Corellian Sector

Nar Shaddaa was far from Mandalorian and Vegemite space, but as a popular haven for smugglers and criminals, it paid to have eyes and ears there; and so it was with Clan Intelligence. Normally the day to day politics of worlds wouldn't be so much as a blip on the radar, but certain things caught the attention; an entire local district that had begun to show signs of cult behaviour, yet without any noticeable reaction from the gangs or the cartels having their territory infringed upon. That was worthy of note, it meant someone with serious muscle had taken up residence.

The scout mission sent to the Smuggler's Moon hadn't taken long to discover the source of the disturbance; Sith. More precisely, a cult of Ren, as the Mandalorians of Clan Australis understood it, they were an offshoot of Sith philosophy. If the Yuuzhan Vong were Kaine's first and greatest enemy, the Sith were a close second, and the warriors of his clan had fought the darksiders many times across hundreds of battlefields. They had developed tactics and equipment to best counter Force using warriors, and they had married state of the art technology to the hardest edge of martial training.

Kaine himself had taken personal command of the mission, using rank to bully any objections into silence. He would go in personally, with his Jare'rami'kade. They would be supported by a full battalion of rifle troops, with air support provided by the Clan. Intelligence had provided the locations of the enemy's sensor grid, though they had not been able to penetrate deeply enough into the city to locate defences. Kaine had been clear that the enemy were to have no warning, even if it meant going in somewhat blind. He had learned not to underestimate this enemy, and he did not intend to fight fairly. The cult's headquarters could not be more obvious; a giant obsidian and crimson tower in the center of the cult district.

The mission counter ticked down as the X-wing half squadron came in on a low attack run through a deep canyon to the west of the Sith's central tower. All over the district, the city's defences lit up. They would be ready for the stupid attackers who thought they could sneak up on the Disciples of Ren. At the peak of the central Sith tower, the Grand Master of the order caught the alert. He was unamused, and his order was immediate. 'Destroy them.'

As the X-wings came over the district, making strafing runs that looked effective, but mostly jinking and juking to avoid ground to air fire, Kaine ducked behind a wall with his squad, head down while the fighters roared overhead, seeming to barely clear the buildings. Two Gurlanin, a Ryn and a Besalisk; Eltanin and Darzeka, Saphi, and Bors, accompanied their Alor, all clad in various plates of black and green, and armed to the teeth. They all crouched in an alley as the dummy run came in and the city's defences all unmasked themselves. Before they could count to five, the fighters all screamed away to the east, leaving a silence in their wake.

Then the bombers arrived. Four Werlaara-class stealth bombers, floating down from directly overhead, had all marked the locations of all the city's defences, quad laser emplacements, turbolasers, ion cannons, sensor grids, and shield generators. Cruising along miles above the district, they all released their ordnance and climbed back to space on minimal propulsion, having never so much as blipped any of the planet's scanners, nor those in orbit above.

On the ground, some of the scanners did detect the falling bombs, but with no point of origin, they were dismissed as glitches or atmospheric interference, and besides, the bombs themselves were stealthy enough. The results of two dozen heavy penetrators landing almost simultaneously across the district were suitably impressive; though Kaine and his squad were all crouched and in cover. The shockwaves of the detonations pulsed dust and hot wind through the cityscape all around them, filling the streets with a grey fog. Kaine looked up and could see fires in the distance. The smoke from those could only add to the confusion.

The last package dropped from orbit, looking like the modified cargo container it was. Fitted out with a basic heat shield for re-entry, thrusters, and a very basic control and guidance system, the box did what it was rigged up to do, drop from space to surface as quickly as possible, without destroying itself. Its arrival was what Kaine and his troops were waiting for. Saphi was the first to spot the Bral visually as it fell towards its target; the tower. A suitably Mandalorian invention, the Bral was armored and shielded, and filled with Ysalamiri. It could block out an area hundreds of meters in diameter from the Force itself, a great equalizer for the Mando'ade. As soon as it rocketed down toward the tower, thrusters flaring to slow its landing to a comfortable bump, the Mando'ade all sprang into action.

The five warriors were dwarfed by the massive open space and the huge tower looming above them. A moment later, all hell broke loose as a horde of screaming cultists began pouring from the tower's base. Red lightsabers flickered to life inside the crowd, held by black robed acolyes, masked warriors of this cult of Ren.

Forces:
Cult of Ren
1 Grand Master
10 Masters
100 Acolytes
10000 Cultists

Clan Australis
Kaine
Four Supercommandos
1 Rifle Battalion

Others
TBA

The ground battle had drawn the cultists out of their base by the thousand, and pinned down from three sides by volley fire from the Clan's rifles, they were being picked apart. The accurate fire had taken a significant toll on the Acolytes who directed and led the swarm of screaming lunatics, so much so that Kaine saw one or two armoured warriors exiting the tower. These would be the leaders, the senior members of this cult, they were far more dangerous prey, and they were the ones he wanted to take down. A comm message caught his attention as he bisected a charging cultist, dropping below the man's axe swing and slashing the Darksaber right to left from his left hand.

Time to move, boss. Bors's voice in his ear. Time was up. The five of them activated their jetpacks as one and shot into the air, heading up out of the Plaza and towards the tower top. Ground fire came their way, though it was random and light, as the rifle battalion continued to attrit the huge enemy force that was still pouring out of the Ren's base into the smoking, body strewn plaza. Kaine and his Jare'rami'kade flew well above the battle and made it to the top of the tower, quickly gunning down the cultists they found there trying to break into the Bral.

A moment later, the X-wings returned, dropping proton bombs over the plaza, now free of anti-air defenses, creating a massive staccato detonation that killed hundreds of the enemy with each blast, cratering the ferrocrete and setting bodies and debris on fire with the heat from the explosions. Free to engage at will, the fighters expended the rest of their munitions onto concentrations of enemy, and made strafing runs with their wingtip lasers. All through this, the rifle battalion continued to engage the enemy from their rooftop perches, well supported from above.

At the top of the tower, the commandos held off the enemy force trying to charge up the main stairwell that led to the tower's flat rooftop. There were no Acolytes or any other Force users among the horde of crazies that continued to make the doomed attempt to retake the roof. The Bral had clearly rattled the Ren, taking away the Force, and any confidence they might have possessed, as Kaine had planned. He wished he'd had enough of them to cover the entire tower and the plaza too, but Ysalamiri were just too rare and precious too use so profligately, and this was a proof of concept mission for the Bral. He could build more.

He was about to order the infiltration team to proceed into the tower when he caught Bors swearing into his comm before the Besalisk turned to look at Kaine, always a bad sign when they all wore helmets that gave 360 degree vision; the unspoken movement spoke volumes to Kaine's practiced eye. Something foul smelling had hit the fan; he knew that in his gut. Bors' voice came over the private channel a moment later.

There's an Executor-class destroyer coming around Hutta and it's headed in this direction. Kaine swore himself. The Ren?

Bors replied. That'd be my guess too. We need to get the kriff out of here, boss. Kaine didn't argue, having come to the same conclusion himself. They couldn't repel firepower of that magnitude.

Tell Sharpe to pull his battalion out now. They can send a LAAT for us in the final wave. Bors nodded, and switched to the command frequency for the Clan and began relaying Kaine's orders. Kaine reloaded Erymanthian and stepped up beside the rest of the squad, holding the stairs. He fired each shot carefully, expending his anger and frustration onto the enemy. Borked. His own ship would be sending down transports to evacuate the ground force now, and then they'd have to jump to lightspeed before the damned Executor blew them all to space dust. Kaine was pissed, though he had no one to blame but the enemy for having played their hidden card. He was grateful he'd have a chance to repay them.

Though it had been only minutes since his team had taken the rooftop, the stairwell was choked with blood and bodies already. The tower's occupants, the Cult of Ren, had bodies to spare, and had sent wave after wave of armed cultists into the fire. The Clan was winning the shabla battle, they'd made a near perfect surprise attack, drawn the enemy into the open and decimated them, cut off their leaders from the Force, and were about to assault their citadel, and now they had to retreat. It was infuriating, but Kaine wasn't going to throw his warriors' lives away against a foe they couldn't hit back at. There would be a reckoning, and soon, but not now.

Rockets flew down from descending gunships, laying into the tower and the cultist horde on the ground both. Each gunship circled the plaza, emptying its weapons into the enemy force before landing on a rooftop to pick up elements of the 7th Battalion. The rifles fell back in good order, slowly reducing the amount of fire coming down into the plaza as they retreated by squad to the gunships which would take them back up to the Wild Boar. A single gunship hovered alongside the tower top, come to take off the Marshal and his Jare'rami'kade. Kaine sat on the step, Bors holding his backplate with one hand, firing down at the cultists until the LAAT climbed out of range. Then he let the Besalisk pull him into the cabin as the gunship made secure and climbed up to space.

Setting:
Corellian Sector, cityscape, large open flat ferrocrete plaza surrounded by high buildings, at the far end of which stands a large obsidian and crimson tower
Clan Australis retreating to space to escape enemy Executor-class

Forces:
Cult of Ren
1 Grand Master
10 Masters
20/100 Acolytes
5000/10000 Cultists

Clan Australis
Kaine
Four Supercommandos
1 Rifle Battalion

Others
TBA