Invasion Die by The Sword | NIO invasion of BOTM held Csaus

[Enzo Demici]

L U C K Y 7 P A G E C L A I M

CSAUS | CITADEL CAELITUS
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER | 181st FIGHTER WING
BRAVO FLIGHT | DAGGER SQUADRON
ALLIES: NIO | Delilah Jones | Kovacs | DECEASED Erskine Barran
ENEMIES: MAW
ENGAGING: The Mongrel
GEAR: In bio | TIE-OTx 'Outlander' | Standard loadout

ENTER SANDMAN​

Their defenses were hastily prepared, they dug their trenches and readied themselves as much as they could for the fight to come. Enzo was rather disappointed in himself that he didn’t pack his carbine and other gear for this mission. Then again, they were pilots. Their weapons and survival gear were all built into the starfighters they flew. They weren’t supposed to fend off against an overwhelming force on the ground, that job went to the ground forces.

But now they were part of the ground forces, until their extraction got to them.

Enzo sat in the hastily dug trench with a cigarette in his mouth. After putting his lighter away he peered over the edge at the approaching Mawites and undead soldiers. ”I bet you two, forty credits each, that we’re not going to make it out of this.” He quipped with a smirk as he glanced at the two other pilots. It was a sweet deal for them. Either they got a bunch of credits at the end of it, or they didn’t have to pay up if they lost.

That might get them in a better mood.

He waited for Jon’s orders to open fire. His pistol was unsuited for this situation, wholly unsuited. The only good part was the fact that they could take out more than one enemy with the explosive bolts. Taking a long drag of his cigarette, he used the deep breath to calm himself for the fight to come.

The order was given, and he looked over the edge with his pistol and cigarette at the ready. Careful shots, sparing shots, they couldn’t waste a round on this. There was no telling on how long it would take, and with his comms messing about, he was reliant on his squadmates for any relevant information. Each shot was aimed carefully at the groups packed tightest, if he could take a few of them out with each shot it would be even better.

Round after round spat from his pistol as he plucked his cigarette from his mouth. ”Sadly not! Wasn’t exactly gearing for a last stand!” He called out to Jon as he ducked down from a flurry of bolts hitting the trench line. ”I’m packing for a bloody siege next time we fly out!” He shouted as he took a drag and fired at a bunch of Mawites pushing up.

But one lucky strike silenced his gun.

A bolt of electricity shot from the Mawites’ bizarre guns and danced through the snow, only to shoot out and straight into his cuirass. The pilot slammed back into the hastily dug trench and crumpled down into a rattling mess, his hair standing on end and a weak groan croaking from his lips. His cuirass melted around the impact zone, and the only indication of him being alive was the oddly timed rise and fall of his breathing.

A shaking hand reached out at his pistol, but his strength left him as his eyes closed. ”C-c-com…” He stuttered, the occasional jolt from his body was the only movement mustered…

 

[Shai Maji]

CSAUS | CITADEL CAELITUS
501st LEGION | 16th COMPANY
29 TROOPS TOTAL | 4 BASILISK WAR DROIDS
GEAR IN WRITE UP | REPEATERS | MISSILE LAUNCHERS
ALLIES: New Imperial Order | DECEASED Erskine Barran | Kranak Vizsla | Bex Tarring | Volgin Alto
ENEMIES: Maw | Lurtz Null | Tor’r Tal’Verda | Kralmus Orr | Khamul Kryze
ENGAGING: The Mongrel
GEAR: In bio | Standard loadout | shield​

Spoiler: tl;dr

• Shai crashes into Mongrel and loses her shield
• Drops to a knee due to her wounds and takes off her helmet
• Draws her pistol and takes aim at him, waiting for him to look at her before wanting to fire.

SHOTGUN BLUES​

The fight between the two of them could likely be seen as some sort of showdown decided by fate. The Mongrel against the Wardog. Two cyborgs, broken by battle after battle, clashing with relentless fury. Two champions of the two entities they fought for. Order against Chaos. It would make for a great fight in some over-the-top holofilm, one could argue.

But to Shai, the Mongrel was merely an obstacle… and a representation. He reminded her of them. The lapdogs of the Sith who betrayed their people and took everything from her. Her clan, her body, her sanity. He was no better than the scum who ruined her life forever. And for her to get revenge, she needed to go through the pawns. Beyond the Mongrel laid the Sith, the puppeteers behind the Chaos in the galaxy. If she wanted their heads, she needed to take his.

But he also reminded her of someone else.

Herself.

In another life, they would have likely been thick as thieves with their stories. They were broken beings, simply marching on and doing what they did best. It was like staring into a twisted mirror.

And she wanted to break that mirror.

The Mongrel raised his hand and the repulsors within let loose. The power behind it was immense, and if it wasn’t for her shield and helmet, she would have been a corpse crashing into him. Her visor shattered once again, spraying transparisteel into her vision… if it weren’t for her cybernetics, it would have been Coruscant all over again. But her original eyes were robbed from her on that planet. What remained was the cuts around the sockets, and the glowing gaze staring through the T-slit in her helmet.

Her shield held up and did its job, weathering the damage and impact against his chassis until the electromagnet gave in and the device crashed into the snow beside them.

Her stims were wearing down and the fight was taking its toll. She dropped to one knee only a few feet away from her damaged opponent, trying as well to get up. The wound in her gut pulsed with pain while blood and cybernetic fluid built up in her mouth. Yanking her helmet off, she spat the combination out and snarled at him as she dropped it to the ground. This fight needed to end quickly.

She drew her pistol and flicked off the safety before she levelled it with his broken body. ”You fight like a dog, my dude.” She growled, though a chuckle escaped her as she realized what she said. Now glaring at her enemy with nothing hiding her face, they were as close as could be. Her grim, battered smile was clear as day in the fires and moon drenching them in light.

”Look at me.” She ordered, her crimson eyes burning through the darkness while one flickered slightly from damage. ”I want you to remember my face before I send you to your idols.” Her finger was already squeezing the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest flinch. Her pistol could get through that armour at this range and shut him down… but with her gut leaking and her face exposed, she was just as vulnerable to him. One sneaky move and they could likely end each other.

 

[The Mongrel]

Location: Csaus, Citadel Caelitus Outskirts
Tags: Shai Maji

Spoiler: TL;DR

• Shai's shot pitches The Mongrel into the lake, ending their duel

They crashed together like a pair of speeder trucks at a blind intersection, metal grinding on metal, the horrific screech of it audible even on a battlefield full of weaponsfire, repulsorlift engines, and the screams of the dying. The Mongrel flew back from the Wardog, dented, sparking, his chassis crumpled and his brain canister leaking. Tossed from the flagstones of the ruined Chiss compound by the force of the collision, he skidded across the ice of the frozen lake. The jagged edges of his damaged body carved deep groves into the ice.

Shai fared better in the clash. Still on the shore, she more or less kept her footing, sinking to one knee but remaining stable enough to level a blaster at her foe. The warlord, sprawled in a tangle of limbs and damaged parts, struggled to rise... and found that he could not. Some vital connection had been severed by the impact of the Mandalorian's shield, and his legs would not respond to his commands. With some effort he managed to prop himself up on his arms, shoving metal fingers into the ice so that his palms would not slip out from under him.

Look at me. Her command echoed across the lake, a snarl from her fanged snout, now uncovered amid the snow. The Mongrel looked. He met her burning gaze as best he could without eyes, his faceless brain case - covered in ice that refracted his orange internal light in strange patterns - locked on the same trajectory as her muzzle. "I'll remember," he softly replied. His tone was blank, unloaded, a simple statement of fact rather than a boast or a threat. "But you won't send me to the Avatars, Wardog. I wish you could, but..."

"... far better than you have tried."

She squeezed the trigger. The armor-piercing bolt streaked across the ice, ripping through his torso right where his heart should be... but he'd become heartless long ago, and now more than ever. Crack. Heat and pressure slammed into the ice behind and under where his broken chassis was sprawled. One moment there were several hundred pounds of durasteel cyborg on the lake's frozen surface. The next there was only a splash, a ragged hole, and the dark waters beneath. No organic being could have survived the frigid depths.

But The Mongrel was no organic being. Not anymore.

Down, down, down he sank, into the lightless abyss. Trace geothermal heat kept the water liquid down here, hot springs buried so deeply that they could not melt the surface ice. Warnings screamed across the warlord's cybernetic consciousness, alerting him to all of his countless compromised systems... but he had been through such times before. He had risen to his position only partly out of any battlefield success, tactical initiative, or innate charisma. Mostly, he had risen because he was the marauder who simply refused to die.

Thirty meters down, his integrated lights triggered. A gaggle of curious aquatic lifeforms, eel-like lithovores that even the Chiss had never discovered or named, reeled back from the sudden illumination, fleeing back to their burrows. Looking down at himself through the sensor studs that still worked, The Mongrel took stock of his situation. His lower half was useless, nothing but dead weight, dragging him down. Reaching out with both powerful arms, the warlord grasped the edges of the ragged wound Shai had torn into his torso.

With a mighty heave, he ripped himself in half.

It wasn't the first time he'd been half a man; he'd lost both of his organic legs on Coruscant, the final step in his transformation to a fully cybernetic outer shell, and it hadn't kept him from escaping the battle alive. It hindered him even less now, for there was no bleeding and no pain. At forty meters down, he touched the lakebed... and an old saying rose unbidden in his mind. Something his mother had been fond of quoting in a life he'd long since left behind, if his fragmented memories served. He would have laughed if he could have.

When you hit rock bottom, the first step is stop digging.

The Mongrel shook it away. That life had been stripped out of him by fire, blood, and pain; now there was only this endless cycle, trapping him seemingly for all eternity. As he began to drag himself along the floor of the abyss, back toward the northern shore and the safety of Citadel Caelitus, a dark thought occurred to him. War. Death. Rebirth. It was his experience, over and over again. He fought, he fell, he rose again. But instead of being reborn into paradise, he came back to the same broken galaxy, and with a little less of himself each time.

His enemies could beat him - rarely had he actually won a fight with an enemy champion, only delaying such foes at best - but they couldn't seem to kill him. Again and again he returned to bring destruction in the name of his masters, because it was the only path for him. He had to believe that one day the Avatars would take mercy on him, finally delivering their faithful servant to true Death and true Rebirth. Until then, he was the plaything of War, and War alone. His ragged form would be rebuilt, and the galaxy would suffer for his return.

The Maw was inevitable, and he was the proof of it.

 

[Kovacs]

BATTLE FOR HILL 121
SKY GUARDIAN: EMERGENCE vol. I
Issue #4 w/ Delilah Jones Enzo Demici DECEASED Erskine Barran The Mongrel Lurtz Null

Dagger-5, Bravo Flight Lead
181st Fighter Wing

HILL 121​

There's no rest for the wicked, his father had once told him. To a high-roller, rambling gambling man like him it made complete sense but to a bushy-haired kid with stars in his eyes it was just adult talk - cryptic, barren of meaning, and broken by the weight of childhood dreams suffocated by the monotonous grey fog of adulthood. For years on and on, through the rigorous training of the Flight Institute to the mud, grime, and loneliness of his long-recon days to the heat as an undercover runner for the ISB, Jon Kovacs kept on going forward with neck and shoulders above that same grey mist.

But now - on the precipice of death - a simple, rather childish question emerged in his mind.

Are we the baddies?

Stripped of reprieve and damned to hell. A divine comedy.

Like most thoughts, it too evaporated when the black shadows of death stormed the Hill from their flank. The monstrous horde flooded the hilltop just as Enzo fell flat on the snow. And just like his thoughts, Jon's own shout of despair never made it past his lips. Drowned under a life and death battle with the Perished. He was on his back, tackled by one, then two undead as they tore through his suit and flesh.

He could never witness Massoud's valiant sacrifice for the three downed pilots. He could not see the blue crescent moon shining upon the hilltop but Massoud and his men's story would be told to the squadron personally by the Lord-General. They would raise a toast for the man on every occasion the Squadron gathered for. A tradition that would pass down to the next generations of pilots. To Moondagger Massoud, his face was painted on every 181st wing panel. To Moondagger Massoud, they all owed their lives.

And as the light of the blue crescent broke through the skies, dropships emerged guided by its pale light. And he remembered his father's warnings, those that had gotten through into his sister Cordé Sabo 's head - that the Empire did not take care of their own.

How wrong was the old man?

They were never the wicked.​