Wrath of the Outer Rim : Episode VIII

Wilhuff Tarkin smiled with satisfaction as the Naboo Royal Marine bombers took out a bunker that had been suppressing a squad of his troopers. The joint strike force was an experiment in what his political adviser was calling an "ad-hoc military cooperation agreement." While thus far, the Hutt cartels had yet to put together anything worth a proper military alliance, Amidala had put forward an interesting proposal for as needed aid in counter-piracy operations.

The senate militarists had fallen apart following his cousin Ranulph's death on Troiken, despite the Tarkin family's best efforts. Oh, there were plenty of senators trying for rearmament, but they were no longer a unified political bloc, bogging themselves down over minor disputes and insignificant details. The Republic Outland Regions Security Force had held together, but it had been fraying at the edges. Without Ranulph wrangling consistent support from the militarists, many ships and troops were being recalled to their homeworlds. New arrivals were less experienced, less trained, and those few talented commanders he got were often under orders from their home governments to refuse orders that put their ships and men at "undue risk." Which was fine if those men trusted him to lead them to victory... but first he had to earn that trust. It stung his pride to admit it, but Naboo's offer was probably the only thing stopping the remains of his cousin's dream simply wasting away and becoming an obscure footnote in history. Not that he'd ever admit it outside the privacy of his own thoughts, of course.

The agreement itself was a fantastic one for all its simplicity. The two forces agreed to respond to calls for reinforcements and to provide aid in hitting targets of opportunity if needed. In a full-blown war, it was a recipe for disaster, with disputes over chains of commands, jurisdiction, and the like. For cracking down on piracy? More often than not, simply showing up was enough to send pirates fleeing for their lives.

For Tarkin, the most important benefit was the example the Naboo was setting for his men. The Naboo were admirable fighters, now that they had gotten over their hangups about violence. For the young and often inexperienced officers, he was getting, being shown up by a planet with a reputation as pacifists was enough of a blow to their pride to get their blood simmering. Something that Tarkin could use if he was careful. Get them to start taking risks for the sake of their pride. The risk with that was that he didn't want them to get killed because they were too proud to ask for reinforcements because a Naboo Marine tradelane patrol was closer than an RORSF strike fleet. Hence the joint task forces he had begun leading. Find a pirate stronghold, cobble together a force of both Naboo and RORSF units, and have them build mutual respect by fighting side by side.

The troopers began to advance now that the bunker had been reduced to molten rubble by Naboo plasma bombs. With many of their best mercenaries dead on Ryloth, the Hutts were having trouble organizing a coordinated defense. Individual, hardened strongholds such as this one still existed. Taking them was no easy task, in fact, if it weren't for the presence of slaves and other hostages in these bases, Tarkin would settle for using a strike team to take out the planetary shields, then bombing them from orbit. Still, for all they were hard to take, these bases weren't supporting one another. They wouldn't reinforce one another, wouldn't dispatch reinforcements to pirate fleets under fire. They were isolated. One such base had executed their slaves rather than allow them to be liberated. Tarkin had then graphically reminded the Hutts that under Republic maritime law, law enforcement was under no obligation to accept surrender from pirates, nor were they obligated to honor any terms of surrender given to pirates.

Including terms such as "you will be given a trial before a sentence of summary execution is delivered."

The sight of his troopers fighting side by side by with the Naboo was a pleasing one. The Naboo Royal Army bore little resemblance to the ragtag resistance fighters that they had been formed from, or to the security officers that had gone on to form the core of the Marines. They dressed in dark brown fatigues, thick military-grade synthweave rated to resist blaster impacts. They wore a bright, golden chestpiece, almost like an ancient cuirass, and chrome helmets signifying their service to Queen Amidala. Whatever they were made of, the majority of the blasters the pirates had simply could not penetrate it. Some of the heavier rifles could do it, but the cartels were used to raiding defenseless homesteaders or looting civilian freighters that had already surrendered. Many of their weapons were outdated and hadn't been designed to fight armored opponents, to begin with.

His own troopers were similarly armored. In another time, the armor designed and adopted by the RORSF would later evolve into the standard-issue battle armor worn by the humble Imperial Army Trooper, after Grand Moff Tarkin gave the armor a glowing review based on his experience from the RORSF. Not the finest armor that would be available to the Empire, but it was one of the few options within the Army's limited budget that could still shrug off a few hits before failing.

An explosion signified an RORSF team breaking into the main complex. Several turrets shifted fire to try and prevent soldiers from exploiting the breach. This was a mistake, and ultimately merely allowed more teams to close in with explosives, opening even more breaches in the walls.

Less pleasing was the sight of a Pirate skimmer being destroyed by an explosive thrown by one of the so-called "Ryloth 1st Infantry Division," who had been invited by the Naboo to participate. Both Wilhuff and Ranulph had been trying to be open-minded regarding aliens, before Ranulph's death. Humanocentrism was thoroughly engrained on Eriadu, few people there had dealings with anyone off-world, and those that did tend to have dealings with other humans. When the only nonhumans that freely traveled out that far from the core were Hutt mercenaries and the Trade Federation, it was easy to paint the entire galaxy with the same brush, as Ranulph had concluded. So he had worked to garner support for the RORSF from nonhumans and run into resistance every step of the way. Still, he remained optimistic, right up until Troiken. Where Wilhuff's cousin had been abandoned by the aliens he had trusted to support his plan and died for it. Left for dead, the humans who had followed him escaping only because Ranulph chose to trust that a Jedi would honor his final wishes, and sacrificed his own life for his men.

Despite his bitterness, as he watched the Twi'lek skirmishers viciously rip into the defenders with abandon, he was forced to concede that they were a force worth taking note of. Nimble, fast, and accurate, they could scale the side of a three-story building in less than a minute, without climbing gear, and promptly tear apart enemies below with precision rifle fire. They ambushed pirates simply by reaching places no one else could, and thus no one would think to keep watch on.

Still... the fought with just as much skill and courage as any human, he couldn't deny that. Looking back, Ranulph never had made overtures to Ryloth. At the time, they hadn't thought the Twi'leks could offer anything to the RORSF. They were too poor, they couldn't provide funding, equipment, nor did they have a PDF to provide raw manpower with.

Looking at how the Twi'leks eagerly scrambled into cartel stronghold to rip it apart from the inside... Wilhuff considered the possibility that he may have been a bit hasty in dismissing all nonhumans as treacherous or cowardly. There was no doubting that when the time had come, the only ones Ranulph had been able to depend on were humans. Despite that... broken free of their shackles, Ryloth was throwing what limited resources it had into culling piracy and slavery with an enthusiasm many of Tarkin's political allies simply lacked.

In the back of his mind, he resolved to wait and see what the Twi'leks would do, now that they had their freedom. Thus far, they hadn't disappointed.