at the newcomer warily. Parga was paying them well. Quite well, for a bunch of wanted criminals on the lam from the law for murder in a dozen systems. They just had to keep freeloaders away from this door. "Name?" asked the Rodian, causing the figure to snort derisively. "Death," replied the cloaked figure, causing the two guards to look at each other sarcastically. Oh great, not another chem-fried case. "And who are you here to see?" asked the Human guard, fighting to keep a smirk off his face, as he contemplated calling in Hotel security, to take care of this nutter. The light blaster cannon concealed above the doorway seemed a bit excessive for a nut like this one. "Parga the Hutt." Both guards exchanged glances. "Parga ain't seeing anybody today, especially a kriffin chem case like YOU!" snarled the Rodian as he reached with his hand towards the activation button for the shock panel the nut was standing on. Suddenly, the figure threw back his hood, revealing a horribly scarred face, accentuated by the blood-red glow from a cyber-eye. "Unfortunately for you, I am seeing old Parga today," rasped HIT-MAN as he reached out with the Force, and manipulated the tiny blood vessels in both guards' brains, causing them to die near-instaneously from embolisms. His master would be proud of him, thought Hit-Man as he triggered the door control panel inside the now-unmanned booth with the Force. He was learning subtulety, rather than raw violence. Stepping inside the Hotel, Hit-Man followed the corridor down to a lone turbolift car, which was giving him strong vibes from the Force. Smirking, he reached down and easily disabled the hidden distengrator booth fitted flush inside the car. As the turbolift sped downwards at an ever increasing rate towards the basement of the Hotel, which was actually still several hundred stories above true ground level, Hit-Man discarded his disguise, revealing his trademark blaster-scarred Stormtrooper armor, along with his customized E-11 clipped to his belt, opposite of his lightsabre. Several minutes later, the Turbolift hissed to a stop, and the doors slid open to reveal a debauched sight - Parga sitting in a repulsorlift field at the center of an opulently appointed room, with several Twi'lek slave girls rubbing him all over with skin cream to keep his skin moist and fresh. Hit-Man enjoyed the sight for a few moments before getting back to his mission. In a low rumbling voice, he spoke up. "Awright Parga! Time's UP! Palpie isn't too pleased with your recent business deals. It's time for you to pay the piper!" The girls looked up and screamed at the sight of a heavily armed stormtrooper standing in the turbolift, his E-11 aimed directly at them, and an inky-black lightsabre thrumming in the intruder's other hand.