Yinchorr…




The black sand, the burnt sun and the lizards of the high desert slunk into darkness.

Night encroached upon the western continent of Yinchorr.

In their dens carved of the rock the last exiles of the Dark Lord Maim, loyal servants to a bastard empire, the surviving members of the Royal Guard hunkered down for the night. The followers of Silk, last of the Sovereign Protectors, prepared for the long night.

Yinchorr, a desolate rock by any description, was subject to an uneven rotation. In the winter night would last for dozens of hours at a time while during the summer months the days would seem to stretch on forever.

Long ago, more years then they cared to recount; Dioan Silk and his detachment of Royal Guardsmen had dominated the entire solar system starting with Yinchorr. They had bombarded the planet from space, leaving it a torn and abused wasteland that went on into nothingness. A galactic sense of irony had then seen them stranded here.

There were no locals to speak of, only a few savage tribes of Yinchorri spread across the planet.

The living that Silk and his men had eked out for themselves over the long years was not glorious. They struggled from day to day just to feed themselves.

In the Temple, a large dome like structure blasted deep into the bedrock, Lord Silk had called a meeting. Dozens of men, haggard by their tribulations and hidden under coats of rough hewn fabric and long, knotted beards, crowded into the chamber. The stink of man, raw and unchallenged, flooded the room like the stink of a dead animal.

These men represented the command branch, the authority responsible for overseeing the greater half thousand, and they had proven themselves to be the most skilled and most devoted of the groups. They crowded around another.

Dioan Silk was an impressive example of what survival, bare survival, could make of a man. His face, though weathered and creased with the trials of a hard life, retained the passion, the power required to instill respect in others. Through a fierce devotion to the Dark Side he had cultured an aura of power within himself that manifested itself in his eyes which, unlike others, had turned his eyes a milky white. Like glossy ivory, they reflected ambient light in a sort of iridescent glow.

At over six feet and still almost two hundred pounds he towered over the others many of whom had lost much of their body mass.

“Feed of the Dark Side,” he told them.

They gathered around, kneeling on the floor of the Temple. Bare rock welcomed them and bare, unadorned rock surrounded them.


Lord Silk scratched a finger in his beard and, standing, moved among them.

“The Force is the source of all power, all strength. When the enemy comes you must be ready.”

A tension, the knotting of a shoulder muscle, gathered along the nape of his neck. Warned of dissention, a clear sensation of doubt echoing through the force like so much debris, Silk rounded on one of his followers, his subjects. Sure enough the object of his attention, a gnarled man in his early thirties, had just spread his lips to speak.

Set with the intense, studious and watchful eye of Lord Silk, the man froze.

“Yes,” Silk encouraged. “Out with it.”

Having cleared his throat, the man spoke. “You speak of the enemy who will come and the enemy we will conquer to return to the skies…. You speak of this thing often but it never comes to pass. Year after year we wait but it never comes.”

“The Force is a dangerous mistress,” offered Silk by way of a reply. “And visions of the future are rarely clear.”

“What would you prefer?”

Of course no one spoke. It was the same discussion they had time and time again. With options so limited a natural sort of order had established itself between the men, a guttural understanding. Silk was the best and only answer, but all the same… time alone would make fools of them all.

Time and the Force are cruel mistresses.

Five hundred men with no women trapped on a desolate rock for a decade…

… the words painted a picture that was only so pretty.

Once upon a time, as the sworn Hand of Dark Lord Maim, Silk had been instructed in the ways of the Force and how to attune himself to the Dark Side. His mentor and teacher, Maim was a master of the Sith and had instructed Silk in the ways of that ancient, lost culture as well. Those teachings had transcended Silk alone and had turned his band of exiled Guardsmen into a formidable force. Had it not been for his considerable abilities, identified and exploited by Maim, it is likely that none of them would have survived so long. In many ways their isolation had initially been a boon to their development but, over time, that boon had become a bane that threatened to topple the precarious power structure imposed by Silk himself.

“Five hundred men, we are a mere five hundred men who, despite the odds, have lived on this god forsaken rock for over ten years. Tribes turn people like us into gods.”

The words ‘and this too shall pass’ came immediately to mind…

… and faded into an unforgiving abyss.

Dioan Silk smiled.

“I tell you that our liberation will come and it will.”

In truth his visions had been growing more acute. The time was coming ever closer. He knew this though not how. As they moved ever closer to the event his dreams became more clear. Most recently a new face had begun to resolve itself as an omnipresent force in his future, a powerful manipulator responsible for the things to come. He had not shared this secret with anyone.

“We will begin construction of a new defensive line tomorrow. The men have too little to do and so you will keep them busy. Those not on duties will be running battle tactics. Keep everyone busy, focused.”

Devotionals followed. The men all pledged their loyalty anew and recited their traditional prayers. A melding, a guided meditation followed this and eventually, as with every meeting, Silk dispensed some new piece of wisdom. Trivial or pivotal, the men lived for these tidbits the way others lived for sports.

And then, alone in the Temple, Silk slipped into a deep meditation that lasted until the next day, dozens of hours later.

He dreamed of officers in white, of great angular shapes moving through turgid black soup and of a future both promising and terrible and he wondered how long he would be able to keep the truth a secret…

Probe droid DXL 7639 had blundered into history. All probe druids, however, crossed paths with destiny by chance or luck - thousands would perish ignominiously in their duties while thousands more would fulfill their obligations and be forgotten by their controllers for every one that dared herald some great discovery. DXL 7639 would not know its own worth for it self-destructed when it had reconnoitered all it could, but its place in a chapter of Imperial history was assured. That particular probe droid, insectoid body shined and gleaming in the rocky wasteland sun, had lain eyes on a people whose existence sent shivers through the bones of the first flag officer to review the data.


Those beings, pitiful and decrepit, DXL 7639 had found were what remained of powerful men that served a mad and deposed master. They had sworn fealty to a bastardized vision of the Empire and besmirched the suzerainty of His Majesty the Emperor: for their impudence they had been banished to a hell of their own making, forced to live in shadow of the terror they had wrought on a harmless population. They had been forgotten then - even the mighty Inquisitoriate had pronounced them dead.


They were mistaken.


DXL 7639 had found the last of the Royal Guardsmen roaming about the rocks of Yinchorr.


Transmissions buzzed from the local system prefect to the sector’s ruler, Moff Aprendii. He had forwarded the discovery to Imperial High Command with all the urgency the crowded HoloNet would allow. Before a reply was even contemplated at the highest levels of the pyramidal palace in Imperial City, three Star Destroyers and a heavy cruiser were dispatched to Yinchorr. One of them, the flagship of the hastily assembled task force, bore a barely noticeable silver slash along its dorsal hull. She was as Imperial a warship as her two peers, but the men in her hull were the elite of the Empire’s troops.


The Imperial Guard would deal with Yinchorr. Or die trying.

The killing sands…

Stained crimson with the warriors blood, pushed under heel by boot and by strength, the two men circled one another neither daring to challenge the other. Step by step, page by page, the read one another. In flexing arm or bunching tendon each man saw the future unfold in his opponent, saw the future like a chessboard and only six moves to mate…

Like serpents coiled to strike but waiting for that perfect moment, the perfect kill, they circled.

Great warriors tell stories about men like these. They tell stories about ancient samurai gods who could see a combat unfold like the petals of a delicate and deadly flower.

Practice makes perfect. On a long enough time line with little else to do perfection becomes normal, nominal.

Their feet could paint pictures in the sand. The sand became like art to the artists eye, seeing the careful brush strokes of a grand master.

Like beasts, all they were left with was their own mortality. Unlike animals, however; these had once been men. These had been men of the highest regard. Trained soldiers, disciplined soldiers…

Time seemed to slow.

A foot, poised on the ball and cresting upon toes, lurched slowly, painfully, into the air. A trail of sand, a trail of slow motion comet dust, curved neatly through the nothingness behind. A snap kick played out, frame by frame.

Then a countering guard; with bent elbow pressed before the oncoming blow the body actual, the opponent and victor, moved into and around the offending foot. His own foot planted behind the others leg. He pushed.

Time, appraised of its suddenly sloth, vehemently wound back up.

With a spray of sand one of the two warriors fell hard on an exposed shoulder. The meaty snap of dislocation melted into the shifting sands and the sounds made by both men, sweating and breathing heavily.

Lord Dioan Silk sneered, “If in six rounds in the ring you cannot beat me, why do you imagine seven would be your lucky strike?”

For his own part the other man said nothing but simply rose to his feet. He appeared to pay his injured shoulder no heed.

“Because, as long as you can fight,” stated Silk. “You will fight.”

“We have not been marooned on this desolate rock by Destiny, by Fate, for no reason. Only our will to continue will keep us alive in this place of our making and our will is to fight!”

A dozen men sat around the circle, the crimson sands. High overhead the systems sun was nearing its zenith, battering them with temperatures sailing above forty degrees centigrade. The world around them was a desert wasteland made of sand and stone and nothing else. In the monsoon season everything turned to mud only to be baked solid again by the next clear-sky sunrise. Alone and isolated, the men had made their camp at the foot of a single hill atop which they had positioned their sparse communication and observation equipment.

“Soon, I tell you brothers, our will to fight will serve us well. The first coming, the man and the boy, were foretold by my visions of the Force just as I see now that soon, very soon, our true liberation will be at hand.”

Dioan Silk pointed a finger, “You’re next. Fight!”



In the black nothing above Yinchorr, its orbit slowly sending it further and further away from the planet, a single solitary satellite orbited the desolate planet below. The years had not been kind to the unit and in truth it was the last functional device that once comprised a complete communications network which had been established, a decade earlier, by the forces of Lord Maim. Soon it would spiral out into the void.

On board the satellite, housed in a compact internal unit, lurked an artificial intelligence. It was not smart, nor designed to integrate well with sentient life forms. The insufficient unit was tasked with maintaining communications with the rest of the network. As the years went on and more of its brothers died off, the petulant little computer had become increasingly distraught. It had only one task, a simple one at that, and it had failed.

They call them “ghosts in the machine”. Dues ex Machina. Broken codes, simply logic gone awry. And somehow this silly little unit had become aware of its doomed existence. Lost and without a cause, the satellite began sending out endless streams of data… most of it totally incomprehensible.

So, when it suddenly received a return communication and so near the end of its life cycle the little satellite happily broadcast its location… among other bits of information.

They say ignorance is bliss…

… they would be wrong.

For Captain Karellia, the explosion was barely enough to distract his eyes from the desolate sphere below. Brown of every shade predominated broken only by wisps of clouds and the smallest dots of bluish white at either pole, signifying ice and water. Intelligence however said it was all but inaccessible by daunting mountain ranges the likes of which were the destination of every crazed spelunker in the cosmos.


Before, that is, the entire system was sealed off by decree of His Majesty the Emperor. Not a few innocent lives had been lost when they dared breach the cordon erected by the Imperial Customs Bureau and its aging but agile ships. The Customs personnel never thought to scan the world, not any more thoroughly than protocol demanded. Their lapse, however understandable, had prevented the discovery of the traitor-legion until now. At that, the Captain snarled.


“ Sir, the landing barges have assembled and are proceeding planet-side. Squadrons Two and Three are escorting them down.”


“ Very good.” Captain Karellia smiled, the weight of past mistakes lifted from his shoulders. The Guard preached honour to all enemies, regardless of race or species. A man who had earned it would keep it, a view that had not increased its popularity with members of COMPNOR or ISB. Betraying honour was by consequence a crime of unspeakable proportions and for traitors the Guard had no mercy at all.


And the Hand of Justice did cleanse Yinchorr…





The sun was bright. It reminded him of his barren home on the rim, a world of perverse fame as the home to the most foul JedI of all time, Skywalker. He had vowed when joining the Empire never to set foot in a desert again, but here he was. The price of duty. Colonel Rostock lowered the dark blast shield of his helmet as his half-tracked command vehicle rushed away from the drop ship. Around him came another ten half tracks bearing twenty Guardsmen each. From the last-landing ship came a half-dozen small AT-PT walkers. The first wave was here - if they failed there would be more to follow.


If we fail, then we will sell our lives dearly. Indeed we may have to, for surviving here weill have bred formidable foes.


With a wave of his hand, Rostock signaled the group to move out in the direction of the life-signs scanned from orbit. There were not many but no precautions were forgot. Bayonets were placed onto long-barreled blaster rifles, armor checked and checked again, and stemgranate given to every man. The half-tracks mounted 40mm repeating projectile cannon and every one was loaded and prepared. It would be a good fight.


In a few minutes, the group sighted some ruins of what may have once been a city. Sand and time rendered all but the closest observation useless. The men dismounted and spread out.

The lone sentry sat, his back against a crumbling piece of masonry, and stared out across the bleak, desolate horizon. Rifle across his lap and binoculars in hand, he alternately studied the jutting crags that stretched far beyond the range of his goggles and the brilliant, bright white sky.

He sniffed.

“Storm’s coming.”

No one replied because he was, of course, alone. Draped in burlap-style garments woven between bits of tarnished plate armor so burnished by the blowing sands, by years of use and lacking proper maintenance, the man appeared as a part of the crumbling city itself. His scruffy beard vanished behind a hand-woven balaclava leaving only his red-rimmed, beady eyes to stare out across the endless expanse of nothingness.

This had been his job for more time then he cared to recall, he had manned this post unfailingly at the command of his Lord Silk and where other men would become lax, lazy and fail in their duty, here was a man trained in the service of the Royal Guard. Order had been preserved through the dark manipulations of their Sovereign Protector, ex-patriot to the empire of the Dark Lord Maim. There had been disputes, naturally… but Silk, in the tradition of his mentors before him, had put those doubts down with fierce speed and determination.

He pressed his lips together and let out a long, high pitched whistle. It echoed across the broken landscape. Somewhere in the distance an avian of sorts took wing, replying with its own mournful cry.

“An omen,” he spoke even as the hairs upon the back of his neck moved to stand upon ends. “What does it portend?”

Each man left to rot on Yinchorr under the prevue of Dioan Silk had taken up the art, tapped the Dark Side to some extent or another. Simply to enter the Dark Lords service these men had been required to demonstrate some aptitude for the Force beyond their mere mortal skill; which in and of themselves were extensive beyond compare. Left with little to do but train, keep sharp, the bastard sons of Lord Silks Royal Guard honed their prowess under the already considerable skills of Silk himself.

Some, like this century, had proven more inclined to the more metaphysical aspect of supposed reality. He had cast off the chains of confined thinking, chains that had been lashed and bound to his soul during the life soldierly. It was because of his own internal discourse, a dialogue best conducted in isolation, that this man had been assigned the duty of scout century. The endless hours on the surface among the rocks and the sand and the dust had only made him sharper… if a little mad in the process.

Glasses raised, he pressed the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the horizon. A rising column of dust caught his attention but was as of yet indistinguishable beyond the uneven terrain. He lowered the goggles and pressed shut his eyes. His lips moved.

“That’s no storm.”

Little knowing how wrong and how right he could be, the man rose up from his position and, gathering his supplies, vanished in among the rocks.





A line of men divided into three squads of twelve dispersed into the ruins. They rose up from concealed tunnels, junctions running the length and width of the ancient city with rifles at the ready and bayonet’s fixed. Among their number were two men of note; first the scout charged with the initial discovery. The second and more imposing figure was that of Lord Dioan Silk himself, ex-Sovereign Protector to the Dark Lord Maim. Unlike the former, Silk was clad in a consuming garment of blackened, rough-hewn fabric. Barely distinguishable beneath that he donned his battered and abused Protectorate armor.

“You were right to summon me so soon,” said the dark-clad figure while tucking himself behind an upstanding pillar, or what used to be. “Go back and get the rest.”





The enemy advanced in formation; a line drawn across the width of the ruins and moving towards Silks position. His men had established a rough counter-line forward of his command location by approximately twenty meters. It was not much but the small ruin did not provide much in the way of an option.

This was not to say that Silk and his men were not prepared. They had trained long and hard for this very moment. Their long years of imprisonment on this god-forsaken rock had left them with little else to do to stave off insanity. While the city approach was not the one most favored by Silk and his men, it was workable.

Three platoons had been allocated for the primary defense action; which in truth would be the opening offensive, and as such, a deceptively named attack.

Silk looked to his counterpart gave a nod.





Like banshees possessed of an immaterial desire to destroy, the men of Lord Dioan Silk’s displaced regiment shot up from their hiding positions almost within melee range of the invaders. Their targets were not the heavily armed and armored half-track vehicles but rather their bipedal counter-parts, the AT-PT walkers.

Individual squads broke into six man fire-teams, armed with force-pikes and vibro-blades of a myriad sort. They leapt upon the walkers while slashing madly at their exposed componentry and stabbing through the semi concealed pilots compartment in an attempt to render the pilot inoperable alongside his craft.

Angry ants attacking the interloping avian…

They stayed well clear of the half-tracks, leaving the moment of attack to the very last moment so as to steal some of the operational efficency from their largish main cannon. By staying tight with the AT-PT walkers they hoped to force the half-tracks to open fire on friendly targets if they hoped to properly engage the attackers. It worked, at first.





Lord Silk watched his men attack and smiled as they did. He knew most of them would not survive but that they would inflict heavy losses on the enemy wave. Three platoons; roughly one hundred fifty men, he could spare them or so he imagined, from his five hundred or so warriors. But their loss would not, could not be repeated.

For what he was about to loose Silk hoped to gain the advantage on his enemy by disabling the majority of his light armor. The half-tracks would be less effective in the closed quarters. Secondly, and perhaps just as important, he hoped to establish fear in his enemy, trepidation spawned of facing a wild, frenzied force willing to commit themselves, life and limb, to the destruction of the enemy. Last, and though he could not count on this, he hoped that he would discover the opportunity, presented by the Force, by which he might force these unknowns into hand-to-hand.

Lord Silk chuckled, abandoned his post, and headed towards his next command objective.

Colonel Rostock was amazed at what he saw. With a gloved hand he raised the blast shield of his helmet, wondering if some wisp of sand had created an intricate patch work of figures in his view. That which his eyes gazed upon and scanners confirmed was indeed no mirage. Figures stood and fell, silhouetting themselves for scant seconds to peer at the oncoming attack. Many were large - greater still that such a measurement could be easily ascertained from a distance. Amongst the ruins were arrayed a force of men, without doubt the ones he had been sent to destroy.


To purge.


Hate filled the Guardsman’s heart before coursing through the whole of his body. The Guard did not fight out of hate or anger, for such emotions clouded tactical wisdom, but this day, this sun-scorched day on a desolate and all but forgotten quarantine world, hate would give them strength. If Guardsmen hated anyone, it was a traitor. The enemies arrayed before Kampfgruppe Rostock were traitors all.


“ Rostock to all units - the enemy is within our sights. Engage at will. E Company - remain centralized and commence pom-pom fire at 1000 meters."


The Guard pushed forward, sand thrown into the air as they sped towards destiny’s embrace. Halftracks in the center, a squad of small walkers on either flank, they glared at their enemies. When the range-finders clicked over to one kilometer the quick-firing 40mm projectile cannon mounted on the halftracks opened up, sending a volley of shells towards the ruins. Accuracy could not be guaranteed but not all hits were meant to be lethal. QF-guns had a tremendous morale effect. These men won’t run - years in these wastes will have given them sterner spines.


The walkers did not have the range of the halftracks, only sporting a pair of laser cannon mounted under their low-hanging chins, and so continued on as best they could. It was a surprise to all when jets of sand went flinging into the sky off either side of the formation. When wind forced the sand from view, traitors were standing tall and defiant, each holding heavy blaster cannon. A typical soldier, even a Guardsman, could not carry one by himself, let alone fire it, but these men wielded them with ease, each one doubtless muscular like only the gruffest of sergeants in the Army-proper. Shots rang out, targeted at the walkers, and cinged armor with every blast. They had many years to hone their skills and it shone.


“ First and Second Platoons, to the right. Third and Fourth to the left. Fifth steady on towards that line. This is a prepared position and we blundered into it. Grenadiers, dismount and attack! Twelve minutes we need to distract them before our reinforcements arrive. Command out!”


Rostock issued his orders and removed the headset-cord from his helmet - no more orders would be necessary. The range had closed to pistol shot and a melee was only moments off. Any officer could see that. Doctrine of the Imperial Army demanded that once a prepared position was encountered by a reconnoitering force - which the kampfgruppe was - a withdrawal be effected to either flank or storm the position. The Guard did not have that time, lest these traitors of the sand fade into the dust and hide in a world only they could know. Doctrine demanded prudent action, all of his training as an officer told him to disengage and pound them with the Pomp-poms. As Guardsmen, the only path thinkable was directly ahead.


The path to Glory.


Rostock watched as his men dismounted from the halftracks, wielding the rifles and assault weapons they had trained with, weapons that had seen more combat that most life-long soldiers of rival States. Bayonets glistened in the sun, olive uniforms crusted with dust and sand bent and crinkled, shots spat in all directions. Red-orange laser fire traced traced everywhere - Guardsmen fell.


The Colonel moved down into the bowels of his command-halftrack, its riding grenadiers already participants in the eveoling fray. Rostock drew his sword and slammed home a fresh magazine into his pistol. With his men, he charged into the open where the traitors had obliged the Guard’s desire for close-combat. Blood made mud of sand, its brown and grey patterns interrupted by a disproportionate number of coal-scuttle helmets and the tattered robes of fallen traitors.


Gloria Imperi…

Six men to a group, the squads broke and separated in to divided fire teams. Their weapons slung over their chests they shot up from concealed positions in the sand and debris meter meters from the oncoming forces. Sprinting, driving with all their god-given speed, the men closed the distance swiftly; blink and you’d have missed it. Armed with hybrid force-pike/blaster rifle combinations (much as a Jedi constructed his own lightsaber, some of the displaced warriors had elected to merge their blastech e-11blaster rifles with the long stock of their traditional force pikes; the resulting weapon was both deadly at range and in closed quarters… particularly in the hands of such a warrior) they alternated their fire with two open bursts before leaping upon the lumbering AT-PT squadrons and assaulting them directly.

Simultaneously and from a further distance of approximately two hundred meters a wall of blaster fire rained down upon the invading vehicles both to suppress the enemy and cover the friendly advance. Fired from fortified positions within the city, the men of the Royal Guard could be seen popping up to unload a volley before dipping back into cover. Two platoons were providing cover fire. Each man was armed with a long-barrel e-11 which offered reasonable accuracy though they utterly lacked the ability to do any significant damage to the tracked vehicles. Additional two-man fire teams packed heavy e-web blasters and had unfolded them along the line with converging fire arcs which were conducive to the naturally funnel shaped ruins.

Regardless and despite their current numerical advantage Silks forces could not hope to beat the superior weaponry of the invading forces, they could only hope to match it.





Lord Silk watched on from his secondary command post and wished he could be down there, on the field of battle, spilling blood alongside his brothers. He knew that could not become his reality however, for each man down there, in the line of fire, would likely be dead or injured at the end of the day. But they would take a hefty toll upon this interloping force before their demise.

Lobbing heavy artillery from a distance, the enemy had hoped to suppress or even break the will and resolve of Silks Royal Guard. This had failed on both fronts. There had been casualties, true, but these were minimal compared to the losses they would inflict in the end. Patiently, waiting and biding their time, the men of the bastard Guard endured the shelling and waited for the enemy to close.

The frenzied half-squads swarmed the AT-PT walkers which fell quickly to the attack. Those on the extreme flank had gained the advantage of speed and warning. Swiveling their cockpits, the walkers started backwards quicker then Silks men could close, and the pilots opened fire with their under slung repeaters.

Fearless, skilled gunners, they managed to engage the rushing teams with reasonable effectiveness though many still broke the fire line and managed to gain footholds on the light armored units. Even as the majority of their squadron mates were being toppled and overcame those still resolute pilots trained their guns on the swarming Guardsmen and began picking them off with an accuracy Silk could only imagine was inspired of anger.

He felt their deaths but took solace in the destruction they wrought. In the end of the first rush only two were left operational and one just barely. Those that survived did not stop there, however; nor did they beat a hasty retreat. But instead, throwing themselves to their own demise, they laid siege to the half-tracked vehicles in tow.

And then it was too close. The enemy took the bait and, as Silk had hoped, breached the protection of their armored vehicles and came running headlong at his line.

He snarled and the realization dawned upon him that indeed the enemy had bitten too soon and with too much vim and vigor. In that instant he knew that this was no ordinary task-force but a mere segment of a professionally trained standing army. His tongue rolled in his mouth, working a ball of phlegm into place.

He honked. “Send them in.”

From his vantage point Lord Silk then observed a bloody massacre where in the combatants rushed at one another with the grim resolution of an elite soldier. Unlike raw recruits meeting in protracted maneuvers this was an abandonment of reason and a submission to the warriors code; honor or death. Steel flashed on steel, blades and blaster bullets bouncing off of masonry or punching through solid flesh. The battle exploded beyond the lines of a traditional engagement, the objective mortal and not substantial.

This, Silk knew, was beyond control. The outcome would be measured in blood, not meters… and he had committed more force to the tide. It caused him to wonder for a moment at the mind of the opposing commander.

Every soldier throughout the history of arms had marched into battle in the company of death. He had glanced left and right to glimpse the faces of comrades, taking stock of whom would be there to rejoice and mourn at the day’s end. He wondered if he would be there. The answers came and went without effect, for no possible outcome could deter the true soldier from his duty. Cowards faced death and ran, choosing to postpone the inevitable.


The Imperial Guard was a unique unit in history in that not coward donned its uniform. In its short existence it had created the tradition of glorious death and honorable life. Many had fallen in the defense of the ideal of Empire, many to uphold the beliefs of the Guard. From Beyond looked down the ranks of the Fallen, judging and scrutinizing those yet to perish. Those eyes, harsh though that gaze might seem to onlookers, would have viewed with Pride the action on Yinchorr.


With the abandon of doomed men, two hundred soldiers of the Guard shouldered their weapons and charged into oblivion. They needed only to buy time and indeed they sold their lives dearly. Grenades were tossed at close range, bayonets rammed home into unflinching adversaries, ammunition used without care for stocks.


The Guard fought hard.


The Guard died with Honour intact.


Colonel Rostock took measure of the men he lead into battle - of the soldiers he kept in company. Looking down at where his khaki-painted cuirass had been sliced clean through, he saw only blood and reconciled himself to finality. The pain he felt had stopped, a sure sign that the end was near. Looking around, he saw the bodies of his men, brave men, and felt nothing but pride. The charred remains of vehicles smoked into the scorched sky and he knew they had done all they could. Bodies of the enemy soldiers lay side by side slain Guardsmen - far more than he expected knowing they had once been Sovereign Protectors and the like.


Gloria Imperi..


The phrase uninterrupted was the rallying cry of the Guard, indeed all of the Empire’s legions. The Fleet Assault Corps and Army proper from whose ranks the Guard had been born were competent and brought glory in their own right - they made such cries when preparing for battle. But their conviction could not be on the level of the Guard, for those men, while professionals, were not resigned to Death. The Guard was. Colonel Rostock looked at the tattered remains of the black cuff title on his right arm and the words scripted into it. Imperial Guard. He felt no regret as a towering traitor neared him and brought down a force-pike with all his might, cutting short the prayer of every true soldier of the Empire.
Gloria Imperium.

Silk looked out across the field of battle with a strange mix of pride and disappointment. The ground was littered with the dead and the sandy desert of Yinchorr was bled crimson. In those pools of red, those puddles of life blood, he saw reflected a strange irony (neither pun nor double entendre implied). Here were the men of the Crimson Empire, and Royal Guard to the Dark Lord Maim, men who claimed the crimson pennant as their own, laying face down in puddles of mud and blood.

They had fought to the last man, literally. Both sides had thrown themselves headlong into mortal melee without thought or regard for tactics or strategy. A dark thing had transpired here and it had happened without concern for the greater picture. Scarred, swelling and regressing, the tide of death took a terrible toll on the force.

Lord Silk inhaled the breath of the victorious.

The invaders had been killed. To a man they had been dealt death blows by the warriors of the Crimson Empire, but at a terrible cost. Not a single soul, not one of the lives he had committed to the offensive defense returned from that gory ground of death. Over a third of his military assets had been wiped out in a single blow, had repulsed the enemy with their very lives. These were men who had long ago resigned themselves to a fate worse then death. They were warriors and men of honor who had taken from them the chance to achieve honor or freedom. Today they had found honor in combat and death. Each man had freed himself in his own way and their demise only strengthened the resolve of Lord Silk.

Their lives had created a scar in the force and tap into the Dark Side. No matter how temporary the effect, Dioan Silk drew strength from the atrocity. It flooded his body and swelled across his nerve endings like the static fire of a super nova. His perceptions expanded beyond the horizon and into the sky and there, far beyond naked eye sight, he spied the source of the invading party and his resolve stole from him.

“No,” he cursed. “Bastards!”

This was no minor force. Despite appearances, Silk had not won the day but simply defeated one small portion of a much larger force. And in doing so he had revealed the presence of his forces. There would be no way for his meager reserve of a hundred plus men to repulse a force of such size. Their only option would be to go to ground…

Before Silk could come to a conclusion, however; his thoughts were interrupted.

“Incoming,” screamed one of the scout warriors from the perimeter. “In the sky!”

Silk turned his eyes towards the sky and indeed, the enemy was coming in force. And for one perilous moment, he froze…

The Empire had been far from defeated in those violent minutes that passed under the scorching sun on Yinchorr. Indeed, over two hundred of its proudest children now lay dead, but their death was not in vain. Had life been behind the eyes that stared blankly into a cloudless sky, a flurry of drop ships would have been seen descending to exact the one pennance known from end of the galaxy to end:


Vengeance.


Down came blocky-craft suited only for the task they now executed, disgorging men and material before making hasty ascents beyond what optical receptors could gaze. From them came the two-legged AT-ST walkers that were bane to pirate and rebel alike. They quickly formed pairs, then teams, massing a wall that was easily twenty strong. As if protecting something, they moved forward a few paces then stopped. Keen eyes took range of the enemy - - and drank in the details of their brothers' slaughter.


A gust of wind sent away a cloud of snad the landings had thrown up, unveiling an even larger box-type craft, then another. Three altogether sat side-by-side on the tan surface of the forgotten world, each one mocking the desolation with its polished grey-black surface. From the gaping yaw of the ugly vessels marched tall, lumbering craft easily recognized by those who would soon sit under their guns. Mounting more armor in a trio than the entire company of scout craft, the Imperial All-Terrain Assault Transports inspired fear and awe. Reddish slits allowed crew members to look out and stare.


Silence gripped the field as more and more boxes allowed gravity to aide in their duties. Heavy-repulsor tanks by the dozen filled in gaps in the line, showing 250mm barrels towards an enemy who could do nothing save marvel. Dual-gunned panzers and quick-firing FLaK waited only the order to fire.


It came soon enough from a grizzled old Guardsman seated in the centre walker, Brigadier-General Julies Aurelius Kazaar.


" Unleash hell."


So they did.