[h2][center][b]Part 1: Tal'galar[/b][/center][/h2]
[indent][i][b]Civilian Security Shelter 226, Eres III, 3962 BBY[/b][/i][/indent]

Pvt. Dacken Chume stood at his post watching the procession of faces moving past to get into the safety of the shelter. The sky above was illuminated with thousands of flashes as the Mandalorian fleet engaged the Republic in the opening moves that would decide the fate of the planet. Pvt. Chume wasn't even a soldier in the republic, he was part of the local militia never really intending to actually do any actually work. He looked like and was a businessman trying to play soldier: armor was disheveled made of pieces that they just had happened laying around in the barracks, face worried and anticipating the worst. The people that walked by him looked no better it was late in the evening when the evacuation order went out and they rushed from their homes to the nearest shelter as protocol ordered. They wore simple linens and robes, hair disheveled, tired faces masked with the ambiguity of a fear that at any moment it could all end. 

They had all heard of the stories from Althir III, Vanquo, among countless others that all fell to the fury of the Mandalorian war machines. They heard the horror stories from Serroco of a planet consumed by nuclear fire, an entire planet rendered to nothing more than a wasteland of ash and bone. But those places had been so far away, they were outer rim problems nothing that concerned the well to do civilians of the core worlds. The politicians and officials of the Republic assured them that the problem was contained. They all believed that a group of nothing more than pirates and raiders could match the Republic military in battle and yet everyday they were losing ground. The faces of the children that passed Chume maybe no older than six or seven reflected cold and scared looking about with uncertainty clutching toys to their chests. The face of a galaxy consumed in war and threatening to teeter off the brink.

Dacken looked to his right where the real republic officers were talking to their new allies the Jedi. Jedi they were a welcome sight to the man's eyes at least, after more than a decade of leaving it to the Republic, the protectors of the galaxy where stepping in to lend a hand. Dacken heard rumors among some of the others that they were actually a splinter group that broke off, after the old Jedi refused to let them go and help the republic. Well Jedi or ex-Jedi or whatever Dacken really didn't care what mattered was that they were here helping, no matter the concerns that had been arising about the order in the years preceding they still helped calm the populace. They say that the one leading them, the one called Revan was a tactical genius and that with Revan's plans and loyal army following that the Republic could fight back agianst the scourge. At the moment though dreams of great victories were far and few between right now they had to  just surive the night against the onslaught that would come. 

The crowd flinched naturally as a loud and thunderous boom was heard off in the distance. The private watched as a large object went racing into the sky a trail of smoke behind it, a grey patch in the black of night. One of the planetary defense cannons no doubt, the Republic had pushed the concentration of these large defense installations on worlds most susceptible to the next wave of Mandalorian invasions to prevent another atrocity like Serroco by weakening Mando air superiority. They acted as large coil guns firing 3,000 ton hunks of metal into the sky at 4% the speed of light having enough force to punch a hole through any warship be it Republic or Mandalorian. Dacken counted under his breath up to thirty seconds and then another large and fiery light filled the night sky as the the slug found purchase in a target somewhere far above. He thought about how it would feel to be on the receiving end of one of those shots.

[indent][b][i]Low Orbit, Eres III, Mandalorian Dreadnought Hettyc[/i][/b][/indent]

The Hettyc rumbled as the adjacent destroyer was consumed in a fiery explosion as it was struck with a heavy shell from Eres III. The explosion buffeted the ship as scorching hot metal smashed against its hull. The Captain of the Hettyc an aging Rodian by the name of Tortt Renn gripped his console to prevent himself from being flung across the bridge. The bridge was coated in a red haze as warning sirens flashed and robotic voices announced a thousand and one problems to the Captain. He had to give the republic dogs at least some credit they were starting to learn and this was the hardest fight that they had put up yet against them. The Republic fleet was well organized and waiting for them preventing a mass drop of troops to quell the planet in a quick manner as became the standard of the Mandalorian advance. No they had them deadlocked in a gruesome tug of war where the Republics superior numbers would mean they would just win by sheer attrition. It was almost as if they were battling a completely different foe than the one they had grown accustomed to.

[b]"Status Report!"[/b] He called to his battered bridge crew as they hoisted themselves off of the floor and away from sparking consoles to get back into battle stations. The reports that came back was not exactly the ones that they he wanted to her. Being at the front of the fleet they had experienced the brunt of the fighting and it was beginning to show, shields were down, two of four turbolaser batteries were down, fires were raging through the lower levels. To make manners worse the damn captain of the of Republic Warship Resurgence was hounding down upon them having set his lagging and dying prey in his sights and moving in for the kill. No matter how Renn had tried to maneuver the Hettyc between the debris and chaos of the battle the Resurgence always found its mark and almost upon clockwork volley after volley slammed into their hull. In short they were a floating coffin waiting for the final nail to be struck and done. If it was any other circumstance the Rodian would of laughed at the irony of it all as know he knew how all those Republic captains felt in the early years of the war, stuck, cornered with nowhere to go and death looming ahead of him.

Yet he was not a coward he was a warrior and warriors died fighting. He yelled for all energy to be diverted into the engines and directed the Hettyc on a collision course with the Resurgence. The Resurgence most have figured out what was happening as the volleys against them began to intensify as it slowly began to attempt to move out of the path of the flaming dreadnought hurtling with a death wish towards them. The Hettyc whined and rumbled as metal buckled and consoles sparked fire breaking out on the bridge and Renn being thrown to the ground in one of the volleys and yet it pushed forward. The warning sirens intensified as systems began to go critical and yet it pushed on. Another volley this one a direct hit upon the bridge, Renn died within an instant along with the rest of the bridge crew consumed in a fireball vaporised with a grin upon his face and yet the crippled ghost ship still moved, engines still blaring and the Resurgence could not get out of the way in time as the nose of the dreadnought smashed into the side of its hull before the entire ship exploded taking the republic warship with it in a tremendous explosion.  

[indent][b][i]Mandalorian Transport, Atmospheric Entry, Eres III[/i][/b][/indent]
The transport shuttle swerved hard to avoid the resulting explosion of a direct collision between a Mandalorian and Republic Warship as it made course corrections to continue its descent. Rika stood near the back closest to the cockpit her eyes closed as she could feel the metal rumble beneath her feet as they grazed the explosion, hand gripping the handrail above her. The transport was sparse and spartan in its design much like the rest of Mandalorian designs a few benches and some handrails, no emblems or designs just sparse metal. The team was all geard up and ready to move. The ride had been quiet not that it was to be unexpected when you were about to jump into the jaws of death the time for pleasantries and jokes could come later. Underneath the helmet sweat was forming where skin first met with the hair on her head as even though the shock trooper was state of the art and she wouldn't knock it's granted protection they still hadn't fixed the problem of making the occupants become cooked meat inside of them, heat, sweat all of it stayed within and stuck to the skin with a thick stench that after a week of combat became almost unbearable.

She looked over her team, a mixed group ranging from a Zabrak with a thing for giant guns to an HK unit obsessed with the perfect way to kill people at 2,000 yards or more. They were a bit of a black sheep among the Shock Troopers and the butt of more than a few jokes but none could argue that they didn't get results. Rika prided herself on the fact that every mission she had been given had ended in a completed objective no matter losses or the problems presented to them. In that time Rika had received the reputation of being an ice cold bitch in the process but results were results even if the Squad continually had to cycle in new members at a rate that would put most armies to shame due to the types of missions they were sent on. This time it seemed it would be no different, Mynock was one of many Shock Trooper Squads being dropped in before the main force to tell with set objectives before the main invasion force could land. They were one of the lucky teams to have to take out of of the Planetary Defense Cannons of the dark side of Eres III to give their warships some breathing room. 

Rika was thrown to the right only her arm keeping her rooted in place as the transport titled almost entirely to its right. Their pilot was a Trandoshan nicknamed Crash who flew as if he was intending to live up to his namesake as Trandoshan tribal music blared in the cockpit filling the silent space was a heavy percussive based beat. The transport jerked flying through debris and swerving out of the way of turbolasers as they left the battle far behind them and began to enter the atmosphere. The ship rumbled upon reentry as it pushed past air the fraction heating the metal and making the already scorching hot hold about twenty degrees hotter as the rumbling increased to a fever pitched before it leveled out. To those manning the anti-air defenses on the ground it was simultaneously the moment they were dreading and anticipating as several dropships broke through the clouds and came racing planetside. The volley of turbolasers followed soon after firing up and filling the sky with a bright and fiery red hitting some of the transports, a few exploding before they could drop of their living cargo. At about 11,000 meters up, a green light went off and the Trandoshan yelled back that it was time to jump. The back of the shuttle upon letting in a whoosh of cold air as the night sky of Eres III was opened up in front of them. Rika moved to the front of the craft and tapped two fingers against her helmet twice it was a signal two fingers to designate landing zone radius and double tap to signaled the amount of time they had to regroup before they moved out. She then jumped off the edge heading head first towards the planet below.

She felt the air rush past her pulling her arms close against her body going rigid as she came flying towards the ground. The training of former instructors blared through her head on repeat if only as a small comfort even as chaos erupted beyond her. The falling debris of shuttles that were hit falling from above as return fire came up to meet them shredding through some poor soul ahead of her being shred to pieces. The built in HUD display in her helmet started reading information at a breakneck pace taking in vitals and the scene below marking the radius of the designated landing zone marked in a yellow circle. More importantly a gauge on the left hand side calculated her descent and the distance to the ground the number decreasing rapidly. She watched that number intently as she swerved to the right and the left in a zig zag to put off any pursuers with a tilt of her body, high altitude free falls where something of a very precise technique in training a quarter of all recruits die on their first jump because they deployed their packs just a meter too late or too early. Cleaning up somebody that hits the ground too hard was not a pleasant experience, it involved a lot scraping up splattered bits. 

The leader of Mynock Squad saw the gauge fall into the "sweet spot" and with a flick of the wrist activated her jetpack thrusters blaring behind her as she began to tilt upwards slowing her descent. This was the hardest point which required more luck than anything else as during the last period of descent you were the most vulnerable to enemy fire as not many course corrections could be made out of fear of not being able to slow down in time. As she came down she looked out upon the planet they were to invade varied geography a mixture of forest, plains, plateaus and hills with large fields of Xoxin growing as far as they eye could see. She saw their target in the distance to the Northeast upon a large plateau there was a huge cannon pointed towards the sky surrounded by a large complex of lights and buildings. Her attention was drawn back towards the ground as she broke through the top layer of trees that dropped her into the forest below into a small clearing. She landed cutting the pack and quickly pulling out her Assault rifle sweeping the surroundings for moment but being met with only silence. 

She looked skyward as more dots got closer and landed in the surrounding area other shocktroopers some probably members of her squad as the transports faded away into the night. They were stuck there now at least until they were able to swing air superiority back into Mandalorian hands. Turing her comm device on and switching it to squad based communications she spoke calmly. "Mynock one has landed, repeat Mynock one has landed. I'm two clicks west from the center point. Form up on my location ASAP."