There were a number of unexpected developments beginning to unfold throughout the cityscape. While Osam had never believed for an instant that the forces of the Concord and whatever Hutt Princes currently reigned would surrender their grasp on their civilian population, he had thought there would be a more formalized militia presence as there had been on multiple Concord planets. He had expected to see some degree of uniform or identifying marker, some degree of blaster training, and possibly even an APC or two scattered here or there.
He'd known from the beginning that the world was a criminal hub, but he didn't think that they would fight in such a piratical fashion. Perhaps that had been an error in judgment, believing that they had been civilized and made puny by their partnership with the Concord. Instead, the Warlord had to watch in surprise as slugthrowers and blaster bolts whizzed out of homes and shops - whatever locals were present doing their part to fight off the incursion of the genocidal Bryn'adul. The small-arms fire wasn't enough even to stop the Sraelvun - but injuries mounted up swiftly, and the warriors of the Crusade weren't guerilla warriors by any stretch.
Every meter was bought with spilled blood and stinging pain and the need to clear out another building or else blow it into chunks. The Warlord had already needed to collapse an entire termitary after its residents had opened upon them from a dozen different window openings. Akhenaton combat engineers had been vital in that work, sapping away at the foundations with explosive devices, and weakening whatever could be weakened from outside by means of raw strength and carbine fire. There hadn't been many survivors from that devastating collapse... but they took whatever few could be mustered and hurled their unconscious bodies back into the forward operating base.
The militia on Nal Hutta was sub-par, even by the standards of the Concord, but that did not mean its defenders were weak. They were a collective of dangerous individuals, each one operating at a level at times in excess of their more civil compatriots. Osam had watched as accursed Nek hounds had dragged a pair of Sraelvun into a building and bitten them to death, had observed as mercenary companies had rolled in with their fireteams, scoring kills on Juggernauts and Drones alike before they were blown to chunks or else forced to retreat.
At one point Osam had even personally blown off the arm of a screaming Wookie only for the abominable thing to slam him through a wall. He'd survived by virtue of the Flesh, but it had knocked the air out of his lungs, and it had taken
six more shots from the Carbine to finally put the Khaeus-cursed thing to death.
The inhabitants of Nal Hutta weren't all fighters, though, and they weren't all in the best shape to fight off the invading forces. For the most part, a large quantity of the elderly and the especially youthful had seemingly vanished - secreted away before the raid had begun in earnest - but what few had remained were corraled without issue. Men and women too had heard the call of the captive
Thova 'Mdanam
had discovered, and faced with the promise of their lives and the scorching plasma fire of
Sethrak
's gunboats, the obvious choice had been to lay down their arms and hide somewhere until they were discovered and forcibly marched to the operating base.
As the Warlord marched steadily through the next street, a fresh victim already sighted in one of the far buildings of the street, he became acutely aware of a familiar presence as he leaped over one of his own gunboats plasmatic fire stream. The pair of Akhenaton at his side lifted their weapons, their strange psychic link making them impossibly synchronized in the action, but even as their fingers pressed against the triggers of their weapons they were disarmed from afar. The two insectoids followed soon after, chucked full-force into the flames that wreathed the nearest homes, the inferno swallowing them up entirely and leaving little room to guess their fate.
The Jedi - unknowingly named
Varn Barakis
- was one of the pair who had fought him within the Surface Control Center upon Nar Kreeta. Here he stood, his lightsaber gleaming with heat and power, brandished like a taunt, focused on the Warlord like the piercing talon of an age-old foe.
Osam shuddered slightly under the threat. He imagined the blade disemboweling him or hacking him to pieces. He could not allow fear to prevent him from action though, and an opportunity had presented itself in the Jedi's arrival here. He would be a more valuable captive than many of the others - if he could be taken alive, not only would Osam have his weight in information and knowledge, but he would have an excellent way to spread his ultimate weapon against the feeble Silver Order.
With a slow and methodical walk, he began to approach the Jedi, pausing only slightly to tear a chunk out of an abandoned hoverbike on the street, crumbling the handlebars until they were little more than a crude ball of metal. The Flesh granted extraordinary power... exceptional strength, but it was not designed with the idea of keeping an opponent alive - for that he would need to be clever. The Kraemonen within pulsed with understanding, acknowledging that it would need to limit its own blows to an extent to keep the rival alive.
Left hand filled with the metal ball, and right grasping at the new Kukri he had acquired before the raid's beginning, the hybrid began to pick up speed, racing ahead to meet his enemy with fervor and ferocity.
Kiara Ayres |
Sakadi Marathi Sinvala
Osam
finally has a means by which to pursue his dastardly and cruel machinations. Setting his sights on the bordering worlds of the Silver Jedi Concord, he has been plotting an assault on Nal Hutta: a world renowned for its ancient corruption and strife. Whether the work of the Hutt Republic embedded into the Concord has managed to turn the populace away from their traditional activities of smuggling, slavery, and criminality is irrelevant to the hybrid who sees only a swampy cesspit filled with easy prey. 
