For the next few days, things were quiet. Only members of the Guard and a handful of others in the outpost knew it was the peace before the storm.
One afternoon, Athena was laying in her bed, deep in her thoughts, when the door opened and Adrianna entered. Unsurprisingly, she had a fresh bottle of alcohol in her hand.
"Thanks for giving me your ration card, Athena. I thought I still had a few alcohol cards left. I was wrong." She raised the bottle in Athena's direction as she made her way to her own bed and sat down. "You sure you don't want it? A drink can make the days so much less boring."
Athena gave the redhead a smile. Over the last few days, the two of them had become quite close. Adrianna might be one of the friendliest individuals in the Imperial Army. Make no mistake. She had her own issues. Aside from being a complete alcoholic, Adrianna had quite the PTSD and was a gambling addict. Then again, the same could be said for most within the unit. The Imperial Army wasn't a place for people to pick up good habits. Few activities were off bounds for those who could die the next day.
As many times before, Athena declined. Adrianna simply shrugged. As she opened the bottle, she mentioned what she saw on her way to grab the drink.
"I heard the two squads that left this morning just returned. One lost three men. The other lost six. I mean…I know how dangerous the outside world is, but these losses are really adding up."
Athena raised her eyebrows at the news. Nine dead in one day. She doubted all, if any, were due to what the officers claimed happened.
"On the bright side, this means we may get rotated off this world soon." Adrianna continued as she took another drink. "When we arrived, we were a full-strength company. We were at…what? 300 men? 350? How many have died since then?"
"A hundred. Maybe more." Athena replied quietly. Low-ranking troopers like her and Adrianna didn't have access to all the numbers, but they still had eyes and ears. Plus, people talk, especially given how boring life in this outpost was. "At least a third of the company is dead. You're right. Eventually, we will be rotated with a fresh company. The question is how low our numbers have to get before that happens."
"Yeah. I'd say we have to lose another few dozen men before that happens." The redhead shrugged. She had also seen her fair share of things in the Imperial Army. If they were going against an enemy like the Republic, then the higher-ups would be deploying reinforcements sooner. However, right now they were facing animals who could never pose a threat to the outpost itself, and the company still had the numbers to send out raiding parties into the wild. Knowing the higher-ups, they would be fine with waiting a little longer.
"Either way, I just hope we get rotated back to 9A2-C-8 instead of some new military base on a remote planet in the middle of nowhere." The young woman continued, casually ignoring the possibility that she might never make it off this world. "I know a few really good bars and clubs back home. Just to be clear, you do drink right, Athena? When you have real breaks?"
"Yeah." Athena simply nodded, not really knowing what to say.
"Great. And…are you into guys or girls?"
"I…" Athena raised her eyebrows, a little uncomfortable by the question. "Both?"
"Awesome. That's double the options." Adrianna raised her bottle in Athena's direction again. She could see that Athena was a little distracted. "Look, pal. I know you joined the Imperial Army to defend the Imperium. That's cool and all, but it's also important to have some fun when you can. Booze. Boys. Girls. You gotta learn to reward yourself after a deployment. We're not machines, after all. We're people, and people need time off."
"You won't find me arguing against that," Athena admitted. Adrianna did have a point, and she was planning on having some fun in this new galaxy. It was just that, unlike Adrianna, she knew that getting off this world might not be such a simple task.
As Adrianna pulled out her PEI and started reading something, Athena closed her eyes and opened the game once again. Her eyes were trained on the 13 roaches in the game. 13 Zerg beasts that could deploy into this world and start killing as soon as she gave the order. 13 units who would secure her way off this world.
In the last few days, Athena did more than just have casual conversations with her new friend. She also spent some more time exploring the system and its units as much as her circumstances allowed.
One of the things that she realized as she was poking and prodding at the units was that when she selected the roaches and entered the deployment screen, in addition to deploying the roaches at the same level as her, she could also deploy them both above and under her. Both could come in quite handy in certain circumstances. In this case, this meant Athena could deploy the roaches underneath the surface of the outpost.
In addition, roaches were one of the few Zerg units capable of moving underground. When they were underground, they still had a limited vision of what was above. This not only meant the roaches could easily move around the base and take their foes by surprise, but it also helped Athena hide the connection between herself and the roaches.
Even if the presence of the roaches was looked into in the future, they would likely be thought of as nothing more than another lifeform native to Morgo IV who happened to be attacking the outpost at a coincidental time. How would they be related to Athena Dane, a loyalist Imperial trooper lucky enough to survive the mutiny?
At this point, Athena had done all she could to increase her chances of survival when the attack would inevitably strike. Now, all she needed to do was wait for the rebels to act.
Luckily, she didn't have to wait any longer.
Just as Athena was staring at the roaches, a string of gunshots suddenly exploded from a distance away. Athena instinctively snapped in that direction. A small smile crept onto her face.
At long last…
A few minutes ago, in the command center of the outpost located at the heart of the Imperial structure, a pair of troopers turned pale as a warning suddenly appeared on the screen in front of them. The outpost's scanners had caught onto the figure of an unidentified starship. The starship appeared to be the size of a light cruiser, and it was approaching the outpost rapidly.
One of the troopers immediately informed his direct supervisor, one of the sergeants in charge of the command center. After confirming the appearance of the light cruiser and its movement pattern, the sergeant left the room, claiming he was going to fetch Captain Hanson. The others in the command center, four men and three women, waited there patiently for the commander of the company to arrive.
In a few short minutes, their commander did arrive, and he wasn't alone.
"Captain…sir what is going on?"
One of the troopers in the command center turned and greeted Captain Hanson, his words having barely left his mouth when he realized the captain was followed by four men, all of them armed with Defender-S automatic rifles designed to be used by men outside of their power armor. This was obviously odd. Most soldiers in the base weren't armed 24/7, and if they did go to the armory to fetch weapons against this unidentified intruder, then they should have put on their power armor as well. Putting on armor did take much longer than just grabbing a rifle, but the enemies were still a distance away, right?
What was even odder was that these men just raised their rifles in the direction of him and his comrades.
Captain Hanson didn't answer him. There was no point in enlightening a dead man. Instead, the four soldiers beside him pulled the trigger and opened fire on the loyalists within the command center. Within seconds, the seven loyalists were all dead. The Guard soldiers struck hard and fast, not that it mattered too much. None of the loyalists was armed.
As the dust settled, the sergeant who was previously in the command center made his way up to one of the consoles. He sighed at the sight of the body of the trooper sitting in front of the console. He was a young man who was conscripted into service. Unfortunately, this young man was also a terrible liar and was deemed to be way too risky to be recruited on this mission. Hence, he had to be put down.
It would be a lie for the sergeant to say he didn't care about the young man. They have served together for two years and the young man had always been a good lad, but there was no time for these thoughts right now. The sergeant, a veteran who had been in the Army for seven years, forced himself to focus. He tapped a few keys on the console and sent a message to the income light cruiser.
It didn't take long before a reply reached him.
"Sir," The sergeant turned to Captain Hanson. "They are deploying their ground forces now. They want an update on our situation here."
Captain Hanson nodded. He tapped his earpiece and accessed a pre-established communication channel exclusively used by the rebels.
Already, gunshots could be heard from all over the base. As soon as he received the news from the sergeant, Captain Hanson had given the go-ahead to all Guard fighters within the base. These members of the Guard have all been waiting for this moment for weeks. Unlike the loyalists, they knew exactly where to go and what to do.
"All units, status report."
"This is Sergeant Louis. Our operation has been a success. We have taken the armory and are arming ourselves, all according to the plan. As soon as we are done, we will detonate the armory and move to the hangar. We lost four men…"
"Understood. Next!" Captain Hanson cut Sergeant Louis off. He didn't have time to listen to the details, nor should he need to.
"This is Sergeant Diaz. The shuttle bay is ours. Casualties are minimal."
"Good." Captain Hanson nodded in satisfaction. "The Republic is deploying their ground troops to the hangar as we speak. Hold it until then. Next!"
A few more rebel commanders reported, and their words made the captain take a breath of relief. Overall things were going quite well across the base. The armory, the hangar, and the command center were both taken by the rebels. Multiple rebel teams have been gunning down unsuspecting and mostly unarmed loyalists at the mess hall and the bathrooms. Another squad had taken the garage and eliminated the loyalists garrisoned there. Two more squads were moving across the living quarters.
Their job was to simply neutralize as many loyalists as possible when it was the easiest to do so. The more loyalists they killed, the easier it would be for the Republic ground troops to do their job.
"Inform them that everything is going according to the plan. We have secured the hangar bay and are ready to receive their reinforcements." Captain Hanson instructed the sergeant and glanced at the four men around him. "Follow the plan and get the explosives in place. Once he sends out the message we will detonate the command center and retreat to the hangar bay."
The four men acted immediately. None of them questioned why they were destroying the command center, for they knew the answer long ago. In this facility, Instigator Kendrick and his legionnaires had higher security access than Captain Hanson. If the rebels didn't physically destroy the command center, it was possible for the Instigator to access the system via remote terminals and use it against the rebels and their allies. In fact, it was almost a guarantee.
"Sir!" Suddenly, one of the squad commanders called out in the comms. "We have spotted Instigator Kendrick and two of his legionnaires. We killed one of them but lost two men in the process."
"Where are they now?" Captain Hanson frowned. The combat squad of the Imperial Security Corps. The biggest threat to their plan. Unlike the loyalists, the legionnaires were almost always armed, and half of them were always in their power armor and stationed at the lab at any given moment. This was why the rebels never considered just storming the lab themselves. They might not win even with the numbers, and even if they did win, they would likely lose many of their numbers.
"They seem to be heading back to the lab, sir."
"Then let them be. Follow our plan and retreat to the hangar. We'll let our friends handle these Imperial zealots."
"Yes sir."
Captain Hanson turned to his men in the command center. Just as they were about to leave, a panicked cry, one that was a far stretch from the cold-calculating reports he received previously, appeared in the comms. It belonged to one of the squad leaders.
"We…we are under attack. What the bloody hell is this thing?"