Author's Note: I'm baaaack! I apologize for my inconsistency-life really gets in the way sometimes-and I thank all of you for your continued support as readers. To get things running again I will deliver what you all have long anticipated: ground combat between the Empire and the Imperium of Man! Just a taste of what is to come...
Excerpt from "Operation Basilisk: A Strategic and Operational Analysis," presented to Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin by the Extragalactic Forces General Staff:
One of the most promising targets we have singled out for conquest is the planet Numor, located about thirteen light-years from the Kryos terminus. Three successive probe flights have determined its physical characteristics and yielded some information on its strategic value; signals intercepts complete the picture, providing adequate intelligence prior to a military operation there.
Numor is what the natives term an "agri-world." Most of its usable surface is taken up by farmland, producing grain, fruit, and livestock. The resulting food product is intended not just for the planet's population—some six hundred million—but also for consumption by other worlds in the region, including several which have been evaluated as too populous and heavily defended to attack at this time. Seizing Numor would send a considerable ripple effect through the enemy supply system and undermine the Imperium's local capacity to feed itself.
Despite this strategic value, little evidence has been found to suggest that Numor is heavily garrisoned. There is only a single orbital defense platform, which appears to be inactive, and a loosely organized militia referred to as the "Planetary Defense Force," or PDF, estimated to be some 250,000 strong. We believe resistance will be relatively light from the point of landfall onwards. Tactically, extensive plains favor mechanized warfare, while light gravity will facilitate Star Destroyer operations within the atmosphere as well as airborne strategic transit once the planet has been secured.
As envisioned at the present time, the assault on Numor will commence with the seizure of the main planetary starport. It is believed to be only minimally occupied; resistance should be light. The native population, enslaved under a superstitious and theocratic regime for an indeterminate length of time, is expected to greet us as liberators.
Numor, 2.30 AVY:
TK-5630 had the honor of serving the Emperor in the first wave. His would not be the first pair of boots to touch the soil of this new galaxy—he was seated too far from the landing craft's exit—but he might well be the tenth or eleventh trooper off the ramp, and that was good enough for him. With the white gleam of their armor, he and his comrades carried the civilizing light of Imperial civilization. These superstitious savages would fight, at first, but a century down the line, after the war was won, they would see that it had all been to their benefit.
To the benefit of those who survived, at least.
The landing craft shook around him, and metal groaned. Atmospheric reentry was already past; now came the swift descent to the enemy spaceport, the harrowing gauntlet of antiaircraft fire and the final, sudden jolt of landing. It was an exhilarating occasion, one he had trained for in the simulator dozens of times. Aside from the occupation of Tyrindao, where the most action he'd seen had been a car bomb, this was TK-5630's first combat deployment, dropping from orbit in the belly of a Sentinel-class shuttle.
Something exploded, outside the ship. Maybe two hundred meters away. Over the whir of the ion engines it was barely possible to discern the sound, though the collision of shrapnel with the outer hull—like metal rain—was a little louder.
"There goes a shuttle," said the sergeant TK-5124, seated two spots down in the Sentinel's spacious interior; altogether it carried seventy-five stormtroopers, plus heavy weapons. "Don't let that scare you, troopers. These things are built as tough as banthas and the enemy got a lucky break taking out just one of them."
There were eight shuttles participating in the attack on the spaceport; to lose one was no great blow, and in any case, casualties had been adequately planned for. TK-5630 trusted his commanders. What good was a soldier if he had no faith in those above him?
He was jolted sideways in his seat, as the shuttle tilted its nose up and killed most of its horizontal velocity. They were almost there. He gripped his blaster rifle and looked towards the nearby door, on the side of the Sentinel's passenger hold. Third Platoon's lieutenant spoke over the comm-net:
"Attention, troopers: We are above the LZ. First Squad is first out. Find cover and lay down suppressing fire for those who follow!"
The lieutenant, always one to lead by example, would charge out the door alongside First Squad. His orange shoulder pauldron would make him an easy target.
Lasers fired, the sound they made deep and portentous. These were the landing craft's cannons, pummeling some unfortunate target on the ground, and softening up the enemy starport for the troops who would capture it. Battle was close. TK-5630 raised his E-11 blaster rifle, a sidearm he had trained with for hundreds of hours—now he would have the opportunity to draw blood with it. A warrior always took pride in his weapon, he had learned that at the Academy.
The landing craft rocked and shook. There was a kick as repulsors fired; he was pushed down into his seat, while armor clattered against armor in the cabin's close quarters.
One final jolt, and the ship was still.
"We're down!" shouted the sergeant. "Out of your seats, let's move!"
TK-5630 bolted upright and fell into line behind another member of his squad. To his left, the side door opened by a crack and let in the pale light of an overcast afternoon, while at the back of the cabin a team of stormtroopers hefted an E-Web repeating blaster.
Before the door had retracted all the way, a laser beam streaked through and blasted a trooper's head into red mist. The same beam killed another three men before ultimately punching through the far wall—four troopers down, and they hadn't even left the shuttle yet. This was not an unopposed landing.
"Go, dammit!" shouted the lieutenant, running out onto the ramp that was now lowering towards the ground. First Squad went with him, spraying crimson blaster bolts, while enemy shots flew at them from the smoky and indeterminate distance. All lasers. Judging by their intensity—they left scorchmarks, not craters, when they hit durasteel—these were just infantry weapons, not the presumably anti-armor beam that had punched clean through the landing craft.
TK-5630 stepped over a corpse on the way out. Then he was down the ramp, ankle-deep in the sodden grass, running even though the mud sucked at every footfall. There was no time to look, but he was certain his pristine white armor was already tarnished.
Within seconds he had gotten his bearings: there was a runway up ahead, beyond it a mound of concrete rubble that had once been a building. Some sort of terminal or cargo processing facility, probably. TIE bombers had hit it on the way in. Nevertheless, troops of what the natives called the "Planetary Defense Force" had been surprisingly quick to prepare positions among the ruins, and they were putting up fierce resistance.
To the front, the enemy. To the sides, an expanse of alternating grass and tarmac, cratered. Behind him were the newly landed shuttles, some of which were taking off again now that their cargoes were disgorged. Altogether the situation matched what he'd seen during the briefing. His platoon was to advance straight into hostile fire and pin the enemy, while Second and Fifth Platoons struck from the flanks.
Laser bolts streaked past him and he dived for cover in a small crater. Beside him, a pair of troopers set up an E-Web and started blasting, though they only got off a few shots before a rocket sent pieces of their bodies and weapon flying.
"Second Squad!" called out the sergeant, TK-5124. "Get moving! I want Fireteam A advancing, Fireteam B firing overwatch!"
TK-5630 was in Fireteam A. But he did not dread the thought of advancing into a blizzard of hostile fire—he was a stormtrooper of His Majesty the Emperor, and he did not know fear. He stood from the crater, covered in mud, and ran forward. Any shots he fired would probably go wide, but fire he did.
The man beside him went down—TK-5667, a good trooper, a recruit from Bespin who had always been pleasant to interact with if not particularly bright. He died unceremoniously, with a smoking hole right in the middle of his helmet. TK-5630 did not even pause to look.
Then he was almost on the tarmac, where opportunities for cover were strikingly fewer. The bombers and shuttles had avoided blasting the landing zones so that the Empire might still get some use out of them. There was, however, a short slope leading up to the runway, and it was here that he went to ground again, rifle aimed over the asphalt. Most of his squad fell in beside him. The others were dead, including, he realized, the sergeant. He'd died somewhere further back and he hadn't noticed amid the chaos.
"How many do we have left?" TK-5630 asked the nearest trooper, TK-5202. To an outsider they all would have looked identical—the very face of Imperial uniformity—but his heads-up display superimposed a number above every stormtrooper to keep them neatly differentiated.
TK-5202 paused to count. "Five?"
Out of nine. All this and they still hadn't gotten a good look at the enemy. Just flashes of red laser fire from a pile of rubble, and occasional glimpses of pale faces and rounded blue-grey armor.
"Corporal TK-5111 is still alive," TK-5202 went on. "He is in command."
TK-5630 nodded and looked behind him. The shuttles had all taken off again, save for one which had been hit by a missile or a heavy laser and now lay burning on the grass. Most of the rest seemed to be circling overhead, alongside TIE fighters and bombers, drawing antiaircraft fire from distant corners of the starport while raining down missiles and laser bolts in retaliation. On the other side of the LZ, by a series of outbuildings that must have served some technical function in more peaceful times, several Imperial platoons were overrunning much lighter opposition.
He turned back after another moment. His own slice of the battlefield was still heated, and to close the distance he would have to charge across sixty meters of flat, paved, exposed ground. Something resembling a survival instinct kicked in and he swiftly suppressed it.
"On my mark, we charge them," TK-5111 said, inching upwards on the embankment.
A series of fast, staccato gunshots kicked in. The enemy had set up some sort of slugthrower, primitive but deadly all the same. Nearby, another squad went over, and they were mowed down—where was the flanking attack? The Planetary Defense Force should have been distracted here, at the very least. TK-5630 peeked over the edge, took a shot at a blue-grey enemy trooper who had carelessly exposed himself, then went back down as several laser bolts streaked his way.
"Ready…" said the corporal. Even he hesitated a little.
TK-5630 hesitated, too, despite himself. Was this it, his heroic death in the Emperor's service? Unbidden images flashed across his mind, of a child he had lost and a wife he had discarded. It had been so long ago…
But no, now was not his time. Deliverance came with a pair of TIE bombers that swooped by overhead, pummeling the enemy position with a rain of thermal detonators. The bombs fell like pebbles, detonating in a sheet of fire and shockwaves on the ground, sending shrapnel flying overhead and pulverizing what little remained of the starport terminal. Now was their chance.
"Go!" the corporal shouted, though TK-5630 and several others had already pre-empted him. They charged into the maelstrom before the flames had even cleared.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading! Next chapter will be up as soon as I write it, which should be less than a week.
