The Battle of Coruscant -- Battle for Centax-1, The Key to Coruscant

[Rom]

Much like Brentaal, Anaxes, and Alsakan, the natural and artificial satellites of the Coruscant system had become stepping stones leading to the heart of the Alliance. Habitation spheres and barren, inhospitable worlds had become just as important to the warring factions as genuine military targets. Centax-1, the moon nearest to Coruscant, was the last of the stepping stones. It was more than a garrison moon. It was a resupply station with well over a decade's worth of ammunition stores and fuel reserves. To the Alliance, it represented hope. So long as they maintained control, their fleet would have the supplies to continue the fight and keep the skies above Coruscant clear. In the hands of their enemies, defeat was inevitable.

The fleet safeguarding Centax-1 suffered heavy losses in the most recent skirmish and was forced to fall back toward Coruscant, leaving the moon open to attack. Alliance soldiers on the surface must hold out for as long as possible so that the fleet has sufficient time to regroup and recover. Only then can they mount a counter-attack. If Centax-1 is compromised, the Alliance will have no choice but to abandon the moon and what forces remain there.

----------

If this thread becomes crowded, you may split off and create a new one which takes place alongside the first. Please be sure to title the thread appropriately and post a link in the OOC discussion. If you have any questions, please contact Vencu, GABA, or Rom.

 

[EnderM5]

Emile felt the hum of the repulsor lifts as they gradually brought his lander to a gentle stop in the hangar. Then, he gathered up his equipment, checked that his weapons were ready, and stepped off the ship... and directly into 5 assault rifles held by Alliance soldiers. "ID please," a gruff voice commanded. Emile flashed the man his ID, the man said, "Sorry, Mr. Walters. We've been expecting you." A nearby private made to take Emile's bags, which he curtly refused. The man continued, "As you know, we're expecting an assault on this base any day now, so we need every medic we can get." Emile nodded on the outside, his face impassive; but on the inside, he was brimming with satisfaction. The ploy had worked. He had successfully infiltrated the Alliance moon by posing as a doctor. "Which, of course, shouldn't be too hard for someone who's nickname is the Doctor." he thought to himself.

<<SOME TIME LATER>>

Emile had replaced the large, unwieldy suitcase with a knapsack he hung on his back, which held some various toxins and equipment he would be using later. He was currently in the medical bay, pretending to look busy for the benefit of a nearby nurse, who glanced at him from her paperwork once in a while. He glanced at his watch. Only a few minutes to Zero Hour. He walked over to the working nurse, taking out a Pad while he was at it. She glanced up at him from her work, where she was sketching a molecule out from under a microscope. Fortunately, he recognized the molecule from his years at medical school. "Ah, synthialis parkatysis?" he asked of her. She nodded, going back to her work. He pointed to the drawing on the paper, lightly brushing her hand with the tip of his finger and depositing the Pad there. "Shouldn't it be a little more like this?" and drew with an imaginary pencil on the desk, miming what it should look like. He ticked off the seconds in his head... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... The nurse collapsed back in her seat, unconscious. "Wow! Right on the money, that time!" he spoke to himself. He quickly moved the nurse's petite body into a storage bin, where he locked the door. She required no further restraints, as by the time someone came to investigate the noises she would make, it would be too late for all of them...

Emile moved to the security room with purpose. He knew that the more purpose you projected, the less chance there was of someone trying to stop you. Once in the network, he quickly turned off the outside auto turrets to just one, agreed-upon, hangar door. This would allow the first Imperial troops to land without too much difficulty. He checked his watch again, sat back in a crouch, pulled out his crossbow and stun whip, and started to wait...

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Across all means of communication, be they nearby HoloNet screens, personal communication devices, military communication systems, and more, a small hologram of the injured Alliance Chief of State, Nathanaeu Bastele, appeared before everyone who could see it. His face was shredded, with one of his eyes practically hanging from the socket. His body was torn apart, with his insides visible. It was a gruesome sight, showing just how bad the battle was. If the Chief of State could be this hurt, anyone could. Anyone could be killed.

But he had a message to send, one more important than what happened to him. It was garbled, with the chaos of the battle and Sith jammers preventing it from fully being reached, but there was enough to understand what Bastele was saying:

"This is Nathanaeu Bastele. A Sith warship… descending… Jedi Temple. I don’t know… planning but... If you can hear… evacuate or head underground… all costs. Coruscant… gone. The Alliance is falling. Save yourselves and… Force… with you."

With that, the transmission faded away. The end of the Alliance had come.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Life itself was dying. Coruscant, in this moment, was the closest any mortal would ever come to understanding what it would be like if Death reached out its cold hands and reaped the Force, or God, or nature, or whatever it was that made the universe spin. On the surface, and even in orbit, every living thing felt the destructive power of what the two tiny figures atop the hull of a Star Destroyer were doing. Life was being drained, sucked into the blackened and decrepit soul of a curse called Skywalker.

Those adept in history might have drawn a comparison to the ancient Dark Lord of the Sith called Darth Nihilus, a devourer of worlds, and life, and all the energy around him. Like that Dark Lord of old, Andraste was a wound in the Force, craving all of its energy and devastating everything in her path. No being escaped feeling its impacts; they felt drained, weak, like even the simplest of tasks required strength of herculean proportions. Escaping Coruscant, or even hiding, would feel like an eternity.

The planet itself was breaking. As the Empress drained the life and energy from all around her, the Dark Lord Vereor was ravaging the surface. A storm of pure Force energy was growing; lightning, real lightning and not artificially created from satellites, struck down from the clouds from all directions, in all streets and crevasses in the city, tearing swaths through buildings and dirt. The energies even reached into space, tearing apart ships and disrupting systems on so many others. The wind howled all through the sky, and tornadoes formed to destroy the artificial world that they were touching down on.

The temperature was dropping. At once it felt sickeningly hot but also colder than the snowy wastes of Hoth. The rain falling from the sky froze, turning into shards of ice as it fell, stabbing through the heads and bodies of countless thousands, if not more. The carefully constructed weather of the once-great capital of the Republic and the Alliance was torn asunder. The planet itself was now just as much the enemy of the Alliance as the Sith.

Yet at the center of all this madness was something beautiful. At the Jedi Temple, above which the Imperial Star Destroyer sat, a beautiful aurora was forming. Dark and dangerous energy collided into a green display of dancing lights, one that could have been a calming sight were it not for the life being drained from everything below it. At the core of this beauty, though, was something rotten, for the light was not a mere byproduct of the attack. It was the attack itself. The dark energies and lightning being displayed was the eldritch energy sucked into the very heart of this labyrinth by the Dark Lord himself, a reflection of the souls being sacrificed for more power.

Anyone with any sort of psychic awareness, be they Jedi or anyone even remotely attuned to the Force, could feel as those souls were taken and twisted into a dark purpose for which the Force should never have been used. It was a warning, a reminder of what the Chief of State said across the HoloNet.

Leave or die.