Battle of Corvala

[Deleted]

As was the usual, Sapphire gathered quite a bit of attention. There were very few imperial soldiers here, but just one was enough. She had gained the advantage as soon as she had laid eyes on the group. After a few drinks she retired, quitting the bar and slipping into the alleyway beside it. From her personal bag she pulled her armor, donning it and discarding all of her other superfluous belongings, bringing with her only her gunbelt and electronics, as well as the strobe.

Sapphire took to the rooftops, springing from wall to wall in the alleyway until she reached the fire-escape ladder and could climb up. There she waited. It took about forty-five minutes, but eventually the soldiers came stumbling out of the bar. It was clear that they were on active duty, but had leave tonight. They would be returning to the camps. Sapphire chose her mark carefully. The man was slightly larger than she was, but he would have to do. Three men. Sapphire prayed than Andraste would guide her hand.

As the men stepped out onto the street, Sapphire dropped back down into the alley, a fall that would have injured just about any other person. However, she moved to the mouth of the alley unharmed and called out.

"HELP! HELP! PLEASE, DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY!!!!"

In their inebriated state, the soldiers heard only the screaming of a woman in trouble. They stopped to think for a few moments, but these thoughts were not so much about the situation as much as they were about whether to actually respond or not. In the end they did. They always did.

Rushing into the alley, the soldiers cast their eyes around, the alcohol in their systems causing them to take just a bit longer to adjust to the light than usual. Sapphire made her move. Having pressed herself against the wall to remain out of sight, she now darted forward, delivering one bone-shattering punch to the spine of the first man, knocking him to his knees, completely winded.

Moving on, she flew past him, cannon-balling into the stomach of the second man with her elbow before rising in a sharp uppercut, shattering his jaw just before the ear and irreparably damaging his mandible nerves. He was dead before he hit the ground. The third whirled around just in time to see her coming, but not quickly enough to react. She shattered his nose with the heel of her palm before grasping his wrist and dragging him to the ground. She killed him with a rear-naked choke.

As she stood and dusted herself off, Sapphire moved toward the first man that she had attacked. He was still writhing on the ground, unable to stand or to make sense of what had just happened to him. He hadn't seen anything. Taking the hat off of his head and kicking him over onto his back, Sapphire took the lights from his eyes with one swift curb-stomp. Fifteen seconds, three dead soldiers.

Sapphire stooped and collected their papers; identification cards, etc. She also took the uniform from the smallest soldier, finding her discarded bag and stuffing the uniform into it. The Lady then tossed the bodies in the nearest dumpster. It would not look quite like a street fight, but such things were to be expected when a hostile force invaded an unwilling planet. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Taking her spoils, Sapphire exited the alley and hailed a cab, returning to her hotel room.

[Deleted]

The Lady worked through the night. She had several important matters to take care of. First was her disguise. It took her two hours, but she managed to tailor the uniform that she had stolen to fit her perfectly using only a rudimentary needle and some thread. It was a bit rough, but looked like the real deal.

Second on her agenda was the forging of the documents that she would need to get into the imperial camps. These men had been grunts; common soldiers. She would need just a little more pull than that. Intelligence officer would be a good title to manufacture. In three hours she had sliced the identification card that she had taken, deciphered the code therein, and shifted it around to create a new person. Lilith Deco, Imperial Intelligence Officer, had been created from the comfort of a hotel desk-top. She did her job well, even though she did not expect to be examined all too closely.

Next, she laid out her plan, marking her main targets; mostly buildings that she had seen on the drive in. Communications towers, hospitals, staging areas and the like. She created a map in both her head and her datapad, encrypting the data with a code that Leliana had taught her. After a few hours of sleep, Ambellina donned her uniform, strapped her pack to her back, and her Westar to her waist, and left the room. Her pack contained the strobes, her Model B, and her personal datapad.

[Deleted]

The largest base on the planet Shili was just outside of the capital city of Corvala, and this was Ambellina's first target. She had it in her sights now. The sun had risen just an hour or two ago, and with it, the city had begun to come alive. So had the base. Ambellina's plan depended on that. The guard was fresh...not the jumpy nightshifters at the end of a paranoid night. People were always more amicable in the morning. Plus, she looked like one of them. She walked toward the gate of the energy-fence with her hands held in plain sight.

"Hold! Hold or we will fire!"

"Holding..."

As four soldiers held their rifles trained on her, another advanced, coming to within distance of polite conversation.

"Identification, please ma'am..."

Reaching slowly for the pocket at the front of her jacket, Ambellina presented her forged documents. The man looked them over and waved down the guards.

"Naval Intelligence...my apologies for the delay, ma'am...LET 'ER THROUGH!"

Lilith Deco nodded and walked forward, pocketing her identification card once more.

"Just doing your job, soldier...carry on."

She winked at the man and he walked her to the gate as it opened for her. She heard him whisper to the others as she entered. Soon the whole base would know that the spooks were roaming about. That was good. For a job like this, fear was healthy.

"Point me to central command?"

The soldier downloaded the schematic for the base onto her datapad, and it made her proud to see that it was not much different than what she had mapped out in her hotel room.
She nodded her thanks and headed to the command building, awaiting entry and an audience with whoever was in charge.

[Cain]

It wasn't quite 0500 hours when Aiden received the call over his comm. After a long night shift the solider had just had the time to return to his barracks and settle into his bunk before his comm device began blaring noisily just a few feet from his left ear. The call came from the rigid commander of ground personnel on Shili, the always sunny Volchek Darksword. Apparently there had been a murder in Corvala's red light district overnight, hardly anything out of the usual, however this incident had involved soldiers under Aiden's command and as such he would have to be dragged into the process.

After his heroics in holding the capital against the Togruta rebellion, Aiden had been promoted to squad leader. It was a dubious honor to say the least as the position only meant more paper work and less sleep. Not to mention all the shit he received from Darksword on a near nightly basis. This time it was a triumvirate of drunkards who took a pretty savage beating in the wee hours of the morning before being dumped into a garbage unit.

When Aiden arrived at the scene the alley had been blocked off by Imperial troops, a squad of about twenty or so kept civilians and curious onlookers away from the crime scene. Aiden flashed his credentials to the guard and entered the ally to find the three soliders bodies had been removed from the dumpster and placed into body bags. A medical officer was knelt down besides the opened bags jotting down a few notes on what he'd found. As Aiden glanced at the fallen soldiers he noticed how each had suffered heavy blows to the face.

"Couldn't even let their poor mothers have the open casket," Aiden commented shaking his head, "Any leads on what happened here?"

The medical officer shook his head, "Not many, aside from the blood test which showed these men to have a blood-alcohol level of about point-one-two. The bartender at the Kat's Cradle down the street confirmed serving a few Imperials last night, though obviously we couldn't get him to identify the bodies since the killer went a little crazy on their faces. We could have just asked if he recognized their names but there's still a problem."

"What's the problem?"

"No name tags," the med officer answered, finishing his notes and lifting back up to his feet, "whoever did this stole their ID cards, their papers... they even took the little guy's clothes."

Aiden's expression twisted, a mix of morning fatigue and the brain wracking riddle he'd just been presented with by the med officer. Before he could articulate a proper response the coarse howl of Commander Darksword grated against his ears.

"Squad Leader!"

Aiden let out a sigh before spinning around to face the Commander, clicking his heels together and standing at attention, "Sir!"

"Squad Leader James, may I ask just what these men under your supervision were doing in this part of the city during watch hours?"

Aiden kept his gaze forward and his posture straight as he responded, "Sir? I was under the impression that these men had not yet been identified. Are you sure they're mine, Sir?"

"Don't get cute with me, James. You're about one Togruta ass hair away from spending the rest of your career cleaning my refresher with your own toothbrush. This wouldn't be the first time you and your men are caught absconding off to these filthy, worm-head rat traps at all hours of the morning."

"Accept my apologies again for last month sir. I just don't see why we need 500 men watching one check point. It doesn't seem very good for troop morale to have their days consist entirely of sleeping and standing in place."

Darksword's face twisted then into a scowl that only his unique jaw structure could form. It was a look of combined malcontent and disgust as if he'd just landed in a heap of bantha dung, "Oh? I am very sorry Squad Leader. Has our need to secure this capital hurt your men's feelings?" Volchek then took a step forward, his face not even an inch in front of Aiden's who remained unflinching and at attention, "Well... I could really give a rat's ass. I don't like you, soldier. The only reason you're still around is because the boys at high command have taken such a liking to you. A bit of advice, don't give me a inch, boy. Because you can be sure as shit if you do I'm gonna take a mile."

Darksword cocked his head to the side and spat down at Aiden's feet before turning and leaving strutting out of the alley. Aiden remained at attention until the Commander was out of sight.

"Don't give me an inch or I'll take a mile," Aiden repeated to himself, chuckling slightly, "What the hell does that even mean?"

"Sounds like he's got it out for you..."

Aiden spun around, slightly startled by the sudden interjection of the med officer who he'd forgot was standing there, "That's one way to put it..." Aiden said, his mind once more drifting back to the mystery of the murdered Imperials, "It's strange though. What would a Togruta want with Imperial ID's and an Imperial uniform? It's not like they could blend in with humans."

"Makes you wonder," The med officer responded.

Aiden raised and eyebrow, "Wonder what?"

"Whether it was a Togruta who did this at all."

Aiden was puzzled by the suggestion. The only sentients in Corvala other then the native Togruta were the merchants and traders from other worlds, and they certainly had no reason to hate the Imperials. In fact, life couldn't have been better for most of them considering the revenues they gained from the Empire opening up trade on Shili, something the Togruta had not been as opened to. Besides, all the evidence here seemed to suggest a Togruta killing. The natives had been relocated to the slums of Shili when the Empire moved in, slums much like this red light district. It had not been an uncommon occurrence for humans, Imperial or not, to be assaulted while wandering down these streets. But then there was the matter of the missing ID's and uniform...

"Hmm... well it seems we'll have to remain alert," Aiden added. The med officer responed with a sharp nod before zipping up the soldier's body bags.

"Squad Leader James!" One of the troops at the end of the alley called back for Aiden. He moved back to the street to where the trooper had called for him.

"What is it?"

"Naval Intelligence, sir. This officer has just arrived in town and needs an escort to the capital. I've been told to hand her over to you."

Aiden let out an audible sigh, "You do know I am supposed to be off duty."

"Yes sir. Sorry sir."

Aiden chuckled, shaking his head, "Don't worry about it." Glancing over the trooper's shoulder Aiden caught a glimpse of Ambellina in her Imperial uniform. There was a long pause before he beckoned her forward, "Alright, you there, come with me."

[Deleted]

(Ambellina is already in the capital. In fact, she's on the military base at central command.)

[Cain]

((The "Capital" refers to the capital building which happens to be the central command center of the Imperial forces in Corvala. This is where I was going to be taking you. Your last post had you headed that way but not there yet so I went ahead and gave you an escort.))

[Deleted]

As the soldier who was to be her escort approached, Officer Deco stepped forward, falling into stride behind him. Things were going smoothly.

"Squad Leader..."

She nodded her greeting to him. Casting her eyes around subtly, she admired her work.

"Trouble here? Looks like somebody threw these soldiers quite the beating. This sort of thing happen often in Corvala? If so, what measures are being taken to prevent it?"

Focus on the safety of it all. That was her job. Lilith Deco was tasked with improving operations here by any means necessary. It wasn't until later that the destruction would come.

She sized up the man in front of her. An ordinary soldier, probably with standard muscular and skeletal augmentation, but just a soldier. All of them around her were just soldiers. She worked on projecting an air of authority, something that she was very good at.