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| - The quiet of the ancient Temple Grounds is broken as a sleek fighter lands in a clearing. A boxy shuttle lands nearby, and releases a group of soldiers. Both craft bear the same markings, an eight pointed starburst breaking through a surrounding circle in four points. As he climbs out of the cockpit, Chris gets a strange feeling. Shaking it off, he joins up with Sgt. Apone and the rest of his squad. Corporal Hicks tosses him an Assault Rifle, which he catches and primes. "Well... its not a shotgun, but that sound still says 'Kiss your ass goodbye'," Hicks wisecracks. "Stow it Marine," Apone snaps, then turns his attention to Chris, "Nice to see you out and about Rattler." One of the Marines cracks a joke about Chris being a typical "Chair Force" guy, then gets his head bitten off by Apone. Chris shook his head as the Private recoiled. "I'm a Navy pilot Hudson. Not Space Force," Chris pointed out as they made their way towards the large Temple. After several minutes of trying to open the door, they finally entered the structure. The TCS Vanguard had picked up something on the surface of Yavin IV, and Captain O'Neill decided to send some Marines to investigate while the TCS Kodiak checked out the massive debris field nearby. Chris stayed alert as they made their way deeper into the temple. He had to admit though, the place felt creepy. What didn't help were the signs of battle. And recently too. Definitely before the Expedition Fleet arrived though, but still relatively recent. Chris tightened his grip on the GD-2 Assault Rifle when he thought he heard something scrape against stone up ahead. For the most part, he ignored the banter from the Marines. Something about this place was sending up red flags in his mind. Turning to his right, Chris saw a massive chamber. Making a Secure gesture to Apone, he put his back to the wall right next to the door. As soon as Apone and Hicks were in position, with Hudson, Vascez, and some guy that Chris couldn't remember the name of, taking defensive positions, he held up his hand and started counting down from five. As soon as he hit zero, all three of them burst into the room. There were signs of a serious fight in the chamber, which had the look of an assembly room, but no sign of bodies anywhere. "Clear," Apone said, lowering his rifle. The rest of the squad came in. Hudson swore when his eyes found what looked like a long slash mark across the stone wall. The Marines spread out, looking for anything, be it a threat or a clue as to what happened. "Sir! Over here!" Chris and Apone approached Hicks, who was looking down at something. "What do you think this is?" Hicks asked, nudging the object with his boot. Chris knelled down, and picked up a cylindrical object with some sort of trigger plate and what looked like an emitter at one end. Telling the Marines to stand back, Chris aimed the business end, at least he hoped it was the business end, away from everyone and hit the trigger plate. A brilliant green beam of energy emerged from the emitter, and extended to about three feet. The rest of the Squad approached when they heard it activate, and now marveled at the apparent energy sword. "Now that is some serious Loco shit sir," Vascez said, putting a hand on her hip before smiling. "Man I'd pay to see the look on a Gato's face when it sees that comin' at its furry ass." The Marines laughed, the same thought going through their own minds. Chris however, was looking at the emerald blade and remembering something from last year. During that fiasco with the bug planet and the dimensional crap, he fought alongside a Sith woman named Deathstrike. At one point, she actually fought with a crimson blade similar to this. Hitting the trigger again, the energy blade deactivated. "I think I'll hold on to this. Might come in handy," Chris said as he clipped the device to his belt. "Apone, let's move on." "Alright ladies, you heard the Commander, get your asses in gear! The Corps ain't payin' us by the hour!" Apone snapped, getting the Squad focused again. After another hour, the Marines entered what looked like a command center. "What the hell is this?" Hicks asked. "Not our problem Hicks," Apone said as he recoded everything with his helmet camera, "We'll leave it for the followup team. What do you think Commander?" "Somebody used this as a base. I think those massive doors outside are big enough for a hanger," Chris said. Once the Marines were finished, everyone filed out of the room, but Chris hesitated at the door. Looking back over his shoulder, he couldn't help but feel like something important had happened here. "You comin'?" "Yea," Chris replied, "Let's get back to Excalibur." "Sector 4! Sector 4! ES reinforcements in Sec-!" "N-42 OFF THE PORT BOW!" the scanning officer cut off his commander. ~~ As the Fleet Commander's Star Destroyer MK3 was consumed in a ball of fire by an N-42 Suicide Bomber's run, a pack of Scimitars began an assault on a Karavan Destroyer... "Beginning our attack run. Standby..." The 7 survivors of the original 12 bomber squad flew directly above the Karavan, dropping proton bombs amongst the surface, their explosions cracking the hull plating, and leaving the Light Destroyer practically defenseless. It only got off two more shots until it was destroyed by a swarm of diamond-boron missiles. Elsewhere, more Scimitars were picking their targets, and there weren't enough Englads to pick them all off and deal with the TIE Hunters at the same time. "Where the devil are the Blue Corvettes?!" the ES Senior Officer present, aboard a Raptor Battleship, snapped to no one in particular. One Blue Corvette was in the midst of a mass of Hunters being deployed from several Escort Carriers. "Damn it! We don't have enough weapons to screen them all! Focus fire on them as they go around the flanks! Don't target the ones in the front!" "Yes Sir." With the order, the Corvette's efficiency increased twofold, having less targets to worry about but more cannons to use. "Use the Missiles!" "Aye." The Homing Hypermissiles, which previously had not been used, were opened up, and these worked to great effect, as the Hunters were in large groups closely knit together, Each missile was taking out 6 or 7 fighters at once. "Keep doing that! MAybe we can get them-!" A barrage of Turbolasers from a passing Gladiator Star Destroyer quickly put an end to the Corvette's antics, eternally. ~~ With the ES drawing the bulk of the SE's fire, the Remnant was practically forgotten about in the battle. This was allowing them to become much more effective than they would have been otherwise. However, about a quarter of the SE's forces were still focused on the Remnant, and they were being routed. The Remnant, although smaller in numbers and weaker in technology, were having to deal with ships that already had their shields almost or completely drained and sustained significant hull damage. Although they were reduced to cleanup work, they knew it was better to sacrifice a little pride rather than their lives. Even a Remnant Star Destroyer MK1 had managed to both overpower and destroy and SE ISD2 by aforementioned advantages. The rest of the Remnant fleet was spread out relatively evenly, with most of the Victory-1 and 2's covering the crippled space station. But the Remnant was hurting in one major area; fighters. TIE Fighters, no matter how fresh they were, were never a match for TIE Hunters. Knowing it was fruitless and wasteful to continue allowing his fighters, and bombers, to be destroyed by the dozen, the Remnant Supervisor ordered all his TIEs to re-dock with their respective ships and to do a thorough body-count. As the TIEs filed up the hangars, the news was not good: the Remnant had lost over half of their fighters. Eventually, the SE fleet was forced to retreat, and the ES could count their losses. Although not as bad as either Imperial faction, the news still wasn't ideal. The Remnant Supervisor, seeing that the fighting was practically over, save a few skirmishes where SE corvettes were unable to escape, began to dial up Bastion from his barely-functioning station... ~~ Meanwhile back at Bastion, Pelleaon was getting reports every five minutes or so about how the SE forces had been driven back on their systems, but then an Imperial Officer entered the command room with a grim look on his face, carrying a holodisc. "Yes?" Pellaeon addressed the officer. The Imperial Officer handed over the holodisc, that beared SE logos, and walked away, without saying a word. Pellaeon stared at the disk a moment, before walking over to a small holo-projector in the corner of the room and inserting the disk. The disc immediately showed a recording of the Gatekeeper, standing on the bridge of something above what was obviously a Remnant-controlled planet, looking like Ord Miniir. "Gilad Pellaeon," he began, not turning to face the camera, "I can see that you have allied yourself with the Ekatra only hours ago. Congratulations. You have just bought yourself more time to delay the inevitable. Or have you?" Now turning to face the camera, he spoke again, his voice a low whisper: "I bet you are grateful to Remus for saving your asses from quick and painful devastation at my hands. But if you had looked into the man's background, you may have found that death at my hands would be much easier than annihilation at his hands..." The Gatekeeper faded away off the screen, and in his place was Remus Von Grath, years ago, aboard the Despair, above a gigantic city-planet much resembling Coruscant. The video was silent, but as Remus gave an order, the heads of the Ekatra on the bridge around turned to face him, shock on their faces. The camera switched to outside the vessel, as the siege Mass Drivers and Phase Masers, located on the bottom of the ship, opened fire on the city-planet's surface with rapid speed and succession, with massive explosions visible from orbit, as the crust of the planet was cracked open and magma from the core began to spill out onto the surface. The bombardment continued for another three minutes, until the camera cut back to the Gatekeeper, now fully facing the camera. "What you have just witnessed is something that no man, let alone an entire planet's population, should have to suffer through. I presume I do not need to tell you the end result of that bombardment?" After a five second pause, he went on: "In the Ekatra Sentinel, Remus utilizes Base Delta Zero. And he utilizes it every chance he gets. Why? Because that is who he is, Gilad. His demonic appearance is not jsut show. In fact, he is half-Demon. 50% of him. That percentage takes control in battle, whenever he gets angry, and sometimes for no reason at all. He takes pleasure out of destroying the life of his enemies. He enjoys obliterating the life off of planets. It is who he is. It is who he has always been, and who he always will be," the Gatekeeper said, his voice betraying nothing. "The man destroys life. He does not preserve anything. He only destroys. He is a monster, and he needs to be stopped. Do not let this man fool you like he has fooled so many others..." he growled. "Oh, by the way, as for that planet he shattered? Do you know how many citizens were on that planet? 42,768,193,247. None of them lived another day..." With that, the disc ended, and the projector returned to normal. Pellaeon stood in silence for a few moments, pondering the content of the message. It was true, he knew nothing about this Remus Von Grath, nor did he know anything about the Ekatra Sentinel. The Gatekeeper could very well be telling the truth, after all, Remus's motives for suddenly arriving to assist the Empire were questionable at best. But at the same time, this all could be an SE trick. It was the SE who attacked the Empire first, not Remus. Pellaeon decided to keep the disk hidden for now, only revealing the contents to those he could trust. Eventually he'd get to the bottom of it, but in the meantime, the ES was the Empire's only hope to hold off the SE offensives, so the Empire would have to continue to rely on their support. Looking around to make sure nobody, especially Remus, had been watching, Pellaeon stuffed the disk in his pocket and walked back to the main projector. The last elements of another battle were being wrapped up, with the ES-Remnant forces being victorious. At that moment a Stormtrooper officer entered the command room and marched up to Gilad. "Sir, I have a report from search teams." he blurted. "Go ahead." "We found sixteen spies, Sir. Whoever told you spies were here was right on the money. However, we also found evidence of an SE base here on Bastion," he reported. "A base? As in a military base or an espionage base?" "Both, Sir. The base appears to have a full battalion of Shadowtroopers operating it as well as numerous companies of spies, infiltrators, and even Sith." "How the Force did they get a battalion of military personnel into the Imperial Capital?" Pellaeon thought out-loud, before issuing orders: "Organize a ground-assault force to wipe them out. Make sure none escape, understand?" "Yes Sir!" - the Stormtrooper echoed and quickly left the room. Meanwhile, Remus, on the other side of the main holoprojector, was in contact with Reynolds again while watching yet another skirmish playing out. Deciding to put the holodisk out of his mind for the time-being, Pellaeon walked back to the projector to resume commanding the various campaigns. As he did he noticed Grage, who had been mostly silent the entire day, staring ahead aimlessly, as if in a daze. As Pellaeon approached him, the scientist quickly returned to reality. "Admiral, the search for the spies is over now. I want you to return to your research base and resume your work, immediately. I'll have additional resources and funding diverted to you as soon as I can." Pellaeon said. "Yes sir, thank you sir." Grage replied, before leaving the command room to return to his ship. Pellaeon sighed before he returned to focusing on the projector and battles still being fought. Switching off his comlink, Remus stared down at the large-scale battle being fought, and said, "It seems we have reached an impasse..." "What are the latest reports from the other fronts?" Pellaeon inquired. "Mostly secure. A few remaining task forces are still engaging our ships, but the main fighting's over, except this system," Remus answered, not turning his head. Pellaeon stood and watched the battle beside Remus for several minutes. The heated combat was taking place near Valc, one of the Empire's fortress worlds. Then Remus got an unexpected surprise: a commlink call from his office on Titania. "Be right back..." he muttered, stepping away, though still within earshot, but just barely. Whomever he was talking to was not audible, but Remus was, and he was upset: "Yes, I saw this coming when we first did it! I thought you could handle it..." he growled in a voice Pellaeon had not heard him use before, sounding more like a Demon than a man. "I placed you as Chief Operating Officer of the Economy not for you to drop the ball!" "I don't care who's fault it was! I am holding YOU personally responsible! You more than likely have just lost us several key battles against the enemy!" "I don't care about their lives! They're Cyborgs, not beings! Now, GET OFF OF MY LINE!" With that, Remus forcibly snapped off the commlink, enraged, and quickly dialed Reynolds again. "Patricia, the economy just crashed! Our factories are locking us out! Do not question me! Just follow my orders: Contact the Ring of Lost Ships! Tell them to send all of their units to our staging area at once and start manufacturing more on the double! The time is now, Patricia!" he bellowed, then hung up on her as well. However, something about his rant jogged Pellaeon's memory: he vaguely remembered reading about the Ring of Lost Ships back in his days with the Palpatine-era Empire, and how there were data files stored in the Galactic Records, which he knew the Remnant still possessed after Thrawn's raid. As Remus stormed back over to the projector, a wild fury in his eyes, he transmitted something on the projector to his ships present in the battle. Pellaeon motioned for one of his aids in the room to come over. Making sure Remus did not notice him, he handed the holodisk to the man. "Take that to my office and place it in my desk." he said softly. With that, the aid jogged off. Remus's commlink began to buzz again. "What?!" he snapped. "My Lord, the Experimentals are en-route. What are your orders for Titania?" Remus paused for several minutes, not quite sure himself. "Lock down the sector. Nobody enters, nobody exits. If anyone tries, kill them," he finally said. "Even civilians?" "Even civilians." Remus hung up his comlink again, still fuming. "Now then..." he muttered, turning his attention to Pellaeon. "Things just got far more complicated," he said. "What is wrong?" Pellaeon inquired, although he had already guessed the answer. "My economy has just crashed on me, due to the incompetence of my Chief Operating Officer of the Sentinel..." Remus muttered. "However," he began before Pellaeon could speak again, "I have several backup plans in place to counteract this type of thing, one of which has already been put into place. It will take a few extra days for reinforcements to arrive to help defend your territory, but we WILL see this through." "I'm glad to hear that." Pellaeon stated, although he wasn't totally reassured, "Hopefully I can get the Empire back to fighting strength quickly so you have less pressure on your end to try and hold us up." "That would be appreciated," Remus said, then returned to the battle, which was nearly over now, in favor of the ES/Remnant forces. "I would estimate the first waves of forces would get here in three days time, tops. Included are various ground vehicles should we need them." It had been many hours since Pellaeon and Remus had begun directing the campaign and there had been very few breaks in-between. It was late at night outside, and since the lines had appeared to be stabilized, Pellaeon decided to retire to his quarters and get some sleep. "Remus, I'm going to get some rest; the battles all appear to handled now." Remus was confused for a split second, until he remembered that humans, along with most other species of the living, needed this thing called rest and, although he himself could not understand it, he knew it was necessary for them to function. "Very well," he responded, "My species doesn't need 'rest,' so I'll be up all night, roaming the halls." "I see." Pellaeon replied, disturbed at Remus's last comment but unable to think of anything to say about it, "I'll meet you here again in the morning perhaps. And Colonel Brojeck can assign someone to provide you with a tour of the building if you wish." "Certainly," Remus said, sensing that Pellaeon was caught off guard, but deciding not to ask why. On the way back to his quarters, Pellaeon told Brojeck what he had just offered Remus, and Brojeck in turn assigned a subordinate to provide Remus with a tour, so long as he didn't venture into any top-secret areas. Throughout the night, the subordinate led Remus throughout the building. Although it was refreshing to get out and walk some, Remus couldn't shake a weird feeling he had in his head that he usually got just before something big was about to happen... Before he knew it, it was already late morning... Gornall sat with his eyes closed in the center of the large meditation room. He had sat motionless for close to an hour, stretching out with his mind. He was aware of every moving thing on the ship, every crew member, every droid, every engine. He had emptied his mind, and filled it with his surroundings. There was nothing else...Nothing but the ship, floating in the empty void of space. Then, there was a voice. It was deafening, yet completely silent. Almost as soon as the voice spoke to him, the ship closed back in, until he was in his own mind again. Gornall opened his eyes. He was completely inside his own mind. The ship was gone, and his surroundings were completely dark and silent. He stood up, and the voice spoke again. He walked through the nothingness, until he saw a planet. It was a planet covered in thick jungle, grass, and swamps. Coordinates and routes flashed in front of his eyes for a split second before disappearing. Even though they vanished almost as soon as they appeared, he knew exactly what they were, as if they were permanently embedded into his brain. Leaving his mind, Gornall opened his eyes and slowly stood up, smiling. He opened the doors to the meditation chamber, and payed no attention to the soldiers who saluted him as he walked past towards the bridge. He arrived at the bridge, and walked through the door. "Pilot." He ordered. "Open a channel to the rest of the fleet." "Aye aye, Commander." The captain complied. Gornall leaned over to the comm and addressed the fleet. "This is Commander Gornall of the Hydrae Alliance addressing every ship of the 63rd legion. We're setting a new course into unknown space, at -3.1, 0.0, 2.3, -1.5, -2.5 I confirm, -3.1, 0.0, 2.3, -1.5, -2.5." Deek, who was reclined in a seat beside the pilot, let out a low whistle. "Interesting, I should go wake Ty up." he said, before getting up and walking to the back room where Ty was sleeping. After a few moments, Deek returned with Ty. "What's going on?" Ty inquired, as he sat down. The Assailant gestured at the console. "This is the message that was sent to Rowan." "Interesting. You thinkin' about crashing the party?" Ty asked, a slight smirk on his face. "Something along those lines. Do you think Rowan will show?" "I don't know. But if he does, he'll be heavily guarded." "Nice. When did it say this meeting was happening again?" The Assailant asked the pilot. "It didn't." "Well...Just set the-" "Way ahead of you. We should arrive at Vjun in a couple of hours." The pilot interrupted. "Maybe if we get there before Rowan, we can deal with your people first, then lay in wait for Rowan and ambush him when he arrives." Deek suggested. "Yah, that would be a good strategy, if we're lucky enough to get there before the meeting." Ty muttered. "Actually, we could have missed it entirely. That message was sent two days ago." The pilot remarked. "It's all we've got, so I don't have a choice." The Assailant responded. "If they are there, don't kill them right away. I highly doubt that he'll be there in person, as he always communicated with me through agents or messages like this. We need someone alive to talk, either whoever is there, or Rowan." "But as soon as Rowan's usefulness runs its course; he's dead." Ty said coldly, "Remember that." "I don't know what it is between you two, but I won't need him much longer. After I get all I can out of him...He'll be all yours." Ty didn't respond verbally, only nodding in acknowledgement. "Do you think the four of us would be enough to take on potentially both Rowan and these others?" Deek injected. "Not in a strait on attack, no." The Assailant responded. "If they are both there...We're going to have to be smart. Have you got anything on the space station yet?" He asked the pilot. "It's a little Golan I station. It was abandoned by the remnant about a year ago. I'm surprised it still has power...Anyway, I've dug up some schematics on it." The Assailant observed the hologram of the station for a moment. "Damn...Only one hangar bay. That'll make getting on without being noticed difficult. Even if we manage to get in unnoticed...It's a pretty small station." he remarked. "You could try dropping us off at one of the airlocks, then hiding the ship out of sensor range." Deek suggested. "There are...Three airlocks we might be able to use." The pilot said. The Assailant looked over his shoulder towards the back of the ship. "We've only got two space suits, one is designed for a woman, and neither are for Twi'Leks." He thought about it for a moment. "I could wear my Mandalorian armor, and Ty could use the space suit. The two of us could drop down alone, and...Well, you two can save our asses if things don't go well." he said with a half-smile on his face. Deek gave Ty a look, and Ty knew exactly what he was thinking. "No, I ain't payin' ya full salary for sitting around in ship doing nothing." Ty said, "But I don't think you have a choice." "Sithspit." Deek muttered.
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