He stood at the ready in the MAAT. One thing he preferred over the Lambda or Sentinel was being able to see what was happening outside. It was the awareness that kept him calm, kept him at ease and focused on the mission at hand, rather than worrying about what was happening or what he would be met with upon jumping in. He felt, as an officer, it was his duty to be calm for those under his command. In his case, he had the unfortunate assignment to a platoon which was entirely made up of veterans. Not only that, but they had lost their previous Lieutenant in combat, and he was a deeply loved officer. He likened it to children, dealing with their dead father, and having their mother bring in her new husband and demanding her children think of the man as their father. A horribly analogy, for he did not think anywhere near as lowly of his troopers, but comparatively appropriate. Where they were on the world was experiencing a thunderstorm, which helped them even more than the fact it was night. The rain was coming down hard enough that the repulsorlifts to the MAAT wouldn't be heard, and it was dark enough that they would not be seen. At each corner of the facility, there was a watchtower, with two buildings at the front along the fenceline, which served as barracks for the mercenary contingent. Being 0300 local time, it was the perfect time for a sleepy and uneventful night shift to experience some action. Unfortunately for the mercs, they wouldn't even know what hit them. As they circled the facility, the sharpshooters sniped each guard in the watchtowers, timing their shots with the lightning and thunder. Once the towers were clear, they prepped three zip-lines for deployment, the first two of which deployed the sharpshooter squads on the roof of each barracks, meanwhile Karath and the Heavy squad were deployed outside the facility. Once his squad hit the ground, they moved up towards the gate, which had two mercs patrolling on foot, one in each of the two guardposts, and then two three man E-Web crews. All of them were ripe for the taking, but the mission required stealth, and they could not rush in.
Slowly, they moved up, and stood on the verge of the lights of the checkpoint. They took careful aim, and planned out their shots, and once the thunder hit they each fired once, killing each merc with perfect shots from their E-11s and DTL-19s. With the exception of himself, those with E-11s switched over to T-21s, and moved in. The courtyard between the front gate and the building, held forty mercs. As soon as they moved through the gate, the sharpshooters and the heavy troopers cleared them within three seconds under the cover of thunder. At that very moment, the MAAT landed on the roof, dropping of the engineer squad, which were trained as close quarters specialists, who breached the roof and began working their way through the top floors. Once he reached the front door, the Sharpshooters rappelled off the top of the barracks, but not after leaving several detpacks on the roof, which detonated once they reached the ground, killing anyone on the second floor and dropping what was left of the roof and the floor of the second level down on top of the first floor, burying and killing anyone on that level.
Once the sharpshooters stacked up with them at the front door, they breached it, finding four stunned mercs at a large desk, which were quickly taken out. Most of the guards were on the low-end of the pecking order, and thus relegated to a third watch. At this point, their killing would cease, and the sharpshooters would quickly sweep through the facility along with the engineers making arrests of any personnel inside. He would personally lead a team into the heart of the facility; the research and development labs. Within those rooms were various elements of tech, civilian and military, which were deemed useful to the Empire... and only the Empire. What they were, he did not concern himself with, merely their procurement. After another ten minutes, the facility was theirs, and the surviving personnel grouped outside and ready to be processed as shuttles began landing to transport the prisoners to various penal colonies throughout the Empire. They would not receive a trial, nor even a list of charges. All they knew is the Empire was wanting them gone, and while they felt that they were special, they were only the beginning to a long line of many that would suffer a similar fate, or worse, for decades.
Across the planet, which none of those involved would remember the name of, Imperial forces conducted similar operations against various corporate facilities and residential complexes. It was messy, but quick, lethal, and effective. Within hours, the entirety of a galactic corporation was swept away, without hesitation or second thought. Overnight, no one knew there was ever a Sartran Corporation or what they did. It would be one of many secrets swept under the rug throughout the years, and one of those many that could barely be uncovered upon its revelation. The only question that remained for Karath himself was the why. Why did they hit this corporation? Why did they eliminate and imprison those that they did? Why was the nationalization of this corporation so important? What tech was so valuable?
It would be these questions that would creep into his head over the years, and plant seeds of doubt. But not until many years later, and were it not for what he would go through later, perhaps be more successful in steering him down a different a path. A path that he were once destined to be on, but later events, that were... different, would guide him away. Over the years, a future would be swept away... that of a man that held his values above all else, a man that would be one of the Empire's earliest skeptics, a man that would become a military leader within a Rebellion that would irrevocably change the galaxy itself, a great general turned politician championing the continuation of all his life had ever known... all of this, would be gone and swept away into the countless possible futures that would not come to be that the universe held. Orion Karath would never see the man he could have been, and overtime would never think of what could be different... only in terms of the here and now, and constantly move forward. It was this day, that his thought of why was destroyed, forever destroying the man many knew.
