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| - The orbital command center was abuzz with activity. The threat boards now showed the remnants of the Yanibar Guard Fleet huddled around the station for protection, reinforced by the fact that ground-based weaponry from Yanibar would be able to cover them in the event of another Zannist attack. Small freighters flew up from the surface with supplies and materials with which to affect repairs. Still on the command bridge several hours after the battle, Selu kept watching the threat boards hawkishly. Zann’s fleet had closed in, staying just out of effective gunnery range, and though it had been diminished, the victory had been costly. The Yoda was battered, barely able to fight, and the Secura was a drifting hulk. An Ataru-class gunship, the Jurokk, had also been destroyed. Seven other ships were below fifty percent combat readiness. Nearly fifty starfighters had been lost. Costly losses indeed, especially for the Yanibar Guard, which could ill afford such casualties. However, his surviving B-wings and Valkyries had been busy laying another belt of space mines between the orbital command center and the hostile fleet. If Tyber Zann tried a direct assault, his remaining starfighters and gunships would pay heavily for it. Selu was watching because there was nothing else more important to do. A sense of eminent action had been taunting him for hours now, drawing his attention to the threat board like a glowmoth to a light. Then, he saw motion with the Consortium ships, a new group of vessels dropping out of hyperspace and heading straight for Yanibar. He watched as the Zannist fleet moved into position to screen the newcomers. “Cronau radiation spike!” called the lieutenant at the hyperwave sensor station. “Ships coming in!” “Confirmed. Multiple contacts in Sector Nine,” reported the sublight sensor officer. “What are they?” Selu asked. “More warships?” “No, sir,” the sensor officer replied. “They appear to be transports.” “They’re landing on Yanibar,” Selu realized aloud. “What’s their trajectory?” “If they follow their present course . . . they’ll land about fifty klicks from the Daizon Valley entrance.” Selu paled. The Daizon Valley was the widest and most commonly used entrance to the Tusloni Basin where the Yanibar refuge was located. A thirty kilometer passage through the jagged mountain peaks that encircled the refuge and made it impassable to ground assault, it was the perfect invasion corridor. Forested, green, with plenty of water from a network of small rivers, and—most importantly—fairly passable terrain, the Daizon Valley was the most vulnerable point of the Yanibar refuge in terms of overland assault. It was no coincidence that the largest Yanibar Guard Army base was located right at its inner mouth and various defense outposts were scattered throughout it. “Are they in range of fleet gunnery?” Selu asked. “No, sir,” the weapons chief told him. “And we can’t interdict the transports without passing through the Zannist fleet. Not unless you can conceal them again.” “They’d see it coming,” Selu said with a shake of his head. “They’d open up on likely vectors, or hit the station while the fleet was hidden. Get me the emergency line to YG Command groundside.” In seconds, Selu was connected by the encrypted priority command line to Spectre down at that largest YGA base. “Do you see what I see?” Selu asked. “We do,” Spectre replied grimly. “We don’t have line-of-sight for our direct-fire ground to space weaponry. The approach angle is off. We could use missiles, but they’re not in range yet.” “And the civilians in the area?” Selu asked. “YGI is evacuating them,” Spectre replied. “Also, you should know that the Ruling Council convened as soon as the Zannist fleet appeared. They voted overwhelmingly in favor of temporary martial law until the crisis is over. We didn’t even have to request it.” “That was very considerate of them,” Selu remarked. “They all understand the stakes,” Spectre told him. “Even the ones who disagree with you. They tried to tell you, but it wasn’t a priority signal and the comms have been rather busy.” “I understand,” Selu answered. “Thank you for telling me.” “Do you have plan for dealing with the army, or do you want me to deal with it?” Spectre asked. “Stand by,” Selu said. “I’m on my way down.” Switching over his transmission to reach Admiral Slayke, Selu faced the quarter-sized hologram of the admiral. “Admiral, I’m heading down to the surface. If you see an opportunity, take it, but otherwise hold position. Fleet’s all yours.” “All right,” Slayke said. “We’re not going anywhere if we don’t have to anyway. We’re in bad shape. If you and the Force can accomplish anything . . .” “I know that,” Selu told the officer. “But we could be in worse shape on the ground depending on what Zann brought with him. I’m needed down there.” “I understand,” Slayke replied. “We’ll hold ‘em off.” “I know you will, Admiral,” Selu reassured him. “May the Force be with you.” He terminated the transmission, then headed for the hangar bay where the Hawk-bat was parked. Selu boarded it and quickly obtained permission to launch. Escorted by a flight of Sabre starfighters, he flew the modified freighter down to the surface of Yanibar. He was puzzled at how the Zannists could have known to land so close to the Daizon Valley, or how they even knew it was there. The Force illusion he had concealed the Yanibar refuge with at its inception had been created specifically to show the Tusloni Basin from orbit as explicitly impenetrable by any conventional ground force; Selu had formed the illusion so that the Daizon Valley simply didn’t appear from orbit. He needed answers. Activating the comm board on the Hawk-bat, he sent a transmission to the one person whom he thought might have information. “Milya,” Selu asked. “Are you busy?” “A little,” Milya said curtly; her transmission signal showed that she was at YGI Central, no doubt coordinating everything that she could, against her doctor’s orders. “I’m only supervising an evacuation of the Daizon Valley and watching an invasion army descend upon my homeworld.” “I know,” Selu said. “I’m sorry; I’ll be brief. Does YGI know how the Zannists determined the location of the Daizon Valley, or even the refuge?” “Not really,” Milya’s answer came almost immediately. “The spy aboard the ODC didn’t access that kind of information and there hasn’t been an accurate, up-to-date geological survey of Yanibar released in decades. No spy ships or probes either. He’s either got some really old maps—which were never exactly common—or some other source of information.” Selu frowned. The deluge of information she was feeding him basically said that they didn’t know. But there was something in the way she’d worded her reply and pitched her tone of voice that told him there was something more. “What else?” he asked. She sighed. “I can’t confirm it, so it’s not in any kind of official statement,” she said. “But I caught a glimpse of something in the Force.” “Go on,” Selu pressed. “I saw . . . Tyber Zann on his ship,” Milya said. “I think he has Sarth and Cassi.” “If he does, then we should have sensed their presences,” Selu said. “Right?” “I know,” Milya told him. “I’ve thought of that already, and I know Sarth and Cassi would never divulge anything about Yanibar to Tyber Zann.” “They might be under duress,” Selu said gently, trying to word it in such a way as to not instill further worry about them, nor overtly suggest the idea that they could be broken. “It’s a possibility,” Milya said. “But, I can’t confirm it, for whatever reason.” “I understand,” Selu said as the Hawk-bat swooped into the atmosphere. “I’ll be groundside in a few minutes. If you can, see if you can confirm that nagging suspicion of yours.” “I’ll try,” Milya replied, the trace of exasperation in her voice telling him that she’d been trying to do just that. “See you soon.” The comlink cut off before Selu had a chance to ask Milya where Rhiannon was. She was obviously both agitated and busy, so he decided not to call her back. That little detail could be easily taken care of later. Due to the fact that his approach trajectory was more direct, the Hawk-bat reached Yanibar well before the first of Zann’s transports breached the planet’s atmosphere. In fact, Selu had time to fly through a light rainstorm that had settled over much of the Tusloni Basin and set the freighter down and reach the command room of the central YGA base before that happened. Joining Spectre in studying the threat board there, Selu watched the cluster of red dots approach. “They appear to be heavily escorted,” Spectre pointed out, referring to the transports. “I could launch missiles or droids at them, but it would just be a waste.” “Hmm,” Selu mused, stroking his goatee thoughtfully. The seeds of an idea had been forming in his mind on his flight down to the surface and now he was convinced it was the best way. “What do you recommend?” Spectre asked, arching one eyebrow inquisitively. “I recommend you don’t fire anything,” Selu said. “You’re right, it’s a waste of time to send a single droid, missile, or fighter at that landing force.” “So, we just let them land and hope their intentions are noble?” Spectre asked, waiting for Selu to reveal the catch. “Not exactly,” Selu said with a wicked, knowing smile. He told Spectre about his plan, and after he had done so, the same wicked smile had creased Spectre’s face. The natural state of Yanibar’s weather was, to put it bluntly, awful. Unpredictable and savage as a result of the planet’s axial tilt and distance from its star, as well as due to tidal forces from its moons, the weather patterns made the planet just barely habitable. Many of the original Zeison Sha had perished due to the inclement conditions. In the initial days of the Yanibar refuge, the weather had required Selu Kraen and several talented Zeison Sha to scramble out any time and attempt to use the Force to weaken it any time that a particularly severe storm blew in. Thankfully, those days were long gone due to three sizable weather control towers purchased with a stolen Imperial fortune and which sheltered the Tusloni Basin from the worst of Yanibar’s weather. The towers’ range extended nearly a hundred kilometers on every side of the basin. It was these devices that Selu now hoped to use against the Zann Consortium in an idea that somehow seemed reminiscent of something Sarth would contrive. A single transmission on his emergency command frequency put Selu in touch with the individual in charge of the weather control network. It took a few minutes to convey exactly what Selu wanted done to the scientist, but in the end, his point was made clear. The scientist, a Force-sensitive genius in his field specifically recruited by Sarth from the Jal Shey, said that, though it had never been done before, he could get Selu what he wanted, provided he had the resources and necessary power available. Selu promised him he’d have everything he needed. A YGI databurst transmission gave Selu the vicinity of likely landing sites where Zann Consortium pathfinding craft and advance scouts had already set down, and he provided those coordinates to the weather control network. Selu stood in the darkened command center while Spectre pulled up a meteorological display on a secondary screen next to the threat board. The two men observed the formative stages of a storm front large enough to blanket the entire landing force. Within the hour, directed by the impulses spewing from careful, if unorthodox, uses of the weather control network, the storm intensified. Yanibar’s storms could form very quickly, and this one, artificially aggravated and enhanced, was even nastier than the multi-cell thunderstorms common on Yanibar. The color-coded meteorological screen showed a large patch of angry reds and purples, indicating a severe and very powerful storm, growing and moving swiftly towards the incoming ships. Selu watched as a second storm front appeared from the other side, cutting off their retreat. “The clash of those two fronts will be quite spectacular,” Spectre noted as he watched them converge on each other—and the invasion fleet. “Indeed,” Selu said wryly. “Remind me to increase the pay of all weather control technicians by at least twenty percent when this is all over.” “Wind speed is nearing two hundred kilometers per hour,” Spectre said, glancing at the symbols on the meteorological display. “Significant numbers of lightning strikes, visibility down to 0 kilometers.” Spectre’s dry description of the storm didn’t nearly do justice to the actual meteorological event. Gusts of wind collided in swirling vortices as the two fronts collided in a clash of titans. Forks of lightning split the thick blanket of ominous black thunderclouds as sheets of rain flew through the air, whipped in every direction by the eddies and tempests of the angry, howling gales. The fierce energy, buoyed by the influence of the weather control stations, torched spidery webs through the dense cloud cover, providing the illumination in the pitch-black darkness of the frontal collision. Caught right in the midst of this fear-inspiring beast of a storm, the gaggle of transports soon flew into utter disarray as the ships were tossed around by the sheer power of the weather. Lightning strikes, attracted to the high metal content of the transports, lit up shields, sapping energy as the deflectors tried to withstand the high-energy bolts. Winds made piloting a tenuous affair at best, and collisions began thinning the ranks as spacecraft were slammed into each other at lethal velocities. Several other ships simply lost control and fell out of the sky to crash below, destroying men and materiel. The ships that did make it to the landing site set down with a quarter of their original number missing; such was the intensity of the storm they had flown through. When they did land, they found that the dry lake bed where the landing site was located had been transformed into a sea of mud, making debarkation difficult. For the most part, the Zannist soldiers simply hunkered down to wait for the storm to finish unleashing its drenching rain and whirlwinds. They could do nothing until the wrath of Yanibar’s weather was depleted. Eventually, though, the clouds did break, revealing a star-filled night sky and two moons. Pressed relentlessly by their overseers, the Zannist soldiers managed to finish the unpleasant task of unloading their weaponry and supplies in the knee-deep mud, working late into the night, but eventually, most of them found somewhere to collapse from exhaustion. They would launch their assault the next morning. Merciless “Are you sure about this?” Tyber Zann asked Sarth, who was sitting in front of a large holoprojector. “I’m sure,” Sarth told him wearily. This was the third such session he’d had with the crime lord, and Zann had relentlessly pressed him for information on Yanibar and its defenses. Sarth had complied, just as he’d promised he would. The holoprojector showed the location of the Daizon Valley, as well as the four major Yanibar Guard bases inside the Tusloni Basin, data that Sarth had provided to Zann. He’d also given an approximate number of Yanibar Guardsmen and droids, as well as what information he could on their equipment, to Zann. There had been no deception in the intelligence he’d provided—he knew all too well the consequences of doing so. However, that didn’t mean he was revealing the whole truth. “I’m not sure I believe you,” Zann said suspiciously. “After all, you failed to inform me that the weather control towers could be used to generate such a massive storm. I lost a quarter of my landing force.” “I didn’t even know they could be used that way,” Sarth countered. “I’m an engineer and an executive, not a soldier. I don’t even read the defense plans.” Okay, technically true, Sarth thought. He was just told about them by Milya, Selu, and Spectre. “A pity,” Zann said drily. “Look, I’ve told you what you’re up against and given you their locations as best as I can,” Sarth said. “I don’t have anything else to tell you. I just don’t know any more.” “I think you do,” Zann said. “There is one last thing I want to know.” “What?” Sarth asked shortly. Zann leaned in over the holoprojector to stare directly at Sarth. “I want to know about the leadership of this Yanibar Guard,” he said. “Who is in charge down there?” Sarth swallowed hard. This was the part he hadn’t wanted to divulge to Zann. He had no choice, though. The best he could do was hope to tell Zann very little substantive information. “Matrik Tenzor is the general on the ground. He’s a former clone in the Republic army. He’s experienced and smart,” Sarth replied. “I’d put him over one of your mercenary commanders any day of the week.” “Cut the attitude, Sarth,” Zann warned. “Or else your wife will suffer. Is he in charge of the space fleet also?” “No,” Sarth said miserably. “That belongs to another experienced officer named Zozridor Slayke.” “I’ve heard the name,” Zann replied. “He disappeared awhile ago, and I wondered where he and his group went.” “That’s him,” Sarth said. “And there’s one other thing you should know.” “What’s that?” “You’re up against a trained and experienced army, Tyber Zann,” Sarth said with a last flicker of defiance. “They’re better equipped and better led than anything you’ve ever been up against. This isn’t bullying helpless Twi’leks on Ryloth. You’ll be up against trained warriors.” “And Jedi?” Zann asked. “There are several others,” Sarth said, giving a much lower number for the ranks of the Elite Guardians. “I’m not too worried about them,” Zann said. “The same method I use to restrain you here will work equally well on the ground.” “And just how is that?” Sarth asked, hoping to get some information. Zann thought about refusing to answer, but he relented. Sarth couldn’t do anything to him now. “Fascinating little creatures native to the planet Myrkr,” Zann explained. “They’re called ysalamiri. Apparently, they repel the Force in an area around them.” “That’s absurd,” Sarth retorted. “Is it?” Zann replied with a mocking chuckle. “I don’t see you lifting anything with your mind.” Sarth said nothing, knowing Zann had a good point. Instead, he folded his hands and sat motionless, staring at the hologram loaded full of valuable tactical data that he’d given to Tyber Zann. Data that would greatly help the criminal conquer Yanibar. “I’ve told you everything I know,” he told Zann. Zann peered down at him, but something in Sarth’s face convinced him the man was sincere. “We’ll talk later,” he said, then turned to his Trandoshan Guards. “See that Sarth here gets back to his cell. And get him and his wife something to eat and drink as a reward for his cooperation.” The guards silently helped Sarth to his feet, each placing a giant forearm under his shoulder and half-supporting, half-carrying him. His knee and ankle still hadn’t been properly treated and Sarth didn’t even want to guess what they looked like under the dirty bandages they were wrapped in. He couldn’t place any weight on either of them and if it hadn’t been for the sizable dose of perigen he’d been given, the pain would have been unbearable. The Trandoshans plodded their way down the hallway back to Sarth’s cell. Sarth feigned weakness, letting them do most of the work while he waited for the right moment. Zann’s explanation about the ysalamiri had cleared up a lot of the questions in his mind about how their access to the Force was blocked, and it had given him an idea. He’d sensed a small pocket in the halls of the Merciless where he’d gotten just a taste of the Force before its presence had been cut off again. The past two trips to and from the conference room had allowed him to determine its location and now he was ready. He tensed, knowing he would only get one shot at this. Thankfully, the Trandoshans seemed to be the very definition of dumb muscle and Sarth knew they weren’t the most attentive guards. The spot approached—five meters, four, three, two . . one . . . there! The Force was with him for just a second, and Sarth used that brief sliver of opportunity to telekinetically pull a loose comlink from one Trandoshan and slip it into his boot. The sensation of being open to the Force was cut off almost immediately afterward, but he was successful. His prize was now nestled in his boot, out of sight. Hopefully, he’d be able to make use of it. Yanibar Slogging through the mud, the army of Zann Consortium soldiers made its way to the entrance of the Tusloni Basin. Squads of mercenary soldiers scouted ahead, backed up by swift yet flimsy speeders. Behind them followed the brunt of the army—heavy droidekas, plasma tanks, three-legged All-Terrain Attack Pods of Clone Wars vintage, MDUs, and personnel transports. Lumbering behind them were the armored spearheads of the Consortium, the massive Canderous assault tanks produced by MandalMotors, and the Missile Attack Launchers that served as artillery. The weather had not improved much. The torrential rain and gale-force winds had given away, but now a thick blanket of fog had rolled in over the entire valley, prompting unconfident mutterings from the common soldiery. The planet had been entirely inhospitable to them thus far. Acting cautiously, the advance scouts progressed gradually through the entrance of the valley until their commander grew impatient and ordered a full frontal assault into the Daizon Valley. The armored columns moved up while the forward groups slowed, allowing the army to form a single cohesive unit pushing through the Valley. Strangely, the misty, forested valley had offered no resistance. Nor did it until they were five kilometers in. Then, bursting out of underground bunkers carefully concealed for such an ambush, squads of battle droids, droidekas, and Armored Assault Tanks carefully preserved from the Clone Wars emerged from hiding with all weapons blazing. Their robotic photoreceptors were little troubled by the fog and the clumped formation of the Zann Consortium made targeting easy. The confused Zannist soldiers, taken by surprise, blazed away in all directions, sometimes hitting friendly vehicles. The actual number of droids was less than a thousand, but the effect of the multi-vector assault had been intended to carefully sow discord into the army. It was some time before all the droids, programmed to evade and harass, were defeated, and there were nearly as many casualties from friendly fire as there were from the YG droids. In particular, the drivers of the larger plasma tanks and Canderous assault tanks were disdainful and heedless of the impact their cannons had when fired; they simply didn’t care about the smaller vehicles and infantry. Soon, the trees of the Daizon Valley, many of which had already been trampled despite the presence of a sizable cleared road, were splintered, sundered, and set afire in the vicinity of the army. Yet, despite the harassment, the Zannist army continued its path of devastation. Until it hit the first minefield. Smaller speeders exploded outright, hurled into the air as burning hulks by the force of the detonations. Larger vehicles weren’t destroyed by the mines, but the damage was often enough to debilitate them. The minefields weren’t that dense, but their appearance was enough to spook even the most hardened tank pilots into slowing down until their movement lane had been cleared by the infantry. The Zannist commander gritted his teeth in anger as reports of more casualties came through the murky fog. Had he been more patient and deployed more of his mercenaries to scout the surroundings, they might have picked up on the tactics of their enemies. Belatedly, he gave that order now, sending his trained mercenaries and Mandalorian commanders to the sweep the flanks and directly in front of the army for further traps. He also deployed the masses of conscripted infantry, sentients that had been pressed into service of the Zann Consortium. Little more than laser cannon fodder, they only served because of the threat hanging over their families and people if they failed to do their part. To the Zann Consortium, they were the most expendable of all assets. Revising the tactics did make a difference. The heavily armed and ruthless mercenaries and Mandalorians quickly located and dealt with two more droid bunkers with minimal casualties. Droids were simply no match for experienced organic warriors with the appropriate equipment and training. The mines, hastily laid by the Yanibar Guard only a few days prior, were also not hard for demolitions specialists to locate and disarm, greatly diminishing their effectiveness at slowing down the Zannists. The one thing that annoyed the mercenaries was that they had to meet any organic opponents. With the columns proceeding more cautiously, it was midday before the Zannists made it twelve kilometers into the Daizon Valley. There had still been no sign of the Yanibar Guard other than the occasional mine or droid ambush. They had passed through a few isolated villages, though, but they had all been completely evacuated. The entire valley seemed devoid of sentient life other than the entire Zann Consortium. Of course, that wasn’t true. Watching from one of those villages, Nate Kraen set his helmet visor to maximum magnification in its infrared mode, watching twenty or so Mandalorians approach the small cluster of buildings, making their way through the forest. The rest of Cresh Squad was likewise scattered around the village. Given that the advance squads no doubt had sophisticated sensors, they had eschewed their camopacks in favor of shields. “Cresh Three to Lead,” he said into his comlink. “Hostiles spotted.” “Confirmed,” Captain Wyslond reported. “Two, fire at will. Give them something to think about.” There was a click on the commnet as the taciturn sniper acknowledged. Nate observed as one of the Mandalorians was suddenly knocked over by an invisible force, no doubt the result of an armor-piercing tungsten-durasteel slug from the sniper’s S-5X. The Mandalorians immediately ducked down and began approaching far more cautiously, using the trees and scattered rocks for cover. One of them, carefully flattened against a tree, never knew what hit him when another sniper round punched through the thick trunk and tore a messy hole in the back of his helmeted head. S-5X rounds could travel at up to 2,000 meters per second. A tree trunk wouldn’t slow one down much at all, and the big bullets had been designed to punch through armor. “Looks like they’ve found the next cluster of mines,” Nate said, observing two Mandalorians belly-crawl up to the explosives and begin disarming them. He was now doing so through the scope of his S-2F blaster rifle rather than just his helmet’s optics. Nate sighted in on one Mandalorian, but held his fire. No need to waste all that preparation. “Set ‘em off,” Captain Wyslond ordered. Cresh Squad’s demolition expert did as ordered, setting off the secondary set of charges planted underneath the mines that he’d placed. The resulting explosion blew a large crater in the ground and tossed several Mandalorians around lifelessly. The squad opened fire from the cover of the buildings, filling the air with angry whining purple blasterfire. The bolts soon sought out the Mandalorians, hammering them with relentless accuracy. However, these were no simple thugs or guards on Nar Shaddaa. The return fire was just as accurate and heavy. If it wasn’t for their shields, Nate, realized, they would have been slightly overmatched. As it was, Cresh Squad was barely hanging on, but they were inflicting heavy casualties on the Mandalorians. A tight grouping of blaster bolts chewed away at the stone wall he was ducked behind, filling the air over his head with red-hot rock splinters. He stayed down, sliding the blaster rifle up over the wall to let loose a burst of suppressing fire. He popped up just as a Mandalorian, equipped with rockets on his wrist gauntlets, fired a jetpack and launched himself into the air, intent on raining explosive death down on Cresh Squad. Nate’s blaster was tracking the rapidly ascending man when he saw a flash on the man’s armor, followed by an ear-splitting crack two seconds later from the sound of the S-5X round hitting hypersonic velocities. Cresh Two was still plying his deadly trade, and had just saved the squad from certain death. Nate snapped back up above the wall again, planting two blaster bolts square into a Mandalorian. Several return blasts hit him in the head, and only the energy shield enveloping him saved him from death. Consulting his helmet sensors, Nate realized that at least a hundred more soldiers were rushing to the aid of the Mandalorians. Noting the size of some of the laser blasts, they’d brought in heavy vehicles as well. The initial soldiers were a distraction, designed to keep Cresh Squad distracted with fighting them until reinforcements arrived. Nate’s squad status display in one corner of his helmet’s HUD showed two wounded among the squad. A clever plan and one that had succeeded. “Fall back,” Wyslond ordered as the fire intensified. Arming a detonator, Nate chunked it over the wall and waited for the explosion to cover his retreat before scrambling back a dozen meters, dodging blaster bolts. He ran straight into an opportunistic Nikto mercenary who had been sneaking up on Cresh Two with a large disrupter. The blasts to Nate’s head must have damaged his sensors. Time slowed down as both combatants were taken by surprise. Nate recovered first, though, slamming the butt of his rifle into the Nikto’s chin, driving the alien back. Immediately after, he pulled his vibroblade and ran the Nikto through. “We’re being overrun!” he called. Laying down a pattern of cover fire so that Cresh Two could scramble off the rooftop he’d been firing from and retreat through the mists, Nate noticed with dismay that several combat speeders had moved up. Seeing one blazing away less than twenty meters from him, he fired his underslung grenade launcher at it and was rewarded to see it explode. Good, those had light armor, then. Two managed to backpedal safely, and the sniper was skilled enough to drop two more Mandalorians with close-range shots even while on the move. An impressive feat. Nate was about to fall back to another position at the rear of the village when a laser cannon bolt struck the corner of the wall he was hiding behind. The explosion hurled him back onto the ground in a cloud of smoke and dust, his shield completely blown out after trying to absorb the impact. Nate tried to ignore the ringing in his ears and rolled over to see a three-legged All-Terrain Attack Pod pointing its cluster of weaponry at him. The sizable walker would be difficult for Cresh Squad to take down under even if it had been alone—they hadn’t brought the requisite heavy weapons with them for destroying that kind of vehicle in one hit, and only a close-range assault with grenades would stand a chance at toppling it. With the village and surrounding woods swarming with hostile infantry, they’d never make it. He prepared himself for the searing sensation of being blown apart by the walker, when suddenly it turned. Glancing in the direction that it had traversed, Nate saw a figure jump into the sky out of cover without the use of any kind of jetpack. The airborne individual, a red-skinned female Twi’lek wearing light battle armor, hung in the sky for a second, heedless of the blaster bolts she was attracting, bringing her arms, which had been extended out from her shoulder, across her body violently in an expressive gesture. Nate watched as a sizable tree, its trunk already weakened by blaster fire, crashed down on top of the walker, smashing it to the ground in a pile of burning wreckage. The figure dropped back down, and Nate saw that she was running towards him, though running was probably not the right word for it. She was moving evasively, leaping and cartwheeling over blaster bolts that flew past her to hit the ground in puffs of steam and exploding dirt, jumping up to run along walls for short intervals. Her acrobatics were impressive, and Nate knew that only the Force could facilitate such agility. She paused briefly across the street from him and he could have sworn she was looking straight at him, trying to say something. His ringing ears couldn’t hear her, though, and he suspected his helmet was damaged, rendering his comlink useless. He watched as she crouched low, then launched herself across the street, jumping up into the air and spinning around to sling two whirling disk-shaped objects in the direction of the energy blasts being fired at her. Craning his neck around the corner, he watched the two Mandalorians that had been firing at her go down, their necks sliced at the weak point by the thrown objects, which the Force-sensitive Twi’lek had called back to her hand by the time she’d landed gracefully next to Nate. She looked at him concernedly even as she ducked behind the remains of the wall to avoid more blaster fire. “I’m okay,” Nate told her, using his helmet’s speakers. “Good,” she said. “We need to go. Can you run?” “Yes,” Nate replied, though he’d only caught the last bit of her words due to the fading ringing in his ears. The Twi’lek helped him up and together they dashed back through the fields. She always went first, drawing fire that uncannily never seemed to touch her, allowing Nate to loose a few last-second blaster bolts and fall back. Like the wind, she seemed almost ethereal, untouchable by any means available to their adversaries. At her whirlwind-fast mad dash of a pace, they made it out of the village in only a few minutes, though Nate’s legs ached from the incessant sprinting-and-stopping. Soon, she guided him away from their angry pursuers to a carefully hidden escape tunnel half a kilometer of the village where the rest of Cresh Squad was waiting for them. “Told you I’d bring him back,” the Twi’lek told Captain Wyslond with a smile. “Thank you, Master Daara,” the captain told her. “And not a moment too soon. We need to—,” “Fall back using the tunnel and seal it behind us, I know,” Daara said. “Can your wounded walk?” “They can,” the captain said. “Let’s go.” Cresh Squad fell back through the tunnel, using their helmets’ optical sensors to guide them in the darkness, while Master Daara simply used the Force. They heard a muffled explosion behind them as a strategically-placed demolitions charge collapsed their escape route, keeping it from discovery by the Zannist forces. Outside, though, the sky began to rumble as fiery streaks burned through the air to hit the village. The Zannists were finally experiencing the Yanibar Guard’s longest-ranged tactical artillery. Twenty kilometers away, enormous tri-barreled Mauler assault tanks, deployed in fire support mode, were loosing a furious thunderstorm of high explosive-filled solid projectiles. Those shells, magnetically accelerated into the sky, finished their parabolic arcs and dove downward, turning the misty, smoldering remains of the village into a cauldron of concussions and fire from the shell impacts. A rather old-fashioned form of artillery, Kraechar Arms had chosen to develop the primary long-range fire support battle system for the Yanibar Guard on a projectile-based system over energy weapons in order to facilitate exactly this kind of indirect bombardment that lasers couldn’t provide over uneven terrain. Fireballs dotted the area as the shells rained down mercilessly, and while they soon died out to flickering tongues of flame due to the thick mist, the electromagnetically-guided shells sought out the light vehicles of the Zann Consortium advance force. Though only a dozen of the Maulers were firing, their three barrels and high rate of fire allowed them to blanket several square kilometers with their deadly ordnance. Still, the Zannists managed to advance through the fiery hailstorm and, as Missile Attack Launchers deployed and loosed volleys of rockets in counter-battery file, the artillery duel began in earnest. While Maulers were larger and had more powerful shields, the MALs were more mobile and could deploy faster. The exchange of shells and missiles raged for nearly an hour and the barrages were enough to slow the Zann Consortium advance even further while the MALs traded fire with the Maulers. Eventually, though, Spectre conceded defeat and withdrew his surviving seven Maulers back behind a powerful shield generator. He’d done considerable damage to the approaching Zannists with his artillery, but the heavy tanks were proving quite vulnerable to the salvoes of long-range missiles packed by the MALs. This didn’t mean he was done, though. While the MALs were still deployed in their firing positions, Spectre sent a wave of twenty Vulture droids screaming through the mist at low-level to target them while the Maulers withdrew. Using their lasers and torpedoes, they strafed the MALs, reducing another nine of the missile carriers to wreckage before most of them were destroyed. Spectre called the survivors back; they’d accomplished their job by covering the withdrawal of the Maulers. Free of harassment, the Zannists managed to advance another five kilometers by the time that evening had fallen. However, they were now in range of the Maulers even from within the shields. Carefully timed barrages were fired at random intervals to keep the Zannists from pushing forward too fast, and by the time the missiles from the MALs had launched, the shields had been raised again. The frustrated Zannist commander had originally ordered them to bombard the shields incessantly, but after a mysterious mudslide had buried a supply convoy loaded with more missiles, he’d been forced to conserve ammunition somewhat. The Yanibar Guard was fighting a war of attrition, making his advance through the Daizon Valley very costly. Insisting that the pace be picked up, the general drove his Canderous tank to the front of the army, hoping to advance rapidly behind an armored thrust by the heavy tanks. He stayed inside the sturdy tank until it hit a series of mines which blew out its shields and damaged its engine. Popping up into his observation cupola to inspect the damage from his turret, he didn’t report as expected. One of his crewmembers went to investigate and found that him dead, the transparisteel of the observation cupola stained with sprayed blood from a lethal head wound between his eyes. There was a sizable round hole in the observation cupola where a sniper’s round had penetrated. From then on, the advance was more cautious and Canderous tank commanders were advised to stay out of their cupolas and “keep their kriffing heads down.” Despite heavy casualties and few inflicted in return, the replacement commander kept the Zannist force pushing forward in the face of further harassment and artillery fire. By the time they had reached five kilometers from the mouth of the valley, the Yanibar Guard had added droid mortar tanks to their list of weaponry, sending blazing hot streaks of plasma fire raining down like lethal meteors on the front ranks. Unwilling to risk even heavier casualties, the Zannists fell back to just outside of mortar range—based on Sarth’s intelligence, there were quite a few in the Yanibar Guard Army arsenal. Looking through the ruined and charred forests surrounding their emplacements, the tired Zann Consortium soldiers could just barely see the sizable Yanibar Guard base sitting on a mountain spur overlooking the valley. Taking that base would be their objective for the next day, their commander informed. Not exactly thrilled about that prospect after the hardships they’d already experienced, they fell into an uneasy sleep against a background of intermittent artillery fire. By the next morning, however, orders had changed, and to the surprise and pleasure of the common soldier, the advance on the no-doubt heavily fortified emplacement was called off. Though the reasoning was unknown to the majority of the strike force, it had nothing to do with a new squeamishness over heavy casualties. No, this order to halt had come straight from the top. New variables had entered the equation.
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