The Rebel Faction

Commodore Corise Lucerne, relaxing in his command chair, contemplated the swirling lines of hyperspace. The Kashan fleet officer had grown use to using them as a sort of ambience with which to relax himself. His second battle was just over the horizon.

It had been three weeks since he had signed the treaty for Kashan making it a member of the Coalition. Two weeks had passed since the Kashan delegation had arrived back home with the visiting Coalition dignitaries. And already, some of Kashan’s forces were marshalling for war.

The ship he sat in wasn’t from Kashan. It was a Haven-class Light Cruiser which had had more captains than Corise could possibly ever remember. There were two other Havens and a troop transport under his command. Nothing like what the Kashan Fleet had to offer.

But the Seraph crews and their counterparts were being mobilized for war by High Command, most likely for an attack against the Black Dragon Empire. Not wanting to spare any of its precious cruisers in the action, Kashan High Command had instead opted to send several squadrons of S9 Deathsabers to accompany the Light Cruisers and had provided Kashan troops and naval crewman, including himself, as the first part of the integration between the Kashan and Coalition militaries.

Nonetheless, it was a formidable force with which to take Genon, a lawless planet formerly aligned with the Black Sun. Since the Black Sun had fell under the pressure of larger factions, any law, including that of the Black Sun, had crumbled, leaving nothing but chaos on the planet. It was a planet occupied by criminals. A planet in which constant civil wars between its various factions were commonplace.

The populace of Genon was not homogenous nor was it a system where the Coalition would be welcome; ships from Genon routinely smuggled goods and occasionally attacked Coalition shipping. But then again, Genon treated all the factions in a similar manner. Most factions hadn’t bothered with Genon because the planet had little to give; no manufacturing, no agricuture, and an unruly populace that only numbered in the hundreds. Thus, the criminal element itself was actually significantly smaller than those worlds which many factions already controlled and had to deal with. This had all combined to leave Genon unbothered by the rest of the galaxy, until now.

“Dropping out hyperspace…now.”

The brownish orb of Genon was suspended in a sea of black. Through the viewport, Corise thought he could see the shimmer of the stars where a squadron of Deathsabers had emerged. He shook his head as he looked at the command monitor; none were there. His mind had managed to play a cruel trick upon him.

“Commodore, the initial recon reports are correct. There are no enemy capital ships in the area. We estimate that at most, we will have to deal with several squadrons of enemy uglies.”

“Very good, Sub-lieutenant. Take us to our target…”

Six shuttles glided over the tropical surface that was Genon. They continued their descent through the valleys filled with exotic trees and flowers, making it seem like paradise. As they reached the clearing with the only active facility, the Coalition transports folded their wings and set down.

The shuttles had barely landed on Genon before the doors burst open, spilling out a wave of the white-clad Kashan Shock Troopers. In a frenzied flurry of effort, the driven troops spread out, completely encircling the facility. The shuttles lifted off back to the cruisers to get more troops as the takeover of the building commenced.

Second Lieutenant Roger Fuller, of the Kashan Defence Force, viewed the target though his HUD. It was a squat duracrete bunker, with no windows or external features save a single door, resembling the barracks of the Kashan Army. To his view, it was probably as tough though; not exactly a good thing since they did not carry very weaponry to breach the walls. An airstrike was an option, but that would destroy the bunker’s contents and occupants. That left the only option of storming the facility through the main door.

Wielding his E-11 in his right hand, the Kashan officer waved his troops forward towards the door. The troops converged upon the door with their blasters leveled, ready to fire at anything that popped into view. Four unscathed squads reached the locked durasteel blastdoor. There had been no opposition, yet.

“Alpha Three, you have demolitions?”

“Negative sir. Five has them.”

“Alpha Five?”

“Beta Five,” spoke the trooper from Beta squad, carrying a pack with proton grenades.

“You know the drill trooper.”

“Yes sir.”

The troopers backed off slowly as the demolitions expert placed the explosive charges to blow down the door. As the rest of the shock troopers took cover within the forest, Beta Five activated the delay sequence as he sprinted away from the door. He had just cleared the blast radius when the grenades went off, unleashing a black cloud of debris and a deafening thud.

“Move it! Let’s move!”

The soldiers had little difficulty hearing their commander yell through the helmet com-link. Roger watched as his HUD filtered out of the smoke, producing a crystal clear image of a scorched doorway into the building. His peripheral vision showed that other troopers would be in there within seconds. He extorted his men to move faster but to no avail; shock trooper armor somewhat limited the speed that a person could move at. He plunged into the darkness while his HUD activated the Nightvision.

“Are we sure someone’s here?”

“Two, we had Deathsabers scan it at point-blank range…”

“Sensors can be wrong.”

“That’s rare.”

“Two, Three, quiet up; take that corridor.”

Both of the Kashan troopers nodded and crept up to the entry of the passage. Alpha Two leveled his blaster and swept it through the dark outline of the corridor. His HUD showed that nothing was moving or alive for the matter. But it did show that there was a power fluctuation 50 meters away, a sign that some electronic was operating.

“Three, Do you see that?”

“Yeah Two. I’ll inform command about our findings.”

Second Lieutenant Fullers watched as the body was unceremoniously dragged off the turbolift. The body had been wearing an orange jumpsuit with only a serial number on it. And by the looks of the wound, he had been hit by a blaster of some sort.

“Sir, what are your orders?”

Fullers turned to the junior trooper.

“Set up a communications between us and the Hood, and get our computer specialists to try and link the facilities computer systems to that as well.”

“Right away sir.”

The other trooper jogged off into the darkness that pervaded the entire facility.
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Flagship Hood, orbiting Genon

“Commodore, we’ve completed the connection between us and the facility. Our computer specialist is splicing us in…now.”

Corise nodded and tapped a few keys, bringing up a full-screen view of the Kashan hacker’s work. The facilities’ computers, located on the last level of the bunker, were online, meaning that someone was doing some work down there. Corise watched as the hacker began to override security codes and passwords….
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Grappa the Hutt’s Facility, Genon

“All right men,” stated the Kashan commander, “our hacker up on the Hood has managed to activate the turbolift, so we will be heading down there soon. I’m not sure what we’ll find. My best guess is that we have criminal elements holding down the lower levels. They’ll be prepared, so be cautious and never, ever underestimate your foe. Last call for equipment checks as well, I want everything working properly: blasters, suits, powerpacks, you name it. If something’s wrong, see Theta One. Any questions? None? Good. Move out.”

The facility’s turbolift car was an open freight model used by many industrial buildings to move large amounts of men and equipment efficiently. Fuller guessed that he could take 2.5 squads down at a time. With those twenty men, he could secure the area around the lift and allow the passage of the other Kashan infantry into the facility for exploration. A slight jerk announced that the lift was quickly moving downwards. They had passed what should have been several stories before they came down to the first door; whoever had built this portion of the bunker wanted it fully secure from bombardment and the outside world. The doors opened revealing only more darkness.

The HUDs on the Kashan Trooper’s helmets immediately switched to night vision, revealing overturned tables and more dead bodies. Oddly enough, they all appeared to be wearing the same orange jumpsuit that the man on the lift had been wearing. More importantly, the HUD showed more men behind the tables with their blasters already leveled at the Coalition troops. The men already within the room and the Kashan troops simueltenously opened fire, starting a brilliant show of lights.

Second Lieutenant Fuller stared at the carnage and shook his head. The clones had been unarmed before being brutally massacred. Questioning from the guards revealed little, only that they had been charged with the protecting the facility. They never knew about the clones, until one had attempted to escape and was killed in the process. Whoever was paying them had then revealed the rest of the clones and ordered them killed when the Coalition fleet had arrived. Fuller shook his head and motioned over a Trooper whose HUD ID read Theta-4.

“Theta-4, I’m placing you in command of a squad of troopers to check out what appears to be a utility corridor. Our slicer thinks that it may lead to a private landing path in the forest, but that’s unsure. Check it out.”

Theta-4, whose real name was Jon Roepert, nodded and motioned for his men to fall out behind them. They made their way to the corridor…

Before Jon could catch a glimpse of anything, a torrent of red blaster bolts flooded the area. Under such heavy fire, the white-armored Kashan troops quickly retreated back into the room full of blasters to get cover. They shut the blast door and looked around at the contents of the armory. The room itself was a simple square made of ferroconcrete reinforced with durasteel beams. A quick lookover showed that someone had already taken several blasters from the racks as well as the room’s grenades. What was left was a couple dozen blasters of various makes and sizes. A trooper noticed a discarded datapad ,with the armory inventory and statistics for the weapons, and picked up.

Datapad:

Armory Inventory:
12 BlasTech EE-6 Blaster Rifles
4 BlasTech DL-18 Blaster Pistols
2 SoroSuub RB-407 Medium Repeating Blasters
12 Merr-Sonn Fragmentation Grenades

Weapon Entries:

BlasTech DL-18
Model: BlasTech DL-18 Blaster Pistol
Type: Blaster pistol
Scale: Character
Skill: Blaster: blaster pistol
Ammo: 100
Cost: 500 (power packs: 25)
Availability: 1, F, R, or X
Fire Rate: 1
Range: 3-10/30/120
Damage: 4D
This is the most common weapon in the galaxy. It is popular with urban police forces, traders and anyone else who needs to pack respectable firepower in a compact package. Ownership of these weapons is restricted in many systems.

Model: BlasTech EE-6 Blaster Rilfe
Type: Heavy blaster rifle
Scale: Character
Skill: Blaster: blaster rifles
Ammo: 50
Cost: 1,450 (power packs: 25)
Availability: 3, R or X
Fire Rate: 1
Range: 3-25/100/250
Damage: 6D
Game Notes:
Scope and stock: +1D to hit if used for one round of aiming
The preferred weapon of the Master Hunter Boba Fett, the EE-6 is an older model of rifle, but a very powerful one. Available with either a folding or fixed stock, it is relatively short when compared with other weapons of this power class, such as our DLT-19. The folding stock version is only about 7% larger than our E11 rifle, which is noted for it's almost carbine-like qualities. The fixed stock is more popular, as it has a "badder", sawed off look to it. Not to mention that it is the version that Hunter Fett is almost always pictured with (that guy does more free advertising for the arms companies than anyone else in the past century).
Model: SoroSuub RB-407
Type: Medium repeating blaster
Scale: Character
Skill: Blaster: repeating blasters
 Ammo: 15; Unlimited (power generator)
Cost: 3,020 (power packs: 25)
Availability: 2, X
Fire Rate: 1
Range: 3-75/150/400
Damage: 7D
Game Notes:
Must make a Moderate Lifting skill roll when firing without support (either bipod or mount), or suffer a +1D difficulty penalty due the weight.
The SoroSuub RB-407 is the standard issue medium repeating blaster to the Imperial Army (Expansion and Inner Rim regions). Like other medium repeaters, it has been over shadowed by light and heavy models. Designed to fill both the role of mounted or positional gun, and platoon or company level support weapon, it is considered to be a compromise, but a good one. In the fixed gun role, it can fired from the integral bipod, or mounted to a wide variety of pintle and tripod mounts, meaning that it can be used as a commander's gun on armored vehicles, or as a door gun on aerial transports. In the infantry role, its fixed stock and bipod are essential. Meant to be fired from the bipod due to eight, the RB-407 is capable of being fired like a big rifle by a strong enough individual. Despite this versatility, it has earned the unenviable nickname of "pig", due to its reputation for being temperamental (all of these problems are corrected by using proper ammunition and maintenance procedures) and it's considerable weight.

(O.O.C.: Stats property of WEG and entries courtesy of the NIF)

The troops themselves automatically carried the Blastech E-11, an excellent carbine that was standard-issue for stormtrooper units. However, the weapons from the armory could possibly be put to good use by the Kashan men.
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Twenty meters away from the Armory Entrance…

“Roger Roger,” agreed a mechanical voice.

“Good. Pin them down until my shuttle departs.”

“Affirmative.”

As the mysterious man continued his way down to the hangar, the former Trade Federation battle droids began to surround the armory in preparation for the upcoming firefight, leaving Jon to make up his mind what to do.