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Invasion Woken Furies | BotM Invasion of NIO held Nirauan


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Shoutout to Dagon Kaze Dagon Kaze for the amazing artwork

Site Administrator: Valiens Nantaris

OOC Thread


The Second Great Hyperspace War Rages..


They have arrived.
Sailing across the remnants of the Chiss Ascendancy, those skeletal remains being mended by the Galactic Alliance long broken since the destruction of their homeworld. The BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW cross Chiss Space with the aid of the Force-sensitive Chiss ‘Sky-Walkers’ and embark on a ruthless campaign to bring ruin to their rivals in the Outer Rim, the embodiment of ORDER.

They strike first not at the Chiss holdings of the NEW IMPERIAL ORDER..

…but at the HAND OF THRAWN itself.




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The sky cries fire and ash. The Brotherhood of the Maw let loose the hounds of war upon the Iron Sun, the endless horde clashing wave after wave against unbreakable iron, Chaos vs. Order personified.

New Carannia stands in the midst of TOTAL WAR, the streets run red with blood, the air screams with the sounds of aerial combat, and the roar of mechanized vehicles drown out the brave Imperials who hold the line against the cutthroat marauder horde and their dark masters. Fight in the streets, in the air, and in the spires of New Carannia. Take down the heart of defiance and stain the land with their impudence or send the dark horde packing back to the hole they came out of, showing the galaxy the unyielding power of the Iron Sun.


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The Hand of Thrawn was once the seat of the Empire of the Hand, it's databases at one time possibly the most extensive in the entire galaxy. This place, this icon, it is a symbol of the continued defiance of the Imperial doctrine against the Dark Side and must be punished. While the invasion is ongoing in New Carannia, infiltrators belonging to the BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW attempt to infiltrate the vast stronghold to turn the tide against the NEW IMPERIAL ORDER and bring down this illustrious symbol once and for all.

Steal from and sabotage the mighty Hand of Thrawn, or capture and eliminate the infiltrators with stealth and guile as your weapon.



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The Brotherhood of the Maw and the New Imperial Order fleets clash high above the planet of Nirauan. Engage the star destroyers of the Imperial Menace and whip out all resistance, or take the reigns of a TIE or New Imperial warship and scrub out the heathens from the pestilent nests. Engage in close quarters battles mimicking the best of fleeting such as the Battle of Coruscant or the Death Star as you fight for glory.

 
Ziare Dyarron
COMPNOR (ISB) Junior Agent, Nite agent
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Objective II: Hand of Thrawn
Location: New Carannia, Nirauana
Equipment: FS-18-UP2 Omega Phase Assault Rifle | 2x PV-16 "Sunfury" Pulse Pistol | Druetium Armour | Viper Mk. I Skinsuit | 2x Vibrodagger || Stealth field generator || OPBC-01m
Tags: Open
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[ Planet Hell ]
"Galactic Basic" | ~"Telepathic" communication ~ | << comm. channel >>

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Will this end sometime? I really wanted to, to happen so. I still had nightmares about what Maw did to me while I was in captivity. My psychiatrist will get rich on me, as much as I have been contributing his salary lately, with my PTSD. Sometimes I have memory loss. That’s what I also have to keep secret because I didn’t want to lose my job. I went through all sorts of tests, I was fit, only sometimes I couldn’t remember a few things.

And PTSD… who does not have it? After what Maw did on the battlefield or in the torture chamber, I was amazed that I got away with things so cheaply. But now I had to focus on the war. Things have changed a lot since Coruscant. In a political sense. It was a strange feeling that we could not count on any Allied support now. I wasn’t worried, I was sure we were going to protect the planet, but somehow this situation left a lacking in me.

Something has changed; and I'm not sure in the right direction. The Maw upset everything much more than the Sith or Bryn'adûl. But at least those two were no longer on the map. Now only the Maw existed, and if they could be destroyed, peace would finally greet the galaxy. Yes, I was still romantic and really wanted peace. But now back to reality.

The orders were already there, I quickly checked my weapon, my armour. I had everything and I could start to set off to the designated point as soon as the new command will arrive. Although I hadn’t really been involved in such a large-scale urban operation because I was an agent, the stealth, infiltration, reconnaissance work was closer to me, but I hoped I could prove my value in such a commando task.

The command and the enemy have arrived. Which was a redirecting, yet I had to go to the fortress instead of the urban warfare. I set off for the new coordinates. For the Empire! For the Imperator!

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Location: Nirauan, New Carrania
Tags: Open

  • Mawite Death Cults begin to riot across New Carrania
  • Mawite troop ships deliberately crash into the district south of the spaceport
    • They begin to attack the city, attempting to seize landing zones


New Carannia woke to a new day of thrumming commerce. It was a young city, hungry for prosperity, where a person could rise to the highest heights of wealth or fall into abject poverty in a single day depending on the whims of the free market. For some, this was a deeply exciting place, one where ambition (and a little bit of good fortune) could take you far - further than most places in the galaxy, which tended to regulate their markets rather than allow for such unrestricted commerce. For others, those victimized by free trade rather than enriched by it...

... they had rather different views on New Carannia.

These were men and women who had gambled and lost, people left with nothing, people angry at the galaxy. They shivered in cheap, rundown apartments or, in worse cases, around street bonfires, looking up jealously at the occupants of the city's gleaming skyscrapers. They weren't bad people, necessarily, just lost. They were the downtrodden, those without hope... until an insidious voice came along to whisper to them. The voice whispered that things didn't need to be this way. The voice whispered that they could take back what was owed to them.

That was how Mawite Death Cults began. The lowest, bitterest members of society found someone who heard their grievances... and who promised them that their lives could be better. Gradually, these outcasts were drawn in to the strange theology of the Maw. They came to believe in the Galaxy To Come, a paradise afterlife where all inequality would be stripped away. Those who were willing to struggle and strive in this life, to fight to overthrow the corrupt regimes that had reduced them to this state of poverty and servitude, would earn entry.

At first, little was asked of the cultists. Perhaps a minor theft from a workplace or a message passed along, something to make the initiate feel as though he or she mattered without pushing them too much. For each success, the cultists were praised, made to feel part of something special. But the demands escalated quickly. Before long, initiates found themselves in too deep to back out, their hands stained with the blood of a back-alley sacrifice. The cult recruited its members carefully. It was rare that they had to... dispose of squeamish initiates.

At last, the day had come for the cult's most important task.

Nirauan had once been the capital of the entire New Imperial Order, and it remained a thriving planet... and a well-defended one. The defenses that had protected the world during its tenure as the center of Tavlar's regime had not been significantly lessened even after the capital had moved to Bastion, defenses that could hold back fleets and break armies. This was why the Brotherhood had chosen to strike Nirauan: to prove that even such a fortified world as this could not protect its citizens from their sinister might. But mere brute force would not work.

That was where the death cults came into play.

Early on that thrumming, exciting new morning, riots broke out across New Carrania. People smashed windows, looted stores, and lobbed hunks of duracrete at peace officers. Many of the rioters were not even Mawite cultists, just the downtrodden and dispossessed whipped into a frenzy of righteous outrage against the rich and powerful. It was no real threat to the organized, disciplined security forces of the New Imperial Order, of course... but it wasn't meant to be. Because while the police were scattered, responding to arson and vandalism all over the city...

The Brotherhood was making its move.

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To attempt a mass landing within (or just outside) the fortified city of New Carrania would have been an elaborate form of suicide. The city's surface to air defenses were formidable, prepared to destroy any craft attempting to set down. Even with the security forces distracted and divided, that was a significant defensive advantage. But the Brotherhood was not afraid of worthy sacrifices, or of making a blunt force approach so brutal that it somehow went all the way around to becoming sophisticated. That was the principle behind the invasion.

Not so long ago, OutDrive Manufacturing had created the Slammer Kamikaze-class fighter. The craft was little more than a needle-nosed boarding pod, designed to breach starship hulls or fortifications at high speed and then unleash a single warrior from each pod inside such defenses. The Dark Voice of the Maw and his advisors had looked at this simple but effective craft... and had wondered if the same principle could be used on a massive scale. That was what had led them to the Grand Collision, their strange and brutal plan for New Carrania.

As the Death Cults below stirred up riots and passed out their hidden caches of blasters, preparing to become auxiliaries to the invasion force, The Mongrel and his Scar Hounds stood aboard a very strange starship. It was a large craft, a warship capable of holding many troops... but it had no guns and no advanced systems. It was largely a heavily-shielded hollow shell, stuffed to the gills with extra intertial dampers and crash foam. Because this was not a ship that was designed to land. It was a ship that was designed to slam into the surface... and survive.

Covered by the Mawite warfleet, a strange little armada of these ships breached the atmosphere high above New Carrania... and began to streak straight down. "Brace yourselves," The Mongrel warned, his hulking cybernetic body clenching hard to the extra handrails installed inside the ship. The vessels rocked as the city's powerful defenses opened up on them, responding immediately to this intrusion into their airspace. Some of the Mawite "landers" would not survive that descent. But with the speed of their attack, too fast for an ordinary landing...

Many of the "landing" ships slammed into New Carrania's streets.

There was a titanic crash, drowning out the noise of rioting crowds and police sirens as entire duracrete apartment blocks were pulverized by the impacts. Within the ship, extra decks and bulkheads crumpled deliberately, absorbing the terrible force of impact. Dozens of extra intertial dampers strained to contain the force of the sudden stop. Less-prepared Mawites were flung around like ragdolls, slamming into walls with bone-shattering force. Some would die so that the goals of the Avatars would be accomplished. Such as the Mawite way.

As plumes of duracrete dust rose over the district at the spaceport's edge, explosions and a great grinding of metal joined to cacophony. Explosive bolts blew the hatches on the crashing ships, unleashing the Mawite marauders within. The savage soldiers of the Brotherhood streamed out into New Carrania's streets, taking up an echoing cry of "War! Death! Rebirth!" At the head of the Scar Hounds marched The Mongrel, tearing free of that metal coffin with the aid of his colossal cybernetic body. He wielded a massive assault cannon in both hands.

"Secure the landing zones!" he bellowed, his metallic rasp of a voice echoing off of ruined buildings. Although the warlord would never back down from a good fight, he was keenly aware that the Mawites had just leapt into the middle of an enemy city with no easy routes for extraction or reinforcements. Until they seized their landing zones, this was a do or die mission. If they let themselves get bogged down on enemy strongpoints, or outmaneuvered and surrounded, they would surely be picked off before they could take control of the city.

"If I find any warrior with a clean sword, I'll kill him myself!"
 

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FIRST POST
THE_WOAD
IMPAF-COMMAND

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OBJECTIVE 1: GROUND ZERO

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Alric Árheim Ortʹtʹo Mikla Ortʹtʹo Mikla
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Aemilio Valaar Aemilio Valaar
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Kolson Vrask Kolson Vrask Sephi Karneh Sephi Karneh Raus Garrat
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Willan Tal Willan Tal DECEASED Aron Gowrie DECEASED Aron Gowrie Shai Maji Shai Maji Alex Eldar Sturit Goan Sturit Goan

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Nukth Kelga'an Nukth Kelga'an Knight Knight

BOTM: The Mongrel The Mongrel Zachariel Steelblood Zachariel Steelblood Alars Keto Alars Keto Tor'r Tal'Verda Tor'r Tal'Verda

ERSKINE'S LOADOUT
FRAGARACH MODEL DISRUPTOR PISTOL
BASKET-HILTED VIBROSWORD CLAYMORE


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HOLDING THE LINE - NEW ROLE, NEW STRATAGEMS: PROLOGUE

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Saffia District
The Hand of Thrawn's western far-boundaries
The Myrmidon Quarter
Fort Imperium
The Spaceport outskirts
Pellaeon District
Fiyarro District
Thrawn District

Outer northern suburban districts
FORT IMPERIUM, THE MYRMIDON QUARTER,
NEW CARANNIA, NIRAUAN (868 ABY)

-02:01:24 HOURS PRIOR TO MAWSWORN ATTACK....

"A wall o' pain for every last stretch of hover-trail."

This was Erskine's summarisation of the defensive strategy he was implementing in New Carannia, and the Lord-General would expect nothing less of himself in the former crown-jewel, the former capital of the New Imperial Order. A picturesque reminder of the early days of the faction's ascension to prominence. Barran had no will to fail in the eyes of Nirauan's people, nor would he fail the legacy of both Thrawn and Tavlar, not whilst the five-towers of the Hand still stood to impose on the capital-city's backdrop, not whilst the Imperium stood to defend it with renowned ferocity. Everything had been meticulously planned in the approach to the day of the Maw's assault, and to the extent that even Barran's three closest subordinates had been subject to their Lord-General's small changes, additions and reallocations, sporting custom-made Vibrosword Cavalry-Sabres to mark them out from the other IMPAF officers in the command-centre, all with black-and-gold scabbards that matched the colour-scheme of Erskine's very own Lord-General's baton.

'Frayne, bring that Árheim fellow back to the fort. I'm quite eager to meet the man in charge of these spearmen, must be said.... Never thought I'd see them on a modern battlefield en-masse before - so it makes sense to see what sort of man leads them, wouldn't you say?'

'Absolutely, sir. But I still think we should train with the new Vibroswords as soon as I return, agreed?', young Howard shot back in quick spoken cadence, posing a question of his own which received a silent, affirmative nod in reply. Closing the door behind him, Captain Frayne would be heard exclaiming,'Sergeant Ward! Ready the personnel-carrier, we're heading to the North Pont Avenue checkpoint!', leaving the other three to prepare for the planetary assault with swords and sideward glances at the map-holographic displays. Lieutenant Wyll unsheathed his lengthy cavalry-sabre first, letting Lieutenant Gorman step a few paces out of their way and observe with visibly-intrigued eyes as Lord-General Barran's basket-hilted claymore slid softly out of her teakwood inner-lining, drawing her shimmering metallic form to shine in plain view of the lesser-swords and the curious eyes alike; with time to spare, the former-Stormchaser was more than happy to share what he had learned in his days as a swordsman, hoping such techniques would be used competently in defence of their Lord-General down the the line.

'Now, assuming you haven't the first clue of which sword-fighting styles I've used, I'll start you off with the best possible introduction I know I can give. If it works, it works - you can fine-tune it to a thing o' beauty on yer own time, aw'right? The Mongrel didn't know what worked until he tried it, that was the base principle in our Hirkenburg sparring-yard on Archais after Ilum.... Such training principles that kept Lord Aron Gowrie in the fight until fate obscured the outcome. Such training principles that I'll be instilling in yersels an' Captain Frayne in due course.'

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What the...? But why now? Is the Mongrel he- oh! Ooooooh, I see how it is.

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HOLDING THE LINE - NEW ROLE, NEW STRATAGEMS: PART 1

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FORT IMPERIUM, THE MYRMIDON QUARTER,
NEW CARANNIA, NIRAUAN (868 ABY)

-01:45:55 HOURS PRIOR TO MAWSWORN ASSAULT....


'Still think its safe to put all the tanks in the same district, sir? Tactical choice or not, we still don't know if Tal recognises your seniority yet.', 1st-Lieutenant Wyll pondered aloud, stealing a quick glance at the large top-down projection of New Carannia as he settled into a shoulder-wide, poised stance in the attempt to emulate that which his Lord-General had settled into quite easily. Noting the wandering glance of his scar-faced subordinate, Barran's own gaze would wander with it to find that the former non-com was keeping an eye on the holographic table, anticipating what couldn't be avoided either way, consciously aware of how badly it could've ended for them if just one part of the Imperial static-line routed completely. However, despite the new-look Imperial vanguard's lack of time to adapt to the reorganisation efforts, Lord Erskine was more than confident in Taskforce: TRACHTA's ability to fight doggedly for a planet every Imperial revered greatly, giving the Lord-General every reassurance that there was no contingency they couldn't counter with heavy-hitting effectiveness.

'Even if he doesn't, all the damage Lord Willan would inflict, in all honesty, would be inflicted solely on the Maw's ground forces anyway. Win-win.'

But it isn't though, is it?

Shrugging off the previous concerns with ease, 1st-Lieutenant Wyll would once again rise in the Lord-General's estimation of the traits he'd carried with him into his career as a commissioned officer, proving that the quiet-talking Martin Wyll had every right to ascend in such a clean fashion so easily, proving also that his usefulness would skyrocket in the archetypal crucible in a similarly-steep, inclining ascent. Lord Erskine couldn't help but ponder on this as he parried, blocked and telegraphed his counters for his scar-faced subordinate's sake, thinking that if the willingness to keep in line with Barran's final word was anything to go by, then Wyll had every chance of ascending even further than the limitations of a newly-promoted Imperial 1st-Lieutenant, and perhaps of surviving and overcoming the impossible as well. This the Lord-General knew for a fact he needed, and in an abundance Erskine also knew that he was yet to properly tap into on a wider scale, something to look into after the dust had settled on New Carannia, especially if it benefitted the new task force in future operations.

'If ye want my concerns on the op, look no farther than Strikegroup: ER'KIT. Duties that verge on ambivalent without proper direction, but who knows? The Governate of Yinchorr might yet prove useful to the IMPAF troopers, weirder things have happened in crazier places. After all, I allocated them to that group in the hopes I wouldn't overcrowd the others. Second line's there t'be filled, so I made the call knowing I could be forcing tactical errors with them in the long-run - an acceptable risk.... AGAIN!!!'

All that was left, the only thing they could do as they waited for the Brotherhood of the Maw to make their opening plays, was to continue sparring and engaging in light punditry to keep the creeping pre-battle angst at bay; but those weren't the emotions that Erskine was feeling, as the rushes and the shivers up the back of his neck were telling a contrasting tale to the feelings washing over his subordinates, but if ever they were to notice, questions and eyebrows alike would no doubt be raised in response. Fortunately for Erskine, the Woad was never one to let revealing grins give away the fact he was happy for the first time months, experiencing peace in the most unlikely of places; this was where Lord-General Barran belonged, leading armies against the wildest of opposition, in the heart of the very sort of crucible that coincidentally served to strengthen his own heart in turn.
 
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Wilhuff Krieg

Guest
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F E R R A T A
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
KNIGHT ADMIRAL

FIRST CRUSADE FLEET 'SWORD OF RETRIBUTION'
CHAPTER 'IRON CRUSADERS'

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SMITE THEM FROM OUR SKIES
NIRAUAN ORBIT​


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TASK FORCE GODHAND
NEW IMPERIAL NAVY
STRATEGIC CRISIS RESPONSE | 28000m
NIRAUAN SYSTEMS FLEET PATROL | 3000m
COMBINED STRENGTH | 31000m


FLAGSHIP
NIV FERRATA | Highlord-class Dreadnought | 100/100 | 10000M

BATTLECRUISERS

NIV ANTARES DRACO | Legate-class Star Destroyer | 100/060 | 5000M

STAR DESTROYERS
NIV VENGEANCE.. | Pellaeon IV-class Star Destroyer | 100/100 | 2000M
NIV PERTURBATOR | Pellaeon IV-class Star Destroyer | 100/100 | 2000M


CRUISERS
LONGBOW I.. | Intercessor-class Star Destroyer | 100/100 | 1000M
LONGBOW II. | Intercessor-class Star Destroyer | 100/100 | 1000M
LONGBOW III |
Intercessor-class Star Destroyer | 100/100 | 1000M
ARABLEST I.. | Cuirassier-class Cruiser | 100/100 | 1000M

ARABLEST II. | Cuirassier-class Cruiser | 100/100 | 1000M
ARABLEST III |
Cuirassier-class Cruiser | 100/100 | 1000M

FRIGATES
COURIER I. | Vanto-class Escort Carrier | 100/100 | 500M
COURIER II | Vanto-class Escort Carrier | 100/100 | 500M
BILLHOOK I.. | Escolta-class Frigate | 100/100 | 500M

BILLHOOK II. | Escolta-class Frigate | 100/100 | 500M
BILLHOOK III | Escolta-class Frigate | 100/100 | 500M
BILLHOOK IV. |
Escolta-class Frigate | 100/100 | 500M


CORVETTES
Vandal-class Corvettes | Several
Gurkha-class Corvettes | Several


STARFIGHTERS
Type | Fleet Distribution

Screen
TIE/OTx Outlander Space Superiority Fighters | 40%

Pursuit
TIE/INx Interceptor Starfighters | 15%
TIE/Vx Vanguard Defender All-Purpose Starfighters | 5%

Strike
TIE/GA Mauler Ground Attack Heavy Starfighters | 10%
TIE/HF Slasher Heavy Fighters | 5%
TIE/HB Heavy Bombers | 5%
Petard-class Droid Starfighters | 20%



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NIRAUAN SYSTEMS FLEET

STAR DESTROYERS
NIV ASTARTES.....| Tyrannus-class Star Destroyer | 056/018 | 2000M

FRIGATES
NIV RAPIER I...| Mantero-class Missile Frigate | 074/012 | 500M

NIV RAPIER II..| Mantero-class Missile Frigate | 048/009 | 500M

Each man had their moment to seize. It was the mettle they were made of that would determine if they would crumble in futile, depressive slumber under the pressure- or rise to the occasion and force the opportunity at their command.

The price of Empire was paid on Nirauan over a decade ago. At that point, Wilhuff was one of the few gathered to consolidate into the New Imperial Navy. NIV 'Arbiter' , a Pellaeon IV-class Star Destroyer was his first command as Captain in 858 ABY. He remained with the same vessel through the New Imperial invasion unto Dantooine. A harsh, horrific defeat which shook the core of all of the Imperial armed forces- but punished Krieg far more. The Arbiter was lost in the fray, a sunken ship bathed in the hell fire of a colossal enemy. Extraction teams were able to save a meager segment of the ship's crew, finding a burned and maimed Krieg managing in barely functioning escape pod of which the life support generator was harshly damaged, resulting in a nigh lethal chemical leak which he breathed upon for almost two days before he was retrieved.

From the brink of death, Wilhuff rose again and returned to his duty as soon as he was able to- only this time, beneath the command of Rurik Fel in the First Crusade fleet. With the recent construction of the NIV Ferrata, the resilient Krieg was appointed its commander and concurrently, Admiral of the Imperator's battle group.

His first grasp of tactical command over this level of ordinance came at an opportunity no less vital to their New Order than the great triumphs over Bastion or Muunilinst. Though many who'd spoke their oaths of fealty and their declarations of defiance against an insidious Sith Empire had long fallen in the great existential struggle against the Sith. So too did their Empire crumble beneath the might of those willing to sacrifice. The Maw snapped its jaws at the very same site of the Order's inception. And they would see their jaws snapped and broken in harsh reprisal.

The means of defiance rested on his shoulders. He was hardly the legend that was the Admiral Regent Rausgeber, or the once Grand Vizier Paxxus. Good. There was no more vital a moment to test his capabilities, to hone his strengths and seek out his weaknesses. Metal could be forged in the hottest flames after all.

He carried a presence all his own within the bridge of the Ferrata, a monstrous vessel that became the newest addition to the Empire's fleet of dreadnoughts usually constructed along the lines of a similar purpose. To slay its counter-part, to bring low the biggest beast the opponent could muster. In these recent weeks spent patrolling the Unknown Regions, Wilhuff's sharp crimson photoreceptors scrolled the reports and evaluations of the New Imperial Navy's contact with the Maw for weeks. Be it the outlying deep space skirmishes, or the titanic clashes over Coruscant and Csilla.

He would not fall short where his contemporaries did and he would ensure the enemy had nothing remaining from any engagement with his battle group. A tall order to task unto himself and he would've been content with nothing less. He would not pray to survive the enemy, he would have the enemy pray that they might survive him.

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As the Maw's fleet assaulted Nirauan, the systems fleet planetary defense force that met them in a rather futile attempt to beat them back and prevent the marauders from reaching the planet's surface and defile New Carrania. The meager task force left in the planet's defense retreated at its soonest opportunity, leaving a wake of scrap and metal in their shadow as they sheered systems minute by minute to keep their boats afloat, another reprisal by the Maw's fleet and they'd be as good as molten star streaks in the planet's atmosphere, shedding a trail of fiery blood on their tortuous descent.

As soon as Wilhuff arrived to the astral field, the Antares Draco - the tip of the spear to the Crusader Fleet was the first vessel to make contact, cover and screen the retreat of the Nirauan systems vessels toward the heart of Krieg's formation. It was then that he set out on consolidating his own numbers and setting his sights to strike offensively on the enemy.

He stood over the holo-table of his command bridge with a constant furrow of his brow. Though he'd made a throw of pilae at range, it was nearing the moment from which he'd have to heft his sword and shield and fight the enemy blade to blade.

As that moment neared, he looked to a commscan ensign on the bridge of the Ferrata and spoke up.

<"Open my channel to the fleet, Tyrin."> His voice was strained, gutteral, foreboding but not so much harsh as it was calm in the chaos of the bustling bridge, the ensigns aboard preparing for open warfare.

"As you command, Knight Admiral." The Ensign Tyrin replied to which Wilhuff glanced to the control console at the rim of the holotable to wait until the indication of his comms channel flashed red, indicating he was free to speak. The bridge carried tension thick enough to sever it with a dull blade. As much as they were a command confident in their ability, it was still a crew and a vessel equally untested. There was a pressure in being the few who had the privilege of manning such a beast, just as there was the anxiety of misusing it.

<"Once more...our Empire calls on her Navy to defend her in its darkest hour. The scions of darkness and chaos pollute our space...and by our will, we will smite them from our skies. We will advance with a single decisive aim in our sights- to slay the beasts that seek to defile the heart of all our triumphs. I will demand a great deal of all of you...but no less than what I demand of myself. We will seize victory and send them back into the depth of the hell they emerged from. For the Empire. Our will be done...further orders await you all."> The Knight Admiral stated as the Ferrata began its commscan sweep through the system to ping the frequency of the largest beast within the Maw's fleet. The Ferrata was an immensely powerful weapon and Krieg would be a fool not to use it. He only need to meet his match.

Perhaps- he could bait it into open space. The Antares Draco would be his means of gauging their threat and firepower. The already battered battlecruiser would bare the brunt of early attacks, however the more aggressively the Maw unfurled its fire power- the more holes they'd reveal in their stratagem. This was as much a battle of will between the engineers patching every hold, the gunners loading every round and the officers circulating every system as much as it was a chess game between Krieg and his enigmatic opponent. For all the gruesome and primal strokes of which the Maw had been painted in for months, there was no degree of underestimation that Krieg would take on in this struggle. He expected, for all intents and purposes, a battle of which he could graze the reaper as he did in orbit of Dantooine.

Nothing was given, nothing was certain.

<"Captain Orzric, send your vessel Draco accompanied by Longbow one, Billhook two and Courier one ahead of my formation- the Perturbator will serve as the median lifeline between me and yourself. If the fires are too hot- the Perturbator will cover your retreat and the Ferrata will replace you on the line to smite them. Understood?"> He asked the way of his subordinate who replied with a nod of affirmation on the holocomms.

<"Understood, Knight Admiral. We're deploying our screen now and moving forward."> He replied, Krieg nodded in understanding.

<"Noted...send forth our screen as well, pursuit and strike wings at the ready- as soon as we catch a glimpse of their heavy metal, I want a Nova Flare formation at the earliest possibility, they will not be allowed a moment of comfort as soon as they are in range of our guns and fighters."> Ever the Imperial tactic. It didn't matter what need be sacrificed to accomplish it- Krieg's enemy needed to be made ill at ease, under pressure and cornered into desperate measures. It was then that all the cards were laid unto the table and Krieg could determine the flow and pacing of the battle.

Or so he hoped. But hope was a rather futile emotion, he expected the worst.

 

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G R U N G E
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
TASK FORCE TRACHTA
1st GROUP | 'VANDAL' SQUAD

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DEFERENCE FOR DARKNESS
NIRAUAN

Back into the fray again. Imperial Special Operations command had a sudden change of doctrine in the past seventy two hours. While IMPMAG was largely continuing preparations for deployments alongside foreign military groups in order to put down Sith and Bryn'adult remnants as well as combat the growing, insidious influence of the Brotherhood of the Maw, High Command flipped orders on its head.

All foreign deployments cancelled, all IMPMAG units would stand their ground and return to their regularly scheduled programming. Total war once more. Not solely with the Maw, but so too did 'War Case Cobalt' see itself pried open.

But there wasn't time to overthink it in these waning moments before battle. Nirauan, the monument to the Empire's founding was under siege. Just as Vandal Squad did to relieve Muunilinst and Bastion, they would be here. Whatever well else be damned, they would be in New Carannia, they would be here to prevent a sliver of the apocalypse if they could manage.

He tread with metal footfalls into the RDAG once more. The usual suspects with him, surrounding him. Stormtrooper Corps. Hell jumpers of the 501st. Vandal Squad, to best make use of their expertise were spread across several gunships. They were best suited surgically as one unit anyway, but the tales of what the vaunted 'Berik' did on Bastion weren't lost on Grunge. If need be, in that position, he'd snap the arrow in twain all the same- to make the greatest sacrifice of all, for his unit, for his Empire, so that they might all live to fight another day.

It was a liberating thought, that. To just- let go. Know damn well it was for the greater good and all that. Regardless of how things might unfurl for generations to come, to know, in the end, he did all he could do.

He stood in the troop bay of his gunship as it was loaded up with men and ordinance, reaching down to pull another stormtrooper aboard, his gaze caught the site of a familiar ensemble of spec ops loadout. Nova. Underneath his Recon helmet he mouthed a faint smile to her before piping up.

<"Usual joint in Ravelin once this is all done and over with, ey Nova?"> He asked, offering a nod in her direction before motioning through to the canopy of the RDAGx, offering a thumbs up to the pilot. They were good to go. Another jump into hell.

He brought his BKM-62 to his vision, checking the ammo counter one more time to ensure he'd topped off the pack to full before he eased himself back for the ride. It was going to be a short one, they always were. Felt like hours becoming minutes, aeon becoming instant. It was a billion years to confine himself in his own head and all the same not enough time of calm before the chaos. But he'd manage, once the first blaster bolt whistled past his ear and he knew he was in the thick of it, he'd be well at ease.

Last large scale operation like this he was apart of, it was the ol man himself, Tavlar. That slot fell unto the shoulders of Barran now, a capable man, not one he'd worked all to closely with but one he'd heard and read enough about him to trust his repore.

So long as too many of his men didn't get killed, they'd be well enough.

The troop bay lights darkened to a night pitch black as the RDAG was launched from the hangar bay of the assault ship. A flood and wave of lights peering through the slits of the troop bay doors before suddenly the wisps of atmosphere filled what little glasteel was exposed to provide a view. Grunge never cared to look through it. He wanted to close his eyes and open them in the chaos.

He'd get his wish sooner than he'd wanted. As soon as the ship crested into the lower atmosphere, the hologram at the center of the troop bay came alight with the image of an Imperial special forces commander.

<"Cathar Aurek, your task in Nirauan will be to secure and lock down the Pellaeon District, utilize any methods to strategically cut off, disable and destroy the enemy where available. Civilians are danger close. You know the rules of engagement...if they win here...they will try again. Beat them bloody. Kill the enemy, get it done Vandal. The Empire relies on you."> A typical Imperial voice with its cadenced, military inflection. As soon as the hologram shuttered closed- a violent blast shook the gunship threatening to stance of all the trooper aboard as they were rocked by the impact. Crimson lights lit up the bay meaning no good to drop. 'No shit', Grunge thought as he reached up a hand to grasp ahold of a hanging safety handle, clutching his battle rifle close to his body as he looked through to the rest of his unit in widened eyes beneath his recon helmet.

There was no gauging their emotions, concealed beneath their masks of cold forged Imperial death. That was the beauty of the Stormtrooper, the Storm Commando, all the valiant killers of the Empire. They could be frozen in fear beneath those helmets, weak, fragile, mortal men. But so long as they were in that plasteel of argent, they were the storm. They were a spirit indomitable, unbreakable. A gaze which the purveyors of disorder and destruction held nightmares of.

Another moment passed and all of those gazes were gone. A flash of white and fire flashed Grunge's eyes as a dervish of sensory clashes enveloped his body far too intensely for him to register at once. He saw blackness and heard a deafening ring in his ears.

A small white light was cast what felt like an aeon away before it enveloped his vision and he could force his eyes open into sober reality. The slow methodical beeping of his armor's vital sensors rung in his hear before he groaned beneath the jab of another bacta injector. He forcibly lifted himself from the rubble around him. Or rather, what he wished was rubble, around him. The body of one his fallen squadmate's crushing his down. He managed it off before he grasped unto what appeared to be a handle, an emergency lock of some sort. Grasping it like the rung of a ladder he crawled out of the troop bay flipped unto its side before sitting himself against the back of a storage compartment. He took a moment to gather his breath as he lifted the tacpad attached to his vambrace closer to his face. He tapped the life sensor scanner, ten meters.

No blips, no signals, nothing. He was the lone wolf again. The distant cracks and bangs of blaster fire rung in the distance as he established his barings again. He managed to extend the scomp link of his vambrace into the lock of the storage compartment, prying it open to reveal a satchel of explosives.

A force multiplier.

He stood atop the flaming wreckage of the downed gunship, peering down into the smoldering tomb of many hopeful young killers. He listened for a moment past the distant rage to hear a trickle.

More rain.

Good. Make it rain harder.

He ran the satchel of explosives over his shoulders before taking the rifle into his hands and making way into the city streets.

<"This is Cathar Aur- ...damnit."> Comms system burnt.

He was alone.


 
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Location: Nirauan, High Orbit
Tags: Wilhuff Krieg

  • Tu'teggacha deploys his Samael-class frigates to harass the oncoming Draco and escorts

Fatalis, a Fatalis-class Star Dreadnought (10,000m)Defensive Positions
Aeon's End, a Praetorian-class Star Destroyer (3,000m)Defensive Positions
Nightmare Eternal, a Praetorian-class Star Destroyer (3,000m)Defensive Positions
Forge of Laments, a Praetorian-class Star Destroyer (3,000m)Defensive Positions
Wrathborn, a Crucifix I-class Star Destroyer (1,800m)Defensive Positions
Oblivion Herald, a Crucifix I-class Star Destroyer (1,800m)Defensive Positions
Mournfang, a Crucifix I-class Star Destroyer (1,800m)Defensive Positions
Soulbreaker, a Crucifix I-class Star Destroyer (1,800m)Defensive Positions
Twelve Samael-class Frigates (398m)Gauntlet Formation



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From the center of the galaxy to its very edges, let fear of the Brotherhood reign.

Such was the message that the Mawsworn intended to send with their strike upon Nirauan. With the Galactic Alliance left reeling as Coruscant itself burned, the vicious marauders and power-hungry Dark Side savants of the Brotherhood had now turned their gaze on the vast cities of their other main foe: the New Imperial Order. If they could do the same here as they had done in the middle of the Core Worlds, breaking the defenses of their foes and raining down fire on their terrified citizens, they would declare their unrivaled power. They would show that nowhere and no one in the galaxy was safe from the depredations of the Maw.

It was a vital part of their grand strategy to bring the governments of Known Space to their knees, for they could do so only by keeping their foes (and they had many, many foes) on the defensive. Although the Brotherhood had managed to weather the first wave of attacks on their steadily-growing domain, they remained at a significant disadvantage to well-established great powers such as the Alliance and NIO. With their limited number of worlds and less developed infrastructure, they could not possibly match the industrial capacity of their rivals. They could win only by staying on the offensive, surviving off of the spoils of war.

Taskmaster Tu'eggacha, slavemaster of the Brotherhood, understood this all too well. The Hidden Maw was a vast engine forged for a single purpose: to burn Known Space to the ground, shattering every government and toppling every king. It had no trade network, no civilian economy, nothing to sustain itself through lean times beyond violently consuming what others had produced. If the Brotherhood were to succeed in its mission, casting down every other galactic power, it would surely turn and devour itself in a last scramble for whatever worthwhile scraps remained of the galaxy. Victory would be the horde's undoing.

Of course, most everyone among the Mawites believed that they would somehow avoid this seemingly inevitable fate. The marauders and heathen priests believed that the final destruction of all unbelievers would bring about a new age, with their dark gods the Three Avatars ushering them into paradise. The Neo-Imperials of the Final Dawn believed that they could forge a new Galactic Empire out of the ashes the marauders left behind, bringing rigid order to a galaxy they had cleansed by wielding chaos. Darth Solipsis and his New Sith Order plotted in the shadows, scheming toward ends even Tu'teggacha could not guess at.

For his part, the Taskmaster simply did not care. All he wanted was to spread suffering.

Seated in his command throne aboard the battle-scarred Fatalis, the iconic flagship of the Mawite fleet, the Ebruchi watched as Nirauan's system fleet fell back before the overwhelming might of the Brotherhood. He had brought to Nirauan much the same assembly of starships that he had used to ravage Coruscant, a battle group he had christened Strike Force Gehinnom in honor of the lost Holy City. It was a powerful fleet, and it would not be alone. The Regent of the Final Dawn, Derix Tirall Derix Tirall , would be bringing a fleet of his own, one even more full of advanced technological terrors than the one Tu'teggacha now deployed.

They would need that strength, for the power of the NIO fleet was legendary.

Sure enough, it did not take long for the Crusader Fleet to arrive... and it was a sight to behold. Where Tu'teggacha's force was a blunt instrument, designed to engage head-on and brute force its way through any obstacle, the Crusader Fleet was more varied, with twice as many different ship designs as the Mawites could boast. This was a multitool pitted against the Taskmaster's power sledge, and the NIO fleet's crews were well-versed in the tactics and discipline that would bring them to full effectiveness. These were veterans of the Third Imperial Civil War, the breakers of the Sith Empire itself. Why should mere barbarians scare them?

The Taskmaster, of course, intended to show them exactly why.

As the system fleet fell back under the Crusader Fleet's covering fire, the first shots of the true battle rippling across the shields of both sides, Tu'teggacha addressed his battle group. "By the will of the Avatars," he began, his voice booming out across every vessel in the fleet, "we strike at the heart of the enemy. The gods are watching. Let no warrior show fear! The Dark Three will judge us by the blood we spill, and those who die with hands dripping crimson shall be lifted up to the Galaxy To Come. Slaughter the unbelievers! Create for this decadent planet a great ring from their shattered hulls! War! Death! Rebirth!"

The chant echoed all across the fleet. "War! Death! Rebirth!"

There was no doubt that the Mawite battle group would be champing at the bit after that, ready to kill and be martyred in the name of the Avatars. The NIO, it seemed, was no less eager. Already one of their largest ships was moving to engage, approaching like a champion and his entourage walking ahead of the main army to parlay... or to duel. The Taskmaster's glassy black eyes fixed themselves on the vast bulk of the Antares Draco, along with its formidable escorts. If they wished to come forward in a powerful but measured push, testing his defenses while keeping an even stronger punch in reserve, he would gladly test their mettle.

Let them run the gauntlet he would lay for them, and see if they proved worthy.

Years ago, when the Taskmaster had been nothing but a wretched, despised runt among his pirate clan, they had devised a cruel game to torment him. They had lined up along the sides of the galley, in two long, parallel lines. At the far end from where he stood, so skinny his bones showed through his rubbery flesh, they had piled high a plate of delicious-smelling food. "Run, accursed one," they had taunted him. "Run and take the food!" And he ran for it, ravenous, starving. But each Ebruchi in line threw something at him - a plate, a mug, a knife. He could dodge them at first, or shake off the hits, but by the time he reached the middle...

The repeated blows took their toll on him, and he always went down, still starving.

He had learned well from that dark memory. One did not have to break one's enemies with a single blow; instead, one could steal their strength gradually, bleeding it away as they tried to reach their goal. "Move the frigates into gauntlet positions!" the Taskmaster ordered. The Samael-class frigates, the smallest and nimblest of his mostly-large craft, fanned out in a long V shape. They danced at the edge of the range of the oncoming Draco and her escorts... and they opened fire. The Samaels were not killers on their own, but softeners, like champing teeth mashing food to be swallowed. Each boasted twenty ion cannons.

Blue ion fire streaked across space, seeking to chip away the shields of the Draco and her escorts, and to drag down their subsystems. Screened by a cloud of expendable Darkshear swarm fighters, they could hold their ground against small-scale attacks. Any attempt by the NIO ships to bring the battle to them would only cause them to scatter and fall back, with the frigates on the other side moving in to continue the harassment. They were being deployed as skirmishers, dangerous irritants who would make the NIO attack brittle by the time it reached the range of the big Mawite ships. And when it did, when the orbital autocannons locked on...

The Taskmaster intended to shatter his foes like glass.
 

Khroraic

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K


There is only one Truth: Order.

This was the first part of the Imperial Knight’s code. Something that Khroraic had used as his guiding light in his service to the Empire. He breathed deeply, letting the air fill his lungs fully before exhaling. In, and out. His hands settled on the light-axe, deactivated and laid across his lap. His hands slid over the device, the tool. This was no blunt instrument that he would use to tear through stone and rock, this was a weapon gifted to him by the Gods themselves. The stone that made up the skin on the center of his left-palm scrapped against the metal of the half. He gripped it firm before using it as a cane. He rose. The gunship rattled around him. The stormtroopers around him were preparing their own equipment. Slamming home powercells, checking scopes, and looking over one another’s armors. They weren’t touched by the Gods. They were blind to the music. The drums that sounded deep within the Dwarrow’s heart. The heartbeat of the Force and the Light of the Stone. There was an Order within the constructions of the Gods. It was blessed by On High. There could be no mistake in it’s perfection. Just as his own abilities could not be mistaken for anything less than they were. Gifts.

In Order, Emotion is Discipline.

Khroraic brought his helmet over his head, sealing it with the rest of his pitch-white armor that signified his position within the New Imperial Order. He was a Knight of the Empire, and he would serve, just as he always had. Just as he did for his own Thanehold, and just as he would now. Emotions rolled inside of the Dwarrow like waves against the sea. The Maw were renowned as vicious killers. Bandits hyped up on dark side energy and using it to carve a bloody path through the galaxy. Rending planetary governments to cinders and utterly destroying homeworlds as if it was nothing. There were the greatest threat that he had seen the Galaxy face in quite an age.

He couldn’t be anymore excited to face them. The lightaxe demanded to be challenged in conflict, afterall. He was a warrior as well as a scholar. He was a student of the Force as much as he was a servant to it. The thrill of meeting other’s in battle that could give even a Dwarrow a run for their money? That was something that even the Epics never dared to speak of! As far back to the first Dwarrow to step foot out of their Thaneholds, they had been slamming their skulls against anyone that dared to step foot to them. Trying to test their mettle against every kith and kind out there. The Sith gave them a right challenge, but all of that bureaucracy was far too easy to circumvent and use against them. These Maw? These New Sith? That got Khroraic’s blood roaring a mile a minute. He found himself humming an old Dwarrish song as he got giddy from the excitement.

There was a couple more lines of the Knight’s code… something along the lines of harmony… something certainly about death. Ah, by Okri’s Beard, none of that mattered as much to Khroraic as the final bit of the Code.

We are the weapons of the Empire!

Even as the phrase went through his head he was nearly unable to contain the visible excitement. Drumming his fingers along his lightaxe before shifting it off to one hand, picking up his slugthrower, and running over it. Making sure it was properly sighted, loaded, and to switch off the safety for the coming conflict. Not to say he loved fighting or anything, fighting for fighting's sake was what separated them from the Sith! A fight to protect your own, however? That was right as Zkazdraer's Hammer!

“Hear me, gal-rhô!He said to the stormtroopers. “Let’s show these kren-rhe how Imperials die, eh?!”

The gunship doors opened, letting the new wave of troopers in to garrison the Hand of Thrawn, and Khroraic all but rushed out.

The plan was originally to stage from this location and leave, eventually, to help with the defense.

The Dwarrow would find the Maw had other plans, though, in due time.

 



Dun-da-dundun-dadadundun Ortʹtʹo hummed to himself. He was knelt down at the corner of a building. In the labyrinth that was modern design, it was just another forgetful landmark among any of theme, but Ortʹtʹo knew something that most people didn’t. How people flee when under stress, how the channels of combat can make someone rush to new directions, and how many explosives you expect a certain path to be lined with. When you expected to run into one, of course, when you were already plenty deep into hostile territory was another factor that he had to consider. He was pretty proud of the work that he had done so far. His radiation grenades, something that any merciful galactic government would ban from use in warfare, had been set up in choice choke-points and vomitoriums throughout the city of New Carannia. The moment that news was being sent about hyperdrives and ship movements to the planet, the moment that he hit boots on the ground, he was operating with a singular idea in mind. Stop the enemy advance before it even had a chance to begin. So here he was, in a random street in New Carannia. He had a long string of radfrags that went down the entire length of the block, each of them tied to one another with nothing more complex than a simple line of string. Razor thin, nearly impossible to see if you’re rushing through the road to reach whatever military objective you had set up. Ortʹtʹo assumed that their endgoal was to take the city-center, and that was what he had operated with the idea of stopping. Roughly five radfrags were strung up, hidden beneath piles of trash, in garbage bags, piles of broken glass, or in the frame of doorways. It wasn’t until the end of the block that he actually bothered to string the tripwire across the walking path.

If everything went well, they would march across this, and by the time they realized what was going on, the sound of fission explosives would be rattling off down the entire block. Reducing whoever was unlucky enough to be by them into slag. This was just one of many roads that he had done this to.

This was just one of many he would do this to.

<“All squads, road Besh-Dorn is live. Repeat, Besh-Dorn is live.”> He would speak into his comms. It should broadcast to all allied ground units that would be forced to worry about something like this. If they were aware, the hope was that they wouldn’t accidentally trip friendly explosives on their move.

He stood, a cracking of his spine shifting in place against his exoskeleton as he picked up his back and lugged it against his back. It was nearly time to start making his way to the city-center. He would be one of the final lines of defence against the coming horde.

If they got this close?

Justifies the cancerous weaponry.





 

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// Voidwalker-Actual // 501st Legion, Black Hands //
//
Objective I : Ignore the Galidraani Hold the Line
// ALLIES: DECEASED Erskine Barran DECEASED Erskine Barran , Alric Árheim
// ENEMIES: Brotherhood of the Maw, New Sith Order, Witches of Rhand, The Mongrel The Mongrel
// Engaging : x
// Gear : Tenebrae, Tidefall, Left-Handed Grav Glove
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Speaker of the Iron Youth or not, there was little fight to be had in deployment locations. Rapid redeployment saw the Black Hands sent to the western borders of the Empire. There had been on expectation to be stationed at the Redoubt or even Sharb. Yet, worst of all, as if it were some cruel joke, they were reassigned to Nirauan.

A Warlord's domain.

"What are we doing here?"

"We ought to let 'em take it!"

"Aint Nirauan want to be independent? Why're we dying for them?"


The spoken sentiments were not far from his own, but the typically animated Officer seemed subdued. His answer then? "Orders from above. No choice," while enroute. Tensions had been high then. Got even higher when they touched down.

Only now as they took up their positions were they settling into the steadfast soldiers that he knew them to be.

As boisterous as they were, they were loyal. And when it came down to it, wouldn't step out of line. Not if he asked them to stay in it.

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Fiyarro District.

The Lord-General's distribution of troops was poor.

Fething Galidraani.

But not poor enough that Aemilio would see himself lose his own command yet.

Fiyarro District was close to where he wanted to be anyway. And he was already deciding on abandoning the richer and cleaner District for the streets of Pellaeon. When the fighting started, he knew, he'd have to at least appear competent. But his goal, as it would always be, was the elimination of threats to the image of the True Imperial.

If an entire city had to be sacrificed, a whole planet, no matter its symbolic significance -- then it would.

Imperial Lives First. True Imperial.

The blind and willing servants that followed in the wake of Warlords were cowardly. Ill-fitting of the True Imperial name. They could die and be forgotten with their individualistic Lords.

Still, peering out to the road leading South. He'd remain on world, until they were pulled away, kicking and screaming.

For as much as he hated those above, he cared for those below. The downtrodden, and the forgotten. The people of the Pellaeon District were a kindred spirit, not unlike himself and many of the Black Hands that had come from the Ravelin underworld. It was the reason why there was an Iron Youth Academy on world in close proximity to the district.

Aemilio understood their struggle as both a refugee and a migrant in a new, unknown place. He knew how people like that worked. Had been one of those people. Convincing them to conform to the True Imperial ideology was easy.

Going from nothing to something.

Aemilio was proof of that.

"Torayga," he said, turning to his second in command and confidant. "Take the western flank. When I give the command to fallback, sweep south and to the east. The Warlords forces and the Galidraani can die protecting the upper class if they want. I'm getting our people, out of here."

Torayga nodded and hurried off.

Explosives were rigged on buildings in anticipation of herding assaulting forces into crossfires and closed off streets. Just like when the tables had been reversed on Carlac, when they faced off against the Undead and the Maw Marauders.

Come to think of it... It was odd really. Fighting on the defensive. It was the first time the Black Hands were deployed passively, rather than aggressively.

It was truly new grounds.
 

Alric Árheim

Guest
A


F I R E S - F A D E
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
BARON OF SÓLRIKE
Durasteel Full Plate [
x] | Mandalorian Iron War Hammer [x] |
Eikthyrnir the Kybuck
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~ "I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you I will not let the Great City fall. Nor our people fail." ~

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---
The New Imperial Order was the gateway to the wider galaxy for the Free Imperial City of Sólrike, and Alric knew this. The Outer Rim, especially the Arm, was filled with planets and gems that he had come to understand were impossibly valuable to would be despots and marauding bandits, wielding power and tech that the barony simply didn’t have access to under the control of the Imperius Cult. He had come to understand, in recent weeks, that if he did not take action, after his rule, Irmenu ran the risk of fading to the background of the Galactic scene once again. Eventually, someone would find the world again. Eventually, ships would land at it’s starports once more. Eventually, they would not be bringing diplomats or trade goods. There would come a time when blaster rounds would ring through the halls of castles and longhouses, there would come a time where turbolasers would exterminate entire people groups from the atmosphere, there would come a time when Irmenu would burn, and there wouldn’t be a single thing that Alric would be able to do to stop it.

The New Imperial Order was his people’s only hope for salvation.

Alric walked among the men-at-arms that were gathered at the edges of the city’s center defense. Stopping at each of them to tug or adjust something of their kit. A shift of the belt here, the adjustment of a grip there, anything that would give them the edge they would need in this conflict to come. They were from a feudal backwater world, he understood this. His men were armed with nothing but plain steel, simple shields, and crossbows. Wood, iron, and grit was all any of them would have to defend themselves against the nightmares that the Maw were prepared to unleash. They needed to prove their worth, they needed to survive despite the odds and show the New Imperial Order, the Emperor himself, that they were worth the investment of resources. That proper outfitting, political meddling against the Imperius Cult, and backing of his royal claims would help the Order in the long run.

If he could make them believe that, if even for a moment, he could secure the future of his people.

Just for a little while longer.

They were soldiers from an era long forgotten. They wore mail-suits and held shields emblazoned with a various emblems of houses and families. Their blades were shoddy and imperfect in the eyes of droid based laser cut edges. No, these weapons were forged by hand by steadfast royal smith’s who understood the use of the tool. It was to be strong, hardy, as willful as those that wield it. Axes, swords, spears, each of them holding a different tool according to their position in the hierarchy and spot in the columns they formed in combat. Crossbows made of wood and string, bolts that struck true in the volly of their fire. Nothing but the rage of ages against impossible odds.

He would make sure that the men of Sólrike proved themselves this day.

Alric, when informed of the request of his presence, would begin to make his way to the fort where Erskine Barran made his camp for the operation. He had been told a great deal about the man during his stay with the New Imperial Order. He had a penchant for implementing the odd and bizarre into the normal rank and file, from what he understood. At the very least, he would like to meet the man that would be organizing and deploying his men during this conflict.

Alric, making his way into the building and beginning in the direction of where he was told Erskine to be, paused for a moment. Clanging, the ringing of steel on steel matched with sharp hisses of wrasping blades. Not in a desperate attempt to end one another, no. These were sounds of a proper duel. A ring, a pause, slash, repeat. Over and over he heard the song of combat as he made his way to the room. Pausing at the door, he knocked, figuring it better to announce himself before stepping in.

There was a duel, of course, currently in full swing. He had little to bet in terms of who would win, and he hadn’t a name to place to any of the men currently sparring.

Though, one of them was lumbering the blade around in a way that quite upset him…

“You’re not slashing with your guard, sirrah. You’re extending yourself and leaving openings. Mind your position. Move from the guard, not against it.” He spoke. He felt like a disgruntled teacher moments after the words left his mouth. He paused, shook his head.

“Beg your pardon, I am looking for an Erskine?”

 

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KNIGHT OF THE EMPIRE
IMPERIAL KNIGHT ARMOUR | Dual Lightsabres
Engaging: Darth Tennacus Darth Tennacus

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Visions of darkness haunted him in the depths of his dreams. Each time he closed his eyes, the miasmic energy that made up the Force birthed sight to the future. The Dark Side, he knew the power to be, tried to lure him in deeper as he sunk further into much needed slumber. Flashes of death, homecoming, and the promise of power.

All he must do was grab at it.

But he was no stranger to the ethereal Bogan's touch. He knew its corruptive grasp. Had known it for his entire life. It was intoxicating, but he had escaped it before, had learned the merits of Duty and Sacrifice. And saw past the selfish need for singular greatness and power. For whatever grandiose beliefs Sith proclaimed to justify destruction and genocide, he had been shown the flaws in it.

Paltry temptations were never going to be enough to bring him to the grasp of the Sith again.

Sat, with legs crossed in meditation.

It was not the first time that he immersed himself in the murky deeps to benefit his Empire.

Ragnar's eyes opened.

A slight lurch passed through the ship, barely perceptible had he not been so immersed within the embrace of the Force. He heard the faint steps of someone approaching. Every step careful, possibly timid, though possessing a purposeful military gait. By the time they stopped, Ragnar was drawing his robes over his athletic torso.

"My Lor-uh, Gray Cloak, Sir. We have arrived."

"See to it that the Imperator's will is made manifest."


This planet... This system... It had been the birth place of their Order.

Striding to the viewport in his chamber, he reached behind him, coalescing the Force around the longhandled sabre, and dragged it to him. Through the air it whipped, rotating until it slapped into his palm. All the while, not breaking his visual of the planet.

Nirauan.

"Prepare the shuttles. The reckoning is nigh."


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For the first time in his life, Ragnar set foot on Nirauan.

At the start of the Civil War he was an enemy. This former capital was the birthplace of defiance. The heart of the New Imperial that defied the mighty Sith Empire. That fought against the injustice and tyranny propagated by the Sith.

Their Empire's story started here.

It was fitting that the Brotherhood of the Maw would strike here, the Zabrak mused. A defeat here would be more than the lives lost, far more than the equipment destroyed. The attack was spiritual, even if their new home had been found on Bastion.

From every sprawling tower of the Hand, to suburbia in New Carannia would be a blood bath. Every street, every building.

Nirauan would be no easy feat to take.

And they knew it.

"Kilran. You have faced the Sith before," he assured. Impassive eyes scanning the blackened out visor of his second. "You will face them again after today. As will your men." The hooded Black Knight said. "The secrets within the Hand will not fall to savages." His pupils shot up into the corners of his eyes. He could sense their arrival and he turned to look up.

"The home of Imperial Defiance will not fall."
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DARK LORD OF THE SITH | VOICE OF THE MAW
Hand of Thrawn

Lucien Dooku Lucien Dooku


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The Ommin-Class Infiltration shuttle screamed over the skies above Nirauan, inside were no mere would-be saboteurs but Masters of the New Sith Order and the Dark Lord of the Sith himself.

As the sky cried Mawite drop pods and flame engulfed heavily armored carriers, the Dark Voice peered behind the looking glass as chaos reigned in around them. He closed his eyes and let his senses meld into the empyrean, truly feeling the battlefield and the deep connections tethered to the Force around him. The Dark Lord’s eyes opened as the pilot brought the cloaked vessel in as a security net picked up their signal, cracking through the scrambler and with a lucky volley of shots, the Hand of Thrawn’s defenses lit up the vessel.

The shuttle soared, bobbing and weaving at the anti-air defenses honing in on their signal. With savage jolts left and right it was only a matter of time before the inevitable occurred. A small explosion and rock to the shuttle’s core as the starboard side stabilizing wing tore from the trunk, the shuttle spiraled with the pilot doing everything in his power to slow the descent and attempt some measure of stabilization.

The Dark Lord sneered, gripping hold of a nearby handle. Their descent slowed but nothing could fully stop the titanic clash of metal about to occur and with great force the shuttle pummeled into a nearby landing platform, skidding across it’s surface.

Smoke reigned over the platform as a dread quiet took hold, fire ignited and sparks jolted forth. Nothing stirred, only the slight undertones of what seemed to be groaning metal echoed outward into the air. That subtle sound, that burgeoning noise grew upon itself and built up, slowly and slowly. The pressure grew, the noise louder and louder until the metal conclaved in and shot forth, skidding across the platform.

The Dark Voice stepped forth from the wreckage, his black armor and long cloak rolling out from the flames. In his wake the New Sith Order came to, they had arrived on the HAND OF THRAWN.



 

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INVASION OF NIRAUAN
OBJECTIVE I
| GROUND ZERO
OPPOSING | BROTHERHOOD of the MAW
PINGS | DECEASED Erskine Barran DECEASED Erskine Barran | Knight Knight

REMNANTS OF CORRIE.
— 868 ABY, Nirauan's orbit.
A few hours before Maw’s invasion.


The Banshees were on the Tonnant, sappers preparing the vehicles and their equipment, medics verifying once again their medpacks and syringes and grunge commandos servicing their miniguns and putting them on their APCs. Elward Reising — the Kappa Platoon’s Lieutenant — was supervising the work, looking for some errors coming from the soldiers or answering the questions from the newbies. The Great Battle of Coruscant was on everyone’s mind and the Banshees were stressing for the first time of their lives. They were all thinking about the men who had been lost during the battle or their lives before the Banshees, and before the TodHusars, and before the academies. Before all this stuff, they were Anaxsis, against all odds. The commandos weren’t troopers trained since their childhood but, before Anaxes Military Academy, they were humans, working hard in the fields, or at the city, if they were luckier. Most of these men had enlisted after the coup d’etat on Anaxes perpetrated to storm the Galactic Alliance; this event provoked a great nationalistic feeling in their hearts, and they thought they couldn’t do another thing that just defend their country.

Double-Five was in this stream of thought, thinking about his former life and what he did years and years ago, before enlisting. It was...right, eight or so years ago. Stang, it was so close and so far at the same time. He got a look at his chrono.

‘01:53:48:783 REMAINING’

The Sacrement — his squad’s APC — had to be definitely turned off in approximately fifty-four minutes, or the squad would be splitted up by his Lieutenant and he would have to go on another vehicle, whether he wanted it or not.

“Sergeant! Is everythin’ a’right insided the box?” he asked on the comlink.
“Dub-Fi… How many times do have I to tell ya that ya don’t need to scream on the coms? Got it?!”
“Hey! Language commandos! I’m just tryin’ to do my job right now,”
the sapper inside the APC said to Skull — the Sergeant. “If ya can’t do that, just get off the vehicle, sir.”

Skull grumbled.

“Sorry commando, I'll wait here.”

Fi cut his coms. He didn’t need to hear his Sergeant’s complainings and wanted to relax for a couple of minutes.

A few minutes before Maw’s invasion.

Fi took a look at his chrono.

‘00:07:32:551 REMAINING’

“Ahah, they’re not late! I like that, sir!” he said to his Sergeant.
“Don’t lose your control, commando. I just want to come home with ya.”
“Sure, sir. Everythin’ will be oski.”


The sergeant smiled at his soldier, holding the security strap hanging from the APC’s ceiling.
 
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Objective: 2
Allies: BOTM, Jin Kyrel Jin Kyrel
Enemies: NIO/Imperial Knights Saaveina Saaveina
Equipment: Kyrel's Armor, Vader's Bane Lightsaber, Kyrel's Necrochasis

Sentiment was one hell of a drug today. In one life Kyrel Ren had defected from the Sith Empire to join the New Imperial Order gripped by the memory of days past when the First Order ruled. Compelled by spite and nostalgia Kyrel had joined once to see Imperial flags reign across the galaxy, of course that was before his untimely death during one of the battles of the Third Imperial Civil War. What had emerged from the ashes of his death was a monster unlike anyone has seen. Now Kyrel had ascended to the top of the Maw as it's designated Wrath. One charged to bring about death to all enemies of the Maw, and that went without saying of his numerous competitors that stood in the way of his grand design to take control of the Maw itself.

The Master of Ren today was not alone, for following the first meeting among the crumbling ruins of Dathomir, Kyrel met his son for the first time. It was a family reunion from hell as one could say, as Jin was infected by the spirit of a Sith encountered deep within one of Vader's fortresses. In an ironic way the shadow of Vader had hung like a dark curse among the Kyrels for two generations now. Jin while of course had protested at first had arrived with Kyrel upon hearing that the next target was the place where it had began for the elder Kyrel and paved the way for the next generation to follow in a vain pursuit as an Imperial Knight. His oath was broken on Dantooine when he had viciously wounded his own shield brother and had since eluded his fellow Knights. Today would be the day on which that oath was repaid in blood.

Upon reaching the world Kyrel only watched from a window with his son. Both marveling at how the Maw and the New Imperials soon met with warship and starfighter alike from the safety of the Ren Ship the Night Vulture. The Vulture soon departed from the depths of a Maw warship, it's cloaking device activated as it started to descend through the atmosphere and the fortified city below. Both Jin and Kyrel separated into drop pods which would make landing easier when both would be launched into the fray.

The pods launched while AA guns tried to shoot them down, Kyrel stood not affected by fear or any emotion. The only desire that gnawed at Kyrel was his endless hunger for Force Sensitive blood, and to see his enemies crushed. To see the wills of the Avatars fulfilled and the New Order shown a new face of fear. The drop pods descended rapidly close to the Fortress of the NIO. The Fortress was the main target for both of them, as Kyrel was curious to see what the two could accomplish in the middle of combat.

Through the flak the pods dropped on the outskirts of the Fortress hard into the duracrete of a city block. The pod opened up, and a dark shape emerged, crimson saber ignited with a hiss as he was met with a squad of Stormtroopers. His blade slashing against them, while his mask was shed for a moment, his inhuman tongue reaching out to grab hold of a trooper, sinking his teeth into the armor to take a chunk of flesh out, seeping his black liquid into the wound infecting him, while tossing his aside as he screamed.

Kyrel watched, as Jin landed in the next street over with a bang. Looking over more Stormtroopers flooded along his path, raising weapons and looked anxious yet so determined. Kyrel could only smirk as he raised his blade. The path to carnage to his son had only just begun, and then after the destruction of the New Order as they knew it.
 

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M O G R A ' T E K S A
IMPERIAL KNIGHT
Armor | Lightsaber | The Twins
// Maestus Maestus \\

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DO OR DIE - NO IN BETWEEN
To think of the events which had led her to this point. Once she was a dancer onboard a luxury SSD, and now, here she stood on the defensive line of New Carannia, lightsaber slumbering in her gloved grasp, helmet upon her head, steeling her nerves for the inevitable clash of wills as the Brotherhood arrived for them at last. Her ascension to Knighthood had been grueling, torturous, and merciless at the hands of her former Master Marcad Marcad , the presence of whom was entirely absent by her side. She knew why, though she struggled to admit it to herself outright. He was lost to the depths of the Darkness within him, controlled by the piousness of his hatred and emotions, and consumed entirely by their woeful portraiture.

She had endured his excruciating lessons. She had survived the hellacious trials. She had grown beneath his tutelage and had done so entirely out of spite, though as the tides of war swept through the galaxy once more, she started to understand why. War was hell. There was no getting around it. Before, when she was but a dancer and entertainer, she only heard the stories of drunken soldiers who had come to her oasis. She sat with them as they toasted their fallen comrades, she laughed when they laughed, she frowned when they cried, and she comforted them when despair threatened to devour them. Never, had she imagined it would be like this.


Despite her careful meditations prior, the lethan found herself anxious with the impending doom awaiting to crash on their world. She had not faced The Brotherhood of the Maw before, and it was only through her recall to Nirauan that she was to face them at last. Peacekeeping orders had been rescinded unexpectedly, much to her chagrin. Luckily. she did not have to wait long.

The Mawites swarmed the streets from their landing craters, the streets suddenly igniting into outright carnage as chaos unveiled its sinister smile.

Precognitive reflexes snapped her arm upward, igniting her argent blade with a snap-hiss, and she barrage of plasma focused for the stormtroopers beside her was deflected into the duracrete. Beneath her armored bucket, the twi'lek snarled. None were quite within the reach of her saber yet, but that would soon change, and rather than await the crash of lines, the Knight quickdrew her left pistol and took aim, firing burst after burst into the swarm.

Thought forsook her for instinct and The Force flowed through her, tugging empyrean threads to drag her to cover, shielding herself behind a barricade with the collision of artillery into the line. The soldiers hunkered down with her shouted something, but it was lost in the thunderous crash and fizzling ring overwhelming her sense of sound in its wake. She struggled to will herself to stand, fighting the urge to hunker down and hide from the violence. Screams breached her haze, rattling her further. War chants. Rallying shouts. Anguish. Pain. Torment. She felt it through her connection, the slaughter, the carnage. It stabbed its talons into her mind, flaying her thoughts apart to bleed her fear freely into her consciousness.

Yet, it was in the face of fear and anguish that she had been groomed to rise. To thrive. To serve.

Swallowing the stone lodged in her throat, the lethan snapped upright, posturing behind cover to unleash another barrage from her pistol. The stormtroopers by her side pressed forward, establishing their line, and she galloped into stride beside them, vaulting over her cover to seek a target in the oncoming onslaught. She needed to find the rhythm in the chaos, the music she could dance to, the flow. She ducked, she wove, her saber whirred its defensive hurricane, batting and deflecting rounds meant to pierce her armor to scatter them away.

"DIE!"

The voice bellowing from her right turned her swiftly, and just in time to avoid the crash of a mechanized soldier into where she had stood previously. The twi'lek grit her teeth in his looming shadow, bracing herself. "Remember what happened the last time you hesitated? I almost died." The condescending voice nagged at her attention from the back of her mind. "You're a failure, you know that? You can't do better than this?" She wove to the left, avoiding a cleave from crude melee weapon, some sort of twisted amalgamation of club and sword. "You're lucky you're still alive, Mogs. That's all it is, just luck. Tch. Why am I even wasting my time?"

Mogs honed her focus, watching the tension in the viciously scarred hide she could make out, and forced herself to breathe, realizing then she had been holding her breath. 'The rhythm, find the rhythm.' She coached herself, shuttering her steps to avoid another cleave.

"Are we dancing or fighting, little Knight!?" Her foe taunted, belting out a doggish laugh.

"I don't know about you, but I'm fond of foreplay!" she shouted back, twirling from his grasp. Cewr had broken her body, her mind, but he could never break her spirit. He insisted it had been the reason she could never achieve merit, that she could remain mediocre and would die in the trenches somewhere- as forgotten as she had been when he abducted her. She knew better. It was never her body or mind that made her a survivor. It was the burning fires in her gold-plated heart that made her a warrior. She never had to kill before, it was cruel to force her, but now, there was only one option: do or die. "Do me a favor!" the lethan found herself shouting in the throes of her resolution, "Take a hint!" A shove through the unseen staggered the larger man backward a step.
There it was: the opening.

A pirouette of lithe grace cast her blade forth, its silver glow flashing almost faster than the eye could catch. Her cloak fluttered, snapping to catch up with her armored frame as it landed on the opposite side of her opponent's flank. The smell of cauterized flesh filled her nose, burning itself into her memory so deep it made her stomach churn. She didn't turn to look, she knew what she had done.

The Mawite soldier tumbled, his upper half severed from his lower. He screamed, uttering his war chants with his final breaths.

Killing him outright would have been a mercy and she found herself fresh out of mercy to spare.

The twi'lek braced herself for the next clash and sprinted headlong into danger.


 
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Location: Outside Hand of Thrawn
Objective: 2
Equipment: Armor, Crossguard Saber
Allies: BOTM/ Kyrel Ren Kyrel Ren
Enemies: NIO/Imperial Knights: Saaveina Saaveina


To see the sight of where he had once made his oath was something that struck deep into his soul. Jin Kyrel was once a hero of this place, liberated Bastion from this capital and fought in numerous battles. A tear struck his eye from his mask as he only watched his former world be lit up by the numerous warships of both the Maw and New Imperial Order. Jin was not happy by his path, how the dark shadow of his Father had always loomed over him since he was born to an equally monster of a mother who abandoned him. In some twisted way the New Imperial Order was his real family, the Imperial Knights his shield brothers and sisters and since that cursed day within the shadow of Darth Vader's fortress his very soul was corrupted by a Sith. A part of the Sith had came to be him, and Jin knew that his path was made clear.

Some part of him even hoped that meeting his maker would bring some catharsis but it didn't. He was met with cold indifference as he was told that he himself was created to further his monster of a father's own bloodline. Life in itself seemed to have worked against his family's name, even a part of him wondered if the Knights would take him back. Even if they would he would spend the rest of his days in chains, especially after he almost killed Hans and took his saber so he could bleed the crystal. Jin wasn't ready to face those consequences and reconciled that the only way forward was the path of the Sith, and to uncover what the mysterious being known as Solipsis plans were and why his Father was so deeply entangled with the threat he sensed beyond known space.

It was why he was here now, to feed his curiosity and to be with the only family he had now. As was the way of the Ren the past needed to die and the Imperial Knights needed to be destroyed for Jin to be free of the torment that never ceased to end. He showed Kyrel the same indifference as he was met on Dathomir, following Kyrel to a series of drop pods within the Ren ship. The pods dropped, and Jin was not sure of where he would be going, where he was landing or if he would be blown out of the sky. It had all didn't make a difference to him. He had betrayed his family, his oath, his empire and for what he still didn't know. His hand carefully touched the now charred hilt of his saber, even the shining silver hilt had now turned black to reflect the dark corruption of the fallen Knight.

The pod dropped with a large crash and as it opened he saw the large fortress in front of him. All around him, explosions roared with the ion engines of TIE Fighters and the bolts of blasters. He could already sense the fear, and the anger coming over from the next street. No doubt his Father would follow soon behind, in front of him was only one of numerous steps that would lead to the top, and the interior of the Fortress. For a fleeting moment the conflicted former Knight wondered if there was another way, before shaking his head. "No... This is the only way..." He said unhooking the saber from his belt, and started a stride up the steps. Confidant that his Father would follow shortly, he started to project his familiar albeit corrupted signature to his fellow Knights alerting them that he had finally come home.
 
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V E N O M _ S N A K E
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
NIRAUAN

ARMOR | PRIMARY | SECONDARY | MELEE
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The birth of the New Imperial Order, arguably as or more important than the crown jewel of the Order, Bastion. A stronghold to the west of the Order and near the frontiers of the Unknown Regions, it provided strategic value in the war against the Brotherhood of the Maw as a port to export resources and personnel to outer systems of the Order such as Sharb and the Redoubt. It was, however, more than just that. It was an icon, a symbol of might and iron that sparked a flame that ate the oppressive shadow of the Sith Empire, now defunct. The Will of Defiance that continued the legacy of the Imperial, reclaiming their past and controlling their future.

And their future for now over a decade created a bastion of strong Imperialism in the Galaxy, the strong willed triumphing over what seemed to be the impossible.

And now a decadent foe from the shadows of the Unknown Regions poised to be in that similar matter.

Csilla nothing but debris in the void of space.

Lao-Mon a disastrous defeat with Imperial blood lost to the failed operation.

Coruscant sacked and scarred.

Monumental victories for an enemy that were nothing but barbaric zealots, achieving victory that seemed impossible for their caliber. It seemed the impossible was only mocked at time after time; and so it was impossible to believe foreign vessels entering Niruaun's system and nearing its orbit.

Out of all the other planets...

Only the unapologetic brave would invade the birthworld of the New Imperial. Bravery belonging to zealots that cared only for death and destruction, more perverse than the fallen Sith Empire. He was not taking any risks with this enemy. The Army and Navy would do their part against the zealots, he had his own plans far away from the warred streets of Niruaun.

Whether this battle was lost or won, there was one crucial thing to preserve and not let it be touched by the insidious zealots.

The impressive databases that outmatched most in the Galaxy.

"Any and all COMPNOR personnel move out to secure the fortress, give no quarter to those outside of our ranks. Shoot first, ask questions later," he ordered in a secure comm channel with all COMPNOR agents operating within the Hand of Thrawn. Render any Mawites from rampaging the fortress and give enough time to secure the databases which were prized the most.

ALLIES | NIO
ENEMIES | MAW | Letifer
 


Aurelian Sigismund,
High Imperator, Princeps of Vandemar, Grandmaster of the Legions



✠ Objective: I. Ground Zero
✠ Location: Fort Imperium (Starting), Advancing South-West (Ending)
✠ Gear:
Urizen, Mantle, Lancer, Scutum
✠ Assets: 5x Agema Aegis bodyguards (Legion Veterans, armed with Armor, Sarissa, Scutum, Jetpack) (One remaining with the Lord General)
✠ Tag(s):


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Fort Imperium, 1:45:01 minutes till the attack

With clanking boots the six golden armored individuals marched down the hallways of the command center, staff officers moving aside as the gold-clad giants did not seem to hold or break for anyone. Red cloth was flying, servos buzzing with every step. Members of the imperial command were looking and stopping conversations as the group was heading directly for the section where DECEASED Erskine Barran DECEASED Erskine Barran would be found. The leader of the group was a few inches taller than his companions, emitting an aura of grace but also martiality and authority.


"Lord General." The voice of Aurelian Sigismund was not asking a question, it was like a shot perfectly aimed. He was offering a slight bow of his head to the much, much smaller man. He did not care much about the duel, nor was giving it a second thought.

"From the tactical feed I take you have the supreme command and will commit to it here from the command center, is that correct?"

The Zakuulans eyes briefly shifted to the feudal Baron whos hospitality he was enjoying some time ago, the sea-green staring for a mere second before blinkinly returning to the imperial commander.

"What is your take on for the collaborateurs and rebels here in the city? Do you have prisons large enough?" The question was definitely aiming for a 'no' as answer. The High Imperator did not seem like he wanted to make prisoners.

"Before I will move out, heading South-West, I will leave one of my Agema guards with you. Take it as a token of respect and to keep you safe." His view would linger for another moment on the commanding general, awaiting a response, before he turned around again and left the room with the words: "Sol Invictus!"


One of the heavily armed individuals remaining in the room.


✠ ✠ ✠
Two blocks South West of Myrmidon Quarters, 0:02:01 minutes till the attack

Riding on top of one of the tanks which rolled to the front, Sigismund saw several times local rioters in front of him on the street, but as soon as the tank column approached, the ran into alleys and were hiding. The five golden figures on the three front tanks were most likely enough on their own, but a full armored unit was definitely too much. The column was splitting apart according to the Lord General's plan, Aurelian seeked to use the ride for as long as possible to get to the destination he desired. It was no independent move, but he and his four companions would serve the effort best if they were in the middle of it, rather than somewhere in the back.

The spaceport was one of the most likely targets for the Maw to attack. If they indeed wanted to land troops, they needed a big area to actually land enough to overcome the strong defenders. Therefore cutting them off at the very throat was the best option the imperials had to keep combat limited to orbit and avoid as much collateral damage as possible.


"Aegis 1-1 in position." The voice belonged to one of the Agema, they saw the position and and much more on their HUD displays inside their helmets. Sigismund saw the same, but he was not here to handle a com-link. If the Lord General checked the maps he saw where the Vandemarian unit was.

Sirens started to ring and it was already in the HQ channels, the enemy fleet had left hyperspace and swarms of fighters were descending onto the planet as well as a bigger ship. Calculations appeared on his HUD as Aurelian was scanning the path of the ship and was narrowing his eyes upon his evaluation and the memory of Sev Tok.


"All imperial units, prepare for impact and battle! Ad Imperatoram!"



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S A A V E I N A
IMPERIAL KNIGHT
'The Queen of Swords'
Bulwark | Saberstaves | Shield
// Kyrel Ren Kyrel Ren & Jin Kyrel Jin Kyrel \\

Allies Closeby | Ragnar Bloodfist Ragnar Bloodfist Djorn Bline Djorn Bline Keilara Kala'myr Keilara Kala'myr Khroraic
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WARBREAKER

Chaos had come to Nirauan. Without reservation, without remorse, it was The Queen of Swords who greeted the Sith who dared venture into The Hand of Thrawn, her presence serving as an impenetrable wall barricading the forward most entrance, where only the boldest would dare attempt entry. The onslaught within the city overflowed, spilling onto the steps of the vaunted fortress, where stormtroopers held the line at its perimeter, beating back the hordes. Yet here, in the entrance hall, the Imperial Knight held her own, shield slumbering on her back for the sake of dual-wielding her weapons of righteousness, the plasmic edges of which had already drunk the blood of the intruders enough to sate their hunger, but her own was insatiable, and her will would be done until the last of the invaders had been slain.

She was not alone in The Hand, a number of her brothers in arms fought closeby, tangling blades and tempering their wills against their foes. They covered the flanks, the alternative entrances, and watched closely the perimeter to ensure those who slipped through were met only by New Imperial hospitality; indiscriminate elimination. In the entry, the codru-ji whirled her blades, a vaunted kaleidoscope of steady strength, she was a monolith to discipline, unfettered in its fullest to dispatch the baleful infiltrators. Her presence echoed tenfold, a passive aura of courage offered to any who would stand by her side, soothing their aches, quelling their worries, and steadying their hands for the conflicts to come.

Another skillful parry and twist saw the crimson blade clutched by scarred hand scattered to the floor, and in the same second, her lagging saber bit into flesh, carving a killing blow from shoulder to hip. An armored boot thrust outward, titanic strength crumbling the Sith Shadow to the ground some meters away, until his broken body collided with the wall and he moved no longer. The blood-tarnished face of her helmet twisted as the crash of boots grew closer once more and the woman swiftly saw herself to the broken doorway. Her lower pair of hands married her sabers, socketing and twisting them into one staff, whilst the uppermost duo fetched the particle shield from her shoulders and snapped it into deployment, filling the air with the humming tune of its projective span.

The appearance of another trio of black-robed acolytes urged her onward, barreling fast with a shoulder tucked behind her shield, and The Force honing her speed. Saaveina crashed into the trio with wrecking momentum, two arms flicking her shield outward to fling the intruders back down the gilded steps which they had ascended, batting them down as ragdolls she had little interest in toying with further. She poised there, holding fast in her domineering stance, unshaken as blaster fire fizzled against her shield.

Wolfish eyes locked onto the inbound Sith, her attention focusing on a particularly petulant aura she recognized in the vaguest reaches of her memory. It was the stench of a traitor, the fetid waft of the Dark Side, and... unease. Beneath her helmet, the codru-ji flashed a fanged smile, one espousing a challenge for the eons which went unseen but was felt in the thrumming Light resonating from every fibrous tissue of her body. She offered the man, Jin Kyrel Jin Kyrel , but one sentence, her voice projected through the armor she wore to echo down the stairs:


"I am the shield of The Empire, and you will go no further."


 

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