Hidden 4 yrs ago 4 yrs ago Post by Guy of Z
Raw
Avatar of Guy of Z

Guy of Z

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

<Snipped quote by Guy of Z>



"Palpatine's bones! What a kriffing fight!" the voice accompanied psychotic laughter that cut above the blaster fire and discharges from personal beam weaponry not seen deployed in battle since the clone wars decades prior. beside him pressed against the immense pillar was a Raptor who'd had her helmet blown off her head, blood trickled down from a cut above her eyebrow and another further above her scalp but apart from that she had the same devilish grin on her face as the Mando who commanded them. Around them blaster bolts lanced into ornately carved cielings, causing a shimmering rain of precious gems and gilded metal from the rafters. Rua smiled, other troopers from other other potentates would have scattered, picking up as much of the treasure as possible (and dooming themselves in the process, for grave robbing from a Sith wizards vaults was deadly) but not the Raptors, Zsinj elite guard, his storm troopers, the scarlet warriors commanded by the new Emperor and trained and led by the next Mandalore. Zsinj's attack dog began to tap his feet and several of the raptors turned to look and they began to nod only to redouble their assault with even greater fury. Rua's tapping accompanied a hum which broke into a song, an ancient Mandalorian war poem.

"my mother told me...Someday I would buy, vessel with strong engines..fly to distant worlds. My clan I'll command, from a battle bridge" He whirred, stepping into the chaos and drawing one of his pistols a swift blast in the throat below the helmet took the head off one of the guards. "Take orbit storm, slay many foes, raze man worlds, raze many worlds"

Seeing their commander in the line of fine sent the raptors into a how of insanity and they roared forward almost saturating the entire room with blaster fire. A few concussive missiles roared overhead and soon, the defenders of the "gate" lay in heaps on the floor, blood and brain matter mixed with the stench of charred plasteel and the acrid stench of age, of dust, of must of the Sith.

"Area secured eh boys?" There was a laugh while a call came on the comm informing him of stiff resistance by something unknown deep in the catacombs. "Ah good, our force user retreated with the rest of the trash" he remarked turning to the woman "You there, you've command of the upper levels, inform Captain Pryde that I'll be heading deeper into this crypt"

"What if its our other party?"

Rua shrugged "I don't really care, whatever moron was dumb enough to blow a hole in the front door is not the guy I'm after and if he wants to help himself to the diseased poodu in this crypt he's welcome to take the liability onto his own damn shoulders. I need answers, so I'll go below"

<Snipped quote by Guy of Z>



Eislen of Eriadu had a good life, he'd been born in the final days of the clone wars and raised by devotees of The Emperor and his glorious ten thousand year plan. Raised in the dark, unlike those inquisitor scum who'd been mostly Jedi dropouts or disgraced former Knights. Eislen had been raised to be Sith, trained in secret by the Emperor's most devout themselves and even fought beside Lord Vader twice! Twice! Glory lay ahead of him and he hadn't even flinched when their eternal Emperor fell over Endor, nor did he renounce his ways to side with that blind Inquisitor Jerec and the megalomaniac that was Ardous Kaine. No, he remained faithful, remained strong, served as Sate Pestage's loyal bodyguard. He'd even been able to gain access to some of the glorious Sith relics concealed on Coruscant! He'd been learning, he'd been growing stronger! Perhaps, perhaps he would have been ready to take over the Empire, restore it to its former majesty even! It was all perfect.

But perfection, was always an illusion.

He sat now in the dark, resting on immense granite steps flanking an enormous durasteel door, finely polished that contained on either side two gargoyle like statues of some ancient Sith Hounds, braziers in their snarling, open mouths burned empowered by ancient sorcery. This tomb, was older than any other and the Adept clad all in black but for a crimson cloak, snarled in the dimmed light. His hair was wild and disheveled as he was embittered. Some damn fool Inquisitor found a ship adrift in deep space and sensing the fire, the pulse of radiant life dormant within rescued it. They'd thought it was one of their own, fools! As if they could produce power of that sort! No, that was power that belonged to something else entirely, he could feel it, sense its disgust, its contempt and when he realized what she truly was.

She'd killed most of the inquisitors and dismissed him, her imperiousness was such that the Grand Vizier didn't even think twice and merely obeyed and he, he was too terrified of her power to strike at her. No, he accepted this demotion when he realized she was sending him out here to replace two guards who'd died mysteriously. Two adepts slain? By something within no doubt! The opportunity to test himself and grow stronger, to learn from the dark secrets within.

But the murderer had already departed. A Jedi of some sort, he'd stolen some items but all the other vaults remained barred. He'd been denied!

A presence began to touch his mind and he realized it was one of those accursed rodents and he let out a psychic hiss and drew his lightsaber. As the battle raged on above, he let out a capricious laugh. "I know of only one sentient who'd stoop so low as to use those..things..COME OUT VADER'S DOG!"

A crimson lightsaber ignited and he sneered at Earhen once the boy came into view.

"I thought you'd have died by now.." He stepped forward and then he stopped as an odd, almost savage humming echoed through the cavernous catacomb walls.

Sparks flew as durasteel yielded to..a Knife in the dark?

"My mootthheerr..tolld me...Someday I would buy...Vessel with strong engines, fly to distant worldss"

Eislin twitched at the Mandalorian war poem. "You're working with Rua kriffing Skirata now dog? That's how far you've fallen?" he spat.

"Nah, Eis, kid aint with me"

Eislin turned his head, his eyes narrowing. "So it's a three way fight then?!"

Rua turned eying Earhen "Kid, we got a problem? Or can I trust you to piss off and take whatever stupid Sith poodu you before kriffing off and leaving my men alone?" his voice held an edge of amusement, he'd no idea who this kid was nor did he really care. "my beef's with this one and one other and neither of them are you"

"I'll kill you both" the Adept hissed.

"Yeah, yeah Eis, listen up. Before I cut your kriffing thoat I've got one question for you" Rua asked, his eyes flickering with contempt. "That crazy cunt who demoted you to chief grave digger...Is she really who she says she is?"

Eislin could contain his rage no longer and with a roar tore towards Earhen.


@TheWatchDog

Hes charging...charging ME? Earhen knew force users, especially Dark Side users just went off the cuff and did dumb spast like drug users but come on…
He was forced by Vader into deathmatchs with the Majestrix of Skye Kharys and survived with all limbs intact. This guy didn’t even fly like that white haired huntress...his disadvantage.

Earhen pulled out his pistol on its Disruptor setting and drilled two holes into the Adepts leg...he forgot how powerful they could get he wondered if he could disintegrate someone with a good charged shot now.

Left reeling the adept tried to get a Saber throw in but Earhen immediately began running to the doorway to swipe the key evading the Force users blade stroke made in wounded fury lodging it into the doorway before it deactivated impotently.

Earhen thinking quickly blasted the cylinder before its owner could summon it again and swiped the key slowly opening the door.

Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Piercing Light
Raw
Avatar of Piercing Light

Piercing Light ...

Member Seen 8 mos ago

Kale adjusted his robe as he stepped off a transport. He was glad to be out of the stale air of the ship and in the crisp atmosphere of Yavin IV. It was a shame he wasn't in the mood to enjoy the scenery. He gave a nonchalant wave to those that greeted him on his way to the Jedi temple. Even now he wasn't quite sure what he was going to say to Luke, he had placed a great deal of trust in the young man and he was not met with the same.

As he approached the entrance to the temple the doors slid open and he was greeted by Mara Jade. "Master Kale." She said with a hint of a smirk. She knew why he was here, she must have found Luke's predicament amusing somehow.

"Mara." Kale nodded as he followed her inside. In spite of this building's history Kale often found himself uneased by the architecture. There was a presence here, like fingerprints left by those attuned to the force. When he saw Luke, the words he'd been struggling to put together suddenly settled. "I trust you know what I came to speak about, Luke." He walked further in, moving to be face to face with Skywalker.

"When I joined this order I did not do so under the impression that I would be forced to deal with the unsavory aspects of the Republic's bureaucracy. I do not intend to be a blind pawn in their political games." Kale let out a sigh and crossed his arms. "But you should know this already, which is why I ask you now. Why did you keep such vital information from me?"
Hidden 4 yrs ago 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

@Guy of Z



"my Kriffing leg!" Eisline roared with barely contained frenzy. Why, why did the universe hate him so? Why did it dismiss him and why did the force take every opportunity to betray him?! "That.....that...expendable" he let out a wheeze as he was kicked in the ribs and set reeling into the immense stairs hard enough he was certain ribs broke but the sheer, spasmodic agony from his leg left him blind to whatever might have befell his torso. The kick, which was brutal sent him flying about a quarter of a meter and the kinetics of it caused what little strength in the tendons holding his leg together after Earhen utterly vaporized his kneecap to give out and tendons and arteries snapped and he fell a rush of even more blood and a thump. Around them, the vast caverns shuddered and seemed to creak as though the lingering presence of long dead Sith, or perhaps an echo of Palpatine's self imprinted stirred, feeding on the carnage and the serendipitous nature of so many familiar faces being in one place. The Mandalorian watched him in the flickering light of the brazier, disinterested. "That leap was pathetic and that one looked like he had experience fighting airborn targets" the disappointment in his tone caused the Adept to delve into the darkside in a frantic attempt to staunch the bleeding and to lash out, only for blinding white agony to disturb his concentration.

Blood ebbed from the side of his head "MY EAR?! YOU CUT OFF MY KRIFFING EAR?!"

"Hurts don't it" Rua sneered, his eyes beaming with malevolence. "Do you know who killed Gethzerion?" he asked and the Adepts eyes widened at the mere mention of the name, a name that had literally been made a crime to utter in Imperial city and across the breadth of the empire. The Dark witch who'd been the whole reason that Zsinj was given command over an entire oversector, solely to keep her power contained at Dathomir.

"Zsinj and me, lied about it in our reports to the Emperor, since it suited Zsinj for the old wizard to believe a threat still existed. Funny that, Palpatine claimed to be damn near omnipotent in the force but couldn't sense the death of a rival..that he feared when he shouldn't have" There was laughter and a song steel blade touched the man's throat "your lightsaber, trying to reach for it with the force, I can see it in the twinge of your cheek muscles"

whether blood loss or fear or both the adept let out a howl of utter despair. "y..you....you and that other fop, that idiot pretender killed Gethkriffingzerion? You're a bad liar mando"

"And yet here I am, standing over you" a swift flick of the blade caused two layers of skin to slough off his neck and as the Adept howled in pain Rua grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up so that he was resting partly against the Mandalorians knee and tight and lower stomach. Darksider blood ebbed out, steaming against his armor in the cool subterranean air "Last chance, the crazy cunt that dismissed you from Coru...who is she really?"

Rua didn't even bother asking him about another Jedi who might have broken in, there was no point. Ja'Karr was good enough to stay one step ahead of him, he would have been in and out without this fool even realizing. Rua was arrogant, but he never underestimated a worthy opponent, especially a force sensitive one. The adept laugh "Afraid for your precious mamas boy Rua? Or your own honor? How does the Dog of a fat, matricidal bastard like Zsinj ever expect to unite the Mandalorian clans? Huh? Oh I know you..I can see it in your eyes, you glory hounding pretty boy halfbreed" he coughed, blood bubbled from his throat, definitely broke a rib. -Keep him talking, maybe I'll bleed to death before he kills me- it was petty, it was spiteful.

It was all he had.

And then his nose came off with a flick and he screamed again and nearly vomited. "I'll ask again pretender..Who is she really?"

Even in death, an adept's life was evidently not his own. Damn you..Sidious..you promised us glory...Not...this.

"She....she..is..exactly..who she says she is" The Adept managed a defiant laugh "And she is going to bring a holy war to this galaxy the likes of which even the Sith couldn't fathom! Your doom is in your hunt you damn Mandalorian hound! So kill me pretty boy...my death won't hold a candle to yours!"

In the flickering light, Rua of Clan Skirata, war master of Emperor Zsinj's countenance shifted. Something cruel, intermixed with genuine concern and malice.

He slid his blade, but not cleanly through the ribs to grant him a quick death. Instead he disemboweled the Adept, whose intestines spilt across the steps, bathing them in blood and bile as Earhen finally slid his way into one of the vaults.

cleaning his blade Rua ordered the Raptor guard to find the inventory list then check for missing Sith and Jedi manuscripts, ignoring the cloning tech and treasure, Ja'Karr wouldn't have been interested in that. "Then plant two dozen seismic charges and proton torpedoes in this cesspit. I want the explosion to be visible from orbit and a crater deep and wide enough to make a kriffing lake"

Rua turned to leave before looking back at the doorway "Ya hear that kiddo? You've got six hours to get your crap and leave or you'll be ash!"

The Adept was right. Rua thought, his death wouldn't compare.

Mostly because he wasn't someone else's instrument.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

@Piercing Light



Luke had spent the intervening moments between Mara Jade's departure and the arrival of Kale through the Temples grand entrance pacing in a circle, "Trying to walk a trench into marble" As Han was fond of saying. Luke had been pacing a lot lately, between the recent fiasco and the day to day monotony of the back end aspects of the Jedi Order. If it wasn't paperwork authorizing the New Republic Navy to service the temples legions of droids, to requisitioning blankets and clothing to haggling over the Jedi Orders Budget! That last part one made Luke grumble. It was almost as if he needed a team of accountants, lawyers and an entire kriffing lobby to pressure the interim council to give him the things he needed. Part of him felt a pang of guilt over all the times he'd argued with Uncle Owen and aunt Beru over wanting to join the academy and dismissing their pleas of needing help on the farm as simply wanting him to remain on the farm, anchored to their life. Now that he had to actually manage something complex and unwieldy. "I wonder, did Yoda have to deal with all this?" Luke took a breath and reached out to rub his left shoulder, the muscles were spasming again and Luke allowed the force to flow through him to steady the twinging, aching micro convulsions seemed to be a byproduct of the power of the former and much deceased Dark Lord of the Sith. Doctors insisted it was a side effect the history books called "Force induced muscular atrophy" and that, the damage done to nerve endings and muscles by Sith empowered force Lightning was almost always fatal if not immediately treated and tended to leave survivors crippled and deformed. That Luke had only begun to feel the symptoms days after the event and that they were so minute was said to be a testament to his power in the force. But Luke didn't feel so strong, he was healing, another "medical miracle" but it was slow and he had moments of crippling agony and spasms in his back that hobbled him. -I owe Mara for helping me through it all- he thought.

It was then that the familiar presence of the only other Jedi Master in his new order filled his senses and he turned to Kale as he came in. Luke's hands were kept behind his back, doing his best to steady the muscle trembles in his shoulder. Kale's eyes were livid, but his posture was as restrained as he could manage under the circumstances and Luke slowly shook his head. What a fracas that had been, they'd been outmaneuvered, danced around and he had a feeling the triumphant entrance of Zsinj was more than just planned for the benefit of the Empire and the Republic. Of all the warlords, he seemed to be the most dangerous but he had no use for relics of the orders. Had he?

Luke offered Kale an conciliatory smile "Honestly, I could sense your frustration from the moment we existed hyperspace. If I was being honest with myself, I left the information out because I didn't exactly know just how dangerous Holocrons could actually be. If I'd have known we would have gone together and I wouldn't have placed Aren in any kind of danger" Even now,when the boys dereliction and desertion was abundantly clear Luke was could only worry about him, his safety, his sanity, his soul. "I allowed Mon Mothma to pressure me into staying silent, as to her reasons" He cleared his throat and laughed at the thought "She thinks Garm Bel Iblis is looking to go rogue, him and Wedge are "too blood thirsty" she says..." There was an obvious tint of skepticism in that assessment even if he didn't fully disagree with it. "Mon Mothma is being too cautious, I agree but. They're both fundamentally wrong, if we push into Remnant space now its going to mean committing to holding remnant space and while parties erupted across the upper levels of the planet at the news of the Emperors death, that doesn't mean those parties were pro Republic" Luke let that last bit hang in the air, two months ago they'd attempted to push into the outer rim. Both Mon Mothma and Iblis were in a rare moment of agreement advocated for liberating a few key sectors from Imperial warlords only to find Tyber Zann had already beaten them too it and when Luke cautioned retreat they pushed forward and rebel troops were slaughtered by irate citizens who had no interest in returning to the rule of a Republic that ignored them for the better part of fifteen thousand years.

Not everything was as it seemed, not everywhere were they liberators and while much of the Rebellion came from "inner" worlds like Chandrilla and Corelia or Alsakan, much of the core was still old era elite and even the regular citizens might have looked favorably.

Which brought Luke to Kale's next point, he hadn't signed up to take orders from the Republic. None of them had, the Jedi served the force, but the Republic was the best bet to ensure that peace. "We need the Republic, almost as much as the Galaxy does. But you're right, you didn't sign up to deal with Republic entanglements...Neither did I if I was being honest" Damn Luke thought, he promised himself he would learn from the mistakes Yoda made, from the old order and here he was making some of them.

"I can't promise you, we won't have to deal with meddlesome politicians Kale, but I swear to you, I will never lie to you like that again" It was all he could do, he thought and then hold himself to that promise with the same implacability by which he held to the light.

"I'm sorry this happened, I'm sorry we lost a student, I'm sorry lied to you" Even if it was a lie by omission, it was a lie nonetheless.

"If you can accept my apology, I'll need help tracking our wayward apprentice down" Luke reached his gloved hand up to cover his mouth, the servos of his artificial hands whirring as they tried to compensate for spasm that wracked his forearm and bicep. There were times, were Luke could almost see the hideous lightning and taste it in the air as if it threatened to return and strike him again. "I'm still playing catch up, growing up on a moisture farm in a backwater doesn't exactly prepare you for reforming an order of mystics, at least scholastically. I think that's the part that bothers me more than anything, even if I told you what it was, I probably would have acted like it wasn't a big deal because at the time I had no idea what a holocron could do!. That ignorance could have hurt you more than my silence...regardless, it won't happen again"

Luke went silent for a moment, allowing the force to soothe his being and to extend his senses through the amplification chamber. "How's Lehana doing?"

There were times Luke worried about Yavin, about the echoes, the ghosts here. But then he felt the light in his students and colleagues and those fears faded away.

-We belong here- he thought.

Not on Coruscant, maybe someday centuries from now when the Jedi numbered in the tens of thousands again...But now? Yavin IV with its mystery and its intrigue was where they would stay.

Perhaps the Republic should as well, but history would prove the folly of that suggestion.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by countlessinsect
Raw

countlessinsect

Member Seen 1 yr ago

Despite the praise and titles his master and maker heaped upon him, Highsinger's response was to simply put his left arm across his chest and do a short bow. While it seemed a rather muted reaction, especially coming from someone of Miriya's pedigree and one with accolades as hers; this was the only time the infamous bounty hunter would show anything resembling respect and adoration that came from the bottom of whatever passed for a heart in his drives that wasn't wholly for the sake of protocol and proper courtesy. He was no archaic murder-automaton after all, he had standards and sophistication.

"It is good as well to see you again."

From her spot beside Invictus Janus, Aladar nearly let out a breath of shock. Highsinger assassination droids were rare, they were antiques and notoriously disrespectful and mouthy. "The" Highsinger, the special one who'd allegedly survived in the most dangerous of games for centuries was even more so. The infamous Droid was more like an urban legend she'd heard repeated on ecumenopolis, after ecumenopolis. Whispered about in Hutt bazaars and bordellos and the few remaining Highsinger models were often conflated for the original. But seeing him bow before her master only reinforced the sensation she'd felt ever since that fateful day when they'd found a ship floating in the void.

Destiny moves us.

"You must tell me sometime, of all that you've done over the last two thousand years. I've read the history books, but it scarce does the events justice. Written as they were, by small minded, provincial fools seeking to ingratiate themselves to the catamites who replaced me on the Jedi High Council or the worthless fops of House Valorum or this...drug mad imbecile Sidious" she'd made a dismissive gesture with her left hand before her arms rested again behind her back over her waist. Her eyes, brimmed with the same fervor Aladar had seen in the hours after the coup against Sate Pestage. This was providence, a victory in her mind as well.

Her master was going to speak again but one of the few Crimson guard she allowed in her presence cleared his throat causing her to turn her head at an incline, sneering at him for his impertinence. "Forgive me Invictus Janus, but Admiral Rae Sloane wishes to speak to you"

Aladar watched as her master's left eyebrow twitched ever so slightly at the mention of the Rank of Admiral. -was she truly that bad?- the apprentice thought, she'd worked with Sloane only once before as she was hunting some renegade Jedi. She seemed competent, if a bit pretentious, though it was pretension of a different sort. As if the low class origin of her birth and the tits made her somehow special. It was different from the typical humanocentric arrogance, a sort of victimized sense of entitlement that the ex drug addict and sex slave recognized for the danger it was.

Still though.

A simpleton who discovered the universe sucked and lashed out by demanding special attention be given to her combat achievements solely because being female and "disenfranchised" made it somehow superior to the achievement of others still made her better than most of the drug addicts, maniacs and thugs who represented the Admiralty.

Her master, let out a sigh, her body swaying in a way that it appeared as though a great serpent had just let loose a hiss. "Very well, come both of you, we need to be departing this planet any way. Shame that, I rather enjoyed the sun"

As did I, Aladar thought. "Duty calls" she lamented, allowing herself a full two seconds before adding in her quip. Miryia had begun to allow her more freedom to speak, to act as more than just her shadow and even expressed pride in her progress at times but she wasn't about to test those limits, just yet any way.

"Indeed" Janus responded with a soft chuckle. "In truth I'd hoped to return here after our mission, this planet has had an affect on your senses and your body. You're healing, your strength is growing, responding the abundance of life".

But there would be other agriworlds and perhaps, if her apprentice didn't disgrace herself or worse, Miryia's charity. She'd return with a legion of trainees all her own. -I've become attached to this one, I hadn't expected that given her upbringing. That she could move me so at all makes her worthy of it though-.

Still, Miryia wasn't in the business of taking in whores for the sake of the whores. This one, earned it.

Taking note of his master's naked display of displeasure at the very mention of this "Admiral Rae Sloane", Highsinger held his vocoder and his judgement for the time being. There were many, many beings that Miriya saw as inferior and worth less than the dirt she stood over, thus her reaction wasn't exactly a precise indicator of who exactly this Rae Sloane was; but given that it is clearly a woman's name and an imperial admiral at that, logic dictates that she's self-important, entitled and with an over-inflated sense of achievement that they would base their entire identity around. Exactly like the usual sorts that held that title in the navy, but perhaps to an even greater degree due to the fact that the Empire as a whole was a male-dominated institution and for a woman to have made it to a flag rank? The Droid's processors temporarily lagged as it attempted to calculate how many "under the table" dealings this Rae Sloane made with superior officers.

She'd made the walk to the the crimson and black Dreadnaught class cruiser, in silence. Though, less contemplative and more simply, allowing her senses to embrace the vibrancy of the planet one last time before they'd begun their departure. "Coruscant is a cornucopia of sentient life, but it was always rare for a Jedi of the High Council to truly enjoy the sensation of a more..diverse biome" Or the raw material she thought, sentient beings made for poor raw material to regenerate tissue and prolong lives, this she figured was why the Sith who performed such profane rituals as opposed to sapping the lives from animals or plants ended up degenerating mentally after repeated revivals or restorations using sentient life.

It was one of the main reasons why she avoided it entirely after that event long ago. Beyond them, regular army and crew began packing up all the tents and kits, moving the water processors and kitchen gear into the vessels cargo bays. Storm troopers began to assist, ruefully as children dreading a return to class from a long vacation.

The command bridge went silent as they entered, many turning to look upon the Highsinger droid while others couldn't help but notice both master and Apprentice looked stronger, healthier somehow. It was also rare, for Invictus Janus to be dressed so..casually in front of anyone. She was barely wearing anything but silk robes and was entirely barefoot as she'd been outside. Bone white hair fell loose about her shoulders as if she was intending to make a statement about how vexatious this call was.

On the main compod a fully colorized holo image manifested itself of a dark skinned woman with really wild, puffy hair that was held backwards in a makeshift pony tail that hair such as hers was simply not designed for. Atop her head was an Admirals cap, barely resting on her scalp due to said hair. Brown eyes flashed with fear, concern and more than a bit of fire. She feared the Jedi, anyone who witnessed what she could do would be a fool not too, but there was respect interspersed with it and she wasn't so weak as to let that fear override her good sense.

"Pontifex Invictus Janus"

"Admiral Rae Sloane"

Both stated their titles as matter of fact as possible, both held a hint of cordiality in it as though they were congratulating each other on recent promotions. But where Sloane's seemed genuine if misplaced (she seemed more happy that a non human and a fellow female rose so high, which Aladar could sense was an attitude offended her master beyond measure). The tone of the Jedi was pure formality "Sub Director General Raveem inquires as to your location"

"I shall be arriving on Coruscant in six hours" The edge of her lips curled ever so lightly.

Coy little Cervid.

Sloane's eyes narrowed on the droid "Your retinue grows it seems..."

Miryia raised an eyebrow, now that was unacceptable. Displeasure, openly especially. Was something very few sentients had the station or value to dare. "Effrontery is unbecoming of you, Admiral Sloane"

"Effrontery, Invictus Janus, you are not part of the chain of command for the Stellar Navy and-"

For a second she seemed to hesitate, a murderous look came over the violet eyes of the Jedi and Rae was convinced she might have possessed the means to act on it. Still, she'd come too far, despite her gender and background to let some high born, privileged inner princess, war hero or not. dismiss her like that.

Highsinger returned the unpleasant look, having determined that his master's distaste was entirely justified at the mere sight of the "Admiral's" mangy mane of hair. For an admiral to proudly wear such a hairstyle most commonly seen in red-light districts? He need not know more.

"Are deferred too out of courtesy to your importance in civilian matters"

"And matters of the spirit" Miryia added, her tone dangerous. Aladar, wanted to back away, to remain as small as possible in a corner, instead she took a huge risk and stepped forward. "Part of the duties of the office of Pontifex Invictus is the creation of an army of force using Knights, to keep the peace, maintain imperial justice and protect the citizenry...That puts her squarely in line with The Supreme Commander..if you'd bothered to read the new charter that was drafted in the wake of Grand Vizier"

"Sorry, some of us don't have the luxury of spending hours in a palace, being read too by helper droids, apprentice Aladar".

The woman blinked, did Sloane just accuse her of privilege?! Her hands balled into fists and to her surprise, her master gently gripped her wrist then slid her hand over the first until it relaxed and their fingers interlaced...It was such an oddly maternal gesture that it silenced her welling fury.

"This conversation is off course, Admiral Sloane. This is not a mere a Highsinger assassin droid, he is the original and my right hand in the New Sith Wars".

Sloanes eyes almost widened "Not the Highsinger who commanded the raid or Mintooine? The only droid to command Jedi in battle?" She steadied her jaw, as if the thought only reinforced her concern. "The same Highsinger who shifted a moon out of orbit with a hypermatter detonation to kill the Sith legions stationed on Ord Sustrel?"

Was that her plan?!

"The sith died like the vermin they were. They assumed the Jedi wouldn't be ruthless enough to sacrifice a planet to deal them a blow which they could not recover from. They were wrong."

Hesitation mounted in Sloane's eyes as the Droid responded to her. What an odd thing to say? The dismissiveness in his tone towards the Sith drew eyes from many on board her vessels and Janus' as well. Those who served a Dark Lord often found themselves devoted to the glory of his memory and the crimson guard might have chosen to serve her, but her contempt for their old master stung. Searching her memory for the proper dates, the battle of Ord Sustrel had taken place, thirty two years into a thousand year war. The Invictus herself would continue to fight in that war for another ninety six years, yet the look in her eyes brokered no descent from what the droid had said?

True, the last of Darth Ruins apprentices had fallen on that dark day and the Sith spent the next fifteen years fighting themselves just as viscously at they fought the Republic. The Internecine warfare certainly did cripple the Sith, but the Jedi barely fared much better..Why did that disturbingly seem like? Whatever thought was grasping at muted in her mind as she caught the intensity of that violet gaze, which was scrutinizing her.

"You were a master of war in your time Highsinger" the remark was a bit of a backhanded compliment. She marveled, but she was disparaging. He deserved praise for who he was not who he became.

"And yet Palpatine lies dead and the Empire fragmented. At the hands of underpaid and under-armed rebels."

The droid's photoreceptors slowly scanned the Admiral's hologram as it spoke, a very subtle jab at the people who were supposed to prevent such a thing from transpiring. He didn't know or care if the female had the awareness to realize she and the institution that she clawed her way up from were being insulted.

"Palpatine is dead" Admiral Sloane put in slowly, she was doing her best to restrain herself from the insult not to the dead hobgoblin and his privileged elite, his misogynistic cavalcade of clowns, but against her and those like her. Who were stuck paying lip service to intractable elites, solely because they had a penis and had good last names. "But the Rebellion's victory can't be easily dismissed... Master Droid" she let the last part out in more of a sneer than she meant too.

"Well said Highsinger." Miryia remarked her eyes stern, this line of discussion was ended and Admiral Sloane, gave ground a look in her eyes suggested she was enraged over it. "Is he perhaps the reason you've requested funds to equip and lease sixteen thousand freighters? Another ten thousand passenger liners? Are you mobilizing a quarter of our repair and rescue fleet, our support vessels and droids over war? AG technology has improved since then Invictus Janus."

Miryia raised an eyebrow, her features tensed. Did this entitled child truly view her strategic acumen so poorly? Did this pathetic, drug filled brothel born harlot claim to understand military doctrine yet think a fellow player at the game of war would be so stupid? "If you're insinuating that I intend to use starships as Kinetic weapons of mass destruction then I would advise you to read the history books, not blurbs on some activist run holoblog."

Admiral Sloane stiffened, it always came back to that didn't it? Even with a potential ally, it always came down to class. "With respect, Invictus Janus, my concern is for the empire, its future and not any personal enmity"

"That fact is why I put your name forward for Admiralty, not that you needed it. Supreme Commander Pellaeon was a staunch proponent of your rise" she added that last bit with a sliver of a smile.

Sloane nodded slowly, this had been news to her. "I thought" "You allowed your resentment towards the circumstances of your birth and mine to blind you, your judgment, Admiral Sloane is clouded by your perverse notion of how thoughts should be. You've the makings of a great leader, but you consistently make a slave of yourself by whining about your station. My apprentice, the woman who may succeed me should someone kill me before she passes from old age was born nameless, raised by a Jedi and then made a drug addicted whore before she was twisted into Sith Cannon fodder..Yet here she stands by my side, irregardless of her low birth"

Sloane's features paled somewhat, humiliated and yet oddly fortified.

"I don't care about the help..but I care about people Admiral Sloane, merit is the only true currency, I suggest you stop dismissing your own by twisting it through such a dusty lens" Miryia turned, only stopping to cast her head back slightly, her purple eyes gleaming over her shoulder through strands of white hair. "You will soon understand why I've issued such an order, but until then..you must show others the trust you struggle to show in yourself."

A wave of her hand silenced the comm and she turned to Highsinger "You have command of this vessel, I intend to instruct my apprentice on the journey home, help yourself to the maintenance bay and any weaponry or powercells you find would suit your needs"

"Understood, Master."

Inwardly Highsinger was most pleased, this truly was a return to form; back during the first years of his existence. While the advantages of anonymity and subtlety might no longer be his, he cannot deny the boons of having a Dreadnaught's worth of personnel under his command and its stormtrooper contingent, which would make one particular contract of his so much less complicated.

"However, I would like to accompany you to Coruscant. Information on a certain bounty, one of the most high-profile postings the "New Republic" made is to be found in the lower reaches and it was to be my next assignment. A certain bounty that could prove beneficial if we could properly harness his talent for our own."
1x Thank Thank
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Piercing Light
Raw
Avatar of Piercing Light

Piercing Light ...

Member Seen 8 mos ago

"Lahana is the same as she has been for a while. She wasn't too happy about how the mission turned out." Kale uncrossed his arms took on a more relaxed posture. Perhaps unbefitting of what some would consider the stature of a Jedi Master, but he wasn't always a Jedi. "I didn't come here for an apology, but I appreciate the sincerity regardless." He could tell Luke meant what he said, however he could also sense conflict within him.

"When you were a rebel I imagine things were much more simple. No worrying about who to please and to whom you should compromise your instincts for. Perhaps doing that which you know to be right is the best course of action." Kale reached into his robe and pulled out the same communication device he'd tried to reach Aren with. "The boy vanished right from under my watch, most likely along with the holocron. Where he went I don't know, but if we can log which ships jumped into hyperspace we may be able to narrow it down at least."
1x Like Like
Hidden 4 yrs ago 4 yrs ago Post by Wildling
Raw
Avatar of Wildling

Wildling I Drink, And I Know Things

Member Seen 4 yrs ago

The Criminal


Jouren was surrounded by enemies. As he whipped out his blaster pistol and snuck another glance at the woman beside him, all he could think was that it was good to be back. While being a fugitive was something new, his life had hardly gotten duller. He was in a tough spot, sure, but with a blaster in his hand and a beautiful woman beside him, he couldn't go wrong. "Come out now, scum. There's ten of us, and one of you. No way to get out of this," The hitman shouted to him, "I’m feeling generous, so I'll give you one chance to get out of this alive. Come out with your hands up." Jouren thought for a bit, before shouting his response back: "No thank you!" And with that, he leaped out.

TALINN DISTRICT - TARIS


"We've arrived." The transport's pilot growled, jolting Jouren from his slumber and ending his dreams. He rubbed his eyes and donned his helmet with a sigh. He had very rarely removed it since his change in status, but the flight to Taris had been a lonely one. Jouren even being the lone passenger. Jouren even had to pay extra credits just to get the pilot to fly him here, what with the lack of other passengers. Thankfully, business for the pilot was slow, and as Jouren took one more look at his passage to anonymity, it was obvious why; the ship was a hunk of junk. Not to mention the ride had been a turbulent one, and had it not been for Jouren's complete exhaustion, the pilot's lack of skill likely would've caused him to not sleep at all. "That means get out." snapped the pilot, snapping Jouren out of his inner monologue and forcing him to pick up his small amount of luggage and face his new life.

Jouren stepped off of the transport, and at once a wave of nausea struck him as the stench of the wasteland wormed its way through his helmet's filter. Not one to linger in unpleasant situations, he moved deeper into the city. As Jouren began to move farther into the ecumenopolis, he began gazing up at the massive towers that loomed above him. He caught a glimpse of a significantly more lavish-looking transport than the one he arrived on landing on a well-maintained landing pad and sighed, remembering his more luxurious days as a crime lord. Before the Empire decided to come after him. Before he had to flee to this damned place.

Jouren, after an unnecessary amount of searching, finally pinpointed a cantina where he could hopefully find the answer to his sorrows at the bottom of a glass. As he pushed open the swinging doors and began facing the glares of the patrons of the establishment he realized that this may not have been the wisest decision. However his anxieties were silenced as he reassured himself that none of the inhabitants of this hellhole had probably even heard of him, so the idea of them actively searching for him was preposterous. The heels of his boots sounded across the cold hard floor as he made his way deeper into the cantina, finally deciding on a quiet booth in the back. Jouren slumped down at first, but sat up as a some-what bland Twi’lek waitress began making her way over to him. “Can I help you with anything?” She asked him, her dull eyes matching her tone. “I’ll have whatever’s strongest.” The waitress barked a harsh laugh, before silencing herself. “If you say so.” She walked off without another word. Now that he had some space, Jouren took the opportunity to listen to some of the conversations around him. “L-Listen, I’ll get you the m-money! I just need a little time!” He smiled under the helmet’s dark facade. It had been a while since he heard that line. He quickly shifted his attention to a different exchange of hushed murmurs. -“Word is, everyone there was either turned into swiss cheese by blasterfire or melted by the radiation.”
-“Damn. I was only a week from starting there, too. What do you think it was?”
-“Must’ve been an army. There’s no way in hell one man who did that.”
-“As long as I’m not on the receiving end of it.”
Jouren turned his attention back to the waitress as she reappeared with a glass filled with some sort of murky swill. “Well?” He looked up at her. “This is it?” She extended her hand. Jouren dropped a credit chip into her hand and removed his helmet, ignoring the stare he undoubtedly received from her. She left without another word, and Jouren put his head in his hands as the hopelessness of his situation began to set in.
1x Like Like
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

@Piercing Light



Yavin IV

"Well, she isn't the only one" Luke said with a rueful laugh as Kale thanked him for an apology he hadn't sough. Luke nodded his head in ascent. He might not have come here for one, but he was owed one nonetheless. Around the pair, the braziers burned revealing a race of crimson skinned primitives gazing up at starships. While other images of those same primitives united under the iron grip of a grim, gaunt looking human. At the mention of Arin the room seemed to grow almost cold as the depictions seemed to almost dance. The comm device seemed to tug at him and at the images which danced in the light, why this strange sensation filled his senses he couldn't say but the force itself seemed to be at a crossroads, a Nexus which centered around one lost boy.

"Do you have any idea why he did it?" Luke asked his eyes a mix of speculation, doubt and an all too disturbing certainty. "I've been studying these rooms Kale, the ziggurats outside in the gardens and the other temples. I never had the education Leia Organa did, or really even Mara's or yours. But even on Tatooine we knew of the Sith, we were always told they were a crazy cult of heretics to some religion called "Jedi" who were warrior monks in the days of the Republic. They fought and lost a war with the Jedi long ago and their sect went extinct. Kind of comforting to know I keep having microseizures because of a figment of my imagination" Luke smiled lightly and then his eyes shifted to the door as Mara Jade came in. "But Mara told me the Sith were something else once, long before The Emperor and..my father.."

"They were a race of force sensitive conquerors, who took Dark Jedi exiled from Coruscant six thousand years ago as living gods." Mara spoke, repeating a story she'd heard from the Emperor. "Lonely exiles who met with savages and together bred a new race" She offered Kale a shrug as if so say she had no idea if this was the genuine article or merely a lie told be a dark and powerful space wizard who was slowly losing his mind and delighted in lying to his followers on his better days. "This place, it holds the force in it, light and dark. You've felt it haven't you Kale? Like footprints in the sand? Or thunder just beyond your visual range? It's like, two groups of giants fought here and one lost everything and the other burned like a sun. I think Yavin was a Sith stronghold once, I think the Jedi overcame them, maybe the last of them or one of their successors like Palpatine...I don't know but it's long ago and that powers almost like an echo, its almost powerless. Aren, has something that's concentrated darkside"

"It's more than that" Mara warned "The Emperor once warned us about Holocrons, they don't always just contain the techniques and skills of dead Sith and Jedi, sometime they even fragments of their souls or are a doorway to afterlife of the force". Luke blinked at that last part "You..sure?"

Mara nodded fiercely "Oh yeeaaahh...trust me" she spoke, jittery almost as if she was recalling a personal experience that horrified her but excited a darker part of her. "I was sent after an Inquisitor once who opened a Holocron and the fragment of some Sith lord was inside. It destroyed him, all that was left was this, animal with more power than sense...Darth Sidious forbade me from discussing it, but I get the impression the old ones were stronger. Like, the followers of Bane..uhh The Emperor's type of Sith, sacrificed grandiose power for more subtle, dangerous and manipulative skills. Maybe because the old ways were too destructive or something"

Luke nodded allowing Kale to process where they were going. "Aren, needs our help Kale but that isn't the only mission I have for you." Here, Mara stepped forward her eyes flashed with eagerness but also caution. As though she was urging Luke to trust her with this mission, rather than Kale.

Luke catching her eye laughed "Mara wants out of the temple and into space, I can't say I blame you though" he gave her a knowing smirk. "Two months ago the force started to shift around the territory held by Grand Moff Kaine, there's a power growing there, it's dark and its terrible. Aren may be heading there, or he may be running off on his own. I want you to track him down and bring him back to us, if you believe he has been, possessed by this Holocron, don't engage, call me and I'll come to you. We'll bring him back together"

Mara raised an eyebrow "So you're sending me after this relic hunter you think is out there? The non threat?"

Luke laughed "I'm afraid so"

Mara shook her head ruefully "See that Master Kale? He can't kill me in a fight so he's trying to murder me with boredom" Though she protested, it didn't sound like she was going to refuse. Tracking down Jedi had, sadly been one of her specialities. "Y'know, Aren might have gone to Coruscant"

"Why?" Luke asked with confusion "Aren't all the inquisitors dead? I'm not sure if Sate Pestage would" oh right, Luke paused "Or...Hissa i should say, doesn't he run the remnant now?"

"Right, but I mean the con artist"

Oh, Luke thought, right. Some imposter set up shop claiming to be a Jedi, but Republic intelligence assumed she was just an Inquisitor running some hair brained scheme to discredit the new Jedi order. Mara dismissed it as nonsense and agreed with their spies, but Luke wasn't sure, he'd felt echoes around two presences that were invisible to him. One, seemed kind and simply curious, the other? Death occurred around it. "You agree with our operatives?"

Mara shrugged "Only way to explain why someone the history books made out to be one of the greatest Jedi of her time, big hoohah Sith killer and all wasn't shot to pieces the moment she showed up on the nearest corner babbling about being back from the dead or whatever"

"Unless, she killed all the other force users, or redeemed them"

"You can't redeem inquisitors Luke and most herniated Storm Troopers could kill inquisitors, they were kind of the Joke of the Dark acolytes I'll have you know"

Luke cleared his throat, suppressing laughter. "Regardless...Master Kale, we need to retrieve Aren and..Well I was going to say destroy the Holocron but I don't know what that'll do"

"I don't even know if they can be destroyed, toss it out an airlock or bring it back to study so we can figure out how to destroy it?" She offered.

"Or bury it in a vault and forget about it" Luke added, he was perfectly okay with indulging his curiosity about Jedi and Sith history, their knowledge, their power. Same for any of his Jedi when it was just scribblings on a wall, but something potentially alive?

"Find him, I've got a bad feeling about this, like we're surrounded by Experts when we're still trying to figure out how to walk" Luke gave a weary sigh and then paused "And...Make sure Aren knows, we aren't going to kill him, or throw him out of the order. We just want to know what happened"

"may the force be with you" Mara added with a smirk, finishing the master's "session" with the customary blessing.

She was so going to have fun making the farm boy pay for this later.

Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Guy of Z
Raw
Avatar of Guy of Z

Guy of Z

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

@Guy of Z



"my Kriffing leg!" Eisline roared with barely contained frenzy. Why, why did the universe hate him so? Why did it dismiss him and why did the force take every opportunity to betray him?! "That.....that...expendable" he let out a wheeze as he was kicked in the ribs and set reeling into the immense stairs hard enough he was certain ribs broke but the sheer, spasmodic agony from his leg left him blind to whatever might have befell his torso. The kick, which was brutal sent him flying about a quarter of a meter and the kinetics of it caused what little strength in the tendons holding his leg together after Earhen utterly vaporized his kneecap to give out and tendons and arteries snapped and he fell a rush of even more blood and a thump. Around them, the vast caverns shuddered and seemed to creak as though the lingering presence of long dead Sith, or perhaps an echo of Palpatine's self imprinted stirred, feeding on the carnage and the serendipitous nature of so many familiar faces being in one place. The Mandalorian watched him in the flickering light of the brazier, disinterested. "That leap was pathetic and that one looked like he had experience fighting airborn targets" the disappointment in his tone caused the Adept to delve into the darkside in a frantic attempt to staunch the bleeding and to lash out, only for blinding white agony to disturb his concentration.

Blood ebbed from the side of his head "MY EAR?! YOU CUT OFF MY KRIFFING EAR?!"

"Hurts don't it" Rua sneered, his eyes beaming with malevolence. "Do you know who killed Gethzerion?" he asked and the Adepts eyes widened at the mere mention of the name, a name that had literally been made a crime to utter in Imperial city and across the breadth of the empire. The Dark witch who'd been the whole reason that Zsinj was given command over an entire oversector, solely to keep her power contained at Dathomir.

"Zsinj and me, lied about it in our reports to the Emperor, since it suited Zsinj for the old wizard to believe a threat still existed. Funny that, Palpatine claimed to be damn near omnipotent in the force but couldn't sense the death of a rival..that he feared when he shouldn't have" There was laughter and a song steel blade touched the man's throat "your lightsaber, trying to reach for it with the force, I can see it in the twinge of your cheek muscles"

whether blood loss or fear or both the adept let out a howl of utter despair. "y..you....you and that other fop, that idiot pretender killed Gethkriffingzerion? You're a bad liar mando"

"And yet here I am, standing over you" a swift flick of the blade caused two layers of skin to slough off his neck and as the Adept howled in pain Rua grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up so that he was resting partly against the Mandalorians knee and tight and lower stomach. Darksider blood ebbed out, steaming against his armor in the cool subterranean air "Last chance, the crazy cunt that dismissed you from Coru...who is she really?"

Rua didn't even bother asking him about another Jedi who might have broken in, there was no point. Ja'Karr was good enough to stay one step ahead of him, he would have been in and out without this fool even realizing. Rua was arrogant, but he never underestimated a worthy opponent, especially a force sensitive one. The adept laugh "Afraid for your precious mamas boy Rua? Or your own honor? How does the Dog of a fat, matricidal bastard like Zsinj ever expect to unite the Mandalorian clans? Huh? Oh I know you..I can see it in your eyes, you glory hounding pretty boy halfbreed" he coughed, blood bubbled from his throat, definitely broke a rib. -Keep him talking, maybe I'll bleed to death before he kills me- it was petty, it was spiteful.

It was all he had.

And then his nose came off with a flick and he screamed again and nearly vomited. "I'll ask again pretender..Who is she really?"

Even in death, an adept's life was evidently not his own. Damn you..Sidious..you promised us glory...Not...this.

"She....she..is..exactly..who she says she is" The Adept managed a defiant laugh "And she is going to bring a holy war to this galaxy the likes of which even the Sith couldn't fathom! Your doom is in your hunt you damn Mandalorian hound! So kill me pretty boy...my death won't hold a candle to yours!"

In the flickering light, Rua of Clan Skirata, war master of Emperor Zsinj's countenance shifted. Something cruel, intermixed with genuine concern and malice.

He slid his blade, but not cleanly through the ribs to grant him a quick death. Instead he disemboweled the Adept, whose intestines spilt across the steps, bathing them in blood and bile as Earhen finally slid his way into one of the vaults.

cleaning his blade Rua ordered the Raptor guard to find the inventory list then check for missing Sith and Jedi manuscripts, ignoring the cloning tech and treasure, Ja'Karr wouldn't have been interested in that. "Then plant two dozen seismic charges and proton torpedoes in this cesspit. I want the explosion to be visible from orbit and a crater deep and wide enough to make a kriffing lake"

Rua turned to leave before looking back at the doorway "Ya hear that kiddo? You've got six hours to get your crap and leave or you'll be ash!"

The Adept was right. Rua thought, his death wouldn't compare.

Mostly because he wasn't someone else's instrument.


@TheWatchDog

Yavin 4


3996 BBY




Deep in the Great Temple Kun surveyed the Isolation Chambers specified for his silent daggers that he had hoped to put against the Republics throats. His bid on Ossus cost him his apprentice but he completed his mission of raiding Jedi Artifacts. Soon he would have the tools to rebuild the Sith Empire using the vary teachings of the Jedi fools who destroyed it.

His creations were incomplete still but he equipt every device to retell the history of the Missasi and the sith to each chamber's occupants. A larger Chamber fitted for use by a full blooded Massasi Warrior remained unused, it was a backup in case the temple became compromised. A nocturnal hunter, a night beast would be born of the lucky candidate. The Jedi were reeling from the Supernova unleashed by that useless sycophant Crado and that harlot Aleema, they couldn't marshall a force fast enough to oppose him and they could try with their scattered enclaves! Ulic’s capture was a setback but he would retrieve him again.

Now


Upon opening the room Earhen came across a strange site, what seemed to be two strang tanks that looked nothing alike. If this is what The Emperor took from Yavin and stored here it seemed mundane so far.

I hope there is a grav life here. I'm not kriffing dragging these things whatever they are.

Thankfully a conveniently placed lift was available to pick up the platform

“Ok call the Hoojibs and tell them to get out of the tie mauler we’re gonna airlift out I’ll comm Tal.”

Earhen didn’t really know if he could really trust the man known as Tal Hesz, and a being as damned as much as Earhen was probs wouldn’t help his reputation to the Republic, he took on Merc work omitting his...sour history to avoid getting the Teshiek treatment. Tal on the other hand at one point hopped to exchange Luke Skywalker and a Rebel Fleet bean counter to Darth Vader to bargain with the Empire in his homeworlds favor. When Skywalker predictably escaped his planet was slagged by Vader and enslaved and the poor bastard that didn’t escape Tal’s betrayal, Jorin Sol was reprogrammed into a sleeper agent by Intelligence and nearly destroyed the Rebel fleet. Earhen was wondering how long it would take for people in the Rebellion...er Republic to just recognize Tal and just shoot him really…only reason Earhen had no moral high ground was because well...he wasn't much better when he assisted in hunting Tay Vanis.

Before then he saw Vader as a tragic hero betrayed by fate, a necessary monster but...the way that man screamed when Vader rubbed away his memories until he was a mindless husk was too much...even for the Assassin. Of all the acts of cruelty by the Dark lord that rattled him the most.

He prepared the lift left the message to the brooding Jabiinite manning his beautiful ship and took off from the caverns with both capsules. What the hell was in these things that got that kook Blackhole to send his soldiers?
1x Like Like
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago




In Orbit over Thule

“Admiral sir! There's a ship leaving the planet!”

“Do you have a visual?”

“Yes sir…”

Screed recognized the ship as a basic Imperial troop transport...before Endor barely just a year he remembered a warning for a similar ship deserting belonging to one of Vader's personal servants.

“Why did that Mandalorian fool leading the Raptors let this ship escape? The person on that ship is someone of interest…” And danger Screed omitted...Screed had personally seen the trails of bodies the child had left during Trachta’s aborted coup on Imperial Center. Anyone close to Vader tended to be a living army even his alleged blood relative Skywalker is a one man army if the Holonets claims were to be correct. If such a person got something that even Screed was oblivious to in the storehouse he and the entire galaxy could be in peril.

“Is it wise to speak of Rua Skirata so with Raptors present Admiral?”

"I won't tolerate failure even from the Warlords own elite." Screed raised a finger to the officer.

The Demolisher’s XO, had long grown accustomed to Screed’s aptitude for biting commentary on those the man who, had circumstances gone differently; very well could have counted amongst the founders of the new order. It had been an honor to serve him once, seeing the man go from an illustrious battlefield commander to a broken ruin serving his rival and nemesis hurt those who’d long served him aboard the demolisher as much as it had the man himself. But mouthing off to the Hound of Zsinj often meant trouble. Albeit not old school Imperial trouble, but a more passive aggressive sort. Withholding of provisions, tebana gas, cartridges and missiles. “He’s ordered that we use proton missiles to detonate the interior of the complex, I can order a bombardment of the building and the surrounding area if you feel it more efficient Admiral” The man bowed his head, avoiding the gaze of a man who had lost his ability to put up with nonsense along with his eye and arm.

“Hah! Typical of you and yours Terrinald! I’m sorry, Admiral Screed hero of the Republic and builder of the Empire!” officers not in crimson suppressed groans but looks of disgust flashed across their faces as the Mandalorian warrior, still covered in the blood of an adept that had once been on their side walked in. laughing and close to his chest were two young women with platinum blond hair and Raptor dress tunics, which were entirely opened revealing their torso in its entirety, additionally, pressed against them on either side were a pair of similarly disheveled, only their hair was a deep dark indigo, one was a Zeltraon and the other clearly a Chiss. They looked like whores, yet smelled of blood and carbon. That’s mostly because they were whores in a prior life, sex slaves to Dozo Besadi Zor or “Dozo The Gallant” or “Dozo the immense” for he was unusually gigantic for a Hutt so young. These sex slaves had also been some of the last living members of the Mecrosa Order, an ancient cult of dueling masters who once were counted as legitimate threats to both Jedi and Sith only to be exterminated and relegated to the dustbin of history or the musty halls of eccentric nobles who practiced their combat techniques. His “Lady-Hawks”, may have been little more than shadows of the true Macrossa Order but they’d acquitted themselves well enough to have gone from a simple “gift” from Dozo to Zsinj to the personal bodyguard and assassins of Zsinj’s right hand. A gift, regifted to Rua after he lost an eye in the service of Zsinj. The Chiss, had the scalp of one of the guards who fought so bravely down below freshly cut attached to her belt, blood trickled onto the command deck and her eyes flickered at Screeds command crew who were all visibly disgusted and infuriated.

It wasn’t enough for Screed to have been beaten and in the service of his one rival, but he needed to know he’d been broken. More importantly, his crew needed to see it.

“Yes a base delta zero would be more efficient, but I don’t really want efficiency in this, I want to send a message to the rest of the galaxy, that the age of force users dictating anything to the rest of us is at an end. The rest of the planet belongs to its biome, not those ghosts” At least, that was what Zsinj wanted. “oohh...Screed, you look as terrible as you always do! Cheer up! This was a great victory! Yet you look like I took your other eye!” he frowned, as if to stop and think and then he grinned “This is about the little grave robber isn’t it?”

"Of course it is, his ships signal is changed but the reports on the ground and the ships description matches one of Vader’s enforcers. I may personally know this one, he’s left piles of corpses during and after both Trachta and Zaarin's failed coups. He was specifically trained to be a counter to force users despite being blind to it. He was much like his mother's people a test subject for a twisted design." Screed noticed not only were the Raptors female but aliens one belonging to that wretch Thawn’s race and the other the hedonists of Zeltros. He was not going to enjoy this assignment no.

“Your soldiers could have easily taken him down with superior numbers and you let him slip away, and what little I know of what these storehouses contained he could have made off with just about anything, Hive Virus, the Blue Shadow virus, plans for a superlaser!”

“I don’t think so” Rua remarked, his cyborg eye had been feeding him translation data, though he understood Sith runes to an extent on his own. “I believe what he took from there were lifepods, it’s probably some ancient corpse, or a soldier from some bygone era, a shade perhaps or some such. Granted, you’re right he could have made off with bioweaponry.” That had been sufficient enough concern to make him hesitate, but he figured any plague unleashed by that idiot kid was probably going to turn loose on some Republic world, or the Remnant (heh, lets see that bitch push her religion in the face of a plague), or if they got really lucky.

Pentastar space.

The human with blond hair nuzzled into Rua’s armor “You hear that Mando? The kid you spared was trained to kill force users,an arkanian experiment race” murmured the chiss, who had the look of a feral animal as she gazed at Admiral Screed. “You might just have competition” The Zeltron whispered as she broke from the mass of flesh and walked towards Screed “He fears what could have been unleashed, I can sense it but its logical his fear, we may have errored”

“I may have errored, you four were busy slaughtering elites” Rua conceded, his features somewhat losing their cocky grin, though it seemed less about what was removed and more about what was missing before he even arrived. “I’m tracking a Jedi Screed, I don’t have time for a dead cripples lackeys, as for a superlaser Arlani, my little chiss serpent liberated the schematics herself”

“Rua says Zsinj will refuse them though” she play pouted, her eyes flickering to Screed “Rua says Zsinj thinks superweapons are stupid, would you refuse such strategic weaponry?” she asked, a bit of the mask of the demure whore slipping.

“I know your games Raptor, decline from insulting my intellect as you remain on my ship.” Screed was no fool, Zsinj was meeting him with passive aggression trying to test the old Admirals nerves by sending alien whores as his observers. Had this been the old days he could have just tossed the aliens out of the airlock and called it a day or sold them to the nearest Hutt or Zygerrian. Alas these were hard times.

“Be mindful Mandalorian that “dead cripple” held the entire Galaxy by its throat, the boy himself is an Echani. I’ve personally seen him butcher men in half smiling at Vader’s word, if he is a rival Warlords asset expect a bloodbath to follow. His kind were specifically engineered to treat battle and death as if it was communication.” Screed himself thought little of Near and Non Human races but he could not deny the skills of them he did not survive the Clone wars and the retaking of the Rim by underestimating the Alien. If anything his familiarity with them was what made him even more disgusted by their existence without Human rule.

The Zeltron’s eyes flickered for the briefest of seconds with annoyance, it was rare for her to be so casually dismissed and Screed’s hatred rolled off him like waves down the side of a mountain despite her best efforts to mollify the fury. Instinctively she began to take a step backwards only to halt herself and move forward half a pace. “Oh I doubt you know my games Admiral Screed, you don’t strike me as a man who partakes in such, diversions..shall we say? Though, you probably should, you look like a man, well mostly a man who could use a vacation” her posture shifted as she began to slowly nudge against his mental defenses only for Rua to make a whistling noise which brought her out of her concentration. “Nyria, Nyria my darling if you keep that up Screed will shoot you, then I’ll have to behead him in front of his entire crew and that would be most, unprofessional. After all, we’re not the old Galactic Empire” Rua’s dig morphed into a slow nod in agreement, it was hard to dismiss Lord Vader even if he was a broken down old cripple who turned out to be a Jedi who betrayed his own. Memories of Scout flashed through his mind and his eyes narrowed “I know very well what manner of grip Darth Vader held on the Galaxy, his master’s. If the rumours about him being Anakin Skywalker are indeed true, then I’ve little in the way of a need to respect the memory of a man who betrayed his own” that last part was tossed out with venom towards Screed as well, Jan Dodanna at least had the sense of honor to continue to fight for what he believed in. Granted, the Republic was a disaster, anyone with any understanding of history knew it was too big, too clunky and too subsidized to survive.

Which was ultimately what would have doomed the Empire had it not be damned at Endor. Though, perhaps more so given that the public works and welfare budgets were orders of magnitude higher under the Empire than the Republic, as if everyone and their mother went in for a hand out at the end. “I know what Echani are Screed, you forget I’m half Arkanian again? The boy I saw in those caves had no interest in serving any faction or any warlord. He looked like he had no idea what he was doing with himself or going to do with himself, in which case he’s more of a danger to whatever group he throws his hat in with. Either way, it's moot. I’m hunting a kriffing Jedi Master who is acquiring sith artifacts and not some librarian turned would be sith conqueror, though my data tells me he too served on the Council of First Knowledge before his dissertation”

“Or are you telling me one rudderless tank spawned mutant is a greater threat?”

Preempting Screed’s response Rua sighed, disentangling himself from the whore-killers and waved a dismissive sigh “It’s all for not really, I’d rather test my skills against that Echani and by extension the shadow of his master than chase an old cripple through the stars”

“Have it your way, if he becomes a threat later I’ll be sure to tell Zsinj who let him slip by.”

Screed was certain nothing good would come of this, there was something wrong about that planet. There was something wrong with EVERY planet the Sith Lords frequented Thule was no different. Screed also knew better to underestimate anyone in their circles additionally, even datapad pushers like Pestage and Doriana had fangs of their own. Screed utterly ignored the Alien Raptors jabs, he had no time for rabble aboard his ship, observers or not. He did not allow the Mandalorians jabs to bother him either, Jan was dead the Republic was dead the Empire was dying but Screed still lived and that's all that mattered to the Admiral at this point. He merely gazed into the void contemplating what manner of secret did that Half Breed come across and how dangerous could it be?

Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago



-Coruscant: Imperial center

She looked nervous, The Jedi turned holy woman thought. Nervous to descend into the Tarisian underworld and face many things that would remind her of her past, many things that would tempt her to call upon the dark, to indulge again in the exhaustive energies that ravaged body and soul. That was when the serpent like woman gave the taller female a hug and promised her that she would hold fast to her new convictions, because they weren't truly new. Aladar was simply, reigniting the fires in her heart of old.

They could be so easily manipulated at times, the lost wretches who fell through the cracks when short sighted subsentients sat in judgment of their natural betters. But that time, she'd hugged her because she'd meant it. More and more, she was growing attached to her apprentice, the words she'd uttered to Admiral Sloane were words from the heart, nearly spoken on impulse and only saved from looking like an outburst by her rhetorical mastery.

It wasn't that she felt this way that galled her, love, filial love was hardly a weakness. devotion to another could be as powerful as duty or conviction and when it was only when it became possessive that it debased both the force wielder and the codes they served. A thing, both the Sith and Jedi alike never understood.

No, what bothered her was how pathetic it seemed, to be awake and cling to the first comically tall cute thing that came your way because it reminded you of a daughter that died millennia ago. She could allow herself to feel, to admit to being lonely and to love others, but not so soon. That appeared weak.

And she wasn't weak, she was a hurricane of devotion to the righteousness of her own cause. She was the serpent at the end of the rainbow, the glimmering fangs in the dark.

As the Twi'lik slaves began to dress her for the company she'd invited over, Pontifex Invictus Miryia of the House Janus allowed her mind to drift in the force, sensing the moods, the movements of the great world city as she began to calculate the odds of one clever Bothan, being clever enough to see the truth behind her scales.

He'd been clever enough to entice her into rebellion, to support her rise to power while bolstering his own....He'd been smart enough to leave a copy of "memoires of the Thousand Year war" by a Hutt Jedi named Bontus Evorian.

Bontus had been a padawan the decade before the war and battled at her side for decades and had been among the few to survive to the very end when Lord Hoth sent his Army of Light to die against Skere Kaan when Jedi and Sith both were consumed.

Bontus had postulated that the war itself, was not alone the legacy of Darth Ruins madness, but that it was his madness that created an opportunity for a far more sinister intelligence to manipulate events, to guide both Jedi and Sith along the path of holocaust.

Bontus blamed the Bendu, an order that was largely extinct save for one hermit on a world filled with arachnid filth. Typical for the Hutt species, to come so close to the mark yet crash around it to a vague approximation of masterful accuracy most of their dimwitted, pawn clientele would confuse for the real thing.

And yet, Raveem leaving that...spoke to far more clarity, masquerading perhaps as an approximation.
Unless he was merely being manic and presenting her with a gift he thought she'd find interesting as it was likely the last work of a peer of hers to be published before time and the force robbed her of all her former friends.

All, save one.


For this specific occasion, Raveem had picked an outfit he had not worn for some time. It was a traditional Bothan suit woven by his mother before her mind was consumed by an extreme form of dementia. The jacket had a series of swirling patterns that contrasted well with the purple attire. Each of the circles seemed to stand on its own and had been woven directly into the fabric. He always thought the design resembled what happened inside his head. The seemingly random but beautiful circles appeared to perfectly outline his thoughts. Part of him thought that Miryia would perhaps pick up on what the outfit represented. She had seen his mind. Surely, she would be able to.

That aside, he couldn't wait to see her again. Ever since that fateful night, where he unleashed her upon the Empire's self-proclaimed leaders, he had been wanting to sit down and truly get a sense of who she was. While he had his theories and assumptions, he truly wanted to get a feeling for the Pontifex Invictus as she called herself now. There was something so fascinating and enthralling about her presence, the aura of a being so powerful she could simply snap her fingers and render him unable to defend himself. The gambit he had taken at Coruscant had paid off, now he wanted to see what it is that he had gambled with. The true character of Miryia of House Janus.

When he arrived at her palace, he couldn't help but grin. Even when he was out here, he could sense her power. He never believed himself to be Force sensitive, nor did he care to advance his abilities in the case that he was. Regardless, he had an unhealthy addiction with attempting to court beings that were levels of power above him. There was a certain thrill to it all. A certain enjoyment of putting his well-being and even his life in danger just to unleash it and see the results. Now, he only had to watch to see what Miryia could do.


The former Presidential palace rose into the midday sky, ominous and august as it always had been and yet where for centuries passed it had been largely a great museum there seemed to be a buzz of activity. Luxury speeders, ordinary speeders, military issue craft came and went, touching down to seek an audience with the woman who had stepped out of the past and into their future. Reporters from Imperial approved propaganda outfits stood eagerly outside wanting to hear the "official story" from the mouth of the woman present. After all, the report circulating was that Sate Pestage attempted to declare himself emperor and while many joined him, it was a loyal contingent of non humans martialed by the Arkanian Jedi who claimed to be the hero of the early days of the New Sith War who "rallied in defense of the Imperial Throne". The propaganda machine was spinning this two ways, one that non humans had finally proven themselves through loyalty and perhaps doors would be opened for some.

The other, a Jedi removed from Yoda's treason, from Luke Skywalker's grandiosity had at last redeemed the Order and showed true loyalty to the legacy of the Emperor healing at once the great sectarian rift between Jedi and Sith and in response Grand Vizier Hissa ordered the construction of a glorious and new order of force users that represented both ideals.

Of course, if any of these regimental mouthpieces dared to utter such offensive nonsense in her presence, Invictus Janus would have killed them instantly. Others, came armed with skepticism, desirous to see if the woman was truly the Miryia Janus of the history books and not some clone or imposter, skepticism gave way to fear, then awe which yielded to fanaticism. To a cynic this would have looked like a naked power grab, to a more trained eye something far more dangerous than mere shortsighted ambition.

As Raveem's transport grew closer to palace, it would have been obvious what she was doing, that in a time of such turmoil when all was uncertain and nothing was decided. The desperate often went renegade, the ambitious often went mad and entire civilizations could drown in hysteria, or find themselves in religion. At the dawn of the old Republic, before the holonet and hyperlane maps the Jedi had filled that role, by avoiding it entirely and creating out of the Republic a religion, venerating the Republic with the Jedi as its heralds.

Enormous banners fluttered in the wind, rising on durasteel columns covered in synth ivory and onyx, on each side blew the banner of the Galactic Empire, behind them the military insignia of each member of the armed forces that had assisted in the coup and the personal banner of House Grant, the banner of House Janus and the purple and black of Clan Vash'Ah.

Many grew silent in a mix of awe though as Miryia Farlina of House Janus, Pontifex of this new religion, the religion of Order, of absolute and eternal Justice, of Imperial law. Exited the grand doors, a long purple cape flew in the wind, black armor with the Imperial on her breast shimmered in the light as violet robes fluttered about the armor. But what none failed to notice was the new symbol, embroidered in a platinum finish over her heart. The symbol of the Jedi Order, yet silvered, the wings of the ancient phoenix were vibrant flame and a lance shot up from the center piercing the heart of the star burst pattern. Where the New Jedi Order symbol was the Jedi Phoenix and saber unfurled in a shield over the star this was a radiant fire thrusting into its heart.

The crowd gasped as an enormous banner of the same symbol unfurled falling about the castle, resting above the entry of the main gates in a deep blue.

"Welcome! Sub Director General of Imperial the Imperial Security Bureau! Raveem of clan Vash'Ah! The only soul with the clarity of mind to see what treachery befell us! A credit to non human citizens and a champion of Order, Imperial Justice!"

Her eyes flickered like gems, whether an artifice of the force or through Arkanian genetic engineering, her voice boomed across the palace grounds. "Patriot! Hail and well met!" she called, giving the traditional core world elite greeting.

In that moment, between self destruction and devotion, the Serpent turned Jedi, turned zealot pushed madness through and religion was written in the eyes of Coruscant.

The Religion of the Empire.

The crowd outside of the Presidential Palace was larger than Raveem was expecting. There were reporters and members of the public standing behind barriers guarded by soldiers. But that was small compared to the display before him. That had gotten his full attention, and he realized this must have been Miryia's plan. To surprise him with this magnificent display before the masses. So, this was the religion Janus had spoken about. The replacement for the Jedi Order and the Sith. The Bothan covered his mouth, supressing the urge to giggle as he felt a sudden rush of joy. His gambit had paid off. All his efforts had ended in all this. A new and reformed Empire. Once he had composed himself and done the appropriate waving for the Holonet cameras, he approached Miryia. Taking at look at her outfit, he immediately picked up on the purple patterns used by his Clan. By the look on his face, that little detail had caught him off guard. If it was someone else, perhaps they would have missed it. But Miryia had enough experience to see it. His right eye twitched twice, and his left index finger tapped the side of his thigh. It was too specific to be a normal reaction.

"Hail and well met, indeed Invictus Janus!" He replied, giving her a short bow. The greeting was done in his usual extravagant fashion. "Quite the display you have arranged here." The Bothan remarked, glancing at the different banners displayed around the palace's entrance.

-So this pattern, is that his mind?- She'd touched the edges, the border of his psyche not wanting to utterly maul his essence and sense of self for she'd always had trouble with more subtle mental probing, but what she encountered inside was akin to a nebula on fire or an ion storm or an exploding black hole. a whirling vortex of order within the patterns of unbridled chaos. He was truly fascinating, if a bit grasping and dangerous, in many ways he reminded her of a drug addict yet unlike the Sith. His was a fortified mind, an addict who gained function in dysfunction and what would normally be an affront to her presence became something of admired curiosity. As he no doubt wanted to observe her in action, so too did she.

His eyes took in the display, grasping its obvious intent and seeing beyond. -Now you understand why the throne does not interest me?- her goals, her grand plan commenced two thousand years ago, was perhaps a century away from its end game. -I slept for too long, things flowed without me-

"I thought it was high time you beheld the majesty of your work" she turned, her body seeming to twist as one and she began to walk ahead, leading him through a grand entrance flanked by members of the 501st, each standing at parade style attention. "Aladar and my old friend are not with us, I've them hunting in Coruscant's underworld. Shame that you did not bring that radiation fried behemoth of yours, it would have been edifying for your creature" Raveem may have been force sensitive, Miryia realized, now more than ever. But she felt herself stop at probing that issue, as if teaching him to refine and smith the essence would detract from his true glory. Somehow, making him lesser.
"As for gifts, I appreciated yours" She leaned in slightly and whispered that in his ear, noting the subtle twitches in his body language that gave away how much the gesture affected him, playing the dangerous game he too played. "Though, I wonder if it was truly a gift and more"

The doors closed behind her and a subtle glance made the Twi'liks bow and leave. "If it wasn't a question, Sub Director"

When Miryia leaned in and referenced his gift, he felt a strange warm feeling in his chest. It made his ears twitch and his body trembled a little. What a strange sensation. He had always felt joy in the presence of beings such as Miryia. It was thrilling to sense their power and witness their feats. But this was different. Something to think about later. Miryia saw it, him briefly losing that composure he so carefully crafted for himself. Perhaps, if that mask was removed, his mannerisms and voice would make him sound deranged. One had to wonder what the real Raveem behaved like. What was under those layers of organized chaos in his mind and ISB training and indoctrination.

"Perhaps it was too on the nose?" Said Raveem, more to himself than anything. As they walked, he turned to look at Miryia. There it was, that warm feeling his chest again. Odd. "I thought you would appreciate the gesture. A prelude to this..." He spun around, gesturing at rhe great hall around them. "...greatly anticipated meeting. It cost someone his hard earned treasure, mind you. Poor sod owed me a debt." Raveem giggled after saying that. For a moment, he was there. Prying the tome away from a poor merchant's hands who had bought favors from his family to keep his business afloat in Bothawui. Was it petty? Yes. But necessary if the Vas'ha's were to keep their reputation.

"From the smallest family in a shack in the hills of Bothawui to stars, knowledge moved by direction, move by ambition" Miryia's voice held an almost cheery tone as she came close to singing those words out in her usual melodic voice, only where in public it held an imperiousness to it that was measured by compassion. Here, hints of the madness within intermingled with that image of a noble Knight of old. As if something, bestial was tiring of the ruse and wanting to strike at whatever it could.

"I believe that was the clan phrase of the Vash'Ah in my youth." She remarked attempting to sift through the long years of memory hidden behind a youthful face to find the name of the Bothan of Clash Vash'Ah she'd protected as a Padawan, whose views on the stagnation of the Republic and even the Jedi kindled something in an idealistic youth.

Idealism, she'd fought for it once, bled for it once. Even through the dark, when she brushed against Sith doctrine, Sith power, when the profane material whispered to her in the night, she'd held strong. She was once a great Jedi, she'd cared for the code and devoted herself to the light as some savage worshipping a powercell from a ruined ship crashed down on a primitive world. Now she was something else, a true warrior for the Light, the light of civilization, of order. -All those provincial simpletons who could have continued the great works in my absence.- "a bit too on the nose" Raveems words cut her from her thoughts and purple eyes flickered to him, dangerously at first. -Does he truly see?- his second phrasing seemed to imply it was a mere flight of fancy and yet below the conditioning and training she sensed..an awareness.

"Bontus, when we first met he was no taller than my thigh, by the end of his life I hear he grew six times the size of an ordinary Hutt"
As they moved across synth marble floors, passing busts of Republic heroes long dead and Imperial military leaders, they arrived at a room as large as some Coruscant penthouses, a veritable treasure trove of water and plants in laser lit fountains appeared before them. Water, which on Coru was valuable as it was on Tatooine, more than aurodium, it spoke to the wealth the Empire still possessed...the old capital still possessed.

"The Hutts I have observed, have an interesting habit of coming exasperatingly close to the truth only to fall slightly short of the mark" And there. She'd done it, the one secret only The Highsinger if not outright confirmed, implied. They were in each other's webs now, Raveem was privy to a thing that was supremely dangerous, a truth that bound him to her, as it bound her to his ascent.

It was a truth, the woman whose cape hugged about her body like a cobras hood would try to annihilate every living soul on Coruscant if she had too, to conceal.

Or...proclaim to the stars.

"Tell me, what do you know of Ewoks?" She proffered, changing the subject as they neared a table and a pair of chairs. Her eyes flickered with a silent mirth. Oh, how she enjoyed playing a game of words and hints with someone who wasn't genetic trash.
"Or more specifically, how tenuous do you believe The New Republics alliance with that particular tribe to be?" Here she took a seat, her hips bent and she leaned at a slight angle, reclining, her cheek resting upon knuckles. "And what do you know if the Nightsisters gathering at a Castle therein?"

Slowly a feral smile crept over her face "And what do you know of Gorax?"

The Bothan froze for a moment. So it was true. Any and all doubts in his mind had vanished. He stared at Miryia as she kept on walking without him, sitting down at a nearby table. Raveem giggled as everything in his head clicked. He had to hold himself back and compose himself before joining her at the table. When he sat down, Miryia saw him wince the moment his back touched the backrest. That blaster wound from all those days ago was probably still bothering him.

"Ah, the Ewoks. A proud and primitive race of cuddly little bears with enough firepower, it seems, to take down Stormtroopers who underestimared them. I like to think that it eas their cuteness that caused all this. It is funny to think about. The mighty Empire defeated at the hands of a primitive tribe and a group of Rebel infiltrators. A hard earned lesson." Raveem's eyes darted around as he spoke. His thought process was fascinating to look at. He seemed to speak while at the same time recalling sounds, images and touch. Every word was marked by a unique movement of the hands. He physically grasped at concepts and used his hands to help explain whatever he was saying. There was a brief pause.

"The Gorax!" Raveem shouted, standing up and making himself seem as big as possible. "Big, strong, and very dangerous. The Ewoks have been fighting for years. Which lead me to believe that the Ewoks respect strength. Their hardships. The survival skills required to survive in the forests of Endor. It had defined their culture and their mindset. They respect the Rebels for their struggle against the Empire."
Raveem paced around the table, and pointed toward one of the windows.

"We must... we must present ourselves before them differently. Their allegiance to the Rebels was based on mutual respect. They must be shown that the Rebels are treacherous and dishonorable. And that the Empire are true honorable warriors." Raveem turned to Miryia, a grin plastered on his face. "Will we take Endor, then?"

The Bothan seemed to omit the question about the Nightsister. He seemed more preocupied with the potential acquisition of Endor than with some witch.

As the Bothan took a seat, The former Jedi turned religious leader watched his body language with the same aloof gaze she'd always maintained when assessing others. His reactions surprised her, she expected a surprised murmur, horror perhaps and if he'd been a fool glorification of what she considered to be an unfortunate necessity to redeem the Galaxy and purify it of the heresies and failures of the sanctimonious hypocrites within the temples and palaces and dusty halls of a hundred different force using cults whose blood, sins and bad ideas went into the creation of the Jedi and Sith, the lost orders as she would henceforth call them. But what Raveem reacted with was more, the childlike excitement of a madman or a researcher whose theories were proven right, or proven wrong in a more exciting and opportune manner.

Behind their chair fountains shifted their laser display to match the changing of the Coruscanti skies, dancing in darker greens and blues as the sun began to set. The whirring servos of the protocol Droid interrupted the silence between her query in regards to the Ewoks and the scion of Clan Vash'Ah's reaction. A bronze tray was set down with a glowing pink liquid within an ornately carved decanter made of Arkanian crystal woven with stained glass patterns and affixed at the top with inlay of white aurodium.. The content of the bottle was a rare Alsakan brandy laid down in its casks only once every half millennia. The cost of such a liqueur could equip an ISD battlegroup and provision it for a month, that Miryia was able to acquire suggest that she'd been allowed to resume her position in the dynastic hierarchy of House Janus. Or, that her own assets and wealth had been wisely managed and invested for two millennia by the IBC, or that the moment Sate Pestage gave the Arkanian Jedi access to a computer terminal was the moment the Galaxy's richest gained a new member.
Or perhaps all of the above.

She did, after all, need to bring something of her own to the table beyond her charm and power.
As Raveem spoke and danced about the room almost the woman leaned back in her chair, purples eyes flickering with consternation but not quite disappointment. As though she was content that he'd seen what he'd seen of her plans for Endor and guessed a fair approximation. "The Imperial troopers shot them for sport, something some Ewok tribes took no offense at. Being that they are a culture of barbarian killers who, as you note have had their entire being shaped by warfare and the dangers of the Endorian wilderness. However, it seems the early landing facilities for the construction of the shield generation and some of said Generators barracks rested over a sort of, warriors monument" Miryia allowed that to hang in the air, after the victory at Endor the Ewoks butchered and ate and ritualistically slaughtered some two thousand members of the Five Hundred and first and while the particular tribe the Rebels befriended respected them. A peace loving, democratic people they were not.

"The Ewoks are masters of jungle and forest warfare, they've faced the Gorax for centuries and when they win they murder Gorax infants in their cribs. Ewok tribal chieftains are known for spitting the infants of their rivals in other tribes ..Had the Empire not defiled their monument, it is likely that even your thoughtless, Sith pretender of an Emperor would have been able to sway them to your side" Miryia raised a few of her slender fingers and the glowing liquid began to float from within the pitcher, up its neck and then from the mouth into two aurodium goblets with crystal cups. While she absolutely would not serve someone who wasn't her social superior or equal by hand, she would grant Raveem the honor of service of another sort.

As he began to speak of convincing them the Empire represented strength Miryia chuckled "Perhaps not to that degree, we need only convince the other tribes and then call a conclave with that particular tribe that aligned with the Rebels. It is my understanding the Skywalker...abominations...Protocol droid mistakenly..or deliberately claimed the Rebels came to Endor to Punish the Emperor for his many dishonors, which they did. But not the Ewok's, prove that they were used, their honor, the bones of their fathers exploited to use their vendetta to serve a political end and I believe they will demand the Republic Depart Endor" Her eyes flickered when Raveem asked if they were going to take Endor.

She leaned forward and her violet eyes flickered. "No, I am going to take Endor, this mongrel Charal is playing with a power she does not even know she possesses and I wish to understand Nightsister sorcery, the Five Hundred and First, the One Hundred and Fourth and you, my dear secret policeman...shall prove once again that non humans can be a bonus to the Empire by handing it victories its not seen since Endor" then she paused and leveled her gaze at Raveem and a voice whispered in the winds -What things we shall achieve, what works we shall forge-

"I mean to turn the entire system into a bastion, a holy citadel for the Imperial Knights, a center of faith..for now..for our flagging people and I intend to gift our dear Grand Vizier Hissa with a rather lovely staging point at the new Republics back and..towards the outerrim"

Her smile narrowed into a feral smirk and her body seemed to tighten and coil and a long, soft hiss escaped her nostrils and throat.

Now why, would an empire of the core wish to over extend themselves? In Darth Vader's old palace, the chief Spymaster, Ysane Isard was asking herself the same question and coming to the wrong conclusion.

Or perhaps the proper one.

"You're not a proponent of Bacta tanks?" Miryia added, reclining her eyes flickered to his posture, how he seemed to be favoring one part of his back over the other. We all pay a price in blood for our convictions, she thought, some paid that price in body, others in mind, some in soul.

Raveem stopped pacing the moment Miryia began to speak. He listened intently, finding his storm of thoughts go silent momentarily as he picked apart Miryia's words. This Nightsister she had mentioned earlier. For the first time he found himself at a loss. After a quick scan of his memories he couldn't recall a Charal. Was there something he had missed? A detail he had simply forgotten? Impossible. While the Bothan knew of the Nightsisters he wasn't aware of their presence on Endor. If Miryria sought to learn from them however, he couldn't wait to witness it. But, they were an unknown variable to him. That train of thought suddenly came to a halt the moment she mentioned his injury. He instinctively corrected his posture, but that was a mistake. A shot of piercing pain hit him across his back and neck. It wasn't too bad. He had been trained by the ISB to resist pain, but, the injury was admittedly interfering with some of his duties and noticeable to the trained eye.

"Well..." For the first time, Miryia spotted hesitation in his words. "When one is busy preparing for upcoming events, and those preparations keep you awake at night. It is easy to ignore the nagging needs of the flesh. I didn't see it as important enough."

As he spoke, Raveem picked up the glasses with the Alsakan brandy, he offered one of the glasses to the Arkanian. That little mistake had thrown his mind into a frenzy. What could have perhaps been a gesture of his loyalty to her became open to interpretation. His neglect to attend to an injury could have jeopardized Miryia's grand plan. And now, this small gesture could have been seen as a desperate act to ask for forgiveness. But by the time Raveem realized all this, it was too late.

Her head canted, violent eyes flickered with keen interest and perhaps concern? -He overthought- she realized, focusing entirely too much on the problems he could solve (Though an important trait for his trade, though stifling if one wished to follow her beyond a mere, supreme commander of deathsquads). The Pontifex watched as that mind raced from euphoria, to despondency, crashing like a Hutt's sail barge piloted by an intoxicated Dug. -He suffers from some sort of neuro-chemical mania?- she wondered, harkening back to her original assessment of him as a functioning addict. Much of his inner thinking reminded her of stim junkies and yet he was debilitated by it at all.

Order in the chaos.

He twitched again, realizing that his misstep with her commentary on the Nightsisters resulted in him being caught off guard by her observation. The woman's eyes flashed again, this time they were chiding, reprimanding but they held no disappointment. Concern for a colleague, solidarity and reminder not to slip? A gesture of friendship? Whatever was behind those eyes shifted into near, appreciation for his sense of decorum.

The Pontifex took the goblet, holding it in her hand appraisingly, allowing the moment to extend, permeating the room with her awareness, sensing the conflict the roiled within. Miryia rose and slowly took a drink from the glass. He was no weakling to make such a gesture in a pathetic attempt to save face for showing "weakness" and to worry about showing such a thing to her was where the insult came, she was no small time predator.

And he was no coward.

"A son of Clan Vash'Ah is of far too superior stature to conceal a blaster burn for fear of weakness. You debase yourself, in doing so, you defame your work, your achievements." She set the glass down, then moved her hand to trace across the Bothan's shoulder as she walked towards one of the fountains.

"When I was seventeen, I earned my Knighthood, my master a Dreathos known as Croo wept with joy. He said I'd broken some sort of record, but given the sheer age of the Jedi order I find that dubious...Still..to a teenaged girl who'd come to love an inferior as though he were a second father, well I too wept" The words, far away, her voice soft, nostalgic. As though she was choosing to show another side to herself, though whether to galvanize Raveem as she would a follower, or to simply show him a part of herself as recompense and to hammer her prior point home with a parable was hard to tell.

For a brief moment though, in the flickering of the sunset and the prismatic effect of the lasers on water, one might have been able to see the idealistic, wide eyed, gentle Knight and stout hearted warrior she was. "For a year we wandered the outer rim and the unknown regions he and I. For a year we righted wrongs, faced dangers and held together broken peoples and mended broken worlds. We were set upon by a clique of beings powerful in the force an inner darkness I'd never seen before"

The honor, perhaps dubious as it was, would have been given only to two others. History remembers the death of Jedi master Croo as one of the moments that led up to the New Sith Wars, as with his death the Jedi moved from deliberative slowness to the indolence and cowardice that allowed for the rise of Darth Ruin several decades later. But here, Raveem would be the third sentient to know what truly transpired. "I was injured, I concealed it, as you did at first, out of shame and then out of distraction and in the final battle, that injury slowed my thoughts, slowed my flesh and clouded my wits"

Miryia's eyes met the flickered pools of water a grimness about them. "Allies do not conceal their flaws, their injuries from each other Raveem of Clan Vash'Ah, it is how they betray themselves and in doing so, betray the glory of our cause" She turned now and walked forwards him. Her features imperious but lacking of any scorn and possessing. perhaps an approximation of empathy. "In death, my master taught me the most valuable lessons he'd ever taught me. The most paramount of which is that righteousness comes not free and without pain"

His shame was needless, this was an acceptable cost of doing business as they said, or so she conveyed. "I too have bled in the service of absolute justice"

"And I've no doubt we'll both pay that price again and again. So long as the heretics, the traitors, the fools and the sycophants bleed a thousand times our blood, so long as our sacrifice makes a better world, it is not weakness"

Raveem's mind was racing. Thousands of thoughts, memories and other information were flying at light speed through his mind. But there it was again, Miryia's voice. Hearing her made the storm dissipate, and once again she had his full attention. When she approached him, Raveem instictively took a step back but he managed to not make it obvious. The training he had been given by the ISB was starting to kick in. However, he put all that to rest. He managed to wrest control of those instincts. When she briefly touched him, it made him tremble. Once more he felt that hot feeling in his chest. These new feelings were completely foreign to him. And while he would never express it out loud, he didn't understand them.

At that moment, she told him a deeply personal story. By the way she spoke and met his gaze, he could tell that only a tight circle of trusted confidants knew about this. There was something in her voice and movements that made it obvious. Even as she walked off toward the fountain, he could still feel the sensations from earlier. The pain was gone now, replaced by a sudden surge of curiosity by her final words. She was right. The road to their goal would be soaked in blood and littered with sacrifices. Part of him strongly believed he wouldn't live this through this. But right now, all he could do was agree. Taking a sip from the brandy, he took a few steps in her direction. Briefly, that usual mad stare he had vanished. For once, he may have passed as just another Bothan...

"You're right." He said softly, glancing at the marbled floors for a moment. "It is beneath me. Something I will unlearn for the sake of the cause. My ancestors did not stand where I am now. In an environment in which they could simply trust others to not take advantage of their weaknesses. I can assure you, it will never happen again."

"I was bodyguard to a progenitor of yours once as a child. Strange, how one moment of rhetoric can make such an impact but I cannot recall his name" Her eyes gave no indication that she'd noticed the change, but the slight twinge in her facial features denoted an approval, both of the revelations welling within him and because the shock of her gesture seemed to have steadied his mind if only for a fleeting moment or so.

"If we look back to our history, it's no wonder why the Sith continue to plague us! Why Jedi and Republic alike have been brought so close to utter ruination by them more than once!" Her voice grew in a richness, an intensity, she did her best to mimic the intensely slurred nature of the high class Bothan, who was a firebrand known for delivering his political speeches like sermons and was almost always intoxicated.

The drunkenness' seemed to add a dimension of reality to his warnings. Warnings which events five decades from that speech would prove prophecy. "We overcome our enemies only to rest on our laurels, we recover from calamity, a burning crucible only to allow our metal to settle and rust. We stagnate, while they reinvigorate and they too, begin to stagnate and on and on it goes for neither of us wish for something new. There is comfort in the cycle.."

That last bit applied in the end, to Palpatine too,deformed thug that he was meeting his end when he attempted to lord power over a weaker being in direct contravention of all his order of pathetic heretics stood for. Her posture returned to normal and a look of annoyance flashed over her eyes at the pitiful self indulgence, of even mimicking the accent as if she was no better than a common rube. Whatever she was going to say was murdered in her breast as she craned her head towards the Bothan noting the elevation in heart rate and intensity, this was more than mere revelation.

But before she could draw attention to his nascent infatuation the twin Twi'lik brought in a man who looked like he'd been left in a room with a particularly horny Wompa. While he was dressed in the blood colored dress uniform of the Crimson Guard, his face a mess of swollen tissue and was propped up more by the servants than his own bones.

Then they left and he began to slump over only to be caught by an invisible force and he groaned in agony as a broken leg was set so he could be forced to one knee. "Do Bothans of your era still value the ancient blood oaths?"

Tonight seemed to be filled with the oddest of sensations and occurrences. For a moment Raveem swore that his mind had cleared and his thoughts were once again in order. But that was brief. Soon the storms returned and his attention turned to something else. Miryia's servants brought in another soul. The Bothan's first reaction was to approach him to get a better look. Upon closer inspection, the wounds weren't done by his agents. No, they would have been more precise and permanent. Nothing a bacta tank could fix without significant scarring. It piqued his curiosity.

"I don't believe the guest and I have been properly introduced." He bowed in the man's direction, before turning to Miryia with a smile. "Would you indulge my curiosity first? I do like to meet new people, especially ones with an interesting backstory."

For a second, the Jedi turned holy warrior raised an eyebrow "Truly" she began, only to find herself laughing softly, that vicious, half feral laugh from before. "Animal" she hissed and the man winced and raised his head "Y...yes..m'lady?" her eyes flickered with malice, was he extending learned courtesy and addressing a superior form of life and social baring? Or had he just conflated her for a Sith..again.... "The Cervid asked you a question" Her tone was absolute, final, dripping with contempt. "I'm..I'm Captain Jhado..of the Crimson guard..the..Emperor's" "That deformed catamite is dead..." "Sate Pestage..m'lady" "That twitching, simpering, diseased commoner is also rotting in a waste dispenser unit" Oh a casket had been given a funeral, but to hammer the point home Grand Vizier Hissa insisted on declaring a post mortem treason sentence after a farce of a trial where Miryia was forced to "arbitrate". Among her more unsavory duties, but one she endured for the sake of deferring to the man who was their leader after all. "Why are you on your knees before me as opposed to serving in Grand Vizier Hissa's honor guard?"

The man said nothing, until he caught a look of her eyes and he panted before answering "Because..I...I do not serve Xenos nor their Jedi whores! The Galaxy belongs to the Sith you vile witch! Your time has passed"

My time? She thought; her eyes beaming with something, deep, twisted and blazing. this is my time you fool!

Raveem stood there, giggling madly at himself as he witnessed the exchange. Yes. This is what he was here to see. The results of Miryia's cleansing of the Empire. It was beautiful to witness and he honored to be there to see it all unfold. Of course, this was small but every bit counts. After all, it is the small things that bring about the biggest of changes. Or so his father told him... or his uncle... or his cousin twice removed. He couldn't remember.

"Oh!" Suddenly Raveem recalled Miryia's previous question. "Why yes. The Vas'ah's have always kept to the old traditions. Ar'krai..." The Bothan shot a hungry gaze at Jhado. At that moment, Miryia could have thought that the Bothan was about to leap in and finish off what someone else had started. Instead, the Bothan simply approached him positioning himself behind the man.

"Shall I dare ask... Why?" There it was... that dangerous curiosity that served as fertile ground for his equally dangerous strategies. Perhaps it was this curiosity that made him make that fateful decision back then.

Ah yes, the predator comes forward, watching Raveem conduct himself, his thought processes it was akin to watching the tidal surges of a singularity that was beginning to form inside a nebula. an endless haze of chaos roiling around a centered anchored in a sea of darkness. She'd waited for him to answer her original question, an honor she seldom bestowed, but one she was willing to do in tribute to a man whose madness and curiosity belied a need to correct the flaws of the one center for absolute justice and order in the known universe. "In my youth I witnessed a wretched old Sith draw the life force out of his own child to buy himself a century of life, if such a pitiful existence could be called that. Their essence draining techniques often left the life thief addicted, intoxicated and slowly weakening. Their lives going shorter and shorter with each theft. In the days before dogma, indolence, arrogance and stagnation overran the Jedi, they're alchemy permitted one of sufficient mastery to rob life from plants, trees and in dire emergencies animals. While this was done to regenerate grievous injury the more, proficient masters learned that it had begun to retard their aging, adding hours, days, sometimes months with every deed. It had no negative effect on them...Beyond the conflict with their philosophy. It is thoroughly unpleasant and exhausting either way...Though easier with sentient life"

Which was the problem for the Sith and summarized their laziness, their arrogance and ultimately, their stupidity.

"Of course the Sith, ever the cowards, feared death more than anything and it did not occur to them that sentient life could be harnessed the same as an animals when brain function began to diminish" slowly she extended her left hand, her index and middle finger pointed forward. Sith lacked the focus to do such a thing and only Jedi healers partook in what she was about to do with any regularity.
Miryia's fingers twitched, if one were force sensitive and present one would have seen a shadow obscure her face only for the light to come roaring out of her body, enveloping the shadow, burning it, scalding it, mutilating it and..reforming it.

Jhado's throat opened "Die then vermin and be at once with your masters..and in death, serve their executioners!" blood gurgled and sputtered from his throat and nostrils, from his mouth and he seemed to be held in place solely by her will.

Her right hand reached out, tracing the outlines of her fingers along Raveems snout, allowing the stolen life force to pass from Jhado to her being, her cells and the bulk to Raveem, mending the wound on his back and perhaps adding a decade or so to his life. "This my Ar'Kai, the blood pledge of a force wielder A force-wright not a mere puppet of raw material..a servant to a cosmic energy source"

Her eyes flashed, she stood drawing herself up as Jhado's corpse was tossed away, blown across the courtyard and flung out into the refuse heap.

"And that, is what I shall do to the heretic, the deceiver, the liar, the carrion eaters, the cynics and idolater..to the embezzler, the coward and low predators...And to every single force wielder in this universe that does not accept my gospel..the Gospel of Imperial justice..That is my blood oath to ..you...to every sentient in the known universe!"

All Raveem could do at that moment was stare in awe. He had to keep himself from drooling. From what little he knew... Raveem could tell this was a corruption of the Force that would shake even its most extremist of practitioners. It brought him joy to see Miryia in action. He grinned and held back laughter as he felt the captain's life force enter him the moment Miryia's touched his snout. A few moments passed between that and his reaction. The Bothan stood there in complete silence, staring out into the distance. Slowly, he reached for his snout as Miryia dictated the terms of their blood oath. He then reached for his back and midsection, the pain was gone and so was the soreness in his back.

"It will be an honor, Invictus Janus. I can imagine... no, I see it. The true New Order. Your vision for the Galaxy... it is truly glorious. Order in the chaos." He smirked, glancing outside to the city and back at Miryia. "I have never felt this way..." Remarked Raveem after a moment of silence, more as an off-hand remark. "

Miryia Farlina of House Janus, Pontifex Invictus of the Imperial remnant allowed herself to sink into the inferno she'd created within the force, about her she could feel a bleed, a sort of tear where the energies of light and dark mingled, a bleed growing more and more intense, saturating her very cells and, pushing the limit of her being, threatening to overwhelm her senses.

Yet, this was the grand test, the moment where her crucible became an immense forge galvanizing the impure to produce magnificently sharpened, polished steel or ruptured and consumed its smith in flames and slag. For the briefest of moments it would have looked to outside observer like she was hyperventilating and a flicker of fear washed over her face. She swayed, but refused to buckle, buckling meant being consumed by the force, becoming a sentient wound.

That was for weaklings like Surik and mindless gluttons. It was not for a scion of house Janus nor the Master of the Order of Imperial Knights, nor the religious leader of a nation. Fists clenched as she visualized the tear in her mind, felt the ripping seams along her very soul and through them began to trace astral fingertips along the unraveling threads of the force.

It was time!

Her force of will clamped down. she held firm onto the reaction and bore down with all her might, forcing the cascading energies to slow to a halt, to congeal, to shudder and...to take shape, a shape guided by her will alone.

Blood vessels ruptured, flesh tore but she used the errant energies, the bleed off to mend them and focused on the roiling wound until at last in one final flash of sparks..it cauterized around her and cooled within her until the bleeding clotted and began to mend.

All this may have transpired in an instant, the only evidence of her titanic struggle was a single drop of purple blood that fell onto the knuckle of her index finger.
"Nor have I" she conceded at last to Raveem, her voice was almost youthful, exuberant and her eyes flickered with a deadly certitude.

"Now, to Endor we must...go" she let out in a hissing breath.

To the second act of this long play.
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Piercing Light
Raw
Avatar of Piercing Light

Piercing Light ...

Member Seen 8 mos ago

Kale pondered his options for a moment. Traveling to Coruscant would be dangerous. It was heavily guarded, and even if Aren was there he could be anywhere on the entire planet. "I could search the system for weeks, but without a solid lead I doubt I will find anything. The Republic's spies may prove useful, perhaps you could speak with them, Luke. I will contact an old colleague, an information broker. If we can gain access to an imperial facility then searching through their records may give us the information we need." Kale nodded and headed for the exit.

He made his way to the hanger where his ship was docked, a light freighter of Corellian make. He moved to his comms console and made a call. "I need to speak to Talon Karrde."

The Holocall was redirected towards Coruscant itself, bounced off one of the hyperspace beacons and beamed through the vast network of semi material beacons that allowed communications across a Galaxy flung through hyperspace from planet to planet possible. It bounced from a star, to an orbital colony, to a Sky palace to a sort of stellar splitter at the edge of known space, which lagged, dividing and reconnecting a hundred thousand times, bouncing from one world to another in the endless maze of the hidden brokers vast Network. Hidden in plain sight perhaps, for after what would have seen like several seconds the face of a middle aged Muun appeared over the holoprojectors. He was sleeping from the sounds of his groggy voice and about him were mountains of datapads. "wha? See here now...One doesn't just ask for Master Karrde! What do you want boy?" the Munn blinked "oohh..ooohh...a Jedi! Why I haven't seen one since I was a boy..." the tall, lanky scribe canted his elongated head. "I thought you were all dead"

"We were." Kale said, eyeing the Munn. "That's changing now, at least it should be. Do you work with Talon? I'm sure he's busy, but this is important."

"ooohh is that so?!" the Muun muttered with something that didn't quite dare to be disdain but was a fair approximation of aggravation. He leaned back, letting out something resembling a sigh as he steepled his fingers "You know, the last time Jedi were a thing in this dreadful Galaxy I was still a planetary creditor, now I'm the chief of operations for the Imperial loans accounts" So this was Hego Rogarre, after the clone wars the Empire had consolidated and then liquidated nearly every member corporation of the Confederacy of Independent systems leadership, the exception was the InterGalactic Banking Clan, deemed "too big to fail" and fearing a galaxy wide recession the Muuns were allowed to continue their financial enterprises albeit, under new management. They were the only organization still in existence except for the Hutts who could bankroll the Star Dreadnaught and Deathstar projects and in secret, through the Hutt clans, the IGBC also funded the Rebellion...In the new, chaotic Galaxy the IGBC was creditor to Zsinj, to the Empire and The New Republic, the civil war was clearly lucrative.

Lor Rogarre, the Muuns father was the money lender who was currently pressing Mon Mothma on rebel debts and threatening to back Garm Bel Iblis the moment elections resumed if she didn't make good on the backpay for the interest. Hego Rogarre was his father's counterpart for the Empire and if the disheveled Muun was working with or for Talon Karrde it spoke volumes for the level of the man's spy network, and his infiltration.

Fortunately for the Galaxy Talon Karrde wasn't another Tyber Zann who saw himself as King more than thug. Karrde just wanted to make money, lots of it and stay ahead of the curb.

all this explained the Muuns annoyance, of course it was important, why else would a Jedi be redirected to him and not some measly subordinate. It meant the Karrde organization likely already had an idea why he was calling.
"This wouldn't be over a missing Padawan would it?" Rogarre groaned "I know we Muuns all look the same to you humans, irregardless of age but I'm old enough to remember what happened the last time some hyperspace madness riddled Jedi with delusions of grandeur went renegade! THE GALAXY CAUGHT ON FIRE...More importantly the Empire regulated the economy! Restricted who we could do business with and manipulated the currency to keep inflation at bay! Do you know how many opportunities for speculation were lost?! pheh..You're a Jedi...what do you care about profit! Unless...Unless that field hand you call a Grand Master hasn't forced you all to take a vow of poverty" The Muun smiled, slyly enough to intimate that he knew Luke hadn't in fact repeated that mistake of the past order.

"I'll...Arrange..a meeting between you and Talon, he doesn't take holocalls..of course..Muuns aren't so uncivilized as to grant a concession freely. You'll have to..compensate me with some information..nothing that'll completely compromise Republic security of course.."

"You must be mistaken, I may work with the Republic on occasion, but by no means am I in a position to know anything substantial. Nothing an information broker wouldn't already know that is." Kale leaned back and grabbed a bag of credit chips from a compartment. "One thousand credits." He pulled out a handful of them and showed them to the munn. "This will suffice, won't it?" It was subtle, but Kale reached out through the force and placed the suggestion that the munn should in fact take the credits, that it would be rude refuse the offer even.

The Muun let out a laugh "Ohhhh...so your little sect is making itself independent of the Republic? How noble" he almost sneered as he leaned forward, his eyes sparkling with what was now a bit less of the annoyance of before and more curiosity. "Oh but I'm more than just an information broker, I'm the man who manages the truly cosmic in scope debt of the Galactic Empire! I'm their creditor, although I suppose I'm currently the creditor of a vacant throne" a long, skeletal finger tapped an almost non existent chin on his long face "Or perhaps you haven't heard? Sate Pestage was assassinated! By a space mad woman claiming to be a Jedi!" And here the Muun paused inclining his head in a way that implied a transaction had just taken place, that Kale had confirmed a thing that the IGBC and more importantly Karrde had suspected but was likely a closely kept secret, or unknown to the wider Galaxy. Namely that the Jedi took the Republics cash, but weren't an arm of the Republic, rather free range.

After that Lor Rogarre waved his hand forward dismissively as if the thousand credits were a pittance and to a Muun of his position who repossessed entire solar systems when one of the five warring kingdoms or the hundreds of other warlords out there failed to pay a debt, it might have been. Or perhaps the knowledge that the Jedi Order was more independent than many thought was worth a small fleet of starships "and Keep your sack of change boy, you've paid me handsomely already, but let it be said that Lor Rogarre is no ingrate, nor bad business man!"

Coordinates appeared, flashing at speeds most sentients wouldn't be able to see and at intervals most wouldn't be able to follow even if they could. But for a Jedi, it would be a trivial matter.

"There is a Star Destroyer in that system, painted red, it is converted into a grand series of bazars, hotels and casinos and brothels"
"The Star Destroyer is largely disarmed, except that it has a prototype for a ship mounted version of the Deathstars superlaser, not enough to crack a planet, but enough to tear apart a fleet....purely for defensive purposes, I doubt if the Errant Venture can even move anymore, its become a sort of orbital platform. You, will not inform the Republic of this, I trust....The right to self defense is integral to democracy and recent..well Galactic history regarding tyrants suggests Master Karrde is better off keeping it than entrusting it to either government"

Rogarre shrugged "When you arrive, there is a whorehouse managed by an albino Wookie, billet yourself and your apprentice there, Force users are welcome there for free. Wait a day or two, I hear your apprentice is an Echani? Enjoy the fighting pits on deck thirty, participate..try not to slaughter anyone and Talon Karrde will see you, when he sees you"
The Muun steepled his fingers again in contemplation "This conversation was lucrative, what you so dismissively revealed to me is worth a fleet of ships. Don't be so cavalier with your station as a Jedi Master and of the stability of your order in general young one, guard it well. I owe you a larger debt than this, you may count on me to fulfil that debt in the future"

Kale wasn't exactly fond of this munn referring to his apprentice, though he did find it strange. Lahana wasn't open about her past, and she didn't have a prolific background. The fact that he knew more about her than the relationship between the Jedi Order and the New Republic was odd. And then there was the news of the assassination. This was twice now that he'd heard of what he assumed to be the same woman. For her to kill such a man of high standing, she must be quite the threat. He pinned it in the back of his mind, he had Aren and the Holocron to deal with first.

"I'll keep it in mind. I appreciate the information." Kale closed the connection and began preparing to leave. Lahana didn't like crowds very much, but perhaps it would be a learning experience for her.
Hidden 4 yrs ago 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago



Byss

"Tash my friend I do wish you would focus more on results over your lack of...reproductive faculties. Do you have any idea how many lives I’ve spent for just one sample?"- Darth Sidious 15BBY

Outside a dilapidated Medical facility on the otherwise bustling and secretive planet a Sleek but also alien fighter landed above the facility and two cloaked figures descended from it. Both were concealed in a metallic armor obscuring their faces. Silently the Leader of the duo, a figure whose form was feminine whose face was obscured in a mask of fearsome countenance broke the roofs door open with a single hand. The two quietly descended into the facility coming across Arkanian Doctors as facility staff alongside Crimson Clad Stormtroopers not unlike the ones Isard had command over.

Through the once polished synthmarble walls, the pair would begin to make out twisting pipes which ran from a line in the ceiling downward, connecting to the walls forming cracks in what would have been flawless marble “grown” to fit as wall panels between windows and doors long barred. Doors which had long been welded shut with only the feeding ports and waste disposal droid openings free, in most. In others it had been as though the people in the facility frantically sealed them shut. Some, had been sealed several years before others. Faint, brown markings that might have been blood spatter from long ago could be seen below layers and layers of dust and filth. An Arkanian doctor, or what might have been a researcher from one of their most prestigious bioengineering firms wandered about the halls babbling and twitching, rubbing his index and middle fingers against this thumb and occasionally barking. His eyes were torn out, replaced with inverted optic sensors, which replayed the interior of his skull in a small high dimensional image, broadcasting at nothing. He ambled around covered in his own waste, gaunt, dehydrated and clearly starving. Another doctor, the corpse a female, who had five fingers and the trademark (literally in that their genetic code had been patented by Arkanian tens of thousands of years ago for all the good it did) violet eyes of house Janus lay in a corner, a bunch of stim packs with weapons grade hallucinogenic chemical labels law strewn about her corpse. The only indication of her being of an extremely minor branch of that family besides her presence in this place of horrors was her dark hair. Something groaned behind her, it was the face of what might have been a wookie before whatever mishap of bioengineering led his body to press into the wall and begin to grow root like barnacles that slowly fused his entire being with the synth marble. Cream yellow ichor leaked out of its mouth as it’s life force finally ebbed. The female might have felt a desperate psychic cry from a vat containing a thick gray liquid with a label above that said “failure”, in another time, in another place the mere existence of this substance would have resulted in the base delta zero of Byss and any world near it.

Now? All it emitted was shame, terror, pain, confusion, grief, guilt and self hatred. It was crippled, it was violated, it was the last of its kind

And it begged for death.

Further down the hallway, what might have been a hutt Gen’Dai hybrid if such a thing were possible merely screamed at a wall its voice was a chorus of Massasi children, their faces rippled in its flesh. Another doctor was cradling a Sarlac infant, which was fused to its spine, both were somehow calcified and fused to a Netti which merely lulled its head from side to side groaning incoherently. “We need to leave this place! Doctor Sarkon! I beg you!” The voice came from a human female, she looked utterly ragged. “I was sent here to evacuate you..not watch you people waste away holding that...thing”

“We can’t! Our fusion bombs meant for self destruct were cannibalized by our project head when he did the..”the Arkanian shuddered “the..with the...Mg’na...oooh force, fooorrce” he broke into tears sobbing while another one of the doctors began to rock back and forth in her chair, banging her head against the transparasteel behind her “We’re stuck...have to stay..cannot get out..cannot let him get out..”

“Who?!” she snapped “I came here because Director Isard needed answers on a paper your warden and chief scientist was working on. She needs it, as a weapon against some force user”

“NO..NONONONONONONONOONONONONONONONONOONONONONO” sobbed the male and the woman shook her head grabbing him by the shoulders “FOCUS ARKANIAN SWINE! YOU’RE SCIENTISTS...You’re entire kriffing race is..WHERE IS YOUR PROJECT HEAD”

“In Cell block D….below”

She blinked “You locked him up? You kriffing traitor?!”

“You don’t understand! You can’t understand...Look at the horrors around you!!” he wailed “Twenty eight thousand years of Arkanian science, butchers they called us, artifice of atrocity they called out work! I’ve done it, experimented on babies, infected sentients with plagues to learn where their immune systems failed..but, but nothing I’ve done...compares..force..no..YOU CANNOT LET HIM OUT..YOU CANNOT LET HIM OUT, DON’T YOU SEE?! HE’LL DOOM US ALL!”

“That is precisely why he is needed.” The mysterious female said as she and her fellow Black Armored associate materialized as if out of thin air. The woman and the Guard seemed entranced as the two armored figures gestured their hands in their direction.

“You will show us where the project head is and unlock him and then you will forget we were present.”

“Let me show you where the project head is.”

“I will forget I ever saw you”

“Master are you sure it's wise to unleash such a..being on the galaxy at large?” The Man in the armor questioned innocently betraying his fearsome appearance.

“Flint what I felt from that Jedi was different from that of even Vader and the Emperor, what I felt from her It was the same chill I felt when I first gazed upon the Valley of Dark Lords and listened to the infinite hatred of the Sith that came before, it was the same chill I felt when I walked upon the frozen wastes of Ziost. That woman...that creature is an abomination, there is no other way to oppose it but with another Abomination my apprentice.” The Woman replied, her vocabulator gave off a mechanical and emotionless energy to her voice but behind it pure hatred could be discerned from the tone.

As they shuffled through the place which had once been the Byss Academy of Sciences, now standing as a ruin on a world poisoned by the dark side and turned into a ruin by madness the mind slaved guard and Doctor Sarkon shed tears, even through the might of the female’s compulsion something, enough perhaps of them remained to plead and whimper and mourn. To either side of the four souls who walked along the darker paths of this, place in horror. Seals remained opened, the contents within rotting, or descated. Some still lived, humans with their mouths sewn shut, their eyes ripped out and replaced with Coruscant Barnacle slugs which had would have appeared to be “feeding” off the force, as their parent species might the nutrients in the piping and walls of the underworld of Coruscant. They were sustaining these poor wretches who might have once been Jedi of the service corps, who tried to move mouths but could only sway in a breeze that only existed in the perceptions of the creatures who’d fused to their spine and kept them alive so that they’d have a living anchor. “Experiment in creating non technological prosthetic eyes” the label above one read “failure” the other read. In another room, what looked like a Hutt that has grown and stretched and wrapped its upper body into a corkscrew like pattern whereupon its spiral like mouth opened and an immense flower bloomed out began to change its floral patterns which shimmered in the dark. The force radiated around it, but couldn’t touch it, it made some hissing noise as they moved on. A baby screamed in a room which was sealed by transparasteel, the child was made entirely of mandalorian iron, its flesh twisted and mishappen but perhaps the worst experiments yet were below.

“What we’re about to show you” breathed Doctor Sarkon, fighting through his programming desperately to warn them “is the extent of Sith heresy”. Doors swung open and they slid through a turbo lift whose shaft was no longer purely metallic, but a sort of odd techno-organic orifice with honey combed ulcers. As the elevator descended, the shaft shuddered as air was taken in and released upon landing in an unnatural cry of agony that sounded like an industrial press going to work on living nerfs. The doors of the lift opened, revealing a grand hall that had once been the academy’s ballroom. In the faint green glow, bacta tank like constructs could be seen rising out of the ground like pillars to connect to preservation devices on the roof. One of them was a teen, a human female, her dress and fabric suggested she was a slave on one of the most prosperous worlds in the outer rim (Prosperous by their backwater standards anyway), her clothing was nearly a century out of date and her face, which might have been pretty was contorted in agony, her torso which bore the signs of pregnancy was torn open from the inside and the infant, breached, floated in the preservatives, itts pelvis and legs tapering off into an odd, amoeba like root which fused to the spine. Another was the infant alone, only half its body was human, the other half globular and cell like, its organs had sloughed out, its trifaces contorted in agony.

A boy floated in another, three eyes on his forehead, three more on the back of his head and a mouth at the neck contorted in a scream. A malformed giant curled up with a collapsed skull in another and a boy with an odd camel like face contorted in rage, his back was bent and his spine protrude, this corpse at least felt force sensitive. Another, was the body of a young woman with tanned skin and brown eyes, eyes that any who knew Lord Vader as Anakin Skywalker would have recognized. Whether this was the true Shmi Skywalker and the other was a clone, or this was a close experiment on to determine the viability of her as a vessel was a mystery that would never be solved. At the dead center of the grand ballroom was an immense cell with several floors, encircled in transparesteel, a hissing, gasping, wheezing voice sang a tune about how sweet it would be to quench a thirst, how marvelous science was and something about a deep fried lord of the Sith with “burn face”. It was a rat like-bird like, oddly reptilian monstrosity, wearing a mottled lab coat concealing a pair of atrophied arms where its breasts would be had it been female. Long, lanky claws reached out to wipe slobber from a long, lizard like snout that had a ridge of spikes rising from the tip of the nose and stopping below the eyes. One of its eyes had been replaced with some kind of incredibly advanced cybernetic implant of its own making, with a shining multi lense “eye” which was made out of kybur crystal. A hose connected below his breast bone to his internal organs pumped black pudding like blood through a series of filtration devices and into his neck feeding blood to a skull that contained a multi hemispherical brain protected by hardened bone, reptilian scales and a head crest of faded, mottled feathers, its spine which was partially exposed to air contained “microskulls” where secondary and tertiary, smaller brains enhanced cognitive function. The creature let out a low wheeze then whipped its head towards the four sentients.

“Aaaaaaahhh!!! Doctor Sarkon! You have come! Gracious of you to come..hrmmm..yesss” its voice was at once a gutteral rasp and yet screechy as though two or three sets of deformed vocal cords spoke at once. “Have you brought the Zabrak infants?!” the creature paused, its head craned like a bird attempting to process a thing it hadn’t seen before and then as if recognition it made a hissing, chirping sound. “AAAaahhhhhahaha...CRIPPLED, MENTALLY RETARDED, BURNED BABY BROTHER’S PROSTITUTE RETURNS!!!!” it leaped to its feet.

“Shira Brie!....Oh how how Tash has missed you!”

The Doctor; it seemed, was finally back in!
2x Like Like
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Honesty Crow
Raw
GM
Avatar of Honesty Crow

Honesty Crow Tlaloc

Member Seen 3 yrs ago

Raveem's Gift

After meeting with Miryia, Raveem left for his safehouse near the Senate building. It was one of the Vas'Ah owned properties in the city. Not too long ago, Raveem had given over the home to his bodyguard Phasma though he would occasionally stay there. Recently, Phasma had stripped the apartment of its luxuries and outfitted it with all sorts of practical appliances and decorations. There was minimal entertainment space, with most of it being replaced with training rooms, a shooting gallery, and a storage room. It also had an advanced medical room with a bacta tank and a medical droid. Before all this, Raveem had figured out that the Parnasso native would want to get rid of all the pointless luxuries he might enjoy. Stepping onto the speeded platform outside, he remembered how she demanded that he give her the resources to renovate the place. She was bold to do so, but Raveem accepted much to her surprise. He knew the warrior would be completely out of her element. She was driven by practicality, efficiency and an obsession with staying in peak shape. Walking into the apartment, Raveem heard the distinct sounds of someone hitting a punching bag. With a smirk on his face, he turned and entered the training room. From the outside, he looked at Phasma throw a flurry of punches against a leather bag. The captain was covered in sweat and looked like she was pushing herself over her limits. Raveem guessed she had been in there for several hours. Perfect.

The Bothan walked over to a nearby console. Going over a series of controls, he found the options that gave him command over two programmed training droids. He chuckled as he activated them, setting them to a 'lethal mode.' Walking over to the viewing port, he stood there to watch the chaos unfold. Phasma noticed the droids activating instantly and looked over to the glass where Raveem was standing. She glared at him as the droids lunged at her with stun batons. At first, they managed to overpower her. However, once she gained control of one of the batons the Parnassian human was able to defeat both droids in short order. Exhausted, she collapsed on the floor and then sat on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. Raveem entered shortly after, clapping as he walked toward her.

"A magnificent performance! I knew you could do it." He giggled as she glared up at him. The Bothan offered up a hand to help her stand up. She initially refused but eventually relented when her body refused to move without assistance.

"You set them to lethal." Phasma groaned, looking down at the Bothan who stood a foot lower than her. She was furious. Not because the droids could have killed her, but because Raveem interrupted her routine. "Were you trying to kill me?" She asked dryly, walking over to a stand to grab a bottle of water.

Raveem scoffed and held back his urge to laugh. He found the question rather amusing "Goodness no! What would I do without your fearless protection?"

"Find someone else?"

"Well." Raveem walked over to her as she turned around to face him. The Bothan stood there, staring at her like a proud father. He reached up with his hand and gently stroked her cheek making her wince. Phasma was more confused than anything. It was rare for Raveem to get this… touchy with her. Ever since he adopted her as a teenage girl, Phasma had seen Raveem as an adoptive father. He was harsh, demanding, but fair. Frankly, she also thought he was crazy and reckless. But that didn't take away from his genius strategic ability and knack for predictions. That aside, tonight he was acting stranger than usual.

"What's gotten into you, lately?" She asked, making him withdraw and take a step back. Phasma had known him for too long. It caught him off guard.

"Nothing." Raveem said quickly, turning toward the door. "That reminds me. I brought you a little something. Come, come."

Phasma sighed and followed. Perhaps she would know at some point. Following Raveem, she met him in the living room. There, two droids had brought in two large military crates. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the droids and beckoned Phasma to step forward. Looking over the boxes for a moment, Phasma figured they were military issue. Which narrowed down the possibilities by a lot.

"Open them, come on!" Raveem stepped back, smiling widely as he eagerly waited for Phasma. Glancing at him, she stepped to the side of the largest crate and opened it. Her eyes went wide when she saw what was inside. Inside were pieces of a full set of armor. Each piece, instead of being colored white were dyed in chrome. Picking up the helmet, she stared at her reflection for a moment before noticing the helmet's design. It was drastically different from Stormtrooper armor.

"I had it commissioned just for you." Phasma heard Raveem explained, turning her attention to him. "It was made out of one of Palpatine's useless Naboo yachts. After all, he is pretty dead. So, I thought-" Raveem shrugged his shoulders, raising his hands to the sides. "hey, why not scrap the thing and make a suit of armor for my favorite warrior? If you ask me. It was better off this way."

He walked over to the smaller crate and opened it himself. One of the items within it was a redesigned force pike. Raveem picked it up, and extended the spike-looking pike. It had pointed ends on both sides and a silver finish.
"For all your close quarters needs. It is strong enough to deflect those pesky lightsabers should you ever encounter them. Finally-" Settling the spike down, he picked up the rifle right next to it. "your new rifle. A prototype F-11D. First of its kind."

Settling the helmet down, she walked over and took a closer look at her new weapons. She was eager to put them to good use, something Raveem seemed ti have picked up on.
"Soon, my dearest. Very soon. You and I… we are going to make history." The Bothan giggled, as he turned to leave. He couldn't wait for what was coming next. "Oh, and don't worry. You're welcome."

He left before she could say anything else. Not like she knew what to say. She was overwhelmed and confused at the same time. Regardless of her feelings, she would follow her mentor anywhere he went. And while she had some reservations on that Miryia character, Raveem didn't seem concerned so that meant she shouldn't either. Soon, Phasma retreated to her chambers after a modest meal, a brief shower and a small journal entry. Once she laid down on her bed, it didn't take long for her to drift off into sleep.

The traitors had been vanquished. Finally, the Empire had been victorious. Thousands celebrated in the streets of Corusanct, bright red banners adorned the buildings as millions celebrated the restoration of order to the galaxy. She walked alongside Raveem, who eagerly waved while wearing his ISB uniform. In the blink of an eye, she heard the distinctive bang of a sniper rifle. Soon after, Raveem was on the floor. Phasma rushed to him, holding him up as he struggled to breathe. The shooter had shot him through the chest. She tried to say something, but felt like she couldn't speak. Even when she forced herself, her lips refused to move. Phasma looked up as Raveem drew his last breath, meeting the gaze of Miryia who stood in front of them. The Arkanian smiled as she met Phasma's stare. Deep down, Phasma felt guilty. She should have seen this coming. Followed her gut and kill that woman the moment she laid eyes on her. In a fit of anger, Phasma released Raveem corpse and lunged at Miryia only for her to disappear into a cloud of smoke. She then felt like she was falling into an endless void, hearing Miryia's mocking laughter as she did.

Phasma awoke from her nightmare with a scream. She sat there for a moment, and held her head in her hands. Wiping away the tears on her cheeks, she sat on the side of her bed. Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself. It was only a dream, she assured herself. That mantra was abruptly interrupted by the beeping of her communicator.
"Yes?" She answered, her voice a bit groggy while glancing at the sunrise. "I'll be there in two hours." Sighing she stood up, taking one final look outside before heading out.

1x Like Like
Hidden 4 yrs ago 4 yrs ago Post by countlessinsect
Raw

countlessinsect

Member Seen 1 yr ago

Taris

In a dark alleyway of the decayed Ecumenopolis's lower levels, a blaster shot echos throughout the urban decay as a Weequay thug is held against a wall, his feet uselessly dangling in the air as he was held several inches off the ground due to his throat slowly being crushed by a cruel metallic hand. While the criminal had the life strangled out of him by the droid, a Twi'Lek prostitute helplessly looked alongside her Duros pimp who cowering on the filthy, duracrete, nursing his bruised cheek as he watched the droid attempted to enact homicide on a prospective customer.

"I'll ask you one more time... Have you seen this Chiss?"

Highsinger waves the picture at the Weequay's face again, dispassionately watching as the wrinkled skin on his face turned bluer and bluer before relieving the pressure, allowing some color to return to his face and allowing him to speak clearly.

"I-I don't know who he really is..! Just someone who supplies t-the cheapest Ryll worth a damn in this quadrant! Saw him without his helm only once! A-and he never stays in one place for too long! Could be on the other side of the planet for all I know! O-Or even outta the system!"

The droid's optics narrow before he lets drops the spice-addict to his feet, but not before snatching the holdout blaster he had hidden in his shirt and crushing it in front of his eyes.

"Get out of my sight."

The thug scurries away from the killer machine as it turned its attention towards the Duros and his whore, menacingly looming over them as he approached while the Tailhead protectively got between him and her man... Only to walk past the pair as if they weren't there. Sticking to the shadows of the dilapidated urban nightmare, Highsinger gets in touch with his partner as he makes his way back to their designated meeting spot.

"Apprentice, he is here still and apparently up to his usual antics. All the better."

While his tone had that habitual lack of emotion and inflection in it, inwardly Highsinger was bemused that their target couldn't help but continue the very activities that forced him into exile. These criminals, these organics... Always falling into the repetition they so mock and denigrate droids over... At the very least the information they got from Coruscant was accurate, getting sent on the right track much quicker than he was normally used to.
@TheWatchDog @Wildling
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago


@Piercing Light


Vaathkree Trade Corridor-Orbit over Chrona

To anyone who was familiar with the menacing design of any of the four variants of the Star Destroyer type dreadnaughts, the crimson painted, gaudy vessel might have looked like a mockery of the form. a large fleet of merchant ships and transport shuttles buzzed around her like a swarm of nagging birds while paint and maintenance droids accompanied by exasperated technicians did zero G walks along her hull, making sure frivolity, alcohol and generous helpings of Narcotics which often culminated in "near misses" and outright crashes along the surface of the vessel by everything from zero G speeders to drones piloted by drunks to, once or twice a shuttle. Went about their daily work of inspection, repair and touch ups. Several of her weapons ports were gun replaced by holoprojectors that rented out add space for some of the galaxy's largest fast food chains and clothing lines. One add for something called "The Combine Honred, Orderum Advanced Mercantiles" with horrendous spelling clearly written by a drunken Hutt danced in dangerously bright rainbow colors depicting Twi'lik dancers gyrating. Allegedly it was the first "legitimate" line of adult oriented entertainment corporations managed by one of the many displaced, minor Hutt Kajidics who were driven out when the Zann Consortium and Black Sun managed their conquest of Hutt Space (A thing that shocked the Galaxy, a thing unprecedented in Galactic history which cemented both organizations as dangerous powers on par with the New Republic or the Empire of Zsinj). Hutts going "legit" and actually bothering to respect intergalactic law was a sign of the times many said, and not a good sign.

True to the Muuns word, Talon Karrde made them wait, one day passed into two, two into three. For neither he nor Booster terrik ever descended from the command suites to interact with the Republic heroes despite entertaining guests from the Pentastar Alignment, from a hundred different independent warlords and from a Throneworld belonging to some member of an exiled noble family who set up shop in wildspace and was among the few out there who could safely navigate through the mess of black holes and gravitational anomalies that made ordinary trade fleets impossible. One might have taken this to be dismissive or a sign of contempt towards the New Jedi Order, yet the Galactic PeaceKeepers were surrounded by a veritable gold mine, a treasure trove of information and sentients from so many different worlds and so many different factions that it was more akin to a gift. Karrde allowing them to play the role of listeners, perhaps form contacts with people in the myriad of stellar nations that were rising now out of the ruins of the Empire. A gift bestowed rarely and if squandered would do more damage to their prospects of getting what they really wanted than anything else.

Keen eyes observed them, testing their resourcefulness and intelligence.

The Albino Wookie was probably one of the nicer pimps in the galaxy and two of his former prostitutes served as gourmet chefs in some of the highest level eateries on Coruscant and Alsaka respectively, here his hookers doubled as cooks. Most of the brothels interior was wood carved and filled with plants that had traditionally adorned Jedi temples and were strong with the force. The Wookie Ryshur as he called himself, explained that he had been a detective on Coruscant before he became an architect, before he became a pimp and after working on a rather controversial case with Master Yoda nearly two centuries ago. The diminutive Grand Master took to inviting Ryshur to the temple to play games of strategy and discuss the affairs of the day. The relationship kept Yoda informed of the going ons within Coruscant itself on "smaller scale" than a Grand Master of the Jedi Order might ordinarily receive and the Wookie developed an interest in gardening and architecture. How that led Ryshur to becoming was anyone's guess as he said nothing on the matter. Deck thirty was indeed a place of pro fighting where several fights were held in those seventy two hours as it had been some kind of important local festival. Among the victors was a seemingly youngish Hutt of orange colored skin who was built like a mountain who managed to win nine bouts before being defeated in "Honorable" combat by a female Chiss in the crimson color of Zsinj's raptors.

It was nearly night on the third day, when a large man with a barrel chest and a woodsman's beard, adorned in a green tunic with armor over his chest and a large stimulant stick in his mouth walked into the brothel, he was flanked by two "escorts" who looked like overworked secretaries but had dangerous eyes. the Wookie let out a roar of greeting and the two embraced before telling a series of jokes obscene enough to count as a crime on a few of the more prudish inner rim worlds. "but enough about hobbies Ryshur! I wanna see the free loaders! HEY JEDI!" The man boomed boisterously. Booster Terrik, smuggler, hustler, occasional pirate turned New Republic privateer who'd gone down in history as the man who managed to capture an Imperial Star Destroyer and keep it. While ostensibly independent, he was more akin to Karrde's right hand than anything else.

Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by Wildling
Raw
Avatar of Wildling

Wildling I Drink, And I Know Things

Member Seen 4 yrs ago

Taris


Two enforcers, a Devaronian and a Clawdite, dropped the Weequay at Jouren’s feet. The Weequay’s fear was palpable to all in the room as he rose to his knees, but he maintained his stony gaze. “Tell him what happened.” The Devaronian instructed, with a helpful kick to the side to get him going. The Weequay fell to the ground again, but opted to tell his story from the floor instead of getting up. “There was a combat droid. Had some sort of circle on his head. Like nothing I’ve seen. He was threatening me, asking about you. He wanted to know if I’d seen you around here. It must’ve been a bounty. Listen, I know you’re one of those fancy types from Coruscant. Real civilized. So please, have mercy. There wasn’t anything I could do but tell him.”

Jouren kneeled down, looking at the spice addict eye-to-eye. “A droid asked after me. A killing machine, coming to take away from you the only way to feed your addiction. I, like the gracious and generous businessman I am, give you the things you need for much cheaper than anyone else. I place a trust in you, a belief that you’ll stay silent in this exact scenario. And what do you do? You go behind my back and let him know that I’m here.” The Weequay was now quivering with fear. Jouren drew one of his blasters, aimlessly toying with it. “These actions cannot be ignored. However, they will be forgiven. But my forgiveness comes at a price.

The Weequay visibly relaxed. “Name it, I’ll do my best to find it for you.” Jouren smiled. “You don’t have to find it. It’s the very thing that allowed you to betray me.” He turned to the Clawdite. “Cut out his tongue.” The anger in his voice offset his earlier politeness and betrayed his emotions as he spoke. “And if anyone else speaks a word to that droid, the punishment you receive from me will be much, much worse than whatever that piece of scrap can do to you.

@countlessinsect
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by TheWatchDog
Raw
coGM
Avatar of TheWatchDog

TheWatchDog

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

@Wildling@countlessinsect@Honesty Crow



Taris

-I know this girl- the Apprentice thought, her green eyes (one newly restored by the master who'd been her enemy once), focusing on a ten year old who weaved between several Gammorians who were pounding back stimulant laced ale for a game the Gamorrians called "Nosleep" (The goal being to take so many uppers and downers at once that it brought you to the brink of a lethal reaction then stay conscious for as long as possible to avoid going into shock). She'd sported bruises that were concealed under the soft kimono like tunic she wore to seem as pleasant and "exotic" (odd thing since kimonos were so simplistic and primitive almost every species had a variant of them) as possible and to accentuate herself to customers who were far more depraved in their proclivities. The girl was near human, though Aladar couldn't tell the species, but she knew the look of an addict. That girl, who was likely beaten not by her pimps but by older whores who were jealous of someone who once they entered puberty was likely going cost one of them a job (and perhaps more than that) by here mere existence. -I know this girl- she thought -Because I was this girl- After her master died, when she was "tall for her age" and pretty enough that she was put to work earlier than most who were new to the profession. Then the inquisitors came and she wasn't sure which addiction was worse, spice, death sticks or the dark side. Rhaenessya Aladar had attempted to find Phasma something to wear (as her master put it, you and that Duros faced irradiated behemoth are roughly the same height, though you are nowhere near as ordinary or flat..lend her some clothes!) Aladar had to stifle a laugh, it was so childish of her to be giddy at it but that might have been the first time in twenty years that the young woman had been called beautiful (albeit in a backhanded way) by anyone that hadn't made her skin crawl. Master could be scornful, but that made her praise all the more meaningful and the more time they spent together the more she realized she'd begun to love the older woman as a mentor and as a parent. What shocked her was that the affections seemed to be reciprocated, they'd bonded hard, they'd bonded fast and it only served to strengthen Aladar's resolve.

She would not fail again, Not her children, not her new order, especially not herself and not the woman who took her in. She supposed that made her similar to Phasma who likewise wouldn't fail her mentor (and who insisted on wearing the Chrome armor she'd been given, ah well at least she looked like a Mandalorian Death commando and not an imperial officer). Unlike Phasma, Aladar wore a black and silver tunic, with a sash that marked her as a freedwoman, a former slave who'd earned her freedom and from the color of the star burst pattern it implied she was a former sex slave. -I'll admit to being a whore before I admit to serving the Sith- she thought, ironic the things people felt ashamed of. Beyond that, the colors made her look like she belonged, as if she wouldn't stand out in a crowd. The quality of her tunic implied she'd gained a good deal of wealth since her slavery expired which made the armored Phasma look like her bodyguard drawing them the right kind of attention. Rhaenessya Aladar kept her eye on the ten year old girl as she moved to another table, placing a packet of spice on the table, a drug transaction, one of millions that transpired across the galaxy every nanosecond or so it would seem. But she recognized when a whore in training was palming a data chip to agents of a competitor. Other things gave it away, the Rodian who looked and acted like he was loaded on stimulants but it was too convincing, the Sephi that ran in and out of the building (She made a mental note to watch out for those, Sephi were a long lived species and a thug with a few centuries of combat experience was dangerous even if they were mere thugs). Her green eyes shifted back to Phasma who constantly looked like she was twitching below her mask, Parnassos was a hard, hellish world but it lacked the infrastructure for the subtleties of the kind of depravity Phasma was witnessing here. "Dodging rape gangs and rad burned cannibals seems a little more honest huh?" She asked the woman, who was no doubt watching many of these displays of degeneracy either for the first time, or the first time without Raveem to explain to her exactly what was happening.

"Three thousand years ago Taris was as populated and mechanical as Coruscant, a Sith lord I forget which had it bombed into a ruined wasteland. Trillions died, but nature reclaimed the world. Over the last three thousand years, it's become what you see here" Perhaps it was a glimpse into the future of her own planet. Aladar was about to continue when The Highsinger killer's voice echoed through her wrist mounted comm device.

"Read you" she whispered then added "Phasma and I are in a brothel ten blocks from you, he's trying to take over the pleasure houses in this level."

Or torture the pimps to get to their suppliers of slavers to work out a more "exclusive" deal. She wasn't quite sure yet, and she'd wanted to begin to try a mind probe of the Rodian, but a Zeltron walked in and began making out with the Sephi in what was another convincing act. Aladar had felt the mental intrusion...Great she thought, it was bad enough they were low level psychics but this one was force sensitive if completely untrained. She'd thought about resisting, but she wasn't well trained enough in these things to do it in a way that didn't look like a total psychic block, something even an untrained force wielder would recognize as odd. Instead, she allowed the Zeltron in, just enough to see images of her first year in a brothel like this, sufficient to convince her to leave. As serving girl brought them both another round of drinks and Aladar shotgunned them both and made an obscene comment before she slid back into her chair, her eyes steeled.

This wasn't easy for her, playing the role of a trafficker, when she'd been trafficked or consuming so much alcohol (Even though her force augmented metabolism neutralized the effects easy enough), to come face to face with her old addictions when she'd just gone cold turkey on the new one. She'd said as much to her master who'd simply told her that to fall was no defeat, only in failing to rise again would she fail. That had comforted her but a set a fire in her blood and made her resolved to come here no matter what. "We have two choices now" she whispered to Phasma "We can brute force this like amateurs" she murmured that almost contented with that idea, these people deserved to be slaughtered for what they did to boys and girls and adults, but she also realized annihilating a brothel would result in the people who worked there ending up homeless on a world where Rhakghul plagues were still a problem. It was what Sith would do and what the old Empire would do, but subtlety involved time they simply didn't have given what was coming.

The answer, she realized, might come in the form of a middle ground. "Phasma" Aladar muttered "get ready, I'm going to start a gang war"

The Chiss, would have a hard time doing business here, she realized, if half the planet was gigantic gunbattle. And they needed his, services for what was to come.

Hidden 4 yrs ago 4 yrs ago Post by Guy of Z
Raw
Avatar of Guy of Z

Guy of Z

Member Seen 2 yrs ago

New Republic Defense Force Fleet undisclosed location


“I keep telling you Holdo don’t kriff with it it could be anything here.”

“The Republic pays you to do odd jobs not give advice to Mr Sun jr.”

“Stop calling me that retarded nickname its not cute.”

“I’ll call you what I want so far Merc, this is my ship; my mission and we need everything we can get against the several dozen warlords and the mainstream Empire.”

“Look...Vice Admiral…(Why the kriff is a Vice Admiral in charge not a real one) I don’t know what the hell is in these pods, the datafiles said they look like that thing on Yavin that kriffed up the base there before before it took off into space. You really wanna risk that?”

“Don’t tell me what I'm willing to risk Mr Merc, we fight every day for your enterprise.”

“I have a name Vice Admiral please use it.” Earhen couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman, if he wasn’t keeping his stuff secret he'd go off about how much bad shit was put into the Emperors storehouses, he'd know he had to collect some of the spast stored in them he had to collect them. Of course they never told him the exact locations he had to do the digging on his own for thule along with finding some Imperial Guard and making them “cooperate”.

“Kriff you don’t know what's in it, help me out here guys!”

(He has a point you know there were Blackhole Stormtroopers and everything.)

“Look bunny boys I get you were sent by Mon Mothma to monitor this kid but please know your place here. I know what Im doing”

(Excuse me? Just because you are a biped with opposable thumbs doesn't make you better than us nor does it give you the right to snap at us for relying information Ma'am.)

“No offense intended but before the Alliance found your planet you were off living in caves feeding off of energy. You haven’t seen the galaxy like my people have and its challenges you simple little guys should know a star destroyer is more dangerous than a Silvyth or a uh “Darker”.”

“Look Holdo before you cause an international incident on top of a kriffing disaster in your own ship just listen to me for five seconds. Something bad will come out of that pod if you open it I know what I'm talking about.”

“Zip it.”

“God you are gonna get us all killed…”

“Open the smaller pod first.” Holdo commanded her soldiers to begin prying it open. After a few minutes of tampering with the controls it opened revealing a clone of Jango Fett.

“Oh a clone stormtrooper, be sure to throw it into the brig when it wakes up.”

“Lucky try this time Holdo don’t be stupid here.”

“I'm opening it mercenary, you can leave if you’re so scared.”

“And miss the chance to watch you die?”

@SansTheMedic
Hidden 4 yrs ago Post by SansTheMedic
Raw
Avatar of SansTheMedic

SansTheMedic The one that possibly doesn't exist,

Member Seen 4 yrs ago

New Republic Defense Force Fleet undisclosed location


“I keep telling you Holdo don’t kriff with it it could be anything here.”

“The Republic pays you to do odd jobs not give advice to Mr Sun jr.”

“Stop calling me that retarded nickname its not cute.”

“I’ll call you what I want so far Merc, this is my ship; my mission and we need everything we can get against the several dozen warlords and the mainstream Empire.”

“Look...Vice Admiral…(Why the kriff is a Vice Admiral in charge not a real one) I don’t know what the hell is in these pods, the datafiles said they look like that thing on Yavin that kriffed up the base there before before it took off into space. You really wanna risk that?”

“Don’t tell me what I'm willing to risk Mr Merc, we fight every day for your enterprise.”

“I have a name Vice Admiral please use it.” Earhen couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman, if he wasn’t keeping his stuff secret he'd go off about how much bad shit was put into the Emperors storehouses, he'd know he had to collect some of the spast stored in them he had to collect them. Of course they never told him the exact locations he had to do the digging on his own for thule along with finding some Imperial Guard and making them “cooperate”.

“Kriff you don’t know what's in it, help me out here guys!”

(He has a point you know there were Blackhole Stormtroopers and everything.)

“Look bunny boys I get you were sent by Mon Mothma to monitor this kid but please know your place here. I know what Im doing”

(Excuse me? Just because you are a biped with opposable thumbs doesn't make you better than us nor does it give you the right to snap at us for relying information Ma'am.)

“No offense intended but before the Alliance found your planet you were off living in caves feeding off of energy. You haven’t seen the galaxy like my people have and its challenges you simple little guys should know a star destroyer is more dangerous than a Silvyth or a uh “Darker”.”

“Look Holdo before you cause an international incident on top of a kriffing disaster in your own ship just listen to me for five seconds. Something bad will come out of that pod if you open it I know what I'm talking about.”

“Zip it.”

“God you are gonna get us all killed…”

“Open the smaller pod first.” Holdo commanded her soldiers to begin prying it open. After a few minutes of tampering with the controls it opened revealing a clone of Jango Fett.

“Oh a clone stormtrooper, be sure to throw it into the brig when it wakes up.”

“Lucky try this time Holdo don’t be stupid here.”

“I'm opening it mercenary, you can leave if you’re so scared.”

“And miss the chance to watch you die?”

@SansTheMedic


Almost as soon as that last sentence was finished, Holdo would find the barrel of a DP-23 shotgun pressed to her temple, the clone's eyes open and staring coldly at her through the visor of the salmon-highlighted helmet.

SEVERAL YEARS PRIOR

"You understand your objective, soldier?" The officer across the table asked as CT-6871, codename Carter, made some final preperations on his equipment.

"I am to act as a bodyguard to the entity known as Vehia under the orders of chancellor palpatine, with a cover of being a member of the Couroscant guard. I am to accept orders from either the chancellor or the girl in my charge and nobody else. I am to ensure her nature is not revealed to anyone at all costs, and ensure that if any spills occur to mop it up appropriately. Is that correct, sir?" Carter asked as he slid his weaponary into the appropriate slots on his armour before putting his phase ii helmet on

"Correct. You will be entering cryo-statis inside the storage facility Vehia is being kept in and will be thawed out upon the opening of either of your pods. You will most likely be woken either by one of our own or by the chancellor himself."

"And if I am not, sir?"

"How you approach that and any similar situation is up to you. You'll be acting under your own instinct and wit for the most part, 6871."

"Understood, sir."

PRESENT DAY

Carter could tell quite easily that this wasn't someone who was supposed to have woken him, unless things had changed significantly while he had been in cryo stasis. However he could also tell that this place was not where he had been stored, so there was a likelyhood that he was in potentially hostile territory. Still, his gun was up and inches from the oddly-haired woman's face, and he was gonna be very concice with his words. No point in not making himself clear to these people.

"I don't want to start a fight if I don't need to" he says slowly, voice level and deliberate, "But you aren't what I expected to see when I went into stasis so you best tell me who you are. Any bullshitting and I will blast you, and you don't contend with clones when it comes to making a good shot."

↑ Top
© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet