Nar Shaddaa

[ObliviousKnight]

Disable shot: Raven Zinthos v. Sapphire and Emerald.

 

The context of this disable request is that after capturing a previously-lawless moon with a population density similar to that of Coruscant, the Imperials launched NPC-controlled starfighters after detecting the launch of a PC-piloted yacht that had recently been tracked. The pilots (Sapphire and Emerald) attempted to use superior knowledge of the ecumenopolis’ erratic geography to evade pursuit, but when faced with a squadron of fighters that are noted to be exceptionally quick and maneuverable, it would only be matter of time before the TIE Defenders caught up with their quarry.

 

However, the NPCs made the decision to engage the ship with a mixture of concussion missiles and ion cannons in a crowded spacelane, a somewhat reckless tactic given the intention to disable the ship. The defenders' strategy to use civilian ships as cover would be successful, resulting in several ships suffering significant damage from missile fire, some even being shot down with subsequent loss of innocent life. The traffic in the immediate vicinity would understandably panic and take evasive maneuvers without any coordination, resulting in a very chaotic environment for the TIE Defenders to navigate and continue their pursuit of the Cider Puff.

 

My ruling is as follows:

 

 

Raven Zinthos: DISABLE SHOT FAILS.

 

The Cider Puff has suffered minor damage from the occasional grazing hit from ion cannon fire, but the concussion missile barrage has failed to bring down the intended target and has struck bystander traffic. Due to the resultant panic and evasive maneuvers that the barrage has inspired in the spacelane, this has created a rather hazardous and chaotic environment for the pursuing TIE Defenders to navigate. This buys the Cider Puff the time that it requires to clear Nar Shaddaa’s gravity well and escape the blockade.

 

The captains of a small number of ships have completely lost their heads and started returning fire, but it has not resulted in the mass revolt that Sapphire and Emerald have attempted to spark. Tensions towards the Imperial presence on Nar Shaddaa are nevertheless going to be high.

 

Next post goes to Sapphire and Emerald.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

“Grandmaster, if I may…” Armiena didn’t even look at the data slate that she had been passed by the Kiffar. “This isn’t the moment. I mean… I’ll do it; I’ll give these soldiers a lesson that they will never forget. I… I'll make sure that they continue to be useful, but in the future...” The veteran Jedi swallowed hard and dropped the medical records that had previously absorbed her full attention. 

 

Draygo was in danger of making a speech. She found herself wishing for a retreat from this overcrowded medical ward--the room was only intended for a patient, a few medtechs and perhaps a pair of visitors, but it had now been stuffed to the point of claustrophobia with an informal Jedi Council, the high command of the Galactic Alliance and the Imperial Remnant or whatever they were calling themselves now, and even a few line soldiers and Jedi Knights who had somehow learned of this secret meeting. Perhaps it was necessary at this moment; perhaps Alluyen and the Jedi needed a stark warning of the dread forces that they were about to unleash upon the galaxy; perhaps they needed a reminder that one of the surviving veterans of the previous war was among them, one who had witnessed and inflicted the same magnitude of destruction on the galaxy. 

 

The miniature motors and gears began to whirr in the exposed mechanisms of her prosthetic hand and her face had flushed red. She plowed forward in a stream of consciousness, not daring to look at her fellow Jedi or the career soldiers. “We must be more disciplined with our use of violence. Everyone in this room has done terrible things and justified it to themselves afterwards. We aren’t simply responsible for our own actions, but those of every soldier under our command. There must be clear contrast between our actions and those of the Sith, or we are lost. I don't just mean that we will lose this war--it will inflict such a toll on ourselves that we won't be able to justify or forgive ourselves for what we’ve done. That is, if we haven't warped ourselves to such a degree that we no longer see any need for it."

 

She looked down into the insta-caf in her hands. “I apologize. I didn’t mean to preach. This meeting was supposed to form an agreement of cooperation between our forces and I’ve derailed it.”

[ObliviousKnight]

((Bruce Slaughter and Armiena Draygo))

 

“We’ll find a way to make it work. They might be volunteers, but we’ll find a way to integrate them into our forces, secure the logist… ics…” Admiral Slaughter began, only to find his nerve fading as he became aware of the fact that Draygo had just fixed him with a knowing stare.

 

The veteran Jedi took a sip of caf. At this point, the steam had faded and her lip curled almost imperceptibly. “Grandmaster, I respectfully disagree. Our order has occasionally made terrible mistakes. I should know--I’ve committed some of them. That doesn’t change the fact that to many people in the galaxy, the Jedi Order is the foremost champion for the rights of sapients and democracy--and that a vessel under our command would be one of the most welcome sights imaginable in a time of crisis. Our leading a force of like-minded individuals--not professional soldiers, not clones, but of idealists who are willing to fight and suffer and kill for our values would be a source of comfort for many in the galaxy. To relinquish this force could be seen as an--an abdication of our responsibilities.”

 

“It’s your call, but this is a critical moment.”

[ObliviousKnight]

“There are arguments for and against the militarization of the Jedi Order. Consider me firmly on the side of maintaining command of our own fleet. It’s my observation that a single integrated Jedi can augment a unit of conventional soldiers far beyond their capabilities, defeat fortifications that would require unnecessary casualties, or prevent an all-out rout if a Sith is present.

 

“I suspect that my vision for the Jedi Order is not the same as yours, however. With your permission, I’ll see to the officers responsible for Dark Sun. And I would like to see my son.”

 

Draygo finally glanced at the dataslate that Vos had passed towards her. Her eyes hunted for names… with slow deliberation from working one-handed, she tapped in summons to the officers and soldiers who had sabotaged Dark Sun Station. The summons directed them not to one of the Star Destroyer’s myriad briefing rooms or interrogation suites, but to a medevac shuttle. Armiena had decided that she wanted complete privacy for the necessary lesson that she was going to teach these delinquent officers. Only several cubic kilometers of empty void would suffice.

 

She would let them stew in their own guilt for a few hours, though.

 

Finally sensing an opportunity to speak up, Admiral Slaughter cleared his throat. “All this said about the capabilities of Jedi support… my people will find a way to integrate your forces into our fleet. We’re used to working with… difficult logistics. My engineers will establish a headquarters for joint command on the moon’s surface. While the Sith have the initiative, we can expect attacks at multiple facilities and integration of our forces is critical."

[ObliviousKnight]

There was another one of those pregnant pauses in the conversation. Draygo considered whether she had made yet another false step. For more than a decade, either she or one of her closest friends had been Grandmaster and the Admiral of the Republic fleet was… simple enough to manipulate. Armiena now had a distinct impression that her views were unneeded or unwanted--that her role in Alluyen’s Order was to serve and occasionally advise, but not to lead. The veteran Jedi held out her prosthetic hand and the dataslate went skipping across the rpom and into her palm.

 

Armiena briefly locked eyes with a masked Shistavenan, then she left.

 

______

 

The deckplan of a Nebula-class Star Destroyer was fundamentally similar to that of an Imperial-II, albeit significantly condensed. Nonetheless, Armiena wandered aimlessly through the corridors of its keel, so much that she had to wave off an Ensign who offered to guide her to a destination that she herself hadn’t formulated yet. Tapping clumsily on the dataslate, Draygo sent a message to her Padawan to meet with her. Genesis had been withdrawn ever since the battle of Dark Sun Station. That wasn’t unexpected--Armiena distinctly remembered feeling nauseous for two days after the first time that she had taken a life, and the poor boy had been forced to experience the state-sanctioned mass murder of a pitched battle with half-developed Force powers--with all the hypersensitivity of an astonishingly adept healer with none of the defenses of an older Jedi. Hopefully he would at least be willing to discuss the ordeal--or that a day of reflection and perhaps even a proper night’s sleep would help him.

 

The dataslate in Armiena’s hand vibrated twice. She frowned as she read message on its screen.

 

Master Draygo,

 

Misal is alive. She has gone to ground for the moment. She is better off being thought dead after the events of the last month. Your ship will be delivered to you on Nar Shaddaa.

 

Your son is occupied in Cargo Hold Dorn-3. You may enjoy the opportunity to interrupt a moment.

 

Only seconds after Armiena skimmed the message, it disappeared from the screen of the dataslate to return to the half-read after action report of Lead Engineer Nel’Pi. The veteran glanced behind her--amongst the rush of a hundred staff officers, engineers, and teamsters was the hulking frame of a black-furred Togorian. The uniform of the Galactic Alliance may have fit the feline sapient’s massive bulk and she wore a belt of engineer’s tools with comfort, but she was nearly a meter taller than the other personnel around her and she failed completely in her attempt to look inconspicuous. 

 

Draygo tapped in another message to update her Padawan of her destination.

 

____

 

Ten minutes later, Armiena made out the unmistakable whine of blaster fire and the distinct odor of ozone emanating from Cargo Hold Dorn-3. Her practiced ear studied the report as she approached the cargo bay more closely--a short-barreled carbine, probably a standard-issue model like the E-11.

 

Firing exercises.

 

The veteran Jedi paused at the mouth of the cargo hold, feeling conscious of her disarray after Dark Sun Station. She knew that she stank of sweat and oil; her oversized robe was folded untidily over a left arm that was imprisoned in a sling. She paused and listened to the persistent staccato of blaster fire; the slower rhythm was that of an inexperienced operator familiarizing themselves with a new weapon.

 

She took a few steps into the cargo hold to see her son teaching one of the younger Jedi Knights--Sarna, the girl from Felucia--basic blaster techniques. 

 

Her son.

 

It had been far too long since Armiena had seen him. Her own mother had occasionally sent holos as he grew up--and even a few clandestine images when Aidan had thought he had completely slipped her monitoring, but… it had been far too long. She found herself transfixed, an uncharacteristically soft expression on her war-hardened face, not quite sure what to do next.

[ObliviousKnight]

This was a moment that Armiena had been thinking about for months; really, every since the veteran Jedi had slipped the clutches of CreoVive and returned to the Order. It should have arrived sooner, but the collapse of the Galactic Alliance and the crises that wracked the Jedi Order continually demanded her attention. Perhaps she should have slipped her obligations to the Order and pursued this reunion earlier, because Armiena had just stepped out of a meeting with an Admiral she despised. The tension was written on her face as vividly as the crust of dried blood that had issued from a miniature cut on her forehead.

 

“If we can keep it that way.” Her expression was not exactly accustomed to softness and sentimentality; the frustration of the last few weeks competed with the relief of seeing her son alive and unharmed. “One thing that gods and generals all have in common is that they have the most staggering egos, cannot admit a mistake or backtrack.”

 

Draygo forced a deep breath. This was in danger of turning into a rant, and one that smacked of hypocrisy and a profound lack of self-awareness.

“It seems to be that way. I… how have you been? When the Scarab came out of hyperspace on top of the fleet, I thought that—” Armiena let the sentence trail off. Both of them knew perfectly well what the Sith flagship had done: it had pulverized significant portions of the Jedi and Imperial fleets. The only reason why she was still alive was that Justice’s Mandate had been hundreds of kilometers away; how Aidan had come through unharmed was unknown but was a rare mercy from the Force.

[ObliviousKnight]

Unharmed, but resentful of having been restrained from the front lines. Armiena could understand the motivations of the Imperials in distancing her son from the heat of the battle--Darkfire was still a powerful name, even years after his parents’ leadership of the Jedi Order--but that would have rankled any member of his family. Aidan was perhaps more like his father than he would have liked to admit.

 

“She’s alive. I don’t know any more than that. She has at least one of her cell on this ship, but for all I know they’re moonside now. I don’t know when we might see her again, but I imagine it will be unexpected and she’ll be needing a favor.” Armiena tried to smile, but her uncertainty strangled her expression and the best she managed was something between between a grimace and a squint. 

 

The blaster fire had died off and the veteran Jedi had just become aware that her apprentice had arrived more quickly to the hangar than she had anticipated. With Sarna no longer practicing her marksmanship and providing a backdrop of blaster bolts whining through the air to drown out their conversation, there was nothing preventing the younger Jedi from listening in on what Armiena had hoped to be a more private conversation, in a less martial setting, and during a time when time was less precious. However, none of Draygo’s preferences had come to pass and she had resolved to not allow this moment to be wasted.

 

“Aidan, I need to ask…” Armiena’s eyes searched her son’s expression. “Are we… alright? I mean, I’ve been absent for far too long and I know I’ll never be able to fix that, and our lives aren’t likely to leave much time for ourselves, but,” she was conscious of the fact that she was babbling. “I’d like to be part of your life.”

[ObliviousKnight]

Draygo had been withdrawing into herself after the loss of Coruscant. And then, with experiencing the aftershock of the deaths of billions, the fragmentation of the Galactic Alliance, and the loss of so many of her friends, Armiena had been shunning contact with others. That emotional armor allowed her to attack the seemingly insurmountable crises with increasing ruthlessness, but the gradual chipping away at her defenses with time had nearly resulted in an explosive release of frustration at Dark Sun.

 

And with the mental touch of her son, those defenses finally gave way and the storm that was her spirit finally flooded over. There was sincerity in his touch: not just love for his family, but also pain at the fact that he had never quite been able to bond properly with his father. She hadn’t expected the glowing regard that her son held for her, even after the many mistakes that she had made over the years. She held on tight, and her shoulders shook with silent tears.

 

When Armiena could finally bring herself to extract herself from the hug, tears were flowing freely from her pale-green eyes.

 

“He… was a good man.” Draygo looked off to the side and her eyes focused on something a kilometer away. It may have merely been the dull ache in her shoulder from the healing dislocation, but it physically hurt to force herself to speak of Aryian in the past tense. “Sometimes difficult to understand, bit too comfortable with his own mortality for my liking,” her lips twitched in a weak attempt at a smile. “But… he was better than I sometimes gave him credit for. I wish I could see him again.

 

“He loved us, even if it was sometimes difficult for him to express it.”

[ObliviousKnight]

Wiping away the wetness from her eyes, Armiena turned to find that her apprentice had just left the hangar. 

 

“I have some time… where did Genesis go--this might have been useful for him. May I?”

 

With some hesitation, Armiena shrugged out of the sling that was holding her left arm captive. The shoulder nagged with pain and her jaw clenched for a moment, but she revealed no further sign of the complaining injury as she stretched it out in a slow rotation. Instead, the veteran Jedi placed her hands on the blaster carbine and turned it over with drilled efficiency, checking the power cell and the chamber for a live charge. It was, in fact, loaded, but the safety was engaged and the weapon pointed down-range.

 

“BlasTech E-11.” She let out a little sigh. “Cold-weather pattern. Duranium reinforcement on the magazine feed and barrel, less prone to expansion in extreme temperatures. Versatile weapon, even if I prefer something a little heavier. Not much that I can tell you that someone who went through Imperial training wouldn’t already know, but for practical advice…” The veteran Jedi tucked the carbine under her arm and approached the makeshift rifle range. With practiced ease, her metal hand swung the folding stock back and squared it against her shoulder; she took a half-step backwards and lowered her center of gravity a handful of centimeters.

 

“Stance and breath control are critical.” Armiena’s breath had slowed to a robotic rhythm and she peered down sights with eyes that blinked with unnerving slowness. “Square your shoulders and wrists to absorb the recoil, especially if you’re going full-auto for suppressing fire. Make your first shot on the exhale; but in a firefight where you’re moving around and yelling, don’t forget to breath, no matter what.” Armiena deliberately withheld her next breath and rushed through her speech to demonstrate; her hands began to tremble from the prolonged effort of holding the weapon.

 

“Speaking of suppressing fire: the stun setting can be quite useful. Even a gaze with a stun blast canbedebilitating and speaking as a Jeditheyaredamneddifficulttodeflect.”

 

A long inhalation followed. Draygo waited for her arms to stop wavering, then deliberately sent a round streaking downrange.

 

She missed completely. So did her second and third attempts, the crimson bolts passing cleanly underneath the circumference of the remote and diffusing harmlessly into a pink glow against the magcon field. The inaccuracy, at least, was consistent.

 

“A moment. Actually, you might find this useful.” Armiena frowned and began to field-strip the weapon and led Sarna through the process of inspecting its major components. Every part of the weapon, however, was pristinely maintained as though the weapon had arrived directly from the armorer’s workshop; the plasma injectors were completely clear of obstructions; the delicate cartridges that housed the focusing crystals were perfectly aligned and betrayed no cracks or even smudges; even the magazine leads had been cleaned and shone with a faint polish.

 

The rifle was perfectly maintained. The same, Armiena realized, could not be said for her own body. As she walked Sarna through the process of assembling the rifle, the veteran Jedi realized that her right hand and wrist were both exposed metal, lacking about five millimeters of synthflesh that normally masked the skeletal chassis of a prosthetic.

 

“The problem seems to be the operator.” Draygo held up her hand. “The metal slipped on that composite grip… maybe a millimeter--not much, but enough to push the barrel down a little and make my shots go low. I’ll need to practice and get used to that.”

 

The veteran Jedi gave a fourth attempt, this time without any of the self-assured polish that she earlier displayed and taking conscious, deliberate effort with her trigger pull. This time, she was rewarded with a grazing strike against the targeting remote; sparks erupted from its side and the globe scattered to the left by a meter before returning to its earlier position.

[ObliviousKnight]

“Coruscant.” Draygo withdrew her gaze from the optics of the blaster rifle, vented the chamber and removed the magazine. “Things got a bit difficult. One of the landing strips was disabled by a storm. It was rather strange--I knew exactly what I needed to do, even if I wasn’t exactly conscious of it. Next time I felt… present, I was waking up in a bacta tank.”

 

Armiena continued to fuss with the rifle, not taking her eyes from the weapon. Pieces of the intricate wrist joint could be seen moving through gaps in the chassis. Even as her thoughts began to turn inward, reflecting on the trials of that busy hour when she had first realized that Aryian had died, she forced herself to tear her gaze from the action of the rifle and smiled at Sarna. “It’s a hand. I can manage without that more easily than other parts of the anatomy.”

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena glanced down at her hand and stretched her fingers. Clicks issued from the exposed mechanism and she watched the delicate motors actuate. It was a standard military-grade model, completely ordinary save for its armored circuitry.

 

The neural interface firmware was supposed to be based on a compressionless algorithm, but given its recent performance...

 

Draygo drew her blaster pistol and sighted in on the hangar’s magcon field indicator, approximately fifty meters away. And again. And again, she repeated the motion, feeling the grip of the pistol settle into her palm slightly differently with each quickdraw. Then she swapped to a one-handed grip and found that her wrist was drifting to the side.

 

It was the hand.

 

____

 

Minutes later, Armiena emerged from the hangar to find her apprentice.

 

“Thank you.” She gave him a smile, one of the few genuine smiles that she had managed since their flight from Coruscant. “I needed that. You and I need to complete your training. At this point, a Padawan traditionally begins construction on their lightsaber, but I can’t ask you to violate your principles on a blade. Have you had any thoughts on this subject?”

[ObliviousKnight]

“Genesis, I can tell you, I do not care one whit about the traditions of the Jedi Order. I carry these,” her palm rested on the lightning-charred ruin of one of the hilts she had been loaned on Coruscant. “Because they mean something to other people. Nothing is a conversation piece like a lightsaber.” The trace of a reminiscent smile teased at the edge of Armiena’s lips, but the comment was not exactly germane to a decision of this gravity and her expression became stony.

 

“The engineering mechanics of constructing a lightsaber are remarkably flexible--as are the mechanics of defending yourself from one. Magnetic containment--electrical shorting--even a bit of superconducting metal works for a while. The parts that you would need for anything you would want to build are not exactly extraordinary. I could probably take you to a junkyard planetside--moonside--for a few hours and we would find most of the parts necessary.”

 

Armiena pulled up a patch of deck plating and took a seat beside her apprentice. “This is a highly personal decision. Anything that you build will be part of you. I can help with designing the prints if you have any ideas, but the assembly… that’s you.”

[ObliviousKnight]

“I exaggerate. A little. I once read the memoirs of a Jedi Knight who had to assemble a lightsaber while undercover with a pirate gang. He managed to collect the parts from scrap--just spare parts from starfighters and wreckage. Even the focusing crystals were just ordinary gemstones that were liberated from plunder. Amazing story--and incredibly readable, he just had a way with words.” Armiena glanced towards the side and waited for her narrator to stop abusing the fourth wall. A half-sloshed nerd from a star named Sol shrugged and silently mouthed It’s a great book.

 

“No, we will make time. There won’t be opportunities in the future. Get to the ship’s library and download as many technical documents as you can on lightsaber design.” Draygo handed her apprentice the dataslate. Truth be told, the veteran Jedi had no idea what form this ship's archives might take or where they were located--the deck layout of Justice's Mandate was so martial that it was virtually alien to her previous experiences with Jedi vessels. “I’ll find ourselves a ship. We meet back here in fifteen?”

[ObliviousKnight]

A moment later, Armiena departed to the primary hangar. Presumably, she would be able to cajole a deck officer into loaning her a shuttle or a two-man starfighter trainer, or even a garbage scow. Upon arriving at the hangar, however, she immediately caught sight of a familiar, boxy hull that had been stowed away in an inconvenient corner of the deck.

 

“Oh, no.”

 

Armiena instantly recognized that boxy, inelegant hull. The exposed ducts and hydraulics were reminiscent of Corellian Engineering Corporation design, but the sheer mass of the design was straight out of the glory days of the Old Republic. The paint job of the Barloz-class freighter was unmistakeable: Star Destroyer White and blue accents. It was a civilian ship--the minimal armaments were testament to the fact that it was never intended to blast apart anything more threatening than an asteroid--but it was the oversized sensor arrays that protruded from every available square meter of hull that distinguished the ship.

 

A shout from across the hangar jarred the veteran Jedi from her reverie.

 

“Holy spast, Darkfire! McShipface is yours?”.

 

“...unfortunately.”

 

Armiena sighed and approached the boarding ramp, rapping her metal hand against its keel every few steps. The ship had gone missing after the fall of Coruscant, cause of her disappearance unknown. There were a number of freak accidents that could befall a ship of this age in hyperspace, most of which would crack the hull or scour the interior with ignited hypermatter. All were likely to leave the crew and passengers dead and the ship adrift in deep space, without any plausible means of reaching a habitable star or sending a distress signal. And yet no sign of damage was visible as the veteran Jedi climbed up the boarding ramp--the hangar had even been outfitted with an unfamiliar starfighter and the engineering spaces equipped with an array of tools that a podracing pit crew would have envied.

 

But half of the crew compartments were delineated with omni-reflective tape to indicate that the spaces had lost atmospheric integrity, and there was still no sign of her mother’s movements.

 

When her apprentice finally returned from the ship’s archives, she could be found sitting on the ship’s boarding ramp.

 

“I suspected they weren’t exactly jewelry.” Draygo stared at her feet for a second, her eyes distant. “Some ability to store and transfer energy through the Force--almost like a battery. Generally suitable for lightsabers, although… really, any stone of the right composition and quality would be sufficient. Rare. Very rare. Most of our crystals have come from Ilum--or sometimes Dantooine.”

 

Her expression brightened and she smiled at Genesis. “Like most of mine. Yes, I think it’s time that I built my own. The next few days will be… intense. Anyone handy with tools could make an attempt at a lightsaber, but without the proper meditations and guided cutting of the crystals, the results are likely to be… incendiary. That I can help with. How does Dantooine sound?”

[ObliviousKnight]

“Actually…” Draygo counted down on her fingers as she recalled the essential parts for a lightsaber. “I think that we have everything we’ll need right here.

 

“Mother spent tens of thousands on a state-of-the-art plasma lathe and enough computational power to give Usk-Core a… uhm...  but she couldn’t be bothered to restore life support to half the Shipface.” Armiena chuckled. “She knows my priorities. No, I think that what one Jedi could pull off while undercover with a pirate gang, we can easily manage with our own ship. Circuitry, vortex ring… flux aperture… we should be able to scavenge those from the unused rooms of the ship. Only problem is finding the battery--as I recall the specs recommend something a bit archaic.”

 

Armiena snapped her fingers, but the hand being metal, it only produced a spine-shivering scraping noise. “The surveying equipment on board might work. Those electronics do not take kindly to sudden power loss. We can scavenge the batteries from those. The crystal, however, is all you. There are some suitable caverns out on the Khoonda Plains--actually, rather lovely, though kinraths sometimes take shelter there during the hot months. Speaking of which…”

 

Draygo led her Padawan up the boarding ramp and to the cockpit on the second deck of the obsolete freighter. True to her warning, both the passenger’s compartments were sealed permanently and taped off, indicating that the rooms had suffered minor breaches are were no longer vacuum-proof. The cockpit, however, was entirely modern--nearly factory-new--and boasted sensors that military reconnaissance operations would have envied. As to what season it was currently on Dantooine, Armiena glanced through the galactic atlas and summarized her conclusion with two words:

 

“Well, shavit. And apparently it’s unusually hot this season.” A short sigh. “We’ll make do. Let’s go through pre-flight…..”

 

The veteran Jedi led her student through the pre-flight checklist for the obsolete vessel. Once a corridor had been cleared, Armiena handed the controls over to Genesis and allowed him to guide Shipface out of the hangar. Her voice was preternaturally calm as she guided her fellow half-Miraluka through the basic maneuvers, not at all concerned over the fact that she had just handed the controls of her ship to an inexperienced pilot…

 

She would, however, slump just a few millimeters once the Barloz-class Freighter launched into hyperspace.

 

((Usk-Core: University of Coruscant. Obviously no longer exists.))

[ObliviousKnight]

As Armiena’s interceptor rushed from the nerve-center of the Rebel Alliance and towards the roiling storm of capital ships and starfighters in Nar Shaddaa’s orbit, an alarmed shout, barely restrained by military training issued from her comms panel.

 

“Siege torpedoes inbound. Scans indicate nuclear payload.”

 

The Jedi Grandmaster’s hand gave a reflective twitch that guided her starfighter towards the barrage and her lungs gave a disgusted gasp. Old-fashioned fission warheads. Those were slow, clumsy weapons, requiring pre-planned flight paths. Some of the larger ones couldn’t even take evasive maneuvers. They were pathetically obsolete tech, only possessed moderate yield, and hideously expensive compared to modern turbolasers. Their only virtues lay in their immense potential to lay waste to vast swathes of unreinforced cityspace and to poison entire generations of innocent sapients with radioactive dust.

 

In short, they were a perfect weapon for a depraved fanatic who had given themselves over to living out their most twisted fantasies. For the Jedi Grandmaster, fissiles weren’t even an element in her worst nightmares, let alone an entry in her well-stocked arsenal of weapons and less seemingly tools.

 

As Armiena’s interceptor raced towards the descending missiles, the veteran Jedi thought quickly, drawing upon some long-ingrained working knowledge of explosives and how the internals of those weapons would probably function. A siege torpedo fired from a capital ship would be an enormous, complicated weapon; it would be at least the size of a starfighter. It would be an easy, nonmaneuvering target for any starfighter pilot. The warhead would likely have some kind of multistage detonator, both to trigger the fission payload and to provide some safety mechanism against malfunction--to avoid unplanned detonation due to battle damage as well as freak accident while in the launch tubes. Any number of things might trigger a self-destruct of the rocket or defuse the warhead: failure of guidance systems, rocket motor malfunction, failure of the detonators… it wouldn’t do to have an intact fission warhead bury itself into hostile territory--or worse, detonate above the wrong continent or over the heads of allied soldiers.

 

“Red and Black,” Armiena muttered into her helmet’s comms. She gave her interceptor’s joystick a minute twitch, correcting her course to intercept the largest concentration of the weapons. “I need a scramble of ion-equipped starfighters, anything you’ve got. You have my permission to raid the Order’s hangars. Vector will be…” she rattled off a string of digits, a course setting that would lead them to the missile barrage. “Full burn, no shields. They will not have opposition.”

 

As the Jedi Ace interceptor raced towards the cloud of missiles, icons and vectors began to populate the heads-up display projected before Armiena’s eyes, arches that gradually closed to indicate range. It was an enormous amount of information, overwhelming to a novice pilot--but the Jedi Grandmaster was plenty experienced… and besides, she wasn’t even looking at the iconography.

 

“Darex, Ara… Aryian,” Her fingers played a nervous, pattering tremolo on the joystick. “If you guys are watching this, I could really use a hand right about now…”

 

And then Armiena took a long, steadying breath and observed the world outside her cockpit with half-lidded eyes. A different hand guided the controls of her interceptor: there was no art or relish in the backbone-crushing, high-gee maneuvers; no viciousness or daring or even caution that would have indicated a human pilot; there was only mathematical precision, efficiency so exquisite and weapons accuracy so pristine that its pilot might have been confused for a droid. Ion fire blasted from the Jedi interceptor, the Dark Fire, playing upon missile after missile and causing the payloads to drop from the sky as useless space junk.

 

One: direct hit on the warhead. Two and three: more warhead hits. Inhale. Four, five, and six: hits to the engine quadrants that caused the projectiles to spiral out of control. Exhale. Seven and eight: warhead hits. Nine through eighteen: the ion mine released into the missiles finally detonated, rendering several of the missiles into inert scrap and two more into wildly-maneuvering hazards that chased their own engine quadrants. Inhale.

 

Draygo was barely even aware of her flesh-and-blood body, could barely even see from the successive gray-outs and red-outs that the punishing maneuvers of her interceptor inflicted on the eyes of its pilot. Whether something had been diverted to assist or thwart her was irrelevant for the moment--the Jedi Grandmaster didn’t even pay mind to the fact that a menagerie of seventeen mismatched ships had been diverted to assist her. They were an eclectic lot of fighters, ranging from a pair of long-obsolete Y-Wings to a fighter trio of ultramodern Jedi Ace interceptors manned by young Jedi Knights.

 

But even as Dark Fire--no, Draygo--reaped dozens of kills upon the siege torpedos, her conscious mind knew that this was not going to be sufficient. Those capital ships would have hundreds of launch tubes. It was mathematical. One fighter, even eighteen, would never be able to neutralize them all.

 

Not unless the Jedi Grandmaster did something really, really stupid.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

There was a shrill, cold, quivering undertone in The Force. For the moment, the veteran Jedi was forced to ignore it even as it sidled just behind her ear, like the glass-cracking shriek of a miscalibrated repulsorlift; as she wove between turbolaser blasts so closely that the interceptor’s shields triggered and she took every opportune moment to make a deflection shot on the siege torpedoes, there was no time to allow herself to be distracted. There was just the revving thrum of her engines and the splash-hiss of her ion cannons; the whine as failing rocket engines careened away in unpredictable directions; the steady trickle of terabytes of data that bombarded her sensors.

 

Each missile that she disabled might result in millions saved, but it wasn’t enough. Another countermaneuver was countered by yet another escalation by the Sith, and even a Jedi Ace couldn’t possibly keep up with the obscene expenditure of arms deployed against Nar Shaddaa.

 

Unless… and Armiena grinned at the thought of this counter… she resorted to something unbelievably stupid and potentially suicidal. But, if she pulled it off and survived the attempt… The explosion alone would be something that no one, not even the lingering Sith reinforcements or the embattled Rebel Alliance could possibly ignore.

 

Now, as the Jedi Grandmaster’s flight ascended towards the Victory-class Star Destroyers bombarding the moon, a pause could be discerned in the disabling shots against the siege torpedoes. Draygo reached out and probed the weapons with a momentary glance from The Force, searching for that quivering ball of mass and energy that was waiting for the necessary impetus to detonate. Hidden in a nest of superconducting fiber that defied any attempts at comprehension, she found that baradium core and the over-engineered detonators. As expected, the primary trigger was a bullet of ultra-dense metal that trembled with radioactivity. That mechanism was simple enough. Triggering it was going to require closing the distance and a second of level flight--not exactly conducive to survival.

 

Armiena’s grin grew wider. This was stupid--and more importantly, impossible--and yet it was what The Force required.

 

Dark Fire raced along the gray surface of the Star Destroyer, tracked desperately by the Star Destroyer’s close-range defenses and a wing-pair of interceptors. A juke to port threw off her pursuers; they were clearly anticipating a strafing run on the bridge. Rather, the troublesome Jedi fighter scrambled along the lateral trenches and sprinted towards one of the ventral torpedo launchers, where a siege torpedo had just been loaded into the tube and would be launching any moment. For just a moment, Armiena released her grip from the controls of her interceptor and stared into the expanding barrel. Those controls weren’t going to matter in a couple of seconds…

 

A halo of light flared around the edges of the tube. Yet another city-killing missile was launched from the barrel. Armiena formed a fist in The Force and punched its radioactive detonator straight back into the baradium core of the warhead.

 

Lacking atmosphere, mass, or much of any medium for the warhead to transfer its energy into, the weapon translated most of its power directly into various forms of radiation and electromagnetic activity: some of that was visible in the form of a white-hot flare of light that could have been seen from Nal Hutta, but just as much became higher-energy wavelengths that played havoc with unprotected electronics and fried unprotected flesh. As for the electromagnetic pulse, the Victory-class Star Destroyer and its peers were practically point-blank range to the missile.

 

As was Armiena’s starfighter.

 

The Jedi Grandmaster jerked back as her sensors were shuttered as though a black bag had been placed over her head--the engines died and the interceptor began to drift, gently spinning to port. The interior was utterly dark and silent, lacking any sign of activity save for the presence of a single sapient life-form. Nor was it utterly silent, as a faint whistling issued from a hairline crack in the canopy of the cockpit. That was an air leak, most likely from a missile fragment that smashed against the transparisteel without breaching it.

 

Armiena glanced downward at her life-support harness. It was also dark. That meant there would be no personal magcon field, no portable air supply.

 

And now her eyes darted back upwards the canopy. Lacking any sort of guidance equipment or any source of propulsion, it was impossible to determine where exactly the drifting interceptor was heading.

 

Draygo smashed open a panel below the control boards and pulled out a nest of dead wires. She glanced up every few seconds as the starfighter completed a revolution to try and discern where her course might lay.

 

A few revolutions. Yes, the interceptor was definitely drifting back into the fight.

 

Another revolution. Yes, it was probably drifting towards one of the Sith capital ships.

 

Another revolution. That capital ship was one of the newer, bifurcated hulls. A Harrower-class, if she remembered its silhouette properly.

 

Another revolution. And that was probably the Fair Lady of Iziz.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Closer and closer with every revolution, the Fair Lady of Iziz loomed in the canopy of Draygo’s interceptor as it drifted towards the Star Destroyer. The running lights of the ship and glow of turbolasers resolved into the unmistakable bifurcated hull of that Sith warship, until individual batteries and viewports and hangars could be identified. Not that the Jedi Grandmaster was gawking at the Harrower-class Star Destroyer; with considerable difficulty, Armiena had managed to extricate herself from the pilot’s seat and was laying on her stomach inside, neck craned up to get a closer look at the control panels. Her armor pressed painfully into her collarbone, and her feet were tangled up in the nest of tubing and inertial sensors that rested just behind the pilot’s seat. Half-blind from the sparks issuing from the exposed tubing, her hands worked feverishly in an attempt to hotwire the starfighter into some form of functionality. It was not going well. 

 

The whistling of air had yet to dissipate: that was a good sign, as that indicated a slow leak that was of no immediate threat. And yet, there was a niggling warning in some isolated corner of her mind, a disturbing indication that something was about to go horribly wrong… Pushing herself away from the tangled nest of fibers, circuitry, and capacitors, Armiena eventually managed to right herself into something of a seating position. She glanced forward at the next completed revolution…

 

…And it appeared that she and that enormous vessel were on a collision course, not unlike a sangfly smacking against the windshield of an airspeeder. Draygo sighed, closed her eyes, and let her Force-enhanced senses drift towards the Star Destroyer, and began to search for a cluster of lifeforms that might indicate the command center of the vessel. But that proved to be unnecessary. The vessel made a minute course correction, only a few degrees to one side to evade the forte of a turbolaser barrage from the Rebel Alliance.

 

The immediate danger was evaded. Now the interceptor began to drift alongside the lateral trench on the port side of the enormous vessel, so close that Armiena could make out the barrels of individual batteries. The canopy of the starfighter glowed with alternating green and red hues as turbolaser volleys were received and answered. None of the point-defense weapons that guarded this vulnerable sector didn’t seem to have detected the unpowered, drifting starfighter, as none of them were tracking her movement. The interceptor was now approaching the bulbous protrusion of a tractor beam emplacement…

 

That would be her best opportunity to return to the fight.  Draygo drove her senses into the confinement of that crewed emplacement and searched for a particularly alert individual. Perhaps that sapient would be an officer, or mere a diligent member of the Lady’s crew that was hungry for a means to contribute meaningfully to this climactic battle of climactic battles. Anything, even rushing to a site that needed firefighters or medevacs, would have been better than standing and waiting for targets to be designated by fire control from the bridge…

 

Armiena satisfied that anxious sapient’s drive. Single target, her mind admonished that sapient. Drifting, probable starfighter.

 

To which that sapient’s mind ran through their standard operating procedures and alerted their crewmates. That target would mean an unpowered vessel, possibly with a medical casualty–or a live prisoner, who would be even more valuable.

 

The hull of the interceptor gave a creaking whine as a tractor beam gripped it and began to draw it into one of the smaller docking bays of the Fair Lady. Judging from the size–as well as the lack of parked starfighters–this almost certainly wouldn’t be the enormous central hangar that tended to dominate the ventral surface of most Star Destroyers, with the myriad starfighters and walkers and fuel tanks and various opportunities for explosive mischief that that sector would provide. It might have been an officer’s shuttle bay, or perhaps even a seldom-used quarantine bay reserved for medical emergencies.

 

In any case, the Jedi Grandmaster’s interceptor soon settled on the deck of that hangar in an agonizingly slow crash landing, slamming down on the deckplates without functional landing gear.

 

Draygo sighed and reached for the manual override for the canopy jettison. Even if The Force had provided the Grandmaster with a destination, it had not provided her with any objectives now that she had reached it…

 

[ObliviousKnight]

At the moment, however, Armiena Draygo was learning a lesson in the vital Jedi virtue of humility. Trapped in the cockpit of her disabled interceptor, the veteran Jedi was attempting to extract herself and to tune at the angry squawking of an astromech droid. The droid was truly irate about something–its shrill tones were audible even through the airtight seal of the canopy.

 

“Look, I’m sorry about the caf. I was distracted–and I didn’t even ask you your name. That was rude of me. Bebop? Why are you named after…” The rapid, wandering staccato of the droid’s aggravated whistling suggested that there was an embarrassing story behind the droid’s callsign. The Jedi Grandmaster was just answering the droid’s trilling on verbal autopilot, focusing more on trying to escape from the grounded starfighter. The manual release by her left elbow failed to elicit a response–a prodding of the explosive ejection bolts through The Force elicited nothing but a misfire, a shower of sparks, and a yelp of surprise from both the droid and Jedi.

 

A glance to the side revealed a squad of twenty chrome-plated Sith marines. Unusually for a defending unit, a heavy weapons team with a bulky E-Web or similar crewed weapon was not among them–none of them even shouldered their weapons as they approached and fanned to enclose the starfighter in a semicircle. Rather, they held position in a tidy “patrol carry” position, their carbines safely angled towards the deck of the hangar. Their posture was clearly tense… but clearly not yet planning to open fire.

 

Looking at the reflection of the R9 droid in the canopy, Draygo thought she saw the maroon astromech unit cock its head in confusion. It was a… curious response to a probable sabotage mission by a Jedi.

 

Armiena settled on a more manual approach to extracting herself. She simply ignited her lightsaber and swept the bronze blade in a circular arc through the canopy. The starfighter was already leaning heavily on one wing and the canopy fell to the deck with an armored crash. Lightsaber doused and returned to its belt loop, the Grandmaster followed shortly afterwards.

 

The Jedi was still collecting herself from an awkward slide down the side of the starfighter when the leader of that squad approached, weapon still at a low carry. “Grandmaster Draygo,” came the filtered voice. “The Empress has instructed us to escort you to the bridge.”

 

Pleasantly befuddled, Armiena just nodded and waved vaguely in the direction of the Lady’s bow. An overly-reasonable lilt entered her voice as she stared past the opaque visor of the marine sergeant. “Of course. You should lead the way.”

 

“...We’ll lead the way.”

 

____

 

Draygo followed the twin column of marines to the bridge of Fair Lady, the R9 astromech wheeling just behind her left shoulder. She held her fingers clasped in front of her waist, eyes distant, and her attention… clearly not entirely fixed on the immediate present. The Jedi and Sith were clearly approaching a moment of shattering, a turning of destination… and yet The Force had given her no clear indication of what, where, and when that moment would take place. For this moment, all that the Jedi Grandmaster knew was that she was approaching a being of profound potential in The Force.

 

That moment was fast approaching. Hopefully she wouldn’t leave her departed friends disappointed in her conduct.

 

The cadence of her step slowed upon a final turn towards the bridge. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly, exhaling her awareness into the walls of the command center until it left a texture in the walls that was almost palpable… not entirely unlike coarsely-grained sandpaper.

 

The command center, like that of any warship in battle, was a location of tense focus. Slightly more crowded by the addition of a flag staff, it was abuzz with frantically coordinated activity in its tactical pits–officers were tersely calling out maneuvering vector commands to starfighter squadrons, target designations to the local batteries and those throughout the fleet. The Empress herself, however, was waiting, a gravity well around which the entire battle revolved around.

 

“I appreciate you not wasting unnecessary lives in ordering your soldiers to attack me, Empress.” The veteran’s voice was tense and her presence fraught with a complicated mixture of emotions.

 

Draygo stopped several meters away from the Empress and offered a bare modicum of a bow, her pale-green eyes intensely fixed on the younger woman’s form.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

She was young, perhaps even the same age as Aidan. That was Draygo’s first and horrifying impression of the Dark Lord. Her youth spoke of a being with profound potential in The Force, but… a peculiar resonance at one that was insecure, doubtful… or perhaps on the verge of fracturing.

 

“For a proper sleep, in an actual bed. No, peace is not a restful state for a creature like me.” Armiena tried to smile, but the forced contortion of her lips only succeeded in causing the wrinkles and hair-thin scars on her face to twist and deepen. If those lines each told a story, then here stood the history of modern warfare. “Those people out there are going to need to accomplish something they think is impossible. Right now they’re trying to kill each other… maybe for ideals, maybe for grudges that they can’t abandon. They’re going to need to find a way to… maybe not forgive each other, but be willing to share a galaxy together.”

 

A few seconds passed. In those few seconds, several hundred more sapients perished in the vacuum and several hundred thousand stared in awe at the contrails of a siege torpedo that would soon render them to dust.

 

As hard but transparent as the canopy surrounding the bridge, it was all her discipline could accomplish to not rush towards decisive action. Instinct demanded that she ignite her blade, but The Force warned her that a single death would have little impact on the course of this battle, much less the years to come.

 

“I actually fear them. It took only a few years for them to rise up, the last time that they were driven to hunt us to extermination. We are going to need to accomplish something impossible, and soon. Otherwise… they have been very patient with us. I have no idea for how much longer.”

 

[ObliviousKnight]

((@Darth Nyrys))

 

The ever-present stench of death lingered about the two Force-Sensitives, like a splitting headache inflicted by some unholy collaboration of dehydration and caffeine withdrawal. Draygo’s light-green eyes flashed about; there were a discouraging number of carbines, a couple of repeaters, and an uncountable number of sidearms displayed, some of which were pointed in the general direction of the Jedi Grandmaster. She shrugged twice, as though trying to banish the stiffness that came from cramming a too-tall frame into the too-small cockpit of a starfighter.

 

The first shrug caused her cloak to slip from her shoulders and fall into a brown puddle around her feet. The second triggered the quick-release clasps on her pilot harness, which fell more decisively to reveal a suit of plastoid armor similar to the segmented cuirasses that the Imperial Knights favored. Her hand went to the lightsaber hilt on her right hip (a plastoid clack could be heard as four Sith marines dutifully shouldered their weapons) and her left foot moved in a circular motion that simultaneously kicked away the fallen gear and placed the Jedi in a ready-stance with most of her weight on her forward leg. It was an unusual stance for that stereotypically aggressive Grandmaster: it left her ready to spring backwards, to surrender ground--it was more typical of Soresu.

 

At this point astromech droid at the side of the Jedi Grandmaster surveyed her and the Dark Lord cautiously, its optical sensor whirring between a focus on Draygo and her probable opponent. Whether it was due to an observation of the unconscious clenching of the Jedi’s jaw or a slight increase in her heartrate, Bebop apparently came to the conclusion that violence was almost certainly imminent. The droid very slowly rolled backwards, hoping that the minute whirring of its rollers wouldn’t be heard.

 

“I spoke too poetically earlier, Empress.” The Jedi Grandmaster began. Even if her Force-presence crackled like a stormfront about to unleash its energy against a downwind mountain range, her voice remained even. “What I meant was that every battle we fight drags both our orders closer to their final destruction. You have a choice before you: withdraw your forces and begin negotiations to end this stupid war, or continue and be destroyed."

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Silence and stillness. That was the Jedi Grandmaster’s response. Her eyes darted from side to side, from the expressionless mask that the Dark Lord wore, to a sensor readout in the tactical pits of the bridge, to the burning surface of the moon in the distance… to one of the masked shocktroopers at her side. Even if the polished breastplate that the soldier wore hid the rise and fall of his breath, it could be seen in the rhythmic waver of the barrel of the carbine pressed against his shoulder. No, it wasn’t just rise and fall with respiration; the barrel was trembling.

 

It wasn’t just the trembling of an adrenaline rush. Behind the expressionless helmet and opaque eyepieces was a mind just barely beyond the grasp of terror.

 

And back to the void of space. Black Scarab, despite having been the focus of much of the ire of the Rebel Alliance, appeared to still be operational. Some twisted mind was directing most of the carnage against Nar Shaddaa, in imitation of one of the sadistic warlords that Draygo had slain some decades ago–only, she had succeeded in exsanguinating that creature before he could bombard Csilla. Now, she was many kilometers away, confronting the person who employed these butchers. Killing this child wouldn’t change anything–it wouldn’t save a single sapient, wouldn’t put an end to the butchery. It wouldn’t even be personally satisfying. It would barely even be exercise.

 

Whatever its intentions were, Armiena decided that The Force had not placed her on this bridge with the intention of having her slaughter a few thousand more sapient beings.

 

Even if there was still murder in Draygo’s hands, there was now a smile in her eyes–one that made the stormtrooper to her left tense, recognizing the expression of a woman that was about to do something unimaginably risky.

 

Her fingers unclasped the hook of her belt. Before the heavy leather could slip from her waist, she tossed it forward, to slam at the deck before the Empress’ fleet. The metallic clang of the twin lightsabers crashed like the end of an epoch. One of the weapons, a hilt with a helical pattern carved around its circumference, popped free of its clip and rolled away.

 

Bebop, who had somehow managed to roll several meters away without being detained, blurted out a disbelieving mechanical waaaaaat.

 

Draygo just stared the Empress in the eye-slats and flashed the smile of a woman who suspected her imminent death. Her right hand was gripping the fold of her tunic, white-knuckled, in an attempt to stop the arm from shaking. “I place myself in your power, Empress. Fighting you will serve no purpose. If you being your withdrawal, I suspect you will find that the Rebel Alliance is in no position to further prosecute this battle.”

 

[ObliviousKnight]

As Black Scarab fell towards Nar Shaddaa, an expression of tension that resembled panic appeared on the Grandmaster’s face. Draygo wasn’t even looking at the Dark Lord; her eyes were focused on the sensor relays within the crew pits, and then seemingly nowhere at all when the sensor blip that indicated the dreadnought disappeared. Nyrys might have recognized the expression if she had the honor of knowing many military veterans; she had broken out into a feverish sweat and sucked in a desperate breath of air, as though preparing for a long dive underwater with no estimation of when she would resurface. At that moment, the Jedi Grandmaster was seemingly not there.

 

In a sense, she wasn’t. Her mind was present on another planet, an entire generation and a war ago. It was on Coruscant, only a few years older than Nyrys; buried under the rubble of The Shield Incident and trying to understand why the walls were trying to kill her and the darkness was screaming in helpless terror.

 

Her memory had three priorities at that moment. The first was to not throw up in her helmet. The second was to punch her way out of the layer of rubble she had found herself. The third was to start killing people.

 

The part of her mind that remained conscious had been through this drill many times and managed to reassert itself before her body started an interstellar incident. It shoved her way out of the half-circle of bodyguards and towards the nearest mostly-flat surface that she could sit on. That happened to be the console of one of the bridge’s intraship holocomm projectors–the drably-uniformed officer who was currently relaying some routine orders offered some stuttered syllables of consternation before the console was occupied and then the recorded hologram was blacked out by Draygo’s backside.

 

And then her mind began going through the familiar drills. Name. Age. Location. Son was alive and safe. Padawan was alive and safe. The inner monologue repeated itself until her instincts had returned to the present.

 

She finally looked up from the deckplates. Her face was smeared with a salty mixture of tears and sweat, and a red streak was beginning to rise from where she had attempted to rub away one of the smears with a hand in a plastoid gauntlet. A mixture of a grimace and pathetic smile flashed in her expression. That had been an episode that she had never allowed another Jedi to witness. She blinked a few times and recalled what the Dark Lord had just asked her before the breakdown.

 

“There’s prohibition. It’s purely a matter of me being a recovering, self-annihilating alcoholic. 

 

I’d kill for a caf, though. Speaking figuratively.”