Private No Quarter

[Irveric Tavlar]

[Thematic]
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"They gotta be sending something right? We have...probably...a platoon's worth and one tank..." The Sith trooper sounded out, letting his blaster rifle plummet from his arm by the leather sling unto the rubble floor before soon enough he collapsed unto the floor, leaned against a large section of rubble. Might've been a reception desk...table...blast door, didn't matter. The entire town didn't look at all different, a smattering of building footprints each decorated chaotically with warped durasteel and the urban dust which permeated everything.

"There's nothing to send..." Another trooper piped up. There was about a section's worth gathered around one another, each wearing their battered, chipped and worn field gray armor in various states of disrepair and battle damage, the exposed fatigues underneath a deep Imperial black with many of them shredding their field tents to make camouflage ponchos and headwrappings, all draped in a beige and brown raindrop pattern. What were once pristine stormtroopers of the Sith Empire, picturesque as the universal symbol of Imperial authority, sent to cure the ailment of disloyalty instigated by a Jedi in exile embedded within the backwater Arid planet of Garel had their wills broken when they immediately faced steep and harsh resistance. Here they were now, laying siege to another rural town. Once pristine and perfectly engineered with inlaid Imperial architecture was now the site of a siege as a platoon of Sith troopers waited in hiding for the dim twin stars to sink beneath the horizon so they could begin their assault on the fortress like constable building with the rebel contingent held out.

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Upon the initial landing, guerrillas immediately began their work once the Empire reoccupied the world, destroying armored columns as they sough to occupy towns and villages. Though significant elements of the rebellion were all but pounded into dust by the subsequent Imperial bombing campaigns this was still a cog in the machine, the population couldn't be glassed or else the rest of the system would undergo a tolling famine and thus the second wave of reinforcements were sent in.

Aboard the descending transport ships, a fresh division of Sith conscripts awaited their fate. Clad in the freshly pressed armor and kit of Imperial troopers they sat strapped in across from one other, their gazes staring back into the cold, foreboding visors of one another. Blaster rifles in their laps they counted each second on the display until they'd reach Garel's surface, and then their duty began. Each and every one of them was green, fresh from their training and yet to see a second of combat. But even so, the Empire broke each and every one of its soldiers, chiseling down human nature until these men were all but automatons, shooting to kill and accomplishing their objective at all costs.

Placed within the command of this platoon was a young Leftenant, Irveric Tavlar. At the age of twenty three he was a graduate from the Imperial Officer's academy, entering with a stingy background at the best. Taken as part of a conscription tithe from his homeworld of Ord Thoden, his employment as an engineer with the Bengel shipbuilders qualifying him for the Officer's academy. From there he was adept in the environment and originally tasked with leading an armored platoon, with five grav tanks under his command was reassigned to command a reinforced infantry platoon to assist in putting down the rebellion on Garel.

He'd only been briefly acquainted with his men, perhaps if they'd seen combat that would've mattered but with all of them embarking on their first adventure there weren't any overly bad habits form nor was there experience between to contradict Tavlar's commands, however this also mean't a blood soaked roll of the dice once the first blaster bolts snapped past their ears.

With a rumble and shake the transport began to claw its way past the heated layers of the planet's atmosphere, all the while the troopers who didn't screw their eyes shut peered toward the countdown timer as they descended toward the planet's surface and soon enough it zeroed out and the loud scream of metal landing gear pounding against the earth sounded, the ramp lowering with a burst of steam relieved from the hydraulics followed by a drum like thudding of boots pounding against the metal flooring before soon enough they hit solid ground. Catching a quick head count of his men, Tavlar left organizing them to his senior NCO, Bhero Saban. If there was any confidant Tavlar had in this unit, it was him. Though again they were briefly acquainted Bhero approached everything with a different eye, electing to volunteer to abandon a life which would be otherwise spent scrounging and scavving in the deep pits of the underworld sprawl he grew up around. He was tough as nails and eager to scrap, an ideal character to help the Leftenant wrangle the otherwise green conscripts into line.

"Alright! On me whilst Leftenant gets our orders! All of you! In line!" Saban began, already well settled into his loud and barking cadence as soon as they were off the ship, he had to be after all. The Imperial gathering point and landing site for the 87th Legion was intolerably loud, nigh deafening with rumble of grav repulsors and ship engines muffling the blaster fire just over the bowl like terrain they'd settled in.

Irveric was fast to the command post, eventually removing his fully enclosed helmet only to nearly cough up dust as he breathed in a swath of dusty arid air down his lungs. He didn't look all too removed from basic training, his head shaven nearly to the scalp with but a shadow of facial hair along his face. Stepping into the building he was instantly met with the placid stares of his officer peers. About a dozen or so other men of his rank or higher all gather around the Lord Colonel, a man clearly a generation or so the elder of the freshly graduated officers around him.

"That makes all of you...what in the Emperor's name have they given me..." He says, looking between fresh faces, scratch maybe one...or two who had the eyes of men who'd seen combat.

"Right...so Garel, I'm sure you'd all heard squat about it before we'd been shipped to this rock...so what happened, why are we here. The population here had long been agrarian, mindful of their own business and genuinely negligible, but we've intelligence of the presence of a Jedi Master in exile here and he's been up to no good, consolidating the disloyal elements among Garel's population into a rebel cell spouting religious heresy bent on 'freeing themselves from the bonds of evil and giving themselves unto the force by martyrdom'...an utterly foolish and degenerative philosophy but what this has led to is an armed terrorist force. This rebel is one who holds no value in his own life and is all but eager to lay his life down for his Jedi cult leader. Now you might be wondering now then why have we not ordered the fleet to pound this rock into dust until there isn't any sign that anyone has ever lived here...and that knowledge is not your prerogative...nor is it mine apparently...and so we have been tasked with destroying the rebellion, reoccupying and capturing the Jedi Master...and in this process we will give them no quarter, none to the rebellion, their Jedi terrorist nor any subject who might have an inkling of sympathy toward their cause...is this clear?"

"Yes, Lord Colonel." The Officers sounded out in unison.

Soon enough then he began to assign each unit its orders and to Leftenant Tavlar left the task of reoccupying a nearby settlement and to sniff out any rebel element there along with any intel of the Jedi, achieving the last no doubt bringing praise to his unit. Simple enough...

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

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Sat shoulder to shoulder fresh sith troops embarked unto the open topped repulsor lift transports, about a dozen stuffed into each with four under Tavlar's direct command. It seemed as soon as the mission was now underway nerves began to calm and the gravity of the situation set in, for better or worse. This wouldn't be any planet wide conquest deeming grand battleplans and total war doctrine. No, as far as any of them knew, it was a police action with a padding of troopers to stave off any further trouble. At least, that was the first impression.

The roads were all but swallowed by the armored columns heading in opposite directions of one another, again as each passed the other the passengers aboard were all but a stark contrast, the ones headed back toward the staging point a beaten and grizzled bunch as the others had yet to pull the trigger of their blaster rifles in the direction of anything meaningful.

In the lead vehicle Irveric stood in the middle aisle, between the rows of troopers facing one another as he peered forward, arm leaned on the edge of the transport bed with a narrowed gaze, trying to discern what the crown jewel of their blood addled tenure would be here. He much like many of the section in his transport hard their visors lifted for the time being, the helmets all but an intolerable article outside of the field of combat.

"So what's the first aim, Leftenant?" Asked the Senior NCO, Saban as he leaned back in his seat, leaning an arm back on the outside of the open toppd transport hold.

Tavlar turned his direction, furrowing his brow. "We're linking up with a loyalist element, some sort've militia present in the settlement and they're going to tell us who among the village is rebel or a sympathizer and then we'll being occupation until ordered otherwise." He sated, speaking as stoically and placidly as any Imperial officer ever should, leaning an arm over the stock of his blaster rifle slung from behind his neck along his cuirass.

"Copy...though if I may, Leftenant...I don't think it'll be all that easy as you describe..." Saban piped up, eventually pulling his visor back down over his visage as soon as the object of their mission began to grow closer.

"You and I both, Sergeant." Irveric replied, pulling his visor down over his face not long after before soon enough they'd reached the outskirts of the town. Immediately, the transports were rushed and crowded by swathes of civilians, barking out in basic and aurabesh, some voices in the crowd praising and thanking the Imperials while others spat with venom in their voices. Soon enough, after a quick smack of Tavlar's hand against the driver's canopy the hull lit up with static charge before the craft gave off a loud, sonic screech from its loud speakers, silent to the troopers aboard yet intolerable to the surrounding crowd, going on for about fifteen seconds before it stopped, letting the troopers hop over the open top of the transport and unto the road below.

Immediately the crowd consolidated, attempting a hard nosed charge at the imperials before they were met with a human wall of plasteel. The situation was immediately aggravating to Tavlar, grinding his teeth against one another as he pieced together the situation. The transports had already abandoned them, the vehicles in short order and well needed at the staging point.

"Disperse them, non-lethal...Fire!" Tavlar barked out the order, finishing it with a word of command as he was taught before soon enough the second rank of troopers not directly holding back the crowd began to discharge their blaster carbines and rifles arched at an angle above the civilians, leaving them to break and run off nigh immediately.

"First section advance down the main road to the square, second section follow up, thi-." Before he could even sound off his platoon's immediate orders a high explosive rocket swooshed through the air before slamming into the first rank of troopers, blowing out a section of a nearby building as the first squad was all but ripped to shreds, three of the ten men all but a pile of unidentifiable organic matter, five more outright dead and two screaming and pleading for help, one of them clutching his dismembered leg as the other screamed out free from the muffling of his visor, his cuirass and helmet burst open from the impact revealing a bloodied mess below.

Tavlar, ever standing upright waved his hand infront of his face, signalling an abandon to his previous orders. "Third section, take that building and put down an arch of fire down this corridor, move!" Irveric said, motioning back to the men hugging the wall behind him, pointing out four of them before waving them toward the wounded. Two of them laying down fire in the direction of the rocket as the others pull them back, reaching beneath their plaststeel backplate to begin to pull them out of the fray only for a rapid burst of blaster fire from a building further down and right from the corridor began fire down, leading to quick and intense reply from the squad taken post in the now damaged structure. And so it began...

 

[Irveric Tavlar]

Streets not several minutes before chaotic with bustling activity ran cold. Scores of civilian populace retreating into their homes, leaving a cold and eerie silence which settled over the advancing Imperials. The stinging nothingness soon began to ring in Tavlar's ears as he peered about the city streets, the section he'd posted into the bombed out building seemingly acquired and eliminated their target.

Tuning his helmet comms to the third section NCO he rung him with a voice ever struggling to portray stoicness, though his placid nature tread over shaky foundations, threatening to crumble at the sight of the men under his command being dragged down the street, their helmets silenced abruptly to prevent the screams of agony from demoralizing the surrounding troopers and of course, to prevent their position from being further exposed. The Leftenant could see it well enough however, one of the legionnaires who'd had his leg all but blown off nearly seizing as his upper body shook back and forth, his hands grasping at thin air where there was once a strong limb. Tavlar set his focus on the man, all but unidentifiable underneath his Sith plate but he saw a man with no mouth who wanted nothing more than to scream and writhe in agony.

"Sergeant...confirm you've engaged and eliminated the target..." Tavlar sounded out through the comms, his chest visibly heaving as he tightly clutched the pistol grip of his blaster carbine.

"Copy, Leftenant..." The sergeant said, uttering a brief reply only for the idle static from his comms to slice out abruptly, leaving that deafening silence once more. Flicking his comms to the universal channel in order to address his platoon.

"First section...take centre, third take up the left flank and second ride the right. We need to choke this central corridor. Form up, move." Tavlar ordered, letting three riflemen take up the wedge-like marching pattern in front of him before soon enough Tavlar followed after. Taking the position of the section leader, the rest fell in behind him, forming another wedge that took up the entirety of the main street of the town.

"Eyes on the buildings around and ahead..." Tavlar muttered through the comms to his section, peering to his left and right flank through the alleyways between the tightly packed buildings to see the other squads following the same pattern.

All until the sound of a rolling sphere grinding itself against the paved road pierced the senses of all the troopers before a trooper from the right flank barked out- "Detonator! Dow-." And with a few rapid beeps the explosive charged and blasted through the corridor. The welcoming to another rapid, ear shattering volley of blaster fire further down the road and around them.

"Down! Cover! Lay down fire!" Tavlar barked out, crouching down, managing his way behind a storage crate he slammed his shoulder against the metal before peering his helmet above the edge. Peering up he viewed several muzzle blasts of blaster rounds flickering down the alleyway and in the buildings all the while his section scrambled for cover, a token three laying themselves down on the road, taking aim and firing out a meager volley before they were pounded to dust by imposing crimson blaster fire.

"Repeater! Left side, third building down, fourth floor! Fire!" Tavlar said, pointing a flat hand to one of the heavy weapons troopers who'd all but lazed, sitting back against another metal shipment crate which had plummeted from the back of a speeder once the firefight erupted. Setting his weapon on a light bipod he took aim down the sights before letting off a rumbling automatic volley from the weapons system, the heavier caliber blaster rounds thumping against the durasteelframe and concrete walls of the buildings.

Ground was made but there was much more road to burn before the objective could be entertained to be complete.