Sernpidal City deployment (After Earth) -- Report by Acolyte Arvanis

[Rhysand Sekker]

>>> Communication Received; Initiating Decryption Process - Clearance: Lord Kalkoran<<<

>>>Accessing Secured File; Downloading ;' Report Sernpidal, <<<

>>>Download Complete; Displaying File<<<

Lord Kalkoran, and any others who view this report, as requested here is my report on the deployment to Sernpidal City to combat the Tauril horde.
After receiving the briefing from Lord Kalkoran the usual situation followed, the apprentices of Lord Kalkoran began to compete for dominance before even boarding the shuttle.
Apprentice Black boarded quietly, doing his usual role of taking command of any Imperials. Apprentice Horuset lead the way and boarded the shuttle whilst Apprentice Aeros stood at the base of the shuttles ramp and stared everyone down who boarded, only to then barge her way to the front.
Once we hit planet side this competition, once again, resulted in some confusion. Apprentice Black ordered the formations that we would take, Pure with Apprentice Aeros, impure with Apprentice Horuset.
The trooper stationed to meet us when we landed instantly told us where the Tauril had breached our line as well as what was needed of us, yet Apprentices Horuset and Aeros continued to ask a variety of questions. It was only when the Imperial trooper broke protocol out of pure fear of the Tauril horde and screamed at us to take point that the pair ceased their questioning and ordered us to move up to the front. During this time, apprentices Black and Ronith - as well as Neophyte Raeniu were relatively quiet.
Once arriving at the front we found an impromptu barricade with two turrets in place, their bases not bolted down. Private Srano had barely enough time to repair a single turret before the horde was upon us.
As for formation:
Originally the left gap was covered by Acolyte Kaiser, the left turret unmanned, Apprentice Aeros stood atop the balcony, the central choke point guarded by myself and Acolyte Aeros, Apprentice Black as support for any area that buckled, right turret with Private Srano and the wide right flank guarded by Apprentice Ronith and the rest.
I passed comment to apprentice Aeros that having acolytes with insufficient weaponry guarding the weakest, and most critical, point of the line would surely result in swift failure and that she would be best suited there as her lightsaber could kill multiple opponents at once while our training blades would stun a single target at best. She agreed, allowing myself to take up the other turret, at the beginning, and provide support to the weak left flank once the swarm was upon us.
I believe that if we had arrived with more time to spare, time lost from questioning, we could have repaired both turrets and even scoured the area for ordinance left by dead or fleeing Imperials to better combat the horde.
Once the horde arrived in full force many of the apprentices, the Neophyte and some acolytes exhausted themself early on. Attempting to case a myriad of force abilities over a distance of tens of metres, the potency of their attacks dissipating over the distance, resulting in the elimination of very few Tauril. At this point the most casualties were inflicted by the turrets. From a tactical viewpoint it would have been optimal to have the present force users bolster their reserves whilst the turrets dealt with the larger Tauril behemoths and once the horde closed in to a more optimal range - the force users could have released a more potent and effective barrage, rather than having the distance render attacks relatively inefficient, killing no more than three Tauril from a large lightning barrage was costly to force reserves which showed later on.
The defending party would have surely been overwhelmed and killed by the second wave if not for whichever Apprentice deployed a sleeping gas grenade, it came from the right flank of Apprentices Ronith, Horuset and Neophyte Raeniu. After this Neophyte Raeniu held the right flank, Apprentice Ronith charged one of the Behemoths attacking both apprentice Aeros and Black and Apprentice Horuset charged into the smoke cloud without warning any of the rest.
Shortly after Apprentice Ronith was swatted mid air from his leap attack, the Behemoth seeing him without even turning it's gaze. Apprentice Horuset was flung tens of metres back to our line and subsequently swarmed by Tauril. The centre line held with Apprentices Black and Aeros fighting the Behemoth and Acolyte Amythia attempting a force slow on the huge creature, it didn't seem any slower due to it's swift reactions against Ronith. Myself and Kaidar held the left flank against a swarm of hundreds, both taking several cuts and injuries, to maintain our effectiveness I had myself and Kaidar rotate positions, one spending a few moments at the front without barricade handling the brunt of the swarm and the other “resting” behind the barrier, and fighting off the Tauril that climbed over whilst keeping the turret on auto fire. Eventually a severely wounded Apprentice Aeros came to support us.
It was at this point when a third wave arrived, the full horde. Countless Behemoths and smaller Tauril swarmed, this was when we received the call for evacuation.
The alien, Aavi was the first to flee, yet she turned around and shot your apprentice (Lord Kalkoran) directly in the chest with the blaster pistol she stole. Clearly an attempt on Apprentice Horuset's life, considering the gravity of the situation. If she didn't have sufficient armour she would surely have died.
Apprentice Aeros collapsed to her exhaustion and was carried to the shuttle by myself and Kaidar, I then aided her to walk to the debrief. At the end of the debrief she escorted herself to the medbay, clearly having recovered enough by this point.
We noticed that the Tauril did not seem to consume biomass there and then, instead drag it away. This seemed to be their purpose in attacking the city.
That is the report for the field mission, my Lord.
One possible thought that occured to me, however useful it may be, is that we could possibly attempt to poison the Tauril. With the abundance of corpses being dragged away it could be possible to poison or envenom the bodies, perhaps the Tauril's queen would feed on the toxic corpse and, at the least, be compromised to a degree. Ambitious, I know, but I believe it was worth consideration from someone wiser, my Lord.
Force serve,
Acolyte Rendvir Arvanis.