Previews

[Exterminatus Extremis]

Part IV
Wage

The sky was rent open. A Slipspace portal appeared above the impending doom of the carrier. Forth from it came a vessel more than three times the size of the ship it summarily dropped from the air. Powerful forward guns lashed out at its engines and seared its hull. It died before it knew what hit it.
It swept over the battlefield, casting a great shadow across the mountain. There, it stopped, holding a kilometer off the ground. Moments later the shock of displaced air hit them. Soldiers from both sides were knocked over by the sudden burst. Then, everything hung still.
There was a loud crunching noise as something hit the ground between the humans and the retreating enemy. It was about eight feet tall and three wide, and shaped vaguely like on oversized HEV pod. Neither side knew what the dark blue object was. Two more appeared on either side of it. All five burst open at the same time, revealing what was within each.
They wore humanoid combat suits the same color of the pods. Held in a ready position in front of their single-eyed helmets were long, thin, boxy rifles. These they leveled at the Coalition's lines and stood, waiting. There came a rushing of wind as something very large came down to hover over the five. It was a large, rectangular ship the size of a Scarab's body, and it seemed to be covered with weapons. The forward-most turret, a pair of large, circular cannons, pointed in the direction of the enemy's forward line.
The standoff abruptly ended when one of the dark-clad Force users, a Sith acolyte leaped forward at the new arrivals. His first jump sent him the twenty meters to the drop pods. He managed to deflect one shot from the new soldiers before a large portion of his chest was vaporized. The turret on the dropship whined as it spun to life and hosed bolts of plasma into the front of the Coalition. With practiced ease, the five infantrymen crouched to a knee and placed single shots, each one a kill. Bright blue beams of energy flew down the hill.
Colonel Fortna stared, open-mouthed. More pods began to rain from the carrier above them as dropships paraded across the sky. Her soldiers stood where they were, unsure of what to do. Their enemy was getting cut to pieces in front of them.
Two very large battlesuits arrived in one of the dropships. They walked down the hill burning as they went in much the same way as the Spartans had not two hours before. Thick streams of plasma and the occasional missile poured from the weapons strewn across their armor. The enemy had begun to retreat, but the strange soldiers were too thorough.
One of them turned to regard the gawking humans. It raised its free hand and spoke.
“Who's in command here?” The voice was deep and metallic, distorted by the external communication system in his helmet. Fortna rose from her crouched position.
“I am. Colonel Arael Fortna, Spartan First Platoon under Doctor Bruger.”
“Colonel Dalton, Eighth Expeditionary Force Kasrkin Regiment under Admiral Daniels. I see we arrived just in time.”
“Yes, you did. Thanks for the save. How did you know we needed the help?”
“We didn't. That carrier dropping troops tipped us off. Standing orders are to assist in repelling any ground forces that manage to gain a foothold on Reach. We're landing across all restoration zones, particularly those that have already fallen to the enemy.” This bit of news surprised Fortna and the nearby onlookers.
“What? What did we lose?”
“A few cities here and there. Nothing too major. Hold on, you mean you didn't know that? When was the last time you heard from your command?”
“Not much less than an hour ago.” Fortna attempted to radio in to Scythe base. There was no reply save static. She paled somewhat.
“Anthony, get up here!” She called. “We've lost contact with Scythe base. Have someone check the hardline and try to raise the doctor. We need to know what's going on.” Colonel Dalton rolled his eyes, calling up telemetry from the Gravis Armum hovering above the mountain. It showed that the facility was perfectly fine, for the moment. A jamming field had been raised in the area, presumably by the other Coalition vessel in the sector. It was likely that the base would soon come under attack. Of course, the Spartans had no way of knowing that. He scoffed a little at this. They really did need saving if they couldn't even keep contact with their HQ only a few kilometers away.
“Calm down, Colonel.” How did she get that rank like this, anyway? “The base is safe, for now. An enemy force is likely moving to it, however, and have deployed a jamming field. You probably won't be able to contact anyone outside of this hill.”
“How...never mind. In that case, sir, I'd like to ask if we could requisition a few dropships. We need to help fortify that base immediately.”
You don't even have your own dropships? “What about this Relay?”
“You're here, aren't you?”
“We're going after that other vessel. In all likelihood, if Scythe comes under attack, it will be from that ship. We're doing you a favor.”
“In that case, it's not likely that the Relay will come under attack again, is it? You destroyed the other ship, and the second is moving on Scythe Base. I'll leave the Marine group here and take the Army with me.” Scythe base was, tactically speaking, far more important than the Relay. If the Relay went down, so did a good portion of the hemisphere. But if Scythe base went down, they'd lose a monumental amount of data, equipment, and personnel.
Realizing this, Dalton conceded the point. Arguing with the woman was just going to waste time.
“You get two HATC-H dropships. I'll send a few squads to support you. You'll probably need them. Hell, I'll even give you a pair of tanks, since you probably don't even have that.”
~~O~~
The arrival of the trio of very heavily-armed ships at the base was met with some concern until the Spartans disembarked. They were greeted warmly by Doctor Bruger.
“We were concerned when the jamming field went up. We thought we were about to come under attack. I take it the relay held?”
“It did,” Fortna answered. “Thanks to the arrival of a carrier from the Asylum fleet, we annihilated the enemy. However, this base is vulnerable to attack. An enemy vessel isn't far away. The Asylum ship, the Gravis Armum, went to try and deal with it. We don't know whether or not they've been successful. We should prepare for assault and evacuate vital assets.” Bruger waved a hand at her Spartan subordinate.
“Follow me, Colonel. I've already prepared your escort assignment. The rest of you, resupply and recharge. Help load up the heavier items. I want to get as much tech off this base as possible. Sergeant Moore, find out what the Asylum soldiers need and see to it that they get it.” Fortna followed her through several large tunnels to a small hangar. There, she stepped out of the AEGIS armor and left it on its charging rack. The doctor led her to her personal workspace. The gymnasium-sized space was filled with workers packing up all sorts of technical equipment. Bruger led her to the very back, to a small office separated from the room by panes of glass. These opaqued after the door slid closed. After a deep breath, the scientist spoke.
“I won't deny that what I'm about to say is very egotistical and more than a little selfish. But it's absolutely vital to the continuation of my research here, or it may eventually be. As you're aware, human minds can be mapped and recreated as AI constructs, which can contain all of the original person's thoughts and memories.” She pulled a faintly glowing crystal out of its receptacle and placed it inside of a metal case. “This is my brain. Within it is my mind and research. Above all other things on this base, this one device must survive should we be overrun.”
“Including people?”
“Yes. I hate to say this, but this is the single most important asset here. If I end up dying in all of this, that has to make it offworld and out of the system, eventually to Earth. The enemy can't get their hands on it and we can't afford to lose it.” The Spartan nodded. Humanity wasn't on its back leg from the Covenant anymore, and times weren't nearly as desperate as they'd been in the past, but great minds were always a valuable commodity. Though not as lauded as her predecessor, Bruger's work was invaluable.
“I'll make sure it's delivered.”
“Good. Now, I need you and your team to redeploy to help protect this base if this Colonel Dalton fails to stop the enemy. I'm uploading tactical data to your neural link now. You have your orders, get to it.” Doctor Bruger sat down at the desk that spanned the length of the room and brought up evacuation reports. Fortna turned and exited the lab. In the back of her mind, she knew that the base would fall. The enemy was too powerful and numerous and they'd deployed almost all of everything they had. Even if they could call for help, it would never arrive in time.
Everything hinged on Dalton and the Armum.
~~O~~
Colonel Dalton stood on the bridge of the Gravis Armum as it approached the enemy vessel. The ovular layout of the Captain's Dais provided him with easy access to the plethora of displays needed to command a vessel like the great carrier. Granted, he only used a few of them. The actual captain of the ship, a mostly mechanized man, handled all of the vital but tactically insignificant functions. Colonel Dalton was in charge of the ship, yes, but he wasn't qualified to run it. His expertise was mainly groundside-oriented.
“We're prepared to begin the attack at your command, sir.” Dalton nodded to the Tactical Control station. The command to fire was sent down the great length of the ship. There was only a slight delay as electrical signals crossed kilometers. Then, capacitors charged and discharged, emptying energy into the lateral guns' power arrays. Light built within the barrels and pulsed, beams of excited particles lancing down at the enemy's shields. There was a tearing sound as the constituent gasses of the air around the beam were demolecularized. The plasma lance was answered, but from above.
The sky's unnatural hue had faded. Unbeknownst to the Colonel, the enemy had assaulted Relay 17 in force. The HAS in that area of the hemisphere was down, and the Coalition had seized upon the opportunity. A large vessel was descending upon the carrier, firing from within the upper reaches of the atmosphere. It was powerful, and had the advantage over the Asylum ship. The carrier's major weapons were lateral and ventral. In normal combat, it would be a small issue to rotate the ship to fire, but they were in atmosphere. It took a significant portion of the engine output to keep the ship from crashing into the mountainous terrain.
Dalton and the captain realized at the same time that fighting both Coalition vessels at once was risky at best. The Gravis Armum was strong, but ultimately just a carrier. The attack was broken off and it pulled away, leaving a few parting shots and a pair of heavily loaded dropships.
HATC-H was the designation of the dropships. Heavy Assault Troop Carrier – Hybrid. Boxy and large, it bore several heavy support weapons for various roles. Swiveling thrust pods provided it with excellent agility. Cloaking devices provided it with the capability to fulfill infiltration roles. They'd been in use by the Asylum military for nearly a hundred years.
Two squads of Kasrkins watched the carrier peel away from its attack and lead the enemy vessel back up into Space. Colonel Dalton disembarked into a small canyon that led into a series of other canyons. The other ten Kasrkins quickly joined him and they set off in the direction of the enemy vessel. With them was a large, ugly slab of metal on treads. The ATT-X302 “Land Raider” Main Battle Tank, which its crew had dubbed Gilgamesh, trundled after them, smashing rocks and knocking small trees down in front of it.
It wasn't long before they encountered the first patrols.
“Alpha 3, take the jet trooper. Beta 2, the turret. Beta 1, ordnance to the Dark Trooper. Mark.” At the same time, a Stormtrooper was knocked from his perch, a plasma charge detonated beneath an automated turret, and two large bolts of plasma speared the Dark Trooper and the cliff face behind it. Two more white-and-green armored soldiers ducked out of cover, firing shots off at the only thing they could see. It was a large battlesuit toting two shoulder-mounted cannons and a rapid fire plasma weapon on each hand. With these, it vaporized the two Stormtroopers.
“All right, move up! Heavies and tank lay covering fire while everyone else gets to that hatch!” Dalton broke cover first, putting a few shots towards the second emplacement. Right behind him came the second of the ten-foot battlesuits, both of which put a withering hail of burning matter over the other Kasrkins' heads and into the scattered enemy defenses. The remaining eight Asylum soldiers ran straight for the hatch to the lift between the overhead ship and the surface. The colonel was almost to it when it opened and a pair of Sith stepped out. Dalton wasted no time in vaulting over the first one to punch the other in the neck. He ducked under the lightsaber counter and continued on to the hatch, tossing a grenade ahead of him. Behind him, the Sith exploded as the plasma grenade attached to its neck went off. The other was cut down with overwhelming firepower from four different guns.
The Heavy Kasrkins quickly joined the regulars in the hatch, and the lift ascended into the bowels of the enemy ship. As it ascended, he received a brief message from the Gravis Armum. The enemy had begun to move.
The interior of the enemy vessel was fairly spartan. Grey and shades thereof were the primary colors of the walls in which the Kasrkins found themselves. Directly across from them in the hangar was a platform that was slowly descending, and in the walls to their left and right was a blast door. Above the platform, a window separated the Kasrkins from a trio of wide-eyed technicians who'd just realized why no one from the exit of the extendable lift outside had contacted them to let them know what all the shooting was about.
As if the thought of attack on the vessel itself wasn't worrying enough, now their enemy was inside.
The Kasrkins broke to the left, and none too soon as a large crane came down right where they had been standing. A quick blast from one of the larger plasma weapons turned the crane to slag, but then the response team arrived through the door on the right. By that time the Regulars had already made it through the left door, which the Heavies subsequently sealed. Dalton spared them little more than a passing thought as he and the rest of his team sprinted through the corridors. They could handle themselves, and their part in the assault was to hold the exit anyway. Armor like that would just slow them down in the bowels of a starship.
Speed turned out to be somewhat detrimental too, as the lead Kasrkin quickly found out. Had they not been moving so quickly, he might have been able to avoid the lightsaber that beheaded him. A robed and masked figure appeared as the cloaking device in his belt deactivated. He stood in the center of the corridor, impassive against the plasma he subtly deflected with flicks of his wrist. The Force was a powerful thing and, heated and swift they may be, bolts of plasma were still matter.
“Cease fire!” Dalton called. He weighed his options for a few seconds and decided upon the most efficient one. He stepped forward.
“Sergeant, find another way to the engines. I want this boat landed. I'll meet you at the exit.” With a curt nod, the rest of the Kasrkins turned and headed back the way they'd come. Dalton drew his combat blade and advanced slowly upon the Sith.
“I hope you'd at least give me the courtesy of a name.” The voice issuing from behind the mask was distorted, but he could tell it wasn't a normal human voice just the same.
“Colonel Dalton. And yourself?” The Sith bowed slightly, still not moving from his position in the doorway.
“I am Marauder Ornon Vhurt. It is a noble thing you have done, sacrificing yourself so that your people may accomplish their goal. It still won't work.” Dalton shrugged.
“I didn't say I was dying.” With abrupt swiftness considering his previous movement, he shot the Sith in the face.
Elsewhere, Sergeant Mason and the remaining Kasrkins had found another way to the engines. Unfortunately for a lot of people, that involved tearing straight through the barracks and medical wing. They stood outside the closed hatch that led into the first room of the soldiers' quarters. One of the Kasrkins was working at the opened control panel, trying to get the door to open so that they wouldn't have to blow it off the bulkhead.
“Just so we're clear, this is probably going to be a bad firefight. This is the barracks, and if this map is correct, it's directly linked to an armory. Whoever is in there is probably armed already. And there are probably a lot more of them than there are of us.”
“Even fight, sir?” The one at the door piped in.
“You bet. Open it.” The door hissed open and a pair of flash-bang grenades rolled through it. Immediately following the two-note cacophony were seven pairs of armor-plated boots. These stopped once they found what was inside. Rather, what wasn't.
Several benches and tables adorned the floor of the room. Beyond that was an open door, through which were rows of bunks and footlockers and the occasional door off to the side. Directly across the central path through the barracks from the Kasrkins was another door, this one also open. Within that was another room just like the one they stood looking at. The one thing missing was...
“It's empty?” Though their helmets had no visors, a glance passed between the Sergeant and his second.. He turned and made for the door.
“Out, out, everybody out now!”
Dalton lowered his pistol, smiling a little. The mask had broken off and lay in pieces on the floor. His smile faded as he saw what lay beneath it.
“Ah, hell. It was worth a try.” He ducked under the first swing and brought his knife up to counter the second. Ornon didn't have a face, at least, not a human one. That explained the lack of a natural voice. Instead, the entire front of his head was metal and augmetics formed into a crude human skull.
“I must admit to some disappointment,” the Sith said as he continued to batter at Dalton. “I usually save that particular unveiling for when my opponent thinks they've won. Oh, the faces they make!” The Colonel rolled back, springing to his feet a few meters away.
“I'm going to guess that your galaxy isn't big on abominations, is it? I've seen faces that make yours look like Carly Berin.” He pulled out another knife and reversed his grip on it, edging forward. It took a moment to dawn on him that the Sith had no way of knowing who Carly Berin was. With the advent of widely-available genetic splicing and biological augmentations, the modeling industry transformed practically overnight to show off the latest restructuring. Vanity, it seems, is a human trait that is impossible to avoid.
“We have our share of horrors,” Ornon said casually as he deflected a few stabs, “but in my line of work, it all just blurs together after a while. You know how it is. Kill enough, and everything becomes just another targ – oops!” The lightsaber clattered to the floor, a small, glowing knife sticking out of it. Dalton wasted no time in driving the other into the Sith's head, or trying to. A hand came up and took the blow instead, giving off a shower of sparks as the robotic arm received the shock.
“I'm disappointed. I'd hoped I could get a little more sport of you before I had to do this.” With that, the Sith raised his undamaged left hand and pulled at the Colonel in front of him.
Nothing happened.
“What?” Another blade stabbed into his outstretched hand. Dalton moved forward and yanked the other one out of the false right arm. The Sith was still staring at his hand as blood dripped from the ruined limb.
“It's called a Blank field, in common language. Its scientific name is something I never bothered to learn. Right about now, you probably can't feel anything from what you call the Force. That's because these knives and most other close-combat weaponry we Kasrkins have are equipped with a device called a Nul-emitter. I don't really understand the principle myself. It has something to do with an energy field that cancels out those generated by the Warp. Oh well.” He now stood directly in front of Ornon. “Mine, in particular, are also equipped with a paralyzing electrical shock. It would have worked the first time, but it seems your robotic limb is constructed to resist such things. Doesn't really matter, I guess.” He drew his arm back and stabbed into the Sith's chest, twisting the blade. As he withdrew it, the voice spoke.
“Well fought. I could spout off about how it was an honorable duel, but I don't work like that.” Dalton looked up at the Sith's face in alarm just as the unaffected limb split open to reveal a blaster.
The Kasrkins made it out of the barracks just before several hidden stun grenades went off. At either end of the corridor stood several stormtroopers, weapons raised and already firing. Sergeant Mason would have pointed out how tactically inefficient it was to open fire and probably hit their own comrades on the other side of the Kasrkins, but a blaster bolt to his neck put a stop to any such thoughts. Or any other thoughts, for that matter.
Down at the entrance to the ship, the crew of Gilgamesh watched a pair of explosions rip through the bay high above them. Among the other debris tumbling down was a very familiar shape. The shape resolved itself to be the torso and head of one of the Heavy units. It flopped onto the Land Raider with a loud clang, leaving a slight dent in its armored hull.
The tank commander, an older woman named Meredith Sulla, turned from the screen and ordered an immediate pullout. Those were the orders; if the hangar was lost, get to Scythe Base and reinforce it. As the Land Raider spun to leave the valley, a tank arrived on the lift and opened fire. It was quickly turned to slag by the heavier weapons, but not before loosing a pair of missiles which destroyed one of the turrets on the top. A few more blasts from the main cannon made sure that the lift wasn't going to be used anytime soon and the tank rolled out.
A few minutes later, they crested the top of a rise and saw the reason why the defense around the vessel had been so weak.
A kilometers-long column of transports was on a direct path to the distant Scythe Base, and the first part of it was almost there.
~~O~~
One hour and twenty-two minutes later.
Fortna was about two feet from her armor when the shelling started. She listened to reports in her ear as she stepped into the suit and ran the activation checklist. The enemy had forgone the armored column tactic used at the HAS Relay and instead opted for a speed assault. Their limited artillery could only do so much against the sheer numbers rushing at the base, and in the end it came down to a running fight across a kilometer-wide battlefield, made more dangerous now that the enemy's artillery was in range. Six minutes later, she was on an elevator with Anthony on the way up to the surface to meet with the remaining Spartans. Anthony was telling her about the Kasrkin redeployment.
“...and I swear, this thing was bigger than a Scorpion. I hadn't gotten a good look at it when we were on the dropships, but Asylum knows how to build a tank.”
“They still use treads? As advanced as they are, I'd have thought they would have hovercraft like the Covenant.” Anthony chuckled a little.
“I asked the same question. The driver explained it. He said, 'You ever run someone over in an ATV? Kind of bumps around a lot? In a tank like this, you don't even notice that you just made human juice.'”
“That's disgusting. And it doesn't answer the question.”
“Apparently, if you hit something with a hovercraft, you just knock it down and make rubble. With treads you can basically annihilate whatever you're running over. Not that a tank like that would have to get close to something to destroy it. I have no idea what those weapons are, but damned if they weren't powerful.” Fortna nodded.
“Good. We might need an easy out if this goes South.”
“Colonel?” The elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal a hangar full of her Spartans. She walked out into their midst and raised a hand to get their attention.
“I've been tasked with making sure a very valuable asset makes it off of this planet should this base fall. And given what I'm hearing about what's coming, that seems likely. No amount of optimism is going to convince any sane person that we can weather this one. Even the AEGIS won't make a difference here. You're all much more useful to this war effort if you stay alive, so don't do anything stupid. Our target is the trio of walkers currently en route to the battlefield. They're already within striking distance and are doing a large amount of damage to the base. The objective is to destroy these in any way possible. That is all. If a retreat is sounded, your one and only objective is to make it back to this hangar within twenty minutes. The Asylum dropships will be waiting here for us.” She stopped and placed her helmet on her head, locking the seals and activating the external speakers.
“Give 'em Hell.”
The hangar doors opened and the line of grey-armored supersoldiers walked onto the battlefield. Death rained from their weapons as they marched, inexorably, towards their target. They walked over a set of trenches. Several soldiers within them stood and saluted the Spartan line, thankful for the arrival of the armored figures. They passed by one of the Asylum tanks that had been turned on its side by some gigantic explosion. Around it were littered the bodies of the enemy who had tried to oppose it. Its crew was trying to right it, and once Fortna aided them, the tank trundled to join them.
They came to the top of the valley walls and saw the battlefield. Tanks, bodies, smoke, fire, ash and scorched earth littered the battlefield like dust in a tomb. Muzzle flashes and the streaks of lasers lit up the slowly-darkening area. On the horizon, as a backdrop to the carnage, occasional flashes could be seen in the twilight as the battle in orbit continued. Streaks across the lit side of the sky showed where ships had gone down in the atmosphere. Distantly, the stomping of the three behemoths could be heard as they slowly advanced, destroying everything in their path.
With a cry, the Spartans of Scythe Base charged the trenches.

--------------

Ai. Could have been longer, but I actually cut a lot of ideas in favor of a couple of things for the next chapter. As per usual, check for errors and whatnot.

[Siddious2RS]

[Darth Xizov]

I think you should add my old HK-470 idea. Or not. Entirely up to you

[Exterminatus Extremis]

You'll have to post it in the plot topic, otherwise I probably won't remember it by the time I get an opportunity to work it in.

[Exterminatus Extremis]

Happy new year, I suppose. Here's a present.

Halo Versus Star Wars
REACH, II
[I]
New Orders

Something didn't add up.
The operation had gone on for nearly a day now. They had the upper hand, though not by much. The invasion was succeeding completely.
So what was wrong?
The orbital defenses were powerful. This world was obviously the major center of the Terrans' military power. The assembled fleets were large, and the armies on the planet below were well-equipped and skilled. But there were several major points that bothered the commanders of the Coalition. Chiefly, and most obvious, was the fact that this world had already been destroyed once before. The rebuilding effort was slow and only in its preliminary stages. If this was the correct target, why was the Terran morale not broken already? For that matter, if this system truly was the basis of the human civilization in this galaxy, why was it not more widely populated? Such things confused the thinkers and strategists of the Coalition. A conclusion was eventually suggested. They were all in agreement.
This was not the Terran homeworld.
For a few brief moments, there was confusion and panic as they realized that their goal of ending this war quickly was going down the drain. But plans were laid and strategies thought up. This could still be salvaged and the original objective still attained. All they needed to do was find out where the true home system was.
The plan was sent out to the forces on the planet below. They were to find any sort of navigational equipment, maps, star charts, or any other such items, and bring them to the analysts so the objective could be found. Logically, the most likely places to find these things were in starship hubs within the major cities.
With most of the ground forces engaged already, it fell to individual teams to infiltrate the hubs and seek out the information. On the northern hemisphere of Reach, in a city called Dentai, in a blasted-out storage facility, a squad of Republic troopers led by a Jedi Knights sat, hunkered down as the enemy fired on them from all directions. They'd been pinned down by several dozen Marines at once, and more kept arriving. Only their defensible position and whatever luck they had left kept them from being completely overwhelmed.
His name was Canis. He'd been put in charge of a squad of troopers as part of the assault on the city they were currently trying to get out of. The attack had gone awry once their forces reached the city proper. It wasn't that the Coalition forces were bad at urban combat. In fact, many of the soldiers there were picked for their experience in that regard. It was that the enemy was just that much better at it, and they knew the lay of the land.
To add to that, the enemy had the aid of a few different kinds of alien soldiers. Bird-like things that had incredible accuracy, squat beasts that had strength in numbers, tall, powerful soldiers that led the others, and those hulking behemoths with the arm cannons.
Those, in particular, posed a problem. Their major vulnerability was their back, which was not something one could really get to easily under normal circumstances. Everywhere else was armor and spikes. Particularly in the front. The shield each one carried was nigh impenetrable except by things like lightsabers, but that required getting close. One on one, a Jedi with a lightsaber could easily kill one of the creatures, but they were never fielded alone. They came in pairs, surrounded by smaller aliens.
These, though, were not the worst of their troubles. Shortly after the Coalition entered the city and began to overrun it, any isolated squad abruptly went missing. Rumors began to circulate of enemies using stealth technology. That did not explain the brutality of the attacks, though. Entire squads were found mutilated after losing contact. Occasionally a tank would go missing, and in one instance an AT-AT and everything around it was brought down when the street beneath it collapsed, revealing a tunnel street below that. The AT-AT's legs were crushed under its own abruptly-multiplied weight.
Eventually, the order came around to pull out of the city and regroup for a counterattack. That had been over an hour ago, and Canis had yet to find a way to get his squad out of the trap they'd ended up in. He himself felt somewhat useless. He was a Jedi, and thus did not have much in the way of ranged capability. The other Force user was a Sith who gave its name as Quandi. It wore a mask and robes that concealed its voice and gender. The squad had found it trapped in some wreckage after an artillery strike hit near them. Canis didn't like it much, but the Sith actually proved to be quite amicable, if somewhat sinister. When it did speak, it was to offer aid or direction. Otherwise, it was silent.
The squad itself consisted of a quintet of soldiers from the Republic. They might have been clones, but each one was of different stock, so Canis couldn't really tell. Sergeant Ollo and his subordinates Gran, Thelo, Estien and Mag. When he'd been assigned to the squad, Canis had asked about the trooper's unusual nickname. He wasn't unfamiliar with the custom of earning one's name through action, but was still curious. As it turned out, the name wasn't a fortunate one. It was short for Magnetic, as the man had a habit of attracting trouble, or at least, being the first one to find it.
This trait certainly became evident once the fighting got underway. The squad had stopped for a short rest in the building they were currently trapped in, and Mag drew the short straw for recon duty. He'd been gone barely five minutes when they started hearing the broken glass noise of the aliens' needle rifles. He came running into the building followed by a pack of the squat aliens.
After that, more of the enemy began showing up and they ended up with no exit route. Their requests for aid went unanswered; apparently, a great deal of their forces had already pulled out and were being siphoned off to another location where some general claimed to have discovered something important. The gist of the response was that they weren't important enough to risk a rescue mission.
That abruptly changed when the orders came down from above to find a star map or some similar thing. As it happened, they were the closest unit to a star port. This meant two things for them. First, they were important enough to redirect artillery to provide a cover for their escape. Second, after said escape, they would have to charge blindly across a large intersection to the maintenance entrance to a sewer that ran beneath the streets.
“You're kidding.”
“No, we're not. Look, I'm just the messenger, all right? The higher-ups said that these were the orders, so that's what I'm relaying. Take it up with them if you make it back.” The sergeant closed the line and sighed. He didn't miss the “if” thrown in there.
“Okay, everyone, here's the plan. In about four minutes, all hell is going to break loose in this area of the city. They're giving us a full barrage in all of the adjacent streets to the square outside and giving us a smokescreen. Our job is to make it to the building over there,” he finished, pointing. “That's our ticket into the cesspits that run under the city. Evidently, this is how we're going to gain access to the star port. Any questions?” Mag raised his hand, but the dark-robed Sith spoke first. The flat voice issued from a grate in the mask.
“What can we expect in the star port?”
“Recon never made it there. They got picked off by one of those stealthed targets. We don't know what kind of forces are there, so we're treating it as maximum resistance.” The squad quickly assembled their gear while Mag asked his question.
“Who's going out there first?” The sergeant's grin before he put his helmet on was not comforting.
<~O~>
“Why is it always me?” Mag asked himself as he crouched in the doorway to the building. He'd only been there for a little over a minute, but the apprehension and adrenaline was starting to show. Every so often he'd hear a sound and twitch. It felt like forever.
“I mean, I'm not even that fast of a runner. So why do I always get these jobs?”
“Mag. Quit your whining, or I'll be the first to shoot at you.”
“Thanks, Thelo. That's comforting.”
“If you don't shut up, I'm killing both of you. Get off the line!” The sergeant's voice broke their banter.
“I got movement!” came Estien's voice. “One of the bird things and a pair of the little ones. I think they've noticed our lack of activity. They're moving around the corner of the building on the left.” A few seconds later, Mag saw them. They were moving slowly and their heads twitched back and forth as they sought a target. He crouched lower, extending his leg back into a sprint start. As he did so, the rubble he'd been sitting on shifted and a loose pebble tumbled out the door and into the sidewalk.
The aliens' heads turned straight towards him.
“Aw, sh--” he started. Then, there was just noise. The aliens disappeared into a cloud of smoke and fire as the barrage began. Before the second shot even hit, he'd started running. He could clearly see the door he was supposed to open. He ran straight for it, jumping over a decorative raised flowerbed in the process and tripping over a burnt corpse. The barrage stopped when he was about two-thirds of the way across the intersection.
Estien, the squad's sharpshooter, silently tracked his progress. A needle bounced off the pavement near the running trooper as one of the enemy regained its composure. Reacting mostly on instinct, Estien jerked his aim and put a blaster bolt into its chest. Two more aliens, four more shots.
“Door's open!” came Mag's signal. He counted to three and leaped out of his hiding spot above the main entrance to their building. He heard boots pounding the pavement behind him as the others began to run as well. Lightsabers hissed into being as plasma began to fly around them. Estien all but dove through the open doorway into the downward stairs. As Canis crossed the threshold, he slammed the door shut, then continued running as shots hit it from the other side and it began to melt. He found the sergeant relaying their confirmed survival.
“Oh? Oh.” He turned to his squad and the Force users. “Run. Right now.” The ground began to shake as more artillery rained down on the square. And they ran. For several minutes, as the tunnel began to collapse behind them. Eventually they came to a more stable area under another block of the city and stopped to recuperate.
“They put a little too much sauce onto that one. They might have blown us up along with those targets,” Thelo complained.
“Turns out one of their bug-looking walkers was headed in the direction of the square. Artillery commanders figured they'd kill it while they were pointed in the right direction anyway.”
“No kidding. I don't suppose they might have mentioned to us beforehand that they were going to level the area? You know, so we didn't get flattened for not moving fast enough.”
“If you weren't moving fast enough, the Terrans would have shot you anyway. Take your pick, Thelo.” They came to another set of stairs that led up to a door. Estien slowly pushed it open, sticking his rifle out to see if it would spot anything.
“According to the map we were sent, we're not far from the star port,” said the sergeant. “Do you see the marker?” The sharpshooter leaned out a little more. Somewhere behind the buildings to his left, the navigational marker appeared on his HUD. It hovered over a high tower that extended down beyond his line of sight. The map they had was of the city itself from scout drones they'd sent in at the initial attack. They didn't have any maps of the sewers and other undercity features, which necessitated the occasional position check above ground.
“Yeah, I see it. It's in this direction. We should take the next right turn we come to, it will probably get us most of the way there. Hold on, I see movement.” He closed the door slightly more to better disguise his position. A pair of the enemy's noisy, wheel-bound vehicles came roaring into view, followed by a few more that lacked the weapon mounted on the back, but instead held more soldiers. One of the transports held only one figure in it, what appeared to be a heavy droid of some sort. It held a large launcher up to its shoulder and the rest of the vehicle was full of, presumably, boxes of ammunition for it. The convoy turned down the avenue in the direction of the star port.
Estien waited for them to pass and closed the door. He reported what he'd seen to the squad.
“Sounds like they're reinforcing the port now. We should get moving. Gran, scout ahead.” The next few minutes passed uneventfully as they made their way deeper into the sewers. As it turned out, there was a map and some other emergency equipment in a metal box attached to the wall of the sewer. Presumably it was in case someone got lost in the tunnels. They were headed in the right direction, for the most part.
The star port was necessarily a huge complex. Besides various landing areas for large vessels and parking lots for private vehicles, there were a host of other services housed in the several buildings of the port. While none of them could read the Terran languages, they did recognize the meaning of various symbols like the eating utensils and the now-familiar symbol for the Terran military organization. Intuitively, if a complex served food as a secondary function, there were probably several other amenities.
The theory was that, so that the large landing areas wouldn't fall victim to flooding, there would be several direct lines into the sewer systems to drain the excess water, and that these lines would require maintenance. That meant that there would be entrances from the star port down into the sewer.
None of them really knew much about architecture or meteorology, so they had to trust the information handed down to them from their leaders. It still left one question, though, which Mag eventually asked.
“What exactly are we looking for? We don't really know anything about how these people have set themselves up or how their technology functions. Finding a galaxy map will be impossible.”
“Apparently, we're going to be told that once we get there. I guess they figure that the tower will have all of the equipment we need, but they need to see it before they can tell us how to access the data.” Sergeant Ollo stopped when Canis held up a hand. “Yes, Jedi?”
“There's someone else down here in the tunnels with us. I can feel it.” He didn't bother to explain how. Normal people generally didn't understand how the Force functioned and that lack of understanding led to stupid questions.
“Gran, have you encountered the enemy yet?”
“No, sir,” the response came back. “I found the entrance to the star port, though. Orders?”
“The Jedi says there's someone else down here. Find us a hiding spot inside the complex.”
“Acknowledged. Moving out.” Ollo gestured that they keep moving.
“How close to us is it? Or, are they?” Canis frowned at the squad leader's question. He wasn't particularly adept in the finer, more subtle abilities granted by the Force. His was a martial expertise, thus his appointment as a military liaison. Before he could answer, the Sith spoke up.
“There are twelve separate entities in these tunnels that are not with us. Several of them are moving close to us. They are looking for intruders.” The Jedi seemed slightly disgusted at this, but said nothing.
“Are there any between us and Gran?” The sergeant asked.
“No, but there will be soon.”
“Let's hurry, then,” he said, and began to run.
<~O~>
Gran peered out of the door into the lightless room it opened into. His helmet lights revealed it to be a hallway that had four other doors in it. One of them, the one opposite him on the far end of the hall, was ajar. He made his way to this one and looked out of it.
It was another hallway, this one lined with more doors. Each of these doors had a window with a string of symbols on it in a Terran language. Opening one of these doors revealed nothing but shelves full of boxes marked with white labels. He continued to the end of this hallway and opened the door there. Light spilled into the room. He came out into yet another hallway, but one of the walls was replaced with floor-to-ceiling windows that let the sunlight in. The view looked out onto one of the landing areas.
It swarmed with activity. It was being used as a staging ground for the Terran military forces. Vehicles from the tiny, four-wheeled contraptions to tanks and massive, tread-bound boxes that mounted turrets and often held smaller vehicles in them. The aliens also had a motor pool there, on the opposite side of the lot. A pair of the large, four-legged walkers squatted at the opposite end of the lot from where he stood. Soldiers moved all around the place, preparing weaponry and checking on the vehicles. As he watched, a gate opened and the convoy Estien had seen arrived and disgorged its occupants.
He quickly backed up into the hall and shut the door again. Frantically, he began to check the other doors in the hall. He couldn't raise the squad on the communicator, so he could only wait for them to arrive, and he couldn't go down into the tunnels again because the enemy was already there.
The final door he opened was in the hallway he had first arrived in. This one was a set of stairs, unlike most of the other rooms he'd searched. He climbed them as quickly as he could while remaining silent and opened the door at the top.
The room was large and filled with desks and computers divided by thin, shoulder-height walls. Gran made his way between them, peering over his shoulder every so often, even thought the motion tracker in his helmet didn't pick anything up. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something following him through the building. Well did he remember the stories of recon units that disappeared to the phantom soldiers of the enemy.
He heard the stairway door close.

[Darth Xizov]

Good job. I added my idea in plot points

Incidentally, what happened to Dalton?

[Exterminatus Extremis]

Dalton died on the ship when he destroyed the engines.

[Darth Xizov]

That explains that then.

[Siddious2RS]

Hey, guys...

Look what I found on Exterminatus's FF.net account.

The Coruscant Scenario

Drop the Sky (I am almost certain I never saw this Reach I chapter)

[Darth Xizov]

It's been too long...