An unexpected jolt of emotion crossed The Mongrel's mind as Mercy cried out in pain. It was an emotion he had not felt in a long, long time: genuine concern for another. For those among the ranks of the Brotherhood, particularly those in high positions such as his, all other beings fell into one of three categories: outright enemies, rivals for rank and power, and tools, freely used and freely discarded. He had felt worry at the potential loss of a tool before, but only because it would affect
him and his position in the grand scheme of war.
His worry for Mercy was something more.
There was nothing he could do for her, of course; since he had circled around the Eternal Empire forces, coming at them from the north rather than from the direction of Kaas City, he had an entire army between him and her. For any other agent or servant of his, that would have been the end of it; he would have dismissed them from his mind, knowing that they would survive if they were worthy... and that he could replace them, or compensate for their loss, if they were not. But his concern for Mercy had nothing to do with her battlefield worth.
These strange emotions, not entirely new but so long buried they might as well have been, were becoming a dangerous distraction. Even as he knew he could not help Mercy, and that any attempt to do so would utterly compromise his carefully-constructed attack and cause him to lose countless troops over a single life, he could not dismiss her from his mind. Grand visions of turning his Gore Wasp and flying down into the city to aid her played across his damaged brain, and only by force of will did he endure them without carrying them out.
For the moment, anyway.
"Never mind the information," the warlord told his agent.
"You have done well enough already. Focus on your enemies. Destroy them, and keep yourself safe." It was not an order he would have given anyone else. His judgement was deeply compromised when it came to Mercy, and he knew it, but he could not bring himself to change it.
"You are... too valuable to lose." Valuable to ME, his mind screamed,
even beyond your value to the Maw. But he could not bring himself to put
that into words. It would make him look soft. Weak.
He could not afford that. Not in the Brotherhood.
Nor could he afford to be further distracted. It was rapidly becoming apparent that the Eternal Empire force The Mongrel had chosen to attack was much,
much larger than he had first estimated. Though the initial EE defenses appeared to have been largely anti-infantry, it seemed that the defenders also had plenty of anti-vehicle defenses prepared, with large tank groups that had not been previously detected suddenly joining the battle. The War Skiffs, maneuverability constrained by the forest, would not be able to match them.
Given the huge forces continuously emerging from the jungle, a hard counter to anything the Scar Hounds threw at the forces on the hill suddenly materializing from between the trees, it was clear that this battle had been lost before it had begun. There was no hope of cracking such a durasteel-hard line when the foe had an answer to infantry, light vehicles,
and heavy vehicles dug into the rough terrain. And all that was at the same time that
another large Eternal Empire force was pushing into northern Kaas City.
The Mawites, by the warlord's estimate, had to be outnumbered at least five to one. Only holovid heroes liked those odds, not real soldiers. A good commander could admit when he had made a mistake; rather than dwelling on the failure, he must then make the best possible tactical decision to preserve what remains of his forces. As The Mongrel watched explosions ripple across his mechanized force, so tiny compared to the
massive enemy army that had deployed so far from its home, he knew he must find a way to withdraw.
Martyrdom was one thing. Wastefulness was another.
But how could a fighting withdrawal be achieved when their landers had been destroyed? Falling back into the most intensive artillery barrage zone would be pointless and destructive, given that there was no escape to reach there. They would have to use the rough and shadowed jungles to their advantage... while making those same jungles work
against their potential pursuers.
"Break off the attack," The Mongrel ordered. He did not bother to explain that breaking the enemy line was hopeless; that much was self-evident.
"MetaCannon crews, load your mega-incendiaries." Aboard the War Skiffs, well-trained loader crews wrestled the huge guns into ammo swap positions. MetaCannons used different
barrels for different shells, and swapping them out was a difficult process for the uninitiated, but the Mawite crews had drilled extensively with the weapons and were highly practiced at mid-combat swaps. The main guns fell silent while they worked, though the deck guns kept up steady covering fire. Men and women scrambled, lifting, heaving.
Two of the skiffs went down while the vehicles wheeled away from the hillside and began the swap, their armored hulls breached by massed tank fire and the guns of the trenches. Their titanic bulk smashed into the craggy hillside as their repulsorlifts failed, and they tumbled over and over down the hill, smashing ancient trees to splinters beneath their careening metal hulls, drooling blazing oil in their wake. The walkers, too, began to turn and retreat, the few surviving hounds massing around them as they sprinted back into the jungle.
The withdrawal began, forces moving west.
The Mongrel's final order would give them the cover they needed, or so he hoped.
"Target Pattern Sabazios," he instructed the gun crews of the War Skiffs, who quickly wheeled the colossal guns so that they faced behind them, back at the Eternal Empire forces.
"Fire at will!" At that last command, the MetaCannons shrieked... and new shells began to fall. They did not target the EE troops or tanks; instead, they targeted the densest concentrations of jungle flora. And where the shells fell, they erupted... for they were
flame carpet warheads.
The rainy jungles of Droumund Kaas were too wet for ordinary flames to burn for long; mere heat was quickly extinguished by thick, damp tree trunks and sap-filled vines. But flame carpet warheads were more than just heating elements. The thick, viscous goop inside them was adhesive, sticking to everything - leaves, bark, rocks, metal,
skin - and then burning white-hot. And each shell contained enough to splatter across
several square kilometers. There was no way the Maw could take the hill from the Eternal Empire forces...
... but they could make the hill a
very nasty place to be.
Shells touched down over and over as the MetaCannons roared. They didn't have to be precisely targeted. It didn't matter if they hit actual enemy positions. In the dense jungle, once the fires started - raging chemical fires that water would do
nothing to put out - they would grow and spread into a raging inferno. The searing heat, the choking smoke, the burning adhesive goop splattering across
everything... suddenly those trenches and bunkers would seem less like refuges and more like tombs as even duracrete threatened to
melt.
It was the only solution left to the Scar Hounds. They had been unable to reach the artillery, forcing them to withdraw, and their only hope to escape without that artillery
shredding them along the way was to force the artillery to change position or be consumed. Perhaps the hilltop itself, cleared to make room for the Eternal Empire camp, would not burn... but all the countless defensive lines in the jungles beneath were under threat. The Maw was not gracious in defeat, and its rage-filled parting gifts were horrific things indeed.
With his forces making their fighting retreat, The Mongrel himself had a decision to make. His hope of dealing the Eternal Empire a military punch early on had been utterly dashed... or had it? As his nimble
Gore Wasp expertly threaded between the incoming rocket fire, its buzzing wings taking it through steep dives and twisting evasions that would have shaken off a rider without his powerful cybernetic grip, he pondered the question. He had come here to confront their general, the Baron so highly ranked among the Empire's military.
Perhaps he still could, if he dared.
It was likely to be a one-way trip. He would be going in alone, and he had already seen the
legion of soldiers, specialists, and bodyguards accompanying his foe. If he succeeded in killing the enemy commander, it would be a worthy death. If he failed, it would be an utter waste. But he was tired, tired of being this monstrous machine. He had been ready for
years now to enter paradise, to be lifted up to the Galaxy To Come and receive his reward by the hand of the Three Avatars. Without his organic body, the galaxy held no pleasures for him.
That made him think of Mercy... and again he felt that odd protectiveness, that desire to keep her safe and make her his. It was a doomed desire, the last organic
longing of his ravaged form. And yet he could not turn away from it. He could rationalize it, could tell himself that trying to save her was nothing more than an extension of the withdrawal he'd ordered for his other troops, preserving what strength he could after being repulsed from the hill. But in his cold, mechanical heart he knew the truth: she was more to him than
any of them.
So he turned his wasp away from Ström's command tent. The Mongrel did not choose a blaze of glory that day, chose instead to let the martyrdom he yearned for wait a little longer... favored a different desire. The gore wasp and its rider streaked down toward the city, toward the building from which Mercy had been feeding him information.
"Hold them back, Mercy," he ordered... or
pleaded.
"I am coming." The warlord bent low against the giant bug's chitinous neck, urging it to greater speed as it streaked through the skies.
Beneath him, the darkened jungles
burned.
Darth Carnifex
(Enemy)
Spasa
would try to eat me if she was here." 
