The Cohhilition / COHH

A Long, Long Time Ago – In a ‘Verse oddly similar to ours…

Cohh stirred in his slumber, uneasy from the torn surface he was resting on. After having finally managed to corner the Xi’An, the ground combat had been harsh, leaving little time for reflection nor rest – but now the fight was over, the realization of what Cohh had actually done started to dawn on him.
He was the only one left, the lone survivor – alone in the middle of the wrecks of massive defenses and vehicles from both sides, torn asunder by the weapons.. and yet he was at rest.. the calm that comes after acknowledging that none of this really mattered.

The High Command has called this a “necessary” campaign. That the Xi’An “needed to be disciplined”. What was actually the root cause, what had triggered the slaughter of a Human colony outpost, would never surface – everything that mattered was keeping up appearances, making sure the UEE Regional Command showed force and kept their honor without reverting to actual open warfare.

All of this wouldn’t matter anymore to all of Cohh’s fallen comrades, their corpses strewn across the battlefield – torn asunder on the altar of pride and politicians promises. They had been the 23rd Carnage Company – one of the spearhead crack assault companies – chosen for this mission purely on the account of their proximity to the atrocities committed by the Xi’An. Their mission had been simple – Let the Fleet do their thing, then find a suitable Xi’An settlement and let the ground forces pay them in kind for their wholesale slaugther of the Human outpost.

After the Navy capital ships and fighter wings had punched a hole in the defenses, the 23rd Carnage Company had been dropped with light vehicles and few heavy weapons, as the Xi’An forces reportedly were “light and un-prepared”. They were, at first, but then the UEE forces discovered what the Xi’An policy of forced conscription for everyone really entailed – no adult Xi’An was a “civilian” – and so everyone was a combatant and weapons were plentiful in the harsh outer edges of the Xi’An Empire. The Carnage Company Commander called in for air support, but so did the Xi’An. In the end, everyone just got bombarded by both sides and whoever dug down the best survived – and in the eerie silence afterwards the close-quarters combat got brutal.

Cohh scrounged around and finally managed to find a working CommUnit. His burst transmission was picked up by a patrolling squadron of Mavericks and soon a Starfarer descended from the lilac skies of the Xi’An planet.

As Cohh set foot on the starship, he uttered : No more!

And so Cohh terminated his military service and started off on the path towards the founding of The Cohhilition Mercenary Company.

(.. to be continued)