REPUBLIC STAR
BREAKING: Republic Star Print Offices Raided on Skarkon II
6.17.122
Unmarked soldiers stormed the Republic Star printing facility in Kor’ali today. The facility, as with most of the city, was largely abandoned with only a skeleton crew manning the equipment following the nuclear detonation outside the city earlier this year. Printing specialist Hnira Atmawo reported that troops enter the facility around midday, firing shots before corralling facility staff to the central office where they were held under armed guard for nearly an hour.
“When I first heard the warning shots I thought it was a malfunction like the industrial printer jamming," she recounted later to Republic Star reporters, "Then I heard the shouting from the soldiers. I was so convinced we were about to be the center of a gunfight or were going to be rounded up by Cartel slavers. I tried hiding between the machines but one of them found me and pulled me out. The one that seemed in charge was wearing weird armor with a green flight jacket over it and carried some kind of assault rifle. He calmed everyone down and let us know that they weren’t expecting the office to still be manned, but that they wouldn’t be here long. He pushed us all into the admin room and—”
She stopped momentarily, looking nervous and unsure if she should continue.
“He… Told us really lame jokes for a bit while the other soldiers started working on something in the printing rooms. He kept laughing at his own jokes and saying things like ‘yikes, tough crowd’ when they didn’t land. Eventually he just gave up and started singing some weird folk songs, but I couldn’t tell the language. It felt like so long, but it was only an hour before they finished whatever they were doing and left. Whatever they did, they went through nearly a dozen rolls of industrial paper and used up nearly every damn fuser and red ink cartridge we had. Other than that, things were fine. It wasn’t until about ten minutes later when the RSS showed up and turned everything upside down trying to figure out what the soldiers were there for.”
When asked for further details on the man that held them captive or what she meant by ‘weird armor’ Atmawo once again seemed hesitant.
“I wouldn’t even know what I was looking at honestly, I’m just a print jockey. But we’ve seen a lot of Republic troops in the city and on the news and it didn’t look anything like them. All of the soldiers were a little different, with a lot of little doodads, like keychains or totems or decals. The armor itself looked—like just strange? Not like any of the soldiers I’ve seen on the news before. Like I said he had a dirty olive flight jacket over all of it with a lot of patches on it. The back was embroidered with something, it reminded me of a skogsra, the little people my grandma used to tell me about. And he… Well he was wearing a helmet to cover his face, but he had something smeared across the helmet. Like it looked like paint at first but it kept changing while he talked. Like it would show those Caldari cartoon expressions on his face while he was telling jokes, but when he was giving orders it would look like a hundred eyes or a big mouth mashing its teeth.”
Despite the garish description no soldiers have been seen in the area or apprehended by the RSS since the hostage crisis. The Republic Security Service has stated that the terrorists remain at large, and are urging any citizens remaining in Kor’ali to come forward if they have any further information. There is no estimate for the cost incurred in the paper and ink used, nor the damage sustained by the subsequent RSS investigation. At this time, the Republic Star has no intention of reopening it’s office on Skarkon and will instead defer frontline reporting to our affiliated partners in Heath Row News and Skarkon Free Press.
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(Above: Republic Star printing facilities on Skarkon II)
