Most of Mos Eisley was now being turned into a bloody battlefield.
Gunfire and explosions raged unchecked as Imperial and enemy forces clashed. The half-buried, dome-shaped houses in classic Tatooine style collapsed one after another, sending up clouds of dust and sand.
Amid the ashes, blazing trails from guided artillery streaked across the sky. The shrieking of energy weapons mingled with the roaring of electromagnetic Gauss rifles. Red bolts from blasters of all sizes filled the air in endless waves.
With another thunderous expolosion, an Imperial marshal crashed to the ground. He looked up in horror at the towering column of smoke rising in the distance and the tilting wreckage of an AT-AT walker. He recognized the detonation for what it was—an ammo explosion. His voice trembled with despair.
"Mos Eisley is finished!"
Just a short while ago, he had received a simple report from a local bar—something about a violent altercation causing multiple deaths.
At the time, he hadn't paid much attention. Just another gang dispute among the scum of Tatooine, he thought. He'd merely sent a small detachment of Imperial Army troops from the Mos Eisley garrison to handle it.
But that was where things went wrong.
The troops sent to subdue the culprits never returned. Then, suddenly, the entire Mos Eisley base came under attack. No one knew who the enemy was. The communications link was abruptly severed.
This wasn't the work of common criminals—it had to be the Rebel Alliance!
In the Galactic Empire, no act of rebellion or sabotage escaped being blamed on the Rebels.
An assault of this scale—directly targeting Imperial law enforcement and disrupting order—could only mean one thing: Rebel aggression against Emperor Sheev Palpatine's New Order.
Driven by the desire to "strike hard," the marshal had mobilized under the governor's orders. Gathering an elite force of Imperial stormtroopers, heavy armor, and air support, he set out to crush the attackers.
But what he encountered exceeded his worst expectations. The enemy, though small in number—only thirty or forty so-called "Mos Eisley port thugs"—fought with terrifying determination.
Even after Imperial stormtroopers breached the city, they refused to surrender. They vanished into the ruins, engaging in deadly house-to-house combat, slowing the Imperial advance and bleeding his forces dry.
What's worse, the enemy's weapons were far superior to the standard-issue blasters used by the Empire. They wielded solid-projectile rifles, laser and plasma-based weaponry—a hodgepodge of advanced arms from across the galaxy.
After great losses, the marshal finally managed to suppress them through overwhelming firepower and numbers. He had just begun to believe the battle was won when a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky—radiant lights shimmering like aurora.
Before he could react, a massive metallic formation—emerging through some sort of dimensional "gate"—descended upon the battlefield. The new attackers tore through the Imperial lines like a tidal wave.
From that moment onward, the situation spiraled into chaos.
He ordered an all-out counterattack and requested reinforcements from the capital at Bestine. Troops arrived in waves, but so did the enemy's reinforcements—each force streaming through those mysterious portals, swelling in numbers.
Like a war of attrition, both sides kept feeding forces into Mos Eisley. The once-bustling desert city had now become a smoldering ruin.
A scream jolted the marshal back to the present. One of his stormtroopers fell at his side, half his head blown off by a high-caliber round. Smoke rose from the charred hole in the man's white armor.
"Commander! We have to fall back!" shouted his adjutant, crouched in cover and firing bursts from his blaster pistol.
"Fall back? To where?" the marshal barked bitterly. His stormtroopers and armored units were nearly annihilated. In the Empire, failure was unforgivable. He didn't need a court-martial to know that his superior would execute him on the spot for this disaster.
"..."
The adjutant didn't answer.
When the marshal turned, he saw why—his aide was already dead, lying motionless in the rubble. His neck had been torn open, blood spurting in rhythmic jets across the sand.
Then came the deep, echoing rumble of gunships above—and the ominous whirring of engines preparing to fire.
Instinctively, the marshal kicked off with his legs and rolled into a nearby crater blasted open by an explosion.
In the next instant, beams of converged particle light lashed across the ground like glowing whips. Several armored vehicles mounted with heavy blasters were struck head-on, their drivers and stormtroopers reduced to mangled meat.
Each barrage shook the earth, tossing sand into the air that then fell back down like a rain of grit.
Whoosh! With a heavy, angular roar, massive gunships—shaped like flying slabs of steel—swept overhead.
Creaaak—
The sound of wood and rubble grinding echoed nearby. From amid the ruins, the battered marshal raised his head—just in time to see a pair of black combat boots step out from behind a shattered wall.
The figure wore a long gray-black coat that nearly brushed the ground, layered with basic light armor across the shoulders, chest, and waist. Beneath a half-enclosed helmet marked by the Imperial Aquila and skull insignia was an old, fearsome long-tube gas mask.
With gloved hands, the figure smoothly swapped magazines, pulled the bolt, and raised the rifle—its barrel fitted with a long bayonet—aiming directly at the marshal.
Zzt.
A flash of red light.
That was the marshal's final memory. Blood spilled across the sand, and his dust-stained blue eyes reflected a gray-black silhouette stepping over the corpses. The figure methodically thrust the bayonet into each body to confirm their deaths.
Occasionally, the red beam of a laser flashed—marking the end for those who had merely been feigning death, or were only half-conscious.
"Heavy flamers, on me! Torch that stupid-looking iron coffin—yeah, roast those bastards and drive 'em out!"
"Ah, that's it! Smell that? The sweet aroma of burning enemies! Doesn't it smell better than breakfast?"
A squad of red-bandanna-wearing soldiers vaulted over uneven ruins as if striding across level ground, advancing straight into the Imperial barrage.
Blaster bolts rained down among them, exploding into fireballs and clouds of brown dust, yet they pressed on undaunted. Their voices—gruff, carrying the Catachan jungle accent—barked over the comms, spewing foul, mocking insults at the Imperials.
Crude as they were, their combat maneuvers were precise and forceful. They constantly shifted formations to evade the stormtroopers' and army infantry's overlapping fields of fire.
Using plasma guns, bolt rifles, and melta weapons—ordinarily unsuited for mobile combat—they charged forward in a relentless surge, bullets crackling against the white armor of the stormtroopers.
"Spread out! Spread out!"
Imperial stormtroopers hurled flashbangs and grenades, trying to obscure the vision of the onrushing savages and slow their advance—but it was useless.
"This thing really works!"
A Catachan veteran burst through the defensive line, his energy shield rippling under the storm of blaster fire. Grabbing a stormtrooper by the head, he slammed it hard into the ground, then stomped down with his massive boot. His Catachan steel blade flashed once, slicing through white armor like paper.
More Catachan warriors followed, punching through the stormtrooper ranks like knives through cloth.
One veteran seized a stormtrooper whose arm he had severed, swinging the corpse like a warhammer and scattering Imperial soldiers in all directions.
"AAAHHH—!"
A stormtrooper screamed, firing his blaster desperately at the red-scarved brute charging through the smoke. And perhaps the Force favored him for his courage—crack!
The Catachan's Mark III energy shield had finally taken too many hits. It shattered.
The stormtrooper's blaster bolt struck home. The muscular man's flesh and tattered camo vest fused together under the intense heat, leaving a gruesome charred wound. His right arm, raised for defense, had been melted down to smoking tendons and burnt flesh.
Several stormtroopers who had nearly been cut down moments before cried out in elation. Encouraged, they surged forward toward the maimed giant, certain of victory.
But—
Without a single cry of pain, the Catachan brute kicked one of them squarely in the groin, then flexed his enormous biceps—crushing the stormtrooper's neck between them in an instant.
The Catachan steel blade, fallen to the ground, was flicked up by his boot—and flew straight through the stormtrooper who had shattered his shield, impaling him cleanly.
By now, his squad had already wiped out the Imperial stormtroopers in this trench and were dragging the vehicle and walker pilots from their machines. Clenching his Catachan steel blade between his teeth, the veteran cursed as he worked.
"Damn heretic sissies... Gotta admit, the Empire's medkits are a blessing. This stuff really helps." He sprayed a burst of coagulant mist over his wound for a quick patch-up, then pressed on without hesitation.
Soon enough, he was back at the front—charging ahead, hurling melta grenades one-handed as he ran!
At that sight, even the Imperial Army soldiers and local Tatooine bounty hunters watching from afar were stunned. But even more shocked were the Imperial auxiliary troops and servitor soldiers fighting beside them.
These so-called 'new recruits' were just too savage...
What kind of hellhole could produce monsters like these?
"Hey! Stop! Stop right there! The coagulant spray is for stabilizing you until medevac! You've lost functional combat limbs—fall back!"
A field medic from the Imperial auxiliary, charging along the offensive line, spotted him and roared in frustration. Swinging his standard-issue plasma axe, he split a walker blocking the path in two before pulling several badly wounded, one-limbed Catachan 'recruits' back to safety.
"According to the Sacred Selene Empire's Infantry Tactical Ordinance, any soldier incapacitated or with severe limb loss must cease combat operations unless absolutely necessary, to avoid hindering unit cohesion. Just what kind of wars were you animals fighting before this?"
Tossing the maimed 'new recruits' to a med-servitor, the medic activated his multifunction field kit, flushing dirt and burned debris from their wounds as he lectured them sternly.
"Huh? There's a rule for that? We usually just keep charging—if we die, we die. If we're still breathing when the battle's done, that's when we patch up."
...
"By my authority, I order you—"
Elsewhere, on another front, an Imperial auxiliary officer screamed furiously over comms.
"Cease the charge! I said cease the damn charge! Wait for my signal! You think you only need one volley before charging in?! You've got mountains of ammunition—what are you saving it for, laying eggs?!"
"Damn it, by Selene's grace! If you're so eager to die, fine—but wait until I'm not the one commanding you! If casualties exceed the threshold, and the kill-count deficit wipes my credit, I'll be the one demoted!"
Joy and pain—such was the mix of emotions for many Sacred Selene Empire Imperial officers right now.
These 'recruits' had incredible fighting prowess—and absolutely no fear of death. But this reckless, casualty-blind method of assault was unsustainable.
After all, every soldier carried a K/D ratio to maintain.
As more troops arrived and the lines stabilized, the frontline commanders of the Sacred Selene Empire immediately mobilized engineering units to clear the rubble. Using modular construction units, they assembled larger and more stable temporary warp-gate exits.
High above the smoke-choked sky, kilometer-wide vortices of swirling light now shimmered. Through them poured wave after wave of atmospheric gunships, strike fighters, frigates, and destroyers.
The rumbling intensified—the Sacred Selene Imperial Navy had arrived, engaging the Galactic Empire's Tatooine fleet in fierce aerial combat.
In the shattered ruins of the first contact zone, ammunition depots still burned, and crippled walkers lay scattered. Imperial medics carried the wounded away while field hospitals were rapidly established.
Tsshh.
Removing his sealed helmet, Sergeant Second Class Karl Kraft revealed a sharp-featured Eastern face. Adjusting his tied-back dark-blue braid, he leaned against a tactical command console, stood at attention, and reported hoarsely:
"Provisional 16th Recon Squad, mission complete."
"Lieutenant Haywood?"
"The lieutenant led Team A into the desert—to verify the accuracy of a certain report."
"A report?"
"Yes. It concerns the Jedi Knights—the ones outlawed and hunted by the Galactic Empire. Supposedly, they are the wielders of this world's supernatural energy."
At that, the auxiliary general overseeing the Battle of Mos Eisley clasped his hands behind his back, smiling thoughtfully.
"If they truly command supernatural power, Lieutenant Haywood's current force may be insufficient."
"Kraft, take your Team B and select additional personnel. Link up with Haywood. Whether true or not, any information related to the Jedi—pursue it thoroughly."
"Blaster weaponry, hyperspace engines, the Galactic Empire's industrial framework, the Force... Jedi Knights, Sith Lords—all of it shall be tributes from the 23625th Expeditionary Fleet to Her Majesty, the Divine Empress!"
"For Selene!"
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