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Part I: Fall Of The Empire
====

The stars are finally setting on the largest Sith Empire the cosmos has ever lived to see. The Praētor has disappeared. Entire space regions have gone radio silent. The Coalition advances each day, toppling imperial homeworld after imperial homeworld, and there is only one Legion left to oppose the enemy: Sith Commander Bocchi’s Seventh Fleet.

You and your commander must fight. Ten thousand star systems depend upon you both.

The story begins in Ultra, one of the three moons of the grand terrestrial Regensburg. Ultra is an oxygen moon with a breathable atmosphere. The pressure is 147 kilopascals, roughly 1.5 the atmospheric pressure on hospitable earth. Trees here diffuse out carbon dioxide, and the temperature at the bottom of the deepest canyons is 94 kelvins, where springs of liquid oxygen flow. Ultra is a fortress-moon, and imperial troopers have turned it into a heavily defended stronghold in the sky.

One of the fortresses on this moon had fallen. It must be recaptured to stop the Coalition fleets from bridging in more reinforcements into Regensburg’s besieged exosphere.

You are a trooper. You are a warrior. Fighting and dying is a way of life. You are no veteran, yet a young dreadnaught with the heart of a lion. You have braved atomic attacks, orbital bombardment, the vicissitudes of fighting a war on all fronts. Planetside, in space with the marines, and aboard imperial battleships as they raced to oppose and batter the Coalition ships attempting to destroy the last of the installations defending Regensburg’s exosphere. None of this made you waver from your position at the vanguard.

But you are tired and weary. It is as if your months of fighting were long and hard as the years those who came before you passed through. You wore the same operating number as the troopers before you.

The troopers before you are gone. You have taken their place. You are now a trooper of the Legion.

====

Meet Bocchi the Sith.

Your story begins one day, at the frontiers of the besieged Pau region in Ultra, the cold moon of Regensburg. This is where you meet the Commander of the fleet for the first time up close. You’ve only ever seen her from a distance during military reviews and salutes, although it was well known that unlike most imperial commanders, she has a habit of being close to her soldiers, being a gunnery officer and a pilot once herself.

You are surprised soon after you had been harshly summoned by the Pau commandant to the officier tent. Outside, the division had bivouacked temporarily in this clearing, a few miles away from the icy Redfield river. The shadow of the large man o’ war, CAV-1 Servitude, which was attached to this division you were in, shaded the camp from the frost as it hovered silently like a cloud, a hundred feet overhead.

>>5866039
====

The Praētor had disappeared. That was the rumor burning throughout the Legions, and which all the officers were trying to invalidate. But did it really matter?

The Praētor was like God on earth, all powerful, all-mighty.

And like God, he had abandoned his children on earth.

The ones representing His Majesty are the Lords of his Legions. There is only one Lord of the Legion remaining now.

You take away from your brief monologue, and return to face the commandant. Just behind him, silent, the Sith lady stood.

“Sergeant, it seems intelligence has found something of interest with you during the last three months. You serve in the 96th Elite Light Infantry regiment, do you not?”

You nod at the gray-haired commandant.

“Well, today, we inform you that you are receiving a classified deployment. It does not matter what the reason for this is. Understood?” The commandant said.

You stay still.

“Meet Her Grace, the Governess of Ilium, Lord Invader of the Seventh Legion fleet, Lady Bocchi.”

The Pau commandant turned to the pink-haired Sith in the tent and gave a small bow.

“Is this to your pleasure, Your Grace?”

The Lord of the Legion did not break from staring at you.

“What’s wrong with his tongue? He does not answer.”

The Pau commandant became uneasy. The Sith blinked, then finally turned to the commandant.

“Tomorrow, I want major Grob and Catalan’s divisions to move forward and prepare an assault on fortress Vitrille. We will cross the river. The Coalition has no battleships in the atmosphere yet, and the Servitude will stand by with our artillery park. We will retake that fortress and Ultra’s defensive arrays within the next seventy-two hours.”

“Your Grace, but it is impossible- ”

“A long time ago, Alexander destroyed the Persians at the Hydaspes. Caesar has crossed the Rubicon. If history has taught us anything, nothing is impossible. This is a sacrifice that I am willing to make.”

The Sith glances at you again. She was almost right in front of you, but her unfeeling blue eyes were far-away. Generals often only cared about numbers. It was insulting. The losses just from landing on Ultra while being fired at were terrible enough, and now, you were facing another order to go over the top and push an assault. The Sith commander turned away again and began to discuss with the commandant as if you weren’t in the room. You feel the need to speak up.

>How do you react?

>[LIONHEART. You react fiercely in defense of your own dignity, as a trooper and as a citizen of the Empire. You will not allow anyone to speak of you as if you were a mere pawn. You are not intimidated by the Sith.]
>[LOYALIST. You keep your mouth shut and let the commandant and the Sith’s conversation blow by without raising an issue. You are a soldier, and good soldiers obey.]

>>5866044
>[LIONHEART. You react fiercely in defense of your own dignity, as a trooper and as a citizen of the Empire. You will not allow anyone to speak of you as if you were a mere pawn. You are not intimidated by the Sith.]

>[LOYALIST
Just because Idk if this is a Star War Sith who can kill us with their mind. Is this going to be heavy on weeb-vibes?

>>5866044
>[LIONHEART. You react fiercely in defense of your own dignity, as a trooper and as a citizen of the Empire. You will not allow anyone to speak of you as if you were a mere pawn. You are not intimidated by the Sith.]

lol, lmao even

>[LIONHEART. You react fiercely in defense of your own dignity, as a trooper and as a citizen of the Empire. You will not allow anyone to speak of you as if you were a mere pawn. You are not intimidated by the Sith.]

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====

You interrupted the Sith and the commandant’s conversation.

‘If you launch another attack, it will fail, and thousands will die.’

The Pau commandant was furious. He shouted. “Why, you! I should have you executed for disobedience! And in the face of Her Grace no less- !”

‘Do it. Kill me. Kill the ones who win your battles for you. I lost my sergeant in the last assault and was made to replace him like a pawn. It’s no wonder why we never win any battles anymore.’

Silence. Then suddenly, at last, the Sith lady stretched out an arm and dissuaded the commandant.

She was smiling. Her expression had changed into one of kind interest.

“...I like this one. Give me your name.”

You do not. A trooper doesn’t have a name - not anymore. Instead, you give only numbers.

Shortly after, having been dismissed with a wave from the Sith, the Pau commandant left the tent. You and the Sith are now alone.

The Sith looked young. She had pink hair, which she kept tied in a neat bun behind her head. She was not as tall as you, but her demeanor, posture, the way she carried herself, keeping the fingers of her left hand tucked under the breast of her jacket imperiously and her right at the side, it radiated every characteristic of a cavalier. She did not dress like a royal ruler nor in the liveries of high ranking generals. She was a pilot, and she wore the simple uniform of a captain of the Éclaireurs, a sky-blue flight suit. But she also wore the milk-white calfskin gloves of the gunners, which was a quaint contrast.

This was the artillery commander who had never lost a major battle she was present in. You had read the stories from imperial newspapers. Almost thirty years and seven campaigns across the galaxy later, here she was, thawed, again prepared to defend the imperial frontier. The last Sith commander on the field.

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>>5866971
She stared at you with extremely blue eyes.

“How long have you been stationed here on Ultra?”

You answer her question politely.

“...Six months? And your previous station?”

You answer her query again.

“Regensburg, in the Lindenau garrison… I’ve been to the prefecture before, yes. Beautiful countryside. The air is sweet.”

The last part of her statement almost felt like a lie. It had been God knows for how long since the Coalition War had been going on. All you ever smelled nowadays down there was the scent of burnt air, product of all the hydrogen bombing on Regensburg’s atmospheric shields. It smelled hot, acrid. Sterile. There had been a few better places during your time aboard a different Star Destroyer, as the Seventh Fleet constantly defended the system on all fronts. Now you were back on this moon after a two-week long respite but with the Council resuming a vigorous push into the system, no respite would ever last long.

This was her planet, her homeworld you were defending. You haven’t seen your own world in years.

The pink-haired Sith was now looking at you. She tilted her head curiously.

“You are unhappy.” The Sith said quietly.

At last, she brought out her gloved hand and offered it towards you.

“I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself to you properly yet. You may address me as Commander Bocchi.”

====

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>>5866974
====

Before dawn, a valet came into your tent to announce a visitor.

The draft was biting, and the frost at midnight made the snowy ground of the moon shine and hardened the stars. You had finished your supper of salty, thin soup and the tin pan lay cold on the little chest next to your cot. Between those stars in the transparent heaven were your own destroyers, firing every so often like miniscule meteors, fighting the enemy like gods in the sky.

The valet said, “There’s a captain who would like to have a word with you, sergeant.”

You sat up and brushed yourself off. A man entered the low tent. He carried a pyramidal lamp which he set down on the scrawny chair nearby.

He shook his head.

“At ease. I am baron Alekhine de Périgord. As soon as I’d heard that Her Grace had finally agreed to taking up a partner, an aide, I was interested to meet him. The commander is a very stubborn girl.”

The baron was a veteran. He looked forty, with sunburnt skin and an emaciated face with sharp features. His oily dark hair was balding where his bulky TIE pilot helmet had been pressing on for far too long. He was a thin man, but his voice was firm as iron and hid strength beneath his weathered uniform. Alekhine was old and wise in the ways of war. His coat of arms, his colours marked him as the leader of the 1er Airborne Cavalry Squadron, the premier wing in service to the Lord of the Legion herself.

Baron Alekhine de Périgord smiled. “Let’s keep this between us, shall we? Lady Bocchi, like most Sith, are passionate individuals. They come around once in a lifetime, and she’s the last Sith the Praētor ever mentored, and the youngest Lord of the Legion to ever be created.”

“She’s our only hope in defending our beloved Empire.” He said quietly. “Her Grace had been punishing the Council at every turn, stopping their advance despite our numerical disadvantages, and they are no match for imperial fighters, guns and destroyers. There’s no space commander as brilliant as Bocchi is. But she can’t do it alone. We’re losing battles where she isn’t present, and the Council is trying to learn how to take out our Sith.”

He said, “We have to serve her to the best of our abilities, faithfully, as she serves us by leading us into battle.”

You are tempted to ask once and for all what exactly all this meant for you. You speak up.

‘What is my part in all of this?’

Baron Alekhine laughed with pleasure. “You, my friend, and our Sith? You’re going to save the world.”

He went up and struck your arm encouragingly. “It’s almost time. The réveil will begin in an hour. For now you- ”

A terrible alarm sliced through the air and woke the entire bivouac up. The siren, and the voice over the address was ominous: ‘ALL UNITS ATTACHED TO THE SERVITUDE, RETURN ABOARD TO YOUR STATIONS IMMEDIATELY. AN ATTACK IS UNDERWAY.’

The baron-captain turned around. It was time to fight again.

====

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>>5866978
====

Eleven minutes later you were aboard the Servitude. You watched as five battery ships were left on the ground, detached from the power cables of the man o’war. You and the troops in your little file hurried to your respective castellation on the ship. Just as you passed by a starboard gallery full of gunners, someone pulled your arm.

“So glad to see you here!”

Lady Bocchi smiled fiercely at you. Her expression was far more coloured this time, unlike during your first meeting with her. She turned to yell at her crew how to calibrate the gun properly. Then she laughed.

The ship lurched.

“Looks like we just took off. In a hurry?” She stared at you again, then waved off the file of troops watching in amusement.

She began to lead you down the gallery. Lady Bocchi said:

“Coalition forces just penetrated into our airspace. Rosenberg’s brigade. They’re going to try and land at Vitrille and reinforce the fortress. Vitrille’s artilleries are still offline, the Coalition may control it but we’ve severed all the power to it, so next they will try to cover for their dropships to bring in energy. They have three cruisers against our Servitude. Do you think we will win?”

>[YES. Of course, you were going to win.]
>[SARCASM. The odds are not in your favour, but still, you will fight.]

Sith Bocchi brought you to the arterial gallery of the ship, near the bow. There were a hundred stormtroopers, all standing in two columns as they faced forward quietly. Some of them were fretful, others were wiping down their swords, strapping their shields to their strong arm, and reloading their blasters. They were all poised, low, like Achaeans manning the fatal rammer. The last of them put on his helmet, then happened to gaze in your direction.

Frozen wind howled into the gallery from the forward opening of the bow, until it closed. You and the Sith crouched in a little lane near the wall, at the head of a column of stormtroopers.

“We’re going to use the Servitude’s aegis, and her reinforced hull to ram the enemy ship and force them to fight in close quarters. We do not have enough guns nor missiles to match three loaded cruisers. Tell me, sergeant - do you know about ‘naumachia’? A long time ago, there were ancient warriors who used to flood their colosseum and kill each other using ships to please their Emperor.”

The Sith mused cruelly. “We can fight. We can win. Ten thousand star systems depend on us.”

Seeing your silence, she grunted bashfully.

“If there’s anything you’d like to ask, go ahead. You have been assigned to be my partner, much to my chagrin… But that is what my military household advised. We have a mission to go on, after we finish this fight first.”

>[ASK. You bring up a question regarding the nature of this mission and your exact purpose.]
>[NOD. You shake your head and say only a few words, preferring to remain quiet.]
>[Write-in. Ask any question you like, as the Sith said.]

>>5866046
>>5866118
>>5866509
>>5866948
(Thanks for the answers. As for whether this story will lean into weeb-vibes - in what context? It's primarily a space opera with anime things mixed in, so expect a military tale with possible romantic tones on the side.)

I hate Chinese cartoons, but your writing & worldbuilding are of a high quality thus far.

>[YES
>[NOD
Faustian + Stoic
>[ASK: What does being a Sith entail that we may not be aware of?

>>5866980
>[YES. Of course, you were going to win.]
>[ASK. You bring up a question regarding the nature of this mission and your exact purpose.]

>>5867003
Soulless.

>>5866980
>[SARCASM. The odds are not in your favour, but still, you will fight.]

>[ASK. You bring up a question regarding the nature of this mission and your exact purpose.]
Bocchi the sithlordess

>>5866980
Oh god, is this the Napoleanic Wars circa the War of the Fifth Coalition Star Wars style?

>[SARCASM. The odds are not in your favour, but still, you will fight.]

I'll support the question from >>5867003

Also, sometimes you say the council instead of coalition, is that just a mistake or are there two separate factions that just happen to start with c?

>>5866980
>[YES. Of course, you were going to win.]
>[NOD. You shake your head and say only a few words, preferring to remain quiet.]

Faustian + Stoic

>>5866980 #
>[YES. Of course, you were going to win.]
>[NOD. You shake your head and say only a few words, preferring to remain quiet.]

Faustian + Stoic

>>5866980
>[YES. Of course, you were going to win.]
>[ASK. You bring up a question regarding the nature of this mission and your exact purpose.]

OP ?

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====

The Sith looked at you.

“It’s almost thirty summers since I graduated from my academy. I must look young to you, don’t I? Imperial engineers like to keep me frozen in a tub until they need me back in the war. Like fruit! That’s how I got to live so long.”

It’s unknown whether the lady Sith was angry, morose, or merely joking.

“I am human, just like you, if that is what you are wondering,” She answered in a colourfully scornful tone. You shook your head. It’s not like you thought of her as an alien. She said: “I am the last Sith here. Let us leave it at that.”

“You look young yourself. You must have still been a student the day we caught the last star of the galaxy.”

She referred to that period of near-total hegemony during which the Empire ruled the galaxy with no opposition. A brief few years, which many fondly looked back upon like a religious dream. When every imperial capital was importing everything, basking in riches and spoils, receiving gifts and tributes from the conquered, from cream to Huttese bridges.

Sith Bocchi sighed darkly. “But ever since the Battlestation catastrophe… You know what happened, sergeant. That one error that turned the galaxy against us. If our Empire hadn’t been weakened by the civil war, the insurrection of the other fleets, and this murderous Coalition the Council had organised, it would be different. But our enemies are too numerous and our fleet is the last one.”

In any case, Sith Bocchi looked pleased with your answer. Secretly she thought of you as an intelligent, reserved man. A good trooper. She held your shoulder.

“That’s the spirit, sergeant. Remember the word of the Ancients: He who is afraid is half-beaten.”

You hear an electronic beep. The Sith takes something from the module on her chest. Out of a small square transponder, a hologram appeared. A face with a voice radioed in:

[Your Grace! This is Messieur-Premier, Squadron Invader - over! . . . ]

Delighted, the Sith exclaimed. “Périgord!”

Baron Alekhine de Périgord and the full might of the premiere Air Cavalry Squadron was right behind the Servitude’s attack. Over thirty TIE-K Supremacy fighters were awaiting the signal to surge forward.

[I’m sending the data to your transponder, Commander. ]

“Excellent!”

[Enemy contact in exactly fifty-eight seconds. ]

Bocchi held the blue hologram between you and herself. It displayed a three-dimensional feed of the engagement. The Servitude was about to meet the enemy brigade head on, with her fighter wing already in the air and deployed on her flanks. The Rosenberg cruisers meanwhile were flying in an arrowhead formation. They were desperately scrambling all of their fighters as fast as possible. They weren’t expecting the outnumbered imperials to attack. They were also unaware that the Sith Commander of the Seventh Legion herself was aboard Servitude.

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>>5870042
====

It took only five seconds for the Sith to devise orders. She boomed at the transponder:

“Amass the air cavalry on my left! Drive everything before you and pin the first cruiser! Do not let those X-fighters drop bombs on our starboard! We’re going to fly straight for Mlle. Rosenberg herself!”

The baron cried back through the hologram:

[If only Moeller was here, Commander! ]

“You can deal with it, Périgord! Trust in me!”

[Your Grace! - I always have! ]

Lady Bocchi was thrilled. She put away the transponder. “These cruisers are being commanded by the young Je’daii general Rosenberg! She’s made a stupid mistake, and I intend to punish her severely for it!”

The Sith huffed arrogantly. “You don’t attack an Imperial division when a Sith is around. I do not lose!”

The plan was simple. Smash the lead cruiser and force the second to reinforce - that meant engaging with a boarding party of their own and fighting the imperials on their terms. Baron Alekhine de Périgord’s squadron would keep the last cruiser and the enemy fighters busy.

It was time. A stormtrooper captain at the head of the other column screamed the order.

“Brace!”

Then, the collision.

The collision was brutal. The shock ripped the vessel like an earthquake. In the gallery, many stormtroopers, despite bracing into anxious balls, were still flung into the air and thrown around unceremoniously as the Servitude rammed into the Rosenberg cruiser.

You yourself are disoriented. Your helmet banged forward when the collision occurred. But there was not a single second to be wasted - you got up.

Everyone pulled themselves together. Sith Bocchi leapt up. You see her in front of you. Her smile was savage. She seized your arm and strode to the mouth of the gallery. A line of stormtroopers began to form by her, readying their blasters. The captain of the line ordered the battalion to switch from automatic fire to volley.

Volley fire pierced armour and sliced through flesh easily. It constituted a single powerful Tibana shot that drained a rifle’s magazine of energy instantly. Volley firing provided only one shot. But in such confines as aboard ships, matters were better settled anyway by hand and sword.

“Charge!”

Nearby engineers worked frantically with the burnt panels to open the steel door.

“Prepare!”

The gallery door shuddered violently.

“Arms!”

Then, it slid open.

“FIRE!”

The report of a hundred blasters depositing their deadly bolts of plasma into the air at once produced a terrific thunderclap that hammered one’s ears and gripped the soul. Forward was white - impossible to discern whether the volley found its mark as bolts filled the opening of the doorway and sailed into the enemy ship’s gallery. Frost blew in from the jagged seams of two trenchant hulls: as if a storm had swallowed the room, twenty thousand feet in the air.

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>>5870043
====

It was impossible to see. The air was swirling with smoke and milky vapour which the fusillade of plasma bolts had boiled out of the frigid atmosphere.

You watch as several stormtroopers in front of you fell. Many others received painful blows upon their plastoid armour. The stormtroopers shrugged it off with a hiss and remained standing in line.

“Forward!”

The battalion moved forth unanimously.

When the smoke and vapour cleared, all became apparent. The Servitude had succeeded in ramming the lead cruiser.

You knew where you were: the enemy starboard. The man o’ war had cleaved into it like a butcher’s knife, and the commander of the craft, the Je’daii Rosenberg, perhaps having frantic thoughts at the last second must have tried to swerve hard, which resulted with the Servitude burying itself into the cruiser’s side.

Sith Bocchi led the assault. She brandished a gleaming rapier from her belt. “On me! Let us go take this ship and her crew!”

She laughed harshly, then suddenly disappeared into the noise and carnage of the fighting.

You attack as well. You can’t let her keep going out of your sight! The starboard was narrow, deeper than you had anticipated. The blown entrance was strewn with rent corpses. The volley fire had killed them instantaneously and gouged holes into their soft bodies like spoons scraping up brûlée, and the floor was beginning to run with charred blood.

You follow the stormtrooper party in. It was swarming. There had to be a hundred Coalitionists, wearing colourful uniforms that made it easy to spot them. They wore orange and blue jackets and trousers that sagged slightly where their nylon gaiters pinched their calves and made their feet alacritous. Their closed helmets were glossy and white, with rose-gold visors that shone like mirrors.

The battalion needed to push. The matter was pure viciousness. Men took to melee after their shots and pulled out swords and maces to dispatch the marines. One trooper dashed his rifle into a marine’s face as the man lunged. Another took aim and fired off a shot which blew an enemy’s brains out. Another more produced a steel club from his belt and set onto helping a crippled comrade by bashing the attacker’s skull open, who was upon the comrade.

You’re a sharpshooter. Necessarily, your first instinct is to find proper footing on the tumultuous gallery and take aim. You dig your boots on the shaky metal floor, next to the windowside. Then you raise your rifle to your cheek. Then, taking aim, you search for an orange backside, then squeeze your trigger.

The recoil thumped your shoulder affectionately, as your blaster roared with a burst of hot gas. A bolt of plasma glid out of the muzzle and sailed down the gallery before slicing open a marine’s back and blowing his lungs out. The man was dead near-instantly, freeing a pinned stormtrooper, who threw the adversary off.

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>>5870044
====

You reload, pumping the forestock of your rifle to recharge a shot and blow excess gas out of your blaster’s port. You train again, looking for the colour orange, to turn it red, to take out another marine. You pull the trigger.

Reload, aim, pull. Again.

Again.

Again.

Hardly a minute had passed as all this transpired. There were already so many dead and wounded. The air was thick with the stench of electrical fire and boiled blood. It made it hard to breathe, as once your respirator sucked in the air, it deposited the stench within your helmet and there was no helping it.

The numbers were turning to your side and most importantly the impetus of the attack did not falter. This gallery was going to be won soon. The Coalitionists were beginning to fall back to the two doorways and out of the gallery. Those doorways led to corridors running deeper into the cruiser.

You find your Sith Commander again. She was further down, accompanied by a band of stormtroopers forming a tiny harrow against the multitude of foes that surrounded them. There were broken steel barricades strewn all over the deadly corridor, obstacles with awful sharp ends. Stormtroopers were furiously trying to push it aside while under a hail of fiery bolts.

The Sith fought ferociously. She was fighting off six marines trying to stop her from reaching one of the barricades. Her milk-white gloves were ruined, flecked with soot and black oil. She had lost her sword and resorted to using anything she got her hands on. When she got a hold of a nearby beam of metal, she tore it off the makeshift obstacles with inhuman force and whipped it round, ripping a marine’s head off.

“That’s it for them! Storm the corridor!” Sith Bocchi roared angrily.

While this was happening, you noticed a stormtrooper nearby on the ground. The trooper was locked in a painful struggle with a marine trying to sink a shiny bayonet into his neck. Nobody seemed to notice.

At the same time you looked back at your Sith. She was now at the barricade. She was tearing it apart by hand, trying to yank it up the floor while her own stormtroopers continued to fire at the numerous enemies. Once she finished tearing the barricade, she was likely to sling it at the hapless Coalitionists with monstrous strength. But here were five marines sneaking up! They were going to shoot her!

>[ASSIST. Shoot the enemies trying to sneak up behind your Sith Commander!]
>[PRAGMATIC. The Sith can hold her own! Assist the stormtrooper on the ground near you!]

>>5867530
(QM here. The 'Council' and the 'Coalition' are practically synonymous. They're umbrella terms for the forces against the Empire. They're the enemy in this universe, but shouldn't be confused for a 'Jedi Council', because it's more than just a faction with Jedis inside it.)

>>5870045
>[ASSIST. Shoot the enemies trying to sneak up behind your Sith Commander!]
Keeping bocchi safe is the priority and we can't risk her being injuried early in the assault.
>>5870068
alright, thanks

>[ASSIST
But if we can kick the coalition marine to give our brother-in-arms a fighting chance real quick that would be groovy.

>>5870045
>[ASSIST. Shoot the enemies trying to sneak up behind your Sith Commander!]

>>5870045
>[PRAGMATIC. The Sith can hold her own! Assist the stormtrooper on the ground near you!]
I think she can endure it, her power is powerful enough to hold them without a single scratch. Plus, two soldiers can support her better than just one.

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====

You react immediately. You’re the Sith’s only partner, her aide-de-camp. This is your duty. The baron also trusted you. You cannot allow Commander Bocchi to fall in danger! Much as you wanted to help the stormtrooper on the floor, if something bad were to happen to the last Sith of the Empire, all would be lost.

You take aim, then fire.

The Sith was giving the barricade a final pull. Just then a marine jammed his rifle towards the back of her head, not quite reaching it. But before he could pull the trigger on the Sith, he was swept off. He choked. His throat was gone, and he lay on the ground convulsing as blood pooled in his windpipe.

You lowered your rifle, not bothering to gloat. You began to unscrew the gas canister to reload.

Commander Bocchi stopped. Her eyes found you, and she glared from across the gallery before nodding. She didn’t have time to say anything else - she pushed off the enemies around her and tore out the barricade at last before flinging it away.

The stormtrooper on the floor meanwhile had managed to avoid being stabbed. The bayonet scraped past the face of his helmet, and the trooper hugged the screaming marine’s arm in a grim fashion.

The captain of the line from earlier ran past you. He tackled the marine and subdued him.

“There’s not a moment to lose! Take these prisoners and all of the wounded out of here!” The captain called out.

The gallery is won. You take this opportunity to help up the scratched stormtrooper on the floor. You look up.

The Sith was at the end leading the stormtroopers. They’re about to rush into the dim corridor. Ominous red lights filled the entryway. There was a lull before a stormtrooper was sent in. You were too far away to hear the commotion, but you froze when you heard your commander’s voice.

“Halt!” The Sith screamed.

The corridor suddenly burst into flames and exploded devastatingly. It sent a torrent of white debris blasting out and throwing the nearby stormtroopers off.

Luckily, the lady Sith had managed to pull back the stormtrooper before he had run deeper into the corridor. With an outstretched hand, she snatched back the corporal with an invisible kind of force, reeling him back into her arms like a fish on a line. She staggered.

Bocchi was furious. “They’ve booby-trapped the corridor! It’s collapsed! Blast!”

She cursed. She waved off the shocked soldier she had just saved and brushed herself off. You run up to her.

Sith Bocchi turned to face you. “The corridor is shattered! We can’t pass through!”

She paced about contemptuously.

The stormtroopers steadied themselves. They reloaded, checked their limbs, patched leaks in their suit with black tape, and some sat down, dazed. By now medics were arriving. Bacta cans were distributed and the wounded were evacuated on aluminium litters. Medics raced to save as many incapacitated, Coalitionists as well, from suffocating to death in the frigid atmosphere.

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>>5870229
====

Lady Bocchi was next to you. “Good shooting,” she admitted.

You nod.

“They’ve mined the corridors with claymore. Cleverness! Rosenberg has no fools, eh?” The Sith scoffed. She faced you. “Thank you, sergeant.”

She takes this moment to rub her dirty gloves together and breathe. A ring of frost formed on her chin.

“Bah... I have the power of the Dark Side. I could tear this whole ship in half with my hands! Or dash it back to the damn earth! But then what?” The Sith grunted. “That’s not enough. That won’t get us anywhere. We must be clever - we need to think. See here, I have the strength of a thousand men. I can cut down mountains with the edge of my hand. There’s nothing that can penetrate my invincible Force-field. But I can’t maintain both and I’m no demi-god. No, we must be clever…”

You think. If what she said is true, it meant you might’ve just saved the Sith’s life. Despite her monstrous strength, and her terrifying displays of power which you’d never seen before, she was still very mortal.

Bocchi produced her transponder again. She examined the hologram. You see what’s happening outside as well.

The gallery shook.

“There - the second cruiser just dug into our starboard now! They’re going to fight and try to relieve this ship! They’re not going to leave Rosenberg! Périgord’s space-cavalry has the Coalition fighters beaten, and the other cruiser is disarmed!”

Sith Bocchi took your shoulder. “Your company’s going to be abovedeck, defending the castellations when the marines try to board our ship in turn. My guard battalion will clear the ship from the inside, but first we must pass through this gallery!” Before turning, she tells you: “Don’t worry, we’re going to find your file later.”

The Sith rallies the stormtroopers again. The first corridor was burning. This second doorway was the only way forward.

“Behind me! We’re going to storm through!”

As her aide, you get behind her. The captain of the line was next to you, then the column. The Sith Commander leapt forth, and with her mighty left hand, punched through the hydraulic door. She succeeded in ripping a breach through.

An explosion followed.

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>>5870233
====

The corridor was mined. It blew up violently, a cloud of smoke billowing out into the surrounding hangar.

For the marines, who were all waiting in the arterial hangar bay of the cruiser tersely, they saw the black cloud from the corridor, as well as the fire. Their trap had worked.

Then the white imperial column marched out of the fire. And at the tip of the spearhead was the unkillable Sith herself.

The Sith advanced. The fire did nothing to her and her column, for her Force-field was impervious. You can see it: the Force-field was a transparent, oblong-shaped kind of shield. You’ve seen shielding before - shielding kept vessels safe, by deflecting or vaporising incoming projectiles. This Sith was able to create one. Her force field radiated a pinkish glow. Nothing broke through it.

“Fire!” The captain of the line cried.

You join the volley as your column fanned out in a tight crescent, opening a blazing fusillade at all in the hangar. The exchange was absolutely brutal, that if not for your Sith Commander providing a large shield towards the front and sweeping away much of the green and yellow bolts, you and the rest of the stormtroopers would have been slain in a matter of seconds.

The Sith was laughing with a crazed, murderous boldness.

“Open fire! Take Death and drive Him back into their ranks!”

When the torrent much subsided, she ran forward. The hangar was still full with several X-fighters resting inside. When she reached one of the crafts, she leapt and grabbed it by the nose. She lifted it up without warning.

She swung it round before slinging it across the hangar at a row of planes. The thrown X-wing sailed across the hangar like a pebble before obliterating half the bay in a violent crash.

“Ahahaha!” The Sith laughed throatily. All of the Coalitionists in the hangar started running in fear.

There was another stormtrooper party pushing in from the right side, but before they were able to penetrate into the hangar and join your group, the marines had locked the corridor shut before fleeing themselves.

Sith Bocchi heaved, mad with frenzy. She seized a nearby crate full of bombs and slung it at a file of running marines.

The crate shot through the air, but before it crashed into the soldiers fatally, it was deflected! An invisible force saved the running marines. The crate harmlessly bounced off on the hangar floor.

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>>5870234
====

The Sith stared. “Rosenberg!” She hissed.

The Jedi girl stood at the mouth of the corridor, defending it valiantly as her marines retreated.

You saw the ‘Je’daii’ too. She had purple eyes and shoulder-length hair. She wore green robes. She looked young. Young enough to have been anyone - your cousin, your kin. She didn’t look like the enemy propaganda made the Je’daii out to be, not the unfeeling, heartless killers they should be, judging from how she put herself in danger to save her own crew and stood up to the Sith trying to kill the marines.

She glared back at the Sith bravely, despite the fear in her face.

Commander Bocchi did not waste a second to seize another projectile. She hurled a huge pallet loaded with batteries at the Jedi. This time the girl was unable to block the sheer speed of the Sith’s throw - the pallet smashed a hair’s breadth past the Jedi and sent her to the ground. It had missed, but it would have killed her instantly. The last of the marines had fled the hangar. Miraculously, the Jedi got up and began to struggle to the corridor and out of the hangar.

“She’s running…”

Bocchi growled harshly, baring white teeth. You’d never seen her this savage before, but you stay silent. All of the stormtroopers moved past her to take the ground. Some automatically began to fire at the fleeing Jedi.

“There’s a member of the Council for you. They’re the ones who set planet Ilium on fire. Don’t forget.”

Sith Bocchi doesn’t look back to say anything to you - she keeps staring at the Jedi.

>[PERSIST. You try to shoot the Jedi. She can’t be allowed to escape.]
>[DISABLE. You choose to aim for the control panel on the right of the hangar.]
>[ASK. Go and talk to the Sith.]
>[Write-in. (can be related to ‘ask’) ]

>>5870239
>[ASK. Go and talk to the Sith.]

>>5870239
>[DISABLE. You choose to aim for the control panel on the right of the hangar.]

>[ASK: Would you have us capture her or kill her?

>>5870239
>[DISABLE. You choose to aim for the control panel on the right of the hangar.]
Maybe that's the smartest option for now.

>>5870239
>[DISABLE. You choose to aim for the control panel on the right of the hangar.]

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====
You focus on what’s in front of you. You take your rifle and aim, blasting the control panel across the hangar. With perfect accuracy, the panel is blown. The pneumatic doors hissed open. A file of troopers rushed in with blasters drawn.

The Sith turned around to you. Her brows rose curiously.

“Kill her!” Commander Bocchi scoffed. “Kill Rosenberg!”

She began to pace about again with simmering intent. “Much as I would like to exterminate every Je’daii I can lay my hands on, killing her would serve us little. Sergeant, did you know that in olden times, captured knights fetched a king’s ransom?”

She checked your attention with a wave of her hand. The hangar was burning. A TIE-K fighter suddenly hovered into view before landing in the hangar. The noise from the overworked engines was deafening.

Presently you follow the Sith. The TIE-K folded its wings before a pilot shoved out the hatch. He quickly got down and approached the Sith commander, taking off his black helmet as he did so.

Sith Bocchi recognized the man. She smiled. “Jacksons, my dear. How are you?”

“Your Grace. We have Carder, Hellen’s cruiser, and their fighters beaten! They’re bled!”

“That makes three Jedis present and in command of this brigade, yes?”

“Yes, Grace. And General Rosenberg- ”

The Sith waved the ace off impatiently.

“I know.”

“Hellen’s going to drive her cruiser against the Servitude’s portside as well! We can’t fire missiles at either of them without risking deflection, and if they turn the missiles against our vessel- ”

The Sith glared. The lieutenant stopped, coughing.

“Your Grace, Captain Alekhine requests the infantry move. We can’t land to fight, with marines still emplaced abovedecks. Orders, Your Grace?”

“Wait until the light infantry moves over. The stormtroopers are already flushing this ship. Make sure to keep the remainder of their fighter wings away from the deadlock!”

Lieut. Jacksons nodded then trotted back to his fighter. The craft boomed out of the hangar.

You and the Sith head towards the locked corridor. Four engineers were trying to cut through with breaching lasers.

“I hate timidity. Accuse me of being reckless - timid, never!” Sith Bocchi walked alongside you. She said: “Let’s finish this.”

She strode up and with one kick battered the entrance in, sending two solid-metal halves flopping across the floor like paper. You follow behind wordlessly, keeping your guard up. You held your weapon at the ready. The Sith picked up one of the door-halves with a hand and upon reaching the end of the passage, forced her way through.

The next gallery was full of marines. They were all waiting. This was their final holding point. They had set up kinetic shields and a chokepoint, with an automatic cannon positioned in the centre. You can see it all. Intense daylight streamed in from the large windows on the left side of the gallery.

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>>5871418
====

The marines open fire.

You and your Sith are both hit by an unrelenting torrent of plasma bolts. The heat was excruciating. You flinch - nothing, not even your visor could resist the flurry of bright shots that blinded the eyes and disoriented anyone privy to it.

You hear Sith Bocchi gasping. She’s standing firm as a tower in front of you, holding an arm up against the torrent. Like a porphyry battery, her Force-field received all the bolts without fail. But she cursed - it’s that autocannon that’s giving you hell!

“Sergeant! Fire back!” The Sith shouted at you amidst the rampage of shots.

But it was an unreasonable order, and this was too careless. You knew. Walking into a place that was possibly a killzone; without thinking first of scouting it out for traps and dangers. Anyone else would’ve been dead by now. It frustrated you, the Sith frustrated you - here was another case of overconfidence resulting in peril.

A shot grazed your knee and caused you to stagger. You fell and just as you did, another bolt of plasma ripped a hole through the side of your helmet. Embers stung your eyelids. You smelled black smoke. You gasped.

The Sith looked at you. She froze.

The next second, something snapped inside of her - Sith Bocchi turned forward and pushed out her right hand. Then with her other hand, she raised for the left side of the gallery. She turned her left hand towards the windows. The Sith clenched her fist.

All the windows in the gallery exploded. In an instant, a rush of frigid air swept through the gallery, and all of the people inside were blown out of the cruiser. Screaming filled the air. The terrible human screams were choked out by the howling wind as over thirty marines fell to their deaths.

You can’t breathe. It’s freezing. You found yourself suddenly tumbling on the ground, being sucked towards the gaping windowside of the shattered gallery. You’d be dead before you reached the ground - at this altitude, Ultra’s atmosphere would petrify your lungs.

“Sergeant!”

The Sith seized your wrist fiercely. Her magnetic boots clamped onto the gallery floor despite the turbulent winds and installed her feet securely. She took you and began to move. Bocchi reached one of the steel doors, but instead of destroying it again to pass through, she used one arm to pry it open. She held you tightly.

Once she forced a gap into the corridor, she threw you inside before jumping in. The pneumatic doors slid with a click.

“Sergeant, wake up.”

The Sith crawled over to you. She pulled your broken helmet off and squeezed your head.

“Wake up!”

The Sith pushed her mouth against your lips and exhaled.

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>>5871423
====

You choke. When you open your eyes, you find yourself in a corridor. It was dark, and only red emergency lights provided illuminance. This ship you’re on had tilted horribly, because now the corridor was vertical and you’re staring eleven feet up at the other end, now the ceiling.

Your Sith knelt next to you. There’s ice on her face. Her frightening blue eyes had bits of frost on their lashes and the corners have frozen teardrops.

Without waiting, she took something from her suit’s module and pressed a hand over your mouth and nose. Suddenly you can breathe easily. You splutter from being able to breathe in dense air again.

“Easy now.” She said quietly. “You can’t breathe the air up here. Your body isn’t capable of doing that. Do not worry about me.”

She orders you to keep the respirator on your face. She starts to climb. Slowly you follow. The Sith reaches a ladder which led to a hatch. She calls for you to follow then opens it. The entire cruiser was beginning to right itself.

At last, you and the Sith come out on the deck of the Coalition cruiser.

The sky was orange with the rays of the rising sun. The wind blew against your frostbitten ears, and it was awful. You look around.

20,000 feet above an ice moon, four warships are locked in a bitter struggle as stormtroopers and marines rush to fight each other with stubborn science and resolve. A pair of Coalition fighters roared overhead like dragons, followed by a wing of imperial TIEs persisting viciously. Everywhere, there were scenes of combat and vainglorious struggle.

They say that the days of the Empire were coming to an end. But it seemed so far-away.

Sith Bocchi glanced at you then laughed. Her bold smile returned. In a second, you two were joined by a group of sharpshooters.

Far across, you see three figures standing. Jedis. They were the ones the Sith was pursuing. When Commander Bocchi sees them, her austere visage turns intense.

A few stray laser shots rained down on your formation, igniting deadly bursts of fire on the icy deck.

One of the troopers cried: “Your Grace! Please get back into cover! All is lost if you are killed!”

The Sith laughed even more.

“You are shaking as much as the leaves in a blizzard! Death is nothing, my soldiers - laugh, smile, when you choose to stand and fight!”

She looks at you. “Leave this matter to me. Rejoin your comrades and fight for the ship.”

The Sith commander drew her sacred weapon at last. She ignited a fierce blaze, and a red lightsaber surged to life in her left hand. The blade was long and cruel, harsh as the fires of dying stars, and crackled with energetic restraint, boiling a draft of cream-white vapour through the wind as she brandished it in the frozen air.

The three Jedis were all determined to stop the Sith. The balance of an entire galaxy depended on their struggle.

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>>5871429
====

The attack began. The Sith met the three Jedis swiftly. Seven times did opposing blades meet, and seven equal times did both sides exert their utmost to turn over their adversary without success. The Sith commander, for all her science with the sword and the power of her roiling red lightsaber, was unable to turn aside and stretch dead on the ground the three Jedis, who all worked together to defend each other and hold themselves on the deck in the midst of the swirling blizzard and the combat going on around them.

The Sith locked blades with one of the Jedis. Having enough, she grabbed her opponent and flung her to the ground violently, but not before being shoved off by another one.

The lady Sith tumbled across the cruiser deck. She clawed metal to stop herself from falling off the ship and righted herself.

The third cruiser was starting to push the Servitude off using her own engine power. The Sith saw, and rushed to stop this idea, leaping across to the imperial vessel’s deck instead. She hopped down to the edge and kicked the cruiser violently, sending the entire enemy vessel wobbling off, before dropping without warning out of altitude.

A pair of arms suddenly gripped the Sith. Her eyes widened. She grabbed the arm and yanked the person off, slamming him across the metal deck. The Jedi rolled away, then got back up.

The Jedi glared up at the Sith adamantly. “We’re going to stop you!”

Sith Bocchi huffed scornfully.

“You are weak.”

“You’re finished, Bocchi! Your Emperor is dead! Your planet and entire star system is surrounded!”

“And yet you will never finish me, because you are no match for me. I am an imperial. l… I am a Sith.”

The Jedi fired his lightsaber and charged. The Sith turned off her own blade and dodged to the side, before launching her sudden riposte. She punched the man, jabbing his abdomen and smashing a gory channel through his stomach and spilling his intestines out of his backside. The Sith’s arm was red with blood.

The other three Jedis ran over. One of them screamed, distraught.

“Carder!”

Sith Bocchi shook the dead body off her arm and allowed it to fall off the ship. She stared at the Jedis with dark eyes. Her gaze was black as ice, and carried the savour of vengeance. She took out her lightsaber again and fired it, this time the surge of heat briefly engulfing her whole hand and burning all the blood away.

The Sith muttered: “Surrender or die.”

“Alice, we need to go!” One of the Jedi tried to pull back her companion.

“Well, Mlle. Rosenberg? Are you going to run, or are you going to avenge your friend?”

The Sith smiled.

That was all it took for the Jedi general Alice Rosenberg to give into her painful anger. She attacked forth, despite Captain Hellen’s warnings.

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>>5871431
====

The Sith commander instantly Force-grabbed Alice Rosenberg once the Jedi had lunged close. Lady Bocchi choked the Jedi before shoving her into the ground violently. Still gripping the general’s neck, she stood up and whipped out a pistol, aiming at the Jedi Captain Hellen.

The Sith grinned incredibly. “I don’t want us to kill each other, so let us not do it. Yield.”

“Don’t hurt her!” Captain Hellen said.

“Rosenberg, you are always trying to oppose me. You could have been halfway across the galaxy, in your rich family palace, or fighting on the other front - do you think this is a coincidence?” The Sith gloated, looking down. “Good people are always so sure they’re right! Do you think you’re the hero?”

Suddenly, the Jedi Captain reeled in the Sith, causing her to drop Rosenberg out of surprise. Captain Hellen zipped forward with unbelievable speed and caught her comrade, then flew off the deck and down through the sky.

It is at this point you return to reinforce your Sith commander.

You had been engaged in a firefight aboard the Rosenberg cruiser. You had also briefly reunited with your companions from the Light Infantry minutes ago, and fought together to beat back the Coalitionists into their ships. Victory was at hand any moment now! You stop however, shocked to see the scene playing out before you. You had seen how the two Jedis had evaded capture.

“Sergeant!”

You ran hastily towards Sith Bocchi. She pointed at the gliding silhouettes growing smaller and smaller the further down they fell.

“Do you think you can shoot the gliding Jedi? They’re getting away.”

You could try. But at this altitude, with this wind, and given how fast the two bodies were getting away, it was likely you were going to miss.

“It’s cold. Let’s go back.”

For some odd reason, Lady Bocchi’s voice was toneless. It sounded like an empty order.

>[OBEY. You obey and fire your rifle to try and shoot the escaping Jedis.]
>[QUESTION. You do not obey immediately. The Jedis were already beaten and wounded. You remind the Sith that she has said capturing them would be better.]
>[HESITATE. You stay silent and do nothing.]
>[Write-in.]

>>5871435
>[QUESTION. You do not obey immediately. The Jedis were already beaten and wounded. You remind the Sith that she has said capturing them would be better.]

>>5871435
>[OBEY. You obey and fire your rifle to try and shoot the escaping Jedis.]

>>5871435
>[QUESTION. You do not obey immediately. The Jedis were already beaten and wounded. You remind the Sith that she has said capturing them would be better.]
where is that image from ?

>>5871435
>[OBEY. You obey and fire your rifle to try and shoot the escaping Jedis.]

Once the field is ours their chances of being captured skyrockets, but these are still jedi we are talking about. Better roll the dice and hope fortune favours us, they are wounded and may not block our shots easily if we can manage to hit them.

>[OBEY
No reason not to try.

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(QM here! I won't be able to make a new post for the next few days as I'm away.. Merry Christmas, everyone!)

>>5871510
(The panels are from the manga 'Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san'! It's the look-alike of our Space Wars protagonist.)

Now that we're pretty much through the prelude of the story, I'm excited to move on to the real adventure soon. Have a nice holiday, guys!

>>5873950
Merry Christmas!

>>5873950
>>5873973
Merry Christmas!

>>5873950
Thanks for answering and belated merry christmas, QM.

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(Welcome back. I hope Christmas and winter are treating you anons well! Let's continue.)
====

You take your rifle again. Your feet move by instinct, prepared to carry out your commander’s orders. The soldierly part of you is poised to obey, to shoot the falling Jedis at once, but there’s a part of you that was sceptical. It was a subservient part far dominated by the pragmatic martial portion of your mind but it was alarmingly persistent. It’s enough to make you hesitate, and Sith Bocchi notices you dithering. She was watching. That was enough to make you move.

You plant your boots firmly on the edge of the carrier and peer down from the sky. Surely enough you see two human figures fluttering as they fell, kite-like. Their brown capes were rapidly disappearing as they descended. There’s no time to waste.

You lift the sights to your right eye, aim, then fire.

A red bolt of plasma zipped eagerly down to earth.

You don’t know if it has hit its mark, as a gust of icy wind obscured your sight, and you felt light-headed afterwards. Your mouth felt dry and an intense thirst overcame you.

You feel a strong hand on your shoulder.

“Your head is cold, Sergeant. Let’s go.”

Sith Bocchi leads you away from the edge. You and the Sith make your way across the Servitude’s hull until you reach a hatch. Lady Bocchi unlocks it then climbs down after you.

====

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>>5876215
====

An hour later, you were back on the ground and in the camp. The short-lived battle was over.

Your ears were still ringing, and they stung with frostbite. While the whole camp rejoiced and chanted “Long live the Praētor!” and recited hymns for the Empire, you were silent. Your body ached as if it had been beaten repeatedly in a gruelling pitch all day, and yet it was hardly so - the day was just beginning.

Perhaps it was the sheer awe of having fought, stormed, and won over enemy ships twenty thousand feet up in the sky, over an oxygen moon, between Regensburg and the falling stars for the first time - the awe of which was still transfixing your spirit like heady wine, and to add to that, victory. Spectacles like this were known to set the souls of men of fire, dazzled them, made them believe in gods and every heavenly promise.

On the other hand, stoic and Faustian trooper that you are, first of a file of young but foolish troopers whom you now must watch over in place of your last sergeant, you are unable to lose yourself in happiness just yet.

“You fought well.”

The Sith Commander remarked. You are inside her marquee tent, a palace far warmer than your own bivouac. Far more furnished, smelt of coffee and ion lamps, with woollen rugs instead of a trod floor, a contrast with your quarters that was bitter. After the few officers had finished reporting, they were dismissed. You and the Sith are alone once more, save for her secretary in the antechamber hard at work with a tablet, editing her dictations for a bulletin.

“My scouts are in the air combing the countryside for runaway Coalitionists. We have captured all three cruisers, and a detachment of our fighters are pursuing the remnants of the Rosenberg brigade’s air force away. This is a fine tactical victory for us.”

The Sith did not sit down at her table. She stood, looking at you with perceptive blue eyes.

“I know you must be wondering, ‘how many more?’ I shall tell you, Sergeant: many more. We must fight long and hard. We have won a battle, no more, but no less. To win this war and save our worlds, we must persevere...”

The Sith tilts her head. This is a habit of hers you came to notice often now. She smiles, as if trying to console you, and approaches:

“I can see that you are tired. Do not think so much - we have won, Sergeant. You may rest easy for now.”

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>>5876217
====

You nod. You do not express much, instead taking a long breath before steeling your nerves. You stiffen your shoulders then salute her. Before you’re able to turn around, Lady Bocchi stops you.

“Just a moment, Sergeant.”

She orders you to put out your hand. When you do, she pushes something into your right palm. Your bare, cold hand wraps around something round and flat. It appeared to be a large alloy coin with beautiful, arcane engravings carved in it.

“Take this. If anyone ever gives you trouble within the corps, present this medallion and let them know you are attached to me.” The Sith lady gives an approving nod.

“Cut along now to Baron Daru. From now on, you and your platoon shall receive double rations from the commissariats. The intendant-general shall make sure of that. Your platoon may be deployed on a… reconnaissance, soon. Dismissed.”

The Sith has given you a [Sith Medallion]. After this morning’s battle, all soldiers have a respite. Presently you are free to leave.

>>[Visit your comrades at your regimental quarters first.]
>>[See Baron Daru, the intendant-general.]
>[ASK. Talk to the Sith before leaving. Ask if there’s anything else to do.]
>>[Write-in. This is an opportunity to speak to the Sith before leaving. Say something to her.]

(QM note: New option. 'Primary' choices are indicated by a single arrow. 'Secondary' choices - side quests/choices, rather - are indicated by two arrows. The less arrows, the more important basically. As in an RPG, choices can be revisited once the current one is finished.)

>>5876215
Well enough, good food.

>>5876218
>[ASK: What of the line of succession now? What of the Praētor? It was rumoured amongst the troops that he disappeared, the most cynical troops even say that he is dead. What should we tell them? Is she now Praētor, should we be calling her Empress?]

>[ASK: What was the Praētor like? Was he truly a God?]

>Check our knee, see if the burn went through. If we sustained injury then go to receive medical attention before anything else. If not, then make a note to replace our knee pad at the armoury later.

>[See Baron Daru, the intendant-general.]

The baron first, orders come before recreation with our comrades. Plus we'll be the bearer of good news for our platoon once we relay the Sith's orders to the baron, double rations and the glory of a special mission.

>>5876251
+1 to all of these.

>>5876218
>[ASK. Talk to the Sith before leaving. Ask if there’s anything else to do.]
>>[Write-in. This is an opportunity to speak to the Sith before leaving. Say something to her.]
One-hand bow. I am honored to serve you.

>>[Visit your comrades at your regimental quarters first.]
>>[See Baron Daru, the intendant-general.]

>>5876218
>[ASK. Talk to the Sith before leaving. Ask if there’s anything else to do.]

>>5876251
>+1

>>5876283
+1

>>5876218
>[Visit your comrades at your regimental quarters first.]
>[Write-in. This is an opportunity to speak to the Sith before leaving. Say something to her.]
I am truly honored to have this medallion, I'll serve you until I die.

>[ASK. Talk to the Sith before leaving. Ask if there’s anything else to do.]

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====

You haven't left yet. The Sith looks at you.

“Anything else?” she said.

You have questions. There’s plenty you still didn’t understand - but military life was like that, and a soldier, while not ignorant, has scarcely the privilege of curiosity. His mind is precise, but unimaginative. There is only to and fro, the fight in front of you and safety behind. On paper, it says the Empire sustains. Here to Regensburg, to the defence at the Trasimene Belt, to the remainders of Ilium System and all those other besieged worlds up in the stars. On paper there’s a thousand more sergeants like you in similar places. All told, “fight a little longer, lad!” All told, we can survive.

Doesn’t matter - Everything on paper is immaterial.

When faced by the Sith again, like a barrel suddenly being clapped over candlelight the words vanish in your throat.

Instead, very quickly you ask if there’s anything else you could do to serve her Grace.

“Hm…”

Lady Bocchi ponders for a while. She remains incredibly quiet for a minute, facing you.

When she stared, as was her habit, her eyes were identical to the sky of this bitter oxygen moon. Distant and azure. Just as you begin to feel apprehensive, she says: “Three of the battery ships are broken…”

‘I’m no engineer, Your Grace.’

“I do not expect you to fix it.”

Tactfully, you wait for her to continue. The Sith explains: “We are already low on energy reserves, and some of the artillery capacitors are fried. After the funeral pyre tomorrow, if you are agreeable to it, report to me and we will see if there’s resources to be extracted from this moon.”

This isn’t a job for light infantry, but wasn’t entirely unusual. Hard-pressed, the army has to solve each day's interminable issues by themselves. No one is spared from extra duties. Independence and self-sustainability were the only ways to survive. This, after months of gruelling service, you perfectly understood. The same philosophy was applied to all other necessities. Clothes, ammunition, shoes, blankets, gauze and lint, armour-plates, batteries and helmet filters.

These didn’t grow on the trees of Ultra.

Imperial logistics was still existent despite this system-wide space siege, and provided enough for the Seventh Fleet to continue fighting.

But in war, hardly anything is enough.

“This moon is rich in resources. Scientists used to operate mining facilities here,” Lady Bocchi said. “We have only eight artillery pieces, and five operational.”

Presently she goes back to her desk. Lady Bocchi picks up a paper and with her fingernails, folds it in a rectangular halve. She returns and offers it to you, cheerful.

“Why don’t you read the first draft of this evening’s bulletin?”

You look down at the white letter in your hand.

Hesitantly, you ask about letters from the capital.

>>5877806
====

Lady Bocchi shook her head. She spoke tonelessly. “We are so far away. Our scientists haven’t figured out the secrets to tachyonic communication yet. Had we, surely we would receive letters from Korriban everyday. Letters of love and praise, from our grateful citizens.”

Letters from the capital of the Empire. Korriban. You think of it. Korriban, 100,000 stellar leagues away, across the galaxy. Nothing travels faster than light, and nearly all hyperspace lanes are now cut off. One may as well be sending off a bottle into the sea with a letter for a million years.

If you were to receive letters from Korriban, why not elsewhere, as well? Letters from Cadore to Notron, of hot sunny days and sweet, tangy lemonades. Letters and parcels from families, friends and lovers, posted from Tython to Olympia, from this end of the galaxy to the other.

Letters from your world.

But that’s impossible. Cut off, besieged, and so far away from home… Looking up at the unbelievably starry skies, dread was so, so overpowering.

The Sith tells you to remain strong in heart. She tells you once again to trust in the Praētor. She says, the Emperor protects.

The truth is you have never seen the Emperor in person. You know no-one who does.

Does the Sith believe in gods? She believes in the power of the Force.

You believe what you see. The Sith has a divine gift, you do not. And while you believe in a higher power that commands the entire universe, you can pretend no answering riot. Certainly not like your comrades, men and women from different worlds, each with their personal prayers and personal gods.

“The Ancient Romans made the gods in their own image.”

The Sith smiles at you.

She carries hundreds of books in her tent even as she fights this deadly war. She loves drawing forbears from legendary parallels of aeons past. Mythical, unrealistic stories, but she appears to believe them.

She says this and seems able to read your mind like an open book. Whether she actually could, you do not know. She says: “Do you think His Majesty has abandoned us?”

‘Your Grace, I do not think of it.’

You answer after a long silence. She watches you. Instead of an ugly reaction, she remains mysteriously smiling, appreciative.

“His Majesty isn’t one,” she says, “No more a god than you or I, nor anyone else on this earth. I believe in the Force, yes… But for me, he is my god down here on earth.”

Blasphemy. A fearful word, you think. She is amused. Her lips curled brightly.

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>>5877808
====

The Sith says she doesn’t quite believe in gods, and while incredible, this - there was really no other word for how she felt. To her, the Praētor was wiser, more powerful, more distant, more austere and more present than any god from the stars. The Praētor was great. It can be seen in her eyes. Passion. This Sith was devoted to His Majesty with the passion of a saint or lover. She is in love with him. She is in love with the Emperor the way her troopers and fleet-masters are in love with her.

The Sith tells you a story.

“His Majesty said, follow me. ‘Follow me and we shall free ourselves from the corrupt Je’daii who rules over us.’ We followed him. It’s nearly fifty years since we followed him, in an endless campaign across the stars. He said he would take us to the ends of the universe. I was young just like you once, sergeant. I watched as a student then as the borders of our Empire pushed out and one by one, the stars in the sky became ours.”

Lady Bocchi sighed.

When humans are passionate, they are in love. They see the world through rose-coloured lenses. Their souls catch on fire. They start thinking, there must be gods in the sky! Perhaps you don’t quite understand what it is which makes the Sith believe in the emperor she couldn’t see, but the parallels, you do. You believe in the Sith Commander after all, so did the battalions, so did the Seventh Legion. Every trooper has their personal gods.

Lovers live with passion and it makes them crave. They have to prove themselves willing to roll over and die, and the poison is sweet. It is sweet and fatal to love one’s people, sweetheart, empire, lord and master.

She watches you closely.

“What do you think it is about passion that turns a man holy?” she asked.

A trick question.

“Passion isn’t easy to be sensible with, as the Force isn’t easy to be sensible with. We are cold people, we live in the dark and yet we yearn to be warm. War is in our blood… In the darkness, only passion will guide you.”

The Sith was now standing very close to you. She looks at your face and squeezes your arm. “I have a plan to break this siege and free our worlds, one by one.”

Can you believe it?

“I’m telling you stories. Trust me.”

The Sith smiled warmly.

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>>5877809
====

The Intendant-General was one of those races humans weren’t accustomed to seeing. Baron Daru, Intendant-General of the Seventh Legion Fleet and governor to this camp of five thousand soldiers is a Y’bith, the only non-human in an office composed of all human staff.

Here, the clever Y’bith Intendant-General, by his unparalleled managerial skill, commanded a department of commissariats responsible for the division’s baggage train and supplies. The Imperial Commissary was in charge of the magazine, the artillery park, the space-cavalry and aerial park, engineering, repair and ordnance in the Servitude’s hangars, quarters, forage, hospitals; everything.

Troopers naturally detested the commissariats. They were stingy, well-fed, and had warmer quarters compared to the rest of the camp. If there were portions for a hundred troopers and a company returned from a battle numbering eighty after losses, they received eighty portions. This had the appearance of corruption and did not fail to turn a normally patient soldier furious.

Baron Daru had a face such that if it were a clock, no-one in the tent would dare look at it to tell the time. The Y’bith had a grotesquely large skull, black, glassy eyes, which looked like evil stones without eyelids (Y’biths cannot shed tears, they have no glands), large bony hands, a malleable, veal-coloured mouth and no nose to speak of. His skin looked scalded, and sagged like spoilt yellow flesh.

You know what Biths and Y’biths are. One of the intelligent races in the galaxy. Human-like, but what was human about Baron Daru, was terrible to think of. The story goes: the Bith species once waged a war that destroyed their planet. The Y’bith weren’t supposed to be - they were mutated Biths, products of the biological weaponry that slaughtered and split their species. All Y’biths are like this - with their spoilt flesh, melting-fat flesh.

‘My lord…’ you start.

“Come to the point! What impossibility is Her Grace asking of me now?”

You express the order for your file to receive double rations.

The Y’bith gave a scornful look. Intelligently you add, so as to placate the Intendant-General:

‘And the three broken artillery ships…’

“Lo, lo, so! Is that all? And I suppose Lady Bocchi means for me to fabricate brand-new industrial capacitors for her guns?”

Just then, one of the commissariats returned. Gingerly, the man whispers a report to the Y’bith, along with a receipt. Baron Daru’s large, obsidian eyes gleamed.

“Pray tell, where are the hydrogen cells?”

The embarrassed deputy said: “The Servitude has no more reserves left. M. Périgord however requests that you ratify an order to divert…”

“Divert!...”

“For the TIE fighters. There is hydrazine left, my lord.”

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>>5877811
====

The Y’bith began to shake. He continued to speak with the pudgy deputy for a while as you stood in silence. Suddenly and without warning, Baron Daru stood up from his desk. He took the paper and flung it angrily at the commissariat’s face.

“Fine! Our fighters will refuel on hydrazine!”

Baron Daru looked around. There were several more staff in the room, standing idly. He roared at them: “Do not just stand there like imbeciles! Get out! Do you all have not work to do?”

Evidently, the Y’bith detested humans as much as troopers detested the commissariats.

Daru’s tone changed. His sarcastic voice had a nasal, brittle quality to it. The Y’bith strode over to you slowly with an uneven, cripple-like gait. Despite his twisted posture, Baron Daru towered over you. He glared, then looked away. He spoke slowly.

“Our fighters have to fly on hydrazine. Fine. There is no more hydrogen. This siege is doing a number on us, sergeant. Each day, the Seventh Fleet has to give up a little more ground, then a little more. Then a little more. After we run out of hydrazine, shall we melt fistfuls of ice from this wretched moon and call it fuel?”

Baron Daru’s voice softened. He looked at you.

“Humans are too stubborn for their own good. You all do not know when to give up.” Daru sniffed. “But,” he admitted solemnly, “perhaps that is worthy of admiration. Her Grace has the optimism of the doomed.”

You think, what about the Y’bith? Why does a non-human continue to side with the Empire?

Something about Baron Daru’s inflection had cooled.

“Your operating number?” Daru asked impatiently.

‘SS-1777, my lord.’

“I see that the old sergeant sends his protege.”

You know what the Intendant-General meant. Your operating number was your dead sergeant’s. It is now yours.

Curtly, Daru says: “Sergeant, I take it that you haven’t eaten yet?”

‘No, lord.’

“Well then - when you head out, make use of my kitchens! I shall inform your company commissariat to double your platoon’s rations.”

You ask about the dehydrated protein and carbohydrate rations.

“My god - is that what you want?” He made a guttural laugh. “Her Grace spoke about increasing the food for two days. That shall do the troops good, after that nasty attack this morning. It’s almost afternoon.”

Everyone would get to eat fresh food for the first time in a while. That alone was something.

“Return tomorrow, SS-1777. I will give you the details regarding an errand for components for our battery ships. The machines on this moon are rich with them. Go!”

>>[LETTER. Open the bulletin copy the Sith had given you a while ago as you walk.]
>[PROCEED. The letter can wait. You put it safely in your pocket. Head to your platoon’s bivouac to meet them.]

>>5877813
>[LETTER. Open the bulletin copy the Sith had given you a while ago as you walk.]

Por que no los dos?

>[LETTER
Then mingle with the platoon. I take it this is akin to an old German platoon, and we're essentially a Feldwebel in charge of the entire platoon as an NCO?

>>5877813
>[LETTER. Open the bulletin copy the Sith had given you a while ago as you walk.]

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You open the letter as you walk towards your company's bivouac. It occurs to you that while everyone else must first wait for the bulletin to be posted tonight, you already have it in your hands.

You open the letter:

====
[PAU, ULTRA. REGENSBURG-SS, NOVEM XI, 4022, 4:30 AM]

ORDER OF BATTLE

Forces engaged:

—VII Legion Fleet
III Corps
Attachment: CAV-1 Servitude
Commander-in-Chief: Lady Bocchi, Governess of Ilium
Chief of Staff: Baron Daru

— Ground (800~, 1,100~ reserve)
= 1st Division:
== 15e Stormtrooper regiment: Col. Exelmans (engaged)
== 34e Stormtrooper regiment: Col. Joan (engaged)
== 96e Light Infantry regiment: Col. Westhus (engaged)
== 9e Marine regiment: Col. Merveldt (engaged)

— Air (69, 21 reserve)
= 1st Brigade:
== 01er Air Cavalry Squadron: Capt. de Périgord [36 TIE-K] (engaged)
== 06e Eclaireurs Squadron: Capt. Walther [21 TIE-K] (engaged)
== 33e Bombardment Squadron: Capt. Jor-Kett [12 T/AB]

— Artillery
==XIV Light Ion Batteryship [8 pieces] (left on the ground)

— Support (372)
= Naval Engineers
= Pontonniers [2 companies]
= Sappers [2 companies]
= Bridging Train [8 AHV/c]


—10th Armada, ‘Horizon Fleet’

Scarlet Brigade [3 ships]
= V14A Frigate ‘Phantom’: Gen. Rosenberg [360 marines]
== no.102 Medium Squadron [8 X-240]
==no.39 Medium Squadron [10 X-240]
= V14A Frigate ‘Swordfish’: Capt. Carder [231 marines]
== no.203 Medium Squadron [12 X-240]
==no.178 Medium Squadron [8 X-240]
==no.167 Bombing Squadron [7 XB-4]
= ACLV-4 Heavy Frigate ‘Opencloud’: Capt. Hellen [411 marines]
==no.151 Medium Squadron [12 X-240]

Result: Tactical Imperial victory.
3 Coalition frigates captured.
796 Coalitionist prisoners taken.
205 killed; 50 pilots killed.
3 Jedis killed.

====

The last detail felt like a lie. You knew only one Jedi was killed, and there were escaped X-fighters. They were out there, and you had a feeling about it.

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====

The camp was in high spirits after the morning’s victorious battle.

The sky was blue, not a trace of a cloud to be found, despite the weather being ominous only four hours ago. Like a heavenly ceiling, planet Regensburg glittered overhead. As you walk, you pass by hundreds of black-white tents, each orbiting a central campfire where multiple groups of troopers, their helmets gleaming under the sun, share warmth and each other’s company. Some of them were busy wiping off their armour. Others sat in the dead grass, dozing off. More tended to their little artificial fires, keeping large pans suspended over the hearth.

Most were noisily talking about their exploits, exuberant about having won another battle - you overhear one of the conversations: With this Sith Commander, it was impossible to lose.

Much optimism, but the triumphant were like that.

You don’t bother to request food from the kitchen quarters as you pass by it. Strangely, you weren’t hungry. The meals however would be served soon, so at last you make straight for your platoon’s bivouac.

There you meet again your little band of sharpshooters.

The 96th Light Infantry regiment was a force composed of a little under four hundred soldiers, divided in four battalions of under a hundred each. Your company is part of the First battalion’s premiere company.

Premiere companies were the elite. However, ‘elite’ was an arbitrary word when it has been an established fact for a long time now that the army was no longer in its prime. They didn’t have the same number of veterans, not the divisions that marched in the hundreds of thousands five years ago. This, you knew. For example: while a company theoretically numbered at a hundred and twenty men strong, your company had only sixty troopers remaining. A squad should number at least eight soldiers.

A-squad only had four left, including you.

This war has bled the army.

Your comrades were extremely surprised when you entered the little circle. They were delighted to see you again. Especially so when you informed them of the good news: that they would receive double rations, the whole First Company included.

The youngest, a female trooper with dark hair and amber eyes, operating number SS-6971, was ecstatic.

“Really, Sarge?! Well, that’s so, so nice!” SS-6971 chirped.

You shrug. You don’t say the context of the boon immediately, but she overlooks this.

“Where have you been? We’ve been waiting all morning, Sarge!”

“The sergeant’s been busy, Carla. Perhaps he’ll be a general soon.”

“No! Is that true? Is what Henry’s saying true, Sarge?”

SS-1980, the brown haired young man, spoke up. He too was all smiles at the news. Out of the three, he was the most soft-spoken, but this time it was SS-2187 who hadn’t uttered a word up until now.

At last, SS-2187 said, huffing: “About time. For once we’ll have enough for ourselves.”

‘We’ll eat soon,’ you say, and take a seat.

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====

Indeed, in fifteen minutes a bell was rung. It was time for the big meal of the day. The commissariats made rounds, followed kitchen staff, then hovering barrows loaded with cubical metal containers with food.

The routine, almost a ritual, proceeded methodically. The vacuum-sealed packets of polystarch bread were first distributed. Then came another hover-barrow with the packets of protein. Unnamed bread and meat, you think, from some plant or animal not even Adam would recognize, but you do not complain. Your companions are excited. This time, the commissariats hand out packets still iced over. Frozen food, but fresh food.

Cooking followed. First the meat was added to the pan, then the crumbly polystarch, which thickened the soup. Everyone searches their packs for salt and pepper, anything left-over. It’s done steadily, with a martial professionalism that rivals a chef’s. Your stomach grumbled. Naturally, a stew was in order: in no time your squad’s pan was steaming, with more pieces of meat than you’d seen in weeks.

When you’ve finished ladling soup for your charges, you fill your own pannikin and finally sit on the ground. After this nourishing meal, there was still a crumpled pack of cigarettes to be had in your rucksack. It’s a quarter to two in the afternoon, and this was respite.

You look over and watch your companions. Reviewing them, as you did the first time you received them months ago, you go over each one.

SS-1980. Henry. A quiet boy aged twenty-three. Conscript. He comes from Ilium, the world which the Sith Commander of the Seventh Fleet governs herself, and capital of Ilium Sector. Henry was an ostler, his family (who lived in the countryside) dealt in horses and carriages. He learnt a passion for driving rides of all sorts - machine or beast. He spoke little, ate what two men could in a day, and on the occasion he did speak, it was mischief or of his dreams of becoming a TIE pilot and leaving the infantry.

SS-2187. Villanelle. A half-Chiss. She is around SS-1980’s age, only six months older. Also a conscript. But of the three, SS-2187, or Villanelle, as SS-1980 and SS-6971 called her, was the most mysterious. You haven’t quite figured her out yet, despite this being the seventh month you have spent with her as your second. All you knew was that the half-Chiss was an educated and well-off lady, from one of the Core worlds, who had no reason at all to be here fighting in the ice and mud with troopers.

SS-6971 was the youngest. Her number reflected that undeniable fact. Consequently, she couldn’t have been a ‘pure’ stormtrooper, not in any way. Her real name was Carla. She was a volunteer. This second fact in itself, was also a curious issue. She was nineteen-years old, and hailed from Eredyne, one of the agricultural worlds in the Rhodes star system, about 700 stellar-leagues away from here. To volunteer is not a poor decision in itself, but there were a few considerations.

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====

On her nineteenth birthday, Carla received almost two credits from her parents. At the time, given the circumstances, and the fact her family was, like the rest of the peasant caste they belonged in, impoverished, it was a sizable sum of money. Carla had always been a staunch imperialist, young and impetuous. She was a girl who, all her life, was there to watch as the Empire reached the heights of glory and pushed out to the ends of the galaxy. She was fifteen during the beginning of the fall.

Everyone in Carla’s village were simple people, humble and content to eat their daily bread and sing soft songs at night until they fell asleep. They were peaceful people, they did not dream at night. When the last lamps were put out each night, she dreamt of becoming a stormtrooper. But it occurred to her that she, standing one day in front of her mother, Carla really felt hesitant. Deep inside, she wasn’t sure. She was frightened.

Her father was against the idea. To him, it was sheer stupidity. Women do not belong in war, that was his contention.

Her mother was more sympathetic. “You’re just like me, when I was your age, Carla. No patience and with a noisy heart.”

She looked at her mother. Who was she to say, you’re wrong, and break her heart?

“What do you want to be?”

Carla couldn’t answer.

“Would you like to stay on the farm?”

She had done that all her life. Shyly, she shook her head.

“Would you like to work in your grandfather’s bakery?”

She was strong, and with quick hands. But she had never thought of becoming a pastry chef. She has killed the moles which digs at her father’s field with a gas rifle since she was eleven.

Her quick, clever hands would be wasted on kneading and beating flour for a pittance.

“You said once, to me, that you loved to play the guitar. Carla, why don’t you be a musician?”

A curious feeling overcame her. It’s true, she liked to play music, she thought it a beautiful art and a pastime, she had a talent for playing her instrument, though it wasn’t something that ever assumed importance in her life. But at that moment, she became conscious of an intense desire to leave her home and take to the stars. To leave this village, leave Eredyne, to cross the galaxy together with the famous Sith Commander. The people of her village do not dream at night, but she needed to. She must become something, instead of another dream-less peasant which now seemed to her an existence that was painfully shallow. She had remembered.

Go then, my daughter - her mother said. Fulfil your destiny. You were not made to stay on earth.

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====

Thus it was a common case of a coming-of-age. A young fighter ready to take on insurmountable odds, to attack the stars, to save the Empire, to be the Hero and do everything possible to make an adventure of a lifetime. Very well. That was not an exclusive error. It was justifiable. Carla’s next actions however were inexcusable errors:

1. Firstly, she had purchased a ticket aboard a transport ship for the regimental depot on Eredyne, when she could have awaited the recruiters who visited the districts every other month, and obtained a free ride to the depot all the same.
2. Second, but not as severe, Carla had enlisted at the moment of passion when she could have spent a year or two more without having to worry about being actually conscripted. Women under twenty-one years of age had to get the consent of their parents, along with the standard certificate of good conduct. But as passion is a flame that gutters and does not burn indefinitely, this is not the egregious error.
3. The egregious error was that Carla hit ten shots out of ten when put to the test by the sergeant at the depot’s firing range. Upon being questioned, she mentioned her being a veteran of the gas rifle, fighting the moles since the age of eleven. Then she expressed a desire to join the Stormtrooper corps.

She was numbered ‘SS-6971’ and put straight into the 96th Light Infantry after two weeks of basic drilling at the depot, to join a company of sharpshooters. Her arrival was timely - the 96th Light Infantry was being replenished after the slaughter at the Battle of Ilium. The Governess herself reviewed the 96th, and Carla fell in love.

SS-6971 soon realised what exactly was her biggest error. Her clever and quick hands, her sharp aim. She was put into the 96th Light Infantry, in First Company, A-squad, joining you, Henry and Villanelle. Nine out of twelve troopers in the squad had just been killed at Ilium, including the old sergeant. SS-6971’s mistake was becoming a sharpshooter.

Sharpshooters are elite. Sharpshooters are always at the vanguard, always the farthest out from the camp. Always on dangerous missions, always the first in contact with the enemy. They prove this by being attacked and killed first in action.

====

==End of Part I: Fall of the Empire.==

(Happy New Years, anons.)

>>5878015
Happy New Years! Thanks for running!

>>5878015
Happy new years, QM! Poor girl just wanted to join the elite group, at least she's with us and Bocchi.

I appreciate the subtle way my questions were included in the prior update. Anyways, lets see...

>>5878008
...those are some tiny formations. What the fuck.

>>5878010
And there's the explanation.

>>5878015
Moving writing all around QM. Have a Happy New Years QM, anons.

Thanks for running, interesting stuff so far. Also, "pannikin" was absolutely hilarious

>>5878480
Kill yourself

>>5878480
c'mon dude

hope you return soon, OP.

Btw here's the archive of this thread: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Space%20Wars%20Quest

>>5885837
OP is busy shitposting /trash/. Try again later.

Op is dead

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(Hi again, /qst/ anons. This story isn't over yet! Thanks for all the support, I'm glad you're all enjoying the adventure. IRL stuff was keeping me busy, now I think we can resume very soon.)

>>5878022
(Happy new year :D)

>>5878056
(Glad you're liking the characters so far. I wish to depict the Star Wars universe better through unconventional characters, instead of the usual heroic types we see in the films!)

>>5878099
(Indeed, it's a small group. I made a little error describing the Sergeant's group of sharpshooters as a platoon, when it's more of a file/squad. Still, A-Squad is a small group in a small company.)

>>5878374
(Glad you liked it^^ I'm a bit of an ESL so cut me some slack!)

>>5885837
>>5885837
(I'll start posting again soon. Have this art I made of Space Wars. Also, thank you for the archive! I wasn't sure if /qst/ automatically archives threads, I'll try to learn how to archive next time myself for future reference^^)

(P.S. I'm not too sure about /qst/'s policies on making new threads, and for fear of making a redundant new thread, I'll keep posting here until we reach the bump limit or something. There's a next part to this story, please stay tuned :))

>>5888868
Awesome! Can't wait!

Pity bump for the van QM.

>>5888868
>(I'll start posting again soon. Have this art I made of Space Wars. Also, thank you for the archive! I wasn't sure if /qst/ automatically archives threads, I'll try to learn how to archive next time myself for future reference^^)
nice to hear. also no problem OP, you need to archive them in suptg (there's also moe but this is easier) and it's easy to do.
About making new threads, it's an unspoken rule than you should only make a new one when your thread is nearing page 9-10 as to not bloat the catalog.

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Part II: The Moon
====

Billions of years have passed since the universe began, and there was no telling how many more empires have risen and fallen.

But this Empire brought to life a hegemony unrivalled and unlike anything a single civilisation could have dreamed.

The Empire of the Sith united the stars. They had formed a constellation whose name men would remember throughout the ages.

The Empire once had a hundred Legions which conquered and governed these stars. Of the hundred, seven were legendary.

Only one remained: The Seventh Legion Fleet, commanded by Lady Bocchi, Sith Commander and governess of Ilium.

You are currently on Ultra, one of the three moons of the grand planet Regensberg, in the Ilium Sector of what the Je’daii called the Unknown Regions.

The capital of the Empire, Korriban, was 100,000 stellar leagues away. Too far.

It’s cold here, but your small squad of sharpshooters have a campfire to keep yourselves warm for the evening. You resume your brief reflection: Since this war between the Empire and the Coalition had started decades ago, things have changed. It was the catastrophe of the Battlestation that started this hellish reality, and cost the Empire untold deaths and suffering.

It’s difficult to figure what had happened to the other Legions fighting on countless intergalactic fronts. What you do know concerned only the Seventh Legion, the fleet you belonged to. Six months ago, you and the 96th Light Infantry were engaged in the horrific battle of planet Ilium, which resulted in a loss that wiped out half of your regiment, and the planet fell into Coalition hands. The planet was defended by fourteen divisions under Master Caro-Kann, one of the commanders of the Seventh Fleet.

The Sith Lord was not present herself, as her own forces were still held up in the Rhodes Sector, recapturing a hyperspace lane that again had fallen into enemy hands.

The Empire is outnumbered ten to one by now. A Council of rebellious leaders and sovereigns want to see the Praētor destroyed, and the Empire dissolved. They reject civility and order, and choose a freedom with no institute.

Nearly all hyperspace lanes were invaded now. No more contact with the other fleets, or the rest of the galaxy for that matter. Another reason why hardly anyone knew what was going on anymore in the other frontiers.

The Je’daii called this place a part of the Unknown Regions. It didn’t seem unknown to you. To you, it was familiar. Je’daii did not know how to appreciate the stars in the Unknown Regions. To you, home is one of those stars in the sky.

Ultra’s skies were cold and stark, and Regensburg below was clear as if framed on a glass picture. It’s a beautiful planet that reminds you of your homeworld. Having been there, in the Lindenau prefecture, you enjoyed the warm peasant countryside and the meadows which the sun blessed every rising dawn. Red and gold flowers grew in the plains, just like at home.

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The moon was different. Darker, more sullen. Lifeless at night. The birds of this moon did not sing. The grass you sat on was dead and the jagged slopes on the horizon were covered in greyish-purple mycelium. Strange alien plants grew in this strange alien environment. Far stranger things lived on this moon.

SS-2187, Villanelle, is sitting on the head of a machine carcass whose origin you did not know. There were machines that lived on this moon, eating the ground deep beneath your feet. Sometimes their metal remains poked out of the ground like fossils from unknown times. They were designed by Sith engineers a long time ago to terraform this icy satellite, and mine the metal Ultra’s crust was rich with.

Villanelle says it is foolish to try and master the earth. That’s why the machines could no longer be controlled by the engineers who created them. “It’s a mistake to create intelligent machines and expect them to listen to us forever,” Villanelle said.

That may be true, but so are men. What difference did it make if we sent men instead of machines to mine this moon? Men did not like cold places and digging for rocks that filled their lungs with cancerous dust. Men did not like being told what to do. And machines? If they had a brain, they would share man’s dislike.

“We would all be having an easier time if we sent droids to recapture Vitrille on this nasty moon, instead of sitting here like outdated infantry…”

You put down the field manual you were reading and glanced at her. Villanelle, the estranged half-Chiss aristocrat, corporal to this group of common soldiers. She’s smart with a biting wit and an even sharper tongue. What’s the Empire come to that the army should need educated women to do the violent work of men? Corporal Villanelle had every qualification to be promoted into a commissioned officer. But here lies the mystery.

You studied your comrade. Villanelle was fine-tuning the sights of her blaster rifle, taking sips of cheap tea every so often. Her flowery blue cheeks were blushed in the cold. Only a few weeks ago, she’d been approached by the company commander, Captain Luthor, and offered to be recommended as a lieutenant of the company. From there, it’s easy to see higher posts and the safety that lay in the officer’s mess. Villanelle would be lieutenant, then soon regiment adjutant, and given luck and time, something she was endeared to, be promoted to major, then lieutenant-colonel of her own regiment.

Villanelle refused again. She’d refused all offers coldly a dozen times by now. She seemed to harbour a visible disdain for the Empire, the officers, everything about this war. She was intelligent but had shown to be obstinate about remaining in her place among the rank and file. Why in the world, you did not know. But neither did Carla, numbered SS-6971, and Henry, SS-1980 mind. They were fond of the Chiss despite her sarcasm towards them. Villanelle looked at you.

====

Here was another Sergeant Jean in the making, she thought gloomily. Villanelle was cynical by nature since joining A-squad First Company. You, Henry and she had learned warfare in one of the hardest schools in the galaxy: the Seventh Legion, during the Fall, deployed in the Ilium Sector against a Coalition, outnumbered five to one. The battle of Ilium was the baptism of fire for you three, the only survivors of A-squad who lived to tell the battle’s tale.

The previous sergeant, Jean SS-1777, had taught his charges including Villanelle, Henry and you, the art
of war to the best of his capacity. It is from Sergeant Jean that you had grown from the civilian boy you used to be into a battle-hardened sharpshooter that you are now. The sergeant was a ‘Firstborn’, one of the original soldiers of the legendary Guard Corps who marched in the seven campaigns across the galaxy, and had fought at Notron, Clak’dor IV, Tython, and on so many more distant worlds. They had fought under Master Peltrola in the Wild Space, and rapidly turned the frontiers of the Unknown Region into the starfields of the Empire under a young Master Bocchi almost thirty years ago. They had conquered half the galaxy.

Sergeant Jean was gone now, and his number, SS-1777, was now passed onto his second: You. The death of old Jean at Ilium seemed to have shaken the Chiss’ faith to see their father-figure die before her eyes, but by now, Villanelle understood that a violent death awaited every trooper sooner or later when his luck ran out. Violent deaths must find them at the end. Villanelle had respected the sergeant, albeit with measured detachment, and when he was killed she had wept quiet tears.

Villanelle observed you. In her eyes you were now her and the file’s new sergeant. One of the two-thousand others within the corps, tasked with the responsibility of guiding and parenting their little troopers. In a way, you were a younger reincarnation of sergeant Jean. Tall, lean, with a keen eye to pick off a enemy at extreme rifle range and still eviscerate with a long, dropping shot to the guts or loins, and steadfast under interminable hydrogen bombing; kept rail-thin by harsh military subsistence and a daily schooling of drills and marches, and lessons with using every ounce of the brain to improvise, to raid, to extract from the circumstance every spare drop of resource for survival; learned to fight relentlessly. Lessons that had made you suspicious, pitiless, vicious, and cunning. All the qualities - not of a proper man - but a proper trooper. Lessons that you have to pass onto your comrades.

If the female Chiss admired you, she did not show it. She looked away and reviewed her personal circumstances again: she had a chance to become an officer and leave the rank-and-file. She could read and write perfectly in five intergalactic languages, and was reputed to be a graduate of an prestigious art school. It would be easy to enter staff service any day now.

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But she preferred to stay where she was. Villanelle already saw from you the difficulty with acting as sergeant to a mere squad of four, with all the paperworks, auditing, and human lives cupped between the hands. What sort of idiot wanted a charge of a thousand? Besides, she didn’t enlist with the mind to become an officer… She scoffed.

Villanelle looked to her side, at the human girl whom she thought of as a half-idiot planter named Carla, numbered SS-6971. Carla’s mug was half-full of ration cream, and she was cheerfully scraping out a tune from her instrument again. It was a clumsy tune that got onto Villanelle’s nerves, but she would never tell Carla to stop playing. If Carla had any idea that there were 6,970 dead soldiers before her, SS-6971, maybe she wouldn’t be so cheerful right now.

But naive ones like her were healthy for the group, this Villanelle understood - Carla’s music and her optimism eased everyone’s spirits and offered a distraction from the fact that nothing awaited them here in the depths of space except a nameless grave on a dark moon where no one would visit. Carla would fight and play until eventually, a blaster bolt sliced her and her damn guitar in half.

Villanelle sighed, then looked at Henry now. SS-1980. He was smiling, his face buried in a fighter-pilot’s field manual. Henry had picked up the lost book a while back during the evacuation of planet Ilium, and he kept it as if it’s his prized possession from home. Naturally, Henry and Carla got along well to the point Villanelle made a sly bet that the two would become mates. Villanelle decided that Henry was smarter than the Eredyne girl, but this was offset by his egregious sense of humour, which the Chiss couldn’t stand, and his obsession with becoming a TIE pilot. Every now and then, Villanelle would catch Henry looking out at the air cavalry’s bivouac, his eyes fixated on the powerful space-superiority fighters that were commandeered by brave pilots.

Brave, yes, but obnoxious, foolish, blind - even more so. Villanelle, and plenty of the infantrymen despised the air cavalry corps. Villanelle thought of pilots as mountebanks who acted as if they were better than the rest of the army, and imbeciles who would throw themselves in the line of fire for a few seconds of personal glory. The half-Chiss had a more pragmatic mindset: she believed in surviving for as long as possible, and living to fight another day. Despite this, Villanelle was the one who always helped Henry write carefully-composed applications to the Air Cavalry regiments. But somehow Henry had never been lucky, and all of Villanelle’s handwritten letters went lost or ignored.

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Villanelle wrapped up her rifle. Well anyway, they all weren’t rookies anymore. Even guitar-girl here learned, as they’d all had to learn. Killing was an art. As long as they stayed alive, they’d learn.

Carla was humming an abridged lyric to the tune she plucked with ungloved fingers.

“‘When I'm sad, she comes to me~ with a thousand smiles… she gives to me free…’”

Carla smiled at the Chiss woman.

“‘Oo-oh, fly home little wing~...’”

As she played, nobody noticed a small group of cloaked officers walk up the path towards your little campfire except you. A tall lady in a neat, light-blue Éclaireur uniform stood at the edge of the light, listening. Suddenly, Henry put down his booklet and sat upright. Villanelle did the same, taking her eyes off of Carla. She frowned, glancing at the visitors before quickly looking away.

The other soldiers from the adjacent bivouacs made an attempt to stand up, but they were motioned to be at ease by a gloved hand’s gesture. You noticed the chatter around the campfires subside to a whisper. As Carla played on with a tune that whistled into the night, the Sith Commander crossed her arms patiently. The planet rose above the moon’s sky as darkness fell.

When Carla came to the final bar, she messed up some of the keys and the tune of her guitar rolled off abruptly. Someone tapped her on the shoulder. The white-gloved hand dropped something which she caught instinctively. It was a golden credit in the shape of a flat rectangle. When Carla looked up, she blushed.

The face’s deep blue eyes glowed for a moment and there was absolute silence. Presently, Lady Bocchi spoke up:

“Any of you from Ilium?”

Villanelle was quiet. Her scarlet eyes turned to Henry, who began to lift his hand. You lifted yours as well.

“Name.”

“SS-1980, Private First Class, ma’am - Ninety-sixth Light Infantry, 5th Division, Master Caro-Kann.”

“What’s your real name?”

“H-Henry. Henry Louis, ma’am.”

She smiled. She turned to the red-faced Eredyne girl. “And you?”

“My name’s Carla Rose- I mean, SS-679- er, SS-6971, ma’am! I’m from the Eredyne system…”

Sith Bocchi glanced at their half-Chiss comrade.

“That’s Villanelle, SS-2187, ma’am,” Henry said politely.

“Avē… It’s my pleasure to meet you, Henry, Carla, Villanelle.” The Sith lady smiled. “No-one on previous deployments?”

At this, only you raised your hand.

‘At the first battle of Rhodes, Your Grace,’ you say.

“SS-1777.”

Sith Bocchi walked towards you. You stood up, meaning to salute her, but before you could do so, she pressed her hands on your collars and began to brush them off.

“The late Sergeant Jean would be proud to see what a fine team leader you’ve become, SS-1777.”

She smiled at you. “Take care of the children for me. Tomorrow, after the pyre, we’re going on an advanced mission. They need you as much as I do.”

====

There’s a swift step back onto the gravel path as Lady Bocchi rejoined her retinue of air officers.

When the Sith and her group of officers left A-squad’s campfire, Villanelle sulked bitterly. “That’s how the Sith does it,” she muttered. “Asking for names, giving precious gifts, asking us pretentiously details about our lives. To make it seem like she cares about us, like we’re more than expendable pawns, which is what we are.”

Henry sighed uneasily. “Don’t be so negative, Villanelle…”

“It’s what I would’ve done had I been an officer.”

Villanelle noticed Carla staring off into the darkness where the Sith Commander’s shadow disappeared. High up on the hill, the striped marquee tent glowed. Carla’s shy, nervous expression was gone. A certain, alert intelligence replaced the timidity in those brown, young eyes. Another sergeant in the making.

The Chiss sighed. “At this rate, you’ll replace SS-1777 here once he’s gone too, Carla. Don’t get any ideas - devotion gets you killed.”

Carla suddenly looked ashamed. “You’re always so cynical, Villanelle… We’re fighting for our people, aren’t we? There’s nothing wrong with this…”

Villanelle laid down on her rucksack. Carla looked at you. “Why didn’t you tell the commander your name, Sarge?”

“He doesn’t have a name, Carla. Firstborns are like that. They’ve been taken from planetside and raised aboard the Star Destroyers for almost their entire lives, so most of them don’t have a real name…”

Carla looked at Villanelle, then at you. She looked concerned.

‘It’s okay.’

You smiled at her.

“Why don’t we give Sarge a name?!”

Henry grinned at his friend’s suggestion. “It has to be something legendary. The name of an old warrior. Like Achilleus, or Horatius. And maybe Sarge can take ‘Jean’ as his surname.”

The suggestions were humorous, it made you chuckle a bit. Even Villanelle, who found the matter frivolous, gave a secretive smirk.

‘That’s enough ideas for tonight.’

“Wait, Sarge! I got something for you.”

Carla rifled through her bag for something and quickly passed it over the fire towards you. You take it.

A ribbon of string held the brown paper-wrapped gift together. You save the string, then open it to find a book. Opening it however, all of the pages were blank.

It seemed like a paybook, but it was not. The beautiful, heavy cream-coloured paper was freckled with age, having been bound a long time ago - perhaps in kinder times when men wrote stories instead of making war. The cover was made out of smooth, red leather.

There’s a note you did not notice at first, pasted on the front page:

‘I have bad handwriting, so this book would be a waste on me.
Maybe you can do something with it. Thanks for taking care of us, Sarge.’
—CARLA ROSE.

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====

After reading the note, you add the other bulletin letter inside and close the journal.

“So, what’re we doing tomorrow, exactly? And tell us what’s up with you suddenly disappearing today to go with Commander Bocchi! You’re not planning on joining the stormtroopers and leaving us, are you sergeant?”

Carla asked. She yawned and stretched herself on the grass beneath the starry sky. Villanelle nodded as well:

“I’m actually interested in what our mission is now.”

Henry said, “since we did win another battle, today, what’s our next move then?”

Villanelle gave her educated opinion on the matter. “We’re to recapture the fortress of Vitrille on this moon. It’s the main goal. But that’s around seventy miles from here, and I can’t imagine moving this entire Corps to a position to lay siege on it without the enemy being alerted of our advance. They’ll double down on that fortress. We do not have orbital support, and I’ve heard three of our eight artillery ships are malfunctioning. Add to that, we’re already low on fuel and energy...”

It would be a terrible fight, the half-Chiss corporal said quietly.

Carla made an anxious sound. “Villanelle, any good news…?”

“To defend Regensburg and Ultra, from two full-strength Council fleets besieging us? I don’t know what you’re expecting… I don’t understand why we’re holding onto this system still, when we could make a fighting withdrawal and regroup deeper into the Unknown Regions, and assess our dispositions…”

“Because we’re fighting for the Empire…”

The three of them looked at you. Tomorrow will be a long day, and a funeral pyre will be held for all the fallen at night. That meant you could get a task or two done during the morning.

>[SHARE. Tell your teammates what you know about the advanced mission, what happened during the battle in the sky, and the escaped Jedis. That the Sith has a plan to win the war. ]
>[RESERVE. Ask your teammates to be patient for the mission briefing tomorrow. It might not good to tell them information you yourself didn’t understand completely yet - but you tell them about the Sith Medallion. ]
>[SCOUT. You and A-squad will take up the patrolling duty of the light infantry tomorrow. You will have a look around the area of the imperial camp, and gather more information about this moon since landing here. ]
>[ERRAND. Go alone to the Intendant-General’s headquarters tomorrow to ask for details about fixing the battery ships. ]
>[MISSION. The Sith will likely task you, and A-squad with a mission if you visit her headquarters. You go there tomorrow. ]

>>5892136
>[SCOUT. You and A-squad will take up the patrolling duty of the light infantry tomorrow. You will have a look around the area of the imperial camp, and gather more information about this moon since landing here. ]

>>5892136
>[ERRAND. Go alone to the Intendant-General’s headquarters tomorrow to ask for details about fixing the battery ships. ]

>>5892136
>[ERRAND. Go alone to the Intendant-General’s headquarters tomorrow to ask for details about fixing the battery ships. ]

>>5892136
>[RESERVE. Ask your teammates to be patient for the mission briefing tomorrow. It might not good to tell them information you yourself didn’t understand completely yet - but you tell them about the Sith Medallion. ]
>[ERRAND. Go alone to the Intendant-General’s headquarters tomorrow to ask for details about fixing the battery ships. ]

Since it was said that we could do a task or two, I think we may have time for two out of the three possible assignments. I personally think getting our battery ships fixed is more important than patrol, artillery is the king of battle and all that.

The errand for the Intendant-General and mission from Bocchi probably both revolve around the battery ships, when we last left the both of them they said as much.

Unless we intend to scout out the sector our special reconnaissance mission is taking place in, I'd rather not risk reducing our already weak strength further by risking combat. Or risk running into the jedi that fell.

The prompts to share or reserve seem to be separate conversational options from the others, just in case you anons who already voted wanted to weigh in.

>>5892212
>>5892136
Adding [SHARE] to my vote in case the anon above me is correct that they’re separate from the rest.

I think OP forgot about his quest.