Invasion Return the Blade | COV Invasion of TSC-held Humbarine

[Darion of Myrkr]

BELLY OF THE BEAST
TAG: Quinn Varanin // Iris Beroya (just confirming succesful bombing)

Darion of Myrkr heard the missiles before he saw them. They came down out of the sky like falling stars and struck the enemy position squarely. The avenue shook beneath his boots. Dust and smoke rose in a great cloud and with them stone and steel and pieces of men. For a moment all these things hung in the air together and then fell back to the broken street.

The starfighters passed overhead with a great tearing roar.

Varo raised a thumbs up toward the sky then commed Strill Squadron and informed them of their succesful bombing run.

Then they started forward, the five Mandalorians running toward the drifting dust.

Halfway across the avenue a shadow passed over them and the sunlight vanished. Darion paid it no heed at first. There was always smoke in war and smoke could darken any sky. Then he saw the crimson lightning. It rose from the ruins of the checkpoint and climbed into the heavens in twisting forks and the clouds gathered with unnatural speed and the sky darkened and thunder rolled above the city.

The Mandalorians stopped.

A bolt of red lightning broke away from the storm and curved through the air like a striking serpent and hit the wall of the building where they had sheltered only moments before and shattered stone across the street.

All five rifles came up as the smoke drifted apart and out of it came a woman clad in black armor and in one hand she carried a staff and around the fingers of the other danced small red fires that crackled and spat.

The landing zone was still far ahead.

There was no other road.

Darion knew then what must be done.

He looked to Varo.

"Brother."

"Aye."

"Take the men and go through the buildings. Find a way forward."

Varo shook his head.

"Nay. We shall stand together."

"It cannot be."

"Why?"

"Because one of us must hold this one at bay."

Varo was silent.

Then he said, "And why art thou the one?"

"Because thus I said."

Varo cursed softly.

"May Harangir take thee."

"And thee also, brother." Darion said. "Remember, thou die only once."

Then Darion fired his jetpack. He rose above the street in a burst of flame and smoke and opened fire as he climbed. Blaster bolts streaked downward toward the black-armored figure.

Below him Varo stood for a moment watching. Then he turned and motioned to the others.

"Come. What passes, passes. We go."

The four Mandalorians disappeared into the shelter of the building while Darion climbed into the darkening sky and kept firing bursts of blaster bolts upon the mysterious enemy.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Humbraine - The Governorate Armory

Equipment:
Knight Attire | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm

Ace watched Varin's transformation unfold in silence. The screaming, the fire, the armor crumbling away in molten flakes, and the horns forcing their way from Varin's skull while something vast and hungry unfurled behind him in smoke and flame.

For a brief moment, Ace's eyes flicked toward Tamsin. Was this her? The thought vanished as quickly as it came. It didn't matter. What mattered was the bloodlust radiating from Varin through the Force.

The moment the Black Blade pointed toward him, Ace already knew what was coming. Then Varin lunged and Ace moved instantly. The Force propelled him upward above the larger Sith crasing through the space he'd occupied moments earlier. Mid-air, Ace twisted his body and thrust his right arm forward.

A concentrated telekinetic sledgehammer erupted from his outstretched hand, compressed into a single devastating impact. The invisible strike slammed toward Varin with enough power to obliterate a starfighter.

Then came the thump and he frowned. His feet never touched the ground and his body remained suspended. For a split second he simply hung there, weightless, before his golden eyes snapped toward Tamsin. Fucking witches.

Before he could react further, another sensation swept through him. The Force wrapped around his body like invisible chains and his movements slowed.

Immediately, rage surged through him. Someone was touching him, restricting him, controlling him. The thought alone made his jaw tighten. A moment later the gravity bomb finished whatever madness it had started and reality snapped back.

The explosion erupted outward and gravity returned with brutal force. Ace dropped from the air and hit the ground in a controlled roll, coming up near Varin as debris and shattered duracrete rained through the armory.

Then he heard her.

"Well, that was FUN!" She let out a maniacal laugh. "We should do it again!"

Golden eyes immediately darted toward Tamsin. No, from the voice alone, he understood this was something wearing Tamsin. Without hesitation, Ace rolled away from Varin and moved closer to her position. His purple shoto ignited beside the blue blade already humming in his hand. He pointed one toward Tamsin, and the other remained angled toward Varin, settling into a guarded stance.

At the end of it all, Varin was still the bigger problem.

"This got anything to do with you?" The question was directed at Tamsin, but his eyes never left Varin.

Varin Mortifer | Tamsin Starfall | Arris Windrun | Lily Rhodes | Vess Sadragen​

 

[Iris Beroya]

STRILL 6 - SKIES ON FIRE
ATMOSPHERE | HUMBARINE
GOAL: Recover Alor Warnel
TAG: Emissary of Strife | Brent Warnel
GEAR: Jai'Galaar Starfighter

Music​

There was then a vicious crackle and thunderclap, and from the blackened clouds a heavy rain began. A fog accompanied it, hugging close to the broken city around the leviathan and the Dark Lord, slowly enveloping all in haze.

Rain glided off the canopy, but turned the already dark world into a haze. She and the TIE moved in a dance, weaving through the skyscrapers of the city as they maneuvered below the red lightning overhead and through a swfitly growing fog.

"I'm engaged by what can only be a Sith," he replied to Iris Beroya Iris Beroya , "Disengagement will be tricky. My comm is open, track my signal, I'll try to meet you on the roof."

"Copy, a little tied up, moving to you ASAP, Alor," Iris grunted as she fought for nose position against the TIE.

Basic Academy material told him the plague hadn't helped much in that regard either - his Avenger, based on what was once a state-of-the-art prototype designed to steal virtually every performance record to conceive of, was no slouch and more-or-less matched the Jai'Galsaar in speed and maneuverability. He caught wind as the enemy pivoted, and did the same, sacrificing a new firing line, but protecting himself from theirs, as he fought to regain his advantage.

Put new engines in a TIE, give it a better shield generator, give it new guns and new systems. Rip out the entire guts and replace them. It would work great. But at the end of the day, the design was 900 years old and up against the pinnacle of new Mandalorian design and technology.

Still... the starfighter didn't make the pilot.

And Iris was the better pilot.

Not by a leap but by bounds. She'd flown with the Crimson Aces mercenaries, galaxy renowned, and learned everything Tyrant 1 could teach her.

Who was this imperial pilot against her, she thought. Just a callsign and a flightsuit. As empty as whatever Empire he thought he still fought for.

"It's over," she spat, pulling directional jets and moving the nose so that her guns were on target, barely able to see him through the haze of the growing fog. She depressed the trigger and the guns barked, lasers peppering out toward the TIE to claw him from the skies.


Meanwhile...

Varo raised a thumbs up toward the sky then commed Strill Squadron and informed them of their succesful bombing run.

The earlier strike had been effective. Strill Squadron's refit was complete and they shrieked back into the fray from orbit, burning fast to move under the Force Storm at the edge and under its storm wall.

AMIDST THE BLUE SKIES, A LINK FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE.
THE SHELTERING WINGS OF THE PROTECTOR
This is an NPC Story
Emissary of Strife | Seva Beroya

///...loading
...
..
.
[[ HUMBARINE: ATMOSPHERE ]]
[[ MISSION RESUME ]]
TIME ELAPSED 00:10:01
TGT GND-AA

STARFANG WING:
Ghest Squadron | Svaper Squadron | Darkwolf 1 & 2
​

The elite pilots of Rancor and Null pit their cream-of-the-crop talent and wartime experience against artificial intelligence and Mandalorian courage.

And Mandalorian wartime experience.

The squadrons of Starfang Wing, cream-of-the-crop for Mandalorian starfighter talent, continued to fight off the imperial pilots. Durability and firepower making a difference, despite being outnumbered two to one.

But it was not without cost...

Ghest 4
«He's on my tail!»

Svaper 3
«Evade, Ghest 4!.»

Ghest 4
«I'm hit!»

Ghest 2
«Eject, Ghest 4....Ghest 4?»

Ghest Lead
«Did anyone see him bail out?»

Svaper 3
«...»

Ghest Lead
«Damn it.»

Darkwolf 1
«Can't see anything through this fog.»

AWACS Watcher
«Watcher here, yes the weather events continue. On top of the eclipse and the Force Storm there is now an unnatural fog layer rising.»

Ghest Lead
«Understood.»​

SPIRIT OF MANDA

Oversoul of the Ancestors

WITNESS US

I am the ghosts of the fallen vode. ​

Behold Humbarine, her surface wracked not only by the brave forces of the Mando'ade but by the Sith themselves. Her sun darkened by an eclipse, the air choked by a storm most foul, and the ground obscured by a hateful fog.

The beasts and warriors of the Sith obliterate the city with abandon, killing the local imperial forces without heed.

The Force gathered around him. Stone fractured. Steel bent.

The structure groaned as invisible pressure descended upon it from every direction at once. Walls folded inward. Support columns shattered. Entire floors collapsed into themselves. The building disappeared beneath a storm of debris and darkness as its foundations failed catastrophically. The destruction lasted only moments before silence reclaimed the district. Converging within his maw and consumed like a simple snack.

Tamsin's eyes closed and the demon reached out across the web as the gravity bomb went off. Incasing herself. Arris, Liliy, Vess, Varin, and Acier in a stasis field slowing their movements and creating a protective shell around them to protect them. As the Implosion reverted and twisted exploding outward with a furious vvvVVIPBOOOM!

Gravity came slamming back into the area with immense pressure shattering and destroying things in its wake. The building itself would be ripped apart, some of already shattered duracrete floor would turn to dust. Armor and bones of the dark troopers would snap and shatter.

Their agents plunder the city to sate their own personal goals.

Anet marched down the hall, passing by Sith operatives. Some were carrying records in whole boxes of chitsets, while others smashed equipment. A few civilians screamed as they were dragged throughout the building to imprisonment or execution. Her destination was the central archive, a secure room where all the Governorate's secret codes were generated and kept, military included.

And even amongst the Sith, they fight each other.

Some of the troopers began a retreat, and Varin's gaze fell on both Tamsin and Acier. Bloodlust in his eyes. His Black Blade slowly raised pointing towards them.

“Feed me more…”

Without warning, he lunged for Acier first.

But the warriors of the vode fight side by side. Even now, father and son bring glory to the Mando'ade against foes who would seek to rule a universe of suffering and pain.

"Daab!" Siv barked at Sahan through his comms

Siv's warning reached Sahan's helmet as the movement was already completing.

<Saw her.>

So much sacred Mando'ade blood spilled upon this world - consecrating the ashes of whatever remains.

Witness our struggle.

Even in death, glory. ​

 

[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

Equipment: Durum Mantle | Black Blade of Chandrila | Eye of The Dragon | Heavy Sith Mace | Cross Guard Broadsaber

The lunge missed Ace as he dodged skillfully out of the way. Then came the hammer. A force blast that shook him to his knees, the duracrete beneath his feet buckled and warped inward like a half sphere, cracked and crumbled.

As Varin picked himself back up, the thud sounded off, now he was being picked up. His head looked all around him to find the source, a guttural growl tearing through his throat.

His eyes locked towards Tamsin, a glare that could kill, literally.

The explosion followed ripping up the very building around them, warped metal and duracrete tore all around them, troopers decimated and broken laid lifeless upon the ground.

Varin fell to his feet. A yell leaving his throat as more flame erupted from his back. The glare still pinned on Tamsin.

His eye glowed fiercely as a beam of heated energy burst towards her.

Stop! You need to stop this!

Varin's voice sounded off in Ignati's head.

“SILENCE!”

Ignati's deep guttural voice echoed off the ruined walls and over the groans and screams of pain around them. The Blade came up towards Ace, swinging in a quick vertical arc, a blast of telekinetic energy followed behind it.

“You held control for too long boy! Look where it had gotten us!”

Acier Moonbound | Tamsin Starfall | Arris Windrun | Lily Rhodes | Vess Sadragen​

 

[Garza]

ALLIES: Darth Carnifex | Meya Liefi | Kasir Dorran | Astra Sadow | Lysander von Ascania | Srina Talon | Mercy | Delvin jeth | Quinn Varanin | Eira Dyn | Meliant | Eurydice | Isobel Serraris | Efret Farr | Casimir Thorne | Riffraff Ranat |
ENEMIES: Signy Bralor | Feydrik Munin | Celt Saxon | Iris Beroya | Romul Saxon | Sahan Dragr | Jericho Dragr | Carduul Akahl | The Arkanian | Brent Warnel | Siv Dragr

The memories did not arrive as neatly as mortals imagined they would. They came without order, without chronology, and without concern for the boundaries that separated one life from another. Garza carried too many of them for such distinctions to remain intact. Every mind he consumed became part of a vast and ever-expanding archive, a collection so immense that no singular consciousness had ever been meant to contain it. New memories collided with old ones, creating strange associations that spanned centuries. A frightened Imperial courier on Humbarine reminded him of a Republic messenger he had consumed thousands of years earlier. A hidden meeting conducted beneath a city brought forth recollections of conspiracies whispered in palaces long reduced to ruins. The details changed. The people changed. Yet the patterns remained the same. As Garza moved through the city, he felt those patterns shifting beneath the surface of his mind, forming connections that no one else could have seen.

Humbarine stretched around him beneath the darkening sky. The eclipse had progressed far enough now that the city existed in a strange twilight. Emergency lighting illuminated streets that should still have been bathed in daylight. Civilian traffic had all but vanished from the districts he traversed, replaced by military vehicles and hastily erected checkpoints. The world was adapting to catastrophe in the way worlds always did. Governments scrambled to regain control. Commanders repositioned troops. Civilians sought shelter. Yet beneath all of that activity, beneath the visible response to invasion and war, another struggle was unfolding. It was quieter. More desperate. Entire networks of hidden lives were attempting to disappear before they could be found.

Garza understood their fear because he understood what was coming for them.

Death was inevitable. Every living thing eventually met it. That truth had never troubled him. What troubled him was what followed. The galaxy forgot. It always forgot. Records were lost. Histories were rewritten. Names disappeared. Entire civilizations could vanish so completely that future generations never realized they had existed at all. Time consumed everything eventually, and unlike armies or governments, it could never be fought. That was the enemy Garza had spent his existence resisting. Not death. Oblivion.

An explosion erupted against his shoulder, casting fire across nearby buildings and sending a shockwave through the surrounding streets. The attack barely registered. Another followed moments later, striking somewhere along his flank. The city continued fighting him because it knew no other response. Somewhere above, pilots tracked his movements. Somewhere beyond the skyline, artillery crews adjusted firing solutions and searched for weaknesses in a creature they could scarcely comprehend. Their efforts meant little. Garza had survived empires older than the histories those soldiers studied in their academies. He had watched continents sink beneath oceans and oceans dry into deserts. The weapons of a frightened city did not command his attention.

The silence did.

The hidden network was changing.

The memories he had gathered from the first cell revealed that immediately. Entire branches of communication had gone dark. Emergency protocols had activated. Safehouses that had existed for decades were being abandoned within hours. Individuals who had spent years constructing layers of secrecy were now destroying those same protections in desperate attempts to survive. To military commanders, these would have been signs of success. To Garza, they were signs that an entire culture had begun collapsing inward upon itself.

That was the realization that fascinated him.

The people hidden throughout Humbarine were no longer merely Imperial remnants. Time had transformed them into something else. Children had been born into secrecy. Families had adapted their traditions around concealment. Stories had been preserved and passed down through generations that had never seen the Empire whose ideals they still carried. What existed beneath the city was no longer simply an organization. It was a society. A small civilization hidden within a larger one. It possessed its own customs, histories, loyalties, and fears. Like every civilization before it, it now stood on the edge of extinction.

Garza found himself wondering whether they understood that.

Most civilizations never did.

They always believed there would be more time. Another year. Another generation. Another opportunity to preserve what mattered. The hidden people of Humbarine likely believed the same thing even now as they burned records and evacuated safehouses. They imagined survival remained possible if they moved quickly enough. Some of them might even be right. Individuals could survive. Families could survive. Yet the society they had built in secret was dying regardless. The threads connecting it together were unraveling one by one.

As he walked, new memories surfaced from those he had already consumed. Faces became names. Names became relationships. Relationships became locations. A logistics officer remembered a transit hub. A courier remembered a meeting held beneath that hub years earlier. A coordinator remembered emergency plans connected to both. Separately, the memories possessed little significance. Together, they formed a path.

Garza followed it.

The district he entered had once been a major transportation center before urban expansion rendered portions of it obsolete. To the casual observer, the structures appeared abandoned. Time and neglect had left their marks across the architecture. Yet appearances meant little. The memories within Garza painted a different picture entirely. Beneath the visible ruins lay an active refuge. Families. Coordinators. Archivists. Couriers. Entire bloodlines connected to the hidden network. They had gathered there believing themselves protected by obscurity.

Garza knew better.

Long before he physically reached the location, he could feel the panic spreading through it. Communications intensified. Evacuation routes activated. Hidden exits opened. The people below had realized they were exposed. Vehicles began emerging from concealed access points. Armed escorts rushed into position. Desperate plans formed and collapsed in rapid succession as the reality of his approach became impossible to ignore.

He did not hate them.

That was the truth none of them would ever understand.

As Garza stood above the district and gazed down upon the structures concealing them, he felt something far closer to sorrow than malice. These people had spent generations preserving a history the galaxy no longer wanted. They had protected names and traditions because they feared those things would otherwise vanish. In another life, under different circumstances, he might even have admired them.

Instead, he lowered his head.

The Force responded.

The ground trembled first. Then it cracked. The collapse spread outward in widening waves as subterranean supports failed beneath impossible pressure. Concrete shattered. Reinforced foundations buckled. Entire sections of the underground complex folded inward as if the weight of the city itself had suddenly descended upon them. Streets collapsed. Buildings sank. Dust erupted skyward in immense clouds that swallowed entire blocks.

For a few moments, the city was filled with noise.

Then came silence. Then came memory. It struck him all at once. Not dozens of separate lives. One civilization.

Children who had never seen the Empire yet knew its symbols by heart. Elderly men and women who still remembered stories told by parents and grandparents. Teachers. Couriers. Mechanics. Intelligence officers. Families who had lived hidden lives for generations. Their experiences poured into the archive in an overwhelming flood, carrying with them hopes, fears, traditions, and countless small details that would never have existed anywhere else.

Garza stood motionless amidst the settling dust. To the city around him, he had destroyed another building. To Garza, something very different had occurred. An entire chapter of history had been preserved.

The memories settled gradually into the vast archive he carried. As they did, new connections emerged. Names repeated. Faces resurfaced. References buried within one life aligned with recollections from another. Separate branches of the hidden network linked together into a larger structure. For the first time, Garza could clearly perceive the shape of what he was hunting.

And at its center stood an individual.

Not a military commander. Not a politician. Not even the leader of the network. An archivist. A keeper of names. Someone responsible for preserving the history of this hidden society. The irony was not lost on him. While others fought to destroy the network, someone within it had spent years doing precisely what Garza himself had devoted his existence to accomplishing. They had preserved stories. Recorded bloodlines. Protected memories from the erosion of time.

The newly acquired recollections revealed something else as well.

The archivist was moving.

The purge had forced them into flight. Records were being relocated. Histories transferred. Decades of accumulated knowledge gathered together in preparation for evacuation. The individual understood the danger. They knew extinction was approaching.

For the first time since arriving on Humbarine, Garza felt something resembling urgency.

The archivist mattered. Not because they possessed military importance. Not because they commanded troops. Because they carried the memory of an entire people. If they died before he reached them, much of what remained of this hidden civilization would vanish forever.

Around him, artillery continued firing. Airspeeders crossed the darkened sky. Military commanders discussed strategies for confronting the monster moving through their city. Civilians fled from his shadow as emergency sirens echoed through the streets.

Garza ignored them all.

His purpose had become clear. The hunt was no longer for cells or safehouses. It was no longer even for the remnants of an Imperial network. What he sought now was the final repository of a dying history. Somewhere ahead, hidden amongst the chaos of invasion and war, an archivist carried the accumulated memory of generations.

As darkness spread beneath the eclipse and the city trembled beneath his passing, Garza resumed his march. Behind him, another hidden chapter of Humbarine had ended. Within him, however, it endured. The voices remained. Their stories survived. Their memories would continue long after the war ended and long after every living witness had faded into dust.

Garza carried them forward as he always had.

And somewhere ahead, another archive waited to be found.

Spoiler: TLDR

Garza has discovered that the hidden Imperial cells on Humbarine are more than just remnants of an old regime—they have become a secret society with generations of history, traditions, and memories. As he consumes cell after cell, he follows a trail of memories that points toward an archivist carrying the collective history of this dying culture. While the city sees a monster rampaging through its streets, Garza sees himself as preserving a civilization before it is erased forever.

 

[Madrona A’Mia]

​

Tags: Anet Raine | Astra Sadow | OPEN to any near the administrative sector​

Alchemical influence accounted for and soon to fill the building Anet targeted, A'Mia turned her attention to the administrative block in general. The campus of buildings which constituted Humbarine's logistical command center was surely crucial to maintain careful control of. Access was the first and sometimes last defense, so while the Acolyte focused on her task, the Lord Seer drifted outdoors and kept to the shadows. Ever observant.

Unmistakable markings of war echoed through the nearby environ. An eclipse most fell, the roar of Sithspawn, a notable and heady sense of dread. No to mention all the associated ruckus and flashing lights associated with killing.

Creeping up the side of the main administrative building to provide herself a vantage point, A'Mia blended the colors of her form to camouflage herself. There, the woman extended her senses to familiar points: Mercy who was solid and elegantly violent, Quinn Varanin with her innate Phobis connection which rioted in the presence of such misery as war, Srina Talon — what more needed to be said?

Those points of connection in the Weave were potent enough to anchor a metaphysical schematic, yet still A'Mia spread her senses further. She sought other familiar presences and delicately touched their minds, not intruding but making her presence known. The woman was all branching senses and leeching darkness, like a system of roots drinking up energy to ensure none escaped Sith hands. Any unused or wayward Force unclaimed by her associates was being siphoned and woven into protection around the administrative park.

As the aerosol asterpuff did its work indoors to quell resistance and increase pliancy to Sith machinations, A'Mia secured the outdoor perimeter. With access to errant darkness and her aptitude for psychological manipulation, she wove a blanket illusion over the area. The effect was twofold: it created a sense of unease in any appproaching the building, activating their hindbrain to alert them that death lay ahead if they pushed into the administrative buildings, and it also deceived the senses. By bending light and knitting together an altered image, A'Mia made it confounding to try to find the entrances to the building in the first place.

For any sufficiently powerful Force user or those with the mental fortitude enough to push through, numerous ambush predators awaited.

 

[Eurydice]

Allies: Meliant Anet Raine
Not Allies: Carduul Akahl Koda Fett

Badideabadideabadidea-!

It played over and over, like a pitiful little mantra in Eurydice's head as she huddled beside a half-shattered stone column. These Mandalorians were brutal. Sith were brutal too, but in a way that made it seem like they enjoyed the cruelty of dominance more than anything else.

Or, whatever. Eurydice wasn't a soldier. She delighted in none of this, and victory only ever brought a paper-thin sense of relief. Never joy.

The Seer ambled out from behind the jagged edge of her cover, hood drawn, shrinking into the shadows of the complex's courtyard. She felt strangely alone without Meliant, or rather, the protection that Meliant afforded her. Temporary or otherwise.

Still, she was grateful that he occupied the encroaching forces enough for her to scramble her way into the back of Humbarine's Command Center. Not the front - too much was going on there. Instead, Eurydice found herself at the unmarked door of a service entrance.

Locked, of course. A fresh wave of panic washed over her as she lifted a trembling fist to deliver two soft knocks.

No one answered, of course. It took a few long moments for Eurydice to remember that despite being an incredible coward, she was not entirely stupid. With a slow intake of breath to calm her frazzled nerves, she guided Gaspar's shadow through the hairline gaps in the door.

A few moments later, and the keypad chimed softly. The indicator flashed green, and Eurydice tore open the door, scrambled inside, then hefted her minuscule weight of body against the closing door. Once it clicked closed, locked again, she slid unceremoniously to the ground.

Then, the worm. With a grimace, she retrieved the wriggling little shadow from her sleeve and held it up to her ear.

"I'm…in," she gasped, still short of breath, unaware that Meliant did not want to be distracted while killing people. It was only now that she looked around, finding herself in the dim lighting of some storage room.

"What do I do now?"

 

[Anet Raine]

Lysander von Ascania | Meliant | Eurydice | Madrona A’Mia | Astra Sadow​

Anet locked herself in the central room. While she expected a control apparatus, what she found was so, so much more. Hidden surveillance that would make an autocrat blush. Sensors, scanners, cameras, probe droid stations, and space-to-ground satellite feeds. Oh my! It was making Anet blush! A wicked grin crept along her face.

She explored this new information as if it were a toy, but there was purpose in her decision framework. The data - even if some of it was damaged or disrupted by the invasion - gave her a very clear picture of what was going on. The enemy had secured a landing site, their forces pressed through the city, and the Imperial Garrison was a disorganized mess; the Home Guard wasn't faring much better.

Useful to know, given that the Sith Covenant was caught in the middle of a coup well underway. Anet deployed probe droids to various points across the scattered battlefield.

The first arrived at Lysander von Ascania. Anet knelt in deference as her holographic form flickered before him. <"My Lord - We have control of the administration; the Garrison and our new guests are locked in battle across the city. If I may humbly suggest... I believe it is time to bring in the cleaners."> She disconnected, trusting the Knight to carry out the task.

Her attention turned next to the command complex, the Emperor's charge. Had he succeeded? She took a deep breath and called...