First Reply Empress/Empires

[Raylin Fall]

EMPRESS TETA
CST 1427
ALLIANCE SPECIAL FORCES RECON TEAM

STATUS:
MIA​

At 1219, he received the briefing. Easy fix- terror cell on Empress Teta. Loyalists, sympathizers to Sith and other Empires were being supplied weapons by local criminality and had done damage. Alliance green lit a search and destroy mission with prejudice. Meaning:

No survivors. Kill 'em all.

At 1332, he loaded into the gunship to get to the target area.

At 1414, there was indicators of tracking by the pilot.

At 1415, the first rocket fired but failed to impact their gunship.

At 1416, the next rocket fired, exactly thirty seconds later. It did not fail.

The rocket impacted his gunship, the sudden loss of engine power making them shift so hard that three out of the twelve members of his squad were ejected violently from the craft. The pilots were hit first, fire consuming their cockpit. They screamed for a moment, but died out quickly. Fire suppression systems activated, but it was far too late. They were roughly four kilometers from the target area.

He felt the impact, then blacked out, his helmet indicating danger. Communications were jammed.

He awoke what felt like hours later- though his HUD, still working, indicated it had been roughly ten minutes. He grit his teeth, looking around. His arms were dangling and his weapon was too, from it's sling. He was upside down. Raylin grunted, reaching up to undo his harness that secured him to his seat. He fell to the top of the gunship with a thud, grunting. Even the armor couldn't dull that- falling down four or five feet wasn't a pleasant experience. He rolled onto his back, looking around. Brief fires were dying out- but it was clear. The burnt, limp corpses of his squad were laying around. He didn't see the rest- maybe some of them escaped, or perhaps were ejected.

But he knew that the enemy would come do a BDA on their shoot-down. Especially to find a survivor. He pulled himself out of the wreck, grunting in pain as he slid outwards from the craft, standing up weakly. He dusted off his armor- the camouflage dirtied and muddled. His comms were down- either destroyed, damaged, or worse, jammed locally. His personal radio wasn't going to cut it, and he couldn't stay to use the one in the gunship.

A brief once-over on the members of the team in the ship confirmed their fate.

All dead.

For the moment, it was just him. He grit his teeth, pushing into the treeline away from the gunship. He had to either finish the mission, find help, or escape back to friendly lines. However, things were not looking good for the Marine. He hoped, he prayed, he wished, that things wouldn't get any worse. But they had a habit of getting absolutely worse.

 

[Saltare Dothon]

LOCATION: EMPRESS TETA
UNIT: INFERNO SQUADRON
MISSION: ARM LOCAL POPULACE/SOW DISCORD AMONG ALLIANCE WORLDS

Saltare had been redeployed deep behind enemy lines. His mission was simple: sow discord within the local populace. Arm criminal elements and act as a go-between for different parties, making the Alliance's hold on this planet that much harder. Saltare had been here for weeks, and he had armed a local group exceptionally well during that time.

Not just run-of-the-mill blasters and grenades but military grade Anti-Aircraft, Anti-Tank, and highly illegal disruptor weapons. They were well-armed and efficient at sowing discord on the planet. The Empire's fire and wrath were still alive, even this deep in the Alliance's wheelhouse.

Saltare wore his Inferno armor but had a large robe, which he kept wrapped around him to mitigate his posture as much as possible. His helmet was stashed in his backpack while in the area, and he only wore it when he deemed it necessary. Because of his equipment, this group knew he was more than just a gun smuggler; they knew he was a high-ranking Imperial and treated him respectfully so they didn't lose access to what he brought.

In turn for arming them, Saltare gained intelligence on the local populace and the Alliance's movements within the area. His end goal was to rearm the local populace enough to get a more significant element here. Once that occurred and the Alliance deployed significant military assets to the region, he would move on and do the same thing to another world. Sow discord, stretch the Alliance thin, and make them pay for the ground they had gained. Rinse and repeat so when the Empire returned, the Alliance would have a harder time combating them.

During one of these meetings with the local Imperial sympathizers, his mission started to show signs it was on the right track. An Alliance shuttle descended on their location. A gunship, military, carrying numerous passengers onboard based on readings from hidden sensors in the area. This group looked to him for confirmation of their next move.

"Bring it down and leave it for me," he told them before leaving their hideout.

Saltare exited into the countryside, watching as the rockets streaked up toward the gunship before impacting it. Flame and smoke belched from the craft before it spiraled down and crashed somewhere out of his sight. He moved quickly after that toward the location where it had crashed. It took him some time to get there, and when he finally arrived, Saltare could appreciate the destruction of Imperial weaponry.

The ship was strewn out over quite a distance, and the portion that had been left intact was ripped out, exposing its interior to the elements. The Special Forces units it had been carrying had not survived the crash. They were still in their harnesses, hanging lifelessly in the ship as it sat there upside down. As Saltare approached, he noticed something almost immediately.

Shoe impressions in the dirt, leading away from the craft and into the forest. Saltare had been using his armor in a passive mode for the last few weeks to conserve battery and its efficiency, but now he powered it on and flipped through the visible spectrums his HUD gave him, following the footsteps into the forest.

Someone had made it out. Interesting. Saltare walked to the wreck of the ship and climbed inside, getting as close to one of the dead troopers as he could. Pulling off the man's helmet, he reached inside and ripped out his comm unit. Saltare patched his armor into the comm channel and scanned it to see if he could hear any communications, but there was nothing.

Saltare left the channel open and backed out of the ship. He glanced into the forest and used his HUD to follow the footsteps as best he could.

It was time to hunt.

Raylin Fall

 

[Raylin Fall]

EMPRESS TETA
CST 1427
ALLIANCE SPECIAL FORCES RECON TEAM

STATUS:
MIA

Saltare Dothon ​

Evade.

Escape.

Evade, escape.

Evasion was the more difficult of the task, and calling for rescue at the moment was not one he could feasibly do. But the primary step was not to evade with stealth- the most powerful tool of getting away from a pursuer was by distance. Fast distance. Chances were, they were moving in a group, a small team at best if they were looking. But Raylin remembered and old proverb-

"If you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together."

Raylin, fortunately, was going to go very fast. He covered ground quickly- his lungs burned, his legs ached, and his body hurt. But his physical fitness was top-notch, despite his advancing age. So he opened the distance by a wide margin- in just a few short minutes he had gone hundreds of meters away from the crash site, deeper into the woods. Closer to the civilization. He remembered passing farmhouses and homesteads. Perhaps they were automated or at least not fully staffed this time of year, but chances were that they had at least some form of communication, or ways to make one.

Fires were a good one.

He breathed deeply, pausing against a tree, leaning back against his vest. He took a sip of his water- conserving it, just a small sip from the tube. He had enough water for a rationed two days, but with the level of exhaustion he was experiencing, it'd be hard to keep up with his own pace and keep up his water resupply. He could resupply from one of the many streams, but purifying it and pausing was out of the question for the next several hours.

He circled his footsteps, going roughly forty meters in a radius to the left, then fifty in another radius, to the right, two circles that lead back to the prints- and then took the same path again on the right, breaking off. It gave the impression to the would-be hunters, if there were any, that there was more of him and more survivors than one, and at the least, three. He continued to move- no rest, no time to pause just yet. He knew the pace wasn't going to last forever, but he had to create as much distance as possible within the shortest amount of time if he had any hope of getting out of the situation alive.

 

[Saltare Dothon]

Saltare continued to follow the tracks into the forest. The shoe impressions left into the earth were far apart and deeply set, telling Saltare that whoever he was following was moving quickly. They may or may not know they were being followed, but they attempted to avoid contact.

Saltare continued following, passing small homesteads and farms, with no sign of life he could tell from glances. They may have heard the explosion and locked themselves in their homes. Not a bad idea, Saltare thought.

Further into the search for this would-be soldier, Saltare ran into his first conundrum: multiple sets of tracks. Saltare followed them for a while, but they ended up doubling back to his original location or petering out randomly.

Whoever Saltare was following was smart; he was attempting to evade. There was also a chance this individual was not alone, and there were multiple combatants in this area. No other shuttles had been spotted, but sleeper agents were not unheard of in this area.

Saltare pulled a small circular drone from his bag and activated it. It sat hovering in front of him, awaiting orders. "Go back to the farms and find out if they saw something."

He pulled another miniature drone out and activated it, stating, "Go high. Use wide-spectrum scans. Find individuals hiding in the forest."

The droids gave a burst of code and left, their anti-gravity repulsors making small noises as they flew through the air.

Saltare pulled his rifle out and readied his armor for a potential ambush. He followed the tracks again, finding another that split off and went deeper into the forest, and he began to follow it. Whoever he was chasing was ahead of him, but their pace wouldn't last forever. They would either ambush him or hide. Either way, Saltare would be ready.

Raylin Fall