2nd Combined Arms Regiment "The Living Spectres"

The Living Spectres are a unit in The Deathless, specialized in occupation and distinguishing themselves by their brutal tactics.

## Named Members

Colonel Millán Astran, Commanding Officer

## Unit Description

This combined arms division is mercenary to their very corps in their ideals. As long as you aren't asking them to betray the Deathless, Koschei or their Beloved Commander they will do anything for money. The division is infamous throughout the sector for their terror tactics and looting. The quality of their moral conduct can be considered to be one of the worst in all of the Deathless, compared to most of the other divisions. Despite their other flaws though are fanatically loyal to Koschei as an authority and founder of the company; as well as undyingly loyal to Millán Astran himself, because to the division as a whole the man is a hero and a legend.

Millán Astran at present has two cybernetic legs, a cybernetic left arm, and a cybernetic right eye. These enhancements, however, were not something he acquired out of a desire to replace his organic parts. Astran, a Lt. colonel ar the time, was leading the Living Spectres and other attached Deathless units in a standard Search and Destroy operation against well-funded insurgents in the Imperial Core when his transport ship was shot down by those insurgents. Miraculously very few in the transport were injured, although that did not last. Almost immediately after the ship crashed, it was attacked by insurgents and overwhelmed. The insurgents hauled Astran and the survivors of the attack out of the vessel and then executed everyone except Astran in front of Astran. The leader of the insurgents then tortured Astran for hours, ruining an eye and most of his limbs, bragging all the while to Astran about how all the Deathless on the planet were about to die. The Insurgent Leader told Astran about how agents of the insurgency had either bribed their way into or sneaked into the garrisons the Deathless had just now started setting up in, and how the bombs planted inside of the garrisons would detonate tomorrow evening. The Insurgent leader also bragged to Astran how once the bombs went off that any surviving “Deathless Dogs” would be slaughtered as they exited their burning building by waiting insurgents, and pitied Astran’s weakness.

The Insurgent Leader was arrogant and believed that Astran would never live to retell the plan and that breaking him was too good an opportunity to pass up. Instead of just killing Astran, once the sadistic leader had had their fun, they left him for dead; Astran's legs disabled, a dead right eye and a nearly dead left arm. Rather than giving into hopelessness as many lesser soldiers might have, Astran crawled agonizingly for five miles to get to a nearby small Deathless outpost, in the process permanently disabling his already damaged left arm. A guard noticed the crawling Astran and tried to rush him to the medical bay, but not before Astran raised his single functional bloodied limb for the guard to halt, and gave the guard an direct order. The guard was told to pass on a emergency evacuation of all deathless personnel from their current garrisons, along with proper clearance codes.

The order came one hour before the bombs went off at several different Deathless garrisons, thanks to the order no Deathless lost their lives to the bombs. However, the Deathless did not evacuate without consequence; the evacuating forces came under fire by plainclothes insurgents as they were left the facilities. Astran responded to this news in a Laz-patched stupor and gave new orders from his sickbed; The Deathless were to cleanse every city and town which had had a sabotaged garrison in it. He reasoned if these towns had this many disguised insurgents in them and had the corruption or stupidity to allow the planting of bombs in garrisons laid aside for the visiting Deathless, that they could easily be classified as insurgent strongholds and purged appropriately. In total, the Living Spectres cleansed four population centers of life and valuables. After this series of massacres, a local town had a surprise gift for Astran, with quivering hands they threw down at his new cybernetic feet the Insurgent Leader who had tortured Astran and nearly killed thousands of Deathless. After the capture of their leaders and the massacres, the insurgents capitulated, and Astran got an opportunity to repay his torture in full. After the Living Spectres and the other Deathless units posted under the Search and Destroy contract returned to Koschei, Astran was celebrated as a hero, not as a criminal. It took a significant amount of courage and dedication to crawl as far as he did to save his comrades, and ultimately the contract was completed quickly and with below average losses, even if the collateral damage was high. The War Council awarded the green gem-stoned medal called Koschei’s Heart to Astran, for his dedication to his soldiers and the Deathless and then followed it up by promoting him to Colonel.

Later on, after the Synth purge known as the Second Burning, Colonel Astran would be one of the few of the Deathless decision-makers on either the War Council or Board who did not resign. He cited his reason for not stepping down as being that he “Did not think there was anything unnecessary or shameful in the decision and that 9,000 lives are an unnoticeable sacrifice to make for lives of all other Deathless."