SUBMITTED BY: LT Pavz / Kappa 1-1 / VSD Striker
HOLONET REGISTRATION: <PAVZ99@aol.com>
SUBMITTED ON: 2000.03.12

With a roar or the repulsor lifts a great cloud of dust was blown up from the parched earth as the imperial landing craft Skylark landed. The tall, foreboding figure of Colonel Gammo stepped out onto the terrain. His black battle suit and armor made him appear to be invincible. He was part of an elite stormtrooper unit known as the "Death Angels". They were all Force adept and had been trained in every combat imaginable. The Colonel approached the Imperial Commando unit positioned behind a hastily constructed barricade of wrecked walkers. "What do you have to report, Captain?"

"One of the remaining units of the rebels are still holed up in part of the command center," Captain Feark of the 22^nd imperial commando platoon explained. "We’ve attempted an assault on the bunker but their men are well armed and we can’t get close enough without them picking us off."

The Death Angel could not but fail to see the truth of the captain’s report, for the bodies of several commandos lay unmoving in the dust between the makeshift barricade and the crumbling walls of the command center. Although the rebels had been for the most part suppressed on Pergitor, pockets of resistance from those loyal to the rebellion still held out against the Imperial forces across the planet. Most had been crushed, but here the rebels’ position was simply too strong, and so the Death Angels had been called in.

"You may need to call for more men, sir" said Feark, looking at the 12-man squad of elite stormtroopers.

The Death Angel colonel pulled himself to his full height and glared down at the commando. "You insult us, worm," he snarled. "I will have words with you after we deal with the rebels."

With a signal from their leader, the squad pulled out their weapons and formed into a tight formation. Charging the command center, the Dark Jedi let loose fire with their repeater rifles. Already weakened by the tank bombardment the side of the structure gave way and the Death Angels burst right into the heart of the rebels’ rathole. Without a pause for thought about their actions the elite warriors began blasting away at the rebels and cutting into them with whirling lightsabers.

Yelling a battle cry Feark led his Imperial Commandos leapt forward into the fray. But the cry died on his lips when he came to the gap torn in the wall and he saw the violent scene within. Although there were only a dozen of the fearsome stormtroopers compared to at least three times as many rebels, the barely-contained animalistic fury of the Death Angels made up for their comparative lack of numbers.

Broken bodies lay scattered among the ruins, not just cut down by gunfire but butchered in the ways that the commandos would only have expected from an alien horror such as Rancors or Krayt Dragons. Here a rebel killed by a gunshot had had his heart torn clean out of his chest; there the corpse of another man indicated the fact that while he was still alive his head had been ripped from his body, taking half his spinal column with it. That such slaughter could have taken place in so short a period of time seemed almost impossible.

Frozen with horror, the commandos looked on as the Emperor’s elite went on with their slaughter. The bloodlust was on the Death Angels now and nothing would stop them exterminating the rebel scum on Pergitor. Only half the defenders remained.

His armor splattered with blood and gore as the Death Angels Colonel slashed sideways with his crimson lightsaber, slicing one of the rebels in half from shoulder to midriff. A rebel trooper leapt at one of the Death Angels, his blaster pistol firing. However, the Dark Jedi easily deflected the blasts of the unseasoned rebel soldier. Turning on his assailant with superhuman speed, the Death Angel struck out with his left arm. His armored fist, crackling with force energy, hit the rebel full in the face, shattering the glass of the man’s helmet and splintering his skull at the same time.

Close by another Death Angel hoisted a rebel into the air and hurled him across the room with contemptuous ease, emptying the clip from his repeater into the helpless soldier as he slumped to the floor. The rebel’s stomach and chest exploded into a shower of intestines and internal organs.

In moments it was all over and all that was a scene of devastation and carnage. Feark waited uneasily in the deathly silence that followed the battle as the Death Angel colonel strode toward him over the corpses of the dead rebel troops. It required all the commando’s willpower not to cower before the intimidating six-and-a-half foot tall warrior that was approaching him. He could imagine the colonel’s eyes burning with the barely-suppressed bloodlust behind the visor of the helmet. The urge to kill was still on him.

The Death Angel halted and leaned forward, his visor mere inches from the Imperial Commando’s face. There was a moment of tense silence as the captain dared not imagine what would happen next. A sound like a low growl emerged from the black Death Angel’s helmet. "For the Glory of the Empire!" he suddenly roared and then, turning on his heels, marched away with his squad across the churned up field.

For the Glory of the Empire, indeed, Feark thought with an unrestrained sigh of relief.