Skirmish Kriselistian Krisis | GA. vs SO. Skirmish on Kriselistia

[Festerruman Sachiel]

Discussion Thread​

Kriselist, one of the many crown jewels of the Wornal sector, was one of the few oases in this accursed Galaxy that death and conflict had not yet reached. There had been times of tribulations but those had been few and far between. Now was the time for prosperity. Massive urban conglomerations spread across the continents like webs of durasteel and transparisteel. Towering spires sprouted like fungal growths. The newly completed Shahid Grand Starport promised to enhance its influence over sector trade.

All this changed when the Sith Order came.

For several months, Sith Cultists had infiltrated the world and begun to launch hundreds of rapidly escalating terror attacks on the populace. Stretched thin and outgunned, planetary security forces were forced to send out a plea for heavy firepower.

The Galactic Alliance answered.

Strategic Intelligence Agency analysis identified these cultists as unorganized rabble who had only gotten as far as they did thanks to the incompetence of the local Defence Forces. Still, with the growing Sith threat GADF High Command hoped to quell the attack quickly before internal security concerns were raised within the Senate. It was reckoned that second-rate troops of the 789th Reserve Division would be enough. That conviction was disproved the moment Alliance reinforcements landed in the Grand Starport and quickly found themselves besieged on all sides by cultists displaying not blind fanaticism but tactical acumen and advanced weaponry.

The situation has completely spiraled out of control. The call has been put out for any GADF unit in the region to deploy to Kriselist instantly, rescue the 789th from their rapidly shrinking perimeter, and bring order to the chaos. Similarly, Sith Forces are now rushing toward the world in a bid to pin down and even destroy GADF formations to prevent their involvement in upcoming offensives.

What began as a counter-terrorism operation has now devolved into a hell of fire and ferroconcrete.

OBJECTIVE I - THE STARPORT ​

The onslaught has begun. Sith forces are on the verge of destroying what remains of the Alliance's 789th Reserve Division and seizing the Shahid Grand Starport. The enormous building complex has now turned into a bloody abattoir of savage close-quarters running gunfights in the passenger terminals and brutal armored engagements across its sprawling landing pads. Raging infernos and ruptured ship reactors belching radiation have made fighting in the Starport an unedurable agony.

Yet endure you must for whoever controls the starport controls the flow of reinforcements.

OBJECTIVE II - THE HEAVENS ​

The orbit of Kriselistia is on fire. Trapped within the world's tight ring of space junk and wrecked hulls, small squadrons of Sith and Alliance ships must navigate this tight labyrinthine maze of debris to seek out and destroy each other's convoys before they can make planetfall. Point-blank engagements and boarding actions have become the norm. There is no room for capital ships, only reckless starfighter pilots and fearless frigate captains.

One wrong maneuver and you'll find yourself splattered on an asteroid's side like a bug on a windscreen.

​

 

[Gress D'ran]

OBJECTIVE I: STARPORT

34th Walker Battalion, The Hellstompers
Tag: Sara Roche Festerruman Sachiel ​

The landing pad had been secured.

Now they pushed in.

"Thunderstorm in first." Gress ordered from the cabin of his siege walker. "Firestorm is holding back from fire support. Roach, I want Helldiver pushing forward with Thunderstorm, load up in the Tigers. I don't wanna take any chances with urban warfare."

The platform ahead of them was a corridor of death, designed to hold capital ships. He wanted to avoid being pincered. "Cerberus and Kraken will be acting as overwatch. I want Ravens going in buildings before men. LIDAR rooms before entering, and hit priority rooms with HE rounds before risking it. Pumas will be behind Wildcats."

"Aye sir." The lead Thunderstorm commander called from his Tiger. "Alright, spearhead formation. Wildcats in front, Pumas behind. Cougars, you're guarding the rear, Diver Down and Appetite will follow behind."

The Armor company pushed forward, and Gress took a puff from his cigar. "Alright, Radar, have all Thundercats deploy smoke rounds ahead of the advance. Wildcats are going to act as our forward guard, while Tigers are on fire support duty. I want everything in synch."

"Copy sir. Thundercats, full smoke barrage ahead of the push."

"Undertaker copies. Full smoke, Firing now."

Six mortars fired in sequence, dropping clouds of thick smoke in front of the advancing armor,

 

[Azazel Xaphan]

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Spoiler: Equipment

Armour
-Wolfsbane Heavy Armor
-Beskar vambraces

Weapons
-BR-212 "Jackal" ACR Rifle
-DT-29 heavy blaster pistol
-Vibro-Beskad Bayonet

-7-PrG proton grenade
-Baradium-core code key thermal detonator
-Compound Flex-5 Detonite Tape

Azazel Xaphan appeared to be a monstrous black bat as he raced across the shipbay's bubbling tarmac. Blaster bolts whizzed all around him. Some close enough that his naked skin would have felt the tickle of their flash-burn if he wasn't entombed under layers of Impervium and Duranium plating. Even with the environmentally sealed suit, he could still feel the heat in this accursed blast furnace.

The trooper who had been right beside him tripped and fell. Xaphan didn't stop to help. The twitching in their fingers told him their nerve stem had been instantly severed. Instead, he swung his head in the direction of the shot: a breach in the dockyard wall shrouded in shadow from a raging fire nearby. The lens of his helmet whirred as they brightened the image just enough for him to pick out a vague silhouette.

Without breaking a stride in his sprint, Xaphan raised his BR-212 "Jackal" ACR Rifle and ripped a burst center mass. The silhouette dropped like a sack of bricks.

Xaphan couldn't help but wonder how in the name of Pandaemonium he ended up here. This was supposed to have been a routine scouting mission to ascertain the strength of the Kriselist garrison for future offensive action. But some nerf-brained Ennenhim-Commandant had decided to deploy a division in strength before he had completed his report! What was High Command thinking? He had heard whispers of some greater strategy the Warmaster was cooking up that involved probing Alliance lines for weakness.

Maybe they had found a weakness and were rushing to exploit it. But Xaphan knew this wasn't true. Not from what he had just learned but hadn't managed to transmit back to headquarters. Kriselist's wasn't the rotten door they thought it was. Elite alliance battle groups were deployed closer to this sector than previously thought. Any notion of a breakthrough here was a pipe dream. This would just turn into another attritional slog.

Rocket wailed over his head. To his left, a group of Alliance troopers sheltering on the upper balcony suddenly disappeared in an eruption of ferrocrete and body parts courtesy of a Pact field gun brought up to fire through its open sights. He quickly slid into cover behind a burning pushback tug to find himself face-to-face with a Pact officer and his communications squad. He instantly recognized the officer.

"Xaphan?" the officer's voice was harsh coming through the rebreather.

"Corson?"

"You old bastard!" Corson chuckled though it sounded to Xaphan more like his old friend was gurgling, "I thought you died back on Ma'ar Shaddam."

"Ah, you know me." Xaphan dumped the empty clip from his rifle with a flick-click of his gloved thumb. "Was always unlucky."

"What the hell are you doing here? You're not with the89th."

"Classified," he shook his helmeted head, "Anyway what's going on?"

"I'm taking fifth company-" he ducked as a mortar shell fell barely a meter away, sending one of his technicians flying away with a limbless torso, "across the tarmac into the passenger terminals. That's where the Chervertim-Colonel thinks the last of the Alliance scum are sheltered. I've got flamethrowers and bundle charges to blow those rats out of their holes. But I can't cross this kriffing plaza without losing half my men. It's small arms but it's so open. If only we had some Redeemers to soak up some of their bolts. "

Xaphan was silent for a moment, "But we have the next best thing. Get ready to move."

"Oh Warmaster's balls, what the hell are you thinking?"

But it was too late. Xaphan put his first on Corson's chest plate and suddenly dashed into the open, firing full auto against the Alliance positions. Almost immediately the ex-Death Brigadier caught return fire. Blaster bolts pinged off his plating but barely scratched the surface. That's not to say it didn't hurt, each impact feeling like someone had slammed a sledgehammer into him. But he had been trained to endure. Wolves do not linger on pain, only the mission.

A repeating blaster had honed in on him. What had been a trickle of firepower was now a deluge. His blaster was ripped from his hands and he was forced to his knees by the incessant punches. His Wolfsbane armor was virtually impervious frontally to anything that wasn't built to kill heavy vehicles but all it would take was one lucky shot on a failing section of his suit...

Maybe he could die here. He had done so much for the Warmaster. So much for the cause of saving this Galaxy. Maybe he could rest. Maybe he could rejoin his wolf-pack...

The deluge stopped.

Xaphan stood up. The top surface of his armor had been reduced to molten slag that slowly dribbled off to reveal the second layer. In front of him, the Alliance firing positions had been turned into a blast furnace. Combat Pioneers had gotten close enough to unleash their flame projectors thanks to his distraction.

Alliance soldiers, on fire but still alive, stumbled out into the open shrieking as their armor melted into their skin. The advancing Pact personnel didn't shoot them.

"Let them burn," Corscon scoffed as he walked up to Xaphan, "You truly do have the prophet looking over you."

"Yeah," Xaphan reached down and picked up his rifle, "I guess I do..."

Corscon put his fist on Xaphan's chestplate. "Come on. We got some rats to exterminate."

 

[Festerruman Sachiel]

THE CHAOS PACT
Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the Warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
x

Objective I — The Starport:

Allies Sith Order Forces
Enemies: Gress D'ran , | GADF Forces
Engaging: Gress D'ran | Open

"Is this information verified?"

"The 7th Battalion paid with their life to get confirmed visual contact. The insignia matches, sir."

"Then justice is not out of our reach. We won't be able to confront this spearhead head-on. Not yet at least."

The hot red light of the tactical holo table cascaded over Chervertim-Colonel Asenath. Clad in full battle gear he would have been virtually indistinguishable from his men if not for the blackened scar that rippled across his chestplate. He could have had it repaired or replaced but kept it as a memory of the terrible wrong inflicted upon him and his soldiers. His finger traced over the artificial scar. If the shrapnel piece had traveled one millimeter deeper it would have reached his heart.

But Apophis had other plans for this Chervertim-Colonel. It was this divine blessing that Asenath had taken as a sign to execute the traitorously incompetent Ennenhim-General Thuen and take over command of the survivors at Mirial. In the months of fighting that followed Apophis would continue to display why the heirs of Pandaemonium were her chosen people. Despite being isolated, starved, and hemmed in on all sides by the defenders of Mirial, Asenath had managed to extract the vast majority of his men. The Warmaster, in all his wisdom, had allowed Asenath to become the permanent commander of Taskforce Mirial.

Once more Apophis had given him her blessing by sending unto him a chance for vengeance. He would not disappoint.

Thunderstom's assault struck the Pact's 7th Infantry Battalion with devastating impact. Busy with corralling surviving Alliance reserve troops into a killzone, they were caught by utter surprise when Heavy Tanks and IFVs slammed into their exposed flank. Even with their vaunted discipline Pact NCOs were unable to restore their shattered battle lines to face this new threat. In a matter of five minutes, half the Battalion had been rendered combat ineffective thanks to the combined fury of Thunderstorm and Firestorm.

Captain Carreau, forced to take over after the Battalion's commander was crushed under the feet of a Tiger Walker, ordered an immediate withdrawal back to the dock's capital ship holding bay.

The massive holding bay had been host to a massive AA-9 coruscant freighter. In the early hours of the Sith Assault on the Starport, its reactor had gone supercritical. Whether it had been deliberate sabotage or accidental battle damage was unclear. What was clear was the massive field of debris its miniature thermonuclear detonation had left behind that now provided a warren for the shattered Battalion to flee into.

Clouds of smoke now obscured the enemy's advance. The ground trembled under the gigantic footfalls of the Alliance walkers while the shrieking of tank treads filled the air.

The Pact troopers used the temporary relief to shore up their positions the best they could. In that short time, the task force demonstrated their legendary engineering skills. Piles of wreckage were expertly shifted by pure muscle strength into makeshift tank traps and barricades. Some mounds were booby-trapped to collapse if Alliance vehicles passed near them, hopefully gunking up threads or shifting the balance of the walkers. Massive powerful IEDs were hastily but dexterously crafted using artillery shells and thermal detonators before being buried at the mouth of chokepoints. Even an underground fueling line had been rigged up to blow if their positions were overrun.

A firing battery of four Jericho Anti-Walker Proton Cannons that had been busy blasting apart Alliance fortifications found themselves lumped in with the broken battalion. Carreau quickly ordered them to be dug in and concealed among the rubble. They would wait until the superheavies were in range to unleash their collective fire onto a single target. At the very least they could bring down one with them.

The Battalion was devastated but not out of the game. They had dug themselves into the wreckage like rats and each had resolved to die standing to prevent the foe from advancing any further.

Captain Carreau just hoped that their sacrifice would mean something.

Like a child burning their hand on a stove, their defeat at the 34th Battalion had seared painful lessons into their memory. The walkers could not be confronted head-on. At least not conventionally.

The Alliance had a clear superiority in armored combat on the field but maybe that wouldn't be true for the infantry fight. The task force didn't have the mastery of conventional fighting like the 82nd or the special forces capability of the Death Brigades. What they did have was heavy weapons, explosives, and the know-how to combine those two into a lethal combination.

Chervertim-Colonel Asenath pushed two companies from his reserve to push on the right and left flank. Here combat would be taking place in the depths of the starport's passenger terminals, now turned into an inferno. It was pointless to advance out in the open where the sheer firepower of the walkers could be brought to bear. They had chosen to endure the claustrophobic nightmare that was the maze of rooms and tunnels.

Wielding satchels full of explosives and overpowered thermal detonators they prepared an intense shock assault that would result in at least one side being blown to smithereens.

Normally they would have been outmatched on a man-to-man basis against the marines of the GADF. But they had a wild card up their sleeve: Death Brigadier Azazel Xaphan leading the assault.

 

[Gress D'ran]

OBJECTIVE I: STARPORT

34th Walker Battalion, The Hellstompers
Tag: Festerruman Sachiel ​

The advance had been halted.

The makeshift defense had forced Thunderstorm to pause, and consider it's options. An IED had taken out Rapheal's forward left tread, forcing it to the back of the assault. The Wildcats sat in front, deflector shields absorbing heavy fire as they began using their composite lasers to slowly dismantle tank traps. All the while, the twin Tigers began opening fire with arcing mass driver fired HE rounds, hitting the enemy line.

Rather, the Pumas came up behind and used the Wildcats as cover as they elevated their turrets just enough to fire heavy HE-AP autocannons into the enemy AT gun crews, hoping to disable them. One Wildcat, Iron Side II, took the full force of a Jericho shot, forcing it's shield down and causing the tank to retreat back behind the line.

Gress grumbled. Things were slowing, and he knew it would get worse if they didn't keep moving.

"Radar." He said curtly, looking to his comms officer.

"Yes sir?"

"Krayt. Full barrage."

"Yes sir!"

Just as the artillery walkers were set up, they were ordered to fire.

The sound of 18 capital ship grade-turbolasers opened up and rocked the area of the enemy defense with a massive artillery barrage. It was brutal. simple. Effective.

Soon, Gress got a ping from his recon drones. Two companies of flanking infantry, hoping to cut off the advance. He couldn't risk Sara's marines in urban combat like this, so instead, he took a more pragmatic approach.

"All operators, Ravens will engage enemy infantry. Pumas, pull back and engage any targets on your flanks with autocannon fire. Hit them with Thundara rounds if need be."

The rear guard of Thunderstorm shifted, as Pumas pulled back and formed a U shape in the rear, while Cougars pushed up.

"Radar, have Midnight Train buzz the enemy position with the LAATs, and set them up in gunship position in the rear."

"Aye sir!"

Twin Ziio LAATs flew overhead, firing rocket barrages at the enemy defenses for good measure, and opening up with composite beam cannons to rip apart any further tank traps.

"Any further orders, sir?" Solo II was looking for something to do. Might as well give it to them.

"Thundercats, push forward and secure Thunderstorm's rear. Bring the Bobcats with you."

"Copy sir. Solo II and Friends with Nightwing and Drake, pushing forward."