Star Wars : The New Sith Crisis

Assault on the Platforms

The first wave of TIE fighters left the hangar bay of the Wrath of Bastion, with transports following. Admiral Kirkosh watched as the few Durosian spaceships not already destroyed rose from the surface in a desperate effort to repel the dreaded invasion. The pilots of the Durosian ships had no chance. Already in inferior machines, they had been awake night and day for the past three days waiting for the Imperial destroyers to send out ground troops. Now, the weary and nervous Durosians flew against well-rested and fully trained TIE pilots, flying some of the best fighters the galaxy had ever known.
Ever in the lead, Sev’rannce Tann was the first to fire in the ensuing air battle. Her lasers flashed as they tracked an unlucky Z-95 Headhunter through the air. The hit the engines and turned them into molten slag. The ancient fighter crashed towards the surface of the planet. Already the deadly guns were on another enemy, and a second later a blast hit the photon torpedo tubes of a Y-wing, flash-vaporizing it. As the other TIEs came up, a Skip-ray Blastboat fired, it’s lasers bringing down an unshielded and unarmored TIE. Tann’s defender flew circles around as her lasers turned it into a flying heap of scrap metal. It hovered on repulsorlifts until its power cells gave way and it crashed to the planet’s surface. She spun the Defender in a twisting attack and nailed two more old fighters as she came once again to the center of the action, only to find that the better-flown and better-equipped Imperial Alliance(IA) ships. The transports had just cleared cloud cover when the final ship of the Duros Emergency Air Corps went down in a ball of flame. The transports divided up, three to a city to cover the ten cities that were in the targets assigned to the First Galactic Empire Wave. Across the planet, a swarm of Clawcraft and Chiss transports came into view, bound for the four cities in the First Chiss Ascendancy Wave’s list of targets. Each transport carried ten thousand troopers as well as equipment. The TIEs flew escort, and the transports that Tann’s defender was escorted soon landed on Nirashack, the new Capitol of Duros and the largest of its aerial cities. The transports landed, but faced some trouble at first. Durosian and Federation infantry had set up temporary bunkers to hide behind and fire on the IA soldiers as they emerged from the transports. Tann, whose defender had landed behind the transports, solved the problem by walking out of her ship and, deflecting the blaster fire with her lightsaber, annihilating a portion of the enemy troops with lightning. The Federation forces drew back in surprise and horror at the sudden appearance of the Sith. Meanwhile, the Imperial troops offloaded several companies and a few hovertanks. They used these to blast free an unloading area. Battle Droids and Imperial Army Troops swarmed out of the transports onto the now-guarded clearing they had landed on. Sev’rannce Tann called a Commando Stormtrooper unit to her, and with them at her back, rushed off into the city to capture the main command base.
At Nirashack Command Base, a Durosian General wooriedly surveyed the damage with his electrobinoculars. The appearance of a Sith had completely thrown off his defense plans. He had known that eventually street-fighting would take place, but he had expected his landing zone defense’s to hold up better that they had. With a few waves of its hand, the Sith had brought his well-laid out defense plan to ruins. Reports from other cities indicated that fourteen of the forty aerial cities had been attacked. None yet had fallen, but on Nirab, the Chiss Army Corps had already captured the main city center and was mopping up resistance in the outer suburbs. Suddenly, a yellow lightsaber blade appeared through the door. It cut right through the Durasteel blast panelling, and a sinister-lloking figure stepped in. Wearing black robes and a hood pulled low over its face, there was no telling its gender. Two red eyes blazed out from under the hood and the yellow blade flashed. Twelve stormtroopers followed it through the make-shift entrance. The Durosian officers and security guards dropped behind tables as both sides opened fire. The Sith shielded the Imperial troops, the yellow blade blocking the blaster fire coming from the tables. For five minutes both sides exchanged fire, with the Imperials all the time getting better cover. The Durosian general fired several times quickly and one stormtrooper fell, several black spots on his armour. He wasn’t dead, however, and he unleashed a flury o fshots from his blaster rifle that shattered a table and took out three of the security guards.

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Sev’rannce Tann stood in the middle of the chaotic firefight, calmly blocking blaster bolts and allowing her stormtroopers to get superior cover before the Imperials began fighting in earnest. One stormtrooper was down, and from his life sense, he would die soon. He had taken out three Durosian guards with a flurry from his blaster rifle, but now lay still, to weak to move. She concentrated mainly on the blasters, flinging each bolt back at the gun that had fire it. One boltm that had come from the back of the room, she directed into the barrel of a blaster raised to fire. It exploded like a mini-grenade, killing the Federation soldier who held, as well as the Durosian Major hiding behind the table with him. To quicken things, she fired a salvo of lightning at another table. It carried through the metal table and killed one enemy behind it who was inadvertenly touching the table with his righ finger as he leaned up to shoot.
Suddenly, a flurry of blaster fire announced that the stormtroopers were set. She dropped back out of the door and went up a set of stairs. She would sneak in through the back while the stormtroopers kept the guards busy and secure the rest of the base. She entered through a back door and used the force to noiselessly knock the two back guards out. Creeping further in, she felt three people in the first room. Activating her lightsaber, she rushed in. Two of them fired blasters at her. She rolled under the bolts and brought her weapon up and around, slicing them both in half. The third one fled. She followed, moving closer to the central command center.

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Back in the front room, the stormtroopers had things under control. They had lost only one trooper and nearly twenty Durosian and Federation troops lay dead. There was still steady fire coming from behind a duracrete slab that someone had brought in before the tables were all destroyed. One of the stormtroopers picked up a fragment grande and hurled it over the slab. An alert Durosian threw it back, but the stormtrooper picked it up and tossed it back over. It went off as it landed. The stormtrooper was knocked over by the shards of duracrete; there were no remains from where the blast had gone off. The eleven stormtroopers entered the next room with guns blazing and five guards fell dead. Two mote fired back, one of them even hitting the armor on a stormtrooper. However, several rounds from the blaster rifles and the room had no more living foes in it. The stormtroopers continued on, but got more resistance in the next room. Someone had set up a repeating blaster on a tripod, and its heavy shots downed the point man before the other ten could react and fire. The blaster and it’s wielder were cut to smithereens by the laserfire that poured in.

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Sev’rannce continued through the building, killing all who resisted. Most of the enemies simply turned and fled at her approach. As she continued on, she felt a force-presence. She went through several more rooms before a Durosian jedi knight confronted her.
"You will die, Sith scum." He spat as his amber blade sprang into existence. The yellow beam of her lightsaber appeared and blocked his first hasty stroke. Several more clashes followed, but it was clear the jedi was having a hard time even tracking, let alone blocking or dodging the yellow blade. He did a flip back away from her. It was a mistake. White-hot lightning sprang from her fingertips and slammed full force into his back. He fell from the air, in mid-flip, and landed face first on the stone floor. Painfully he lifted himself from the ground and lunged at her again. This time her sweeping block sent his blade flying.
"Pick it up and have a proper go at it." She taunted, stepping back and allowing him to retrieve his weapon. He lunged again and again the sweeping block sent his blade flying. "One more of those and I’ll kill you simply for your poor style,: she said as she sent his weapon flying into his stomach, handle first, with the force. Coming in more carefully this time, he swept his stroke downwards, only to have her deflect it aside. Stabbing, she stopped short of running him through but singed his jedi robes so that there was a black mark on them. He brought his weapon up for the side of her head but she ducked and allowed the momentum of the swing to carry him over. He fell to to the side, unable to stop his swing, and nearly killed himself with his own blade. "Clumsy now, aren’t we?" Her voice had a mocking tone in it. This young fool will never fit, might as well stop wasting my time. She thought. As of late, she had been on the lookout for a capable force-user to train as an apprentice, because lately she had been wishing to be in two or three places at once. An apprentice will have to do, but not him. she thought. Suddenly springing into action, she knocked his weapon aside with one stroke and brought the back-swing around through his neck. Then, she stepped over the body and continued towards the target of her attack: Duros Command Control.

Posted by Jarlath Cadman at October 25, 2004 11:56 PM