LOCATION: Serenno
OBJECTIVE: III - Rebuild what was lost
Tag: (Will put above sections where people are at)
Tag:
Zayid the Lion
Aiden shook his head as he finally blinked and caught the influx of traffic coming from Zayid. The rush of information flooding into the battlenet was always a bit much, Wolves filtered their data like orchestras, layered and precise. Mandalorian feeds were raw, jagged, effective, but unrefined. He didn't bother moving as he sent a message to the conn of the cruiser.
Clean this up and prioritize traffic to locations where it's needed.
Affirm.
In seconds, the star-fighters that made up the battered remnant of the Dire Wolves' superiority wing rocketed toward the mountain. Flight leaders confirmed statuses, shifting squadrons where they were needed most. Black took lead, as they always did.
The roar of engines deepened as the first cruise missiles belched fire and smoke across the clearing, clawing upward in slow, heavy arcs. Their targeting computers were left open, ready to accept final guidance from the fighters. Once slaved into the battlenet, they'd home in like hounds on a trail. Aiden allowed himself a thin, grim smile.
The mountain was a fair clip away; if ground reinforcements were needed, it would take time to vector Raptors back in. He doubted it would be necessary. Zayid had said the ground fight was holding, and the comm picture, slowly clearing under his filters, confirmed it.
When the Vigil's shadow swept across the crash site, Aiden finally let his gaze leave the treeline. The corvette broke through the storm, its hull orderly, imposing, a vessel of war as it should be. He glanced back at the Dire Wolf, scarred and half-ruined. Soon, he told himself. Soon the Wolves would march with teeth bared again.
He sent a quick ping to one of the perimeter teams near the landing zone, directing them to link with the Mandalorians the moment they disembarked. With relief that it was handled, Aiden made his way toward the landing site, moving with the odd split of perspective that came from walking in flesh while half-rooted in the datasphere.
Zayid's voice broke him out of reverie.
"Understood. I'm almost there."
Men and medics flowed down the Vigil's ramp, armor gleaming, packs slung, moving with efficient purpose. His own crews met them, hand-signals and quick radio bursts pointing engineers toward collapsed hulls, medics toward triage zones.
Aiden cut a stark figure among them, his combat suit sleeker, simpler than the commandos' powered assault armor, yet unmistakably war gear. He waved once toward the ramp, signaling his presence as Zayid strode down.
"Pleasure to meet you, Zayid. And thank you, for the help. Fighters are already inbound on the mountain." Another barrage of missiles thundered into the sky, forcing him to pause until the noise rolled off.
"Two commando teams are vectoring toward the city in case your people need support there. We've had some interference here, probably just the iron content in the soil, but the site itself is solid. We'll make a dry dock here, and a forward base besides. The first bones are already being laid."
Behind them, crews drove pylons into the churned earth, staking out the skeleton of a dock that would one day cradle their ships. Even in the wreckage, permanence was being forged.
Aiden turned slightly, visor glinting, and for the briefest moment caught the black eyes again, red at the core, watching from the treeline. He didn't flinch, forcing himself to not externally react. An external camera swiveled automatically to track the sector. Nothing. Always nothing.
He forced his voice even as he turned back to Zayid.
"How can we serve Mandalore and her people today?"
LOCATION: Camp Drystan
OBJECTIVE: I - Take the sky
Tag:
Aether Verd
,
Red Mobius ,
Athena Faar
,
Adonis Angelis IV
,
Klavatora Verd
,
Talohn Atar
,
Zlova Rue
, OPEN
The three squadrons of craft banked hard to starboard as orders came to divert toward Drystan. The F4 Dragons split into their colors: one with gold markings, one red, and one bare black, their hulls unadorned save for the scars of old battles. Each settled into wing formations as their commanders spoke across the net.
"Gold, Red, we have your orders."
"Gold here. Packed as much ordnance as we could. Sounds like support duty?"
"Aye. We've only got the spare proton bomb each. Red Squadron will flex between pounding dirt and keeping the skies clear."
"We've got reports of cloaked fighters in the AO," the third chimed in, calm, methodical, the Black Squadron lead.
"Black will take point and cut a path. Gold sweeps the ground."
"You think four's enough?"
"If it isn't, Red can take the rest. Cloaks won't give us clean locks anyway."
Red's voice carried a grin.
"Always did enjoy me a good furball."
"Keep it tight, gentlemen. Let the ground mark their targets. No heroics."
"Affirm, Lead."
The lead pilot keyed a string of commands. Targeting data streamed from his fighter into the Dire Wolf, updating every available local frame. A ripple of green lines stretched across his augmented display, feeding ground silhouettes, approach vectors, firing arcs. He swapped comms over.
"All ground elements, Shadow Lead. We'll be in your AO in two mikes. Forecast: cloudy with a chance of fire and proton bombs. Mark targets you want gone, and we'll oblige. And," his voice sharpened with dry humor,
"do put on a good show. We plan on giving one of our own."
The formations shifted, Red leading Gold in a double wedge, while the black fighters of Shadow Squadron slipped into a tight diamond. Together they accelerated, engines howling, until the sound barrier shattered with a staccato of booms. Thunder rolled over the mountain as the Dragons announced their presence.
At altitude, Black's sensors flared with ghost trails, contrails that weren't, turbulence where nothing flew. His AR overlays painted them into shape: faint silhouettes, vectors, sizes. For an instant, a flicker bloomed across his HUD, something far larger, too big to be a fighter. He blinked, recalibrated, and it was gone.
The missile tones wailed, hunting. Then died. Nothing solid enough to bite.
"No joy, no joy. Black Squadron, break, break, break! Swap to CIWS - close-range, manual fire. Fill the air with metal until the cloaks choke on it!"
His fighter lurched, rolling hard, weaving left and right. But he wasn't dodging blindly, none of them were. Their onboard computers mapped each vector, each turn, and streamed the data directly into their skulls. The Black pilots flew as one, weaving impossibly close, their formation a living knot designed to drag the cloaked enemy into a knife fight.
A perfect kill-box.
"Dire Wolf, Red Lead. Archer wave adjusting to our mark. Detonation synced with the furball. Watch the fireworks."
The mountain echoed with the thunder of engines and the guttural cough of missiles as the first wave of Archers altered course, their warheads primed to blossom in the heart of the merge.
LOCATION: 15 kilometers from the Palace
OBJECTIVE: II - The Sword of Damocles
Tag:
Jonah
,
Daiga
,
Rostam Khavarzai
, OPEN
The interior of the Raptor rumbled as the Commandos sat in silence. Red running lights washed their armor in a dim glow, enough for night vision to drink in, but invisible from the outside. No banter. No nervous chatter. Just the rasp of seals locking, the click of diagnostics cycling, the metallic rattle of belted ammo with each tremor of turbulence.
Each soldier moved through the rituals of pre-combat: checking seals, running armor diagnostics, reviewing maps of the compound ahead. Their partner droids remained still in their racks, but the Wolves imagined they, too, ran their own private liturgies. After all, these droids had survived the Rift alongside them, and came away just as changed.
Their HUDs scrolled with signals from the palace. Friendlies marked in green, unknowns in amber, potential hostiles in red. Strategic terrain was flagged, routes mapped, fields of fire assigned. Every shooter had a place in the killbox before a word was spoken.
A silent ping went out to Jonah, carrying the whole package: numbers, planned vectors, intended points of entry. What might have caught his eye was the lone circle drawn over the central courtyard, no arrows, no lines, just a mark. If he asked, they'd explain: the second Raptor would drop from straight above, a dive-bomb insertion through the heart of the gala.
For a moment, one Commando frowned at his HUD. A phantom spike flickered across the feed, a contact far larger than anything the palace should have held. It vanished before he could flag it, leaving only the faint hiss of static. He said nothing. The Wolves were used to phantoms.
Otherwise, Jonah had their plan in full. Every route, every contingency. And that lone circle.
It wasn't an approach vector. It was a promise.
A Sword of Damocles, suspended above the palace, waiting for the faintest excuse to fall.
Acier Moonbound
/ Red Mobius /
