It was the little trooper who could not understand, of course. She could not comprehend, or was not willing to admit, the
only truth in this corrupt and decaying galaxy: the cycle of War, Death, and Rebirth ruled all, and you could either embrace it or be crushed beneath it. The current age, the age of Jedi and Sith and Empires and Republics that had begun thirty thousand years ago, had been unnaturally prolonged by those who sought to deny the natural process of renewal... but no one could defy the gods forever. The Maw would ensure it.
Everything would burn, and the galaxy would start fresh.
This poor little soldier did not even realize that her little "protect and serve" doctrine did nothing but stand in the way of progress... and did so without hope or meaning. She was like a rodent standing in front of a bulldozer, holding up a little paw in a vain attempt to stop it from paving over her burrow. The driver would not even notice she had been there when he was done plowing over everything she had ever known, and she would never have been able to recognize that what he was building was
better anyway, a palace instead of a filthy little warren.
There was no use in trying to explain that, of course. The Mongrel himself had only learned to accept it through pain and helplessness, when the Taskmaster had brutally stripped away his illusions and forced him to confront the cold truth of the galaxy. And the little trooper, despite her wounds, was far from helpless. She had proven that already. And though she fought for a meaningless cause that would bring her no reward, he could respect her determination to die a warrior's death, to die standing rather than on her knees. He could grant that.
The trooper managed to dive away from the gout of flame streaming from his arm, pushing her wounded body through the motion of a tight roll just before she would have been utterly consumed by fire. The Mongrel suspected he'd still caught her with at least some of the blast, but she did not cry out. She was strong, or perhaps simply too far gone to even feel the agony of charred flesh.
"Come now," The Mongrel said, stalking toward her improvised cover,
"no more hiding. We both know how this ends. Face it bravely, little soldier."
"Or do you regret refusing my mercy?" he sneered.
It took him a while to reach her; his left leg, the knee badly damaged by that pistol of hers, dragged with each step, like the rotting limb of some holovid zombie. He would have to deal with that when she was dead, to find some way to effect field repairs, or he would be near useless in the wider battle. Already his mind drifted to how he would achieve the maintenance, for he was certain this little skirmish was all but over. Sephi, however, continued to find ways to surprise him. This one was particularly bizarre: she threw her
vambrace at him.
"Oh, please," The Mongrel chuckled.
"What is that meant to-"
Boom. The wrist rocket's exposed baradium struck superheated air and exploded, releasing a shockwave of heat and pressure that threw his titanic body back. The warlord felt his chassis deform, his chest denting inward as the outer layers of armor turned orange-hot and ran down his front in long streaks of molten durasteel. His head snapped back, the synthflesh of his "face" torn by an errant piece of shrapnel, exposing the armature beneath. He tried to rock back several steps, keeping his feet, but his damaged leg twisted beneath him.
The Mongrel went down hard, landing on his back in the alley.
Yes, this little commando reminded him
so very much of himself, back when he had begun. The warlord flashed back to Batuu, when he had been nothing but a lone slave-soldier on the streets of Black Spire Outpost, standing against a Force-warrior and his crimson blade. He had fought
desperately just to survive and escape, crawling under market stalls and setting them ablaze to hold his opponent at bay. He'd taken his first scar that day, a saber wound to the leg that he'd carried for
years... until
another saber had taken both legs off entirely.
Times changed. Now
he played the monster, and she the lone soldier.
If she somehow survived all this, he wondered, would she eventually become as
he was? Was this the inevitable path of non-Jedi warriors, to accumulate scars and maimings across battle after battle, until nothing was left of the people they'd once been? The Mongrel pushed the philosophical musings aside; he would find no answers today, and every moment he failed to rise and act was a moment Sephi could use against him. Rolling over to his dented, half-melted stomach, he pushed himself up, shrapnel-flecked arms straining.
The synthflesh of his shredded cheek flapped eerily in the breeze.
Where might she have scrambled in that moment of distraction? In the rubble-strewn alley, beneath a sky turned crimson by flames and laserfire, there were countless places to hide.
"Clever girl," he spat, his artificial lips dribbling black lubricant rather than blood.
"But too little, too late." She liked explosives, did she? He would show her
explosives. His other palm slid open, revealing the barrel of a
micro-grenade launcher... and he began to fire it at random across the alleyway. He didn't have to find her if he blew her to pieces.
Boom. Boom. Boom. A dozen little explosions, a dozen more on the way.
---------------------------------------
Far southwest of the ongoing duel, the scattered LuchsHai technicals finally managed to achieve their goal: a breach in the walls of Fort Imperium. Across the outskirts of the Myrmidon Quarter, a ragged cheer went up from the remaining Mawite forces. There were far more zombies, the sinister undead of Darth Caelitus's creation, than living warriors of the Brotherhood at this point, the brutal attrition of aerial bombings and artillery bombardment and fierce NIO resistance in the streets grinding them down to half their starting numbers.
Perhaps less. Countless martyrs had gone bloody-handed to paradise.
But the terrible losses the Brotherhood had sustained did not dim the savage enthusiasm of those marauders who remained alive. They had been warned that they were dropping into the very jaws of death, into a fortress-city held by perhaps their most dangerous foes, and that most of them would not survive to see another dawn. But there would be glory unending for all who partook in the assault, whether they survived and told the tale or passed on to meet the Avatars with their heads held high... so the Brotherhood of the Maw knew no fear.
The breach was not in a good position for the attackers. It would require them to cross a vast expanse of open ground, bare duracrete with no cover to speak of. High rise buildings towered over the area, buildings that would no doubt allow the NIO to form a killing field on three sides, flanking the charging force
and firing at them head-on from the fort's walls and the breach itself. With their diminished strength, even with the Perished rising from both their own fallen forces and the enemy dead, they might be bled away before they entered the fort.
But there was little choice in the matter. They could stay where they were, skirmishing in the streets, and find themselves ground to dust over the next several hours... or they could risk it all in a glorious charge, one that would either break the NIO defenses and deliver them control of the city's strongest defensive point - or usher them all to paradise on a crimson wind. To a Mawite, that was no choice at all.
"Blood for the Dark Three! War! Death! Rebirth!" With that thunderous cry, the bloodied but unbroken tribes charged.
In the flickering firelight, the savage horde fearlessly crossed the open plaza, a howling mass of savage fanaticism.
For their part, the remaining LuchsHai street artillery targeted their Mongrel's Howl rockets at the high rise buildings flanking the killing ground. If they could damage or destroy those buildings, they could greatly lessen the pressure
DECEASED Erskine Barran
's men could put on the charging Mawites. Of course, the artillery was known more for mobility and range than for
accuracy. There was a very real risk that rubble - or the mis-targeted rockets themselves - could hit the charging horde as well... but it was a risk the drivers were willing to take.
They needed
some advantage. Either this, or
Alars Keto
's master plan...
