Chapter 10: Chapter 10: The Traitor

Morgo IV. Research Outpost Delta. 

Captain Hanson leaned back in the comfortable leather seat in his office. In the Venya Imperium, rank often came with privileges of all kinds. This was especially true in the Imperial Army. While the troopers in the research outpost had to share their limited living quarters with the comrades in their squads, the captain had an office, a living room, and a bedroom all to himself. The combined private space he had at his disposal was equivalent to that of half a platoon. 

These privileges only grew with the ranks. Admirals or Grand Admirals in the Imperial Navy often had enough resources on their flagships to live like kings even as their fleets were heading to or engaged in battle. This often included bedrooms with beds designed for at least three people, bathrooms with large tubs, and officer’s clubs. 

In the brief time since the 432nd Company landed on this planet and built up this facility, Captain Hanson has made additions to his private quarters to make them feel more familiar. It wasn’t much. Mainly just a few photos on the desks. Almost all of these photos featured a family of three. A man. A woman. And a young boy. The woman was often crudely cut out of the picture. 

Despite his best attempts, the captain himself was hardly relaxed. He was indeed a veteran, but he knew the danger of what they were doing here surpassed anything he had encountered before. They were going against one of the strongest empires in the galaxy. An empire that never took betrayals well. The captain couldn’t count the number of times he witnessed traitors be executed in public. The sound of their screams as they burned was one of the many things he could never erase from his mind. 

But even the fear of death couldn’t contain his fury at the Imperium. It was a fury enough to convince him to sentence nearly a third of his company to their death. 

A voice from his personal radio caught his attention. 

“Sir. Corporal Kendrick just left the detention center. We can confirm he just had a conversation with Private Danes. He shut off the surveillance during most of the conversation, likely at the request of Private Danes. What do we do?” 

This voice belonged to one of his rebel lieutenants. Unlike Captain Hanson, the lieutenant was one of the many troops who defected before being moved to the 432nd Company during one of the many personnel movements to replace the casualties the 432nd encountered. There was panic in his voice. For most Imperials, especially those with questionable loyalties, knowing that the ISC was onto them was always a horrific realization. 

“Relax.” Captain Hanson answered quietly. “I hope you still remember our plan and your role in it.”

“Yes…yes sir.”

“Good. Then prepare yourself to start doing what you’re supposed to do. Remember, sergeant. The Imperium may be strong, but its forces are far away. We are the ones with the advantage here. As long as everyone does their part, we will emerge victorious on this day. By the time the Imperium figures out what’s happening, we will be long gone from this god-forsaken world.”

“Yes sir.” 

As the communications ended, Captain Hanson pulled out his PEI and tapped a few keys to send out a hidden message to all rebel units in the base, telling them it was time to act. 

This wasn’t ideal. In the original plan, the uprising wouldn’t happen for a few more weeks. During these weeks, he and his followers would use the missions out of the base to terminate more loyalists during the missions into the wild. 

If he got to make a move whenever he wanted, there would be a lot less resistance and a lot more support. As of now…despite the best attempt by his people, there were still plenty of loyalists within the base. And now that Corporal Kendrick was alerted by that loyalist trooper who somehow survived the ambush…things could get quite ugly. 

Alas, the captain knew that sometimes, hesitance was a bigger danger than incompetence during key moments. Given how dangerous the situation was, he couldn’t afford to wait and hope things would go as planned. That was why he decided to prepone the uprising as soon as Private Athena Dane, the loose element, returned from a mission she shouldn’t survive. 

After locking Athena up to buy himself a few extra hours, Captain Hanson contacted reinforcements and extraction, telling them the plan was happening immediately. He used those precious hours he bought to prepare his men for the action. 

When Corporal Kendrick came to see him, Captain Hanson knew there was no way he could stop the corporal from seeing Athena without drawing his suspicion. Thanks to his precautions, the corporal would be too late to do anything. He would meet his end soon enough. 

By now, waves of gunshots have erupted across the base. They were so loud and so intense that Captain Hanson could hear them through the walls. The man sighed and finally stood up. He slowly reached out and picked up his trusted sidearm, the Arbiter-S handgun, from his desk. 

Before he left the room, the captain gave one of the photos a final glance. More specifically, his eyes landed on the face of the boy. His son. In the photo, the little boy was smiling. His smile was so wide and contagious that even now, Captain Hanson couldn’t help but grin a little as well. A grin that quickly disappeared. 

As the brief moment went by, Captain Hanson turned back into the cold-calculating rebel officer. Without any more lingering, he made his way out of his office and into the corridor, where he was met with a squad of rebel troops. 

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Captain Hanson and his fellow rebels have been planning the uprising for weeks. Their plan was known to all the parties involved for quite a while already. Everyone knew where they should be and what they should be doing. There were no distractions. The price of failure was too terrible for anyone to bear. 

In the armory of the outpost, four troopers were standing guard at the main gate. They were a little startled when over thirty of their brothers-in-arms walked down the corridor toward the armory. One of the guards noticed all the men had their left sleeves pulled up. None of them was armed, but there was something about them that didn't feel right. 

“Hold up…we didn't receive any notification about this…”

One of the guards took a step forward, raised his Defender-S assault rifle, and sternly warned. He was answered by a bullet from the back. One of the comrades beside him suffered the same fate a fraction of a second later. 

As two loyalist guards lay dead, the two rebel guards pulled their left sleeves up. One by one, the rebels made their way into the armory and started the process of putting on power armor. The process took a few minutes. Soon, the rebels marched out of the armory, all of them now in power armor and carrying the much more powerful Defender automatic rifles.

Four of these rebels, now in power armor, stood guard at the armory to make sure any loyalists that survived wouldn’t be able to access power armor and large-caliber weapons. Their Purifier-class light machine guns covered the entire corridor. The rest of the rebels followed the plan they were given and divided into three groups. One to the shuttle bay and another to Doctor Payton’s laboratory. The third headed for the communication center. 

The shuttle bay had to be secured to cut off the loyalist’s path of escaping from the station and to secure the way out for the rebels. 

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The laboratory was where their target was. It was guarded by a squad of ISC troopers who had two shifts. At least half the squad should be in the lab now, armed and armored. They would be the toughest challenge the rebels faced, but their numbers were few and the rebels should have the element of surprise.  

The communication center, which was a part of the security center, was the only place in the base where a message for help could be sent to Imperial forces from other solar systems. The security center also controlled a number of important functions in the facility, such as blast door controls, perimeter defenses, life support systems, and lockdown protocols. It was similar to the role the main bridge played on starships. 

All three places were crucial to the plan. They had to be controlled by the rebels as soon as possible. 

At the same time as the armory fell, firefights erupted across the base. The dining hall. The barracks. The medical bay. The warehouse. The garage. Everywhere, rebels with their left sleeves lifted drew their weapons and gunned down their confused comrades. Red blood stained the white walls of the research outpost. Screams and gunshots broke the peaceful silence of the facility. 

After weeks of conducting missions outside the walls, many of these missions suffering high casualties on purpose, the 432nd Company which originally had over three hundred men was down to three-quarters of its full strength at the time of the uprising. Among those remaining, over half have switched their side. Most of these rebels were rotated into this company on purpose. Others were troopers in this company who were discreetly converted to the rebellious cause. 

The loyalists were completely caught off guard. Many of them only had their sidearms or were completely unarmed against the armed and armored rebels. A large portion of the loyalists was gunned down during the initial bloodbath. The rest were completely confused by what was happening. Some tried to get to the shuttle to escape. Others attempted to go to the communication center and call for reinforcements from off-world. Unfortunately for them, the rebels knew the importance of these locations as well. These locations were already taken over at the first minutes of the uprising, and the rebels there were immediately reinforced by additional rebels in power armor.

“The private is right. The 432nd is corrupted to the core. How did I never notice this…”

As chaos broke out throughout the base, in one of the corridors leading to the lab, Corporal Kendrick whispered to himself. There was little volume to his words, but the shock and pain they carried were clear. After all, everything that was going around him was a painful reminder of how he completely failed at his duty. 

He wasn’t a dedicated ISC Overseer, but understanding and terminating internal threats were still key parts of being a good bodyguard. He, for one, had failed at that. 

Vigilance. Loyalty. Sacrifice. These were the words of the Imperial Security Corps, and ever since arriving on this planet, he had lost his vigilance and grown complacent. It was a mistake he would do anything to correct. 

Just moments ago, as he was walking down the corridor, four troopers suddenly entered the corridor from both sides. Perhaps it was Athena’s warning. Perhaps it was his own battle instincts. He could sense something was wrong. Despite the troopers’ best attempts to act casually, their stiff movement betrayed the nervousness and hostility they harbored. 

When the troopers suddenly made a move, Corporal Kendrick was ready. The coordination between the different rebel teams was good, but it wasn’t seamless. When gunshots erupted around the base, the four troopers only just began drawing their weapons. 

Kendrick was quicker. He was so much more experienced and well-trained than these rebels, and he was more prepared than his assassins anticipated. In the split second, he pulled out a combat knife from his side and pushed it right through the throat of the rebel on the right before quickly dodging behind the body of the rebel on the left.

The two rebel troopers on the other end of the hallway drew their sidearms, both Arbiter-S handguns, but they didn't dare to fire for fear of hitting their comrade. This moment of hesitation cost them their life. As soon as Kendrick’s right hand left the handle of the knife, it reached for his sidearm. 

Bang. Bang. 

Following two shots from the corporal’s Executioner-class assault pistol, standard issue to the Wolves, the two rebel troopers collapsed and died. The assault pistol shots, designed to go through power armor in single shots, tore large gaping holes through the chest of the two men. 

Despite all his plans, Captain Hanson still underestimated the ISC corporal, or rather he overestimated the competence of some of his men. The captain simply told his men to take care of Corporal Kendrick. In his mind, it would be 4 against 1 and an easy kill. He had no idea that due to minor coordination issues, the four assassins weren't able to just gun down the corporal from a distance. These rebels mistimed the whole operation by a few seconds and walked into the corridor too early. The idea was for all rebel units to open fire across the base all at once, so the four rebels had to wait longer than anticipated. This tiny mistake was expertly used by Corporal Kendrick to take down the rebels. 

All this was done in just seconds. Before the last surviving rebel knew what was happening, all of his comrades were dead and he had been captured by someone whose sole job was to root out traitors like him. Almost everyone in the Venya Imperium has seen or heard of the brutalities the ISC has committed on deserters and traitors. As soon as Corporal Kendrick released his prisoner, the poor man fell to the ground and was shaking like crazy, but Corporal Kendrick had no sympathy toward him. 

All members of the ISC were zealots toward the Venya Imperium. They believed in every single piece of propaganda fed to them since they were children. They believed the social, political, and economical system of the Imperium was the best system that could be achieved. They believed only the forces of the Imperium could save the galaxy from the weakness and corruption of the other nations out there. They saw the Imperium as the best civilization that existed in the galaxy. Therefore, anyone who strayed from the path of the Imperium was either delusional, ignorant, or outright evil to the bones. Either way, they deserved all the pain and fear that the Wolves would bring to them. 

Yes. Corporal Kendrick was no fan of corrupt Imperial officials, and he was willing to help Athena out if she was indeed unfairly imprisoned. None of that changed the fact that he would gladly torture, maim, and kill every single threat to the Imperium. If there was evidence that Athena was a traitor, then Corporal Kendrick would be the first to go for her head. 

“Who is your leader? Is the captain behind this?” The corporal demanded, aiming his assault pistol at the man. When the man refused to answer, the corporal simply pulled the trigger and fired a bullet into the rebel’s skull.

In another situation, he would gladly interrogate the rebel and use every technique he was taught on the traitor. There was no time for that now. Judging from the gunshots from every single direction, the corporal knew Athena was likely correct in her assessment that most of the unit had been corrupted. The loyalists wouldn’t last long. 

Corporal Kendrick knew the only reason the rebels would go through all this trouble was for Doctor Payton. What else on this planet was worth this level of risk? After leaving Athena, the corporal had already sent out a signal requesting for backup. Unknown to Captain Hanson, the Wolves were equipped with miniaturized communication beacons capable of sending brief messages across star systems. Complex files and video transfers still had to be done in dedicated communication centers, but the devices were sufficient for sending out emergency requests.

Support was on the way for the Imperials. Judging from the fact that Morgo IV was in the heart of Imperial Sector 9A2, it shouldn’t take long for an Imperial starship to arrive in the planet’s orbit and solve most of the problems going on in the base. All the corporal had to do was keep Doctor Payton secured until then. 

There were three Gazelle-class shuttles within the shuttle bay of the facility. Each could carry 30 passengers and was equipped with shield generators and warp drives. If the rebels managed to get the doctor and flee through one of the shuttles, then it could be difficult for the Imperial reinforcements to intercept them. His mission would have failed then. 

Corporal Kendrick quickly made up his decision and started running toward the lab. As he moved, he didn't spare a moment of thought to Athena, who helped alert him about what was going on and likely saved his life. 

As far as Corporal Kendrick knew, Athena was trapped in her cell and would be helpless if the rebels tried to kill her. Still, she was just a trooper. Corporal Kendrick would gladly sacrifice his own to fulfill his duties, much less that of someone else. He respected Athena and her track record and loyalty, but that all meant little compared to his mission.  

Plus, if Athena was really the loyal soldier that she appeared to be, then she would rather die than become a distraction to a more important cause. Corporal Kendrick knew that would be his own reaction. 

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