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"I remember Upper Cut yelling that we were going to help them 'get back up'. I like to think he was referring to helping me. Thinking on it now though I guess I was just filling up one hole with dirt I got from digging another." – S-Man
Time In Ruul System – 3 Hours
Time After Hoth – 28 Days
"Keep it tight guys. Looks like trouble ahead." Nak announced.
The three speeder bikes gave a low droning whine as they moved through the rocky terrain. There could be no mistaking that a set of 74-Z speeder bikes were racing ahead, moving through the small passages and into the deep canyons.
But speed of the craft was incredible. Though land based speeders, they could still respond to calls that were far away with amazing expedience. Perhaps not as fast as an air speeder or one of the many fighter craft that had been flying over head for the past hour.
Ruul may have slipped into rebel hands, but the planet was far from under Rebel control. They had no support craft and all reports showed that they had half as many available troops brought to bear as the Empire had.
The Empire never took losing worlds well, especially not detention facilities. Prison complexes like the ones on Ruul were important. They had very high manufacturing outputs and kept the dangerous criminals of the galaxy far away from the innocent civilians going about their daily lives.
The Rebels on the other hand had no respect for what they did. They'd sabotage such a facility, and arm every prisoner there if it meant sticking it to the Empire. It was simply because they hated the Empire, and the safety and security it brought. The various Warlord bands no doubt just wanted to spread anarchy to every reach of the galaxy.
Fortunately, the Storm Trooper Corps stood firmly between them and that goal. At least that was what S-Man thought.
His head may still have been all over the place, but he still knew the difference between right and wrong, and the rebellion was an organization of evil pure and simple.
"Drill Site 44-C, coming in range." S-Man called out, as he looked down at a small holomap display that tracked their progress to their designated area.
Zooming out of a small passageway, the three Scout Troopers came into a large cratered zone. At its center there was a large gray metallic structure. It was an oddly shaped rectangular structure, held together by several support beams that ran on its sides. At the base it connected with the ground, where several drills made contact with the ground.
There were several windows up near the top of the structure, and a few doors that went inside of it. Along its exterior there was a walkway, which circled the structure with a railing around it.
This was one of the many Drill Platforms on the planet. It was a very standard piece of equipment in large scale mining operations.
S-Man was not entirely sure what its purpose was, as he was not a miner. He could assume however that it would dig out circles to reach ore that may have been in more difficult places to reach.
But today the platform at Drill Site 44-C was not used for a mining operation. It was used as an outpost, where armed criminals were led by a handful of rebel operatives to try to break free from the chains of their rehabilitation.
Streaks of red zipped back and forth from the Drill Platform and a group of rocks where a platoon of Stormtroopers was taking cover.
There was a Sentinel-Class Landing Craft just a few yards from the rocks. It was badly damaged. Its dorsal wing was blown apart, and there were heavy streaks of black coming from it.
"They must have crashed." S-Man deduced as the speeder bikes flew around the group hiding behind the rocks.
"Well let's help em' get back up!" Upper Cut replied. He'd been silent for a while, which was unusual given his general need to comment on a situation.
The three speeder bikes broke off in different direction, in a maneuver they had practiced many times before. Nak went down the center, Upper Cut went left, and S-Man went to the right.
They raced outward, and then one by one turned directly towards a single point, the drill platform.
"Yeah!" Upper Cut yelled, as his light blaster cannon fired off a stream of shots at a rebel line.
"Back in the hole, scum." S-Man echoed, much more calmly then Upper Cut.
The red blasts left a trail of dead rebels, as the scouts came in completely unexpected. Though there were still many rebels out there, they had evened the odds a little bit.
The speeder bikes broke off again, and began a frenzy. They would swoop in, fire, leave several more dead enemies, and break off again.
The rebels began shifting their focus from the Stormtroopers that were behind the rocks, to the speeder bikes that were spinning around their heads. Blaster rifles began to rain upon the noisy craft that were dealing death to all of them that were trying to take cover at the platform.
"Now they shoot back." Nak rolled his eyes.
"You'd think that they'd be a little more eager to live then this." Upper Cut replied.
S-Man just exhaled, he had nothing to say.
"Well break off and head to the rocks. Time for some fire support." Nak ordered.
"Man, I was doin' so good." Upper Cut replied with a mock sadness.
"Well if you're afraid you can't match my drop count without the bike, go ahead." S-Man said finally saying something.
"Wanna put some credits on that 'Yes-Man'" Upper Cut mocked S-Man's full nickname.
"Maybe if you didn't spend downtime looking at the girls at the "Royal Ryloth", you might have the credits to wager." S-Man retorted.
Upper Cut laughed. "Sorry if I don't find cleaning my rifle alone to be as thrilling as the manual says it is."
"How would you know what it says, you can't even read it." S-Man replied, once again taking a jab at Upper Cut for his lower class upbringing and more limited education.
"Alright, shut up you two, and set down." Nak finally ordered, though he thought the conversation was funny.
The speeder bikes came down behind the rocks, firmly within cover with the others. The three Scout Troopers dismounted, and began grabbing their rifles and gear.
As they did so, a Lieutenant wearing dark gray battle armor with a helmet and visor on approached them. He carried only a blaster pistol, showing exactly the sort of commander he was.
"Whose outfit are you Scouts with?" The Lieutenant demanded of them in a light Core World accent.
"Fire team Beta of fourth squad, ninth platoon." Nak answered with a salute, S-Man and Upper Cut following suit.
"I see. Well suppress those rebels. Make sure none of them escape. I have called for air support; it should be arriving here soon." The Lieutenant explained.
He of course did not thank them for their unexpected arrival, and the assistance they'd already given. But that was life in the Stormtrooper Corps.
The three scouts took up positions at different points of the rocky cover. There were a large number of Stormtroopers around them, which made things a bit distracting. But they could get their shots lined up easily enough.
S-Man took a position a little bit up the small slope they were on. Nak moved towards the lower end on the left, while Upper Cut stayed practically where they had landed and nearly opened fire immediately.
"Already got two S-Man." Upper Cut said over their team communicator.
S-Man crouched down and lined up his shot.
"Don't worry; I'll be right be…"
S-Man stopped. He got his scope over the face of one of the rebels, and suddenly it was cold.
It was though an icy chill came over him. He did not understand where it had come from or how. The planet was not that cold, it was rather warm in fact.
He shook his head and looked through the scope again. The target had moved.
His hand shook a little bit.
Looking back through the scope he could see clearly the difference between the rebels and the prisoners. He lined up a shot over a rebel again. This time he did not get the same sensation.
THOO
A green bolt left his E-11s Sniper rifle, and collided with the mans upper torso, and he fell.
He swiveled his weapon again. This time he found a set of prisoners.
THOO
A shot hit one of them in the arm. S-Man had been aiming for his torso as well, but he'd moved at the last second.
The three scouts served to even the playing field quite a bit. After several minutes, the enemy seemed to want to take cover more then they wanted to fire.
Soon the Lieutenant would be expected to order a charge, as was common amongst war doctrine of the Empire. But he waited.
"How many more you guys count out there." Upper Cut asked.
"It looked about forty, maybe fifty." Nak replied.
"Closer to fifty." S-Man agreed.
The Rebels had quite a force with them at the beginning. It was likely seventy or eighty men when they began. But they were dealing with untrained and fairly badly equipped convicts. They carried blaster rifles and some detonators, but none had any real armor or training in how to move in combat.
Opposing them had been a group of near fifty Stormtroopers at the start. But they were right at home in a combat situation, and had the armor, equipment, and training to back it all up.
The reality was though the rebels nearly doubled them, they did not have a chance.
"Airmen coming in thirty seconds. Prepare for cover!" the Lieutenant yelled over the coms.
They did not want to alert the rebels to take cover, so they continued firing. By the look of things it was still a standard skirmish with nothing out of the ordinary on its way. The Scouts continued to find targets, the standard troopers continued to lay down suppressing fire. The Lieutenant continued to give orders safely from behind the rocks.
But then there came a faint scream like roar from over the tops of the crater. Such sounds had been heard before though much farther off. This however was much closer, and increasing in volume.
"Cover!" The various squad leaders all yelled.
S-Man dropped his head down holding his rifle close, taking a short rest as they all awaited the show.
Without warning over head appeared a pair of TIE Bombers. The two did not fly directly over head instead were directed downward towards the Drill Platform.
The horrendously loud scream was then matched by the sound of hissing as both bombers fired a barrage of missiles at the Drill Platform.
The light was fast as the shining missiles smashed into the sides of the metallic structure. The sounds of rebel screams were completely snuffed out by the explosions that followed, which were accompanied by the sound of twisting metal.
Immediately following the explosion, the Stormtroopers all came to look at what was ahead of them
The immense fireball subsided, leaving small fires in its wake. The ground was littered with rebel dead, their charred bodies forming mangled arrays around the craters the were left by the missiles.
As the bombers flew away, there then came a loud groan. The sound of metal grinding became louder and the cracking of durasteel echoed all around.
CRASH
The Drill Platform titled sideways and smashed onto its side. Like a building that had toppled over perfectly, it maintained much of its shape and rested amongst the flames.
The Stormtroopers all knew what was to come next, and they checked their gear in preparation.
S-man ensured his power pack was still charging strong for his rifle, and ensured the rest of his equipment was together.
"Platoon! Advance!" The Lieutenant ordered.
And then the entire group of Stormtroopers, including S-Man, Nak, and Upper Cut began working their way across the rocky drill site towards the destroyed structure in its center, which likely still contained many rebels.