The Rebel Faction

The loud, staccato roars of sargents issuing orders met Regrad's ears. Jan was off to gather more forces to defend the city, leaving him to hold off the rebels. He could now clearly see the individual ships of the Furen forces dropping from the sky, towards the city. Where were they organizing all this?

"Sir!" Shouted a nearby soldier "We count hundreds, maybe thousands of drop-ships! There's too many, we'll be overrun!"

Regrad had to think fast. They had only seconds until the pods began to fall.

"Gather the men, we're heading for the Command Tower. If we can retake it, we can reorganize the defences from there, and get rid of the traitorous council members before its' too late." The plan wasn't brilliant, but it was all he could think of in such a short time.

The division of troops around the space port - about a thousand soldiers - picked up, and followed Regrad as he marched up the main road. Defensive guns around the city opened fire upon the transports as they touched down around the city. Suddenly the deafening roar of battle began all about the Azguardian First Division as the first invaders leapt from their ships and into combat with regulars, militia-forces, and anyone else crossing their path.

Regrad and the First Division doubled their pace towards the Command Tower up ahead, when suddenly transport ships came rocketing from the sky, crashing, landing, and circling all around. It was a blur of confusion, large, greenish-grey skinned, muscular brutes charging from their ships and towards Regrad's formation.

"Get down!" He roared, and his men leapt for cover, unshouldering rifles and opening fire with controlled, red bursts. The Furen had surrounded them in an effort to pin them down, and Regrad knew if they didn't hurry all the defences would be overrun before he got to the command center, and long before any reinforcments arrived. Drawing his sword, he roared a near-incoherant order to advance, and the tide of his forces complied. A line of Furen rose to met them, but they were cut down by sheer numbers.

The Furen, realizing the Azguards were trying to break out of their trap, charged yet faster in an attempt to close the distance. Regrad's men squeezed off shots behind them as they ran for all they were worth, trying to make it up the hill before getting bogged down in combat. Other dropships dropped more troops in their way, but Regrad and the fore-runners in the division bowled them over to be trampled by the stamped behind them.

Just a little further, Regrad assured himself, as his lungs threatened to burst. A little further and they'll have made it.

Finally, he set foot on level ground. The doors to the tower were guarded by a half-dozen traitorous Coalition troops, humans wearing defaced Coalition uniforms. They realized what was coming up the hill and slammed the doors, for all the good it would do them. Regrad turned, along with his men who had also made it to the top of the hill, and they saw before them a vast battlefield of traitors and loyalists, Azguards and Furen, and the battle became only greater as more dropships landed and Azguard reinforcments flocked in from outside. Coming directly up the hill, was a mighty force of Furen, determined to break their way past the Azguards and take the Command building.

"Colonel!" He shouted, and the commander of the First Division stepped forwards. "Hold this position until the bitter end, it contains our entire defensive network. If they get ahold of it we've lost the battle. I and a detatchement will enter the building and retake it, understood?"

"Yes sir!" He shouted, and turned to his men, howling at the enemy and releasing a hail of fire upon them from above.

Regrad called up First Platoon, a unit of roughly a hundred hand-to-hand specialists. Standing in front, he hurled a Thermal detonator through the window of the Command Tower's doors, and counted to three.

A blast of shrapernel and the six guards were flung from the windows, and, unfazed, Regrad marched his men into the building.

Jeebus Agatha Christie, Jan, it's been ten days. Post already!

With a blood-curdling roar, the Furen shock-troops stampeded up the hill, firing auto-cannons and slug-guns at maximum spread and waving crooked blades above their heads. And with an equall deafening roar the guns of the Azguard First Division, platoons two through nine, cut them down. The Colonel looked out on the battlefields, spread out about the world, and he could clearly see the flaw in his defences. It seemed as though his men, packed shoulder to shoulder and completely surrounding the command tower, could only cover the four main roads, not the buildings around them. As each wave connected with his line, broke, and regrouped, the next wave got a little closer. Once they made it into the buildings surrounding his position, his forces were finished. Regrad had about ten minutes tops, before the First Division was overrun.

Inside, Regrad marched with calm, regulated steps up the spiraling staircase that went through the heart of the tower. The elevators were down, and his men had met with no more resistance since the six doorguards. The platoon captain kept pace with him, but his breathing was heavy as he kept an eye on the balconies and doorways dotting the towers' interior.

Finally, with a smile, he said to Regrad "I think we're in the clear, sir-"

-And with that a las-shot tore through his throat. Rebel forces appeared, hanging from every balcony and leaning out of every door. Their shots peppered the Azguard advance, which streamed ahead in dissarray to the next landing for cover. Regrad roared his orders, trying to keep his men in formation. But at the next landing, two banks of riflemen met them on either side. His men leapt for the scarce cover or were cut down. They were pinned in the open, never had the term fish in a barrel seemed more appropriate.

Several levels up, one of the gunnery crews defending the tower was facing away from the battle below, and was watching a ship heading towards the surface. It was definetly not one of theirs.

"I've got just the thing for you." he said, grinning as he unpacked a long, red rocket. Placing it carefully agains the open window, he waited for a few seconds as the targeting computer locked on, and then fired. It began sailing towards Fraktusks' ship, unbeknownst to him, at break-neck speed.

Back down on the ground level, Regrads' mind raced. How could they advance? But then he remembered that this was no military building, it was not build to withstand attack. He threw his eye over the building and at once saw what he was looking for.

"Rifle Fire, Two points up four across!" He shouted, and his men crawled from cover to oblige. Their fire pummled a support beam for the buildings' tower wall. As it cracked under the fire, the walls of the building began to groan ominously. Regrad did not want to bring the whole building down though, and was quick to order the cease-fire. The shots from above stopped, as cracks appeared in the wall. Chunks of the tower began to come loose and fall, and the balconies and doorways began to break off or cave in.

"Advance!" Yelled Regrad over the din of the collapse, and his men stormed the landing. As pieces of wall plummeted downwards and caused the men guarding the landing to duck down, the Azguard First Platoon charged in amongst them, and tore with wicked claws, long bayonets, and terrible fangs. Regrad shot the first man who stood against him, and barreled over an entire half-dozen who rose to block his path. He put on a bust of speed as he made his way up the next flight of stairs, and his men followed suite.

Charging further up the stairs, Regrad kept his eyes fixed at the top, where he could see the sealed council doors.

Regrad swung his sword through another traitor. They were collapsing in front of him like dry grass now, he didn't see any more challenge. Those with the wisdom to flee the tower did so, and those who didn't were crushed by the might of the Azguard advance.

As Regrad sunk his claws into the door, a twist and a crack could be heard. They parted with a wrenching noise, and Regrad looked upon the command centre-

-just before it exploded. A missile from an orbital rebel ship tore through the command tower's top, scattering debris and fire in all directions. Regrad was sent flying from the paraphet and grabbed onto a chandelier hanging above. The distinct crack of cables could be heard, but at the last minute, he swung back onto the paraphet, as the chandelier plummeted away below him.

Climbing back onto the paraphet, Regrad and his men stumble their way into the command centre. There he sees all sorts of computers, wires, cables, and monitors. The Conspirators lie dead from the explosion, and Regrad felt cheated at their early deaths. But as he observes the computers, and then the battles, that feeling is swamped by a growing dread.

The Conspirators had trashed the defence files. His systems were ruined, he had no idea what to do. And from here, he could plainly see his men were losing the battle. There were simply too many of them, what were they to do?

Standing there, looking down on it all, Regrad suddenly felt very alone amongst the devastation.

_______________________________________________________________________________

It was indeed a perfect mistake. Frakutsk was now inside the brig of the rebel flagship... with his lightsaber and the force. The captain would indubitably come to interrogate him.

Thats when he could spring into action. Yes, it was indeed perfect, if nothing went wrong.

Frakutsk sat in his brig cell for what seemed like hours. He even took te risk of pulling out his lightsaber once or twice and spinning it around to rid himself of bordom.

However, the moment did finnally come, in stepped the rebel leader, smiling like it was his birthday.

"Well, what do we have here?" Mocked the big, fairly fat man. Frakutsk had managed to look as helpless and downtrodded as possible. "A sneeky little Coalitioneer, arent you? But what you didnt relize is theat the rebels are ABSOLUTELY UNSTOPPABLE!"

The man then laughed so loudly it hurt frakutsk's dangling ears.

But frakutsk then had his chance.

He concentrated on the force, drawing it within himself while the man was laughing. Then he reached out at the man, and pulled!

The man fell to the floor at frakutsk's feet, Frakutsk then jumped up, twilring his lightsaber cerimoniously as he ladded next to the man and help his lightsaber to the man's throat.

"Yesa, exactly." Said frakutsk, smiling uncontrolably. "Now, yousa will squelcha you stinking rebels, bring thesesa ships back to whever dey came from, and den concede. Or yousa may find yousa self without a headsa! Dat clear now?"

Said frakutsk in heavy gungan speach. Nevertheless his point seemed to come across quite clearly.

The man emitted a series of high squeeks before he managed to say, "Anything you say! Just don't kill me!"

These otherwise rebelious folk seemed to act quite differently when under threat of their life. Their truely cowardly and selfish core was revealed blatently in times like these.

-by milkshake

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As all seemed lost, Regrad suddenly heard a booming he had not heard before. Looking up, he saw the sky suddenly alight with new ships, fighting alongside the loyalists against the Furen and Rebel ships!

With joy Regrad cheered to see the tide turn above him. In space, allready, he can see Furen and rebel ships exploding or fleeing in dissaray. But below the battle is a different story. The Furen armies still outnumber the Coalition forces.

However, unbeknownst to Regrad (but knownst to us)a downed shuttle of Soverinty agents met up with Karen and had together made their way to the command tower. Just as Regrad was prepared to lament their defeat, Karen entered the tower. His men leapt up to attack, but Regrad bellowed at them to stand down.

"Soverinty forces?" He said "A surprise to see you so early on the ground. I have a feeling you may have been here a little earlier then your fleet."

Karen gave Regrad an awkward look and shrugged "I don't think that's important now. What is is how we're going to turn the tide. And we can help."

Regrad raised an eyebrow "How do you propose to do that? We have lost all the data for our defences and there are no copies of those codes."

"Well, there is one" she conceded, and drew a data disk from her pocket. With Regrad looking on shocked, she re-uploaded the defensive protocols and suddenly the city's automated defences came alive. Regrad would have been thrown into a towering rage at the thought of the soverinty stealing his security codes if it were not for the fact that they were turning the very tide below him. Furens and Rebels fled from auto-guns and shield-walls, leaving the city only to be cut down by Jans' reinforcments.

"I don't believe it" murmured Regrad "We did it. The battle is over, soldiers, victory is ours!"

The forces all about began to cheer, and Regrad let out a sigh of relief at the thought of winning the one-hour rebellion.

________________________________________________________________________________

It was a meeting of great importance. And, unfortunately, one of regretfully small size. The infrastructure of the Coalition was largly ruined. Their government buildings were crushed, a lot of their members had turned traitor, and there had been high casulaties and confusion. Sitting around a scrap-metal table erected among the ruins of the Command Centre on the top of the Command Tower, now an open-topped room, were the last leaders of the Coalition.

Karen was removed for being a Soverinty Agent, but that was all, she had been most helpful Jan and Regrad were still there, along with Fraktusk, Marth and Griff.

"Well, what do we do now?" Grumbled Jan. "We're ruined. The central government is no more. If we don't do something by tommorow I'll just have to declare the dissolvment of the Coalition and let each planet go its' own way."

"Its' not that bad" murmured Regrad, not convinced by his own words "I mean, we're still here."

They sat in silence for some time, before Meer spoke. "All you're missing is a central government, right?"

Regrad nodded "That's it, really. We've got everything else."

"Well heck, we've got one." he said, with a smile "I think I've got an idea."

Griff looked perplexed. "What are you saying, Meer?"

"Look at it this way" he said "You need a central government, we've got one. We add your worlds to our provincial system, we mix and match the remains of your larger administration with our smaller one, and by tommorow we've got a new, united central government."

Regrad smiled "Most generous of you, that could work, what would we call this new government?"

Meer reached under the table, and took out the Coalition and Soverinty flag, and a pocket knife. He cut the insignia from the Soverinty flag, and placed it in the corner of the Coalition crest. "What about the Federation?"

"No, too sissy." Said Jan "Howsabout The Commonwealth?"

"Mesa no lika that name" said Fraktusk "Itsa silly. Why nosa use Republic?"

"Gods no" said Regrad "That name has a history a mile wide." He paused for a few seconds, then said "What about "The New Coalition?""

There was silence. "That could work" said Meer.

Some agreement could be heard along the table, and Jan rose. "The New Coalition it is, then." he said, as he looked down the hill and out across the ruined city. "Hell, half of it'll be new anyways, its' a good name."

Regrad and the others joined him and looked out on the city, and they could see the repair crews and the workers labouring hard to rebuild their city. "But it will be worth it." said Regrad "It always is."

"What do wesa do now?" said Fraktusk.

"I don't know" answered Meer. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."