Mission The Dagger Unsheathed || COV Reconnaissance of TSC Held Humbarine

[Vara Rasha]

CHAPTER III​

The fire rises.

And the legends answer.

The raid on Seswenna marked a beginning. The wrath of the Mythos Fleet escalates, and with it, retribution takes form. Answers would be taken in blood for sins and slights left too long to fester. Blades remained sharp. Their hatred, unquenched, found new direction before long.

Humbarine.

A city-world host to shipyards of the same breed as Kuat’s, situated at the mouth of the Trellen Trade Route. Vital, and exposed as it hung at the tip of the Arrowhead, bordered just at the edge of High Republic space.

And now it was marked. Its value has been noted. Its fate, decided.

The Armada sets its course as a vanguard assembles. Scouts and infiltrators, the silent blade ahead of the strike. The covert heralds of the planet’s fate, their task was not an easy one.

The Sith wore the face of another – The Galactic Empire. Stormtroopers clad in their bone-white armor, ruled the streets. But no matter the obstacles ahead, all must be unveiled; planetary garrisons and strongholds, listening posts, deep-space arrays, munitions and supply depots, temples and sites of worship of the Sith – all must be revealed and marked before the Mythos Fleet’s arrival.

And then, when the time came, the blade would fall clean.

For Duels​

Iron Covenant Goal: Reconnaissance of Humbarine’s Defenses.

A city-planet within the fringes of The Sith Covenant’s borders, a high concentration of planetary defenses are present against threats that seek to strike deep. To retain the element of surprise for an upcoming large-scale raid, the Mandalorians of the Iron Covenant must maintain a level of covertness throughout their reconnaissance operations on the planet.

Sith Order Goal: Foil the Recce.

The presence of the Mandalorians on the surface of Humbarine does not go unnoticed for long. The Sith Covenant must suss out and eliminate these scouts and saboteurs with extreme prejudice before they can achieve their objectives.
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[Nodak]

Tag: Signy Bralor
Equipment: Nevermourne | Blackstar Armor | Lightsaber​

Pathways opened wherever the Iron Breaker trod. He was an immense beast, larger and thicker than any human could have realistically been and intimidating to look upon. Even on the crowded streets of a city planet a sea of bodies would part whenever he moved through it.

Unlike other Sith he did not sequester or hide himself away in veiled temples or in towers reaching towards the stars.

There was something that contented him about being 'boots on the ground'. He enjoyed the fear in the eyes of those around him as his massive bulk strode forward. It appealed to him, prickling the outer layer of his psyche.

The Blackstar Armor covered him with its thick quadranium plating, metal so heavy that only the largest and strongest creatures could wear it even when fashioned as such. It added to the intimidation of his appearance. The Rotary Cannon over his left shoulder was angled downwards, powered down at the moment yet no less visible. Nevermourne was clipped to the right side of a belt integrated into his armor, massive and bulky and nothing less than a two handed weapon for a lesser creature and somewhere on his person he had a lightsaber too. Nodak went without a helm at the moment, it too could be found clipped near his waist.

He stopped in the midst of an avenue, people and street vendors on either side of him. Eyes narrowed, he met the gaze of a vendor who shrunk back instinctively...

"....."

...Nodak was not accustomed to speaking, especially to worms like the Near-Human he was looking at now. He merely stared. Eventually he reached for something that looked like a womprat that the vendor had hanging from his stall, curing in the air and ripped it free of the tether that held it aloft with a massive hand.

When Nodak turned away he was already biting down on the carcass. What might have fed several was bitten in half amidst the gnashing and grinding of teeth.

As the Monster strode away, further down the avenue the walls of garrisons could be seen in the distance. Planetary Defense Cannons rose from the surface of the city planet like cankers that pitted its surface. If something did not catch his attention soon Nodak might have to take sport in crushing soem of the locals.

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[Darion of Myrkr]

Capital City, Humbarine

Darion of Myrkr longed for the fight that was to come.

Each day here dragged and tried him and the weeks he had been here felt like years and his patience burned down quick like how the flame does on a lit, short fuse.

Golz had told him there were many kinds of war yet to learn. The words stayed with him, the same as those his father had spoken long ago. War was not only the clash of blades. It had layers, and each one carried its own lesson and virtue.

This one was patience.

Darion had told him patience was a virtue he did not need. He knew even then it was not true. But he was young, and youth will push against what stands before it. Not always for reason, but for pride, and for the small spite that lives in young men. Like a rooster in a cage, crowing as if it ruled. Hear, hear, here I am thy king. Crowing loud, though it stood behind the wire.

He sat crouched behind the concrete railing of a skyscraper's roof, monitoring the maglev rail that sprawled through the city. His rangefinder had zoomed all the way in and tracked the movement of a particular train carrying military equipment and he dotted down all he saw and all he learned on the datapad that now sat on his bent knee. All the while rain poured down from the grey skies and the orange hue of pollution hung underneath them like a dirty rag let to wash.

It had been raining since the day he'd come on this world and provided his bounty hunting license as permit to stay. And it was his father's old lessons on bounty hunting, and his even fewer past experiences as one that ordered his conduct on this recon mission. He'd gathered all information on the trains, their schedules, their tonnage, their make and models and the rails from what public sources he had access to.

The rest he'd learned on the field. He'd pinpointed logistic hubs and supply depots to which military carriages traversed to and their cargo and their frequency and schedule. But most importantly he had found several weakpoints – such as bridges – which would make key targets to sabotage and cut supplies to an eventual frontline that would form upon the Mandalorians' potential attack on the world. One such bridge was not too far from his position.

In the last few days, Darion of Myrkr had noticed the frequency of military hardware hauled on the maglev rail had drastically increased and he wondered if it was only natural given the world's proximity to the Jetii or perhaps the Sith's rats (intelligence operatives) had sniffed out the impending doom that hung over their world.

Or perhaps it was treachery, he though and gruntedt. The dar'jetii were a perfidious enemy. They made allies of rats. They ruled as rats. It was only natural.

And as proud and honorable as we claim to be, we have never lacked rats among our own. History will tell you this and the Sith knew this best of all.

He had the urge to spit but his helmet was in the way.

The rain kept on pattering his armor like tiny marbles in a cast iron pot.

He was hungry now, too.

Varin Mortifer

 

[Siv Dragr]

G U N S L I N G E R
Humbarine
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Allies: Mandalorians
Enemies: Arris Windrun | Sith

The Sith wore imperialism like Siv wore his beskar'gam. The Core Worlds were no longer the shining standard of stability that they had been. Warlords, then imperialism, had carved up the galaxy's center. Now, according to Iron Covenant intelligence, a Sith cult had secretly subverted the Core's Imperial government.

No Sith, No Exception was the oft-repeated cry of all Mando'ade in the Iron Covenant, all loyal to the memory of Mandalore and the genocide the Sith had carried out against their people. Siv, particularly, could never let his own hate go. It was thanks to the Sith that his Clan had been rendered all but extinct. The Iron Covenant's crusade to eradicate the Sith from the galaxy had reignited a fire within him that had been long dormant.

Already, the Iron Covenant had struck on Seswenna against the Sith Order. But the arcane Blackwall complicated their fleet movements, making strikes costly. The Sith Order's time was marked, but the Iron Covenant, too, had set its sights on the Sith that infested the core. All Sith must be eradicated from the galaxy. Only then would their vengeance be sated.

Siv had volunteered himself to the strike team dedicated to carrying out reconnaissance of the shipbuilding world of Humbarine, industrially important, politically irrelevant -- not that politics mattered to the Mandalorians. But next to so many institutionally important worlds like Fondor, it was not an obvious target. It was for such a reason that the Mythos Fleet had marked the world for its strike. But the Mandalorians' intelligence on the world was pitiful, and that had to be remedied so that the Mythos Fleet's attack would be swift and decisive.

Most of the Mandalorians had divvied up their sectors upon arrival on the planet. Siv had been assigned to map out a large naval installation. So far, things had been relatively quiet. It was easy to avoid the regular-scheduled patrols once he had gotten through the perimeter. He was on top of one of the depot's rooftops, a lower, unassuming building in the grand complex. He just needed to have a map of the base's anti-air defenses before he could move onto the next sector.

 

[Kamon Hourn]

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LOCATION:HUMBARINE - ESPIONAGE
TAG:
ALLIES: The Iron Covenant
OPPS: Seris Velmora​

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KAMON HOURN
THEME​

<“Dagger OP to Cresh-actual, do you read?>”

<“Cresh-actual to Dagger OP, that’s a good copy, over. We’re on the surface and moving to the objective.”> came the response. Cresh squad was a group of Ruus’vhetin Commandos, all stoically prepping their gear. They had all arrived on the planet nearly a week prior, all separately and under different backstopper cover identities. Through the services of a handful of trusted smugglers, their gear was spirited away into a small, abandoned warehouse within the industrial sector, which they used as a safehouse of sorts.

Intelligence was sparse from the outset, yet the team had spent the previous week doing preliminary fact-finding to determine that a state-run industrial concern operated in this sector; hauling starship components to the orbital shipyards for final staging and assembly. Their objective was two-fold, yet simple.

First, they were to secure a means of exfil for both themselves, and for the other Mandalorian operatives on the planet so they could rendezvous with the Prudii'kad Tactical Ship (dubbed ‘Zephyr’) currently cloaked and anchored in orbit - near enough to provide passive tactical overwatch and support, yet far enough away so as to mitigate the chances of a ship accidentally running into them while shrouded and hidden. Exfiltration was not imminent, yet now was the time to prepare for it as opposed to when the osik finally hit the fan.

Second, they were to rig improvised, yet controlled explosives throughout the supply depot so as to disrupt its supply chain upon the arrival of the Mythos Fleet. Ideally, they would be able to operate passively on Humbarine for a few more days while the other teams performed their recon missions, and spring their exfil right as the Fleet arrived; thus triggering the explosion of said devices. It was altogether likely the Ruus’vhetin squad would remain behind for further deployment, but that had yet to be made clear to them all.

Part of the reason they chose this warehouse was also due to the fact it possessed an access manhole into this sector’s sewer system- providing the team easy access to the subterranean network that connected all the buildings in the area. One by one they descended within and pulled up their tactical overlay, which synchronized with the Zephyr’s preliminary sensor sweeps of the area over the preceding days. Kamon’s boots splashed into the angle-deep water, and his inlaid filters within his helmet thankfully protected his olfactory senses from the fumes and scents therein. In short order, the team entered the sewer and engaged their low-light vision modes before moving forward to the Industrial Concern factory campus; albeit through the ‘low road’.

Their objectives weren’t glamorous, yet altogether necessary to ensure the success of the operation as a whole.

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[Varin Mortifer]

VARIN MORTIFER

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

“He seems to be just watching, Lord Mortifer. Has not moved much from his spot.”

The Nagai spy sat atop another building with a high powered long range scope, keeping eyes on the larger Mandalorian. The rain gently padded of his darkened armor as he spoke in his comms.

“Then he is studying.”

Like clock work he had noticed this stranger keeping eyes and tabs on the Maglevs that moved product on Humbarine.

I told you, boy. Something was off about him.

Ignati rumbled his voice within Varin's head as he stood atop another building watching from a distance, studying the man who believed he had gone unnoticed.

“Should I dispatch him sir?”

Varin did not answer for a moment, weighing the options.

“No…keep tabs on him. If he moves I want to know where. I will deal with him myself.”

Varin stepped away from the rain soaked rooftop he had been atop of for the past while.

Again, Mandalorians. First Seswenna, now Humbarine. And once again, not flying the same colors as the Mandalorian Empire.

The thought swam in his head as if trying to find angles as to why they were here now.

He leapt to the next building just below him, the weight and force of his body shaking the roof and ceiling below.

He began to make his way to the Mandalorian, stalking him like a predator stalks its prey.

“How about I ask this time?”

He spoke to himself within his helm. The rain that tapped his armor hissed from the heat that came from his body, almost like a moving cloud obscured from most views to look like another stray cloud from one of the buildings nearby.

Finally, his footfalls fell onto the same building as the spy ahead of him. There he waited for him to turn around.

Darion of Myrkr​

 

[Signy Bralor]

SIGNY BRALOR
HUMBARINE | DEEP COVER
TAG: Nodak
GEAR: Huginn and Muninn, ballistic-weave under civilian clothes
VISIBLY PRESENTING: Female

Signy had been in deeo cover on Humbarine for a while, she had been working with a local tribe under the guise of being a smugglers. Her background growing up with the people that Kjartan Hammer-Hand called vod made it easy for her to pass herself off as a rough round the edges smuggler type. And what had it cost her to earn their trust? A few cases of good quality assault rifles that the clan had stolen from someone else in the first place.

In exchange the girl had managed to be clued in on a few secret routes in and out of the Sith defences, perfect little rat runs for anyone siphoning off military tech of fuel, but also perfect infiltration routes for anyone who might have nefarious intent for those defenders. Now was time for her to enjoy her evening, she sat calmly smoking a cigarette on the balcony overlooking the terraced street with a young man who she had developed a bit of a friendship with.



Meanwhile to Nodak

The young girl, the daughter of one of the bandits was frightened, frightened of what the mandalorian would do if she discovered the betrayal, but just as frightened what would happen when she tried to speak to the sith and report her. Her curiosity had led her into this mess. When this young smuggler had arrived, Sylvia, she called herself, little Alys had been enamoured by this cool older stranger.

But then, she had gone to visit her in her apartment where she now resided and found it. A full suit of Mandalorian armour, mandalorian comm gear and cans of that awfuk drink that the bucket headed foreigners liked. And what's worse, her brother was sweet on her? She needed to protect her family, if she did this there would be violence, but there might be reward, or at least safety if it finally did come out that there was a mandalorian spy here.

"S....ss...sir... my name..." the armoured sith was more terrifying than she had expected. "Sir... my name is Alys. There is a mandalorian spy hiding in an apartment at the end of this street.

My brother is with her, I think he is her prisoner." she lied, but she couldnt exactly tell the sith they were friends.


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