02-03-2018, 01:49 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-26-2018, 09:59 PM by Jade Harley.)
Lieutenant Davion Calrime, Imperial Officer of Coruscant's Empire Peace Division, sat behind his desk, slouched in his chair, still wearing the breastplate that came with his uniform, even here in their own barracks, in what should have been a safe haven in the midst of the lawless abyss that was Tier Five...
In fairness, it had been under a week since their base had been attacked, so perhaps it wasn't really all that surprising that the squad might not have thought of it as being some impenetrable bastion... though Davion being the man he was, he would've worn that armour anyway, even had he been sitting safe and secure in the Emperor's own chambers. Having been promoted all the way up from the ranks of the stormtroopers, the lieutenant was never totally comfortable without a suit of armour on... which, since the uniform of an Imperial Officer did not, in fact, include a full set of armour, meant that it had been a while since he had felt properly at ease. Still, he'd at least removed his helmet, so that was some progress; perhaps one of these days he might end up getting over this strange quirk of his.
Opposite the desk, the 'elites' were lounging around the room. They were the best of his squad; seven stormtroopers who'd been with him for at least as far back as the beginning of their latest deployment to this tier, and even further back than that in most of their cases, as well as two former gangsters, one of whom was a Prime.
Davion was tired. Takanomiya Hijiri had abandoned them, fleeing to Omni-knows-where after Brandon Windvale – an elven stormtrooper who served as the squad's tech expert – had disobeyed him during a fight and gunned down some helpless women... to be fair to the Prime, the girls had been barely worthy of being considered a threat and according to Imperial laws the maximum punishment for insubordination was death, so no one up above would have so much as batted an eyelid if the corporal had gone ahead and executed the elf on the spot... so perhaps they should all be grateful that the rabbit-guy hadn't decided to take that course of action.
Still, it was hard to feel anything besides annoyance. Not only had he fucked off without a word, leaving them potentially vulnerable to more attacks from the Northside Wolfpack – or any other gang, for that matter – but he had also left them with the mess of covering up for him... after all that he had done for them up to this point, none of them had liked the idea of reporting the truth to the uncaring bureaucracy up on Tier One. The Battle Rabbit would have been labelled 'AWOL' in an instant, then court-martialed the moment he showed his face, when he did finally turn up once more.
Perhaps another squad would have considered that punishment justified by his having abandoned them in this way, but he'd be no use to them dead... or off in another Verse somewhere, once he'd respawned at the Nexus. If they really wanted to make this plan of theirs a success, they'd need the support of as many Primes as possible; turning Northside from a lawless gangland into a proper, respectable neighbourhood would be no easy task, after all. As such, it was imperative that the Empire not discover – and punish him for – his transgressions. Luckily, between Davion's claims to have sent him off on a mission to weaken the gangs' grasp on the tier (or the northern part of it, at least) and the many connections, allies and blackmail victims of Michelle Andreas – a telepathic lieutenant stationed on Tier One, who supported their grand objective – they were able to keep the truth hidden from prying eyes.
They'd lost a valuable asset, but they were far from done. Davion had taken the liberty of actually promoting Kroll vor Iechtelsteir to the rank of sergeant. He had never liked that man's ridiculous habit of pretending to be an NCO despite not having any real rank, and he'd hated his decision to recruit new troops without the Empire's official seal of approval even more... but as he had had no luck at all in dissuading him from either of those ideas, and that lunatic Michelle was now apparently on board with them to boot... well, he didn't see much point in continuing to resist.
On top of that, Sarah Watt and Kevin Fischer – both former members of the Wolfpack themselves – had been invited into the ranks of Kroll's 'elite' stormtroopers... the little group who had taken to going around without ever wearing their helmets, despite this being against Imperial regulations, just because they thought it made them look cool, or some such nonsense. All the extra training they had been doing with Sarah and Hijiri (which Davion had found out about only in the aftermath of the attack on their barracks) had amounted to little in the end; they themselves had achieved almost nothing against the Prime who had overtaken the barracks, and so after the Battle Rabbit had been struck down, it had fallen to the werewolf woman to save them all from the wrath of 'Shotgun Steve'.
She alone of everyone in the room had removed more than just her helmet; for some reason, that woman had a serious aversion to shoes, and so her uniform ended at the knee-pads, with her legs and feet being bare below that point. She had been made a corporal; the same rank as Hijiri prior to his disappearance. In fact, they all had. He had mass-promoted every one of Kroll's Elites. It may have seemed foolish... no, absurd, even... not to mention being a rather questionable use of his power – he was still only a lieutenant, after all – but if the Empire was intent on hanging them out to dry, well, he just might have to take some liberties in order to keep things ticking along down here.
No matter what those politicians and civil servants thought about all this, he and his squad were still fully committed to the idea of protecting their district; they were assigned to guard Northside and so that is what they would do. To that end, they had been recruiting... and it had been going well. Perhaps even too well.
“This can't be right.” he said at last, shaking his head as he peered down at the papers before him; a report handed in by Kroll, “These figures have got to be wrong.”
“No.” the pale man's tone and expression were smug as he casually brushed several strands of his chin-length white hair out of his eyes... why that man didn't either tie his hair back or just get it cut Davion simply couldn't understand; it made him look like some sort of failed applicant for a spot in a boy band, “They're completely accurate. There's been a lot of interest. More than we expected, even... it seems that there are plenty of people around who would like the chance at a well paid job that also allows them to keep their families safe... provided that job doesn't involve going through years of indoctrination under the guise of learning.”
Davion was silent for a few moments, then gave a grunt of acknowledgement. He and his squad had been working shifts down here of Tier Five long enough to have picked up on the fact that the Empire wasn't quite so benign as all the propaganda which they'd had shoved down their throats at the academy made it out to be, but as they'd seen with the latest, final and now entirely deceased batch of recruits to be sent down to reinforce their squad, the majority of stormtroopers were not so fond of... outside the box thinking.
“Alright. Okay. So.” his voice was tight suddenly, controlled, yet obviously on the verge of breaking, “We have all these new recruits. Far too many of them for us to hope to be able to pay, since Takanomiya didn't bother to leave behind a single credit when he buggered off, and we've now spent every scrap of Omnilium we had – including our food money – to summon uniforms and weapons for these untrained amateurs, and more are still showing up every day... and we no longer have any support from the upper tiers to count on, and we've barely even been screening these people, so half of them are probably gang members themselves... where's the good news here Sergeant Iechtelsteir?”
It wasn't Kroll who responded, though, but Brandon, who sat on the armrest of a large, leather chair, a tablet-shaped Mobile Dataverse Device in his arms, “The good news comes from Lieutenant Andreas, sir.”
Davion froze for a moment, before slumping slightly in his seat, a soft groan rising in his throat. That woman had always given him the creeps... even before he'd found out that she'd mindraped her ex-boyfriend into a coma one time. Across the room, Trevor Dodson – said ex-boyfriend – perked up slightly at the mention of her name, turning away from the shelves he'd been dusting to peer over at the elf. Davion knew that Trevor had, in the past, been bullied into doing a lot of their chores for the other, less cowardly, members of the squad... yet now that he was a corporal, there was no reason why he couldn't have passed those tasks onto someone lower ranked than him. It seemed to have become some sort of coping mechanism, though, something he needed to be able to handle what was going on down here, to keep his mind off all the death he had witnessed...
“You know my policy on this, Windvale; if Andreas is the one saying it then it's always bad news... but come on then, out with it. What's the story?”
“We have the location of another NSW outpost. For our sakes,” here the technophile's emerald green eyes darted over to Kroll for a fraction of a second. The pale guy had been the one to bring Michelle in on their little plot with no explanation or excuse, so when Brandon said 'for our sakes', Davion knew that what he actually meant was 'at Kroll's behest'. That man, once a proud member of some small planet's nobility in days gone by, had always been dangerous enough for his ambition alone. Him having the support of this psychic psycho certainly wasn't going to improve matters, “she's been expanding her network downwards, beyond just the first couple tiers. It's slow going, of course, since it's such a delicate business, but she's managed to establish a 'contact' in Tier Four, who seems to have been doing business with some sort of minor faction within the NSW.”
“Hmm...” he knew the tone that Brandon used when he said the word 'contact'. Some of Michelle's allies were bribed, some were blackmailed, whilst others were tricked or simply scared into compliance. He didn't know the full extent of her mental powers, but he couldn't deny that she seemed to have a real gift for manipulation, “and so you think it would be a good idea to take these untrained recruits in there, huh? You really think we should just storm the place?”
“Well... yes. I don't see that we have much of a choice. We need money desperately and they should have plenty of illegal goods which we can 'confiscate'. We can't afford any dissatisfaction within the ranks; like you said, some of these recruits may have been – or may still consider themselves – gang members. So on top of keeping them paid, we'd best also make it clear to everyone that we can fight these gangs, if we want all our newcomers staying in line. Hitting that other casino was a much more impressive feat than simply taking out a warehouse filled with supplies, and eliminating a member of their leadership – even if only temporarily, since he was a Prime – will have helped our reputation as well. We need to keep these things up, though; we can't afford to start slacking off now, especially not in light of the attack on our base. Yes, they may have taken worse losses from that than we ultimately did, but it won't seem that way if we start acting scared.”
The lieutenant sighed and shook his head, but then voiced an affirmative anyway, “Yeah, I suppose you're right. Fine. I guess we're attacking a... what is this place, anyway?”
“A casino disguised as a hardware store.” the elf informed him without so much as glancing down at the tablet he held.
“A... what? Why...? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't care. Another casino, then, I guess it is we're going after. But we can't take everyone; I won't leave this place unguarded again.”
“Oh? Well then why don't you-” Kroll began, a hint of smugness in his tone, though this time around his facial expression was utterly neutral.
“I'm going with the group attacking this base of theirs. No argument, no debate. I'm not sending our stormtroopers into a battle I won't fight myself.”
“Of course not, of course not.” although his visage remained perfectly respectful, that self-satisfied edge in his tone didn't so much as waver. He'd known Davion would say this and was fully prepared for it, “I'd suggest leaving Corporal Windvale in charge, along with Corporals Singh and Nash, and giving them a third of the recruits. Between them, those three should have no trouble keeping our brave volunteers in line, whilst also being competent enough to actually take charge of the defence of this place if need be.”
“Fine then,” the lieutenant sighed, leaning on his desk as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet, glancing across at Leon Nash and Priya Singh, who shared Brandon's armchair; Leon slouched casually on its seat, whilst Priya stood behind, leading on the back, “since you clearly had all this stuff thought out before you even came to me about it, why not. Let's just go with your plan.”
He picked up his officer's helmet and began fastening it on, “How soon do you want to head off?”
In fairness, it had been under a week since their base had been attacked, so perhaps it wasn't really all that surprising that the squad might not have thought of it as being some impenetrable bastion... though Davion being the man he was, he would've worn that armour anyway, even had he been sitting safe and secure in the Emperor's own chambers. Having been promoted all the way up from the ranks of the stormtroopers, the lieutenant was never totally comfortable without a suit of armour on... which, since the uniform of an Imperial Officer did not, in fact, include a full set of armour, meant that it had been a while since he had felt properly at ease. Still, he'd at least removed his helmet, so that was some progress; perhaps one of these days he might end up getting over this strange quirk of his.
Opposite the desk, the 'elites' were lounging around the room. They were the best of his squad; seven stormtroopers who'd been with him for at least as far back as the beginning of their latest deployment to this tier, and even further back than that in most of their cases, as well as two former gangsters, one of whom was a Prime.
Davion was tired. Takanomiya Hijiri had abandoned them, fleeing to Omni-knows-where after Brandon Windvale – an elven stormtrooper who served as the squad's tech expert – had disobeyed him during a fight and gunned down some helpless women... to be fair to the Prime, the girls had been barely worthy of being considered a threat and according to Imperial laws the maximum punishment for insubordination was death, so no one up above would have so much as batted an eyelid if the corporal had gone ahead and executed the elf on the spot... so perhaps they should all be grateful that the rabbit-guy hadn't decided to take that course of action.
Still, it was hard to feel anything besides annoyance. Not only had he fucked off without a word, leaving them potentially vulnerable to more attacks from the Northside Wolfpack – or any other gang, for that matter – but he had also left them with the mess of covering up for him... after all that he had done for them up to this point, none of them had liked the idea of reporting the truth to the uncaring bureaucracy up on Tier One. The Battle Rabbit would have been labelled 'AWOL' in an instant, then court-martialed the moment he showed his face, when he did finally turn up once more.
Perhaps another squad would have considered that punishment justified by his having abandoned them in this way, but he'd be no use to them dead... or off in another Verse somewhere, once he'd respawned at the Nexus. If they really wanted to make this plan of theirs a success, they'd need the support of as many Primes as possible; turning Northside from a lawless gangland into a proper, respectable neighbourhood would be no easy task, after all. As such, it was imperative that the Empire not discover – and punish him for – his transgressions. Luckily, between Davion's claims to have sent him off on a mission to weaken the gangs' grasp on the tier (or the northern part of it, at least) and the many connections, allies and blackmail victims of Michelle Andreas – a telepathic lieutenant stationed on Tier One, who supported their grand objective – they were able to keep the truth hidden from prying eyes.
They'd lost a valuable asset, but they were far from done. Davion had taken the liberty of actually promoting Kroll vor Iechtelsteir to the rank of sergeant. He had never liked that man's ridiculous habit of pretending to be an NCO despite not having any real rank, and he'd hated his decision to recruit new troops without the Empire's official seal of approval even more... but as he had had no luck at all in dissuading him from either of those ideas, and that lunatic Michelle was now apparently on board with them to boot... well, he didn't see much point in continuing to resist.
On top of that, Sarah Watt and Kevin Fischer – both former members of the Wolfpack themselves – had been invited into the ranks of Kroll's 'elite' stormtroopers... the little group who had taken to going around without ever wearing their helmets, despite this being against Imperial regulations, just because they thought it made them look cool, or some such nonsense. All the extra training they had been doing with Sarah and Hijiri (which Davion had found out about only in the aftermath of the attack on their barracks) had amounted to little in the end; they themselves had achieved almost nothing against the Prime who had overtaken the barracks, and so after the Battle Rabbit had been struck down, it had fallen to the werewolf woman to save them all from the wrath of 'Shotgun Steve'.
She alone of everyone in the room had removed more than just her helmet; for some reason, that woman had a serious aversion to shoes, and so her uniform ended at the knee-pads, with her legs and feet being bare below that point. She had been made a corporal; the same rank as Hijiri prior to his disappearance. In fact, they all had. He had mass-promoted every one of Kroll's Elites. It may have seemed foolish... no, absurd, even... not to mention being a rather questionable use of his power – he was still only a lieutenant, after all – but if the Empire was intent on hanging them out to dry, well, he just might have to take some liberties in order to keep things ticking along down here.
No matter what those politicians and civil servants thought about all this, he and his squad were still fully committed to the idea of protecting their district; they were assigned to guard Northside and so that is what they would do. To that end, they had been recruiting... and it had been going well. Perhaps even too well.
“This can't be right.” he said at last, shaking his head as he peered down at the papers before him; a report handed in by Kroll, “These figures have got to be wrong.”
“No.” the pale man's tone and expression were smug as he casually brushed several strands of his chin-length white hair out of his eyes... why that man didn't either tie his hair back or just get it cut Davion simply couldn't understand; it made him look like some sort of failed applicant for a spot in a boy band, “They're completely accurate. There's been a lot of interest. More than we expected, even... it seems that there are plenty of people around who would like the chance at a well paid job that also allows them to keep their families safe... provided that job doesn't involve going through years of indoctrination under the guise of learning.”
Davion was silent for a few moments, then gave a grunt of acknowledgement. He and his squad had been working shifts down here of Tier Five long enough to have picked up on the fact that the Empire wasn't quite so benign as all the propaganda which they'd had shoved down their throats at the academy made it out to be, but as they'd seen with the latest, final and now entirely deceased batch of recruits to be sent down to reinforce their squad, the majority of stormtroopers were not so fond of... outside the box thinking.
“Alright. Okay. So.” his voice was tight suddenly, controlled, yet obviously on the verge of breaking, “We have all these new recruits. Far too many of them for us to hope to be able to pay, since Takanomiya didn't bother to leave behind a single credit when he buggered off, and we've now spent every scrap of Omnilium we had – including our food money – to summon uniforms and weapons for these untrained amateurs, and more are still showing up every day... and we no longer have any support from the upper tiers to count on, and we've barely even been screening these people, so half of them are probably gang members themselves... where's the good news here Sergeant Iechtelsteir?”
It wasn't Kroll who responded, though, but Brandon, who sat on the armrest of a large, leather chair, a tablet-shaped Mobile Dataverse Device in his arms, “The good news comes from Lieutenant Andreas, sir.”
Davion froze for a moment, before slumping slightly in his seat, a soft groan rising in his throat. That woman had always given him the creeps... even before he'd found out that she'd mindraped her ex-boyfriend into a coma one time. Across the room, Trevor Dodson – said ex-boyfriend – perked up slightly at the mention of her name, turning away from the shelves he'd been dusting to peer over at the elf. Davion knew that Trevor had, in the past, been bullied into doing a lot of their chores for the other, less cowardly, members of the squad... yet now that he was a corporal, there was no reason why he couldn't have passed those tasks onto someone lower ranked than him. It seemed to have become some sort of coping mechanism, though, something he needed to be able to handle what was going on down here, to keep his mind off all the death he had witnessed...
“You know my policy on this, Windvale; if Andreas is the one saying it then it's always bad news... but come on then, out with it. What's the story?”
“We have the location of another NSW outpost. For our sakes,” here the technophile's emerald green eyes darted over to Kroll for a fraction of a second. The pale guy had been the one to bring Michelle in on their little plot with no explanation or excuse, so when Brandon said 'for our sakes', Davion knew that what he actually meant was 'at Kroll's behest'. That man, once a proud member of some small planet's nobility in days gone by, had always been dangerous enough for his ambition alone. Him having the support of this psychic psycho certainly wasn't going to improve matters, “she's been expanding her network downwards, beyond just the first couple tiers. It's slow going, of course, since it's such a delicate business, but she's managed to establish a 'contact' in Tier Four, who seems to have been doing business with some sort of minor faction within the NSW.”
“Hmm...” he knew the tone that Brandon used when he said the word 'contact'. Some of Michelle's allies were bribed, some were blackmailed, whilst others were tricked or simply scared into compliance. He didn't know the full extent of her mental powers, but he couldn't deny that she seemed to have a real gift for manipulation, “and so you think it would be a good idea to take these untrained recruits in there, huh? You really think we should just storm the place?”
“Well... yes. I don't see that we have much of a choice. We need money desperately and they should have plenty of illegal goods which we can 'confiscate'. We can't afford any dissatisfaction within the ranks; like you said, some of these recruits may have been – or may still consider themselves – gang members. So on top of keeping them paid, we'd best also make it clear to everyone that we can fight these gangs, if we want all our newcomers staying in line. Hitting that other casino was a much more impressive feat than simply taking out a warehouse filled with supplies, and eliminating a member of their leadership – even if only temporarily, since he was a Prime – will have helped our reputation as well. We need to keep these things up, though; we can't afford to start slacking off now, especially not in light of the attack on our base. Yes, they may have taken worse losses from that than we ultimately did, but it won't seem that way if we start acting scared.”
The lieutenant sighed and shook his head, but then voiced an affirmative anyway, “Yeah, I suppose you're right. Fine. I guess we're attacking a... what is this place, anyway?”
“A casino disguised as a hardware store.” the elf informed him without so much as glancing down at the tablet he held.
“A... what? Why...? No, wait, don't answer that. I don't care. Another casino, then, I guess it is we're going after. But we can't take everyone; I won't leave this place unguarded again.”
“Oh? Well then why don't you-” Kroll began, a hint of smugness in his tone, though this time around his facial expression was utterly neutral.
“I'm going with the group attacking this base of theirs. No argument, no debate. I'm not sending our stormtroopers into a battle I won't fight myself.”
“Of course not, of course not.” although his visage remained perfectly respectful, that self-satisfied edge in his tone didn't so much as waver. He'd known Davion would say this and was fully prepared for it, “I'd suggest leaving Corporal Windvale in charge, along with Corporals Singh and Nash, and giving them a third of the recruits. Between them, those three should have no trouble keeping our brave volunteers in line, whilst also being competent enough to actually take charge of the defence of this place if need be.”
“Fine then,” the lieutenant sighed, leaning on his desk as he pushed back his chair and got to his feet, glancing across at Leon Nash and Priya Singh, who shared Brandon's armchair; Leon slouched casually on its seat, whilst Priya stood behind, leading on the back, “since you clearly had all this stuff thought out before you even came to me about it, why not. Let's just go with your plan.”
He picked up his officer's helmet and began fastening it on, “How soon do you want to head off?”
![[Image: Hijiri_Name_Sig.png]](https://image.ibb.co/k1H7Hd/Hijiri_Name_Sig.png)