Through the Scope (Wraith)
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- "We all knew it was going to happen sooner or later. The whole planet was a mess to begin with. Governor Sidarm, with all respect to his memory, only delayed the inevitable."
- ―Anonymous refugee, on the subject of the destruction of Serrell
Contents
Mission Details[edit]
Events Prior to Mission[edit]
The land was dead. One could tell that simply by looking at it. Everything and everyone that had once been alive there had left hours before, leaving field thick with death and decay. Large, plumed columns of smoke rose into the air, weeping from the multitudes of fires blazing on the ground. The ground itself was shattered, deformed, and broken apart. Artillery had accounted for that. They’d also accounted for the dozens of craters that now sat where the once proud “Bastion Hill” had been. They accounted for the stagant, blood soaked pools, seeping into the craters in the lowest part of the field. It had once been the Berrell River. Without the smoke, one would’ve been able to see for miles, clear across the barren wasteland to either side of the battlefield. With the smoke, at least on the ground, one would be lucky to see his own hand in front of his face.
Small, broken, burnt-out husks of armor and grav tanks dotted the flat landscape, as if daring something to bring them down to the level with the rest of the land. Bodies lay everywhere, wrapped around each other, flung beside each other, locked in the agonizing forms of their final moments. They were caked in mud, so much so that one could hardly tell which side they were from. And most, now, despite whether they had been on the winning or losing side, were very well dead. Save one.
One soldier was different than the rest, though. His eyes didn’t hold the same lifelessness as the others. His chest rose and fell. Trooper Kall was alive. Of course, Kall, PFC trooper, third squad of the Ninety-Seventh platoon, couldn’t see any of the battlefield from his vantage point on the ground, where he lay sprawled on his back. He couldn’t feel anything below his waist, couldn’t stand, could barely manage to breathe, much less call for help. Not there was anyone around to hear him anyway. He coughed up a bit of blood and stared vacantly above him.
He stared, unmoving save for his chest, at the dark clouds gathering above him and wondered whether it might rain. His memories were hazy; he couldn’t remember much past the last five seconds. So, despite the state of his body, he stared at the clouds and wondered for rain.
Slowly his memory returned. He was Jennell Kall, Ninety-Seventh platoon of the Royal Army of Serrell. He was twenty-two, male, born and raised in the suburbs of Kallall, the capital city. He’d been enlisted a year ago, part of the Governments planet-wide recruitment campaign, and one of thousands. One by one the memories returned, each bringing back startling clear images of his life. It was almost like watching a movie. His first year in the Royalist army had been uneventful. He’d been assigned to twenty-two separate peace-keeping operations, all of them small. He remembered longing for some real action, the type of stuff in stories rotated around in the billets at night between soldiers. And then this battle had come.
Rumors of a large group of dissenters had spread quickly through the ranks of troops. It had seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some real field action. Join an epic battle, become heroes, return home triumphant. Morale improved dramatically. Until the troops actually got the field, that was.
The Royalist army was designed to take out badly organized, simple rebellions. Their strategies involved placing a nice forward line out front while two groups went around from the sides, in a Pincer move, and flanked the enemy. And with the mobs that usually sprung up on the planet, the tactics worked quite well.
No one had expected this group to be so well organized, so efficient, so…devastating. The artillery tore through the ranks before anyone knew what was happening. Frenzied reports came of small engagements between scouts and armor units on the flanks. They weren’t supposed to have artillery or armor. They couldn’t have those. The recon had said… The first push of the grav tanks had sliced the Royalist Army in two. Thirtieth and thirty-first platoon had been virtually wiped out, and the Thirty-third, the Illustrious Thirty-third, the ones who had conquered over Arellius the Traitor in one of the larger rebellions of the planet just ten years before, had turned tail and ran. And from there it was a massacre.
The seven platoons to either side, which had once made of the pincer of the Army, were destroyed shortly afterward, despite the care they had had to conceal themselves prior to the battle. Heavy shelling took out their positions, and the very few soldiers who had miraculously survived the sustained artillery attack turned and fled. It was almost like the enemy had known they’d been there the entire time.
The Ninety-Seventh, Kall’s platoon, had been caught on the outer side of the Royalists, not dead yet, but milling in confusion. It was confusion. Utter confusion. Until the one brief moment of hope. One of the Royalist troopers, a sergeant by his pins, rallied together the remaining elements of seventy-first, one of the platoons assisting Kall’s. Kall remembered thinking that, if he could rally his platoon together like that, they would have a fighting chance. And then the unthinkable: the seventy-first started firing into their ranks. With grim faces, they’d moved through the shattered remains of the Royalist army, cutting down their own men as they went. And they weren’t the only ones. Before Kall had taken the hit in the back, he counted at least twelve other platoon’s banners accompanying the seventy-first’s.
And so Kall had been cut down by his own brethren, forgotten and left for dead on that forsaken battlefield. His chest rose and fell as he tried to take another breath, but all he got was another coughing fit of blood. They’d been betrayed. That much he knew. But why, he kept wondering. Why had they been betrayed? And by who?
He groped for answers in his mind as slowly, darkness started to creep into his vision. They’d been betrayed, betrayed, why had they been betrayed, why? Who could’ve done this? They’d been betrayed, they’d been betrayed…
His chest rose, and fell, and did not rise again. The light slowly faded from his eyes. The rains finally came down and washed through the broken land.
About the same time...
Outside lightning flashed. The acidic rain drummed against the window, sizzling as it touched the exposed stonework. Planetary Governor Sidarm shuffled the stacks of papers on his desk. His somewhat graying hair framed a stern, age-worn face that had seen its fair share of troubles. His term as Governor of Serrell had been marked by a series of rebellions, each one larger than the last. He had ruled with an iron fist, inheriting his position after the last Governor had been killed in a civilian uprising right in the capital.
In his abnormally long, fifty-two years, reign he had controlled one of the strictest regimes of any planet in the sector. And he needed to. Their sector, lying just beyond Imperial space, was rife with division. In order to find the planet’s allegiance, the census officials had to survey each region separately. Even amongst the armed forces and the political hierarchy, there was unrest, sometimes degenerating into full blown fighting.
And so, through force of will alone, Sidarm crushed uprisings, quelled squalor, and brought the planet to heel. He was hated by some, quite a bit, but in the end he got the job done. And that’s what he cared about. No Republic, no Empire. Just a unified Serrell.
The door hissed open and he looked up from his work to see a very familiar face. Major Andareem Talos was one of his primary and most trusted military officials, surprising since he was one of the newest additions to the military staff. He’d proved quite essential in keeping the peace. He had a knack for knowing where uprisings would start before the fact. Sidarm opened his arms wide and grinned.
“Major Talos, what brings you at this late hour to my office?”
Major Talos said nothing, his face stern, but instead pulled out a pistol and shot Sidarm through the forehead. The old man was still grinning when his body hit the floor. And thus began the bloodiest rebellion the planet had ever seen.
-Taken from the Official Archives, Vast Empire Army
Objectives and Goals[edit]
Primary Objectives[edit]
- Assist two Imperial factions in taking the neutral planet Serrell, which is already in a civil war.
Secondary Objectives[edit]
Planned[edit]
- None.
Improvisional[edit]
- Travel to a nearby provincial capital of Marrus and assassinate the governor of that province.
Goals[edit]
What was the purpose of this mission? How does it further the cause of the Vast Empire? Or even the squad in certain cases, such as beer shortages.
Mission Debriefing[edit]
After their last mission, the Wraiths were ready to take out a traitor to the Vast Empire. However, during the briefing, Arnaut recieved a message on his datapad. The message told the Wraiths that they were being reassigned to a new mission on the planet Serrell.
The planet had recently erupted into a civil war and Army High Command wanted the Wraiths to go and assist two of the factions, who were openly Imperial, by helping in any way they could.
After two days of preparation, the Wraiths finally got onto a transport to take them to the planet Serrell. Before this, however, Arnaut received a message stating that the squad that would be assisting them on their mission was already en route to the system.
After a quick rundown on the mission by Arnaut in the hangar bay, the Wraiths packed their gear onto a transport and left for the planet.
Outcomes[edit]
What were the results of this mission? Would a secondary mission be possible related to this?
Character Development[edit]
Did any character development occur during this story?
Memorable Quotes[edit]
Quote any memorable events/conversations in the story.
