Post by Logan Shivers on Apr 26, 2020 0:30:40 GMT
The J-type 327 Ambassadorial starship “Kashyyk Sunrise” slipped out of hyperspace and into the outer reaches of the Qu’mock system. Its destination? Torize. A planet barely populated due to its hot and mostly barren landscape.
“Comms, contact Qu’mock control and see if you can get us clearance directly to the Torize outpost, CaptainSarn, keep us on a slow inbound trajectory until we hear back.”
The First Officer stood on the bridge overlooking the operation of the small craft, making sure everything went smoothly for his passengers, who were most likely still sleeping at this time.
“Sir, we have been cleared for transit direct to the outpost landing pad. Flight path sent to pilot.”
The First Officer nodded and turned his attention to Captain Sarn,
“What is our ETA Captain?”
“6 hours 43 minutes to touchdown sir”
“Comms, inform the Steward so he can prepare our guests. Captain, the Bridge is yours, I will be back in 6 hours.”
Almost directly below the Bridge, in his luxuriously appointed cabin, High Ambassador Nimm Proga was enjoying his first coffee of the day while reading through his morning reports on a datapad. His breakfast sat to the side, not quite forgotten but a low priority item in his morning ritual.
A discreet and cheerful sounding chime announced somebody at his door and Nimm raised his voice just enough to be heard,
“Come in”
The Steward entered and informed Nimm of the ETA until arrival whils keeping himself busy with re-filling the mostly empty coffee mug on the table, removing the empty carafe and, whilst removing the still untouched and now stone cold breakfast, making his displeasure at the full plate known.
A small grin made its way onto Nimm’s mouth at the now familiar chastisement.
“Thank you Myles. Could you please ensure my full dress uniform is ready for me? I expect I will be needing it about half an hour prior to arrival. Until then, please limit any disruptions so I can get this lot seen to and ensure the remainder of the day is free. Oh, sorry, one more thing, what is local time at Torize Outpost?”
“Your uniform is prepared and ready for you sir, placed it on your trunk an hour ago. Local time at the Outpost is midnight. We will be arriving just before 0700 hours. First meeting with the Krath Ambassador is set for 0830, then you have lunch with the Torize Governor and a closing meeting with both set for 1600 hours. That will be 2216 hours ship time sir.”
Nimm’s lips curled in distaste, he should have taken the time to re-set his daily routine to Torize time but it was too late now, this would be a very long day.
Further down the corridor, Colonel Ralph Repcon was rubbing sleep out of his eyes, having pushed his sleep pattern to try and attune a bit better with local time. Ideally he would not be up for another four hours, but his body clock was damned stubborn. He had given instruction that his team do likewise and hoped that they at least would be able to fully adjust and so be fully awake and energetic when they were needed. Ralph would take the next four hours to go over his route plan for this expedition and making sure that his security measures had not missed anything out.
This planet was a barely populated rock in a system in the fringes of the known galaxy, its population stood at about half a million, most of whom lived within the Outpost city. His concern was that reports had been heard of riots and low level violence recently, supposedly instigated by enemies of the Krath who wanted to try and remove the Krath authority before their grip on the region tightened.
For his part, he would have preferred that they held this conference in one of the many Krath population centres that existed in this part of the galaxy, but he also knew that the politicians had their reasons behind this location. The Krath had been able to bring together a group of 12 mercenary companies with the promise of work, prosperity and some form of union being suggested to build a solid powerbase in these times of trouble. The out of the way location meant it was much easier to keep this from the watchful eye of any large government.
It was not intended as a move against the Empire, just a precautionary measure in what were becoming moore and more unstable political times. There was however no doubt that it could be seen as a direct move against the Empire, in building military might to try and contest the Empire in some way.
To keep things calm and civilised, each delegation was requested to arrive in a non military ship with an ambassadorial escort of no more than 12 lightly armed troops. Ralph had therefore put together a squad of veteran AMC soldiers that included two special agents from the ISS.
Ralph did not concern himself with the politics of what was going on, his responsibility was the security so his mind was on that, only permitting enough of the political nuances to infiltrate his awareness as were needed for him to accomplish his task.
He himself would not be part of the escort squad, he would be in the command centre of the starship, in constant contact with both Nimm and the Sergeant leading the escort squad. Discreet sensory equipment carried by the squad would help to provide him with additional information on their surroundings and he would be able to have clear overview without the distractions of being there himself. It also meant that he was not too far away and would have ample excuse as the commander of this expedition to make his way to the conference if the need dictated, placing an additional body on hand.
Although he had brought his heavy armour with him, Ralph did not wear it, only made sure it was ready to be used if required. Walking around in the ship and trying to sit down in chairs in that suit of armour was NOT comfortable…. And he had known some chairs collapse under the weight!
He slipped into his casual AMC uniform and pulled on his favourite Rancor leather jacket on top, then made his way to the small, but very well appointed mess hall to find out what was available for breakfast.
Just over six hours later, Ralph was inspecting his men and providing their final briefing before they landed. Nimm entered the room in his full Ambassadorial dress uniform and Ralph snapped him a salute, as did his men. Nimm returned it,
“Ah, at ease Colonel, I am a political officer here, not military. Courtesies done, lets get to work. What is your assessment and plan please?”
“Good morning High Ambassador. Latest reports from planet side show some minor civilian unrest but nothing that should provide any trouble to us. The other delegates are on site at the Embassy building and our host has provided a shuttlebus for us, along with 12 swoop bikes for our troops to use as outrider escorts. We will check them all over on landing, one of my men is an expert engineer and the ISS agents will sweep them for any hidden devices. Once we get the all clear, you will be able to board thet shuttlebus and head on over to your appointment.“
“Very good, sounds like you have it all in hand. Let me know when you are ready for me to board.”
Nimm returned to his cabin, realising he had time to do some more of his endless work while he waited. Despite the expert pilot landing the starship with precision, Nimm still felt the slight bump that signified their landing.
Ralph accompanied his engineer and the two ISS agents down the ramp and inspected the provided vehicles. The shuttlebus driver stood to attention with a staff of two, all very well presented in Krath uniform, civilian, not military, but who really knew? The trio permitted the inspection without question and once it was done, Ralph let his men take positions with the swoop bikes whilst he went and got Nimm. He noted Trigor Saxon standing at the top of the ramp. Trigo was a Cerean and a trusted member of Ralph’s inner circle, both a personal friend and long time military companion. Although he was part of this trip, he was not part of the squad escorting Nimm so his presence on the ramp although unexpected, was not a surprise.
“Yes Saxon, you here to see the troops off?”
Ralph noticed the careful study Trigo was making of the Ambassadorial party, but also noticed that his gaze wondered much further afield, taking in their surroundings.
“Sir, I would advise you instruct the escorts to run a wide perimeter, don’t let them cluster by the shuttlebus. I have been reading the reports of the civil unrest and there is a pattern emerging that concerns me. This could escalate to a much more dangerous level very quickly if that pattern continues.”
Ralph trustetd Trigo in such things. His complicated Cerean brain could see things from so many angles, it was hard to keep up with him at times, but if he was taking this seriously, then Ralph knew to trust him.
“I am going to collect the Ambassador, could you instruct the men as you feel best Saxon?”
“Sir.”
A quick salute and Trigo was trotting down the ramp, whilst Ralph went ahead to the Ambassadors suite. He was met halfway down the corridor, the ships Steward having beat him to notifying Nimm and the two turned to walk side by side towards the shuttlebus.
“Nimm, one of my men has shown some concern over the civil unrest, spotting a pattern of escalation and organisation that he believes could resort in significantly raised threat levels. He is currently appraising the escort of his concerns and advising them accordingly.”
“And you trust this mans opinion over yours?”
“He is a Cerean, and somebody I have worked with for many years, I have learned to trust his judgment in such matters.”
“Noted Ralph, thanks for the heads up.”
The two had adopted a much more familiar, unofficial interaction in their brief trip to the shuttlebus, but once back in the surroundings of their troops and the Krath staff, returned to their fomralities. They saluted each other and Nimm climbed aboard, the Trio of Krath following him in as well as two troops from the escort squad. This left ten outriders, five of which stayed in close and five who had already distanced themselves, providing wide arcing scouting and cover for the shuttlebus as per Trigo’s instructions.
Nimm and Trigo watched the vehicles move off, only turning to walk up the ramp when they disappeared from view behind a series of tall buildings. They slowly made their way up the ramp and towards the upper deck where the Command room had been established when Nimm got knocked to the floor in a collision with a Chiss who had just come sprinting round the corner.
“MALOGAAN!! WHAT THE HELL…..”
“SIR, the Embassy just sent out a distress call, they are under siege by a huge mob, an armed mob, reports of explosions coming in….”
“CALM DOWN!!, now get back in there and call back the Ambassador.”
“Comms are trying to get hold of them sir, but cant get a response, just static, some sort of jamming is in operation.”
Ralph swore, this was not good.
“You two, get hold of Lomax and suit up, looks like we are going out. Be in the Command room in 15, full combat rescue kits.”
The two rushed off and Ralph entered the Command room to find the comms operator still trying to raise the Ambassadors party.
“Comms, can you get a signall off planet or is there a full scale jamming operation in effect?”
“We appear to be in the clear sir, it seems local to the location of the Ambassador….”
Ralph swore again, more evidence of a clear trap.
“Contact High Command and ISS immediately, provide them a full brief. Tell them that as it stands currently we are counting this as an active attack and status of Ambassador Nimm is in question. This is a code Black situation.”
“Yes sir”
Ralph was already on his way out of the door and running to his cabin. He had his jacket off and hurled it onto the chair as soon as he entered, picking up his heavy armour set to put on over his uniform. He was VERY glad for his organisation, having set it up ready to deploy, instead of leaving it packed in its crate which would have taken at least 15 minutes to unpack and sort out.
Ralph returned to the command room to find his three men already there and running checks over their weapons.
“Update?”
“Sir, High Command has been contacted, conference call is just clearing encryption now, should be live any second… ah, here we go.”
The holoscreen came to life showing Proconsul Max Ameeno Baca, Proconsul Shri Baca and Director Ichiru Hanabusa. The image was full of static fuzz due to the distances involved, but the audio was clear enough.
“Colonel Repcon, we have been appraised of the situation, anything to add?”
Ralph checked with the Command room staff just in case something had occurred in the minutes he had been absent.
“No sir, not as yet.”
Max was looking concerned and replied after a slight delay,
“Ok, we are conscious that you need to move out so will keep this quick, Our nearest assets are at least six days out. General Oquan Tangin Bacca has is being contacted and will head your way with a fast response unit. Director Hanabusa is liaising with the Krath to see what assets they are bringing in, but my concern is that their security may be compromised, considering the situation.”
Shri interrupted
“Sorry Max, let me just check something…. Ah, yes, well… we may have something a bit closer… I do believe that Logan took me up on a recommended hunting ground in the Minos sector, I believe he has taken his R&R leave on thet planet of Yelsain.”
Max raised an eyebrow at his cousin, knowing full well that this was no coincidence, Shri would not have any reason to send Logan THAT far out for a hunting holiday other than to have someone on hand for any emergency… once again his over-cautious nature was proving itself very useful. A short pause ensued while Shri attempted to make contact with Locan.
Ichiru used the silence to make his own enquiries.
“Colonel, I have tried to make contact with my agents to no avail, are you aware of their status?”
“Not at this time Director, both were detailed to the escort squad as planned, but there is some jamming operation in effect that is blocking contact. Comms has just informed me that the Embassy has also gone quiet now, most likely due to the jamming. We will be making our way to the last known location of High Ambassador Proga just as soon as this briefing is done. In fact,”
He turned to his three men,
“Malogaan, head on out and begin scouting see how far you can get before the jamming envelope but once you have discovered it, do not enter, report back and wait. Lomax, follow and provide cover.”
He turned back to the holo,
“As soon as we have any update we will report back in. Depending on thee situation I will try to take out the jamming as a priority.”
The holo was suddenly joined by the grinning visage of Logan, clearly in high spirits,
“Hey looks like a party, everyone is here, wha….”
Logan squinted and his dmeanour changed, he had obviously taken note of the somewhat sombre demeanour of the other attendies to the holo conference.
“Something bad gone down?”
Max took over the conference again,
“General Shivers, we are aware you are on leave, but a situation has arisen that requires emergency intervention. We need manpower on the ground at Torize Outpost city. I understand you are in the adjoining sector?”
Logan looked away from the holo for a moment and when his attention returned he spoke to all.
“Just instructed the boys and girls to pack up, we will be en-route within ten minutes. Best ETA is… 18 hours, 51 minutes. Sorry we cant do anything faster than that.”
“It will do Logan, get moving, we will ensure you get a full briefing once you are on the move.”
Logans image flicked out of the holo without another word. Ralph felt good that he had extra bodies heading his way, but hoped that by that time the situation was under control, if it was not… it meant things had really gone to hell out there.
“Sirs…”
“Yes Colonel, go, there is nothing more to be said at present, report in with any updates as soon as you have them.”
Ralphs small unit was kitted out in a fairly similar way, ELG’s on hip holsters, Bowcaster and an A280 along with spare power packs in a riflebag. Ralph carried a Nightstinger in addition for long range sniping. Kwyntehst Malogaan was the scout so he tended to prefer the somewhat lighter body armour favoured by his fellow scouts, he also tended to augment his kit with a variety of knives for close, quiet work. Saxon and Lomax used AMC issued powersuits as their preference and Lomax liked to carry a light repeating rifle as well, using it to spray enemies with multiple bolts and provide covering fire. It was a much weaker weapon, but its high burst fire pattern created fantastic cover fire even if it did little damage.
Ralph checked his comms unit, built into the heavy armour helmet that he wore and satisfied that it was fully functional and that he had open comms with both his Command room and his three men, he motioned to Saxon and they jogged down the ramp. They made their way towards the far end of the landing pad and then onto the first street that took them in the direction of the last known location of the shuttlebus.
“Malogaan, we are all moving now, status report?”
“Sir, think I just found the jamming envelope, three blocks in from the landing pad. I am on the roof of a high rise block of flats, got a clear view three or four blocks ahead, everywhere looks eerily quiet, but what I CAN see is a small column of smoke sir, northwest of my location.”
Ralph had noted with some concern the complete lack of civilians around, the city was like a ghost town…. It was morning but not that early? This was beginning to get more and more concerning..
“How far off do you think that column of smoke is?”
“I would guess at about a mile sir, not much wind so it is going pretty much straight up.”
“Ok, set a comm relay booster at your location and return to street level, meet you there. Lomax you there too?”
“Sitting pretty in the lobby area sir, already cleared the building and making sure nobody sneaks up on Malogaan.”
The four were soon together in the lobby of the building and quickly made their plans. Using the information from the J-type and now their comms relay on the roof of this building, they needed just one more point of triangulation to work out the location of the jamming device. Although going in to find out what had happened to their people was paramount, going in blind was stupid and would only put all of them in danger. Lomax and Malogaan headed of further east towards another high rise building they had spotted and placed a further sensor relay there. Once active Ralph used his suits in built systems to do the triangulation.
“Ok, got the estimated location, Malogaan, you and Lomax head straight there from your location, me and Saxon will make our way from here, it will pincer the location and hopefully catch any traps or defensive position out. Command, be aware that we will be out of contact for a short time. If we cannot locate and disable the jammer we will come back out of the area in half an hour to report. If you have not heard back in 45 minutes maximum, lift off and get some altitude, await further orders in flight, or the arrival of General Shivers.”
With that Ralph and Saxon headed towards the area they expected to find the jamming device, Saxon taking point, checking all doorways, side streets, but amazingly all appeared to be completely clear of any movement at all.
About half an hour later Ralph was sitting on the 21st floor of a skyscraper, Nightstinger at the ready, using its scope to scour the two blocks ahead of him. The jamming signal was coming from one of the two compounds ahead, a shambling workers compound with an assortment of sheds and small buts, and a building site, full of scaffolding but not much more than foundations so far. He could see Malogaan sneaking from shadow to shadown, Lomax covering his back as they made steady progress towards the workers compound. A flicker of motion drew Ralphs eye and he concentrated on the area he had seen it… THERE – a figure crouching on the roof of one of the small huts, he was hiding behind a parapet so neither of his men on the ground would likely see him. He zoomed his scope right in and could see that the man was armed. Ralph was not willing to take chances, the man had no uniform and was armed in a combat zone. He took the shot, hitting the man in the left temple. His target crumpled. Saxon, who had been scanning the same area with binoculars nudgd him and pointed to another figure on the scaffolding. Ralph located him and zoomed in, again, armed and this one was taking aim at his men. Ralph took him out with a head shot.
So far so good, their presence had not been expected it would appear. Ralph saw Malogaan enter one of the huts, moments later a body toppled out of the window, it was not Malogaan. Lomax rushed in as well, then two more bodies came flying out, one from the same window and the second through the door. Both of these were alive so Ralph aimed and shot one, aimed at the second but by that time Lomax had shot him several times with his ELG’s.
They were fast coming to the point that no report back to the ship would mean it took off when suddenly his suits comms unit threw him a load of static, crackled, hissed and came to life.
“Sir, Malogaan here, you read me? Jamming device is down, mind clearing the externals so we can make a run back to alpha? Gong to make it go bang.”
Ralph breathed a sigh of relief and swapped to his A280. He and Saxon laid down some heavy fire around the compound, the weapons at the limit of their range but it caused enough chaos to allow Malogaan and Lomax to make a clear run back to the skyscraper they had designated as Alpha. Seeing they were in the clear, Ralph sent Saxon down to join them and prepare to move on, while he contacted the command room.
Nothing. Silence. He tried again but got nothing but static.
He changed channel and got assaulted with a wall of noise, he had gone to the emergency frequency and could now hear what appeared to be the remnants of the Ambassadorial escort squad in some sort of heavy battle.
“This is Colonel Repcon, High Ambassador, Sergeant Simms?”
The chaotic communication on the channel slowly quietened and Ralph heard a haggard voice reply,
“Ralph? Boy are we glad to hear your voice. Simms is down, as are most of the escort team. Got four of them holed up with me in the wreckage of the shuttlebus taking heavy fire, could do with some help.”
Ralph took a deep breath, that was Nimm. He sounded stressed but at least alive. He winced on hearing that two thirds of the escort squad were down already. The mystery of the silence from the Command room would have to wait, they needed to get to Nimm.
“On our way Nimm, can you hit a locator beacon, we are guessing your location by the smoke column, but Command has now gone silent so cannot pin point you.”
Shortly a bleep announced his suit picking up a beacon, clear IFF identifier and Ralph was shocked to see it was nearly two miles distant. He passed the coordinates to his men.
“Malogaan, Lomax, don’t wait for me, double time it, stay sharp, sounds very lively and there will no doubt be some sort of perimeter set up, they must be aware of us now that the jammer is down. Saxon, trail them at a distance and I will take rear guard. MOVE”
Half an hour later, the four found themselves facing fire from a barricade consisting of several overturned vehicles across the narrow street they were on. With tall buildings either side, the only cover they had was two doorways either side of the road so they had taken one each.
“Malogaan, circle back down that alley we passed back there, see if you can find an alternative way around, on three we will cover you. One, two, GO.”
Ralph, Saxon and Lomax rained down fire with a mixture of Bowcaster, light repeating rifle and a pair of ELG’s. The hail of blaster bolts covered Malogaans retreat back up the street. It was not long before he reported back in.
“Sir, the alley was a deabut got to the rooftop of the building to the left of that barricade, downed two idiots with guns who were playing at guarding the position, these cant be proffessionals… anyway, take cover, going to chuck a couple of grenades directly on their heads.”
“Got it, Lomax, Saxon, we charge soon as they blow, Malogaan come straight back down once you chuck them, I have no doubt they will have somebody covering that rooftop from another position.”
Two almost simultaneous explosions rocked the makeshift barricade and Ralph was charging in, using his heavier battle armour to help cover the other two. His power assisted leap took him to the top of the first toppled vehicle and he blasted around ahead of him with both ELG’s. The second Lomax made it up Ralph jumped down and continued to fire from the lower position, shooting at anything that moved. Lomax did likewise from the top of the vehicle and Saxon was soon joining him.
A further detonation ahead took out a second, much smaller barricade made from piled up office furniture, then a fourth shattered windows and blew in the door of a house to the right. Ralph looked up to find Malogaan descending to the street, having used his jetpack to make the journey, rather than taking the stairs back down.
“Good going Malogaan, now stop showing off. You see anything up ahead whilst you were up there?”
“We got at least twenty heading our way from that side road on the left, saw some shadows over to the far right too, think we got to move sir before we get hit. We make a rush and I spotted a defensible location 200 yards down this road, left hand side, looks like a small walled compound, perhaps a power generator os some sorts.”
“Good, lead on, boys, quick pace, lets go.”
Malogaan had been right on the money, a high security walled power generator compound lay abandoned and they were able to get in the open door and slam it shut behind them, piling up everything they could find behind it to block anyone else following them in.
“Malogaan, Saxon, take the catwalks, see what you can see. Nimm? You still there, gone very quiet.”
“Sure Ralph, your antics have distracted our attackers it seems and we have a breather. I remember seeing that compound your scout described, if you can keep the attention on you, think we might be able to get out of this hole and make our way to join you. This bus is so full of holes now it is barely serving as cover and there is nothing much more substantial around here. We need to move soon.”
“Nimm… Sir, you are not wearing armour, they could tear you to shreds. Stay put, we will be there soon as we can.”
Blaster fire and explosions erupted just then and Ralph headed up to the catwalks himself to see what was going on. They appeared to be under siege but what could only be described as a mob. The idiots had piled into the street infront of the building and were being fired upon by his men, as well as taking a couple of grenades amongst them.
The carnage was complete within minutes and a somewhat bemused Ralph led his men back out of the compound and closer to their target.
“Something is not right… this lot are amateurs and yet this take down appears to otherwise be well organised… “
“Ralph, the driver of the bus had a secure encrypted link with the embassy, from what I could make out before the line went dead, it is a mix of proffesionals and the local population being used as goons for distraction. The heavies are at the Embassy and what we have here is just high numbers of civilians with guns weapons. Not sure who the target is, but I DID hear that a team was making its way here to finish us off as they want no witnesses. That was nearly an hour ago, I expect they will be here soon.”
“Ok, thanks Nimm, we are about ten minutes out barring any further resistance. At present just encountering light pockets of fire.”
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Ralph was looking across a city square at the wreckage of a shuttlebus. Looked like the driver had done a good job on keeping the passengers alive, it was a mess and had come down hard right into a huge hedgerow that formed the far border of the square.
The open ground was not good news however as there was absolutely no cover between their location and the bus and worse still, Ralph could hear incoming from behind them.
“Malogaan, skirt right, Saxon, left. Me and Lomax are going to go straight down the middle and draw attention, find the shooters and try to cover us or take them out if you can.”
Ralph let his two men get some distance and then he and Lomax ran ahead, using their bowcasters to fire wildly into the surrounding buildings, keeping their aim high so as not to hit their own men skirting the square.
As soon as Nimm and the four remaining defenders spotted Ralph and Lomax running at them, they too provided as much cover fire as they could. The square became a manic and very dangerous place for a short time with blaster bolts flying everywhere.
Ralph took a couple of light blaster hits which his armour was able to shrug off pretty much, only leaving two scortch marks as evidence. Lomax took one hit and it knocked him sideways a little, his armour not being as resilient, but that saved him from taking a headshot and the two dove for the limited cover that the shuttlebus provided.
Panting with the effort that running in heavy armour had taken, especially after a near three mile hike across hostile territory, Ralph contacted Malogaan.
“We got in, hows it looking?”
“I think I got two in windows but cant be sure, I am right at the back of the square, managed to duck behind the hedgerow whilst they were busy shooting at you.”
Saxon joined in.
“I definatetly got one on a rooftop and two more down a side street. In a doorway right now and got line of sight both back where we came from and down the road leading north. The news is not great folks. We got what looks like two armed and armoured squads running up from the north and five or six heavies back where we came from.”
“Nimm, you five be able to manage a mad run? Thinking our only out is to blast our way back to that walled compound and re-assess, cant hold up here.”
“Sure, lead on.”
“Malogaan, Saxon, put as much fire down that north facing road as you can, don’t stop for nothing. Lomax, me and you take the lead, we take a straight run back where we came from, Nimm, you five follow right on our heels and blast like mad into the buildings around us, don’t worry too much about aim, we need cover and to stop them sniping at you, got it?”
Nim smiled and raised two ELG’s. He had two more tucked into holsters and his four guards were similarly armed, looked like they had gathered weapons from the fallen. One of the guards even had a K-43!
“Where the hell did you get THAT from?... never mind, use it, the amount of damage that will do to the buildings will helpt to discourage snipers. Aim for walls above and below windows if you can. Everyone ready?.... GO”
The four remaining escort guards flanked Nimm and the seven of them exited the shuttlebus like demented banshees. At the same time Saxon and Malogaan fired down the north road, Saxon adding in his four grenades for good measure. The sudden onslaught caught the incoming enemy squads by surprise and caused a large number of casualties, but most importantly it paused their fast advance and made them duck for cover in adjoining buildings.
Ralph and Lomax concentrated their fire dead ahead at the incoming heavies and having not used theirs yet, threw a grenade each as far ahead as they could, adding the explosions to the confusion of their charge. As soon as they were clear of the square, they spliti and took cover against the walls of the buildings on either side of the street. Nimm and three of his escort continued to fire ahead, trying to take out the remaining heavies but Ralph, Lomax and the escort guard with the K-43 concentrated their ranged weapons backwares, creating some much needed cover for Malogaan and Saxon to join them.
Just as the two made it back, Ralph heard a scream behind him, he turned to find one of the escorts down, a head shot having taken him out. Spotting the shooter both Ralph and the K-43 weilding guard opened fire.
The heavy weapon took out the corner of the building that the shooter was using for cover and in the process took him out too, the heavy chunks of masonry smashing into him proving too much for his armour.
With their combined firepower the now eight strong team made it back to the walled compound and barricaded themselves in.
Ralph leaned against the wall for a second, trying to regain his breath. If there was one thing that heavy armour suits were NOT designed for, it was for sprinting… it was damned exhausting. Amongst huge gulps of hair, he began to hand out instructions.
“Malogaan, Saxon, take the remainder of the escort squad and go up on the walls, I want eyes on what is going on. Take spare power packs with you but don’t waste shots, we may need them yet. Keep the K-43 handy but don’t use it unless them come at us with vehicles. Lomax, take a look around here, see if you can find anything we can ugnal, don’t like the fact that Command is still not responding, we may have other jamming in action.”
He took his helmet of for a short time, and Nimm approached, now down to two ELG’s and looking as exhausted as Ralph felt.
“Thanks Ralph, that was one hell of a rescue. Sounds like we can forget about that embassy visit huh? Should we not just get out of here and back onto our ship?”
“Yeah, we could have taken the risk of going straight back to the ship… but not sure most of us could do another three mile or so run at any great speed… and we simply don’t know what the enemy has up their sleeve… they may have armoured vehicles and cut us off at the next intersection, might have ambush waiting… we don’t know enough. Besides, haven’t heard from Command in well over an hour, their line is just dead… so don’t even know if the ship is a safe retreat point. Here at least we have a defensive position and can make a stand.”
“A stand for how long? I looked at our asset distribution before I left the ship, we have nobody within 8 or 9 days from here at best.”
“Actually…. Seems Logan is hunting on aplanet not so far away with some of his new clerics… training them up I guess… believes he can be here much faster but we lost contact with him too as his comms were linked to the Command room on the ship.”
“Logan eh? Have not seen him in some time… guess he will be paying a visit as Legacy Guardian if he is with clerics… but not sure what good clerics will be here. Having said that …. He is quite likely mad enough to come in on his own… really never know just how to take that one, he is complicated.”
“Yup, I am just glad he is on our side… “
Ralph was interrupted by the return of Lomax.
“Sir, got some good news. The generator complex has a powerful communications relay built into it, needs a bit of fixing, but looks like there is more than enough spare parts around in the stock rooms, going to go back and get working on it, will let you know how I get on.”
“Good man Lomax.”
Nimm got up from his crouch against the wall.
“I’ll come too soldier, used to be quite good at making things work, can you use a spare pair of hands?”
“Yes sir!! Will make things much easier for sure.”
Ralph watched the two disappear into the building complex and put his helmet back on. The blaster fire was fairly steady so he guessed his men were busy on the wall and so he should not lessen their effectiveness by not being able to communicate easily with them over their group comms.
He listened in for a while, satisfied with the way Saxon appeared to have distributed their meagre manpower. One man on each of the four walls was about as good as it would get for now, but it was good to see they had managed to keep things secure with no major drama so far.
“Saxon, use me as your reserve, if one of you gets taxed too hard, move me in before anyone else moves from their position. Until then, I’m going on a walk around see what I can see and take some pot shots. What you seeing out there so far?”
“Looks like we made enough of a mess to discourage the rabble from coming anywhere near us, so at the moment we only got a small number of pro’s trying to find a way past our defences. They keep on pushing on all sides, testing for our weak points.”
“Ok, then I will make my presence on the wall random so they cant plan out where my additional fire power may be at any one time. Going up wet wall first. Keep me updated on anything new.”
Ralph climbed up the metal stairs and onto the catwalk on the west wall. He could see Malogaan near the centre, busy sniping at targets on the ground. He used his suits sensors to run scans on the buildings opposite and stopped when he noticed two heat signatures making their way to a fifth floor window. He got his Nightstinger ready and found the window in his scope. He waited patiently until he saw the muzzle of a rifle appear and aimed just above it and fired. The heat signature appeared to have been thrown back a few paces so he must have hit one of them. He kept his one eye on the scope, the other looking through the helmets sensor view. A trick that could make most get very confused, but Ralph was an accomplished sniper and the dual view did not phase him. He saw the heat signature of the second body come closer to the window. It was standing right in the centre of it but further back so his scope sight could not see him. Never mind. Using the two views he lined up a shot ant took it. The second body fell backwads, both appeared to remain still. He ran his scan again and found nothing new, so he scanned the streets. Looked like Malogaan had it in hand so he went back down the stairs and up on the western wall. Here one of the remaining escort squad members was busy firing his ELG’s repeatedly towards the street. Just as he got to the top of the stairs he heard his strained voice on the comms.
“Got multiple inbounds on the west side…”
He trailed off as he noted Ralph joining him. Bowcaster now in hand Ralph leant over the wall parapet and found a multitude of targets to fire at. His additional fire power made them stutter in their advance, but Ralph could see at least ten attackers still active and determined to find a way to the wall. He took his final grenade and put a hand on the soldier at his side to stop him shooting for a second. The brief cease fire had the desired effect, the enemy madea arun for the wall and Ralph could now see two of them had grapples in hand.
His grenade went over and detonated a few seconds later, followed by a rain of blaster bolts from both Ralph and the soldier. That seemed to take care of that one for now. He patted the man on his shoulder as he got up to move on,
“Keep it up trooper, we got this.”
This pattern of skirmishing went on for some hours, Ralph lost count if truth be told. But on a brief rest break from his constant movement from one place to another, he heard his radio crackle with a new channel.
“Sir, Lomax here, patched you in to the compound comms unit, its working, the high Ambassador knows his stuff! You should be able to make direct contact with General Shivers now if you have his channel.”
Ralph wasted no time, he punched in the channel on his comms unit number pad and waited. He heard the encryption sequence screeching, then a series of blips and beeps and finally…. The visor display on his suit showed a blinking green message. ‘secure network established’
“Colonel Repcon reporting in, message for General Shivers.”
A calm and amost unemotional female voice replied.
“Colonel Repcon, this is the Scythe, Legacy Guardian Shivers has been notified of your contact, please wait.”
Ralph let go of a breath he did not know he had been holding. Just knowing that they were back in contact with somebody was such a relief. It did not take long and the raspy and now familiar voice snapped in his ear.
“RALPH!! Good to hear from you… when we lost contact with the Kashyyk Sunrise I thought you were gonners… but, lucky for you I love a good fight so we are still on our way, don’t worry. Who you got with you? Give me a sitrep.”
Ralph outlined their current status first, then provided as much detail as he could about what had occurred since their last contact, just before he had left the Command room aboard the Kashyyk Sunrise. He noted whilst doing so that it had gone dark, he truly had not realised it was that late on in the day, they must have been battling it out in the compound for much longer than he realised.
After he finished there was a long silence and Ralph was beginning to wonder if they had lost connection again when Logan replied.
“I am pushing this tub as fast as I can, but I cant get there much faster than my previous ETA. You are simply going to have to hold out for another few hours. We should be dropping into the system in less than two hours… Going to try and do it as close to the planet as we dare, cut off some of that sublight travel time. Was there a lot of space traffic when you arrived?”
Ralph thought back and his honest answer was that he did not know. He checked with his men and Nimm was the one who came up with the information.
“The area is pretty clear, one or two freighters in orbit but not much else when we arrived. Logan… did High Command make contact with the Krath?”
“AH, Nimm! Glad you could make it to our little party High Ambassador. Yes, and their bureaucracy is delaying any response… I am not strictly speaking authorised to enter the system… but hey, stuff them, I got an invite from you folks so that is good enough for me and mine. Going to go brief my team, keep the line open, my comms officer will stay on the channel until we get there so shout up with any updates. Oh… and if you can give coordinates to your exact location in the city… that would be yummy too.”
Ralph shook his head… had he really called this a party? Truly things were a bit loose in that sentients head… but hey, he was on his way to help so who was he to judge? It takes all sorts to make this galaxy the crazy place it is….
As it turned out, the communications being re-established was not Nimms only gift to their situation. Whilst in the process of fixing the unit, he had realised that the power generators in this compound powered the entire city so he had shut down the power grid, disconnecting all buildings from the supply. In a scout of the various store rooms they found a large number of flood lights and they mounted them on the wall, pointing them on the surrounding roads and buildings making their surroundings crystal clear in the dark and at the same time blinding their enemy with the blinding lights.
Every now and again one of the spots would be taken out by a sharp shooter, but it would be quickly replaced by what seemed to be a never ending supply… clearly enough storers to light up the city in an emergency.
As the night rolled on the enemy attacks became scarce, just the odd blaster bolt here and there to test their readiness, but no concentrated effort at all to try and take the compound. Ralph suspected that they were just being kept penned in whilst the terrorists, or whatever they were busied themselves with the Embassy. There was a flickering orange glow in thehorizon which he guessed was the Embassy burning, or at least buildings in that area of the city.
They were taking it in turns to keep watch, making sure that they got a little bit of rest where they could. There was little doubt amongst them that an attack would come, the question was when, and the constant tension was palpable in the air.
Malogaan sat himself on the ground next to Ralph, closing his eyes for a moment.
“What you think sir, they playing with us?”
“No, they are just keeping us here whilst they sort out whatever they are doing at the Embassy… but I also think they will wait until daybreak so that our flood lights don’t give us such an advantage. With the rest of the city in blackout, we have made things harder for them and bought us some time… it was a stroke of genius from the High Ambassador.”
“Makes sense… guess we got a couple more hours till sunrise… roughly?”
“Yeah, seems about right.”
It took just over four hours for the attack to come. Whoever the enemy was they had waited until the sun was high enough in the sky to eliminate the advantage of the spotlights and they had not spent that time sitting around. When they attacked they came from all sides and in numbers that proved almost immediately impossible for the small force to beat back.
Within 20 minutes of manic, heavy battle they had been forced to retreat into the generator building itself. Thankfully, Ralph had thought ahead and it was already prepared as their “last stand” staging area, barricades, boarded up windows, even a couple of booby traps.
Seven of them made it in, having lost one more of the escort squad members in the first moments of the enemy onslaught. Nimm himself was wounded as he took a blaster shot to his thigh, Ralph’s armour had been given a real pounding and was barely holding together as he had used himself as a shield to help ensure as many of his team could get into their fall back position. Malogaan had lost his helmet, a blaster shot smashed it right off his head and Lomax had five or six heavy scortch marks on his armour.
All in all, none of them looked in top condition, but the grit and determination showed in them all. Just as the enemy had made their attack, they had all heard Logan over the open comms channel announcing their arrival in system and so it would only be a matter of a couple of hours before help arrived… they just had to hold out.
The building they had chosen only had two sides to defend, the other two being flat up against the power generators and without any entry points. It stood just a bit taller than the walls and adjacent generator buildings .
Malogaan and Nimm were on the roof, using the high vantage to snipe at attackers coming over the walls, Nimm had also taken the K-43 and kept it ready, they had seen a lightly armoured vehicle of sorts earlier on and he suspected it would be used to ram into the compound at some point. He wanted to be ready for it and damage it enough so that it could not then simply ram into their building.
Ralph and the two remaining escort guards were on the second floor, also sniping at the enemy, whilst Lomax and Saxon remained on the ground floor, defending the entry points and ambushing attackers as they came in.
The fighting on the ground floor was the bloodiest. The enemy came in twos and threes to begin with, but seeing that fail they charged in mass, taking axes to the door and smashing their way into windows at five different locations on the ground floor. Ralph and hes AMC companions on the second floor did their best to strafe the attackers as they rushed in, but over a dozen made it inside. Four were instantly eliminated, having picked a booby trapped room to break into. An explosion rocked the building and they died instantlyl A cloud of dust and debris blasted through the ground floor making visibility poor, but this played in Saxons favour as he saw two silhouettes outlined against the brightness of a window, but his opponents could see nothing inside but dust and darkness. He took them out with ELG blasts. Lomax took out three more in similar manner and the two retreated into the corridor with the staircase. One attacker followed them and got blasted by both of them, going down hard.
That left three from the initial attack, but they knew more would be coming. The two retreated to the first floor and waited in ambush for the attackers to try the stairs, whilst keeping their ears alert in case they tried to break in via the boarded up windows, or for alerts from the soldiers above them with better view.
The sound of blaster fire was non stop now, the building vibrated with the violence of it. Up on the roof, Nimm heard what he was waiting for before he saw it. He swapped his borrowed A280 with the K-43 and took aim at the gateway of the complex just as the gates shook with a heavy blow, then a second, third…. On the sixth blow they finally gave way enough to let the attacking vehicle push its nose in. Nimm blasted at it, getting in three shots before it reversed back out of sight. It came in again, hitting the gates and managing to break in to the compound, but Nimm was already firing, hitting the vehicle repeatedly. The power pack ran out so he quickly replaced it and continued to fire. The vehicle veered sharply to the right and smashed into one of the power generator buildings and lay still. Nimm swapped weapons again and returned to aiming at soldiers, whilst keeping his eye out for the vehicle to move, or for another one to show up.
The attackers stopped pressing in all of a sudden, seeming to want to regroup. They moved out of line of sight either back outside of the walled compound or behind the generator buildings. An ominous quiet descended on the scene of the battle.
“What are they up to now? This lot are cowards… had they fully committed to the attack they would have had us… all these delays only play in our favour. Malogaan, you see anything up there? Saxon, Lomax, status?”
“First floor still secure sir, they did not make it up.” Lomax reported back in.
“Minor injury to my damned foot” grumbled Saxon.
“Sir…. They all still out there, just hiding. Could do with one more of ou up here though, more angles of fire than on the floors below as we can see over the power gens too.
“Ralph, I have to agree, its not such a great hight from here to the power gen roof, they could come up and try an attack, with only tow of us we wont hold it off.”
That was Nimm. He may be a diplomat, but Ralph knew that the man had his fair share of battle experience… he was a mercenary after all.
“Ok, I’m coming up to join you, want a better vantage anyway.”
Just as Ralph got to the roof the enemy made its second charge against the building. They were met with heavy strafing from above, but pushed through, despite their losses. The ground floor was now uncontested but as soon as they hit the stairwell Lomax and Saxon laid down such a barrage of fire that nobody made it up that confined route. The attackers retreated again, another dozen or so dead left behind.
“Lomax, how are you two doing for power packs?”
“Ok sir, got two fresh each and about halfway through the current ones. We got full packs on the Bowcaster and repeating rifle but just using the ELG’s for now.”
Ok, hold there as long as you can, you and Saxon stay put, everyone else on the roof. I don’t think they will try that again, it simply has to be over the rooftops now…”
Ralph positioned everyoneso that he had two covering each adjoining roof, one at the front and himself at the rear, in a position that could also fire on either adjoining roof as required, but keep an eye out behind the building.
“Here they come!”
A somewhat stressed call from one of the remaining escort guards. The enemy had found its way onto the adjoining rooftops and attacked from both sides, whilst also sending in a small force front and rear to attack the ground floor.
“Ignore the ones on the ground, Saxon and Lomax will have to handle them. Concentrate on the rooftops.”
Ralph joined in with his firepower, using his bowcaster one handed to shower one side, whilst taking pot shots with his A280 at the other. Accuracy was down to almost zero, but he wanted to create havoc, force the oncoming attackers to the ground in fear, slow them down. Once that tactic was worn out, he concentrated on tight strafing fire from the bowcaster. They seemed to be keeping the enemy at bay but then he heard Malogaan and his heart sank.
“Aaaah crap…. Sir…. We got a jailspeeder inbound”
Ralph ran over to Malogaans position and saw it coming, the heavily armed vehicle was coming in at full speed. He saw the tell tale flashes of light that signified it had just fired its concussion grenades.
“TAKE COVER”
A number of things happened at once, or so it seemed to Ralph. Just as he threw himself to the ground, he saw the jailspeeder blow apart in a bloom of blue white light. The concussion from that explosion rocked the building at the same time as the four concussion grenades detonated. One had veered off to the right, landing right in the middle of a cluster of attackers and so eliminating them. The other three however hit their rooftop in a deafening series of explosions. The shockwave lifted Ralph up and almost threw him off the roof entirely, Malogaan was lucky enough to have a duracrete air duct to hide behind and the blast blasted it apart, covering him with rubble.
Nimm had been thrown to the ground by two of his guard, putting themselves as shields between him and the danger. As he was not wearing armour, the blasts would have torn him apart but his life was saved by their sacrifice. He still received enough of a hit to put him out cold though.
The last guard was far enough to not get shredded by the explosions, but the shockwave hit him and he flew off the rooftop and landed on the ground, five floors below.
All that happened in a matter of seconds, then heavy laser fire tore into the adjoining rooftops and a huge shadow flew over head and on into the distant horizon, where it gracefully curled back around.
“Somebody call for back up?! Sorry could not have come any faster boys, but hold on tight.”
On the next fly over a dozen or so figures jumped from the unmistakable shape of the KR-48 luxury liner. Ralph lay on his back and stared up…. Logan had come in a damned pleasure ship?!! He watched in a detached haze as what he could now see was a squad of Diathim flew down and landed on the roof, taking control of it and eliminating the very few remaining enemies. He heard Logan blithering away in his ear, but could not bring himself to concentrate. He took his helmet off and staggered to his feet, stumbled over to Malogaan and mechanically began to dig him out of the rubble.
“Its ok sir… leave that to us, you sit down and let the doc see to you. We got this now, jobs done.”
Over an hour later, Logan walked into the compound and surveyed the carnage. He could not believe the amount of dead, both inside and outside the walls. Saxon greeted him, being the only one not on the roof of the main building still.
“General… you folks were just in time…”
“Looks like you had it more or less in hand soldier. That Jailspeeder back there was the only danger the way I see it… sorry we did not hit it before it launched those grenades. Now.. where is my mate Nimm and that clever sod Ralph?”
“err… the Colonel and High Ambassador are on the rooftop sir”
“I swear they stayed up there just to make me climb stairs… bet it hasn’t even got a lift huh?”
Logan did not wait for an answer, he walked past the somewhat bemused soldier and headed on up the stairs. Spotting Ralph sitting against the parapet, armour off and covered in bacta patches, Logan headed over and squatted down in front of him.
“How you doing soldier?”
Ralph concentrated his gaze on Logan and his eyes slowly drew into focus. He began to speak but as soon as Logan heard the word ‘report’ he stopped him.
“Ralph, I am on leave. Not interested in a report right now soldier. It can wait until we get you back home. Relax.”
He stood to leave but Ralph finally managed to get some semblance of a clear mind and asked.
“The J-type?”
Logan cast his eyes down.
“Sorry Ralph, blown to pieces. Looks like they attacked it, along with every other ship in the landing pad.”
He did leave then, finding his way to Nimm who appeared to still be unconscious. One of his Diathim was on her knees nest to him, injecting him with who knew what.
“How is he?”
“not sure sir, touch and go.. if you could…”
Logan crouched and put his hand on Nimms forehead. The large hand almost made it look like he was holding a babies head. He muttered under his breath, drawing on the force and pushing some healing into Nimms prone body. Logan felt the improvement almost instantly and when Nimms eyes fluttered open he smiled broadly.
“Good to have you back mr High Ambassador sir. Would not want you to go off and die on me… Max might want me to take your place ans smooch the politicians eh? I prefer hunting you see.”
Logan let Nimm lie and got up to survey the rest of the carnage. Nobody else needed his help, the casualties had been high. He pulled a sour face. For all his bravado, for all his bluster, he HATED to see allies dead. If only that damned tub could have moved a bit faster… oh well, what was done was done, and it was clear to Logan that the resistance this lot had put up was fierce.
“Connie, get this lot onto the hover transports. Tersen reports that nothing ut ash remains at the Embassy and I really don’t fancy sticking around for a lot of very angry Krath to turn up asking questions. Lets get out of here and let the diplomats and politicians sort through the carnage.”
Logan went back downstairs and found Saxon, now sitting next to Lomax by the gates to the compound.
“You two be able to gude that second hover transport to find any AMC bodies? I like to take our own back when I can.”
They jumped up, tired, but eager to help in such a task.
“Yes sir, that we can do”
“Good, couple of my lot are coming with you, just in case there are any more surprises out ther. Take care, but don’t take too long gents, this could become a very hot zone again very quickly so we need to get off the rock, clear?”
“Yes sir”
Almost two hours later, the Scythe was on a steep climb through the atmosphere, its crew busy making their new guests as comfortable as possible in preparation for a long ride home.
Just after the ship jumped into hyper, a small armada of Krath warships appeared in the system, making full speed for the stricken planet.
“Comms, contact Qu’mock control and see if you can get us clearance directly to the Torize outpost, CaptainSarn, keep us on a slow inbound trajectory until we hear back.”
The First Officer stood on the bridge overlooking the operation of the small craft, making sure everything went smoothly for his passengers, who were most likely still sleeping at this time.
“Sir, we have been cleared for transit direct to the outpost landing pad. Flight path sent to pilot.”
The First Officer nodded and turned his attention to Captain Sarn,
“What is our ETA Captain?”
“6 hours 43 minutes to touchdown sir”
“Comms, inform the Steward so he can prepare our guests. Captain, the Bridge is yours, I will be back in 6 hours.”
Almost directly below the Bridge, in his luxuriously appointed cabin, High Ambassador Nimm Proga was enjoying his first coffee of the day while reading through his morning reports on a datapad. His breakfast sat to the side, not quite forgotten but a low priority item in his morning ritual.
A discreet and cheerful sounding chime announced somebody at his door and Nimm raised his voice just enough to be heard,
“Come in”
The Steward entered and informed Nimm of the ETA until arrival whils keeping himself busy with re-filling the mostly empty coffee mug on the table, removing the empty carafe and, whilst removing the still untouched and now stone cold breakfast, making his displeasure at the full plate known.
A small grin made its way onto Nimm’s mouth at the now familiar chastisement.
“Thank you Myles. Could you please ensure my full dress uniform is ready for me? I expect I will be needing it about half an hour prior to arrival. Until then, please limit any disruptions so I can get this lot seen to and ensure the remainder of the day is free. Oh, sorry, one more thing, what is local time at Torize Outpost?”
“Your uniform is prepared and ready for you sir, placed it on your trunk an hour ago. Local time at the Outpost is midnight. We will be arriving just before 0700 hours. First meeting with the Krath Ambassador is set for 0830, then you have lunch with the Torize Governor and a closing meeting with both set for 1600 hours. That will be 2216 hours ship time sir.”
Nimm’s lips curled in distaste, he should have taken the time to re-set his daily routine to Torize time but it was too late now, this would be a very long day.
Further down the corridor, Colonel Ralph Repcon was rubbing sleep out of his eyes, having pushed his sleep pattern to try and attune a bit better with local time. Ideally he would not be up for another four hours, but his body clock was damned stubborn. He had given instruction that his team do likewise and hoped that they at least would be able to fully adjust and so be fully awake and energetic when they were needed. Ralph would take the next four hours to go over his route plan for this expedition and making sure that his security measures had not missed anything out.
This planet was a barely populated rock in a system in the fringes of the known galaxy, its population stood at about half a million, most of whom lived within the Outpost city. His concern was that reports had been heard of riots and low level violence recently, supposedly instigated by enemies of the Krath who wanted to try and remove the Krath authority before their grip on the region tightened.
For his part, he would have preferred that they held this conference in one of the many Krath population centres that existed in this part of the galaxy, but he also knew that the politicians had their reasons behind this location. The Krath had been able to bring together a group of 12 mercenary companies with the promise of work, prosperity and some form of union being suggested to build a solid powerbase in these times of trouble. The out of the way location meant it was much easier to keep this from the watchful eye of any large government.
It was not intended as a move against the Empire, just a precautionary measure in what were becoming moore and more unstable political times. There was however no doubt that it could be seen as a direct move against the Empire, in building military might to try and contest the Empire in some way.
To keep things calm and civilised, each delegation was requested to arrive in a non military ship with an ambassadorial escort of no more than 12 lightly armed troops. Ralph had therefore put together a squad of veteran AMC soldiers that included two special agents from the ISS.
Ralph did not concern himself with the politics of what was going on, his responsibility was the security so his mind was on that, only permitting enough of the political nuances to infiltrate his awareness as were needed for him to accomplish his task.
He himself would not be part of the escort squad, he would be in the command centre of the starship, in constant contact with both Nimm and the Sergeant leading the escort squad. Discreet sensory equipment carried by the squad would help to provide him with additional information on their surroundings and he would be able to have clear overview without the distractions of being there himself. It also meant that he was not too far away and would have ample excuse as the commander of this expedition to make his way to the conference if the need dictated, placing an additional body on hand.
Although he had brought his heavy armour with him, Ralph did not wear it, only made sure it was ready to be used if required. Walking around in the ship and trying to sit down in chairs in that suit of armour was NOT comfortable…. And he had known some chairs collapse under the weight!
He slipped into his casual AMC uniform and pulled on his favourite Rancor leather jacket on top, then made his way to the small, but very well appointed mess hall to find out what was available for breakfast.
Just over six hours later, Ralph was inspecting his men and providing their final briefing before they landed. Nimm entered the room in his full Ambassadorial dress uniform and Ralph snapped him a salute, as did his men. Nimm returned it,
“Ah, at ease Colonel, I am a political officer here, not military. Courtesies done, lets get to work. What is your assessment and plan please?”
“Good morning High Ambassador. Latest reports from planet side show some minor civilian unrest but nothing that should provide any trouble to us. The other delegates are on site at the Embassy building and our host has provided a shuttlebus for us, along with 12 swoop bikes for our troops to use as outrider escorts. We will check them all over on landing, one of my men is an expert engineer and the ISS agents will sweep them for any hidden devices. Once we get the all clear, you will be able to board thet shuttlebus and head on over to your appointment.“
“Very good, sounds like you have it all in hand. Let me know when you are ready for me to board.”
Nimm returned to his cabin, realising he had time to do some more of his endless work while he waited. Despite the expert pilot landing the starship with precision, Nimm still felt the slight bump that signified their landing.
Ralph accompanied his engineer and the two ISS agents down the ramp and inspected the provided vehicles. The shuttlebus driver stood to attention with a staff of two, all very well presented in Krath uniform, civilian, not military, but who really knew? The trio permitted the inspection without question and once it was done, Ralph let his men take positions with the swoop bikes whilst he went and got Nimm. He noted Trigor Saxon standing at the top of the ramp. Trigo was a Cerean and a trusted member of Ralph’s inner circle, both a personal friend and long time military companion. Although he was part of this trip, he was not part of the squad escorting Nimm so his presence on the ramp although unexpected, was not a surprise.
“Yes Saxon, you here to see the troops off?”
Ralph noticed the careful study Trigo was making of the Ambassadorial party, but also noticed that his gaze wondered much further afield, taking in their surroundings.
“Sir, I would advise you instruct the escorts to run a wide perimeter, don’t let them cluster by the shuttlebus. I have been reading the reports of the civil unrest and there is a pattern emerging that concerns me. This could escalate to a much more dangerous level very quickly if that pattern continues.”
Ralph trustetd Trigo in such things. His complicated Cerean brain could see things from so many angles, it was hard to keep up with him at times, but if he was taking this seriously, then Ralph knew to trust him.
“I am going to collect the Ambassador, could you instruct the men as you feel best Saxon?”
“Sir.”
A quick salute and Trigo was trotting down the ramp, whilst Ralph went ahead to the Ambassadors suite. He was met halfway down the corridor, the ships Steward having beat him to notifying Nimm and the two turned to walk side by side towards the shuttlebus.
“Nimm, one of my men has shown some concern over the civil unrest, spotting a pattern of escalation and organisation that he believes could resort in significantly raised threat levels. He is currently appraising the escort of his concerns and advising them accordingly.”
“And you trust this mans opinion over yours?”
“He is a Cerean, and somebody I have worked with for many years, I have learned to trust his judgment in such matters.”
“Noted Ralph, thanks for the heads up.”
The two had adopted a much more familiar, unofficial interaction in their brief trip to the shuttlebus, but once back in the surroundings of their troops and the Krath staff, returned to their fomralities. They saluted each other and Nimm climbed aboard, the Trio of Krath following him in as well as two troops from the escort squad. This left ten outriders, five of which stayed in close and five who had already distanced themselves, providing wide arcing scouting and cover for the shuttlebus as per Trigo’s instructions.
Nimm and Trigo watched the vehicles move off, only turning to walk up the ramp when they disappeared from view behind a series of tall buildings. They slowly made their way up the ramp and towards the upper deck where the Command room had been established when Nimm got knocked to the floor in a collision with a Chiss who had just come sprinting round the corner.
“MALOGAAN!! WHAT THE HELL…..”
“SIR, the Embassy just sent out a distress call, they are under siege by a huge mob, an armed mob, reports of explosions coming in….”
“CALM DOWN!!, now get back in there and call back the Ambassador.”
“Comms are trying to get hold of them sir, but cant get a response, just static, some sort of jamming is in operation.”
Ralph swore, this was not good.
“You two, get hold of Lomax and suit up, looks like we are going out. Be in the Command room in 15, full combat rescue kits.”
The two rushed off and Ralph entered the Command room to find the comms operator still trying to raise the Ambassadors party.
“Comms, can you get a signall off planet or is there a full scale jamming operation in effect?”
“We appear to be in the clear sir, it seems local to the location of the Ambassador….”
Ralph swore again, more evidence of a clear trap.
“Contact High Command and ISS immediately, provide them a full brief. Tell them that as it stands currently we are counting this as an active attack and status of Ambassador Nimm is in question. This is a code Black situation.”
“Yes sir”
Ralph was already on his way out of the door and running to his cabin. He had his jacket off and hurled it onto the chair as soon as he entered, picking up his heavy armour set to put on over his uniform. He was VERY glad for his organisation, having set it up ready to deploy, instead of leaving it packed in its crate which would have taken at least 15 minutes to unpack and sort out.
Ralph returned to the command room to find his three men already there and running checks over their weapons.
“Update?”
“Sir, High Command has been contacted, conference call is just clearing encryption now, should be live any second… ah, here we go.”
The holoscreen came to life showing Proconsul Max Ameeno Baca, Proconsul Shri Baca and Director Ichiru Hanabusa. The image was full of static fuzz due to the distances involved, but the audio was clear enough.
“Colonel Repcon, we have been appraised of the situation, anything to add?”
Ralph checked with the Command room staff just in case something had occurred in the minutes he had been absent.
“No sir, not as yet.”
Max was looking concerned and replied after a slight delay,
“Ok, we are conscious that you need to move out so will keep this quick, Our nearest assets are at least six days out. General Oquan Tangin Bacca has is being contacted and will head your way with a fast response unit. Director Hanabusa is liaising with the Krath to see what assets they are bringing in, but my concern is that their security may be compromised, considering the situation.”
Shri interrupted
“Sorry Max, let me just check something…. Ah, yes, well… we may have something a bit closer… I do believe that Logan took me up on a recommended hunting ground in the Minos sector, I believe he has taken his R&R leave on thet planet of Yelsain.”
Max raised an eyebrow at his cousin, knowing full well that this was no coincidence, Shri would not have any reason to send Logan THAT far out for a hunting holiday other than to have someone on hand for any emergency… once again his over-cautious nature was proving itself very useful. A short pause ensued while Shri attempted to make contact with Locan.
Ichiru used the silence to make his own enquiries.
“Colonel, I have tried to make contact with my agents to no avail, are you aware of their status?”
“Not at this time Director, both were detailed to the escort squad as planned, but there is some jamming operation in effect that is blocking contact. Comms has just informed me that the Embassy has also gone quiet now, most likely due to the jamming. We will be making our way to the last known location of High Ambassador Proga just as soon as this briefing is done. In fact,”
He turned to his three men,
“Malogaan, head on out and begin scouting see how far you can get before the jamming envelope but once you have discovered it, do not enter, report back and wait. Lomax, follow and provide cover.”
He turned back to the holo,
“As soon as we have any update we will report back in. Depending on thee situation I will try to take out the jamming as a priority.”
The holo was suddenly joined by the grinning visage of Logan, clearly in high spirits,
“Hey looks like a party, everyone is here, wha….”
Logan squinted and his dmeanour changed, he had obviously taken note of the somewhat sombre demeanour of the other attendies to the holo conference.
“Something bad gone down?”
Max took over the conference again,
“General Shivers, we are aware you are on leave, but a situation has arisen that requires emergency intervention. We need manpower on the ground at Torize Outpost city. I understand you are in the adjoining sector?”
Logan looked away from the holo for a moment and when his attention returned he spoke to all.
“Just instructed the boys and girls to pack up, we will be en-route within ten minutes. Best ETA is… 18 hours, 51 minutes. Sorry we cant do anything faster than that.”
“It will do Logan, get moving, we will ensure you get a full briefing once you are on the move.”
Logans image flicked out of the holo without another word. Ralph felt good that he had extra bodies heading his way, but hoped that by that time the situation was under control, if it was not… it meant things had really gone to hell out there.
“Sirs…”
“Yes Colonel, go, there is nothing more to be said at present, report in with any updates as soon as you have them.”
Ralphs small unit was kitted out in a fairly similar way, ELG’s on hip holsters, Bowcaster and an A280 along with spare power packs in a riflebag. Ralph carried a Nightstinger in addition for long range sniping. Kwyntehst Malogaan was the scout so he tended to prefer the somewhat lighter body armour favoured by his fellow scouts, he also tended to augment his kit with a variety of knives for close, quiet work. Saxon and Lomax used AMC issued powersuits as their preference and Lomax liked to carry a light repeating rifle as well, using it to spray enemies with multiple bolts and provide covering fire. It was a much weaker weapon, but its high burst fire pattern created fantastic cover fire even if it did little damage.
Ralph checked his comms unit, built into the heavy armour helmet that he wore and satisfied that it was fully functional and that he had open comms with both his Command room and his three men, he motioned to Saxon and they jogged down the ramp. They made their way towards the far end of the landing pad and then onto the first street that took them in the direction of the last known location of the shuttlebus.
“Malogaan, we are all moving now, status report?”
“Sir, think I just found the jamming envelope, three blocks in from the landing pad. I am on the roof of a high rise block of flats, got a clear view three or four blocks ahead, everywhere looks eerily quiet, but what I CAN see is a small column of smoke sir, northwest of my location.”
Ralph had noted with some concern the complete lack of civilians around, the city was like a ghost town…. It was morning but not that early? This was beginning to get more and more concerning..
“How far off do you think that column of smoke is?”
“I would guess at about a mile sir, not much wind so it is going pretty much straight up.”
“Ok, set a comm relay booster at your location and return to street level, meet you there. Lomax you there too?”
“Sitting pretty in the lobby area sir, already cleared the building and making sure nobody sneaks up on Malogaan.”
The four were soon together in the lobby of the building and quickly made their plans. Using the information from the J-type and now their comms relay on the roof of this building, they needed just one more point of triangulation to work out the location of the jamming device. Although going in to find out what had happened to their people was paramount, going in blind was stupid and would only put all of them in danger. Lomax and Malogaan headed of further east towards another high rise building they had spotted and placed a further sensor relay there. Once active Ralph used his suits in built systems to do the triangulation.
“Ok, got the estimated location, Malogaan, you and Lomax head straight there from your location, me and Saxon will make our way from here, it will pincer the location and hopefully catch any traps or defensive position out. Command, be aware that we will be out of contact for a short time. If we cannot locate and disable the jammer we will come back out of the area in half an hour to report. If you have not heard back in 45 minutes maximum, lift off and get some altitude, await further orders in flight, or the arrival of General Shivers.”
With that Ralph and Saxon headed towards the area they expected to find the jamming device, Saxon taking point, checking all doorways, side streets, but amazingly all appeared to be completely clear of any movement at all.
About half an hour later Ralph was sitting on the 21st floor of a skyscraper, Nightstinger at the ready, using its scope to scour the two blocks ahead of him. The jamming signal was coming from one of the two compounds ahead, a shambling workers compound with an assortment of sheds and small buts, and a building site, full of scaffolding but not much more than foundations so far. He could see Malogaan sneaking from shadow to shadown, Lomax covering his back as they made steady progress towards the workers compound. A flicker of motion drew Ralphs eye and he concentrated on the area he had seen it… THERE – a figure crouching on the roof of one of the small huts, he was hiding behind a parapet so neither of his men on the ground would likely see him. He zoomed his scope right in and could see that the man was armed. Ralph was not willing to take chances, the man had no uniform and was armed in a combat zone. He took the shot, hitting the man in the left temple. His target crumpled. Saxon, who had been scanning the same area with binoculars nudgd him and pointed to another figure on the scaffolding. Ralph located him and zoomed in, again, armed and this one was taking aim at his men. Ralph took him out with a head shot.
So far so good, their presence had not been expected it would appear. Ralph saw Malogaan enter one of the huts, moments later a body toppled out of the window, it was not Malogaan. Lomax rushed in as well, then two more bodies came flying out, one from the same window and the second through the door. Both of these were alive so Ralph aimed and shot one, aimed at the second but by that time Lomax had shot him several times with his ELG’s.
They were fast coming to the point that no report back to the ship would mean it took off when suddenly his suits comms unit threw him a load of static, crackled, hissed and came to life.
“Sir, Malogaan here, you read me? Jamming device is down, mind clearing the externals so we can make a run back to alpha? Gong to make it go bang.”
Ralph breathed a sigh of relief and swapped to his A280. He and Saxon laid down some heavy fire around the compound, the weapons at the limit of their range but it caused enough chaos to allow Malogaan and Lomax to make a clear run back to the skyscraper they had designated as Alpha. Seeing they were in the clear, Ralph sent Saxon down to join them and prepare to move on, while he contacted the command room.
Nothing. Silence. He tried again but got nothing but static.
He changed channel and got assaulted with a wall of noise, he had gone to the emergency frequency and could now hear what appeared to be the remnants of the Ambassadorial escort squad in some sort of heavy battle.
“This is Colonel Repcon, High Ambassador, Sergeant Simms?”
The chaotic communication on the channel slowly quietened and Ralph heard a haggard voice reply,
“Ralph? Boy are we glad to hear your voice. Simms is down, as are most of the escort team. Got four of them holed up with me in the wreckage of the shuttlebus taking heavy fire, could do with some help.”
Ralph took a deep breath, that was Nimm. He sounded stressed but at least alive. He winced on hearing that two thirds of the escort squad were down already. The mystery of the silence from the Command room would have to wait, they needed to get to Nimm.
“On our way Nimm, can you hit a locator beacon, we are guessing your location by the smoke column, but Command has now gone silent so cannot pin point you.”
Shortly a bleep announced his suit picking up a beacon, clear IFF identifier and Ralph was shocked to see it was nearly two miles distant. He passed the coordinates to his men.
“Malogaan, Lomax, don’t wait for me, double time it, stay sharp, sounds very lively and there will no doubt be some sort of perimeter set up, they must be aware of us now that the jammer is down. Saxon, trail them at a distance and I will take rear guard. MOVE”
Half an hour later, the four found themselves facing fire from a barricade consisting of several overturned vehicles across the narrow street they were on. With tall buildings either side, the only cover they had was two doorways either side of the road so they had taken one each.
“Malogaan, circle back down that alley we passed back there, see if you can find an alternative way around, on three we will cover you. One, two, GO.”
Ralph, Saxon and Lomax rained down fire with a mixture of Bowcaster, light repeating rifle and a pair of ELG’s. The hail of blaster bolts covered Malogaans retreat back up the street. It was not long before he reported back in.
“Sir, the alley was a deabut got to the rooftop of the building to the left of that barricade, downed two idiots with guns who were playing at guarding the position, these cant be proffessionals… anyway, take cover, going to chuck a couple of grenades directly on their heads.”
“Got it, Lomax, Saxon, we charge soon as they blow, Malogaan come straight back down once you chuck them, I have no doubt they will have somebody covering that rooftop from another position.”
Two almost simultaneous explosions rocked the makeshift barricade and Ralph was charging in, using his heavier battle armour to help cover the other two. His power assisted leap took him to the top of the first toppled vehicle and he blasted around ahead of him with both ELG’s. The second Lomax made it up Ralph jumped down and continued to fire from the lower position, shooting at anything that moved. Lomax did likewise from the top of the vehicle and Saxon was soon joining him.
A further detonation ahead took out a second, much smaller barricade made from piled up office furniture, then a fourth shattered windows and blew in the door of a house to the right. Ralph looked up to find Malogaan descending to the street, having used his jetpack to make the journey, rather than taking the stairs back down.
“Good going Malogaan, now stop showing off. You see anything up ahead whilst you were up there?”
“We got at least twenty heading our way from that side road on the left, saw some shadows over to the far right too, think we got to move sir before we get hit. We make a rush and I spotted a defensible location 200 yards down this road, left hand side, looks like a small walled compound, perhaps a power generator os some sorts.”
“Good, lead on, boys, quick pace, lets go.”
Malogaan had been right on the money, a high security walled power generator compound lay abandoned and they were able to get in the open door and slam it shut behind them, piling up everything they could find behind it to block anyone else following them in.
“Malogaan, Saxon, take the catwalks, see what you can see. Nimm? You still there, gone very quiet.”
“Sure Ralph, your antics have distracted our attackers it seems and we have a breather. I remember seeing that compound your scout described, if you can keep the attention on you, think we might be able to get out of this hole and make our way to join you. This bus is so full of holes now it is barely serving as cover and there is nothing much more substantial around here. We need to move soon.”
“Nimm… Sir, you are not wearing armour, they could tear you to shreds. Stay put, we will be there soon as we can.”
Blaster fire and explosions erupted just then and Ralph headed up to the catwalks himself to see what was going on. They appeared to be under siege but what could only be described as a mob. The idiots had piled into the street infront of the building and were being fired upon by his men, as well as taking a couple of grenades amongst them.
The carnage was complete within minutes and a somewhat bemused Ralph led his men back out of the compound and closer to their target.
“Something is not right… this lot are amateurs and yet this take down appears to otherwise be well organised… “
“Ralph, the driver of the bus had a secure encrypted link with the embassy, from what I could make out before the line went dead, it is a mix of proffesionals and the local population being used as goons for distraction. The heavies are at the Embassy and what we have here is just high numbers of civilians with guns weapons. Not sure who the target is, but I DID hear that a team was making its way here to finish us off as they want no witnesses. That was nearly an hour ago, I expect they will be here soon.”
“Ok, thanks Nimm, we are about ten minutes out barring any further resistance. At present just encountering light pockets of fire.”
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Ralph was looking across a city square at the wreckage of a shuttlebus. Looked like the driver had done a good job on keeping the passengers alive, it was a mess and had come down hard right into a huge hedgerow that formed the far border of the square.
The open ground was not good news however as there was absolutely no cover between their location and the bus and worse still, Ralph could hear incoming from behind them.
“Malogaan, skirt right, Saxon, left. Me and Lomax are going to go straight down the middle and draw attention, find the shooters and try to cover us or take them out if you can.”
Ralph let his two men get some distance and then he and Lomax ran ahead, using their bowcasters to fire wildly into the surrounding buildings, keeping their aim high so as not to hit their own men skirting the square.
As soon as Nimm and the four remaining defenders spotted Ralph and Lomax running at them, they too provided as much cover fire as they could. The square became a manic and very dangerous place for a short time with blaster bolts flying everywhere.
Ralph took a couple of light blaster hits which his armour was able to shrug off pretty much, only leaving two scortch marks as evidence. Lomax took one hit and it knocked him sideways a little, his armour not being as resilient, but that saved him from taking a headshot and the two dove for the limited cover that the shuttlebus provided.
Panting with the effort that running in heavy armour had taken, especially after a near three mile hike across hostile territory, Ralph contacted Malogaan.
“We got in, hows it looking?”
“I think I got two in windows but cant be sure, I am right at the back of the square, managed to duck behind the hedgerow whilst they were busy shooting at you.”
Saxon joined in.
“I definatetly got one on a rooftop and two more down a side street. In a doorway right now and got line of sight both back where we came from and down the road leading north. The news is not great folks. We got what looks like two armed and armoured squads running up from the north and five or six heavies back where we came from.”
“Nimm, you five be able to manage a mad run? Thinking our only out is to blast our way back to that walled compound and re-assess, cant hold up here.”
“Sure, lead on.”
“Malogaan, Saxon, put as much fire down that north facing road as you can, don’t stop for nothing. Lomax, me and you take the lead, we take a straight run back where we came from, Nimm, you five follow right on our heels and blast like mad into the buildings around us, don’t worry too much about aim, we need cover and to stop them sniping at you, got it?”
Nim smiled and raised two ELG’s. He had two more tucked into holsters and his four guards were similarly armed, looked like they had gathered weapons from the fallen. One of the guards even had a K-43!
“Where the hell did you get THAT from?... never mind, use it, the amount of damage that will do to the buildings will helpt to discourage snipers. Aim for walls above and below windows if you can. Everyone ready?.... GO”
The four remaining escort guards flanked Nimm and the seven of them exited the shuttlebus like demented banshees. At the same time Saxon and Malogaan fired down the north road, Saxon adding in his four grenades for good measure. The sudden onslaught caught the incoming enemy squads by surprise and caused a large number of casualties, but most importantly it paused their fast advance and made them duck for cover in adjoining buildings.
Ralph and Lomax concentrated their fire dead ahead at the incoming heavies and having not used theirs yet, threw a grenade each as far ahead as they could, adding the explosions to the confusion of their charge. As soon as they were clear of the square, they spliti and took cover against the walls of the buildings on either side of the street. Nimm and three of his escort continued to fire ahead, trying to take out the remaining heavies but Ralph, Lomax and the escort guard with the K-43 concentrated their ranged weapons backwares, creating some much needed cover for Malogaan and Saxon to join them.
Just as the two made it back, Ralph heard a scream behind him, he turned to find one of the escorts down, a head shot having taken him out. Spotting the shooter both Ralph and the K-43 weilding guard opened fire.
The heavy weapon took out the corner of the building that the shooter was using for cover and in the process took him out too, the heavy chunks of masonry smashing into him proving too much for his armour.
With their combined firepower the now eight strong team made it back to the walled compound and barricaded themselves in.
Ralph leaned against the wall for a second, trying to regain his breath. If there was one thing that heavy armour suits were NOT designed for, it was for sprinting… it was damned exhausting. Amongst huge gulps of hair, he began to hand out instructions.
“Malogaan, Saxon, take the remainder of the escort squad and go up on the walls, I want eyes on what is going on. Take spare power packs with you but don’t waste shots, we may need them yet. Keep the K-43 handy but don’t use it unless them come at us with vehicles. Lomax, take a look around here, see if you can find anything we can ugnal, don’t like the fact that Command is still not responding, we may have other jamming in action.”
He took his helmet of for a short time, and Nimm approached, now down to two ELG’s and looking as exhausted as Ralph felt.
“Thanks Ralph, that was one hell of a rescue. Sounds like we can forget about that embassy visit huh? Should we not just get out of here and back onto our ship?”
“Yeah, we could have taken the risk of going straight back to the ship… but not sure most of us could do another three mile or so run at any great speed… and we simply don’t know what the enemy has up their sleeve… they may have armoured vehicles and cut us off at the next intersection, might have ambush waiting… we don’t know enough. Besides, haven’t heard from Command in well over an hour, their line is just dead… so don’t even know if the ship is a safe retreat point. Here at least we have a defensive position and can make a stand.”
“A stand for how long? I looked at our asset distribution before I left the ship, we have nobody within 8 or 9 days from here at best.”
“Actually…. Seems Logan is hunting on aplanet not so far away with some of his new clerics… training them up I guess… believes he can be here much faster but we lost contact with him too as his comms were linked to the Command room on the ship.”
“Logan eh? Have not seen him in some time… guess he will be paying a visit as Legacy Guardian if he is with clerics… but not sure what good clerics will be here. Having said that …. He is quite likely mad enough to come in on his own… really never know just how to take that one, he is complicated.”
“Yup, I am just glad he is on our side… “
Ralph was interrupted by the return of Lomax.
“Sir, got some good news. The generator complex has a powerful communications relay built into it, needs a bit of fixing, but looks like there is more than enough spare parts around in the stock rooms, going to go back and get working on it, will let you know how I get on.”
“Good man Lomax.”
Nimm got up from his crouch against the wall.
“I’ll come too soldier, used to be quite good at making things work, can you use a spare pair of hands?”
“Yes sir!! Will make things much easier for sure.”
Ralph watched the two disappear into the building complex and put his helmet back on. The blaster fire was fairly steady so he guessed his men were busy on the wall and so he should not lessen their effectiveness by not being able to communicate easily with them over their group comms.
He listened in for a while, satisfied with the way Saxon appeared to have distributed their meagre manpower. One man on each of the four walls was about as good as it would get for now, but it was good to see they had managed to keep things secure with no major drama so far.
“Saxon, use me as your reserve, if one of you gets taxed too hard, move me in before anyone else moves from their position. Until then, I’m going on a walk around see what I can see and take some pot shots. What you seeing out there so far?”
“Looks like we made enough of a mess to discourage the rabble from coming anywhere near us, so at the moment we only got a small number of pro’s trying to find a way past our defences. They keep on pushing on all sides, testing for our weak points.”
“Ok, then I will make my presence on the wall random so they cant plan out where my additional fire power may be at any one time. Going up wet wall first. Keep me updated on anything new.”
Ralph climbed up the metal stairs and onto the catwalk on the west wall. He could see Malogaan near the centre, busy sniping at targets on the ground. He used his suits sensors to run scans on the buildings opposite and stopped when he noticed two heat signatures making their way to a fifth floor window. He got his Nightstinger ready and found the window in his scope. He waited patiently until he saw the muzzle of a rifle appear and aimed just above it and fired. The heat signature appeared to have been thrown back a few paces so he must have hit one of them. He kept his one eye on the scope, the other looking through the helmets sensor view. A trick that could make most get very confused, but Ralph was an accomplished sniper and the dual view did not phase him. He saw the heat signature of the second body come closer to the window. It was standing right in the centre of it but further back so his scope sight could not see him. Never mind. Using the two views he lined up a shot ant took it. The second body fell backwads, both appeared to remain still. He ran his scan again and found nothing new, so he scanned the streets. Looked like Malogaan had it in hand so he went back down the stairs and up on the western wall. Here one of the remaining escort squad members was busy firing his ELG’s repeatedly towards the street. Just as he got to the top of the stairs he heard his strained voice on the comms.
“Got multiple inbounds on the west side…”
He trailed off as he noted Ralph joining him. Bowcaster now in hand Ralph leant over the wall parapet and found a multitude of targets to fire at. His additional fire power made them stutter in their advance, but Ralph could see at least ten attackers still active and determined to find a way to the wall. He took his final grenade and put a hand on the soldier at his side to stop him shooting for a second. The brief cease fire had the desired effect, the enemy madea arun for the wall and Ralph could now see two of them had grapples in hand.
His grenade went over and detonated a few seconds later, followed by a rain of blaster bolts from both Ralph and the soldier. That seemed to take care of that one for now. He patted the man on his shoulder as he got up to move on,
“Keep it up trooper, we got this.”
This pattern of skirmishing went on for some hours, Ralph lost count if truth be told. But on a brief rest break from his constant movement from one place to another, he heard his radio crackle with a new channel.
“Sir, Lomax here, patched you in to the compound comms unit, its working, the high Ambassador knows his stuff! You should be able to make direct contact with General Shivers now if you have his channel.”
Ralph wasted no time, he punched in the channel on his comms unit number pad and waited. He heard the encryption sequence screeching, then a series of blips and beeps and finally…. The visor display on his suit showed a blinking green message. ‘secure network established’
“Colonel Repcon reporting in, message for General Shivers.”
A calm and amost unemotional female voice replied.
“Colonel Repcon, this is the Scythe, Legacy Guardian Shivers has been notified of your contact, please wait.”
Ralph let go of a breath he did not know he had been holding. Just knowing that they were back in contact with somebody was such a relief. It did not take long and the raspy and now familiar voice snapped in his ear.
“RALPH!! Good to hear from you… when we lost contact with the Kashyyk Sunrise I thought you were gonners… but, lucky for you I love a good fight so we are still on our way, don’t worry. Who you got with you? Give me a sitrep.”
Ralph outlined their current status first, then provided as much detail as he could about what had occurred since their last contact, just before he had left the Command room aboard the Kashyyk Sunrise. He noted whilst doing so that it had gone dark, he truly had not realised it was that late on in the day, they must have been battling it out in the compound for much longer than he realised.
After he finished there was a long silence and Ralph was beginning to wonder if they had lost connection again when Logan replied.
“I am pushing this tub as fast as I can, but I cant get there much faster than my previous ETA. You are simply going to have to hold out for another few hours. We should be dropping into the system in less than two hours… Going to try and do it as close to the planet as we dare, cut off some of that sublight travel time. Was there a lot of space traffic when you arrived?”
Ralph thought back and his honest answer was that he did not know. He checked with his men and Nimm was the one who came up with the information.
“The area is pretty clear, one or two freighters in orbit but not much else when we arrived. Logan… did High Command make contact with the Krath?”
“AH, Nimm! Glad you could make it to our little party High Ambassador. Yes, and their bureaucracy is delaying any response… I am not strictly speaking authorised to enter the system… but hey, stuff them, I got an invite from you folks so that is good enough for me and mine. Going to go brief my team, keep the line open, my comms officer will stay on the channel until we get there so shout up with any updates. Oh… and if you can give coordinates to your exact location in the city… that would be yummy too.”
Ralph shook his head… had he really called this a party? Truly things were a bit loose in that sentients head… but hey, he was on his way to help so who was he to judge? It takes all sorts to make this galaxy the crazy place it is….
As it turned out, the communications being re-established was not Nimms only gift to their situation. Whilst in the process of fixing the unit, he had realised that the power generators in this compound powered the entire city so he had shut down the power grid, disconnecting all buildings from the supply. In a scout of the various store rooms they found a large number of flood lights and they mounted them on the wall, pointing them on the surrounding roads and buildings making their surroundings crystal clear in the dark and at the same time blinding their enemy with the blinding lights.
Every now and again one of the spots would be taken out by a sharp shooter, but it would be quickly replaced by what seemed to be a never ending supply… clearly enough storers to light up the city in an emergency.
As the night rolled on the enemy attacks became scarce, just the odd blaster bolt here and there to test their readiness, but no concentrated effort at all to try and take the compound. Ralph suspected that they were just being kept penned in whilst the terrorists, or whatever they were busied themselves with the Embassy. There was a flickering orange glow in thehorizon which he guessed was the Embassy burning, or at least buildings in that area of the city.
They were taking it in turns to keep watch, making sure that they got a little bit of rest where they could. There was little doubt amongst them that an attack would come, the question was when, and the constant tension was palpable in the air.
Malogaan sat himself on the ground next to Ralph, closing his eyes for a moment.
“What you think sir, they playing with us?”
“No, they are just keeping us here whilst they sort out whatever they are doing at the Embassy… but I also think they will wait until daybreak so that our flood lights don’t give us such an advantage. With the rest of the city in blackout, we have made things harder for them and bought us some time… it was a stroke of genius from the High Ambassador.”
“Makes sense… guess we got a couple more hours till sunrise… roughly?”
“Yeah, seems about right.”
It took just over four hours for the attack to come. Whoever the enemy was they had waited until the sun was high enough in the sky to eliminate the advantage of the spotlights and they had not spent that time sitting around. When they attacked they came from all sides and in numbers that proved almost immediately impossible for the small force to beat back.
Within 20 minutes of manic, heavy battle they had been forced to retreat into the generator building itself. Thankfully, Ralph had thought ahead and it was already prepared as their “last stand” staging area, barricades, boarded up windows, even a couple of booby traps.
Seven of them made it in, having lost one more of the escort squad members in the first moments of the enemy onslaught. Nimm himself was wounded as he took a blaster shot to his thigh, Ralph’s armour had been given a real pounding and was barely holding together as he had used himself as a shield to help ensure as many of his team could get into their fall back position. Malogaan had lost his helmet, a blaster shot smashed it right off his head and Lomax had five or six heavy scortch marks on his armour.
All in all, none of them looked in top condition, but the grit and determination showed in them all. Just as the enemy had made their attack, they had all heard Logan over the open comms channel announcing their arrival in system and so it would only be a matter of a couple of hours before help arrived… they just had to hold out.
The building they had chosen only had two sides to defend, the other two being flat up against the power generators and without any entry points. It stood just a bit taller than the walls and adjacent generator buildings .
Malogaan and Nimm were on the roof, using the high vantage to snipe at attackers coming over the walls, Nimm had also taken the K-43 and kept it ready, they had seen a lightly armoured vehicle of sorts earlier on and he suspected it would be used to ram into the compound at some point. He wanted to be ready for it and damage it enough so that it could not then simply ram into their building.
Ralph and the two remaining escort guards were on the second floor, also sniping at the enemy, whilst Lomax and Saxon remained on the ground floor, defending the entry points and ambushing attackers as they came in.
The fighting on the ground floor was the bloodiest. The enemy came in twos and threes to begin with, but seeing that fail they charged in mass, taking axes to the door and smashing their way into windows at five different locations on the ground floor. Ralph and hes AMC companions on the second floor did their best to strafe the attackers as they rushed in, but over a dozen made it inside. Four were instantly eliminated, having picked a booby trapped room to break into. An explosion rocked the building and they died instantlyl A cloud of dust and debris blasted through the ground floor making visibility poor, but this played in Saxons favour as he saw two silhouettes outlined against the brightness of a window, but his opponents could see nothing inside but dust and darkness. He took them out with ELG blasts. Lomax took out three more in similar manner and the two retreated into the corridor with the staircase. One attacker followed them and got blasted by both of them, going down hard.
That left three from the initial attack, but they knew more would be coming. The two retreated to the first floor and waited in ambush for the attackers to try the stairs, whilst keeping their ears alert in case they tried to break in via the boarded up windows, or for alerts from the soldiers above them with better view.
The sound of blaster fire was non stop now, the building vibrated with the violence of it. Up on the roof, Nimm heard what he was waiting for before he saw it. He swapped his borrowed A280 with the K-43 and took aim at the gateway of the complex just as the gates shook with a heavy blow, then a second, third…. On the sixth blow they finally gave way enough to let the attacking vehicle push its nose in. Nimm blasted at it, getting in three shots before it reversed back out of sight. It came in again, hitting the gates and managing to break in to the compound, but Nimm was already firing, hitting the vehicle repeatedly. The power pack ran out so he quickly replaced it and continued to fire. The vehicle veered sharply to the right and smashed into one of the power generator buildings and lay still. Nimm swapped weapons again and returned to aiming at soldiers, whilst keeping his eye out for the vehicle to move, or for another one to show up.
The attackers stopped pressing in all of a sudden, seeming to want to regroup. They moved out of line of sight either back outside of the walled compound or behind the generator buildings. An ominous quiet descended on the scene of the battle.
“What are they up to now? This lot are cowards… had they fully committed to the attack they would have had us… all these delays only play in our favour. Malogaan, you see anything up there? Saxon, Lomax, status?”
“First floor still secure sir, they did not make it up.” Lomax reported back in.
“Minor injury to my damned foot” grumbled Saxon.
“Sir…. They all still out there, just hiding. Could do with one more of ou up here though, more angles of fire than on the floors below as we can see over the power gens too.
“Ralph, I have to agree, its not such a great hight from here to the power gen roof, they could come up and try an attack, with only tow of us we wont hold it off.”
That was Nimm. He may be a diplomat, but Ralph knew that the man had his fair share of battle experience… he was a mercenary after all.
“Ok, I’m coming up to join you, want a better vantage anyway.”
Just as Ralph got to the roof the enemy made its second charge against the building. They were met with heavy strafing from above, but pushed through, despite their losses. The ground floor was now uncontested but as soon as they hit the stairwell Lomax and Saxon laid down such a barrage of fire that nobody made it up that confined route. The attackers retreated again, another dozen or so dead left behind.
“Lomax, how are you two doing for power packs?”
“Ok sir, got two fresh each and about halfway through the current ones. We got full packs on the Bowcaster and repeating rifle but just using the ELG’s for now.”
Ok, hold there as long as you can, you and Saxon stay put, everyone else on the roof. I don’t think they will try that again, it simply has to be over the rooftops now…”
Ralph positioned everyoneso that he had two covering each adjoining roof, one at the front and himself at the rear, in a position that could also fire on either adjoining roof as required, but keep an eye out behind the building.
“Here they come!”
A somewhat stressed call from one of the remaining escort guards. The enemy had found its way onto the adjoining rooftops and attacked from both sides, whilst also sending in a small force front and rear to attack the ground floor.
“Ignore the ones on the ground, Saxon and Lomax will have to handle them. Concentrate on the rooftops.”
Ralph joined in with his firepower, using his bowcaster one handed to shower one side, whilst taking pot shots with his A280 at the other. Accuracy was down to almost zero, but he wanted to create havoc, force the oncoming attackers to the ground in fear, slow them down. Once that tactic was worn out, he concentrated on tight strafing fire from the bowcaster. They seemed to be keeping the enemy at bay but then he heard Malogaan and his heart sank.
“Aaaah crap…. Sir…. We got a jailspeeder inbound”
Ralph ran over to Malogaans position and saw it coming, the heavily armed vehicle was coming in at full speed. He saw the tell tale flashes of light that signified it had just fired its concussion grenades.
“TAKE COVER”
A number of things happened at once, or so it seemed to Ralph. Just as he threw himself to the ground, he saw the jailspeeder blow apart in a bloom of blue white light. The concussion from that explosion rocked the building at the same time as the four concussion grenades detonated. One had veered off to the right, landing right in the middle of a cluster of attackers and so eliminating them. The other three however hit their rooftop in a deafening series of explosions. The shockwave lifted Ralph up and almost threw him off the roof entirely, Malogaan was lucky enough to have a duracrete air duct to hide behind and the blast blasted it apart, covering him with rubble.
Nimm had been thrown to the ground by two of his guard, putting themselves as shields between him and the danger. As he was not wearing armour, the blasts would have torn him apart but his life was saved by their sacrifice. He still received enough of a hit to put him out cold though.
The last guard was far enough to not get shredded by the explosions, but the shockwave hit him and he flew off the rooftop and landed on the ground, five floors below.
All that happened in a matter of seconds, then heavy laser fire tore into the adjoining rooftops and a huge shadow flew over head and on into the distant horizon, where it gracefully curled back around.
“Somebody call for back up?! Sorry could not have come any faster boys, but hold on tight.”
On the next fly over a dozen or so figures jumped from the unmistakable shape of the KR-48 luxury liner. Ralph lay on his back and stared up…. Logan had come in a damned pleasure ship?!! He watched in a detached haze as what he could now see was a squad of Diathim flew down and landed on the roof, taking control of it and eliminating the very few remaining enemies. He heard Logan blithering away in his ear, but could not bring himself to concentrate. He took his helmet off and staggered to his feet, stumbled over to Malogaan and mechanically began to dig him out of the rubble.
“Its ok sir… leave that to us, you sit down and let the doc see to you. We got this now, jobs done.”
Over an hour later, Logan walked into the compound and surveyed the carnage. He could not believe the amount of dead, both inside and outside the walls. Saxon greeted him, being the only one not on the roof of the main building still.
“General… you folks were just in time…”
“Looks like you had it more or less in hand soldier. That Jailspeeder back there was the only danger the way I see it… sorry we did not hit it before it launched those grenades. Now.. where is my mate Nimm and that clever sod Ralph?”
“err… the Colonel and High Ambassador are on the rooftop sir”
“I swear they stayed up there just to make me climb stairs… bet it hasn’t even got a lift huh?”
Logan did not wait for an answer, he walked past the somewhat bemused soldier and headed on up the stairs. Spotting Ralph sitting against the parapet, armour off and covered in bacta patches, Logan headed over and squatted down in front of him.
“How you doing soldier?”
Ralph concentrated his gaze on Logan and his eyes slowly drew into focus. He began to speak but as soon as Logan heard the word ‘report’ he stopped him.
“Ralph, I am on leave. Not interested in a report right now soldier. It can wait until we get you back home. Relax.”
He stood to leave but Ralph finally managed to get some semblance of a clear mind and asked.
“The J-type?”
Logan cast his eyes down.
“Sorry Ralph, blown to pieces. Looks like they attacked it, along with every other ship in the landing pad.”
He did leave then, finding his way to Nimm who appeared to still be unconscious. One of his Diathim was on her knees nest to him, injecting him with who knew what.
“How is he?”
“not sure sir, touch and go.. if you could…”
Logan crouched and put his hand on Nimms forehead. The large hand almost made it look like he was holding a babies head. He muttered under his breath, drawing on the force and pushing some healing into Nimms prone body. Logan felt the improvement almost instantly and when Nimms eyes fluttered open he smiled broadly.
“Good to have you back mr High Ambassador sir. Would not want you to go off and die on me… Max might want me to take your place ans smooch the politicians eh? I prefer hunting you see.”
Logan let Nimm lie and got up to survey the rest of the carnage. Nobody else needed his help, the casualties had been high. He pulled a sour face. For all his bravado, for all his bluster, he HATED to see allies dead. If only that damned tub could have moved a bit faster… oh well, what was done was done, and it was clear to Logan that the resistance this lot had put up was fierce.
“Connie, get this lot onto the hover transports. Tersen reports that nothing ut ash remains at the Embassy and I really don’t fancy sticking around for a lot of very angry Krath to turn up asking questions. Lets get out of here and let the diplomats and politicians sort through the carnage.”
Logan went back downstairs and found Saxon, now sitting next to Lomax by the gates to the compound.
“You two be able to gude that second hover transport to find any AMC bodies? I like to take our own back when I can.”
They jumped up, tired, but eager to help in such a task.
“Yes sir, that we can do”
“Good, couple of my lot are coming with you, just in case there are any more surprises out ther. Take care, but don’t take too long gents, this could become a very hot zone again very quickly so we need to get off the rock, clear?”
“Yes sir”
Almost two hours later, the Scythe was on a steep climb through the atmosphere, its crew busy making their new guests as comfortable as possible in preparation for a long ride home.
Just after the ship jumped into hyper, a small armada of Krath warships appeared in the system, making full speed for the stricken planet.