Mission Retrieve the Fallen | COV

[Brent Warnel]

"Gold in peace, Iron in war" - Iron Covenant Proverb​

FLIGHT RECORDING FROM SHUTTLE COCKPIT 113-5B

"Go back! Turn us around! I've got another squad still on the ground! I won't leave them!"

"No one is left alive down there! Corridors opened, we have to take it!"

“You’ll take that corridor when I get my vode back! Choruk squad is still down there!”

“Choruk is dead, Hyer! Reports confirm it! If we don’t leave now we’ll join them!”

“Then we’ll join them! I won’t leave their bodies for these mongrel beasts to desecrate! Turn this kriffin-” A scuffle can be heard, harsh grunting and cursing.

"Get him out of my fucking cockpit! Now!"

“You’re just gonna leave them down there!? You kriffin coward-” sound cuts out.

RECORDING ENDS


LAST BATTLEFIELD COMMUNICATION FROM SQUAD CHORUK

"This is Squad Choruk. We've reached the secondary extraction points. I say again, we've reached the secondary extraction point. We’ve got a recon element with us, heavily wounded. How copy?"

"This is 113, Choruk. We’re en route. ETA 5, get your boys ready."

Explosions can be heard filtering through the battlefield communications. Detonations. Roars. The distant sounds of collapsing buildings and indiscernible wails pierce the static of the battlefield.

"Choruk. Your tags just went dark. What’s your status?”

Static crackles over the comm.

"Choruk, this is 113, I say again, what’s your status?"

“113, this is 116. Choruk is dead. That beast just leveled that whole area. New coordinates patched in from the fleet. Take that corridor, there’s no one left alive down there.”

Static is heard as the channel remains open.

“113, acknowledge.”

“....113…copies.”

END OF COMMUNICATION

What does it mean to be Mandalorian? What makes someone a Mandalorian? Is it the armor? Their faith? Their loyalty? Does being a Mandalorian stop once your final breath leaves your body? Do those who owed you loyalty in life forgo that loyalty in death?

The dead ask for no service. The dead issue no orders. The dead know not if you honor them, because they are dead. Yet, on the world of Humbarine, the dead call for their kin, and their kin answer.

Their kin answer, for they are Mandalorian. But then, what is a Mandalorian? How can you define them? Is it because they choose to risk everything to recover what they lost, over and over again? Is it their loyalty to the clan and Covenant? One cannot simply describe what it means to be a Mandalorian; one must show it.

On that broken world where the bodies of our fallen lie cracked and destroyed, you must show it.

On the world of Humbarine, and in the haste of the Iron Covenant withdrawal, the bodies of our brethren lay forgotten, unable to be recovered in the combat. Using any means necessary, the Covenant must descend to the surface and collect them. Go back once more to the world of shadow and destruction, and bring back the bodies of your kin. Leave them not for the Sith to mutilate; retrieve the dead.

 

[Romul Saxon]

W A R M A S T E R
Humbarine

[] The Lost []​

Tag: Brent Warnel | Zandra Ruus | Mandalorians

The Covenant did not arrive with a roar, nor so much a whisper. A single suppressive cruiser blinked into existence on the far edge of the system, carefully timing its arrival to coincide with the mass-shadow of a far-flung stellar object, masking its arrival from long-range scanners. As soon as the systems came online, it began selectively infiltrating the entire system's communications network. Planetside, outbound and inbound holonet connection times would be slowed by a degree of nanoseconds to perhaps even a minute; though, given what Humbarine had recently gone through, nothing would seem amiss amidst the infrastructural challenges of a battle and bombardment of such size.

In reality, each communication and transmission was being categorically sorted and monitored by the cruiser's highly advanced processing systems, searching for any indication that the small Mandalorian presence was noticed -- and quashing that channel before the alarm could be raised.

A minute later, a single heavy cruiser reverted from hyperspace next to the suppressive cruiser. This was no invasion task force, not even a heavy extraction fleet. Several small craft issued from the cruiser's hangar bays, while it lay back to protect the smaller suppressive cruiser. Both ships had their orders; if there were any Sith forces present on Humbarine, they might draw them out to give the vode heading towards the wrecked planet

The Iron Covenant had learned from Humbarine. Force would be met with force, and yes, the Sith had incurred a debt that must be paid in blood; not that their ledger was lacking. However, this mission was of a much more solemn nature. The Iron Covenant's withdrawal from Humbarine had been a hastened rush as leviathans and storms and fleets from the deep had all encircled the Mandalorians. And their vode -- more who had fallen rescuing those initially trapped on Humbarine, than those trapped themselves -- had joined the Manda in eternal rest on Humbarine's ruins. Romul was one of many who could not stand to see their corpses, their priceless beskar'gam, desecrated by the Sith. It would be one insult too many.

He was silent in the dropship, holding onto a handrail above, his helmet tucked under his arm. The old boar's jaw remained clenched as the dropship hurtled at extreme velocity through the void towards the planet below.

 

[Yuri Maji]

HUMBARINE | RUINS
ALLIES: COV | Vara Maji | Romul Saxon | Brent Warnel | Zandra Ruus
ENEMIES: TSC
ENGAGING: Open
GEAR: In bio

RARE EARTH ELEMENTS​

It had been months since the Hound set foot in the field, at least in the professional sense. Bounty hunting, mercenary work and other personal matters didn’t hold a candle to this type of work. He had missed the battle on Humbarine, but after a little lover’s quarrel with Vara, he made sure that he wouldn’t miss out again. He made sure to be on the ship destined for the ruined battlefield.

It was a quiet, simple job. Sneak in, get their fallen brothers back, get the hell out. He had taken the liberty of spraying his armour over with a triprismatic polymer coating, along with various greys and browns to help blend into the ruins. The only unpainted part was his left pauldron, though it underwent its own change.

Where the roaring dragon of clan Krayt once sat, the bared teeth of the Ironworks contrasted in muffled silver against the gold-painted Beskar. The choice had been made. The Hound was no longer a clanless stray, he was now the Alor of clan Maji.

From behind his crimson visor he glanced at Vara. Fresh armour, proper Beskar this time. She deserved it and he wasn’t going to let good iron sit in a closet with no purpose. With a simple nod for a promise kept, he moved on to regard the rest of the team in the gunship. Romul towered over them with a steeled jaw. Yuri still had his reservations about the man, but so far he had shown respect to the Hound in their brief meetings. The rest of them were familiar, but Yuri couldn’t say that he knew them very well.

With a sigh he gave his kit one last inspection. Pistols, grenades, armour systems, finally his rifle. He pulled the magazine and looked it over. With a satisfied nod he slammed the tibanna cell back in place and holstered it against the side of his jetpack. The silence was getting to him. The hum of the gunship was stifled by his helmet, leaving him with nothing but the ever-present ringing in his ears.

It finally got the better of him. A growling sigh helped to dissipate the ache as he looked at the rest of the team. :: Apart from coordinates, do we have trackers for our brothers’ precise locations? :: He asked, simultaneously breaking the piercing silence and testing his commlink signal with the rest of the squad.

 

[Zandra Ruus]

Tags: Romul Saxon Yuri Maji Brent Warnel

Mandalorians clad in sacred iron watched as a short figure walked through the hangar towards a dropship. She was a disgraced warrior, most simply shunned her, others were less generous. Their words stung, but she knew they were right. She had broken The Covenant, refused the call to battle on Humbraine. It was a decision she had made in a childish haste, for reasons she no longer stood behind. Now she had a debt to pay.

A platoon leader saw her coming, a scowl on his aged nautolan face, and deep disappointment in his tone. "The nerve of you to come back Zandra. You should have stayed in whatever hole it is Dar'manda like to crawl into. Just showing your face here is an insult to the fallen!"

Gree didn't hold back, he cared little about potential consequences from above. In his heart his former friend had committed a sin that was bigger than both of them. But Zandra had to say something, she couldn't just shrink away when things got tough.

"Good thing I'm not here for you anymore Gree, I'm here for the members of Clan Ruus that didn't make it home. If you don't want me here fine, but at least let me go see if Apolo is still alive..." Apolo was a young man, barely a few months older than Zandra. He was one of the people who'd left Clan Ruus proper to follow Zandra into The Covenant. "Please Gree, I have to know..."

Gree lost his scowl after a few seconds, his bright red eyes softening a bit before he turned his back on Zandra. "We head to the planet in five mikes. Check your gear and follow what I say. You're on a short leash until I know I can trust you..."

Tough and old as Gree was, he was still Clan Ruus. He wanted to see the young human brought home in whatever form possible. If Zandra was willing to risk her life to bring Apolo back, then so be it. Zandra wasn't as enthusiastic as she should have been though, her heart was still as heavy as lead in her chest.

In hear mind, Apolo would have made it off the planet if she were there. Maybe though, it would be better if she'd been the one lost on a desolate planet instead of him...

 

[Vara Maji]

THE FOUNDLING
Humbarine | City Ruins
Allies: Yuri Maji | Romul Saxon | Zandra Ruus | Brent Warnel
Hostiles: The Sith Covenant
Engaging: OPEN
Gear: In Bio

Hostile Illusion​

Recover the fallen.

The Wardog thought she would never have to set foot on the cursed ecumenopolis ever again. This new assignment proved her wrong. Strapped in for the ride, Vara sat across from her Alor in the main cabin. The scents of the Ironworks still clung to her beskar’gam, lingering upon every curve and every edge as though reluctant to leave the forgemaster’s hammer.

On her shoulders she carried a different weight now. Broad pauldrons framed her shoulders. Stencilled on her right pauldron was a set of bared fangs that of the Ironworks. Clan Maji. She was misbegotten no longer! The cuirass rested flush against her torso. The layered construction flowed cleanly into the segmented plates guarding her abdomen without foregoing mobility, while thicker protection encased her thighs and shins than the kit she had once worn. A shade of crimson marked her armor, her personal choice.

Yet it was too clean.

Unmarred. Not a scorch mark. Not a dent. Such trophies had adorned her old armor proudly. Every scratch a story. Every dent a lesson paid for in blood. All a testament to battles survived and hardships endured. She felt as if she left a piece of her back home upon her return to the Mythos Fleet.

But no matter.

Challenges of mettle and strength were aplenty in their walk of life. There’d be new scars, soon enough.

A shudder rolled through the gunship’s frame. The Wardog swayed with it. Beneath her visor, crimson eyes dropped to her kit as she joined her Alor in the ritual of a final inspection. Runes flickered across her visor with a blink. Jetpack. Wrist launchers. Targeting suite. Comms. All green. Digits brushed over magazine pouches, various grenades, mines and straps. Every familiar shape was a quiet reassurance against the unease gnawing at the back of her mind.

Only once she found everything in order did she lean back.

Her Paranaor stood upright between her knees, buttstock braced against the gunship’s deck. Her hand remained wrapped around its handguard, keeping the weapon steady through every vibration of the gunship amidst their descent.

Crimsons settled upon the cadre around her. Doubts. Concerns. It all started to bubble up with each breath.

He was here. Right across from her. Once more they would be together in the field of battle. A fact she welcomed with ecstasy. But came with it a hefty amount of regret. Their spat. Her words – and as righteous as she was in her exclaims – had brought him to the frontlines. If anything happened to him now…

:: Apart from coordinates, do we have trackers for our brothers’ precise locations? :: He asked, simultaneously breaking the piercing silence and testing his commlink signal with the rest of the squad.

His grumble anchored her. Her troubles? It mattered not. None of it. They were nothing more than thoughts. They weren't reality.

He was here. That was the only thing that mattered. A promise kept. They now carried their hearth with them, wherever fate would see them end up.

<”We should be in transmission range soon,”> the Wardog chimed in after the Hound. <”Long as their IFF’s are still transponding on auto-cycle. Ground clutter might kark us over though…”> Amidst the wreckage and debris over a battlefield spanning several layers of the ecumenopolis…

Theirs was not going to be an easy task.

Vara swayed with another shudder. This time stronger. Her visor snapped up to the cabin ceiling. In the next beat, a shade of red replaced the luminous white. Jump lights. A silent herald they were close now.

It wouldn’t be too long from here on in.

 

[Jericho Dragr]

Romul Saxon Brent Warnel Yuri Maji Vara Maji Zandra Ruus

---

Jericho had not taken one of the seats.

He stood near the rear of the gunship with one hand locked around an overhead restraint, boots magnetized lightly to the deck as the hull shuddered through descent. The motion barely moved him. Matte armor swallowed the cabin’s low light, its outline broken by low-observable plating and the faint shimmer of covert reflec where the gunship’s warning lamps passed over him. He had returned to Humbarine.

The last mission had ended with the living. This one was for the dead.

His helmet remained turned slightly toward the cabin floor until Yuri’s voice cut through the engine-dulled silence, asking about trackers. Vara answered first, practical and correct. Transmission range. IFF auto-cycle. Ground clutter. Jericho’s visor lifted by a few degrees, not sharply enough to draw attention from the whole cabin, but enough to acknowledge the question had reached him. Runes and targeting glyphs crawled across the inside of his HUD, cross-referencing stored battle telemetry against the current descent vector.

His answer came over the squad channel without hurry. <Choruk Squad’s active tags went dark during the withdrawal. That does not mean we are blind.>

A small projection blinked to life from his vambrace, low and tight enough not to flood the cabin with light. It was no clean map. Humbarine’s corpse had too many layers for that. Streets buried under streets. Hab-blocks collapsed into transit tunnels. Industrial levels folded in on themselves by bombardment, leviathan impact, and tectonic violence. Instead, the display formed a lattice of probable zones: last confirmed coordinates, beacon decay paths, heat-scarring, shuttle flight timing, and the revised corridor data transmitted before the dropships abandoned the avenue. <We have shuttle 113-5B’s cockpit recording, shuttle 116’s corrected coordinates, Choruk’s final IFF burst, and the recon element’s emergency med-tags. I also retained partial withdrawal telemetry from the extraction corridor. It gives us a search lattice, not a grave marker.>

Jericho’s left hand moved once. The projection narrowed around three overlapping zones in the ruined city below. One pulsed amber. Two more burned a darker red. <Primary search zone is the secondary extraction point. Secondary zones follow projected displacement from the mass-impact event that killed their signals. Ground clutter will interfere with active pings, as Vara Rasha said. We will not rely on active pings. We scan passive. Beskar density. Armor power-cell bleed. Transponder wake. Thermal voids beneath fresh collapse.>

The gunship bucked harder. Red jump lights painted everyone in the cabin the same color for half a second: Yuri in new clan markings, Vara in armor too clean for the life she had already lived, Romul silent and iron-jawed, Zandra carrying her own debt in the set of her shoulders. Jericho recorded all of it without comment. People wore grief differently. Mandalorians made weapons of it.

He had no clan-dead down there by blood. That did not matter. Sahan had called him brother. Clan Dragr had named him vod. The Covenant had trusted him with an extraction corridor while the world screamed itself apart. If the living had been his mission then, the fallen were his mission now. Organic. Synthetic. Born. Built. Adopted. None of those distinctions altered the command structure of loyalty.

<No confirmed living biosigns from Choruk. I will keep the filter open anyway.> The words were almost too flat to be called hope. Almost.

Jericho collapsed the projection back into his vambrace and drew his rifle from its mag-lock with a clean, practiced motion. The weapon did not rise yet. The muzzle stayed angled down, safe in the packed cabin, while his HUD continued to build the search pattern in silence. He marked likely entry routes for the others, overlaid weak structural points, and tagged pockets where enemy patrols could have hidden observation equipment among the ruins. This was not an invasion force. It was not a revenge raid.

It was an extraction. A different kind, this time.

The rear ramp seals hissed as pressure equalized. Humbarine’s ruined air began to seep through the seams, filtered and poisonous with dust, ash, old fires, and the wet-metal stink of a world that had bled too much. Jericho turned toward the ramp at last.

<They were not abandoned.> His rifle came up. <They were merely delayed.>

---

 

[Brent Warnel]

RETRIEVE THE FALLEN
TAG: Romul Saxon Vara Maji Yuri Maji Zandra Ruus
​

Brent was somber as the chain codes for those vode still on the surface hovered in front of his eyes on his HUD. While some of the other warriors wore no helm in the dropship, Brent did. The closeness of the Beskar on his head gave him a sense of silence and peace as the ship trembled on its approach to Humbarine.

Brent sat near the middle of the dropship, Romul Saxon not far from him, standing resolute amongst the rest of the members. To his left and right stood Yuri Maji , Vara Maji , and Jericho Dragr , all preparing themselves as Brent was to get their kin back.

Brent noticed that Yuri's armor was painted in matte colors to better blend into the environment. He turned his head to the others in the dropship, noticing Jericho's was as well. With Vara, he noticed what appeared to be new armor, a full beskar'gam adorning her. It looked fresh and ready for war. Brent nodded, admiring it. Brent's, by contrast, was scorched, dented, and appeared as if he had just left the battlefield.

He refused to clean and repaint it; however, a reminder of Humbarine still wrapped around his body.

Brent's audio from his helmet activated as it picked up the other members of the drop ship begin to speak:

. :: Apart from coordinates, do we have trackers for our brothers’ precise locations? ::

<”We should be in transmission range soon,”> the Wardog chimed in after the Hound. <”Long as their IFF’s are still transponding on auto-cycle. Ground clutter might kark us over though…”

<Primary search zone is the secondary extraction point. Secondary zones follow projected displacement from the mass-impact event that killed their signals. Ground clutter will interfere with active pings, as Vara Rasha said. We will not rely on active pings. We scan passive. Beskar density. Armor power-cell bleed. Transponder wake. Thermal voids beneath fresh collapse.>

<No confirmed living biosigns from Choruk. I will keep the filter open anyway.>

Jericho's response was pragmatic, exact, and biting. Keeping the filter open for Choruk's biosigns gave Brent a glimmer of hope he knew he shouldn't hold on to. He had listened to the cockpit and ground recordings as well; they were haunting, there was no one left down there.

Brent's reverie was broken as his HUD began to send various new readings as the dropship bucked beneath him and entered the atmosphere. Toxins in the air were filtered out by his helmet before they entered his lungs. Various signals from ground and wider-area communications began to filter through his comm. As damaged as this world was after the battle, it was still busy with chatter.

Brent thought he felt something then, a call from the surface, a call for help. Was it the Manda? Guiding him to the bodies of the dead? Or was it his own mind, his thoughts dragging him to some realm within its own walls that he thought he could sense what wasn't really there. Regardless, Brent's resolve hardened as he remembered the recordings.

"Our vode are down there, calling for us," Brent said softly as he stood up and clambered to the rear ramp near Jericho, not concerned if anyone heard him, "They are restless, waiting for us to collect them. They want vengeance. We must retrieve them and carry their spirit with us until retribution is given to those who did this."

Brent's heart rate quickened, it was almost time.

 

[Romul Saxon]

W A R M A S T E R
Humbarine

[] The Lost []​

Tag: Brent Warnel | Zandra Ruus | Jericho Dragr | Vara Maji | Yuri Maji

The dropship approached Humbarine, entering into the planet's orbit. The suppressive cruiser was doing its job, creating a small void into which the dropship could slip past scanners and communications, unnoticed. It flew invisibly, and its small size was also an added benefit against the stellar noise. Its pilots had only a week before been extracting their vode from Humbarine; doubtless, they had not expected to return so soon. None of the Mandalorians aboard did. But their fallen vode waited for them planetside.

Romul steadied himself against the shuddering interior as the dropship plunged into the upper atmosphere, his grip tightening on the handrail above. The other Mandalorians aboard spoke in clipped, brief exchangeds. They were few, but they were well-trained and battle-tested. Besides, they had only spared a single dropship for this shuttle, and they needed the space for the recovery. Romul closed his eyes and listened to the reports and chatter without turning his head, saying nothing.

"Our vode are down there, calling for us," Brent said softly as he stood up and clambered to the rear ramp near Jericho, not concerned if anyone heard him, "They are restless, waiting for us to collect them. They want vengeance. We must retrieve them and carry their spirit with us until retribution is given to those who did this."

The soft voice next to Romul made his eyes open. He exhaled deliberately through his nostrils and turned his head ever so slightly, inclining it towards Warnel. Romul let the words sit. He had felt it himself, a weight that would not lift. He had welcomed the crusader to Kestri, in what now felt like ages ago. But no, it could not have been more than two months. Armor once golden now bore the scars of battle: scorched beskar, dented plating, chipped coating. Good, Romul thought. A Mandalorian who would not let himself forget. He pushed off the handrail and closed the short distance to where Brent stood near the rear ramp, the hydraulics of his suit compensating for the dropship's increasing turbulence as they descended deeper into Humbarine's broken atmosphere.

"Warnel." Romul's voice was deep, slow, and deliberate. He moved beside the man at the ramp's edge rather than in front of him, both of them facing the same direction, his preferred manner to speak warrior to warrior. "It is good you are here," Romul said simply. The once-crusader was now born of the Covenant.

The pilot's voice crackled through the cabin: thirty seconds. Romul settled his helmet over his head and felt the seals hiss closed around him, the world narrowing to the familiar geography of his HUD. The bay doors slid open with a mechanical whoosh as the dropship banked hard, decelerating into a hover a half meter above the surface. A great grey billow of dust rushed up into the cabin and swirled in the sudden pressure change, carrying with it the taste of ash and scorched earth. Beyond the settling cloud, through the opening ramp, the ruined sector resolved itself in pieces: sheared towers, the long dark gashes where bombardment had opened the earth, rubble fields stretching outward in every direction. Grey light sat over all of it, flat and without warmth.

Romul dropped down instantly, flexing his knees as his armor absorbed the small shock of impact. The dropship hovered in a cratered intersection between what had been several buildings. Far in the distance, the rest of the ecumenopolis was alive, but here, no artificial light illuminated the night, only the stars above. The dropship's own bright search lights were off to avoid detection. "Switching to noc visuals," Romul announced over comms. "Dragr, run the scans. Coordinate with Russ's team. Maji, take your foundling and sweep the southern quadrant. If you find something, mark it and retrieve; then return for more. Warnel, with me." They would establish a perimiter the northern quadrant of the sector and see what they could find.

 

[Yuri Maji]

HUMBARINE | RUINS
ALLIES: COV | Vara Maji | Romul Saxon | Brent Warnel | Zandra Ruus | Jericho Dragr
ENEMIES: TSC
ENGAGING: Open
GEAR: In bio

RARE EARTH ELEMENTS​

Yuri looked around the gunship as people spoke up, his crimson visor regarding each of the vode assembled. The young Dragr gave a very valuable suggestion to rather look for passive signatures. Material traces would be easiest in the ruins, along with the coordinates from the last ping.

Aside from his usual pessimism when it came to “easy” gigs, the Hound was completely relaxed. All they needed to do was avoid patrols and potential scavengers.

The dome light activated, drawing Yuri back to the present with its red hue. Brent spoke up, giving some final words of encouragement to the group as they prepared for planetfall.

"Our vode are down there, calling for us," Brent said softly as he stood up and clambered to the rear ramp near Jericho, not concerned if anyone heard him, "They are restless, waiting for us to collect them. They want vengeance. We must retrieve them and carry their spirit with us until retribution is given to those who did this."

He drew his rifle and did one final systems check. ”They’re comin’ home, Warnel. Like the young dragon said, it’s just a delayed extraction.” He spoke up to put the man’s mind at ease. Romul also did his part to calm the man, earning a hum and a nod from the mutt. It was almost time to depart. Yuri turned to the ramp along with the others, rifle at a low-ready as he waited for the green light.

A final glance at Vara, one last check over her gear. He gave a satisfied nod and turned his attention back to the dome light.

The moment finally came, the light turned green and the ramp slid down, allowing the occupants to jump out and take their places planetside. Yuri knelt behind a pile of rubble, scanning their surroundings for thermals before finally reporting an ‘all clear’ to the rest of the group. It was pitch black around them, their only light coming from the stars above. Another small reassurance that the job would go smoothly, their presence was already masked.

"Switching to noc visuals," Romul announced over comms. "Dragr, run the scans. Coordinate with Russ's team. Maji, take your foundling and sweep the southern quadrant. If you find something, mark it and retrieve; then return for more. Warnel, with me."

”Copy, commander. Killin’ voice box, switchin’ to comms.” The Hound answered plainly, turning off his helmet’s annunciator with the press of a button. :: We’ll ping y’all if we see something. Keep your eyes peeled for patrols. :: He warned the group, motioning for Vara to follow him. After clearing a fair distance, Yuri switched to night vision and activated his armour’s scanner.

Distant echoes came from the functioning parts of the city, they were all alone in the ruins. Yuri cast a quick glance at Vara before continuing with his sweep of the perimeter. :: How’s the armour sitting? Feelin’ good? :: He asked her over a proximity channel. Cradling the stock of his rifle under his left arm, he swept his wrist computer around for any possible signatures. Beskar traces, biological matter, energy signatures, anything that could give them any readings, living or dead. The rest of the group drew further and fainter as they dispersed.

:: We’re bound to run into scavvers. Zones like these are a treasure trove. :: He warned with a quiet voice. A scoff soon followed, a moment of distraction. :: What’s that Mantellian saying again? :: He quipped with a muffled laugh.

 

[Yael Kandar]

BROUGHT TO GROUND
A Brave New World - Chapter 1

TAG: Open

PYRAMID SONG​

HUMBARINE

She found the girl by her boots first.

Standard Kyr'kara issue, the kind they handed out when you were new. One foot still pointed at the sky the way a person's does when they haven't been moved. The other turned inward. Something the body only allowed once it stopped arguing.

Yael did not move for a long time.

Her name was Kel Raan. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Yael had never asked, because you didn't ask about ages when they were still breathing fine. When they were still performing well. When they were still looking at you like you held the answers to something. Six months ago she had shown up to training with boots two sizes too big and eyes that tracked everything Yael did in the air. One of those young ones who had decided, in the particular and irrevocable way of the young, that you were worth deciding on.

Yael had run before any of it could become weight.

She crouched beside her now. Humbarine's air tasted of ash and something older; something the planet had earned across centuries of being a place where things fell. Kel's beskar'gam was battle-scorched but intact. She had not died cheap. Her hands were still stretched forward, fingers reaching toward the collapsed frame of a doorway. Covering a retreat. Running toward something, not away.

Dying the way Yael had always moved through the world. Before she decided the world could find someone else.

Manda did not ask for explanation.

That had always been the truth of it. They did not mark your ledger against those who had stayed. It only asked what you intended to do with the body in front of you now, and whether you had the spine to do it.

Yael placed one hand flat against Kel's helmet.

Not a prayer. She hadn't earned the right to invoke Manda’s name over these remains. Not today. But she kept her hand there, pressed against the cold beskar, like she was taking something in or giving something back. The girl had died in a forward lean. There was something worth holding onto in that.

She started with the arms.

The rubble gave up what it had claimed with the usual reluctance; slow, heavy, asking for effort the way ruins always did. Yael worked without noise and without hurry. Her own dark blue armor was obscene against the grey of Humbarine, pristine where Kel's was scorched. She had spent a week getting it repaired. She had been on a different planet entirely when Kel Raan died doing exactly what Yael had taught her to do.

She didn't look away from that.

When she finally had the body clear, she pulled Kel against her chest. Not to carry yet. Just to hold. The weight of a person in armor was always less than you expected. You thought a life would register more. You thought loyalty would count toward something in the kilograms.

It didn't. It never did.​

 

[Vara Maji]

THE FOUNDLING
Humbarine | City Ruins
Allies: Yuri Maji | Romul Saxon | Zandra Ruus | Brent Warnel
Hostiles: The Sith Covenant
Engaging: OPEN
Gear: In Bio

The Mission Begins​

The tac-net came to life.

The Foundling withdrew into silence in the wake of her remark, bathed under a soft crimson glow. The gunship continued its descent unabated. Every shudder through the hull continued to rock the young Foundling gently in her seat. Her heel struck the durasteel cabin floor in a rapid staccato. Crimson eyes scrutinized every brother under the unmoving obsidian visor.

<We have shuttle 113-5B’s cockpit recording, shuttle 116’s corrected coordinates, Choruk’s final IFF burst, and the recon element’s emergency med-tags. I also retained partial withdrawal telemetry from the extraction corridor. It gives us a search lattice, not a grave marker.>

Jericho’s left hand moved once. The projection narrowed around three overlapping zones in the ruined city below. One pulsed amber. Two more burned a darker red. <Primary search zone is the secondary extraction point. Secondary zones follow projected displacement from the mass-impact event that killed their signals. Ground clutter will interfere with active pings, as Vara Rasha said. We will not rely on active pings. We scan passive. Beskar density. Armor power-cell bleed. Transponder wake. Thermal voids beneath fresh collapse.>

<They were not abandoned.> His rifle came up. <They were merely delayed.>

"Our vode are down there, calling for us," Brent said softly as he stood up and clambered to the rear ramp near Jericho, not concerned if anyone heard him, "They are restless, waiting for us to collect them. They want vengeance. We must retrieve them and carry their spirit with us until retribution is given to those who did this."

”They’re comin’ home, Warnel. Like the young dragon said, it’s just a delayed extraction.” He spoke up to put the man’s mind at ease.

Each word carried its own weight. Different voices, same conviction.

The Foundling’s lips peeled back. A grin flickered across her visage. Her cuirass rose in a draw of breath. Every syllable swelled her heart with fervor. Her shoulders eased back. She sat a little taller in her seat. That right there – this was it. This was what it meant to be kin. Bound by creed rather than blood. Loyal unto death. None stood alone against the Night.

Till the end of days.

<”They’re comin’ home.”> Vara rose. The Foundling found her place behind her Alor in one quick stride. The stock of her rifle tucked under her arm, the muzzle faced the cabin’s ceiling. Her finger rested flat against the receiver, just above the trigger. In the next breath, her stomach lurched forward. She dug in her heels as the ship banked sharply before leveling out in a beat.

The ramp dropped in the next.

A dust cloud billowed under the steady, pulsating repulsor howl of the gunship. The ruins sprawled all around them beyond the ramp, and Vara was already moving behind the Hound. Rubble crunched under her soles as she hopped down. Fanning out, she bounded towards a wreckage – a burnt mass of steel, twisted in mind-bending angles.

The tones of her world shifted to distinct blacks and whites under the thermal filter. Life hadn’t ended in the ecumenopolis entirely. Beyond the wasteland stretching for miles around them, countless heat signatures painted a striking backdrop under the dark night sky. Crimsons shifted from one mound of rubble to the next, moving past lifeless ruins and buildings.

All clear.

"Switching to noc visuals," Romul announced over comms. "Dragr, run the scans. Coordinate with Russ's team. Maji, take your foundling and sweep the southern quadrant. If you find something, mark it and retrieve; then return for more. Warnel, with me."

”Copy, commander. Killin’ voice box, switchin’ to comms.” The Hound answered plainly, turning off his helmet’s annunciator with the press of a button. :: We’ll ping y’all if we see something. Keep your eyes peeled for patrols. :: He warned the group, motioning for Vara to follow him.

Vara caught the sharp knife hand in her peripheral, but the Hound’s gesture to form up was almost entirely unnecessary.

She was swift to answer with action. Debris and rubble shifted under her footfalls. In a beat, Yuri felt a firm pat on his shoulder. Crimsons subconsciously shifted toward their flank and rear. The muzzle of her rifle shadowed her gaze, sweeping the ruins.

A blink, and her heads-up display obeyed, her voice confined to her helmet. <::”Let’s move,”::> The Foundling matched the Hound’s pace without hesitation. Her tone flared in the private channel between them.

:: How’s the armour sitting? Feelin’ good? :: He asked her over a proximity channel.

Her silhouette lowered, bent and springy from the knees. The Wardog stalked the shadowy ruins several yards behind her Alor. The weight of her armor did nothing to hold her back. <::”Like a glove,”::> a small chuckle escaped her. A quick blink summoned a rune into the corner of her vision. Immediately afterward, a layout of their surroundings showed up in a small box in the corner of the Hound’s periphery as well. <::”From the last moments of the battle,”::> she filled him in, her tone sharpened with brevity all of a sudden. <::”Landing zone. Half a click. Due south, y’see it?”::> Overran in the final moments of the battle. They hadn’t made it out.

It was worth a look.

:: We’re bound to run into scavvers. Zones like these are a treasure trove. :: He warned with a quiet voice.

<::”I’ve got your six, babe.”::> His warning hadn’t fallen on deaf ears. A methodical sweep accompanied their bounding from cover to cover. It was the same around every corner, behind every ruin and inside every crater and trench.

Clear.

A scoff soon followed, a moment of distraction. :: What’s that Mantellian saying again? :: He quipped with a muffled laugh.

A puff of breath pulsed in the comms for a beat. A smile audible in her tone, despite the grim wreckage surrounding them. <::”What, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?”::>

 

[Zandra Ruus]

Tag: Jericho Dragr Romul Saxon Brent Warnel

Gree looked over at Zandra, even behind the T-visor a look of judgement seemed to burn for her. Seems they would be working with this Jericho character. Zandra had heard his clan name a time before, but beyond that he was a ghost. She liked it that way, things felt less personal that way. Guilt would have to wait, there were brothers and sisters down there to save.

Both Zandra and Gree switched there helmets to comms only, checking the band to make sure they were synched up with Jericho. Green lights filled the HUD, everything was in order.

"So what, we just sit around the ship and make sure no one gets lost? That's work for a droid..." Zandra's disappointment at Romul's command. She wasn't here to be a comms tech. In her mind, this was worse than not showing up at all!

"We'll do as ordered, you were the one who insisted in coming here little one. Now pick up one of the probes, our people need eyes in the sky!" Gree wasn't sympathetic to Zandra's plight, he was a much more composed soldier than Zandra was by far.

With a reluctant huff, Zandra lifted up a small probe droid. With a few button presses it was up in the air above the area. She then used a control panel on her vambrace to direct the drone over to the northern quadrant. It was a simple thing, a small circular bit of metal connected to a camera and some rotors. The small UAV was less a droid and little more than a simple camera rig capable of flight.

As simple a device as it was, it could interact rather easily with Mandalorian equipment. Seamlessly giving Romul and Brent a constant camera feed of whatever it saw. This feed was confined to a small "box" on their HUDs, currently sweeping over the wreckage of a crashed aircraft in the street.

"Looks like camera feed is good Gree, should be feeding into Brent and Romul's HUDs now..."

 

[Brent Warnel]

Romul Saxon Yuri Maji Vara Maji Yael Kandar Zandra Ruus Jericho Dragr
​

"Warnel." Romul's voice was deep, slow, and deliberate. He moved beside the man at the ramp's edge rather than in front of him, both of them facing the same direction, his preferred manner to speak warrior to warrior. "It is good you are here," Romul said simply. The once-crusader was now born of the Covenant.

”They’re comin’ home, Warnel. Like the young dragon said, it’s just a delayed extraction.”

<”They’re comin’ home.”>

"It is good I have been welcomed, Old Boar," Warnel said warmly to Romul before addressing the rest of them, "Although my mood is somber for this moment, it is good to have you all here. You keep me grounded, and I welcome the feeling. Let's bring our vode home."

The pilot's voice chimed in Brent's helm, "Thirty seconds."

Brent saw Romul place his helm in his hand through his peripherals, and he readied himself as the ship began a combat drop. With a hard bank, the dropship approached the ground, the rear bay doors sliding open as it did so. Dust billowed into the cabin and swept outwards from the ship, the engines forcing grit into the air.

Brent dropped out of the ship next to the other vode, his knees bending to absorb the impact. Brent looked around, witnessing the world that was Humbarine with his own eyes for the first time since the invasion. Rubble, debris, and destruction spread out before him in the darkened and ruined area of the city.

In the distance, life could be seen as lights still lit up the once intact city. But here, where Brent and the others stood, no light touched. Great scorch marks and churned earth were the only things that greeted them as they advanced into the rubble.

"Switching to noc visuals," Romul announced over comms. "Dragr, run the scans. Coordinate with Russ's team. Maji, take your foundling and sweep the southern quadrant. If you find something, mark it and retrieve; then return for more. Warnel, with me."

"Aye, with you," Brent replied, falling in with Romul and activating his HUD's wide spectrum views to give him a better visual of the surrounding areas. Brent slid his rifle out from its mag-clamp on his back, unconsciously shouldering it at a low ready as he advanced, already wondering if more of the delusional citizens were in the rubble, waiting to attack as they had before.

His boots crunched across the drab terrain as they began to cover ground, looking for their fallen comrades. As Brent walked, he couldn't help but admire the destruction that was wrought here. Rebar stuck out from collapsed foundations, huge hills of rubble where high-rise buildings once stood, it was magnificent in its own way.

Brent continued to scan the area with his armors sensors, attempting to find any lingering echo of their fallen brethren. Due north about eight hundred meters, Brent's HUD showed several hot spots, no doubt scavengers of some kind looking to find payday amidst the destruction.

"I've got nothing so far on our vode," Brent said to Romul, "Although I'm pinging several humanoid figures to our north approximately eight hundred meters. Feeding data to you know. Might be worth to get eyes on what they're scrounging for."

 

[Jericho Dragr]

Romul Saxon Brent Warnel Yuri Maji Vara Maji Zandra Ruus

---

Jericho hit the ground after the others, the short drop from the gunship made rough by Humbarine's ruined breath. Dust rolled beneath the hovering craft in thick grey sheets, swallowing boots, ankles, and the lower edges of broken armor as the Mandalorians spread into the ruins. The world around them existed in fragments under his visor. Night vision flattened the dead city into hard edges and pale ghosts. Thermal overlays found distant life where the city still functioned, far beyond the cold wound where they had landed. Structural mapping drew half-collapsed towers in wireframe, then warned him that half the lines were guesses. Humbarine had too many bones stacked on top of each other for any map to be honest.

Romul's order came through the comms. Dragr, run the scans. Coordinate with Ruus's team. Jericho answered without looking away from the ruins. <Acknowledged. Initiating passive lattice.>

His rifle stayed low, muzzle angled into the broken street as he moved out from beneath the gunship's wake. He did not activate a broad pulse. No searchlight. No sweeping active ping that would announce them to every scavenger, patrol, and listening station in the sector. Instead, he let the armor work quietly. Radiation differentials. Power-cell bleed. Residual transponder wake. The faint metallic echo of beskar buried beneath ferrocrete, durasteel, ash, and the crushed geometry of a city that had been built upward for too many centuries.

Green indicators blinked into his HUD as Ruus team joined the same band. Zandra. Gree. Their signal handshake came clean, followed by the jittering view from the small probe as it lifted away from them and cut toward the northern quadrant. Jericho accepted the feed and folded it into the lattice. <Ruus team, your camera feed is clear. Integrating now.>

The probe's view opened in the corner of his visor: a ruined street, a crashed aircraft, bent metal ribs exposed like something picked clean by carrion birds. A second later, Brent's report tagged the same general direction. Multiple humanoid figures. North. Eight hundred meters. Jericho let both inputs sit together until the system stopped treating them as separate facts.

The heat signatures were not close enough to identify with certainty. They moved in and out of ruined cover, blurred by intervening stone, ash, and wreckage cooling unevenly in the night air. Not bodies. Not yet. Moving contacts. Living, or close enough to count as living until proven otherwise. <Confirming northern heat signatures. No Covenant IFF. No friendly tags. Contact count unstable through obstruction. Minimum four humanoid profiles. Possible scavengers. Possible patrol.>

His visor shifted a few degrees, following the line from the drop point to the contacts beyond. The lattice tightened as more historical data settled over the present: Choruk's last communication, the corrected coordinates from shuttle 116, the projected displacement from the impact event, the position of the crashed aircraft, and the avenue where the extraction route should have been. The city resisted certainty. Jericho did not force it.

He crouched beside a broken curb and placed one hand against the ground. The gesture was not spiritual. He did not hear the dead through the stone. He heard old comm distortion, failing armor cells, fragments of encrypted telemetry, and the small lies sensors told when fed too much ruin at once. Still, for a moment, the posture looked almost reverent.

Then the first return sharpened. Not a beacon. Too weak. Not a living biosign. Too cold. Not nothing.

A narrow mark appeared on his HUD, buried beneath a collapsed transit lip where the street had buckled inward. The return flickered when viewed from his own angle. It steadied when cross-fed through Zandra's probe and Brent's northern scan. A sliver of dense alloy. A discharged power cell. Trace heat trapped beneath rubble that should have cooled faster than it had. Jericho marked it amber.

<Possible recovery signature. North-northeast from drop point. Five hundred and twenty meters. Below grade, likely under collapsed transit infrastructure. Reading includes Mandalorian-grade armor density and depleted cell bleed. No active IFF. No confirmed biosign. Not confirmed Choruk. Not confirmed Ruus. Not confirmed dead.>

His hand lifted from the ground. The marker pushed outward across the tac-net, not as an order, but as an advisory overlay. Romul and Brent would see the amber point between themselves and the farther heat signatures. Ruus team would see the angle from the probe's current path. Maji and Vara would receive it as a distant reference, useful only if their own southern sweep crossed a matching displacement line.

<Uploading lattice to all teams. Amber markers are possible recoveries. Red markers are movement contacts. Do not assume overlap. The living may be scavenging the dead, or the dead may be drawing the living.>

The words came out as clean analysis. Dry. Controlled. Almost clinical. His HUD replayed the last Choruk transmission in silent text for less than a second before he dismissed it. Reached the secondary extraction point. Recon element wounded. Tags dark. Status unknown. Then shuttle 116, colder than mercy: Choruk is dead. The recording did not change. The mission did.

Jericho stepped away from the drop zone, choosing a path that kept broken masonry between himself and the northern heat signatures. His armor drank in the darkness, low-observable plating reduced to a moving absence among ruins already full of shadow. <Continuing passive sweep. I will refine the marker as angles improve. If they are ours, we bring them home. If they are not, we keep looking.>

---

 

[Yuri Maji]

HUMBARINE | RUINS
ALLIES: COV | Vara Maji | Romul Saxon | Brent Warnel | Zandra Ruus | Jericho Dragr | Yael Kandar
ENEMIES: TSC
ENGAGING: Yael Kandar | Vara Maji
GEAR: In bio

VOLNY​

Vara assured him that her new armour fit perfectly and all systems were green. He gave a quiet nod of approval as he continued to scan the area around them. She went on to point out the landing zone just a quick walk ahead. :: Copy, I see it. :: He responded, shifting his scanners over to that area.

<::”What, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure?”::>

Yuri chuckled and shook his head. :: Nah, not that one… Uh… Cheeky-something. It’ll come back to me. :: He dismissed, even though he knew it was going to bother him.

But their momentary peace would soon come to an end. The Hound’s scanners lit up with all of the parameters and brought the mutt to a halt. :: Pickin’ up signs. Green on all traces. :: He reported, bringing his rifle to a high-ready as he pushed forward.

In a few moments the two hounds would come up to a blown out ruin with the scanners confirming a presence inside. Yuri stacked up against a door and carefully peered inside to see a figure holding what looked to be one of the missing Mandalorians. He glanced at Vara and gave a signal to breach, turning his annunciator back on and counting down the moment with his fingers before he moved inside.

His rifle’s flashlight bathed the ruins in sharp light, illuminating the two figures on the ground. Luckily the one figure’s armour was immediately familiar to the Hound.

”Yael…” Yuri muttered with relief. His visor shifted down to the corpse in Yael’s embrace. ”You found one.” Another relief. He wasn’t sure when Yael broke off from the group, but she found one of their lost comrades, one more coming home.

”Marked the location.” He remarked after fiddling with his wrist computer. Yael seemed to know the girl that lost her life. He looked to Vara and gave a shrug, hoping she would know what to do in the situation.

 

[Romul Saxon]

W A R M A S T E R
Humbarine

[] The Lost []​

Tag: Brent Warnel | Zandra Ruus | Jericho Dragr | Vara Maji | Yuri Maji

The Mandalorians fanned out into their respective teams. Pairs were smaller than the conventional fireteam that standard doctrine would recommend for any combat operation, but the ground they had to cover and the short window of time they had to operate necessitated that they fan out to retrieve as many of their vode as possible before the Sith grew the wiser of their presence. Romul was already calculating the time debt they were in, what each step would cost them, thinking of the gruelling task of carrying the bodies of their dead to the shuttle, only to go out for more.

He did not carry his hammer; that would be unnecessary in an operation such as this. In his arms was an iron covenant battle rifle, and strapped at his side, a kal dagger. That should be more than sufficient for tonight.

"I've got nothing so far on our vode," Brent said to Romul, "Although I'm pinging several humanoid figures to our north approximately eight hundred meters. Feeding data to you know. Might be worth to get eyes on what they're scrounging for."

"Jor'lek," Romul affirmed, locking ono the signatures that Brent was talking about. He peered off far into the distance towards the faint heat marks of humanoids, although at this extreme distance neither their number nor what they were could be ascertained. In a battlefield where there were Mandalorian casualties, there were always carrion scavengers circling, and those seemed to especially follow the Sith as a horde of flies follows rotten meat. "Sith or Scavengers, where they are concentrating may be a sign. Proceed with caution."

Shadows covered the ruins in darkness. Bombed out husks of buildings and crushed columns, carbon-scoring rendering everything black and unrecogniseable. Romul periodically swept left to right, right to left, sporadically turning backwards, irregular patterns all drilled into him since he was practically a child in the old crusades. Even now the instinct did not leave the Old Boar, even when it seemed that Warnel and he were alone. The far-off signatures grew closer at a slow pace as the pair approached on foot; suddenly, a different signal pinged in his transponder. Fragmented and weak, but closer. Romul swung toward its direction, alining his rifle, towards what looked to be the footprint of a once-large building, now crumbled to the ground. It was faint and reptitive, an automated transponder Romul's instinct told him. "Warnel, do you read that signal?"

 

[Zandra Ruus]

There was a knot forming in Zandra's gut, she was tired of babysitting a drone. She wanted to go find apolo and his squad. Even if there were only the bodies left behind, they deserved to be brought home! She squinted at Gree, who was bent over a holodisplay. His focus was on guiding other Mandalorians into the city, not on Zandra and her personal mission.

This was her moment, a quick few sprints and she'd be too far for him to catch up to. She tapped on her gauntlet's screen, setting the drone on a course to follow Brent and Romul's squad in the north.

If the Clan Ruus squad was going to be found, she needed to move quickly, and that meant cutting through the city. She'd use Jericho's guidance to sweep down south with. So far there was no sign of them in the North sector, chances we're they'd be towards the South sector then.

Her steps were quick and quiet, breaking up the layers of dust and rubble she found. She stuck to cover, one of her beskads drawn and kept at hip-height. Nothing would stand in her way, but something might slow her down.

Just ahead, less than fifty meters, there was a small squad. They were wearing military-styled uniforms and carrying blaster rifles. Could be some remnants of planetary forces, or just scavengers who'd gotten fat off the bones of the dead. It mattered very little, if they presented a threat, they'd bleed out just as fast.

Zandra brought two fingers up to the side of her helmet. Speaking into the channel between herself and Jericho Dragr . "Squad of six foot mobiles in the intersection twelve meters from the border of the southern sector. Interrogative, ghost them or go loud? Over."

So far the scavengers in the city weren't a threat, and hadn't been alerted to her kin's presence. If she were to start firing, then every scav in the city might come running. But going the stealthy route took time, time she didn't believe she had...