Chapter 2/9:
Colonel Davod Jon was inwardly fuming over the immediate and unfortunately predictable resolution of his worst fears for his tenure as the leader of the special forces unit stationed on the Sanctuary Moon. Well, perhaps it was not his worst fears that had come to pass, but the current situation could only be made worse if the Emperor himself were to arrive. Lord Vader, at least, would solve the crisis before summarily executing him, but Davod suspected that the Emperor would simply leave him here to suffer silently in the mess he'd only begun to fix.
Perhaps it started around the time that his superior in command on the Sanctuary Moon decided to take half of the senior command staff and bunker down inside his office faster than a Ubiqtorate agent could charge an alien with attempted insurgency. Yes, that day more than seven small skirmishes broke out along the tenuous, invisible borders drawn in the forest between patrols and the local wildlife.
He had three squads on light duties after sustaining notable concussions from the palm-sized rocks lobbed on them by the little tree-climbing bastards. Sure, it'd take nothing short of a vehicle grade slug-thrower to actually crack the standard issue helmets, but the insulation inside the armor was hardly enough to prevent injury entirely. And who knew the fiendish little mammals could even throw so hard? He'd taken a rock or two to the knee plate and he was still limping a week after that. It was hardly surprising to him that apparently the Ewok Research Center had suffered some sort of "Great Little-Uprising", as he'd heard it mockingly called by some gossiping engineers.
Fourteen test subjects somehow managed to bypass the shield doors keeping them from the observation environment and wreaked havoc on the lab equipment, apparently managing to destroy much of the documentation collected thus far. They were certainly far smarter than many had given them credit for, which leads back to Davod's original gripe.
As a trained special forces officer, he'd been involved in counter-insurgency and guerilla operations for much of his career. He knows, intimately, how determinative the terrain is to either side's tactical advantage. If you know the terrain well, it becomes far harder for the enemy to surprise you. But, even if you've done extensive surveys of the terrain, knowing how to fight in the given conditions is important too. It hardly matters that you have a perfect map of a forest if you've never fought in one in your entire life.
It was this worry that he'd brought up to both his contemporaries in SpecForce and his immediate superior officer, Commander Igar. But they damn near laughed him off. Apparently the "minute gains" in troop competency that could be trained in through extensive wilderness survival training were an utter waste of time. Those troops' efforts were quite obviously better spent patrolling in circles and standing around - in white armor - outside of back door bunker entrances people weren't supposed to know about.
Speaking of which, why had they "coerced" the locals into helping them build the bunker anyways? It's not like primitives who primarily used stone and bone tools could form a solid backbone for a labor force. The Empire is hardly bereft of engineers and workforce of its own. All the military really did by drafting - and then kidnapping for research - the local lifeforms was incense them, and show them exactly what areas to take out their justifiable anger on.
Ah, well, it's in the past at this point. A few dozen or so dead teddy bears later and the fighting had died down. None of his direct subordinates were hurt - his knee being the only notable casualtie in his unit - and from what he'd seen, more of the damage was to the Empire's pride than it was to its fighting forces.
Now, almost two weeks after the incidents had resolved, it seemed as though the work on the Death Star II project had returned to normalcy. Many troopers had been cycled out of active duty from the Sanctuary Moon and up onto the station to recuperate after repeated talk of how low morale had fallen finally made its way up to the office of the blow-hard Moff in charge. His own unit, of course, was still on high alert as the calm that had settled in felt more like the prelude to a coming storm to any experienced soldier. And regarding that, his orders after the incident had done more to make it appear as though they were all back on schedule, than it had to actually fix any of the resulting holes in their security.
"Colonel, Sir," his first lieutenant greeted him, wheezing, bringing him out of his brooding immediately.
"Yes, lieutenant? Report."
"Well Sir, Commander Igar had requested our unit engage in some 'aggressive reconnaissance' against a suspected local wartribe."
"I see. And why wasn't I notified of this directly?" Davod said, narrowing his eyes.
"Well, Sir, it seems that the primary facility had a major malfunction with its transmitter. It looks like sabotage… they had to send a speeder over to deliver our orders in person"
At this, the Colonel jumped to his feet and grabbed his equipment, moving like a Cyborrean Battle Dog was nipping at his legs.
"Well? Get moving!" He said, in between pushes of the buttons on his wrist comm. "By the time we get there, the base could be a Hell of a lot worse off!"
It was, in fact, worse off when they got there. The crumpled and smoking comm array on the side of the base was obvious, but it was the frantically moving command squad that greeted him which really set him on edge. The tense and clearly distracted sergeant in charge directed him to Commander Igar and told him to get there quickly. The lack of blaster fire told Davod that there wasn't an active battle, but he didn't feel any better for it.
When he reached the Commander's office, he knew his day had gone down from the annoying but harmless status of "the office 'fresher has broken down" to a dreary and generally miserable "the base septic tank has ruptured and spawned a hive of Colicoids". The utterly drained expression Igar had was the primary tell, but the little twitch in his hand belied that truth that this issue was larger than a single event.
"Colonel," was the stiff and curt greeting Davod received, "it seems we have quite the predicament on our hands."
"What's the situation, Sir?"
"Our transmitter went out this morning; we thought it was a small technical issue and it was at first." To that, Davod raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, I know. It most certainly is clear that that's not the case now, but it wasn't half way vaporized earlier. In any case, when we sent out engineers to repair the array, we came under a stealth assault from what seems to be a 'commando squad' of natives."
"A 'commando squad', Sir?" Davod questioned, his pitch rising into the octaves of incredulity.
"That's right, that's the best way to describe them. As far as we can tell, they were well trained in stealth operations and infiltrated with the express purpose of preventing our engineers from repairing the damage to the comm."
"And in the process, they did the damage we see now, Sir?"
"No, actually. Not immediately. That was the third raid."
"Third?" Davod had to try to contain his voice, his head was already aching.
"It doesn't matter. Suffice to say, we are down most of our technical staff who are cleared to work on the array and we're guarding the interns - I mean trainees who remain zealously. What I need you to do is get our teams back; the natives didn't just kill them, they kidnapped them."
"What's our target, Sir?" He said, holding back a sigh.
"They were quiet getting in, but by the time we caught on to their little plan we were shooting back, so we managed a rough vector heading for their raiding party. They've managed to find some crude ways to spoof the lifeform sensors, but it's hardly effective when they're in a hurry." At this, Igar paused. "We know of a camp roughly in the direction they went. Get our men back and burn it to the ground. Any questions?"
Davod refrained from asking why they hadn't just pursued the furry bastards into the forest, knowing the answer would only lead to another argument about the training he'd been pushing for for weeks. Instead he just replied in the negative and resolved himself to a night of 'reconnaissance in force'. It wouldn't do to wait more than a couple hours, the savages were known to eat any meat they could get their hands on. He'd just have to observe the camp and execute his mission quickly.
Presently, a week later after a grueling wild bantha chase across half the region - and a humiliating string of half-victories - he'd wish he'd just firebombed the whole forest and declared the engineers 'acceptable losses'. If this didn't convince that damned Moff that the ground complement's training was inadequate he would kill the fool himself, consequences be damned.