Invasion: Old Folk's Home

Consul Duga Arkarso rubbed sleep from his eyes and growled as the comm unit on his wall beeped. He thought he'd left express instructions not to be bothered in the middle of the night, but somehow those instructions always seemed to get lost or ignored. Duga rolled out of bed and punched the audio-only button on the side of the unit - no need for the masses to see him with bed-head. "What?"

"Sorry to disturb you, sir. This is Lieutenant Vreek in the operations centre. We've had reports from the Home Guard that Admiral Lanar's ships have made another appearance at the edge of the system. This time they had their flagship with them." Duga's ears had perked up at the mention of Admiral Lanar, and his expression had turned grave at the mention of the flagship.

"Very well. Assemble the Summit on Karufr immediately, and notify me if any more of his ships cross our border. Duga out." With a sigh, Duga went to the refresher to run cold water over his face. So much for a few hours more sleep.

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The assembled Taldryan Summit met in the strategic planning room of the Clan Hall. The three Quaestors were there, flanked on either side by their Aediles and Envoys. They all sat around a large rectangular table, with each party on one side. Duga sat alone at the head of the table, with a large holographic display behind him. On it were formations and statistics of the Taldryan fleet, plus a holo of a stoic-looking Human man with a shaved head and neatly-trimmed goatee.

"The sentient you see on the screen behind me is a former Imperal Admiral named Lanar. After the death of the Emperor, Lanar took his fleet and disappeared into the Unknown Regions, intending to carve out a territory of his own. Nobody has heard from him since then... until a few weeks ago, when he started sending his warships across Taldryan's borders." The image on the screen changed to show a readout of known ships in Lanar's fleet. Of great concern was the Imperial-class Star Destroyer that seemed to be its flagship.

Frowns went around the table. Dark Jedi Master Alanna, Envoy of House Ektrosis, was the first to speak. "Why weren't we notified of this earlier?"

"Until now, Lanar hasn't been seen as a threat," Duga said. "I believe Erinyes was actually the first Clan member to know about this - she was able to provide positive IDs on the original scans." All eyes went to Erinyes, who nodded. "As it stands right now," Duga continued, "Lanar's forces appear to be similar in size to ours, and it looks like he's intent on using them. The most recent incursion was led by his flagship, an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer named Lanar's Fist."

"Egomaniac, is he?" Battlelord Taku "Crix" Matsuki Taldrya, Quaestor of Archanis, spoke up.

"Yeah, Crix, almost as bad as you are," Dark Adept Erinyes replied with a grin. She was leader of House Dinaari, and picked up where Duga had left off. "From what I discovered on my initial reconnaissance mission, Lanar has the Star Destroyer, a second Victory-class Star Destroyer named Lanar's Wrath, and a handful of smaller capital ships including Lancer frigates, strike cruisers and a pair of escort carriers. His fighter complement is significantly smaller than ours, but those Lancer will do a lot to even the odds. On his home base, which the Dark Hall has temporarily named Elyssia, he has a command base and a small shipyard. All of this is protected by a large minefield."

"It used to be protected by a minefield," Duga corrected. "As of now, I'm officially sick of dealing with Lanar. Sending his flagship in was a show of force - he wants to try to intimidate us with threat of conflict." Duga grinned. "Fortunately, we don't intimidate easily. Twelve hours from now, we'll launch an attack on his forces where they're massing at Elyssia. We'll be dividing up into three main battle groups, two space and one ground."

"I wouldn't mind knowing how the command structure will work," Templar Chaosrain, Ektrosis Quaestor, said from the other side of the table.

"The overall operation will be under my command," Duga said. "The regular military forces will be subordinate to the Summit. Crix and the Archanis Summit will command the naval forces. Erinyes and the Dinaari Summit will be in charge of the space assault forces. Chaos, you and the Ektrosis Summit will command the ground assault."

"Of course, I'd prefer you all say in the rear where it's safe, but I know you won't." Duga rolled his eyes at the chuckles around the table. "Individual missions will be given to each Battle-Team. We launch in twelve hours."

Dark Adept Erinyes strode into the briefing room where the assembled members of the Old Folk's Home waited. They were all shifting slightly in their chairs. Erinyes tried to chalk it up to eagerness to jump into the fray, but most likely, they were simply bored and needed to go the bathroom. Needless to say, she needed to make this quick.

"Alright, gang, here's the story. You've all heard about this whole thing with Admiral Lanar. Most of Taldryan is going to take him on. Naturally, we're sending you off into your own little corner, just like we always do."

"Lies!" cried a voice from the back of the room, sounding suspiciously like Kir.

"Oh, don't worry, you'll have plenty of fun. We've just found out that there's a mercenary fleet sitting just off a nearby hyperspace route. They were hired by Lanar to jump in during the battle and blindside us. Unfortunately for them, we learn about it, and are now dealing with the problem," Erinyes said. "You gang are going to take the TIE Hunter squadron and deal with them. Two Nebulon-B frigates, four Corellian Corvettes, three squadrons of Preybirds and two transports loaded with mercenary troops. Destroy them, capture them, put Kir and Shad in tutus to dance for them, I don't care. Just make sure they don't get to the main battle."

"Wait," Sithspawn said with a frown. "Hunters? Not Hyperions?" He seemed totally unfazed by the idea of the two Dark Adepts becoming ballerinas.

"No, Duga has already set those aside for Summit use."

"I thought all you Summit people were going to hang back and command the battle or something. We need those fighters," Sithspawn objected.

"Yeah, the chances of us sitting and doing nothing are about as big as..." Erinyes stopped as there was a shuffle in the back of the room, like the sound of several chairs being knocked over. Dialogue came from the middle of the mess:

"Damnit Shad, put pants on!"
"No! At my age, I can do what I want! Stop bossing me around!"
"Get these on, right- crap! He left a mess all over the seat!"

Erinyes shook her head and looked back to Sithspawn. "I rest my case. Get the Hunters and go, we drop out of hyperspace in an hour. You'll need to move quick if you actually want to stop them." Erinyes turned to leave the room, tossing a few more words over her shoulder as she stepped through the door. "And make sure there aren't any messes on the seats, mmkay?"

The squad of TIE Hunters flew exactly in-sync, using the expert maneuvers only attainable by those immersed in the Dark Side. Together they flew through each capital ships defenses and, using the powers of the Force, ignited the reactor cores by bending space and transporting detpacks into the core. As the final charges went off a horrendous blast rocked the fighters. They had cleared ground zero just in time. Shadow pulled his Hunter around and watched in glee at the multiple explosions exploding brilliantly in the void of space. Shadow flipped on the comm switch of his TIE Hunter to a wide-broadcast.

“Haha! Did you see that? We kicked their asses.”

“Shadow, shut the hell up and form up with the rest of us.”

“Um yeah… my callsign is Thruster, Disease-ridden Manwhore. Get it right!” A series of groans followed this transmission.

“Jesus Christ, Shad. Stop giving us callsigns.” The former MAA Kaek was practically spitting into his mic.

“Pfft. We’re flying we need callsigns, Sir Rantsalot. All pilots have them.”

“That’s it!” Sithspawn sent a transmission to everyone in the team but Shadow. “We’re landing right [Expletive Deleted F-word]ing now. I don’t want to listen to him anymore over the comm. Maybe he’ll drop this retarded callsign [Expletive Deleted] when we’re on planet.”

“We going to join the battle on Elyssia, Ziggy?” Kaek replied over the same channel.

“Hell no. We’re going to take over and finish the fight.”

“PS I pwn.”

“Um, right Swipes. Good job.” Ziggy replied before changing the comm channel. “Alright, Old Folks. We’re heading to Elyssia, let’s go.”

“Wooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooo!!” Was the last signal sent before the team entered hyperspace.

[CENTER]* * *[/CENTER]

Shadow’s craft touched down lightly in a wide clearing bordered on all sides by thick forest. Somewhere hidden beyond the trees was Lanar’s base. Having stepped back onto solid ground, Shadow was once again his awesomely charismatic self. The rest of the team waited about 10 yards away fearing he’d still be insane after being physically forced into the cockpit by the rest of the team. The last few hours of intense fighting had only made the Adept more insane. Being in such a small space that long had corrupted his thinking. Slowly he began to assimilate the feelings of the ship and turned into a mindless flyboy. Of course, he was all better now. But he’d be staying out of starfighters for the foreseeable future.

Shadow stalked quickly towards the group glaring. “Never put me in a cockpit again.” Almost instantly everyone nodded in agreement. They didn’t want to go through that again with him.

“Alright,” Ziggy said. “Now that that’s settled let’s move out. We got a lot of ground to cover and I want to beat those damned Ektrosians to the base.” The group, led by Sithspawn, marched off into the forest silently preparing for any attacks.

Clan RO comp is now closed. Any posts made after this point will cause the RO to be disqualified.