The Emperor
Chapter 6: Ground Pounders
A/N: I really don't feel like working on Luke/Mara's story at the moment, so i'm gonna jump over to the troops, and maybe leave you a surprise at the end...
"How are things Mon?" Princess Leia asked the head of the Rebel Alliance, Mon Mothma, as she entered the small command room of the outpost they were currently hiding out on. She couldn't wait to leave the inclosed spaces of the asteroid base and return to Yavin, or better yet maybe Alderaan if she was lucky.
"They could be better" The older woman muttered as she gestured a the holographic table she was looking over. " But the Empire is focusing on another rebel group in the Roto Sector, their fighting on some planet called Cakkiiwo II" She said.
"Should we try and help them?" Leia asked, always willing to help put a stop to the Empire or it's evil war machine.
"I wish we could, but I fear it would be a wasted effort" Mothma said. "Imperial reports and our own spies say that they have already captured over half the planet, and the last half is barely defended at all. They had a public execution of the rebel leaders earlier today..."
Things had gone from bad to worse.
The shelling was getting more frequent and they had lost a major supply dump two days ago. They had lost roughly half their meager amount of food, most of their ammunition and a ton of other supplies that were making the resistance on Piia all the more harder.
Flanders pulled out a dented silver flask and began to sip from it, the taste of the bitter wine calming him down a bit as he went over the roughly sketched paper maps of Piia. With most of their power gone, they had to rely on old fashioned techniques to direct the battles, including runners to each of the units instead of a quick message over a com.
He had to admit, his men were fighting harder then he had thought, but he knew it was useless, the planet was done for, the only thing the scattered remnants of rebels on Cakkiiwo II could hope for would be to take as many of the Imperials with them as possible.
"Sir" Lieutenant Frost said as he put a small set of papers on the table Flanders was using, they showed newly scouted Imperial lines. "The 2nd Stormtrooper battalion is currently a bit farther off from the rest of their division due to being sent to probe our defenses. We should gather some troops and storm them, maybe route the battalion and get some supplies out of it" Frost suggested.
Flanders, already well aware that without good supplies they would soon be finished, nodded. "Get some of the troops prepped with what ammunition we have left and hit them soon, I doubt the Empire will leave a unit exposed for so long"
"Sir" Frost said and turned around and left, a light dust falling as the artillery shelling of the rebel held parts of the island picked up in intensity.
The bolt of pure energy barely missed his head.
Trace swore and hit the rough rock of Piia as the rebels came from literally everywhere. They poured out of rabbit holes in the rock, from the light trees around them and just plain out of the distant rocky hills. There had to be at least a few hundred rebels all putting up a fight against nearly seven hundred stormtroopers. Idiots.
"Fire!" Sergeant Yuyuzzi shouted as she stood up, ignoring the flying laser bolts all round her as she returned fire at the rebel scum.
"Aye ma'am!" Private Fween shouted as he jumped up and fired at a clustered group of rebels, taking one down as the rest found some cover among the waist high boulders littering the bare rock plane, minus a few trees here and there, they had been moving through.
"Grenade out!" Trace shouted and tossed a grenade behind a boulder, resulting in a bright flash and a roar as it detonated, incinerating several rebels in the blast.
"More pushing on the right flank!" Captain Hollon barked over the com as dozens of rebels made a charge towards the somewhat reinforced line of imperial troops.
"You heard the captain, concentrate your fire on the right flank!" Yuyuzzi barked as several rebels opened fire, taking out a few stormtroopers in the loose formation.
Laserfire was traded between the two sides and several more grenades went off. It then resulted into hand to hand combat and brawling as the two opposing sides got too close to use rifles effectively.
The sounds of battle erupted around Trace as he fought against the ragged rebels that were intertwined in the horde of white armored soldiers that were his comrades. "Fween!" He shouted, looking for his squad mate. "Sarge!" He called as a mortar shell detonated nearby, taking out Imperials and Rebels alike. Since when had they called in for support?
The battle raged on longer and Trace eventually was pinned down behind a boulder as the shelling grew worse, then stopped all of the sudden without warning.
"Their pulling back!" Someone shouted as the rebels withdrew, suffering horrible casualties from the imperial troops that fired at the their retreating backs. As if to add insult to injury, a flight of ties came out of nowhere and strafed the rebels before they were finally out of view, having gone into their tunnel system or into the more rocky area of the island.
"I want a head count! Get me a head count!" Hollon shouted as all the platoon commanders and sergeants checked in with squad leaders and fire team leaders.
Trace found Fween and the rest of the squad. He also found Yuyuzzi, or at least what was left of her. She had been on a boulder, Fween calling in the air support near the end of the fight when a rebel had nailed her in the stomach, she had fallen off and two troopers had tried to get to her, only for a sniper to nail her right in the left lung. The sergeant had been dead before the rebels landed a grenade nearby, blowing off part of her leg and a decent chunk of her side. Apparently the rebels hadn't been the only ones to get a bit of rough treatment from the battle, sadly.
Out of the entire squad, Fozzo was dead, along with Yuyuzzi and Crayton. That left a few others who had been wounded and were being evacuated to a med center set up at Camp Frall. And with Fozzo and Yuyu dead, that left Trace Aleei in charge of the squad.
"What is it thy master?" Anakin asked Emperor Palpatine as he stood in his private quarters, having just left the bridge, intending to get some sleep in before returning to the campaign on the planet below his flagship.
"How should I put this my friend" Palpatine began and Anakin already knew where it was going. "It seems your son snuck out of the palace" Anakin had already seen that one coming and wondered where the conversation was going. "And he appeared to have snuck off with an accomplice...Knight Jade."
Anakin froze. His son snuck off during his somewhat recurring detainment periods, and occasionally he would do so with some of his friends inside or outside the temple, but he had never run off with only a female conspirator. "Did...he do anything, my Emperor?" He asked, worried about the answer.
"Well...I sensed he and Jade..." Palpatine thought carefully how to say this. "...shared a bed, but neither seemed to do anything...indecent" He said, knowing the lecture young Skywalker would be receiving later would be one to remember.
Anakin turned red with rage. His son should have known better. "I will return at once my Emperor" Anakin promised.
"I will talk with the boy" Palpatine said. "Do not trouble yourself with this, I simply wished to inform you, and I trust you will deal with him at a more opportune time" Palpatine stated. "Continue your mission Anakin" Palpatine said before closing the connection.
"It has started"
"Yes, the boy will soon combine his signature with the girl's..."
"But will we be able to control that mixture of power?"
"We shall see..."
Dunn Dunn dunn!
Short, I know, im a bit mad myself. But I really wanted to get this chapter out there already! And I hope you like the short, if a bit crappy foreshadowing there. Let me know what you think the two people, if it was ONLY two people that is, hehehe, were talking about doing, or what they were talking about I suppose. REVIEW pweez! AND I HAZ GOTZZZ THA LINEZ BREAKSSS!