Alone in the dark, dank, and damp cave, the head of the Palpatine family meditated upon recent events. Kell had thought that the taking on if this mission without the support of the Imperial Scholar Guard was odd, bit he had changed it up to the Emperor not wanting the non-Force users to know about the addition of this planet to the domain of the Cocytus Empire. Instead, it seemed that Xen's strange behavior was a symptom of his being taken over by an entity.

Now, it was time to save his friend and fellow Palpatine along with insuring the long term sovereignty of the Empire. With the entire clan stuck on this planet, Dante couldn't fathom what was going on within the various Imperial bureaucracies that the higher members of the clan ran on a daily basis. A Dante had been at the helm of the club's ground forces for over a decade, and they wouldn't take too kindly to having their commanding officer being announced as killed in action without a body.

Luckily, the Adept had been by himself on a solo recon mission when the betrayal was revealed. Unlike many if his compatriots, Kell wasn't trapped deep underground, and this was his salvation he thought as he made his way past the entrance to the underground mining system and up to higher ground.

The craggy features of the hilltop rose up in stark contrast to the darkness of the cave that Dante had been encased in for the past few days. The Adept shrugged off his combat pack and sat down on one of the larger rocks. After rummaging through the pack for a moment, Kell pulled out the piece of equipment that he was looking for: a transmitter that Ferraro had given him years ago when he first joined the Shadowstalkers. It was still shrinkwrapped in the original packaging, and the Field Marshal unwrapped it and flipped on the activation switch. It powered up quickly, and the system seemed to be transmitting.

Now that that was done, Kell pulled out his personal shelter and set it up to wait for the rescue craft that was hopefully on the way. He chuckled to himself as he figured this would be a great time to catch up on his reading.

Light turned to dark then back to light as the trooper awaited his pickup. Just before sunset, a speck appeared on the horizon and began heading towards Kell. Blending in with the encroaching darkness, the Zulu class shuttle covered the distance quickly before it flared its engines and hovered above the transponder. Dante crawled out of his shelter and waved to the flight crew as the ramp lowered for him to hop aboard.

After grabbing his gear, Kell hopped onto the shuttle and grasped the officer's hand who greeted him in the transport hold.

Ferraro smiled and said "Good to see you, kid. Ready to go?"

Shaking his head, Dante responded with "Let's see how many people we can find first. After that... We take back our Empire."

Betrayal

Over the years in the Brotherhood
Quit common is this dark act
Missions foiled by many a mood
Always an assurance of fact.

Started off to make the pirates pay
For their crimes and destruction
Whose job was it to say
Let us not fall prey to separation

First the young ones would stray
A trickle of blood was taken by each
Tenuous bonds between them did fray
Soon the alliance was in full breach

Defeat would come to the Palatinae or Sadows
Each had their own cares
As if no one would rise from the shadows
To take what is rightfully theirs.

The Long Run

Darkness surrounded him as as looked out overr the deserted landsape before him. Although it had a been a rough few weeks, Dante was ready to go home to a nice warm bed and turn in this artifact that seemed to be one of the major reasons for this excruciatingly long mission. The LZ wasn't too much further, but the local fores and Sadowites were making it hard to get off world before being over taken by either of the pursuing groups.

Whatever the in Dante's pack was must be something fairly important as it absolutely glowed in the Force. That didn't bode well for his chances to get through the hunter teams from Naga Sadow, and the various local forces had joined the hunt to make it even more interesting to extricate himself from this situation.

Terrain was a major issue for speed of movement, but it did help with cover and concealment as Dante made his way along a crevice that descended further down the large hill. Just as Kell thought that he might have been able to evade his enemies, they were waiting for him at the bottom exit of the crevice.
Blaster bolts came raining down from the crest of the hill to his left, but Dante kept crawling long until he reached the relative safety of the next ridge line.

After Kell crested the ridge, he used the Force to bound to the next line of rock formations, but all the Obelisk found was another group of local forces that were trying to kill all of the Force users that were stealing from the pirates.

Turning to shoot, Dante fell onto his back and let loose another barrage that pinned down one group of enemy forces, and he launched a couple of grenades from his AXM-50 at another squad that was trying to flank him. Glancing at hit map, Kell knew that he was close, and he launched another salvo of grenades at the first group since the fire had stopped from the flanking squad. The large man knew that he was a big target, but this was going to be his only chance as he could feel the Sadowites beginning to close in on his position.

The Field Marshal made a run for the LAAT, and he hoped that he had done enough that they would be able to clear out for the air cover started laying down a bombardment on their heads.

Dante jupe daboard the LLAT and smiled. Finally, he was able to get on this rock. “Give me a comm unit! Now!” he yelled as he made his way up to the cockpit of the transport. “This is Nightstalker Five... Commence bombardment of grid coordinaes Whiskey Tango 55540 by 40032.... once agan.... commence bombardment at Whiskey Tango 55540 by 40032... End transmission.”

The leader of the clan's ground forces looked over at his men and said “So.... free booze for all of you guys at Big Daddy's when we get back!”

The men cheered to the conclusion of yet another successful mission.

Silent Death from Above
by Dante

Ptolomea
Jormungand Quarry
MAAT Dropship

Darkness was their friend as the troop laden dropship flew at near ground level at high speed over the grassy terrain on Ptolomea.

As far as most combat drops went, this one was tame as no laser blasts or heat seeking projectiles shot up from the sky to greet them as they approached their target, but the team knew that they would be engaged with enough trouble in just a few minutes.

Each trooper went about their normal combat gear check as they approached their landing zone. Calm and collected, each of the members of the 90th Legion had been picked by their Field Marshal and former Quaestor for this mission.

The green light popped on, the ship slowed, and quickly flared to a near stop as it hovered above the ground. The doors on either side opened, and the door gunners brought their weapons up at the ready.

“GO! GO! GO!” yelled the dropmaster as the dozen troopers dressed in dark gray armor and one lone figure dressed in all black dove from the aircraft just as it began picking up speed again.

The last man out rolled as he hit the ground and brought his rifle up to his face searching for targets. “This is Shadowstalker Lead… On ground and moving to target,” said Dante as the group formed a column and headed out for the cave that held their target.

Looking at the HUD inside his helmet, Dante could see that they had landed in the correct LZ, and their main target was just 2 klicks away. Darkness shrouded them as they made their way to the communications station. The internal feuds that had occurred over the years in Scholae Palatinae were occasionally bloody, but this one was hopefully going to be over quickly. There were too many external threats with the rise of the New Order and the recent destruction of the capitol of the New Republic.

The forward air controller unpacked his gear and aimed the targeting beam on the door of the cave.

Suddenly, a heavy rocket appeared as if conjured from the shadow world and slammed through the heavily guarded blast doors. Penetrating down into the mine shaft before exploding, the large warhead decimated both the guards and the various remaining members of Excidium.

Dante and his men could hear the screams of the wounded, but these stopped as the area was bombarded with turbolaser fire from orbit. What was remaining of the area of the quarry had been reduced to pretty much slag.

The comms NCO looked over at the Field Marshal and said” Sir, what are we doing?"

“Time to bug out. Call in the dropship for a quick pickup, and let’s get the hell out of here,” said Dante as the smoke continued to rise from the enemy forces.

The MAAT came roaring across the plains of Ptolomea. A swath of enemy forces had been cut to provide a very narrow track through which the MAAT could safely grab the assault team from the primary LZ.

"Old Foes"
Cocytus System
Judecca
Isle of Dleacht
Construction Site

The shuttle landing pad was one of the first things built on the island by the engineers of the Imperial Scholae Guard once Field Marshal Dante had selected the location for the new headquarters of House Imperium. It had been the busiest place on the island until the secondary landing locations had been constructed around the various new complexes that were being placed on the island. For the past couple of weeks, it had only really served the senior officers of the Guard, but now it was serving the personal shuttle of the Voice of the Brotherhood and former Proconsul of Scholae Palatinae, Evant.
Evant stepped off the shuttle and headed over to the waiting Dante. “I was just stopping by to see the Emperor when he asked me to personally bring this to you. He says that we couldn’t trust the communication system,” he said as he handed Kell a datapad that contained a list of targets.
The University of Teyr was on the target list. Located not far from the Dante’s estate, Petitor, Umbrarum, Kell knew it quite well. “Thanks, Evant…” Kell opened his comm and said “I need a lift to the mainland. Let’s get going… signal the estate and have a platoon of the 90th ready to deploy upon my arrival.”
One hour later
University of Teyr
The plan was simple. Dante had set up snipers on the rooftops of eight of the buildings around the campus. Each team was on the lookout for the various members of the attack team that had been listed on the disc.
“Fire!” yelled the Field Marshal over his comms as he saw the pair of terrorists heading for the quad area where hundreds of students gathered to eat their lunch and study under the shade of the green canopy of trees. Almost instantaneously, projectiles impacted the sides of each terrorist’s skull. Grey matter and blood shot through the air as the two crumpled to the ground.
Running across the quad, Dante pulled out one of his DL-44’s and put a well placed shot into a robed figure that was walking out of the library. A headshot left little of the human’s features intact, but it was enough to stop the human from continuing his attack.
With the destruction being held to a minimum, the members of the Imperial Scholae Guard looked around at the civilians who were hiding behind the various structures in the quad. “Everyone please head to your own domiciles and await further instructions from the local police and security forces.”
One of the corporals of the platoon that had come with Dante kicked the corpse of one of the enemy terrorists, but Dante yelled “NO!” just before the body exploded and shook the entire square. The young soldier disintegrated, and the blast encompassed an area of at least forty meters in a wide circle.
Dante picked himself up off the ground and was visibly shaken. This new mixture of groups was not only in it for the destruction, but they were all ready to become martyrs for the cause. Hitting his commlink, Kell said “All units… use EOD teams when touching any of the enemy KIA’s… they’re rigged to blow with some type of explosive. Dante out.”
This wasn’t the norm for most of the groups that Dante had faced over the years, but it seemed to be the new modus operandi for the terrorists of the Cocytus system. A new battle had begun…

Manually added by SWL Xen'Mordin Vismorsus-Palpatine

Manually added by SBM Evant Taelyan