Mission Steel Sarcophagus [Mandalorian Empire]

[Aurodium]

Steel Sarcophagus
"The war is over; ensure it remains buried."

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Spoiler: Mission Information

• Thermal scans confirm multiple powered units within Sub-Level 12 of the Karthax Foundry.​
• Audio captures indicate combat alert cycling and perimeter establishment.​
• Civilian access routes near the district have been sealed.​
• No confirmed civilian casualties — yet.​
• Diarchy command uplinks in the region are silent following the Treaty of Yaga Minor.​
• The droids appear to be operating on last-received wartime directives.​
• Power grids are interconnected across districts; destabilization in Karthax could cascade.​
• Civilian populations remain wary but compliant under Protector presence.​
• Diarchic loyalists exist but have not mobilized openly.​
• The Treaty of Yaga Minor is recent; stability is fragile.​

Primary Concern

Designation: Unidentified Diarchic Foundry Defence Units
Model Type: Likely heavy industrial security frames modified for wartime deployment
Capabilities:

• Integrated heavy blasters​
• Reinforced chassis plating​
• Autonomous squad coordination​
• Industrial environment navigation​

Threat Profile: Highly lethal in confined metal corridors. Limited adaptability beyond programmed objectives.

Preliminary assessment: They are not insurgents. They are abandoned weapons still fighting a war that has already ended.

Name: Overseer Halvik Tane
Role: Former Foundry Supervisor (retained under provisional authority)
Connection: Familiar with the foundry's substructure and original security layouts
Risk Factor: Loyalty uncertain; cooperative thus far.

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Name: Vira Talos
Role: Protector Detachment Coordinator – Vjunhollow
Connection: Currently maintaining the district cordon
Assessment: Advocates precision infiltration over wide-area disruption.

The Manda–Diarch War did not end in fire and extinction, but in negotiation and accord. When the treaty was signed the fighting ceased, banners were lowered from the ramparts and battlements, and the thunder of artillery that had once shaken entire continents finally fell silent. What remained was not victory in the traditional sense, but the fragile quiet that follows a war too costly for either side to continue.

In the aftermath of the campaign, the industrial capital of Vjunhollow on Yaga Minor passed into Mandalorian control. Once the beating mechanical heart of the Diarch's war machine, the city now stands under the supervision of Mandalorian Protector detachments tasked with stabilizing the region. Their presence has focused on restoring civil order, reopening manufacturing lines critical to planetary recovery, and preventing the scattered remnants of Diarch loyalists from reorganizing into insurgent cells.

For several weeks the transition has proceeded with cautious success. Infrastructure crews have begun clearing bombed districts, power grids have slowly come back online, and the massive foundry complexes that dominate the skyline have started the long process of returning to operation.

However, new developments from the Karthax Industrial District threaten that fragile stability. Survey teams working to reclaim a collapsed foundry quadrant have triggered the reactivation of multiple buried defense units beneath the rubble. Preliminary scans indicate these machines are Diarchic autonomous combat constructs — battlefield droids entombed during the final orbital bombardment of the city and inadvertently awakened as restoration equipment disturbed their dormant systems.

Intercepted machine transmissions suggest their tactical processors remain locked in wartime protocol. To them, the Battle of Yaga Minor has never ended.

The problem is compounded by their position. The droids have taken control of a crucial section of the central foundry lattice, a structural and energy distribution nexus that supports large portions of the surrounding industrial blocks. Standard suppression tactics, particularly wide-area EMP deployment, would likely trigger cascading failures across the lattice's power cores. The resulting chain reaction could destabilize entire sectors of the district, collapsing factories, transit corridors, and possibly whole segments of Vjunhollow itself.

What should have been a routine recovery operation has instead become a delicate and potentially catastrophic standoff buried deep within the bones of the city.

Spoiler: Participants

Athena Faar Hanna Itzhal Volkihar

 

[Itzhal Volkihar]

| Location | Yaga Minor, Outer Rim Territories

The air hung heavy with the acrid scent of smoke and charred metal, still smouldering among the ruins of the Karthax Industrial District. Crumbling buildings loomed over the landscape, their duracrete facades marred by blasterfire and craters, exposing the skeletal frame of battered support struts and cracked foundations. The wind whistled mournfully through the hollow spaces of a gaping maw with missing teeth.

Echoes of distant blaster fire and thrum of repulsorlift engines had barely faded, replaced now by an unsettling quiet that blanketed the area. The ground was littered with debris—discarded speeders shattered beyond repair, their frames twisted and blackened. Some were embedded in the rubble of buildings; others lay strewn across the expanse of abandoned streets, forsaken by their pilots, absorbed into a makeshift perimeter line around the outskirts of the district.

As twilight descended, a weighted hush fell over Karthax. The beams of light from scattered fires flickered like stars on the brink of oblivion, illuminating the gleaming plates of those who remained—Beskar-laden warriors, their faces obscured by a darkened veil, twinkling with the scattered sparks of nearby flames.

Amidst the destruction, Itzhal Volkihar moved cautiously, his steps muffled beneath a layer of clinging ashes. He stopped beneath the shadows of a towering ruin, the entrance-way bowed inwards, darkness swallowing the room the deeper inside one looked.

Nearby, a faint hum echoed from behind the ungainly shape of a hastily reforged metal barricade, covering the precious power generator hooked up to nearby lighting rigs that cast a harsh glow over the marred asphalt and raised tents. Hard-packed canvas fluttered in the wind's grasp, exposing the inside of an impromptu command centre, a war table packed into the middle of the room, light skittering over the sides and against the walls as holograms flickered into view with the whir of fans. Frayed and soot-ridden gloves lay softly against the cold metal frame, attached to a woman clad in sleek, dark black beskar plates that glimmered dully in the dim light, her visor fixed on the map display, even as Itzhal slipped inside.

Faintly, the hum of repulsorlifts neared closer with the rumble of shifting rubble.

Tags: Athena Faar Hanna​

 

[Athena Faar]

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Tag: Itzhal Volkihar Hanna

The black and red beskar'gam clad woman made her way to the rendezvous point, her orange and red pelt cape fluttered slightly in the breeze that made the flames of burning wreckages dance. The Korun's helmet visor scanned the devastation, devastation she was not a part of causing this time. She had only arrived when the battle was mostly over. It was a curios scene, bereft of activity, as if the district had been abandoned as unrecoverable.

But it was recoverable, and efforts had started. Then ceased. That was why the three of them were meeting there. Something still inhabited the belly the district, still bent of fighting a war that had ended.

Athena had come loaded. The Aegis shield and her bes'kad clung to her back. Grit crunched under the boots of the warrior, and the, occasional knock of beskar as she walked.

She approached the only sign of life, a makeshift command center. Stepping inside she found the Morellian. Itzhal was not alone, a black armored woman awaited in the structure as well, surrounded with consoles and holos that would support the mission.

Now they waited for the Quilin.