7. Hostage Rescue
EYES ONLY
EXACTLY 28 DAYS AFTER RECEIVING THIS TRANSMISSION, THE REPUBLIC NAVY'S 67TH SQUADRON, 6TH FLEET (24 VESSELS) IS TO BE MOVED TO SEMI-CLASSIFIED STAR SYSTEM, COORDINATES ENCLOSED. ONE REGIMENT (2,300 UNITS) OF 501ST LEGION TO ACCOMPANY.
PLANET IS INHABITED BY SEVERAL NATIVE SENTIENT SPECIES, WHICH LACK TECHNOLOGICAL ABILITY TO LEAVE OWN PLANET. BECAUSE OF FAMILIARITY IN COUNTER-INSURGENCY, HOSTILE TERRAIN WARFARE AND ALIEN RECRUITMENT, ONE BRIGADE (9,200 UNITS) OF 41ST ELITE CORPS IS TO ACCOMPANY AS WELL, LED BY COMMANDER GREE, PENDING OTHER DEPLOYMENTS. 2 REGIMENTS (4,600 UNITS) GALACTIC MARINES TO ACCOMPANY FOR ASSAULT, LANDING AND BOARDING PURPOSES, LED BY COMMANDER BACARA.
GAR UNITS ALREADY ATTACHED TO SQUADRON ALSO REMAIN UNDER YOUR COMMAND.
BE ADVISED, LARGE PORTION OF INHABITANTS BELIEVED TO BE FORCE-SENSITIVE, BUT NOT CAPABLE OF HARNESSING ABILITIES FOR MOST PART (SEE PACKET I-04B).
REFER TO ATTACHED DATA PACKETS FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION INCLUDING OBJECTIVES.
(MESSAGE ENDS)
- Communique to commanding officer of RAS Incorruptible
***
Coruscant and Vinyl waited inside a cantina for the latter’s contact to show up. Meanwhile, several kinds of smoke wafted through the room, though the commando’s helmet filters blocked them out. One of the things the filters displayed seemed to be tetrahydrocannabinol, a psychoactive chemical that occurred in some plants.
“I should’ve brought a gas mask or something. Part of the conditions of me staying at Octy’s house is, well… I had to give up some things.” She looked at a hole the size of her hoof in one of the walls, clearly recalling some event. “Actually, I gave up on one of them willingly. That was a pretty bad trip.”
“Vinyl!” A male voice barked from a set of speakers. “You and your friend can come on back here now.”
Vinyl trotted through the crowded bar, and her friend followed her. They entered a back room, which ended in an elevator. With the mare leading he entered it, and after a brief ride they exited into an underground warehouse.
While his guide seemed at ease here, Coruscant was on edge, and absent-mindedly placed his hand on his pistol.
“Hey, relax bro,” The male voice from earlier said from behind him. Coruscant did no such thing and spun around to point his sidearm at a blackish creature, who seemed to combine avian and mammalian qualities. “Vinyl, tell your buddy to calm down,” He deadpanned.
“Coruscant, chill. This is Charcoal. He’s a griffon from the Ebon Hawk clan, and he’s a friend of mine.”
He re-holstered his weapon warily.
“Apologize, both of you.”
“Sorry for sneaking up on you,” Charcoal mumbled.
“Sorry for over-reacting,” Coruscant replied.
“Good, now deep tongue-kiss.”
“Nope.”
“No.
“Eh, I tried.” Vinyl shrugged. “Whaddaya got for me, Char?”
The griffon motioned for them to follow him. He led them to a group of large steel shipping containers near the other side of the room. One of them was open, and several smaller crates in midnight blue had been taken out of it and arranged in a neat semi-circle. He opened one to reveal a suit of white and black armor.
“You’re still the same size as last time I saw you, right?” Charcoal asked.
“Yeah?”
“Then this should fit you just fine. It’s a set of lightweight composite plates over a black bodysuit. Resistant to small-arms fire, and guaranteed to protect from CBRN threats when the helmet is sealed. This is the Mod 1 version, the Mod 2 is superior in pretty much every way, but it’s hard to get a hold of. Right now this is the best anypony can get on the black market. You uh, want me to help you put it on?”
“Sorry Char, but I know you’re a flank man. I got this.”
***
“Delta Squad, check the bodies. Access cards, keys, gear, anything we could use.”
Scorch rolled over a Trandoshan slaver after unpinning him from the ground. The unfortunate lizard’s arms had been pinned to the grass by the sleeves of its jumpsuit, with its own knives having nailed them to the dirt. There were a few scorch marks on its chest, probably from one of their rifles. He found a few thermal detonators in its pockets and put them in his own belt.
“Ooh.” He took the weapon lying by the corpse; an ACP array gun. The pump-action weapon fired accelerated charged particles in a random spread, like some slugthrowers were known to do. A powerful close-range weapon. The commando scavenged some extra ammunition and attached the weapon to a magnetic strip on his backpack before re-equipping his DC-17/m.
“Got something here, Deltas,” Fixer called out. “Looks like a transaction list. I recognize some of these names, they’re Confederacy shell companies.”
“Think they’re funding these lizards’ hunting trip, or just selling them surplus?” Sev asked.
“Inconclusive,” The hacker responded.
“So, they could just be exchanging limited edition copies of cantina music for all we know.” Scorch sighed. “Things can never be simple, can they?”
“No worries, ner vod. We still have lizards to kill,” Sev piped in.
“You always know just how to cheer me up.”
Boss extended an index finger and pointed it upwards, then spun it in a circle. The squad regrouped and readied to move.
***
This was an intense thing to watch. Luna had just seen four aliens slaughter a dozen of others methodically and efficiently. And the conversation after the fact indicated a lack of remorse; in fact it seemed to be fun to them.
But if the so-called “Confederacy” was funding slavers and scalp hunters like they seemed to be, then they were easily the darker of the two. At least these commandos’ faction, the “Republic” seemed benign, even if they employed warriors like these. Then again, who could blame them if their work made the galaxy a safer place?
I’m glad I pushed for this army. If life exists elsewhere, then we need to be able to defend ourselves from another range of threats.
A group of embattled Royal Guards appeared on Oh-Seven’s camera feed, then the others’ too.
“Boss, ponies under fire!” He announced.
“Sir, we can bypass these Trandoshans and hit their nest with less resistance if we leave them,” Four-Oh advised.
A brief pause came, which worried Luna. She wanted as few deaths as possible on her subjects’ side. It came down to mission versus morality for the aliens, and she had no expectation that they’d risk their lives for a hoof full of relatively primitive aliens. In fact, for a moment she felt she wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d left the Guards for dead.
I’ve spent too much time secluded if I could pass off lost lives, my subjects’ lives, like they were nothing. I’m not heartless for thinking that, am I?
“Deltas, friendlies need our help. Sev, Scorch, flank the attackers. Fixer, you and I’ll go up front and draw the Trandos’ fire. Move!”
***
Though he had never felt much remorse after seeing civilians die, Boss still preferred to defend them if possible. Perhaps that lack of remorse was a result of him simply being unable to save them in those cases, and if he’d let civvies die when he could’ve stopped it he would’ve felt guilt. He certainly felt satisfaction after saving lives.
Judging by the unpleasant feeling in his gut, it would be better to try and save them. And it’d only taken two-and-a-half seconds to decide.
“Deltas, friendlies need our help. Sev, Scorch, flank the attackers. Fixer, you and I’ll go up front and draw the Trandos’ fire. Move!”
“Copy, Delta lead!”
The red and yellow-marked clones moved to a position where they could fire on the Trandoshan mercenaries with relative impunity. After finding a suitable log to hide behind, they began firing.
Boss threw a flashbang at the attacking mercenaries, stunning them long enough for him and Fixer to get into position.
“Get out of here!” He yelled at the Royal Guards. The ponies were too frightened to move, so the two commandos took position near them to draw the enemy’s fire. Since they were taking cover behind a meter-high natural step, they did have a fair amount of protection, so perhaps it was more prudent for them to stay down.
A well-placed thermal detonator from Scorch obliterated several of the mercenaries and ignited another, which Sev euthanized with a headshot from his sniper rifle.
It would seem that mutually assured destruction was an idea familiar to Trandoshans, as another detonator flew towards the commandos and their fearful comrades.
“Grenade, move!”
Most of the Guards dispersed, but a couple still didn’t move. Boss wrapped his arms around their necks and moved away, while Fixer punted the explosive to a safe distance. It burst out of range, and the clones resumed firing on the lizards. After another minute of hectic combat, the enemy unit was gone.
“Form up!”
“Three-Eight?”
The commando halted, as did his squad. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure, Princess. Alright, you ponies get moving, because real warriors are here.”
“Yeah. We’re here to kick shebse and chew ration cubes.” Sev executed a merc that had feigned death with his sniper attachment.
“And we’re all outta ration cubes,” Scorch added.
With that, the Royal Guards retreated in the general direction of the town Luna was set up near. The moonlight illuminated their path, and they eventually disappeared from the clones’ vision. The squad headed towards their next objective, and reached it within a few minutes.
Boss motioned for them to hold. “Fixer, give me a remote and a control pad for it.”
Fixer handed him the fist-sized spherical drone he’d requested, and the control pad as well. He activated the device, and flew it to the house. A few orbits around the structure revealed a significant number of Trandoshans inside. By switching the filter, he detected several corpses inside, all ponies. No living ones though.
He handed the pad to Fixer, who recalled the drone and put it back in his gear. After assembling a schematic of the building, he handed the device back to his superior, who in turn searched for a good structural weak point.
It looked like a large mass of combustible material, apparently kerosene, was collected behind the house. Not a weak point, but just as good.
“Alright, there’s a tank of combustible liquid fuel behind that wooden structure, and a couple dozen lizards inside. No living civilians left either,” Boss explained. He glanced at Scorch.
“Boom?” The latter clone asked.
“Boom,” The former responded.
***
“Okay, so I’m guessing you have a plan?” Vinyl asked as she and her companion stared at a mansion from a nearby factory rooftop on the outskirts of the city. Vinyl had explained that some parts of Canterlot used to be part of a mining town that predated the capitol. Those older areas didn’t really have any zoning laws early on, which made it a really weird place to live even in the modern day; there were some normally sorted areas, and a few places where you had a private greenhouse next to a mansion, a corporate HQ and a convenience store.
“Yeah. I put some mini-EMP charges on the power lines while you were . There’re backups, but those only seem to route to the basic amenities like lights and heating. I trigger those EMPs, and it’ll be dark for a few minutes before the backups come on.”
Vinyl levitated a weapon, which looked suspiciously like the DC-15S blaster carbine used by the Grand Army of the Republic. After noting this aloud a few hours prior, Coruscant had to explain that his pistol’s designation was different, because the “S” was lowercase, although the two weapons shared many internal components. It was a similar scenario to confusing the DC-17/m rifle commandos used and the DC-17 hand blaster ARC troopers and some officer used, with a similar explanation.
He pulled out the clip on his rifle and removed the blaster attachment, replacing it with a grenade launcher one. While the primary purpose of that attachment was to fire expensive, bulky, heavy anti-armor grenades, it could also fire grappling hooks and ziplines among other things. And a zipline was exactly what he was using.
The commando attached a clamp to a part of the factory behind him, and secured the first side of the line. Then, he let loose the zip-shot and watched it spiral through the cold night air before impacting just above a window. He handed a harness to Vinyl and secured his own hook in front of hers.
Vinyl’s armor loosely resembled the older Phase I clone trooper armor, albeit fitted to an equine form. She’d put some paint on the armor, so while it was still mostly white, the torso, helmet, and flanks each had three diagonal stripes, with a red stripe in the middle flanked by two parallel blue stripes. The visor had a red stripe painted across it, probably so it’d imitate her eyes. Her tail was covered in a black glove that was sealed with the rest of the suit.
He drew his remote detonator and massaged the button with his thumb. “Lights out.” He pushed the button and shoved the device back into his belt, drawing his rifle. A nod was all he did to acknowledge the lights in the mansion had shut off.
After that gesture, he jumped and rode the zipline towards the mansion, and Vinyl followed behind him. This was one of Coruscant’s favorite methods of breaking into a building. He loved that flying sensation he got when he rode a zipline.
He could hear wind rush outside his helmet, and a few seconds before reaching the target he extended his legs. His boots shattered the glass, and he landed on the floor of a bedroom. He was on one knee and one hand, and he stood up in time to catch Vinyl.
Activating his low-light vision, he looked around and saw nobody besides him and Vinyl. However, footsteps could be heard outside, scraping against a carpet. A few seconds later, a griffon opened the door and Coruscant instinctively drove his gauntlet-blade into the creature’s skull.
He looked out the door, his blaster ready and partner behind him, and saw a few more griffons, all wielding slugthrowers.
“All using the OTs-14-1A Groza,” Vinyl quietly noted. “Usually the Trotva are the criminal group that uses those.”
“‘Trotva’?”
“Another name for the Unikrainian Mafia. They’re not actually one group, really it’s a catch-all term for the 6,000 organized crime groups from that country. More than 200 have international reach, but the one that really has a presence in Equestria is the ‘Odessaddle Mafia’. Anyway, these guys aren’t from part of that group. Probably just got a thing for Krany weapons.”
She stared at their weapons for a few more seconds. “Yeah, those are the military Grozas too. Grenade launcher and 7.62x39mm rounds. Least those are the smaller caliber ones, 9x39mm rounds scare the shit outta me.”
“My armor can take slugthrowers, I’ll take point.” He aimed down his sights and fired a pair of bursts at the guards from behind cover. “Let’s go.”
The pair began to move from room to room, searching for Octavia and clearing any thugs. Vinyl was eerily skilled at combat for a civilian, he’d definitely have to ask about that later.
Finally, after a few minutes of combat, they came to the doorway of a master bedroom, at which time the lights returned.
“Cover me.” Coruscant slipped a fiber-optic probe, something he called a “snake cam”, a standard tool for commandos prized in counter-terror operations, under the door and moved it around to survey the room. A large bed, screen, a computer, a couch, and a mare bound, gagged, blindfolded and strapped to a chair with an older mare next to her. “She’s in there. Watch my back, I’m breaching.”
He withdrew the gadget from the door and placed a low-yield breaching charge on the door. The item would blow wooden doors like this open and stun the occupants momentarily if they were close enough. A few button presses and it was armed.
A moment later, the charge detonated and the doors flew open, remaining on their hinges but blowing a small hole where the charge had been. Several bullets fired from inside the room hit the clone’s armor, but they simply flattened on his shields and dropped to the ground. Coruscant closed on her and ripped the weapon from her grip. Apparently ponies could manipulate objects without fingers and not just grab them, which still perplexed him.
After removing the weapon from play, he tossed it out the door. A pair of flex-cuffs were promptly secured around a gibbering High Note’s forehooves, their grip automatically tightening enough that the offender was unable to slip out of them.
Vinyl marched into the room, her blaster caressed by the glow of her crimson-colored magic.
The clone removed a gag from Octavia’s mouth, and she gasped for air. Then he cut the ties binding her to the chair, and removed the blindfold.
As she recognized her savior, she got onto her hind legs and hugged him, which caught him off-guard. Normally he was averse to the notion of aliens wrapping any form of limbs around him, or making physical contact with him in any way whatsoever. For some reason, this was different, and welcome.
“Coruscant! Oh thank Celestia you came. My mother is insane, and she has the worst taste in movies. We watched… I don’t even want to talk about it.” Octavia shuddered.
“Hey Octy!” Vinyl greeted her. She removed her helmet to show her face and holstered her blaster. After trotting over, she crushed her friend in a hug.
“You’re- Choking- Me!” Octavia rasped as she hugged her back.
Vinyl let go and grinned sheepishly. “Oops. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” She responded after a deep breath. “How did you get past the guards?”
“Did you miss the part where the lights were out for several minutes? Oh, right. Blindfold.” Vinyl facehoofed.
“Twelve of the guards KIA, no other casualties,” Coruscant deadpanned. “I think we should exfil. Local LEOs are probably en route, and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.”
“Wait, what?”
“He means that we need to hoof it before the five-oh gets here.”
“Oh. We should probably do that.”
***
Boss mashed the big red button on his detonator, and watched with his team- and Luna by proxy- as the structure containing dozens of Trandoshans was erased from the face of the planet by a single charge, assisted by a tank of kerosene.
After staring at the flaming husk of a structure for a few moments, the team turned away, although Scorch turned last, and reluctantly.
“You guys have no appreciation for art, you know that?” The demolitions expert groused.
“Lock it down, we’re headed for the last objective,” Boss ordered. “The stable is half a klick east, so let’s move.”
The clones sprinted to their objective, covering 400 meters in two minutes. A hundred meters from the target, Boss signaled his brothers to hold.
“Sev, take up a sniper position. Fixer, get a remote down there. Scorch and I’ll watch your backs. I want to know what we’re dealing with.” Boss delivered the orders quietly, and began to survey the area. The team followed them with similarly little noise.
“Thermals on the drone show multiple targets inside,” Fixer noted.
“How many?”
“My count, fourteen. All wets, Trandos by the looks of it. Let me switch to EM… No clankers in the target zone.”
“Ner’vode…” Sev said, a worried inflection plain to his brothers.
“Elek?” He responded. Not much bothered Sev, so when something worried him, it was a little disconcerting.
“I can see a Trando heavy babysitting six civilians.”
“Okay, I got the heavy on thermal. If he’s a heavy, the other signals must be mercs.”
“So we’re gonna storm a cramped building, where we’re taking on seven mercs and a heavy?” Scorch inquired.
“That’s about the size of it,” Came the answer.
“Well, at least the job never gets boring.”
“Sev, there’s a piece of cover thirty meters from this side of the building. Move there and wait for my order to neutralize the heavy. Scorch, Fixer, we’re moving to the back. Oya!”
Sev rushed to the spot Boss had indicated, and the rest of them snuck around to the back door of the stable. It seemed more like an inn, actually.
Scorch drew his newly acquired ACP array gun and pumped it. “Waiting on you, Boss,” He chimed.
“On three. One… Two… Three!”
Fixer kicked down the door and threw in a flashbang. The device rolled for a couple seconds before releasing a thunderous blast and a blinding flash of light. The commandos’ visors darkened for a tiny fraction of a second to compensate for the weapon’s effect, and their helmets sealed out most of the sound. The three of them rushed in.
“Tango down!” Sev shouted over the comms. A large thud came from the next room over, presumably the heavy falling to the ground.
Scorch slammed the butt of his weapon into one merc’s skull, stunning him long enough to deliver a blast to the face. The accelerated charged particles the weapon fired left small pits in the lizard’s face as they entered, and jade-colored blood exited the other side of its head. He pumped a new cartridge into place and fired another blast into the abdomen of a second Trandoshan.
Fixer slashed the neck of a mercenary wielding an LJ-50 concussion rifle, and fired a two-second burst into its chest to ensure a kill. He didn’t want to wait half a minute for the alien to bleed out. A second one attempted to stab him with the stinger-like blade on their gauntlet, which extended during the punch for extra impact. He dodged it with a sidestep and kicked the merc in the back, knocking him to the ground. A three-round burst left a black pit in the back of its head.
Boss rushed into the room where the civilians were, and stabbed one of the lizards in the forehead. The next one charged towards him, howling mad. He delivered two quick shots, one to each kneecap, and delivered an immediate coup-de-grace third shot as it fell forwards. It hit the ground dead.
The last enemy was slammed in their upper back by Scorch and fell flat on their face, and was promptly stomped on the head. “That,” He said over their private link. “Is an ex-enemy.”
“Sev, come on over,” Boss ordered through the comms. “Reload, Deltas.”
“On my way.”
After the squad reloaded their weapons, Boss turned to the frightened civilians and knelt to put himself on their level, hopefully making himself less threatening. Since the squad’s helmets had been sealed, none of their chatter had been heard by the former hostages, who as a result wouldn’t even know if they spoke Basic.
“Are you alright?” He asked them.
“Y-yes?” An older male answered hesitantly.
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Okay, that was cool. Gotta love the Commandos. They are the closest things to Mandalorians the Republic would ever have.
And this is why I love the commandos. They are there to kick ass, and they are very good at their jobs.
1926427
To be fair, in the movies, it's explained that Jango Fett was Mandalorian.
So...yeah.
1927071
Thanks man.
1926880He was a hired bounty hunter, technically. The moment the contract expires without being renewed, he's off to the highest bidder(as long as it is a job he'd do).
1927271
Original point still stands.
1927550Yes it does.
I just had a really, really horrible thought.
If Equestria exists and is known about in the Star Wars universe...
...what happens when Order 66 comes around?
They are shipping the 501st (aka Vader's Fist) there, after all...
Were ___, and "There are" cannot be abbreviated in writing.
I'd love to see it explained in future chapters why the Equestrian black market has gear that looks suspiciously like Republic tech if they are incapable of spaceflight and years behind the galactic curve technologically.
Octavia, if you were about to say "Episode One" I am leaving you there with your mother. Capische?
Oh boy, dat shotgun melee. If this was a situation in-game, I would just run around the room bopping Trandos in the nose with that wonderful rapid melee.
1929103
I dunno why.
The Scorch moments you have in here...leave me speechless.
I can only offer you a brohoof and an excited smile.
/)
1929787
Here's a terrifyingly awesome Scorch moment from the actual game.
"No terminal can match my 1337 H4X0R skills!" - Sometimes said when hacking a terminal (I shit you not bro)
1929103
Oh, and that melee in the back of the head? That's an actual in-game melee in Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. You run up behind a dude and press the reload/melee button, and your character smacks the target's head, knocking them to the ground, and then stomps on their head. It's badass.
1929867
If only they made Fixer say that...Oh the lost opportunities...
This is great, seeing as how they screwed over the last novel and we never got a Republic Commando sequel.
1930393
A sequel to the game was planned, but they never made it for some reason. Sev was gonna be revealed to be alive.
1931618
Which is why this is all I got!
GO GO GO!
1929867 i dont think i get it. what word is 1337 supposed to be?
edit: never mind i Googled it
2232060
dude, its at the Truth and Reconciliation mission where Chief rescues the captain, there's a short slide where everything goes white and there's a writing at the lower right part of the screen, it says: shut up and get behind me... sir
2232257 Ah thanks. You see the Star Wars: Kotar I and II reference?
2232257 Ah thanks. You see the Star Wars: Kotar I and II reference?
WHAT THE FIERFEK A REPUBLIC COMMANDO AND MLP CROSSOVER WHAT THE FIERFEK?
2392367 I have to go with the stranded answer, Why not?
Good gods man, you do realize that FiMFiction doesn't have achieveables for making all the references, right?...Right...?
1931618 thats because an amazing writer wrote a trilogy based off the game. Some of the best books ever
The Ebon Hawk? I see what you did there... Davik.
Yeah. We’re here to kick shebse and chew ration cubes.” Sev executed a merc that had feigned death with his sniper attachment.
“And we’re all outta ration cubes,” Scorch added.
That reference
Ooooh OT Groza, interesting gun choice.