Log:Sith: Landfall at Mygeeto

The Ground Assault of Mygeeto

OOC Date: February 24, 2025
Location: Mygeeto
Participants: Ben Solo, Aitax Rendon, Roan, Lynoriel Thrace, Alys Zapal, and Reverberate as GM

In the wake of Mygeeto's naval garrison being defeated and driven off, Ravenous had deployed ground forces before being called to the Hapes cluster. Imperial landing craft under fighter escort had been sent down and beach heads were established outside of Suunaidan.

<<"The city is protected by a shield generator, we cannot hold Mygeeto if it stands as Suunaidan is crucial to maintaining Imperial presence.">> A member of Imperial Intelligence relayed to commanders of the Imperial forces, present only via comms and absent as Imperial armor and red armored Stormtroopers made their attempts to make headway against the Banking Clan defense forces.

The locals were dug in, and well equipped as one might expect with the financial power their benefactors had to bring to the table.

Would the Empire succeed? Or will someone need to inform The Empress of a... delay?

The old Imperial-era AT-AT walker that was deployed by the Ravenous served as the mobile command center for that half of the invasion force, treading along as the Sentinel-class landing craft put down battalions of troopers, and scout walkers before returning to the air to lend fire support.

Inside the armored head of the towering durasteel beast, the four-armed besalisk, Colonel Borgent Zam nodded his blast-helmeted head at the hologram. <<"Understood. We are advancing on the defensive line now.">> The steady rolling motion of the walker was well familiar as the colonel peered through a rangefinder to establish a firing sequence on the outermost defensive works that were drawn across the jagged crystal landscape. To his squad leaders, the besalisk rumbled, <<"Direct trooper squads to march distant from the heavy armor. Any incoming fire at the walkers will send up a crystaline HELL of shrapnel.">>

Colonel Falk stands atop her AT-AT walker, long black hair sailing in the wind. A black eyepatch crosses over her right eye, and a vibrosword hangs in a scabbard at her side. On the other is a blaster pistol, fitted into an ornate holster. "Affirmative, Command. Advancing."

Drawing her sword, Falk swipes it forward with a ferocious, "FORWARD! FOR EMPIRE AND GLORY!" Though not echoed over comms, the ground vehicles of the Dark Pearl rumble with a callback from their stormtroopers, and the massive AT-AT lurches forward, stomping its way toward greater glory.

One of the Imperial forces is not in a vehicle. She is, instead, embedded with the infantry. She does not march with them, but she -is- with them. Moving like a black ghost through the ranks of the crimson clad troopers, Alys is a presence, her unignited lightsaber in her fist.

Unlike the military officers, or the navy captains, the Acolyte is silent as she moves, the Dark Side filling her as she prepares to do her duty. Her hand clenches the cylinder in her fist Her eyes sliding from their normal purple to the ghastly red and yellow of one suffused with the Dark Side of the Force. Though the raised hood makes seeing that a little difficult.

There's a /Jedi/ here. All the way out on Mygeeto. It's a whisper, among the defenders. A rumour. A vague, enticing hope. It's an intentional nudge, of course: that Jedi has not ben on Mygeeto long, slipping surreptitiously through the dissipating Sith Naval forces not long before the massed ground assault began.

Between surveying the defender's perimeter and meditating in the deep, crystalline lakes of the planet, Solo could have gone entirely undetected; but in times of deepest despair, a spark can kindle the spirit in ways that shift the course of history.

It's just enough for some to believe; and enough for others not to seek out the truth. Somewhere, in the whipping snow and more metaphorical gathering storm, a figure clad and hooded in white-accented black leather waits; lurks. No: Anticipates. He reaches out through the Force, centers himself.

Yes. Spread the trooper squads out.

Thrace has been waiting for one of the ground parts the campaigns, because she isn't a fighter pilot! The crimson eyed woman had orders and she was going to follow those...because generally if you followed them you didn't die!

There is a momentary quiet before the Empire's forces launch their spearhead assault. The residents of Mygeeto rallying at the edge of the shields protecting the city and near the shield generators to keep them running.

Infantry armed with heavy weapons dig in and when the Big Guns over their shoulders begin to roar. Smoke from tibanna being focused into plasma bursts and the smoke of missiles firing that begin to pepper the lanscape outside the city. Ice and crystal heavy soil hurled into the air.

Calls for aid and targeting run up and down the lines of the defending forces comms. Flames and explosions rocking the landscape and the shield protecting the city holding against stray shots that cause it to ripple and flare cerulean.

Focus fire on various fronts wiping out entire units as craft are sent hurtling into fireballs or to roll and flip in destructive pinwheels.

But forces are diminishing steadily, without reinforcement.

Even with the Jedi among them lending his strength.

Colonel Zam growls to his detachments, <<"Focus fire on the brigades of enemy hovertanks. We'll sweep their foot from the field once the mobile armor is off the field.">> And the besalisk grins broadly as the heavy cannons of the AT-AT find a particularly destructive salvo. The destruction was far greater than he had anticipated. Much, much greater. Enough that he frowned and looked away from the rangefinger, and out the armored windows. <<"What- DAMNATION. Dark Pearl chose the same targets!">> Snarling in frustration, the Colonel sees his scout walker blasted off his feet, and one of the red-armored columns of troopers under his command pushed from the crytalline field, leaving many of their number on the ground behind.

<<"Sentinels: hit the enemy foot.">> A stream of concussion missiles streak from the blocky landing craft at his order, along with torrents of laser fire from the corner turrets. The effect on the defending infantry is terrible, scattering the four brigades in quick succession, with aid from the walker's heavy guns.

Borget Zam let out a short breath, "Good, they have no means of touching our air support.. Sentinel! bombard the enemy artillery to support our final push on the Shield Generator-" his words cut off abruptly, when the signal to the Sentinel goes abruptly dead.

Thrace is guessing that this ground battle is not going to go well...not at all. There is a moment taken to see if she can regroup the soldiers that are closest to her in a desperate attempt not to lose more. "Maybe it's time to start using more explosives..." she mutters.

General Falk had just entered her AT-AT through the top hatch when the blaster bolts started to fly. And just as well, because after a disastrous wiff where all the Dark Pearl's firepower went into permacrete, return fire knocked out first one, then the other of the AT-AT's forelegs. The Sith Infantry is wiped out like they weren't even there, while the AT-STs continue to march forward, with TIES shrieking overhead.

Pushing herself up, bloodied and crunched by the catastrophic crash of the AT-AT, Falk growls hoarsely through the comms, "All forces... Target... Generator." More rockets fly and all but one of the AT-STs are down. All that remains are the TIEs, shield-skimming once more to dip below and launch their torpedoes at the Shield Generator. Falk's eye blazes with hate, curtained on either side by black hair and crimson blood. Her voice rasps over no comms, "For...the Empire..."

Combat is always chaos. Violence, pain, bloody death. The crimson beacon of her lightsaber ignites, and she wades into the thick of it. Her weapon swings, carving through every soldier in reach. Every blaster bolt hurled her way, reflected. The Dark Side burns, and she is a pyre.

When she feels his presence, the pyre sputters. Thoughts race through her head unbidden. Unwanted.

Who are you? What do you want? Why are you -here-?

This nearly makes her stumble, the fleeting fragments of dreams hitting her in the middle of this conflict. She growls, finding her feet, her hood falling back as she reaches her senses out. She knows not what this presence, who this person, is, but she's going to find out.

With her troops decimated, dead or retreating, Alys walks away from them, hunting.

From within the snowstorm, a blizzard roars. It strikes with measured precision, practiced grace-- troopers fly into oncoming heavy artillery fire, forward entrenched positions go unresponsive with little more than moments of the understated song of a lightsaber; a flare of bronze-hued fire. While disconnected from the defensive command structure, Solo strikes with alarming synergy, riding the rapidly flowing currents of the Force. A battlefield like this is a particular kind of crucible; a certain level of a kind of hell. It's why Jedi are such a long-term risk on the frontlines of a war; but then, these echoes carry. For Ben's part, he's familiar with the risks; familiar, even, with the Fall.

It is -easy- to be angry at this incursion, -easy- to hate the seemingly endless, faceless troopers that enforce the will of the Empire. One might even argue it a survival mechanism; dehumanize the enemy, loathe them to your deepest core of being, and at least the trauma of killing them, en masse, gets the volume turned down. Harder is to know that what you fight is not a monster, but another sentien... doing what every sentient is sadly capable of.

Ben fights not because he is good, and the enemy is evil; he fights because if he does not, the Sith will slaughter every sentient that holds a weapon, and press gang the rest into a war machine that would do the same, galaxy-wide. When Alys lays eyes on the Jedi, it is as that flaring orange saber extinguishes over numerous fallen troopers, as a gust of wind brings a surge of snow around the black-and-white hooded figure.

A grey cloth mask obscures his features, but dark eyes are /locked/ on Zapal as a black-gloved hand reaches skyward. ... and an entire flight of Sentinel-class landing craft fall from the sky one after another, flames and screeching durasteel protesting the sudden seperation of ion engines from hulls, each crashing to the battered crystalline ground in turn... as Solo retreats into the storm itself. Will she follow? How could she not.

Fighting grows desperate as the Mygeeto forces fall, one by one. Infantry troops calling out for assistance before they are barraged. Assault forces forced to retreat as more and more fire is poured onto the shield generators - ironically the weak point of the defenses. Really.

But the Jedi on the field, in all of the chaos, is enough to spur hope for the outgunned members of the defense garrison. Artillery walker units begin back pedaling towards better cover when more and more of the forces go down.

Soldiers pinned down cling to a better chance even as they are mowed down. Overhead, the dagger shapes of Imperial craft loom, to cast its shadow over the beleaguered city. Things look bleak.

Beyond repairable even.

<<"This is Colonel Borgent Zam, now in command of ground forces: the shield generator has been destroyed, remaining defenders are in full retreat.">> The besalisk clapped his co-pilot on one armored shoulder as the big walker shook with the last of incoming artillery fire. "It's done. Chase them along with a few salvos, and call in the medical shuttles.">> A toothy grin split the big alien's face beneath the blast helmet.

General Falk grins with sadistic glee as the generator falls, blood leaking between teeth and down her cheek. But as radio chatter grows indistinct and fuzzy, Falk's good eye turns upward. Streaks in the sky. Rockets? Yes, rockets. Coming back down, now...

She just snarls at them and spits blood at the floor of the crumpled cockpit of the AT-AT. Defiant until the end, when she disappears in one last orange blossom of beautiful destruction.

The troops are gone. The shield generator is down. Losses were heavy, but the Empire won the day. Alys ... doesn't honestly care that much. That presence that's been in her dreams is here. He was -looking- at her from across the battlefield.

Of course she follows him into the storm.

She moves like a hunting cat, all grace and barely restrained violence. The lightsaber burns in her fist as she too disappears into the snow, the concussion of the explosion of the AT-AT hurls snow, shifting her from silhouetted to completely invisible. Her senses lead her onwards, the hum of her lightsaber drowned in the sounds of dying combat.

"DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY GROUND!" Thrace calls out over the soldiers that she's grouped with. She usually didn't raise her voice, but apparently it was time to do the scary Sith thing. Or at least act scary. She wasn't looking to die and she most assuredly wasn't wanting the army to lose more ground troops than they already had. She doesn't even realize that Alys has gone off after some mysterious force wielding dude. There's a lot going on right now!

To hunt Ben Solo is, at first, a merry chase. Always a little faster, a moment ahead, a glimpse-- or the shorn underbelly of an AT-AT that is cut along its entire length by a whirling blade of autumn sunset, its blade flaring against the snowfall as its bearer pushes onward. The defenders were valiant; heroic, even. Perhaps it was always a doomed effort; perhaps what is important is to fight, tooth and nail, for every inch of oneself.

The husks of vehicles, myriad fallen soldiers on both sides, more crashed spacecraft than the Empire likely anticipated-- it's left behind, for the moment, and the next thing Zapal comes upon, should she continue to follow Solo, is the gaping, dark maw of a crystalline cavern, an audible snowfall of crystalline stone displaced by the battle coming from within.