"A Force on the Battlefront"
By Kpmh2001
There were few things in the Galaxy as lush, vibrant and full of life as the forests of Kashyyyk. The homeworld of the Wookiees, its surface covered in an uncountable amount of Wroshyr trees. Said surface, while hazardous, teemed with all manner of fantastical life. The oceans were as wild and untamed as the rest of the planet. While not as pristine as Naboo, the free and valiant beauty was appreciated by most of its visitors. Most, but not all.
Sticking out like the alien element that he was, a lone soldier stood watch over an Imperial Prison Facility, the dark durasteel and concrete clashed with the surrounding trees, cutting through the landscape as a blade would through flesh. Their designation, not their name, but their designation, was TK-4541. The sentry also had a rank, an order that they had been given by a superior officer, and some equipment to carry it out, most notably a set of platsoid armor that completely obscured any of their identifiable human features. Hiding them from the miserable state of the weather.
That was their lot in life, not as a person, but as a cog in the machine that was the Galactic Empire. A willing participant no less, not a silent majority, nor a passive observer, an enabler of the greatest terror the galaxy had unwittingly brought into being. They had then decided to volunteer for the Stormtrooper Corps, to become the armored gauntlet that strangled and beat thousands of worlds. Despite the insistence of an ever invasive Empire, there was nothing noble to their cause. Banners that had been flown under the flag of liberty had been torn down and replaced with uniformity, conformity and submission to the whims of an ever cruel Emperor.
Keeping watch was a tiresome duty, even for the most motivated and disciplined soldier, and so TK-4541 found themselves steadily losing interest in paying attention to their surroundings, a fatal mistake. If they had been alert, they may have noticed the steady sound of footfalls from the figure behind them, which were only barely muffled by the soft rain.
Alas, the only warning that TK-4541 got that anything was out of the ordinary was an angled blade punched straight through their white plastoid helmet into their temple, ending their life in an instant. The figure behind the fallen Stormtrooper caught the corpse and gently set it down on the ground, conscious of drawing any attention from the rest of the base.
His name was Benjamin, he had a designation, but that wasn't important. He wore a suit of metal that would have made him appear almost droidlike to an outside observer, but like his Spartan brothers and sisters, he was not a machine. His Artificial Intelligence Companion, Curie, was technically a machine, but that didn't mean that she wasn't a person.
"I suppose that confirms they do not have motion trackers." Curie thought aloud as Ben sheathed his kukri and searched the body for anything useful. When he'd somehow ended up on another planet, presumably in another reality, again, he'd had the misfortune to not be carrying a gun, but that was about to change.
"Or they're unobservant." Ben replied as he inspected the soldier's weapon. It was compact, very lightweight, made entirely from steel, and overall moreso resembled an ancient Earth weapon than an energy weapon. In spite of the carbine's diminutive appearance, it felt very sturdy, something that Ben hoped wasn't indicative of its combat capabilities. "Curie, what is this thing?"
Curie ran a quick scan of the weapon through the systems in his armor, displaying a rough blueprint on his HUD. "Based on what I can tell, it is a very simplistic plasma weapon, just like the pistols that we found. It is nothing like what the Covenant would use. It is not going to be very accurate or long-range, but it will certainly hit with extreme force."
"Good enough." Ben surmised.
Truth be told, he wasn't exactly sure who exactly he was fighting. His and Curie's first warning that there was anyone else on the planet was when two soldiers in camo-patterned armor had started shooting at him, without even so much as an order to stop and surrender. That fight hadn't gone their way thanks to his ability to throw rocks with about twice the force of a professional baseball player, and from what Curie had managed to dig out of their armor's computer systems, they were Scout Troopers in the Army of the Galactic Empire. The one that he had just killed, as Curie relayed through his HUD, was apparently an Imperial Stormtrooper.
Stormtroopers. Ben thought, recalling the origins of the word during the first two world wars. Who in their right mind would put Shock Troops on guard duty? Unless they've got some very rowdy prisoners, that is…
Now a fugitive to what was apparently a galaxy-spanning power, they'd been crawling through the lush jungles, looking for either a way back home or just a means of ensuring their own relative safety. The Scout Troopers' data had led them to a drab durasteel and concrete prison that stood tall and proud in the jungle, and with no other leads, they'd decided to stage a jailbreak and hopefully find some allies, and maybe even learn where they were.
"Where to next?" Ben asked as he rather unceremoniously stuffed the corpse in a bush. While he knew that Curie was operating with as little information as he was, she was much better at formulating a course of action.
Curie, as always, was quick to formulate a strategy. "Find a computer terminal. With any luck, this prison will have some kind of network that I can infiltrate."
The soldier that Ben had just killed had been guarding a small entrance into the prison, and while the large metal door would have usually been intimidating, the electronic lock on the door certainly wasn't.
"Give me just a moment…" Curie said as Ben held his hand next to the lock, allowing her a wireless connection. "There!"
The door slid open, and Ben moved forward, carbine raised. Swiftly, he found two more men on Guard, equipped differently to the one that Ben had killed outside. These men had gray uniforms and light armor with exposed helmets, although they carried the same light carbine. Neither of them were particularly observant either, and so Ben was quickly able to duck back into cover. "Can we take these guys out quietly?"
Curie thought it over for a moment, but swiftly answered with what Ben was afraid of. "I do not see how, unless you have an idea?"
He wracked his mind for a few seconds, before lowering, shifting the carbine over to his left hand and drawing his Kukri with the other. "...Try not to judge me for this."
"What are you-" Curie began to ask, but was cut off as Ben leapt from cover and, with a single deft toss, drove his kukri blade-first into the first soldier's exposed face, killing him on the spot.
The other soldier raised his carbine and shouted at Ben, but before he could open fire, he was momentarily stunned as Ben's own carbine bounced off of his helmet with a loud thunk. The momentary window was all that Ben needed to close the distance, grab the soldier and slam him into the ground head-first, shattering his neck. He hastily collected one of the carbines and waited a moment to see if anybody had heard the scuffle, but incredibly, it had apparently gone unnoticed.
"You are such a gorilla, you know that, yes?" Curie teased him.
"And you love me for it." Ben cheekily replied, but swiftly was put back on alert as he looked up at what looked suspiciously like a security camera. For a moment, he was convinced that he'd been spotted, but no alarm sounded, even after he briefly waved at the camera.
Curie had also been silent, no doubt just as convinced as him that they'd inadvertently revealed their presence. Once it became clear that they hadn't she spoke up. "Perhaps nobody is home?"
"Or somebody's not doing their job." Ben assumed. With an extra moment to work with, he retrieved his knife and pulled the helmet off of the unfortunate soldier, but found that it had no sort of computer system whatsoever. "Not even a HUD… the Empire must not have put a lot of stock in these guys."
"Judging by information I have gathered from the Stormtrooper's helmet, these are Imperial Army Troopers." Curie informed him. "What little we know suggests that your assessment is entirely correct."
With nowhere to go but forward, Curie updated the navigation marker on his HUD, and he proceeded through the prison. So far, it seemed like they'd managed to avoid detection, even with the presence of what must have been dozens of guards. They didn't find any more of the Stormtroopers, and he found that most of the Army Troopers could be avoided, although occasionally he'd have to quietly neutralize a guard or two and hide their bodies to the best of his ability.
It was just after he'd introduced another dead Army Trooper to a small storage closet that Ben found what he'd been looking for, the security center. One quick hack by Curie through the heavy metal door, and he found the true culprit for why things had been so easy for him. Lying back in his chair, fast asleep, was the security officer on duty. Unlike any of the other soldiers he'd found, this one was wearing a black uniform with a few rank indicators on his chest. Along the walls were a few weapons, free for the taking, but he kept his eyes on what was important.
Ben rolled his eyes as he looked at the sight, as grateful as he was for the officer's incompetence, he still felt embarrased on his behalf. "What's the call Curie?"
"Check the computer first, then we'll see if we need him." Curie answered.
Quietly, Ben crept towards the security console and allowed Curie to establish a connection. It was a very rudimentary looking device, big, unwieldy, but hopefully useful enough for their purposes.
"I'm in." Curie reported with great delight. "I have a map of the facility, and a report of the inmates. This facility has two-hundred "Wookiees" incarcerated as part of a forced-labor program."
Now where have I heard that before… Ben thought with a grumble, suddenly feeling a lot more justified about all of the guards that he'd killed. "What's a Wookiee?"
"I don't know. I'd check the registry and sickbay logs, but I can't access them without security clearance." Curie reported.
Ben raised an eyebrow, relatively surprised. "You can't hack it?"
"I am afraid not, the system is physically partitioned. If I were to even make an attempt, the entire system would lock down." Curie answered, sounding very annoyed. "Such an inelegant solution, and yet, I cannot deny it is effective."
Ben glanced back to the sleeping security officer as an idea formulated in his head.
He could practically sense Curie's exasperation as she spoke. "Fine, but make it quick."
Ben holstered his carbine and drew his kukri, holding it in a position to swiftly kill the officer if the need arose. Then, with his other hand, he clamped his hand over the officer's mouth, waking him up with a startle.
"Freeze." Ben commanded, briefly displaying his weapon before returning it to its resting place. "Answer my questions, and we can both go home today. Try and fight, and I'll find somebody who will cooperate, understood?"
The officer glanced up at him with terror in his eyes, took a moment to think it over, before gently nodding. Ben released his hand from the man's mouth and let him speak.
"Alright, alright. Look, I just work here-"
"That's not a good thing." Ben pointedly shut him up. "Your console, my friend needs security access to do her job, how does she get it?"
"Data spike, in my chest pocket." The officer swiftly answered, before glancing around and seeing that they were alone. "Where uh, where's your friend-"
"I'll ask the questions." Ben bluntly answered.
Conscious that the officer might be attempting to distract him, Ben kept a watchful eye as he swiftly found the device and examined it. It vaguely resembled some kind of combination of a data storage drive and a screwdriver.
"Stay put." Ben commanded the man, who mercifully obeyed.
Without taking his eyes off of the officer, Ben briefly inspected the console for where to insert the device, before Curie helpfully highlighted the port on his HUD. The device locked into place, and played a small electronic chirp.
"Done. I have control of the facility's defenses, and a terrific library of data, this will take me some time to pick through." Curie reported. "What about our new friend?"
Ben scowled as he strolled back over to the officer and stood over him, drowning out his pleas for mercy. While leaving the officer alive was a liability that might get him and Curie killed, executing him after he'd cooperated felt wrong. It was also a war crime, although Ben's training had made it very clear that victory took priority over everything, morality included, hence why he'd threatened the man with death in the first place.
After a moment's internal debate, he smacked the man in the temple with his palm, more than enough to render him unconscious for a considerable amount of time. He then took the man's handcuffs and fastened him to one of the pipe fixtures on the walls, ensuring that he wouldn't be causing too much trouble in the event that he woke up a little bit early.
"I suppose that employing nature's sleeping pill was probably the most merciful thing to do." Curie idly commented, before placing multiple markers on his HUD and bringing him up to speed. "The facility has two main cell blocks, plus a torture chamber just down the hall, we will need to clear them all out. Taking into account the guards that you have already killed, there are roughly two platoons of staff on watch, although only a squad of the Stormtroopers."
"Just another day at the office…" Ben said.
Before he left the security center, he helped himself to the armory. Now armed with a few grenades and a heavier, double-barreled blaster rifle. By Curie's estimates, it could handily blow the head off of a Stormtrooper, helmet or not, making Ben wonder exactly what kind of prisoners that the Empire was keeping.
"Alert, the sentries have found one of the bodies." Curie reported. "They're trying to raise the alarm, but I'm stopping them for the moment."
"So much for stealth." Ben grumbled. "Got anything nasty that you can spring on them?"
As he spoke, a pair of gigantic explosions shook the building, followed by the power cutting out, along with the lights. Some emergency red lights kicked in a moment later, but they were very dim. "I just detonated the capacitors on all of the facilities' anti-aircraft defenses, that should buy us a minute. They have managed to get a distress signal out, but that may work out in our favor, provided that the Empire has any enemies in the region."
"I guess there's no harm in hoping." Ben replied as he switched on his helmet lights and pressed forward.
At the entrance to the torture chamber, he found a pair of Stormtroopers standing guard. True to Curie's word, his new weapon did indeed have the power to decapitate the armored soldiers with only a single shot. He did notice a glaring lack of accuracy and a rapid buildup of heat in the weapon, but he'd already been won over by its sheer firepower. One of the Stormtroopers managed to get a grazing shot off on him, which did an alarming amount of damage to his energy shields.
With the guards dealt with, he briefly waved his hand in front of the door's electronic lock, before remembering, much to his own embarrassment, that the power was now off. Curie was quick to give him a hand, pulsing the power as to give them a window to open the door, with the added benefit of momentarily blinding any potential enemies on the other side.
The door slid open, and every expectation of what he might've found was obliterated in an instant. Inside of the room were four Imperial Army Trooper and an Officer, and two… well, to call them bears was quite right. They were clearly bipedal, humanoid, but covered in thick brown fur that had been badly singed, presumably by many of the torture engines decorating the room. They were also very large, taller even than him, and considerably bulkier too.
The furry creatures had somehow gotten free, probably when the power had gone out, and gotten revenge on their sadistic captors in spectacular fashion. Out of the five corpses, Ben was pretty sure that not even a single bone had been left unbroken. It was a level of thoroughness that even getting run over by a Scorpion Tank might not accomplish.
One of the creatures raised a captured blaster at him, but thinking quickly on his feet, he raised his hands, taking his rifle off of the creature. "Wait, wait! I'm on your side!"
The creature lowered its rifle and, upon getting a closer look at him, seemed to have a very curious look on its face. Either from his gesture or his words, the creature had clearly understood him.
"I believe that these are Wookiees." Curie informed him. "They're probably just as confused as you, be careful."
…Now I see why the Empire had all of this firepower. Ben thought. "Can uh… you understand me?"
"Nggggrrrrawwwwrrrr." The Wookiee made a noise appropriately alien for such a creature, but thankfully nodded.
"Good." Ben stated. "There's more of you guys locked up here. I'm gonna break 'em out, are you in?"
Both Wookiees looked at one another, before nodding and pilfering whatever else they could find from the corpses. One of the Wookiees let out a meaningful snarl that, even with all of Ben's experience in combat, sent a chill down his spine.
Curie was thankfully just as intimidated as he was, so at least he wasn't alone. "I, for one, am very glad that they are on our side."
"Yeah, imagine what'll happen once we break a couple hundred of them out." Ben replied, before turning to the Wookiees. "I've got a map of the facility, stay close behind me, we've got to stick together."
Both Wookiees nodded, thankfully receptive to his orders, and followed him down the corridor towards the first cell block. It wasn't long before they encountered their first squad of Army Troopers, which swiftly drove him and the Wookiees into cover. Thankfully, they seemed to lack the precision of the Stormtroopers.
Curie was quick to formulate a strategy. "They're bunched up, one grenade will do the trick."
He drew one of the grenades and, upon looking at it, realized that he had no idea how to actually use them. But even before Curie could figure it out, one of the Wookiees seemed to sense his predicament, and held out their hand.
Perhaps against his better judgment, he surrendered the grenade to the Wookiee and switched places with them, allowing them to arm and throw the grenade as though they'd done it a thousand times before. Predictably, the Stormtroopers were blown to pieces.
"Impressive." Ben commented, earning another affirming nod and grunt from the Wookiee.
They continued onwards, encountering only moderate resistance. As it turns out, the Wookiees were also excellent shots, even in the relative darkness, giving Ben a bit of curiosity as to who exactly he was breaking out of prison. There was no time to sit around and ask however, they had a job to do.
When they arrived at the first cell block, Ben was horrified to see the conditions that the Wookiees were being kept in. He could've guessed that they wouldn't be good based on the torture chamber, but it was still a terrible thing to see. The large creatures were compacted into tiny cells, with hardly any room to move around in at all.
While the Wookiees communicated with their imprisoned kin, Ben made his way over to the nearby command console and let Curie go to town. Moments later, the doors opened, and the Wookiees poured out.
"Listen up!" Ben shouted, his voice amplified by Curie helpfully tuning his microphone. "We've still got a lot of you to break out of here. Grab whatever you can fight with, anyone willing, follow me!"
While many of the Wookiees set out in different directions, in search of either better weapons or the exit, many more decided to stay beside him on the way towards the second cell block. As could probably be expected from having a small army of what he now knew to be extremely strong aliens by his side, what few guards stood in their way did not stand much chance. Even the few Stormtroopers that they found were no match for the vengeful Wookiees.
Freeing the second block was a similar affair to the first, and now with all of the Wookiees released from custody, it was time for the next course of action. "What now?"
Curie paused for a moment before answering. "Secure the prison, eliminate all resistance. My plan had relied on us being able to communicate with the Wookiees, and while the security console had a translation system, it will take me some time to create a patch for your suit."
Ben ran a quick inspection on his weapon, trying to figure out how to reload it, or if it even needed reloading. "Do we have an escape plan?"
"There is a gunship parked on the roof that I think I can fly, but that is assuming that the Empire does not take it before we do." Curie answered.
"Mark it." Ben replied, and a moment later, the path that he needed to take appeared on his HUD.
Moving through the prison was made much easier thanks to the now-freed Wookiees. In fact, he only found a single Imperial who was still alive, an Army Trooper who was trying to run away, and whom Ben promptly shot in the back and killed. While executing fleeing enemies was, again, technically a war crime, it was a considerably quicker and more merciful death than the Wookiees would've likely granted him. If the mangled corpses everywhere were anything to go by, the jailbroken prisoners did not have a lot of mercy to give.
After ascending a few flights of stairs, he found the door to the landing pad already open, and the gunship already lifting off. The craft had an unconventional design to say the least, featuring a narrow angular frame and two large overhanging wings. Its central hull echoed the familiar Pelican with armor over a central troop bay, instead of exits from the rear the gunship featured exits on the right and left side of the craft, with a forked angled nose. It lifted straight up into the air, only a dozen meters or so, and turned to face him. Two missiles streaked out from what Ben had initially assumed were cannons, and would have turned him to mulch had he not leapt out of the way.
Perfectly aware that any rifleman's chances of defeating a gunship without specialized weapons were next to nothing, and that escape was similarly improbable, he'd been left with little other option. The missiles had just collapsed the only entrance to the landing pad, and so his only option was to leap off of the building.
Taking aim at the gunship as he sprinted for the edge of the building, he aimed for what he was pretty sure was some kind of stabilizer, only to discover a critical flaw with his weapon. The poor accuracy and heat buildup had been bad enough, but when fighting at point-blank range, he had not noticed the painfully slow speed with which the bright red projectiles moved. As a result, the pilot effortlessly strafed to avoid his fire, and retaliated with their own burst of plasma fire, which thankfully seemed to suffer from the same weakness, as he was able to outrun the avalanche of projectiles that closely followed him.
"Ben, jump off the roof!" Curie told him, which he'd already been doing, but it was reassuring to know that he'd apparently made the best possible decision.
Leaping blindly off of the roof was probably not necessarily wise, but left with no other choice, Ben took it. Falling what must have been fifty meters, his shields broke as the gel layer in his armor struggled to manage the force of the impact, even so, he was only stumbled for a moment. He resumed his sprint as the gunship flew over his head, before turning to fire on him again. He took a few opportunistic shots with his rifle, but was disappointed to see that they had very little effect, only blackening the paint where they landed.
"New contacts just showed up on the prison radar, fast movers, going well-past mach three." Curie reported.
The gunship launched another missile, which he barely managed to sidestep, before it blew a person-sized hole in the metal wall of the building, starting a massive fire. "More of these guys?"
"Not likely, none of them have Imperial transponders." Curie answered. "Imperial Comm chatter suggests that they are on our side, just keep this up!"
Easier said than done. He thought, but stayed his tongue as another missile streaked through the air at him. Seeing that he wouldn't be able to dodge in time, he triggered his drop shield, and the protective blue barrier arose just in time to stop the missile. The resulting explosion obliterated the shield, but the smoke and fire that it had created also gave him a moment's peace as the gunship pilot seemingly couldn't tell whether or not he'd been blown up.
A few seconds later however, the pilot saw through the ruse, and sprayed him down with plasma fire. While Ben would have normally been cut down, the brief pause had given his energy shields time to recover, freeing him up to resume his efforts to avoid the incoming fire. Even so, it wasn't sustainable, and as the gunship closed the distance with him, he was given less time to avoid the incoming projectiles.
"Running out of options Curie!" Ben said in-between breaths.
"Hang on just a few more seconds!" She replied.
In desperation, he withdrew one of the Imperial grenades, pressed what he hoped was the detonator, and tossed it at the low-flying gunship. By some miracle, the grenade detonated, and although it did very little actual damage, it did discourage the pilot and cause them to back away, giving him a crucial bit of breathing room.
Just as the gunship turned to line up another volley, a missile came screaming in from the canopy high above. Ben looked up to see a pair of swept-wing aircraft streak through the sky at low altitude, leaving behind terrific sonic booms that shook most of the branches and even some of the smaller trees.
"Who are they?" Ben asked. Elsewhere, he could hear the Wookiees letting out a terrific cheer, and after a moment's searching, he found them gathered outside of the main entrance, armed to the teeth and roaring triumphantly.
"I am not sure, let me see if I can raise them over comms." Curie said. Not even a moment later, she followed up. "Scratch that, they are calling us, I will patch you through."
"-repeat, if any inmates can hear this message, this is Captain Jak Rindarr of the Rebel Alliance, respond immediately!"
If what we've seen of the Empire is any indication of what they're typically like, I'm not surprised there's an entire coalition of Rebels fighting them. Ben thought. "This is Sergeant Benjamin, I read you. The prison is secured and the inmates are free."
Jak let out a grateful sigh. "I'm glad to hear that we weren't too late. We've got transports inbound to evac you all, just sit tight, the Empire's probably going to send reinforcements."
Jak turned out to be correct, although Ben was relieved to see that when the Empire's fighters arrived, they were torn to shreds by the Rebel craft, along with the dropships that they were escorting. All the while, Ben, Curie, and the Wookiees watched the battle unfold with great satisfaction. A handful of the Wookiees had gotten injured during the fighting, a few of them had even been killed, but Ben was very relieved to see that most of them had survived.
Eventually a flight of camo-painted dropships came flying over the treetops, their distinctive bubble shaped side mounted turrets catching the glint of the sun. Before landing outside of the main entrance. A few soldiers disembarked the craft and established a defensive perimeter, some Human, some Wookiee, and a few other different kinds of aliens. All of them were dressed and armed somewhat haphazardly, with the only consistency among them being a general effort to camouflage themselves.
One of the group however, looked very different, and it was them that approached him. They were dressed in a suit of full-body armor in a similar model to the Stormtroopers, but with a T-shape visor on the helmet, and red paint marking their armor seemingly sporadically.
When the man spoke, Ben immediately noted the gruffness of his voice, he sounded very old. "I take it you had something to do with all of this. Who are you?"
Ben briefly thought about how exactly to answer, aware that introducing himself as a UNSC Marine probably wouldn't mean much, so instead he kept it simple. "An enemy of your enemy, but you can call me Ben. I'm sure we'll have more time for introductions later."
"Sev." The soldier introduced himself. "We can't stay for long, the Empire will send more reinforcements, and our fighters are low on fuel."
Ben nodded, he wasn't really in a position to be making calls. "You're the boss."
Sev stood silently for a moment, and Ben briefly wondered if he'd said something wrong, before he climbed into the back of one of the dropships. Ben followed suit and grabbed one of the handles that rested above their heads, followed by the Wookiees. Once everyone was aboard, they lifted off, and the large doors of the troop bay shut. Some of the Wookiees seemed a bit uncomfortable about being cramped into such a small space, and after seeing where they'd come from, Ben didn't blame them.
Sev stood across from him, seemingly sizing him up. "Was it just you?"
Ben shrugged. "I have an AI in my suit, she handles the technicals, and once I broke the Wookiees out… they did most of the fighting."
Sev nodded with a sense of understanding that could have come from his own experiences of seeing Wookiees in combat. "Alliance Command is going to have a lot of questions for you."
"That's fine, I've got a few questions to ask myself." Ben replied. "Thanks for pulling us out of the fire."
"Anytime." Sev replied.
Author's Notes: I'm willing to bet that just because the Men From Onyx is discontinued, many of you thought that Operation Unusual Paperwork would be as well. Well, that's obviously not the case. To make a long story short, as long as I'm not tied down in my day-to-day life or with other projects, and I have some good ideas, I'm absolutely down to write some more Omakes. Just uh, don't expect anything too profound.