Chapter 180: A desperate Attack
The talks between Daimon and the Chiss were quite successful, with both sides pretty much agreeing to each other’s demands. The Chiss wanted Daimon’s help with solving a few of their more immediate problems—food production in the urban subsurface environments and a plague that plagued one of their minor houses.
In exchange, they promised two things: first, that an official Chiss delegation would be sent to the Imperium as observers and students; second, that the Integrated Chiss Command would open its archives and allow selected Imperial scientists to observe their advanced cryotechnology. The negotiation, as with any diplomatic talk, was concluded with a meal.
After the meal, Daimon and his delegation departed, leaving behind a data packet that contained the entire educational curriculum of the youngest Imperial children. Two days later, a Chiss delegation arrived at the Imperial base, led by none other than Syndic-Aspirant Nuruodo. The Chiss proved to be more curious and adaptable than Daimon imagined. Within five days, Nuruodo and her accompanying scientist had reverse-engineered the hull plating of one of the base’s weather domes.
By another week, she had asked Cortana about the philosophical framework of the Balance Keepers doctrine.
Even Lord Maxim was surprised at how quickly the Chiss accepted the exchange of knowledge. "If we could replicate this pace elsewhere," he said to Daimon.
"The galaxy might organize itself through education alone." Daimon smiled hearing that. "Education is more effective than occupation," he replied. "The Sith understand only the latter, which is why they always fail in the end."
In the background, the Chiss and Imperial personnel began integrating. There were small incidents—differences in physical strength meant the Empyrean Guards sometimes broke the Chiss training equipment, and the Chiss scientists had to develop a new protocol for sharing archived data with an AI as advanced as Cortana—but, overall, things went well.
After two months, the Chiss invited Daimon to a gathering in the heart of their largest city, Csaplar. For the first time, foreign visitors were allowed to see the city’s true scale and organization: broad, arching avenues of bioluminescent stone, buildings constructed to maximize both privacy and efficiency, a society that valued logic and pride and had for centuries engineered its own environment to reflect those values.
Daimon watched as children played in public squares, chasing a ball that bounced from hand to hand, shrieking with laughter. A small smile appeared on Daimon’s face as it reminded him of the children back on Veldari.
He also knew that beneath this illusion, the Chiss noble houses were probably already scrambling to secure the advantages from this new relationship. Politics was as natural to them as breathing. But for the moment, it was enough just to see things like this.
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Meanwhile, on Chad things were at a stalemate for the Republic. The Imperial Volunteer Corps had taken over the fighting on the southern front, allowing the Republic regulars—many of whom were conscripts with barely more than a month’s training—to rest, resupply, and recover from their wounds. This alone had stabilized the line, but the Sith were still pressing, and they had begun deploying their own war-beasts and shock troops in great numbers.
General Corvin called another meeting to address the situation. He looked older than he had a month before, his face filled with exhaustion.
Field Marshal Vorn took one look at the charts and said, "They want us to bleed ourselves white. They keep probing, never committing fully, but always pushing just enough to keep us from organizing a counteroffensive."
Corvin nodded. "If we break, even a little, they come through. If we don’t, they just hammer us until one of us gives up."
Vorn turned to his XO, Senna Krell. "What’s the status of the Republic’s armored division to the north?"
"Two mechanized regiments intact, but they’re dug-in and low on fuel. Sith air is hitting anything that moves."
"Then we need to break the air superiority." Vorn looked to Corvin. "Do you have any Republic starfighters that survived the last run?"
"A squadron and a half, with half their pilots down or dead." Corvin’s tone was grim. "Our best ace is flying with one eye, took shrapnel in the orbital bombardment last week."
Vorn grinned. "That’ll be enough."
He outlined his plan quickly. The Sith were staging their main force just beyond the ridge, using a trio of old but heavily shielded mobile command platforms. If they could take down those platforms, the Sith would lose both their tactical overview and the ability to coordinate their droid and war-beast assaults.
"Thalos, get me a detachment of your best shock troops and a few of our own," he ordered. "We go in by night, make as much noise as possible, and then punch straight to their command center." He turned to Krell. "Senna, you’re in charge of the second wave. When the platforms are down, you push every armored unit we have through the valleys, right up the middle, and don’t stop until you reach the city limits."
Corvin looked skeptical. "You really think that’ll work?"
"Doesn’t matter," Vorn said. "It has to."
Two days later, they moved out. The Imperial and Republic special forces advanced overnight under cover of a manufactured storm.
When the storm hit, the teams moved up along the unstable ground mapped by the Chadra-Fan.
Just after midnight, Thalos and his team reached the first command platform. They used charges and precision fire to bring the shields down, then stormed the control deck in a flurry of blaster fire and thermal detonators.
The Sith commander in charge activated an emergency beacon and detonated an explosive charge, killing himself and two of his aides. The blast nearly took Thalos and his assault team with it, but they survived, crawling out of the wreckage with scorched armor.
The detonation caused a disruption in the local command signals; on every Sith-aligned droid in the region their red headlights flickered, and for a brief moment their systems malfunctioned.
Senna Krell had been waiting for that moment. She’d felt the ground shake and seen the sky—lit with a vivid electric blue color by that first detonation—before she ordered the mechanized units forward.
Across the valley, battered Republic tanks and hovercraft started up, battered and patched from previous battles but hungry for a victory. The charge was brutal, and the Sith forward lines, deprived of coordination, started to fall under the sudden onslaught.
Up above, those two squadrons of Republic fighters, led by a half-blinded ace named Vynn Marik, got themselves into the air to take on the Sith air power. They were outnumbered three to one, but they broke through anyway, sacrificing systems and sometimes themselves to create just enough of a hole for the ground forces to punch through.
The final two command platforms were taken at similar cost. The last one was defended by a pair of Sith Lords, who fought with such intensity that the entire assault team was nearly wiped out before a Balance Keeper, called forward by Thalos himself, intervened and slaughtered one of them. The other fled into the burning forests, vowing vengeance.
By dawn, the valley was theirs. The city of Neth Karas was saved, at least for now. The victory cost them nearly twenty thousand dead and wounded, but in the end, it forced the Sith back, at least temporarily.
Vorn and Thalos met at the battered ruins of what had been the command post. They stood among the burned-out vehicles and wreckage, watching the battered survivors tend to their wounded and carry the fallen into neat rows for identification.
"Still think we can’t work together?" Thalos asked.
"Not anymore," Vorn said, removing his helmet and wiping sweat from his brow. "That was a good plan, and an even better execution."
"The Republic might survive this yet," Thalos grinned. "But I get the sense this was only the beginning."
"As always," Vorn agreed. "War changes everything. Sometimes, it changes us for the better."
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In the depths of the Unknown Regions, Aruun the Unbound watched all of this from within his hive-spire. He had grown stronger with every passing week. Now, his power was multiplied by the hundreds of trillions of Killiks who worshiped him as a god.
He stared into the shadows of his sanctum, where holographic projections of the galaxy spun and shifted with every move made by the other factions. The main ones he were focused on, were the ones who opposed Daimon in the shadows also.
He was planning to use them into delivering a strong blow to Daimon. They would be pawns in his game until they were no longer needed.
Outside, the Killiks were hard at work building a massive armada and expanding their numbers. Through Aruun’s influence, they were progressing extremely fast. In a century they will be a massive force to be reckoned with.
Having watched for so long, Aruun decided it was time to start gathering pawns. So he first moved on Darth Rune and his remnants to strike a deal with them.
