ObliviousKnight

Now many kilometers away, Armiena Draygo screamed through the underground tunnels on wings of steel. The motion-sensing spotlights had long since faded and the tunnels had been bathed in almost complete darkness; now, the Jedi Grandmaster navigated purely on sensor data, scant reflections from the speeder bike’s searchlights, Force-enabled instincts and desperation. At a velocity of hundreds of kilometers per hour, the wind against her unarmored neck rasped like sandpaper and hammered at the Imperial breastplate; her unprotected eyes streamed with tears and she squinted half-lidded through the darkness. Draygo was continually bombarded by a riot of sound: the wind, the scream of the bike’s engines. But it was a good pain. The flight took on an almost meditative quality, as Draygo was able to focus solely on the harrowing task of not plowing the speeder bike into the duracrete walls. It gave her an opportunity on the simple task of rescuing two missing scout troopers–and hopefully clearing the evacuation route that they were supposed to have reconnoitered, one of many that would allow for the evacuation of thousands of military personnel. The imminent threat of collision drove some of her focus away from looming threat of Sith invasion… and the fact that her tactical decisions were almost certainly going to result in the deaths of many thousands of sapients. Many of them would be innocent civilians who were going to get trapped in brutal urban warfare. It was a cold calculation that the Jedi Grandmaster had made: to trade an incomplete evacuation and a bloody, decisive massacre of support personnel for an incomplete evacuation and a bloody, grinding battle of attrition across Nar Shaddaa’s unnavigable cityscape. But it was impossible to calculate which would be worse, impossible to determine the value of a sapient life, impossible to keep score. To even attempt to decide which lives were more valuable--which fate was more horrible--was an exercise in madness. In reality, of course, it was impossible to not dwell on the inevitable slaughter, even traveling at speed that would cause a collision to render her to a heap of twisted metal and boney salsa. One of the two scout troopers slammed on his airbrakes and allowed the Jedi to catch up. Despite being within an arm’s reach, the white-clad trooper needed to shout to make himself heard over the echoes of the engines. “Grandmaster! Everything alright back there! You’re falling back a bit!” Armiena forced a grin and returned the shout in a mocking tone. “So it can go faster!” A hard shove against the footrests engaged the speeder’s afterburner, causing the suicidally-light vehicle to blast forward at such an energy that Draygo might as well have been accelerating from a standstill. At this speed, searchlights were useless–even the high-beams were only affording her about half a second of visibility. Something slashed a tear in her left sleeve; the Jedi Grandmaster steadfastly ignored it and just sank deeper into her trance within The Force, preferring to ignore the pain of dust blowing into her eyes, the wind blasting against her unprotected neck, and even the urgent blips of the scout bike’s sensors when they detected the transponders of the missing two troopers. And then it occurred to her–that scout trooper that was keeping perfect pace next to her, barely two meters off her flank was flying solely by instrumentation. The Imperial scouts were a strange breed.

((For @Aidan Darkfireand @Sandy Sarna)) Far in the distance, Aidan’s mother could still be heard dispensing orders. Most of the words echoed indistinctly against the walls of the maglev tunnel, then were completely obliterated when the Jedi Grandmaster boarded a Far in the distance, Aidan’s mother could still be heard dispensing orders. Most of the words echoed indistinctly against the walls of the maglev tunnel, then were completely obliterated when the Jedi Grandmaster boarded a small speeder bike. Within seconds, the roar of its engines carried past the returning infiltrators and deep into the pitch-dark of the tunnels… but not before Armiena gave Misal a wide-eyed double-take and her lips formed the syllables of an obscene expression of bewilderment. “You will live with every error and success that you,” Misal paused and smiled as the whine of the Jedi Grandmaster’s speeder bike zipped past and drowned out her soft voice. “That you have ever committed. Your mother was a very different person when she was around your age, a little younger. She was… wrathful. Angry at the galaxy and desiring to visit her pain on her enemies. Her life would likely be very different had she not had friends able to recognize what she was doing to herself. Wanton slaughter is not the kind of error that one can easily repair, but… As the three Force-Sensitives approached the staging area of men and munitions, the Miraluka took a deep breath and her hands fidgeted within the sleeves of her robe. Her Force-Presence began to fade; even her personage seemed to fade into the darkness of the tunnel. Had the dark-robed woman not been speaking just in front of Aidan Darkfire, her presence would have been quite unremarkable, barely even worthy of being considered. “Doubt, in these instances, is no vice. Refusing to re-examine an episode of such magnitude would be a terrible mistake. In the future, it may be necessary for you to remove yourself from those with the ability to use your errors against you.”

“Hmm. Mine… has had a great deal of rage and fear. Acceptance required a great deal of patience and purpose, a very accepting teacher who was unafraid of my unproductive moments.” Misal nodded and limped along, feeling a wholesome numbness beginning to quiet the complaints of her overexerted, recently-healed hip. Her limp lost some of its heaviness–indeed, it became an affected rhythm–but she glanced over to the young Jedi Master and offered a patient smile. “My dear, you are attempting to heal time.” The next leg of their return to the headquarters required a descent down that ladder towards the “ground-level” of the tunnels. In spite of Misal’s polite rebuff of the Jedi’s attempt at field-Healing, the strain of climbing through the darkness was significantly lessened by the soporific effects of Sarna’s efforts. Even the drop from the bottom rung went without complaint, even if the ancient Miraluka took the impact with considerably more deliberation than the two younger Force-Users. The infiltrator straightened with significant care, her gaze passing over the ruin of their arachnoid stalker to the sound of a familiar voice that echoed indistinctly down the tunnels. The bisected corpse of the creature that had attempted to hunt Sarna and the elder Draygo was a pitiful sight, of blanched exoskeleton, blindness-bleached compound eyes, and oozing hemolymph that stung the nostrils with an acrid odor. There was a faint hiss as something catalytic within its bodily fluids reacted with the rusted rails under its corpse. Misal took one wiff of the fumes and evidently blanched, clinging more closely to Sarna’s support. Bright white lights could be seen in the distance, casting a ghostly glow over the turbolifts that they had used to leave the Red and Black. Under this night-lights of the temporary encampment, the Jedi Grandmaster was rushing to greet the returning squadrons of Imperial Scout troopers, retrieving miniature datachips of sensor data from their reconnaissance missions of the tunnels. Even over the whine of idling repulsorlift engines, she could be heard clearly from the echoes against the walls: “...Mern Seven and Eight still haven’t reported in… have to make do with this, I’ll start the evacuation. Check on their position, I’ll be right behind you.”

The Jedi Council (and Discord Usernames) Master of the Order, Armiena Draygo - Jedi Ace (DoktorOblivious#5589) Master Sandy Sarna - Jedi Counselor (Scout#6019) Master Kirlocca - Jedi Guardian (TrosArdell#3468) Master Leena Kil - Jedi Healer (Watcher#1906) Master Kyrie Eleison - Jedi Exorcist (FieldgreyFox#6967) Introduction to the Jedi Order “Even the Sith are not our enemy. Not really. Our enemy is power mistaken for justice--the desperation that justifies atrocity. The Jedi’s true enemy is the jungle. Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace. We fight for justice because justice is the fundamental bedrock of civilization: an unjust civilization is built upon sand. It does not long survive a storm. --Jedi Master Mace Windu, 21 BBY To the rest of the galaxy, the Jedi are fundamentally a paradox in motion. We are the heroes of a thousand cheesy holodramas, and we are the unseen hand that nurtures civilization and justice. We are swordsbeings of unsurpassed lethality, striking down fiends with every strike of our terrible swift sabers… and many of us are Healers as effective as a full team of medtechs. Some of us are pacifists. We are diplomats and starfighter pilots and soldiers and scientists and explorers with decades of experience… and lastly, some of us are hermits who will go years without speaking a word to another sapient. It’s a bit… difficult to be everything to the galaxy. The truth is more simple. The Jedi are the servants of the engine that sprang life into motion: the unseen Force. We serve it by helping to create the conditions required for civilization: just governments and peace. To that end, we prepare ourselves in whatever way necessary to serve it, whether that means study and meditation to polish our minds or physical training to sharpen our bodies. We will travel anywhere that is necessary to serve it, whether that means the seats of governments, a negotiation room, a lecture hall, a hospital, or a battlefield. Whatever the environment, our duty is to nurture sound, just government--to protect the powerless and innocent--and to end the predations of the venal and bloodthirsty. It’s a nomadic service and a difficult life by necessity. It’s not just the constant need for self-improvement and introspection, but learning how to quiet your own will and listen for the whispers of The Force is… unintuitive to most. The reward is extraordinary--we get to share that struggle with a brotherhood that is emulated by none other in the galaxy. The Jedi Philosophy: There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is The Force. So wrote Odan-Urr many centuries ago in an attempt at clarifying the Jedi Code. Many are the Jedi who wish that they could have listened to the old Draethos expound on his ideas--including yours truly. And those five lines were supposedly an explanation of the original Jedi Code from even deeper in the memory of time. Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet The Force. Truly, it is an intersection of poetry and philosophy. I have no doubt that the evocative nature of the Jedi Code has had something to do with many of the misconceptions concerning the Jedi--for example, whether we are allowed to display emotion, or if our training does not strip away the ability to feel it at all. Or to experience the deep, consuming passion of an artist, or to love a friend or companion, or even to grieve for those that we have lost. Those last have been especially harmful and are patently untrue. The very idea of surrendering your own will to follow that of The Force is a consuming, passionate notion. And I would argue that a Jedi, living the difficult life of unbiased service is incomplete without love--whether this is the passionate love of romance or the abiding, unconditional love of another sapient being for the mere fact that they are another feeling, thinking creature in a vast, empty galaxy is immaterial. But I am digressing. Numerous philosophers have attempted to elaborate on these lines with more prosaic guidelines or tenets, one of which can be summarized briefly:: The life of a Jedi is one of service to those in need. Jedi are the guardians of civilization. Governments change with time, but justice does not. Jedi act in the interests of the latter, not the former. The Jedi train to use and understand The Force, parallel to uncounted traditions throughout the galaxy. A Jedi values all sapient life, whether that is one million, one thousand, or one person. A Jedi uses The Force for knowledge and defense, not for conquest or personal gain. A Jedi is a thinking, feeling being like any other. They are mindful of their emotions, but do not allow themselves to be used by them. Living beings are more than mind and matter; death is not the end of existence. As Jedi, we have chosen a life of service and self-abnegation for the greater good of the galaxy. This life would be difficult enough in times of peace where we would be spending months or years as nomads away from our homes. But we are not at peace--in the current state of emergency in the galaxy, we are all going to face traumatic experiences that can break less disciplined beings. It will be impossible for us to deny the intense emotions of the days before us. A battlefield is a whirlwind of intense emotional experiences, and with the political upheaval and atrocities that we are sure to witness, we will have to find a way to let our emotions free and expel our pain so we will be able to even function. Our service requires a life of endless self-improvement, of constant training and study to better serve The Force and our fellow Jedi. In the chaos of battle, amidst intense suffering and when passions are running wild, a Jedi will have to find a way to be the eye of the storm. I don’t have an answer for the final line of the Jedi Code. We’ve all lost friends in our time. I can only hope that when this life is done, mine will be waiting with a smile and a bad pun. Service Becomes Leadership There is a significant paradox of the Jedi Order that needs to be addressed: that of the political position of the Jedi in the secular galaxy. Jedi are discouraged from seeking public office or assuming command positions in the military, and yet we are often seen as the leaders of the galaxy. Example–no one remembers Valorum save as the very definition of mediocrity, but any Coruscanti can rattle off a bunch of trivia about Kenobi or Yoda. When conflict erupts that no politician or diplomat or–Force forbid–a fleet of warships can resolve, who is called to intervene? A Jedi is almost invariably seen as an acceptable mediator to both parties. A series of meetings and an arbitration later, disaster is averted. Or during an active battle, with artillery thundering and trenches and countertrenches being dug in and great batteries of shield generators rendering the horrible bloody affair a terrible stalemate, two Jedi can slip through no man’s land and render a position untenable with a lightsaber thrown into the a vital weakpoint. Such an intervention necessitates a negotiation and a peaceful end to the conflict before the sheer volume of the bloodshed makes anything but decisive victory unacceptable to either side. Or another example: a plague befalls a continent and millions of sapients are put in danger. A Jedi Healer is dispatched to assist in studying the contagion, tend to the afflicted, and comfort the bereaved. The Jedi are implicitly trusted in these scenarios–it doesn’t matter where the Jedi needs to go, what resources they expend, or what security clearance they require–people tend to accept without question that their actions are in service to the collective good. And in those remote spans of the Unknown Regions, where starcharts are unreliable or completely unavailable, the Jedi are especially valued as the guidance of The Force assists with the perilous task of navigating those stars at faster-than-light speeds. So many colonies and vessels in the farthest reaches of the Unknown Regions owe their survival to the timely intervention of a single Jedi and their Padawan. By necessity, we cannot simply follow our shortsighted political preferences or some moronic personal prejudices–our service is to The Force. We must carefully weigh the merits of all parties regardless of our predilections. The great irony of our position is that through centuries of dedicated, selfless service to the galaxy, taking no note of political affiliation or economic status or language spoken, the Jedi Order was transformed from an obscure cloister of ascetics into an essential component of the galaxy’s political order. We are something of an unquantifiable factor to the rest of the galaxy–every terrible endeavor involving billions of sapients or trillions of credits must take into account the following variable: what if the Jedi intervene? We cannot simply be predicted to act towards the benefit of any government or even the Order itself. Over the course of millenia, through continual service to noble values, our service became leadership. –Armiena Draygo, Master of the Order Ranks in the Jedi Order (In Draft) Hopeful: While some prospective Force-Sensitives are discovered by deployed Jedi Knights and taken on as Padawans, it’s more common for Jedi to begin their ways by making their way to one of our Praxeums. It’s often not an easy journey these days, with the aggression of the Sith Empire and the spacelanes clogged with refugee traffic. They have few official duties outside of attending classes and drills and learning as much about the Force as they can without direct one-on-one training. They even have access to most of the Archives--outside of Holocron guardians--hangar facilities and the mechanists. It’s a charmed existence. Padawan: The teachers in the Praxeums do their best, but learning to use The Force typically requires a more personal relationship that can be difficult to achieve in a drill environment. Such is the necessity of the Padawan-Master relationship--typically a Jedi Knight or Master taking a single apprentice into the field, to learn through empirical experience and one-on-one training. It’s a difficult time in the life of a Jedi. Even a prodigy in The Force needs the tempering of experience, and as far as self-defense… the Sith love to prey on those that they perceive to be less capable of defending themselves or less certain of their own convictions. The real difficulty of the training, of course, isn’t the drilling. Or the endless hours of meditation, or the constant travel. It’s coming to grips with the fact that, as a Jedi, you will have chosen a difficult life--a significant one, to be sure, but a third of the galaxy is going to want you dead, a third will hop to their feet and call you “Master Jedi”, another third will take cover and hope the shooting stops soon, and a last third believes the nonsense from the latest holovids. This is where, on a quiet night with trusted company, I start to rant. To choose the life of a Jedi is an inherently irrational decision. Our lives are frequently dangerous, constantly on the move, sometimes hunted by adolescent bastards who follow a philosophy that isn’t even a proper antithesis to our own. To choose this kind of life requires more than just conviction--it requires passion--it requires believing in something with such ferocity that it consumes your life and if you’re not willing to crumple it up and throw it away in pursuit of those beliefs… I’m digressing again. By the time a Padawan is ready to take their Trials and make their first acts as a bona-fide Jedi Knight, they need to be armed with more than a lightsaber. Jedi Knight: In draft Jedi Master: In draft Jedi Grandmaster: Hello there. The most important thing that I’ve ever learned about leading these people is that the Order does not belong to me. True, I frequently have to order Jedi into the field for an uncertain future, risking life and limb, but I’m just borrowing it for a short time. It existed for a long time before I was born, and Force willing, it will continue long after I’m dust. I would find this leadership position were it not for the assistance of my Jedi Council. From the very beginning, I chose four Jedi whose judgment I trusted implicitly. I did not particularly care whether they were Jedi Masters or Knights, or whether I had served with them personally or not. I would trust these extraordinary people with my life, or with someone else’s life, and as far as I’m concerned, their presence in any crisis might as well be my own. One of my personal endeavors established something of a virtual Council Chamber on the HoloNet, to be used in the frequent event that we were not present in the same location… and this is where my author breaks the fourth wall and advises frequent out-of-character coordination with the Council for significant in-character and out-of-character matters, and even the Dark Lord of the Sith for generating entertaining content for other players.

((For @Aidan Darkfireand @Sandy Sarna)) Hundreds of meters above her son, Armiena Draygo waited anxiously mere meters from the entrance to the Red and Black’s freight turbolifts. All of the Imperial Scouts had been dispatched and were making progress through the undercity of Nar Shaddaa, but invariably, every single homing beacon had gone dark and their transmissions turned to static. That was to be expected; their trackers would have had difficulty penetrating so many layers of duracrete and steel–and besides, their armor’s systems would have recorded their reconnaissance in the absence of a comms signal. It was unproductive worrying, but her senses had picked up on a spark of panic that she felt would demand her personal attention. Nonetheless, the Jedi Grandmaster watched nervously as the tide of soldiers shifted from scout troopers to military police and munitions. Later, some of the front-line units would begin their descent into the undercity, where they could evacuate from Nar Shaddaa safely and unseen. ______ For a couple of seconds, the elderly Miraluka offered no audible response. Her teeth bared in a strange hybrid of a grin and an unrealized sob, and her chest rose and fell in what could have easily been mirth or misery. Indeed, even the woman’s Force-presence was tinged in a riotous complex of emotion. The spasmodic display continued until the woman sneezed noisily and wetly into her sleeve, then her expression tightened in a grimace of pain. “Ah.” She pressed gently on her hip. “Thank you. It would have been difficult to have spoken more sweetly than that, Aidan. I’ve often wondered what possibilities may have arisen if… we had made different choices. For what my opinion is worth, you’ve become a man worth being proud of. Misal accepted the helping hands to her feet and gradually placed weight on her healing hip. It complained and her heart was continuing to pound vociferously at the exertions in the field, but she at least was able to move. “I can walk. But I think slowly would be best. If I listen very closely, I can already hear your Healers nagging at my having overexerted myself.”

((Misal post for @Aidan Darkfireand @Sandy Sarna)) After her body was physically hauled away from the crawlspace, It took a few seconds for Misal to just breathe and try to restore some degree of rationality to her countenance. Warm, humid air was causing her to sweat–and the air current across the Miraluka’s pale, age-wrought face revealed that her veil had been left behind in the crawlspace. Even having left that cramped, oily tunnel behind and forcibly yanked her datapad out of the network of the Imperial Knights’ barracks, the sense of imminent danger lingered. The whining-roar of a pair of speeder bikes echoed over and over through the tunnels. Judging from the pitch of the whine and sudden doppler shift of the engines, the two speeders must have been racing almost at full-throttle. That was stupid… and gutsy. The reminder that unidentified threats potentially lurked within these tunnels was sufficient to drive the veteran infiltrator out of this rare moment of panic. Her breath slowed and she gripped Sarna’s knee in gratitude. Her fingers were like steel talons under the gloves, if talons could be described as quivering with exertion and fear. The risk of sudden violence seemed negligible–those two speeder bikes, almost certainly a military model at that, had already passed on and were no more than echoes. A distant, regrettable future, perhaps–it was always possible that her intrusion had been detected, that years of practicing upon the Jedi Order and less diligent organizations had softened her skills. However, the danger felt more abstract, like an unwelcome, anxious needling from The Force “I sensed disaster.” The wrinkles where the Miraluka’s eyes would have rested tightened in a wince. “That I had just made a cruel mistake.” Misal leaned her head back against the damp wall and felt warm dampness. “Sarna, I’ve been a hypocrite. I pressed forward with this mission despite you,” she jerked her head towards Aidan. “Having been released by the Imperial Knights. It was no longer necessary, but I persisted in downloading your personnel files. They contain… much. Service records, commendations, disciplinary records, psychological dossier. Same for that Vorsha assigned to detain you. Perhaps that would have been useful earlier… now an egregious violation of your privacy. Destroy them if you wish.” She slid the datapad and SCOMP-link over to Aidan, the port rattling hollowly against the rivets of the walkway. Her voice took an odd inflection, her pitch monotone almost like that of a cheap droid and her cadence labored and deliberate. “I would… prefer… not to spend… my last days with my grandson enraged at me.”

((Misal post up for @Sandy Sarnaand @Aidan Darkfire)) The maintenance crawlspace was intended to be an impossible fit for any sapient creature much larger than a standard-issue MSE-series droid. Even an astromech would have found it an impossible passage. The physical impediments, in conjunction with the dangers of Nar Shaddaa’s undercity and multiple proximity sensors that needed to be bypassed, made for a substantial barrier to any sapient and synthetic interlopers. Worse, as Misal wriggled and shoved her slight frame between breaths through the pipes and conduits, the crawlspace became quite unbearably warm and she began to sweat profusely in her robe. The Miraluka forced herself to breath patiently and pause at any moment when she sensed her heart beginning to race. This kind of physical strain was a poor decision for a woman of her age, especially after a recent cardiac episode. No matter. The elder Miraluka continued to wedge her body through the crawlspace one gasp at a time, one wriggle at a time,. One collision with a conduit or droid portal at a time. All the meanwhile, she kept one sweaty palm on the surface of the data conduit, waiting until her instincts guided her to her destination in this pitch, coffin-deep darkness. Some fifty meters down the crawlspace, those Force-guided instincts instructed her to stop; she gratefully gave her legs a rest and simply breathed as her hand traced shapes in the darkness. She felt something cylindrical, a little larger than a stylus; her fingers traced the contours of the cylinder and felt a SCOMP port, most likely for assignment updates for the droids. That would make an ideal infiltration point into the Imperial Knights’ computers. A cramped grasp into her sleeves withdrew a SCOMP-link and a datapad. Jamming the device into the port, Misal set to work by the dim light of her datapad. Within minutes, her spike protocols had defeated the outer defenses of the Knights’ computer network; that was sufficient to access personnel files–dossiers, service records, and disciplinary reports… specifically, those pertaining to her grandson. For the moment, those files were just data, with no time to read text: data and security protocols. A great temptation seized Misal to take a brief glance at one of the more recent disciplinary reports: another Imperial Knight, a Lieutenant-Colonel Vorsha, had been assigned to investigating Aidan’s conduct… The temptation for more data–more defenses–led her on to defeating another layer of security. As Misal slithered her way around electronic barriers and tripwires, a creeping sense of dread began to ooze up around her ankles and up her back like a cold sweat. That gave her pause, and the Miraluka took a moment to breathe and simply mold her presence around The Force; there was no sudden alertness, no sign of danger lurking nearby or even alarm from the two young sapients at her back. No cause to believe that she had made a critical error… and yet the flush of adrenaline persisted, as urgent and demanding of her attention as the report of a blaster pistol. Misal’s breath began to quicken and her heart raced despite all attempts at discipline. The confines of the crawlspace, previously cramped and uncomfortable and familiar, were now as hot and sooty as the interior of an incinerator. She couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her lips. It was all that the veteran infiltrator could do to not completely lose her head and physically yank her SCOMP link from the port. Her breath unnaturally loud in her ears and her heart pounding like an excavation ram, Misal at least managed to terminate her connection into the Knights’ computer network and tuck her devices back into her sleeves. And then she completely lost it. The sense of looming disaster seemed imminent. “Pull me out,” the words came first as a whisper, then rose in urgency. It sounded as though Misal was about to start crying. “Pull me out, pull me out, get me out–please, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have led us down here…”

((Armiena Draygo)) Forty-nine sets of sapient eyes and another set of glowing cybernetic prosthetics were fixed on Grandmaster Armiena Draygo, who stood at the bottom of an amphitheatre-shaped briefing room. Supposedly this room, like many of The Red and Black’s briefing halls, had once been performance theatres; Armiena could believe it, as the vertical clearance was such that the hall could have accommodate a second-floor mezzanine and a lighting rig. Even the seats that the Imperial Scouts, all clad in their white armor, were situated on a gentle upwards slope. The effect was such that Draygo, standing in front of an enormous holoprojection of Nar Shaddaa’s tunnel network, felt as though she was putting on a performance. Modern dance might have been preferable to delivering this briefing. The questioning of the scout troopers was such that Draygo might have been under a form of inverse interrogation. She had even begun to pace from side to side across the projection of Nar Shaddaa’s globe that stood fixed behind her. “Alliance records indicate that the Remnant’s construction projects left these tunnels intact, and several of them were later scouted by Slaughter’s pioneers after the Alliance seized The Red and Black. That said, many of them are centuries old… and some of them have been in disuse for nearly as long. And quite frankly, Nar Shaddaa’s civil records are utter dreck. We need them remapped before we can use them again.” “And why are they so important now?” “As you can see on the holomap,” Armiena shrugged backwards towards the moon’s globe. “Several of them extend continental distances–and yet no one has bothered to monitor them in centuries. They may be useful in the future for...” The veteran Jedi’s voice trailed off. What they would be useful for would be clandestine shipments of materiel, or troops, or even critical records or government officials if the survival of the Rebel Alliance was at stake; however, these were Imperial Scouts that Armiena was briefing, not fellow Jedi that she had known for years or decades. “For what, Grandmaster? And what kind of term are you thinking of?” “Contingency plans, Scout.” That Armiena refused to respond with anything more than vague generalities or a blunt refusal to elaborate. “I’m afraid that anything more than that is classified.” “Details on potential threats were pretty sparse, ma’am.” “Unfortunately, that’s the nature of Nar Shaddaa’s undercity. Most of the stories that the locals tell about what lives down there are just that–stories. Rumors. Legends. Even the block gangs don’t like to venture down to that level–and I don’t expect you to stand and fight if you’re threatened–retreat and report back, or maneuver away–” “Maneuver away, ma’am? Do you have any idea what it’s like piloting a 74-Z at 500 klicks? And in close confines?” Armiena started to grit her teeth. “Scout, I know it’s crazy, and more than a little dangerous. I’d do it myself–” “It’s kriffing awesome, that’s what it is! Shavit, ma’am, this is the kind of thing that we live for! Me and Night-Light here–” the Scout Trooper twitched his fingers towards his peer with the prosthetic eyes. “Our last job was at Outer Heaven. Broad streets, open air, that was easy–” “--except for the schuttas shooting disruptors at us.” ____ ((Misal Draygo)) Misal Draygo gasped in shock at the sound of her grandson’s voice and her grasp on the ladder rungs slackened. The Miraluka may have even lost her grip and plummeted more than a hundred meters to her death, had caution against irritating arthritic limbs not instilled a habitual caution against sudden movements. She had been so focused on deliberately not relying on The Force, even as her heart pounded in a frightful rhythm for one of her age. But now the ruse was now useless, if Sarna’s attempts at stealth were so ineffective that the young woman had attracted the attention of her beau. “Of course. I’m a habitual visitor to environments such as this. That fellow…” A few seconds passed as Misal caught her breath. Many meters below, the many-legged shell-backed beast fell to the ground with a mixture of a crunch and a wet splat. “...must be a newcomer. Ah. At last.” A miniature spot-luma caught a glimpse of a freshly-laid conduit, one that hadn’t begun to rust or even develop mildew from the moisture in the air. Determinedly clutching the ladder rungs with her arm, Misal withdrew a small vibroblade and etched a delicate slash into the plastoid cylinder. She studied the interior for a second–mostly data cables surrounding a core of a high-wattage power cord. It was standard civil infrastructure, like something that might have been routed on Coruscant or Corellia or any of a thousand worlds of the Galactic Alliance, rather than the haphazard construction of Nar Shaddaa. “This will be a… tight fit.” Indeed, when Misal disengaged herself to the ladder to force her aged body into the maintenance crawlspaces, she found that it barely admitted her torso. It had been built primarily for the access of maintenance droids, not sapient beings. She began muttering the distance she had crawled, her voice tinged with a mixture of pain and irritation.

((Misal post for @Sandy Sarna)) Despite that fact that the Miraluka lacked functional eyes and concealed half her face with a veil that matched the pitch-dark of the undercity, Misal managed to affix Master Sarna with a scornful glance that was apparent even as she was holding on for dear life on the rungs of a rusty ladder. “Irrelevant. These creatures have caused something to happen to my grandson that demanded disciplinary action. I wish to know what happened.” And so the Miraluka continued, a shadowy form on the inky darkness of Nar Shaddaa’s undercity, breezing heavily and taking each rung at an agonizing pace. The Miraluka paused about ten rungs and five meters below the proximity sensor. Curling her left arm around the ladder run, Misal Draygo allowed something silvery and sticky to slip from the confines of her sleeve and into her palm. The operative tossed it against the wall just adjacent to the sensors; the nearest glowlamp began to flicker and cast the two in intermittent darkness. “Localized ion field. Just enough to disrupt nearby power circuits. Proceed.” As the two continued climbing and Misal’s strength began to waver, the Miraluka chuckled. “Heh. Being here, about a hundred meters above the ground, the words of a music group I enjoyed in my youth are coming to mind.” Despite her jocular tone and the forced smile, her face had gone pale and her Force-presence was instinctively withdrawing into itself. “He was a bit before your time, probably. Might be relevant to your predicament. Certainly relevant to ours.” She hummed a few bars, unevenly, as she was desperately focusing on keeping her frail body from slipping from the strain. "Just hold on loosely, but don't let go. If you cling too tightly you're gonna lose control. Your baby needs someone to believe in, and a whole lot of space to breathe in. We should soon encounter…" The Miraluka reflexively glanced downwards and spied a flash of chitin and claws in pursuit. “Please move more quickly.”

((Misal Draygo post for @Sandy Sarna)) “An inevitable product of governments…” Misal paused at that word. Silence dominated for a few seconds as their pace quickened. “That view sapient beings as resources. Those that serve no immediate purpose are so much more easily neglected or sacrificed as a message. The absence of mutual commitment and trust begs for rot like this. The Miraluka bent down with a groan and lifted the dead Twi’lek by his shoulder to get a closer look at the wounds. “No sign of lividity. He died recently. Trousers… if you can call them that… frayed around the ankles.” She withdrew one of her thin hands from its glove and ran it down the Twi’lek’s bloodied torso, arms and legs. “Irregular spattering, mixture of blood and filth. Defensive wounds on the wrists. He only had a vibroblade–no charge.” How Misal had determined with only a glance that the knife by the corpse’s side had emptied its batteries would remain a mystery. “He was likely a vagrant, victim of a pursuit predator. I expect that you will be far from their preferred prey.” After the Miraluka allowed the body to hit the permacrete with a wet thud, a tinge of caution entered her voice as she continued her course, walking closer within the range of the Jedi’s lightsaber. “One hundred fifty meters. It was my expectation that we would find an intercept to the engineering crawlspaces under the Imperial Knights’ complex. Where…” Misal withdrew a small spotluma under her robes and began to scan the arched ceiling directly above the two Force-Sensitives. A glistening flash of chitin glimmered under the pure white light and something skittered away, managing to sound disgusted at the presence of artificial light. “Oh-ho, not badly done at all,” her fingers wavered and then focused on a patch of steel-reinforced permacrete, the shadowy surface seemingly identical to the previous hundred meters of maglev tunnel. “Do you see? Miniaturized holoprojectors built into the ceiling, disguising a tunnel of… perhaps a meter diameter? Proximity sensors just beyond… they’ve cut away the ladder rungs… May I have a boost, Master Jedi?”

While a certain middle-aged Admiral of the overthrown Galactic Alliance was busy breaking his own quarters and several fingers in his right hand, directly below him--literally, if one were to fall in a geosynchronous path several thousand kilometers, one would splatter against the ceiling of the room that her staff had commandeered within the Red and Black--the Jedi Grandmaster dutifully adhered to the advice of her mother. That is, that interfering with the internal affairs of the Imperial Knights--even for the sake of her own son--was almost certain to result in the formation of an irreparable rift between the Jedi Order and those who had resigned to join Nasra in her struggle against the Sith Lords. That was a decision… in hindsight, had some virtues. Darex Trevelian, her old friend and her perhaps something more, might have been a Jedi of outstanding character and resourcefulness, but he was no soldier--never had been, and never would have picked up that particular trade. There was a gloomy, lonely corner of Draygo’s memory that brooded over the happy possibilities that might have existed if she herself had been somewhat less reckless, less selfish, and much less stupid… a corner of her mind that was currently being banished as the Jedi Grandmaster pondered a holomap of Nar Shaddaa’s vast Undercity. In terms of navigability, the depths of Nar Shaddaa’s city-scape were even worse than Coruscant. It had known the same patterns of development as the capitol of the Republic; centuries after centuries of its denizens literally re-using the structures of past as the foundations of their future, the steel and concrete towers reaching ever higher in the atmosphere. Unlike Coruscant, which was the records-center of the ancien regime, Nar Shaddaa was typically dominated by one of the more notorious criminal cartels in galactic history. What this meant, was that the designers of the ecumenopolis were guarded only by the dimensions of the city-scape and their own consciences. Which meant that the Undercity was a convoluted mess of forgotten and decrepit infrastructure, abandoned towers, and an utter dearth of any documentation whatsoever. It seemed only by the will of The Force that the moon didn’t collapse into a heap of rubble. The Imperials had attempted to rectify this teetering tower of duct tape and spot-welded Isk-beams--oh, they had tried very, very hard to institute some order into the place and some proper standardized documentation and surveys--but even Imperial ruthlessness took time to overcome millenia of jury-rigged power grids and tottering towers, to introduce the boring order of the grid system of Coruscant’s Upper Levels. It wasn’t the city that Armiena was interested in. After hours of poring over old maps--some centuries old, others from surveys conducted by the military engineers of Admiral Slaughter’s own staff--the Jedi Grandmaster and several young and seemingly-tireless Jedi Knights managed to isolate an arterial network of ancient maglev tunnels that ran directly under the Red and Black, under the Imperial Knights’ compound, even under the vast landing pads that surrounded the Rebel headquarters, and many hundreds of kilometers under the inhabited portions of Nar Shaddaa’s city-scape. Those deep, dark tunnels--even if they were likely a perilous and claustrophobic journey to undertake--would make an ideal roadway to abscond with thousands of tons of ammunition and other materiel, entire brigades of ground troops… and possibly the entire central government-in-exile of the Rebel Alliance. “Right, well done, everyone, hugs all around. And more caf, please.” Draygo shoved her peppery hair out of her face and blinked hard as several hundred red dots populated the holographic cityscape. Those represented minor starports and private landing pads from which the Rebel Alliance could safely withdraw soldiers without notice, as well as the arteries that those sapients could travel through the Undercity of the moon. A steaming mug was dutifully passed her way. Exhausted, the Jedi Grandmaster lowered her face through the holographic projection and onto the uneven surface of the workstation she occupied. Even a few minutes of restorative meditation--perhaps even a few hours of actual sleep--sounded so lovely. She closed her eyes... Feet approached, much to her dismay. “Grandmaster, news.” “Only if a few billion people are in danger or the moon is collapsing. Please, Jaden, no.” “There’s a bit of a congregation of the political leadership of the Rebellion in motion.” “Not a politician, thank The Force.” “Nasra, Outremer, that Naboo Queen, wosshername….” “Politicians have meetings, Jaden, even if they’re a bunch of peri-pubescent teenagers--” “--I’m seventeen.” “‘Pologies. But it’s our job to do. Or do not. Never to try.” Armiena reached for the steaming mug of caf and jolted after the cup scalded her skin. Reluctantly opening her eyes, the Grandmaster stared into the unveiled face of her Miraluka aide. “There. Now you’ve done it. I’m awake.” Armiena summoned The Force, and gripped the scalding cylinder of caf. Her friend and ally protecting her against the fierce heat that made the bitter, military-grade stimulants palatable, the Jedi Grandmaster chugged the entire oversized mug in a single, minute-long gulp. Protecting herself from the scalding heat of a simple beverage was really quite an grotesquely mundane misuse of The Force, and as the veteran Jedi slammed the mug down and wiped a dribble of the brown liquid from her chin, two of the withdrawing Jedi Knights stared in a mixture of horror and fascination. “Right. We have an evacuation to carry out. Priorities after the region surrounding the headquarters are starports and the like, government officials and records, and as many men and munitions as possible. I need you to run over to… that Imperial Admiral… Klatchka?” “Kolchak.” “Him. Or his staff. This will need to be a joint operation--civilians likely to be less panicky if they see Imperial Knights and Jedi working together. Right? Go find him, Jaden.” As the Miraluka dutifully ran off in search of the Admiral's staff, Armiena closed her eyes and gratefully enjoyed a few minutes of quiet meditation. The Force might not have been able to banish the foul sensation that lingered after days of unending work, but it could at least keep her mind alert...

This was a region of Nar Shaddaa that few sapient beings with legitimate business dared to enter. There were rumors--as with Coruscant, before the first or second time the ecumenopolis had undergone a planet-wide demolition--that mutants and other foul fauna prowled the Undercity. The legends of blind troglodytes, enormous duracrete-consuming wurms, even rakghouls--they were all favorites of Nar Shaddaa’s veterans, told with a poodoo-eating grin to spook the Imperial and Rebel visitors. Some of the more outlandish stories worried that the very foundations that the Imperial towers were built upon were not entirely stable--that the entire cityspace might collapse at any moment. Misal had yet to corroborate any of those stories. However, as the two Force-Sensitives departed the turbolift and their passage through the vast tunnel was lit by spot-lumas attuned to proximity sensors, one of the stories was immediately confirmed: the ecosystem of this elevation was entire different from the “surface”. It was cold, damp, and the very air felt sickeningly oily. The older Miraluka shivered once as she peered into the distant darkness. The Rebel Alliance may have patrolled these tunnels at some point--even removed leaking pipes and killed some of the more aggressive fauna--but their attempts at securing them did nothing to obliterate the claustrophobia. “As it happens, Nar Shaddaa has quite a fascinating geology for a moon of this size. Millenia of sapients building on top of the foundations of previous generations, almost no standardized documentation. There is a vast foundation of partly-forgotten infrastructure below the surface… such as these old maglev tunnels. Long abandoned, of course,” she added with a smile as their steps towards the general direction of the Imperial Knights headquarters echoed… and echoed… and echoed. A faint scuttle of a many-legged shadow retreated from them. A series of spotlumas flickered to life in the darkness far before them, but failed to reveal anything other than their own imaginations. As The Force tended to will such things, the path of the two Force-Sensitives was leading them directly towards the retreating lights. “I suspect that the Rebel Alliance deliberately built their headquarters over them. No doubt my daughter will find them very useful in the future. Three hundred meters at two-eighty until we are beneath the Imperial Knights’ complex. ” “Yes, Rebellion definitely did not succeed in sterilizing these tunnels. Hopefully that creature is not intelligent. Or social.”

“Shen-Cresh two, my dear. We won’t need to go far.” A sense of amusement about Misal suggested that the veteran operator was lying through her teeth. Indeed, the moment that the turbolift jolted in its descent with a recoil, a faint ripple tremulated through The Force and the Miraluka took a deep breath. Her arm withdrew from Master Sarna’s and her wrist shot forward, revealing a small dataspike from the sleeve of her black robe that she jammed into the turbolift’s controls with a firm thrust. Letting out a little sigh of satisfaction, Misal continued more calmly, understanding that the turbolift’s holocam had just been subverted. Indeed, the service lift was continuing to descend--quite a bit further down into Nar Shaddaa’s bowels than the neglected subcellar levels of the Rebel Alliance’s headquarters. “I have personally found that secrets and shame are inherently erosive to relationships… and to a person’s character. These elements are unfortunately replete in a military organization. The only counter is intimacy. Not the diverting variety,” there was another wry smile from the aged Miraluka. “But the kind that only develops with years of active acceptance and hard work. Bearing your own faults to a person that can wound you deeply and trusting in their kindness. Understanding and accepting when they inevitably err. Learning their character so deeply that you sometimes know how they will respond.” “Of course, maintaining that kind of intimacy can be rather difficult when the subject is behind bars. Stealing personnel files will have to suffice in this instance. I understand if you lack the appetite for this kind of work.” Indeed, at that moment, the turbolift’s doors opened to reveal a dank tunnel system that ran far beneath the Red and Black. Misal’s nostrils closed instinctively at the familiar reek of mildew, ancient duracrete, and the effluent of unnameable species. Wherever the two Force-Sensitive women were, they were far beneath the foundations of the Rebel Alliance’s headquarters, down in the depths of Nar Shaddaa that had been abandoned and sealed away centuries ago. Few civilized creatures were purported to venture down to these levels, and the scarce sapients who found use for them invariably wished for their business to remain undetected by lawful authorities.

For several seconds, Misal was completely silent and her Force-presence withdrew from its superficial scans of the young Sandy Sarna's reactions. To withdraw when perturbed was evidently a habit that she shared with her daughter. “In some ways… yes. Aryian had a love for playing the fool. It rather well balanced my daughter’s over-serious nature. However, he had a regrettable tendency for secret-keeping. There were certain subjects that Aryian was unable to trust even Armiena with. A fault shared by my daughter, to be fair, and undoubtedly a factor that doomed their relationship.” Misal’s veiled face glanced from side to side at the next intersection. There should have been a freight turbolift somewhere near this location… “Fortunately, I’ve yet to observe this tendency in Aidan. A significant difference between the two is that Aryian possessed a certain fatalistic streak. Undoubtedly a product of his Jedi training. Aidan, on the other hand, seems to resent the difficulties forced upon him by his name.” The Miraluka let out a sigh. “It cannot be easy to bear the surname Darkfire--or to be my daughter’s child.”

“Thank you.” Misal wove a gloved hand into the young Jedi Master’s arm. The fingers under the cheap synthleather were boney despite the grip; indeed, as the two meandered through the Red and Black, the occasional brushing of the Miraluka’s side against the young Jedi Master would make it clear that the matriarch under the black robes was shockingly slender. To anyone observing the two Force-Sensitive humanoids, it would appear that Sarna was escorting the frail Miraluka through the Rebel headquarters. However, as the elderly Miraluka limped along and shifted an uncomfortable amount of weight onto the young woman, it would eventually become clear that it was the Miraluka who was leading the two. “I am pleased to see you alive and… relatively unchanged… after the mission that my daughter dispatched you. I’ll not waste your time by inquiring further.” A whisper of cloth accompanied a small tilt of the Miraluka head. A sly, insinuating presence skirted teasingly at the edge of the Sarna’s awareness and promptly withdrew upon detection. “For the moment we must concern ourselves with Aidan. He has always possessed an inconvenient rebellious streak. Cute… perhaps… when he was six. Now potentially disastrous, even though I imagine it can be diverting from time to time.” Again, a brief brush with that sly probe. “This may be an inflection point in that young man’s life, and I would prefer it to not culminate in an unproductive internment in a military prison or a poisoning in the relationship between the Jedi Order and Imperial Knights.”

“Everything checks out, Grandmaster.” Armiena’s eyes snapped upwards and she took a deep breath, having been snapped out of a standing meditation by the work of the Ord-Dorn unit. “No sign of anything on our scanners, biochemical or explosive. No tracking devices. We’ll run them through a quick plasma decon just in case--probably have them at your ship in twenty minutes or so.” The satchel was handed off to a delivery droid, who immediately set off to have the weapons decontaminated. In fact, the two lightsaber hilts had managed to race the Jedi Grandmaster back to her ship, and the same delivery droid was waiting at the boarding ramp of Shippy McShipface, somehow managing to appear impatient despite its perfect posture and expressionless face. Armiena took the hilts of the lightsabers into the workshop of her ship. She observed the hilts of her lightsabers with a skeptical eye. The unit that she’d been given by Master Vos, thankfully, had been unmolested by the Sith despite having been left behind on Lehon. The hilt that she had been granted by Emily Zsahra, however… its condition was best described using exaggerations such as “into a million pieces”. The hilt had been stomped forcefully by a Sith warrior under the benefits of Force-enhanced strength, and the creature’s armored boots had sent hairline cracks through the few remaining fragments that remained relatively intact. The rest of the hilt had been shattered into metal shards, recognizable only by the intricate acid-etchings of their original forging. Despite the destruction of the hilt, the internals of the lightsaber--the electronic components and focusing crystals and everything that required the skills of a Force-Sensitive individual--appeared intact. The focusing crystals might have been out of alignment, but that was a relatively simple fix, not a complete reconstruction that would require days of meditation and careful work. The Jedi Grandmaster was determined to save the hilt, however. If there ever came a time that the two women met again, Draygo preferred to return the weapon intact. Piecing the fragments together one shard at a time, Draygo wiped the muck and sand of Lehon off each of the shards with a microfiber towel and laid them next to each other. It was tedious but essential work, and it required hours of delicate handling. When they were all tidily laid out in a two-dimensional approximation of a cylindrical hilt, the Jedi craftswoman spilled out a small pouch containing a powderized tungsten alloy onto the bench. She had decided that actually reforging the hilt, would be a task fraught with potential errors and would almost certainly ruin the ornamentation of the hilt--however, sintering the powder of a reinforcing alloy into the cracks between the fragments would not only preserve the acid-etchings, but would strengthen the hilt. It would, however, be a repetitive task that nonetheless required perfect attention to detail. A single error in alignment would ruin the entire hilt and necessitate a complete reforge. It was for that reason that Armiena, for once, had shunned her ever-present mug of coffeine for decaffeinated tea. Taking a deep breath behind the filters of her breath mask, the Jedi Grandmaster sank into The Force. The process began with mixing the tungsten powder with spray canister of ultrapure water and ceramic powder to create a roughly homogenous slurry of tungsten particles. Seizing two shards of the hilt with The Force--the vices that this workbench possessed were far too imprecise to be trusted with this kind of delicate work--Armiena pressed the two fragments together. Then she added another fragment to that joining grasp. And then another metallic fragment. And another. Her jaw muscles working out of anxiety and effort, the Jedi Grandmaster joined the dozens of pieces together until they had at last formed a nearly-complete facsimile of the lightsaber’s completed form--complete, save for the recharging socket and the empty cavity that would house its focusing chamber. Draygo then sprayed over the entire cylinder with the tungsten slurry. Maintaining her grasped, she allowed the mixture to flash-dry under the intense lamps of the workstation and delicately swept away the excess with a simple hand-brush. Next came the actual joining of the fragments. Triggering the workstation’s furnace, plasma torches within ignited and the temperature within its armored chamber soon increased to thousands of degrees. Within the joining surfaces of the fragments, the powderized metal was melted into a nearly-homogenous semisolid, fusing the particles together and compacting the joints until they formed a single cylindrical plate. The only evidence that the hilt had ever been broken would be a few silvery traces of metal that Draygo had failed to obliterate with her sweep of the hand-brush. And then she waited, clenching the cylinder with her Force-grasp until the heat of the metal cooled out of terms best used to describe volcanic activity and towards a temperature that could be safely handled. Armiena plucked the lightsaber hilt out of thin air and gave it a weak smile--the hours of continually manipulating dozens of tiny sharps through The Force had been an immensely draining task. The remainder of the work, fortunately, was simple. The crystals only required a small realignment to be properly focused. As the electronic components were still intact, installing them was merely a matter of aligning the circuitry with the delicate internal catches that were built into the hilt. A click of its ignition switch gave birth to a bronze blade-- --and then the Jedi Grandmaster immediately extinguished the weapon and sat down hard at the workbench. This had been a long, exhausting work, and the day was not yet at an end. _____________ While her daughter was lost in the fugue state of reforging a lightsaber, Misal Draygo limped along the corridors of The Red and Black. Despite the fact that her heavy limp could be heard from several meters away and she periodically grasped at a wall to steady herself, she somehow never managed to attract the suspicion of any Rebel personnel. Even if the woman was technically not a member of the Rebellion, Miraluka clerks were so common within the Jedi Order that no one commented on her ability to access portions of the headquarters complex normally reserved to the Imperial Knights. Besides, the black-robed Miraluka was so quiet and unobtrusive, so certain in her movements, that it simply occurred to everyone who came across the older Force-Sensitive that she must have belonged. Some twenty meters away from her grandson, the black-clad Miraluka paused at an occluding corner in the corridor and listened. Leaning heavily against the wall to take pressure off her mostly-healed leg, she pressed her lips together in dissatisfaction. It was not entirely surprising that Aidan, always having possessed something of a rebellious, impulsive streak, had managed to land himself in disciplinary difficulties within the Imperial Knights. Misal had much to learn before she could take intelligent action. The Miraluka paused and waited a minute while the plastoid boots of men-at-arms departed. At last satisfied that her presence would not be observed by unfriendly parties, the Miraluka rounded that obscuring corner and limped towards the young Jedi Master. She nodded towards the young blonde, her veil trailing in wisps around her jaw. “Irksome. Perhaps inevitable, however. Before we can take action more intelligent than that impulsive young Lasat, there will be much to learn. Please, walk with me and we can begin.”

Draygo’s brow furrowed for just a moment as she rose. It had been a very long time since she had last been dismissed from a meeting, but even a Jedi Grandmaster was nothing more than a public servant in comparison to a head of state--deposed or not. She offered her hand, flesh squeezing soft leather and a hand that did not perfectly match with the lines of Nasra’s glove. It was likely a prosthetic, she realized. “I think I understand, your Highness.” A short bow that caused her hair to sweep forward followed. “May The Force be with you.” She departed, her comlink chirping several times as she passed Nasra’s secretary with a murmured thank you. And then another. Clearly, someone was attempting to gather her attention. She listened to the recorded message, expression hardening from distant thoughtfulness to a laser-focused scowl. Indeed, a Lord of the Sith had just succeeded tremendously in attracting her full and undivided attention--as potential threats to hundreds of sapients tended to do so. A few minutes later, Draygo had arrived at one of the briefing rooms within the Empress-in-exile’s headquarters suite. It was a long, high-ceiled chamber dominated by a fine wooden table of sparse ornamentation--at least it appeared to be real wood to her unpracticed eye--and several holoprojectors. Now, it was occupied solely by a squad of heavily-armored soldiers and a pair of astromech droids, all of whom were surrounding a satchel composed of a blood-stained robe. It was her robe, she realized with a scowl--it having been stained profusely with mud and slashed through the midsection. “Thank you for summoning me,” the Jedi Grandmaster spoke to one of the soldiers. The man--or woman--or… it was impossible to tell even what species the sapient was, they were wearing so many layers of padding and armor. Presumably the short sapient was not a droid. “Yes, I can confirm that those… belonged to me. Take all the time that you require to have them cleared. I will… understand if they must be destroyed. If not, then I would appreciate it if you would have the lightsabers autoclaved before returning them to me.” Draygo lingered for several minutes, only half-watching the Ord-Dorn squad scan the satchel for explosives, biologics, and chemical contaminants. Her eyes were distant, reflecting on the events of the last several months and being chased across the Outer Rim by the Sith Empire. Perhaps it had been foolish of her to confront that towering, grey-maned Sith Lord at Lehon--that perhaps her capabilities would have been better deployed elsewhere. At the time, however, it seemed necessary, that the Sith Lord would have certainly broken through the Temple’s defenses and embarked on a massacre of people who were counting on her for protection. She sighed. It had been months of evacuating Jedi outposts and cleaning up after the massacres inflicted on refugees and people whose only insult to the Sith Empire was in existing near a Jedi installation. None of those people nor their dwellings held any strategic value in the war; indeed, none of those people held any great value save for the fact that they were live and peaceful sapients in a galaxy that had gone mad with war. Attacking them served no purpose beyond inflicting terror for terror’s sake, or indulging the depraved predilections that had so often been exhibited by the Dark Lords of the past. Indeed, it appeared that very little had changed in the Sith Order. It had no ideology, just excuses. It had no vision, just depravity. And until something changed within it, it had no future, just the bad memories that it continued to inflict on the rest of the galaxy.

If Nasra had been a Jedi--or had not diverted from her training to dedicate herself to the equally admirable pursuit of politics--she probably would have detected an undercurrent of fear in Draygo’s Force-Presence. The breath held by the Jedi Grandmaster, her unnatural stillness, her uncharacteristic formality, might have been clues enough for a Force-blind individual. It wasn’t fear for her own life; rather, fear of failure, fear that her son might have to live under the banners of the resurgent Sith Empire. “I will send the necessary authorization codes to your Imperial Knights so they are able to access the facility on Phu. The evacuation of the civilian government should begin as soon as possible.” Draygo paused and let out a breath. “In the case our fleet is not able to repulse the Sith, this location will soon become untenable--most likely leveled by orbital bombardment or a kinetic-kill weapon like the one deployed at Naboo. Any reserves and excess munitions should be relocated, either throughout the fleet or reserve locations in the lower levels of the city-scape. “I suppose this is where I am obliged to advise that you may be more valuable to the Rebel Alliance alive, rather than brave and dead.” Draygo flashed a smile to the younger woman, suspecting what the answer of the Empress-in-exile would be. “That would be an exercise in futility, wouldn’t it?”

That was a rather profound emotional response. Had Zinthos been part of one of the Sith Empire’s many raiding parties against the Republic’s presence on Gala? The Jedi Grandmaster couldn’t place her face amongst any of the Sith--or Imperials--who had invaded the world. Of course, Zinthos might have been ten years old if they’d had an opportunity to meet there. For her part, Draygo had been far more preoccupied with the likes of Vladimir Faust, Kakuto Ryu, a pair of resourceful Sith sorcerers, and a wound that should have been fatal. Draygo just nodded. Her lips thinned as she thought on a similar incident involving a crashing Star Destroyer. “You speak of Admiral Slaughter’s actions above Coruscant.” She fell silent for a few seconds. “If you are absolutely determined to delay an invasion of this moon without significant loss of life, I can see one strategy to divert their attention. That is to make even approaching Nar Shaddaa so hazardous that the Sith will have no choice but to turn their attention towards your fleets. “As I understand it, this moon has a significant orbital debris field that complicates ingress from a number of attitudes. It is within our capabilities to exploit this terrain feature. Safer approaches to the atmosphere can be mined. Others can be rendered unnavigable by converting some of the larger pieces of debris into kinetic-kill weapons. All that would be required is a rudimentary guidance system and a sublight engine. No commander would conduct minesweeping operations with a hostile fleet at its back, and only a few near-collisions would be required before the Sith would be forced to regard an invasion as an untenable prospect."

For a second, Armiena Draygo chewed on her lower lip like a schoolchild and her eyes grew distant. Potentially every outpost the Jedi held was within striking distance of the Sith armada. The only sure defense would be secrecy--and there was only one outpost that Draygo was absolutely certain had not been scouted. “Phu.” That was likely a planet that the Empress had never heard of. Draygo tossed her portable holoprojector onto the desk between them, and a galactic map flickered to life in the air. A yellow-orange star pulsed amidst the white glo “During the last war, I had established a secret base there. It was intended to be a refuge of last resort, in the event of final catastrophe. Not even the Jedi Council knew about it. I am almost certain that the Sith will not know of it. It is a veritable fortress… but it will not be able to support millions of refugees for long. There is also our praxeum on Ossus, and… perhaps Gala.” Finally, Draygo sat before the Empress and steepled her fingers. “However, I am skeptical that we will be able to evacuate a substantial portion of Nar Shaddaa’s population before the attack comes. We will need to prioritize our efforts to the vicinity of The Red and Black and the orbital shadow of the SpaceWorks. What we can do is make this battle a disaster for the Sith Order. “I believe that there has been a significant change at the highest levels of the Sith Order. A new Dark Lord, perhaps. Their attack on Felucia was very confused, as though a portion of the Sith had not accepted their commander’s legitimacy. There is also the uncharacteristic brutality of their attack on Naboo--Theed reduced to ruins, major spaceports wiped off the map… it was not The Spider who led that attack. “My suspicion is that this new Dark Lord may lack the full support of the Order. They have been making statements, not conquests, wasting resources on battles that have gained them nothing but wreckage. If the Sith were to be drawn into a quagmire on Nar Shaddaa--worse, one that resulted in Nar Shaddaa’s industries being ruined by combat--that could be a disaster for the Sith. All of the destruction, all of the waste, and none of the opportunity that the Sith crave.”

The Stokhli spray armor, as Armiena Draygo calls it, is an ad hoc jury rig of several components from off-the-counter products: plastoid armor acquired from the armories of the Imperial Knights; motion sensors, power cells, and a small amount of ultrachrome alloy from various salvage operations; and roughly a quarter of the critical components of a stokhli spray stick. Appearance and Defensive Capabilities: The armor is plain, unadorned plastoid plate, with a somewhat feminine cut as the outline of its plates accentuate the bust and hips of its wearer. The pauldrons have a somewhat unfinished appearance due to the fact that its Imperial sigils were melted off without taking proper care to smooth out the scouring marks. Much like standard plastoid armor, the plate offers decent protection against blasters at range, deflecting glancing blows from vibroblades, and is highly protective against unaugmented “dead-blades” and subsonic fragments; however, it affords virtually no protection against lightsabers outside of its gauntlets. The armor has been further cut down from the standard Imperial Knight pattern in order to accommodate the lightsaber forms that Draygo prefers. Ataru and Djem So in particular require a profound degree of freedom of movement and the removal of plating from the major joints renders them vulnerable to attack. The palms and fingers of the gauntlets have been bonded with a thin layer of ultrachrome alloy. Ultrachrome is a potent superconductor, channeling heat and electric shocks with almost perfect efficiency. This property also makes it somewhat resistant to blows from lightsabers, as the superheated plasma blade is unable to immediately cleave through the material. However, the alloy will rapidly heat up with prolonged exposure to a lightsaber blade: within three seconds of constant contact, the alloy will transmit significant burns to its wearer, then outright melt from the bonded plastoid plates and lose all protective value. Offensive Capabilities: Draygo has woven in several power cells and superconducting fibers into the armor’s bodyglove, allowing it to dispense potent electrical shocks through the ultrachrome plating of the gauntlets. This is matched by a pair of stokhli stun sprays that are embedded into the vambraces, which are triggered by specific hand gestures. Upon being dispersed, the viscous stokhli spraymist rapidly congeals into a hindering jelly, then a semi-solid webbing that can entrap its victim and even support the weight of an adult human. Throughout this coagulation process, the spray is highly conducive to electric pulses. Exposure has similar effects to that of a stun blast from a light blaster pistol: limbs that have been grazed are likely to be briefly numbed, while victims who have been thoroughly coated may be incapacitated for several minutes. The spray has significant limitations. After congealing into a semi-solid webbing, the spraymist will gradually evaporate to leave a harmless powdery residue incapable of hindering movement or conducting electrical pulses. The process of miniaturizing the stokhli spray removed vital components of the weapon, namely the compression chambers and focusing nozzles. Its range and accuracy is significantly diminished as a result, and its maximum effective range is approximately twenty-five meters. The spraymist cannot be accurately aimed beyond this range due to wind dispersal and gravity. While the spray can be reloaded in the field, the process requires careful fine-motor manipulation and several seconds of dedicated attention.

The discomfort was written on Draygo’s face through her utter lack of expression. On one hand, the exiled Empress was young--close in age to her own son--and an heir to the depraved government that had hounded her entire adult life. On the other… Zinthos had been one of the two young officers who had overstepped her own authority to signal the fateful cease-fire at the Third Death Star. There clearly was some significant imagination within that mind--or at least, some humanity. She was clearly a dangerous woman, a judgment that the Jedi Grandmaster could make without trepidation. “Your highness.” Draygo responded in Jedi fashion, bowing just a little deeper than was her habit to allow her black hair to fall around her face. She rose and approached to shake the younger woman’s hand. The Jedi’s appearance was indeed unorthodox. Even if she had strippped the plastoid plate of crimson paint and melted away the Imperial sigils, the cut of the armor was unmistakable as a product of the Knights’ armories. The faint scent of paint thinner that wafted vaguely from the armor hinted that this suit was a recent acquisition. “If only this meeting could have happened under less urgent circumstances.” Draygo just stood before the Empress for a second. “Managing” the Empress, she decided, would be a mistake. Better to be blunt. “With the recent loss of Naboo, there is every reason to believe that the Sith Empire is preparing for an attack on Nar Shaddaa as we speak. Our situation is not untenable, but a battle above this world will become a delicate matter. The cost is likely to be incalculable... ...but it may hold unexpected opportunities.”

Several minutes later, Armiena Draygo sat on the top of the curved dome of the Red and Black. She had wandered into the city of the Smuggler’s Moon for a brief period, barely more than an hour. That was time enough to watch the city, to really watch it, to expose herself to the roiling waves of sapient energy that coursed from the moon-spanning city. It was all the drama of sapient existence: greed, lust, envy, pride, rage. It was the blazing life-light of billions of sapients who believed that their entire life was them and their mate against the rest of the universe. Despite all the contest, so many of the humans and hominids and countless unrecognizable species that she passed believed that their existence had some greater purpose; that their life was contributing to the betterment of the galaxy. It was a world of fleeting, momentary existence. Nar Shaddaa might have been a grimy hive of corruption, questionable construction standards, and bad memories that its denizens had escaped, but she found it beautiful. Draygo quietly watched the flickering lights of airspeeders and sun-shining glow of advertisement glowpanels, devouring a flatbread that she had purchased while clearing her head. It was one of those unhealthy, dripping sandwiches that inevitably left a saucy mess on one’s fingertips, packed with heavily-processed, greasy meat and a few sad scraps of cheap vegetables. It was delicious. It was in this state that Draygo pondered the reports that had flooded in regarding the Sith offensive in the Outer Rim. The remaining Jedi Temples across the galaxy confirmed: no Sith forces were within the range of detection of their early warning systems. In fact, there was no sign of a military build-up anywhere within the Galactic Core, or even the Colonies. The entirety of the Sith offensive seemed to be dedicated to prosecuting the war in the Outer Rim. Contact lost with Felucia. Naboo had fallen--Theed and other cities had been flattened, either reduced to rubble by a de-orbiting kinetic weapon or strafed indiscriminately by starfighters. The objective seemed to be to create a statement rather than a staging point--and a planet of billions of sapients was the necessary cost for this manifesto of terror. Even with the planet in ruins, taking Naboo meant that the Sith now had a site that would allow them to safely muster forces for an attack on Nar Shaddaa. By any reasonable metric, they had achieved most of their objectives--save for reducing the most significant bastion of Rebel activity in the galaxy. Defending this location could be achieved, but would inevitably result in the destruction of millions of lives and a potentially irreversible loss of faith in the Rebel Alliance and Jedi Order. The cost could make even a successful defense of dubious value. That was a strategic decision that Draygo was not prepared to make on her own. The Jedi Grandmaster slid down the grand slope of the headquarters’ roof and cushioned her fall with a minute application of a barrier. Once inside the headquarters, her passage drew little attention. Having discarded her robes for ordinary plastoid armor that lacked even the characteristic crimson paintjob and Imperial sigils of the Empress’ Knights, there was little to identify the woman as a Jedi--at the moment, she didn’t even have a lightsaber at her waist. Her appearance was so incongruous with that of a Jedi Master that, upon entering the Empress’ staff offices, Zinthos’ secretary only stared in mild confusion when the armored woman bowed to the secretary. “Please tell her Highness that the Jedi Grandmaster must speak with her.” Realization dawned on the functionary’s face. The man half-stood and made an awkward attempt at returning the bow while still sitting. “It is a matter of critical importance.”

...says to place her in a chair and to allow her to wake on her own. She tends to get violent when startled. Lose the blanket. Much like how one felt clothing as it was donned, Draygo felt the presence of her own body: goosebumps rising with the thrill of an adrenaline rush, a pressing weight on her chest--searing cold that swept through her breastbone. And of immediate significance, the fact that she once again had legs. She gasped cool air into her lungs and her pale-green eyes shot open. Instincts of self-defense compelled her body into motion before conscious thought had an opportunity to take note of her surroundings and guide her actions. She kicked out, flinging a small blanket into the face of a Bothan medtech. He gave a yelp of surprise amid the clatter of falling instruments as he gripped a tray for balance. And then thought had a chance to assert itself. A familiar voice over the overhead speakers suggested that Draygo had been revived at the Alliance base on Nar Shaddaa. The clean, brown robe; the crisp, excessively dry air; the sterile, plasticky garb of the medtechs; all confirmed that she had been recently cloned and her body transported to the recovery ward until flash-learning and the Force-enabled mechanisms of the Jedis cloning apparatus had brought her back to her body. She glanced about wildly. No mud, no rain, no pain--every familiar scar was present, everything was as she was only thirty minutes ago--excluding for her lightsabers, of course. “What the kriff?” _______________ A few hours later, Draygo had claimed one of the unused briefing rooms to privately review the more critical reports that had reached her; the Rebel Alliance and Jedi had liberated Mon Calamari, but Naboo had been lost--pulverized by the Sith Empire. Contact lost with Sullust. A distress call from Jedha. Until only a few hours ago, the Grandmaster wasn’t even aware that anyone was still alive on that moon. In the central holographic pit of the briefing room, a suit of plastoid armor cast a man-shaped shadow over the image of the galaxy. It wasn’t the grey clamshell of an Imperial stormtrooper, but the crimson plates of an Imperial Knight’s cuirass and pauldrons. Armor not being standard-issue among the Jedi Order and stormtrooper plate optimized for protection over flexibility, the cuirass would at least provide a useful foundation for her plans. She dragged it towards her and cast a skeptical eye over the armor. The breastplate was at least suitably cast for a woman of her stature--the curvature of the bust and hips was actually somewhat flattering, as though it was designed for court functions as well as combat. That certainly explained the absurd Imperial sigils on the gauntlets and pauldrons, to say nothing of the waxy polish that caused the galactic holomap to reflect on the plastoid like a mirror. It would be a useful foundation, nothing more. A more complete set of armor, forged months in the future--perhaps years--would call for a visit to her forges on Phu. That visit would result in a concave plastoid honeycomb reinforced with a molecular sintering of phrikite alloy, an armored skirt, complete integration with the Jedi Council’s virtual chamber. And wireless access to the HoloNet--that was indispensable. She glanced down at a circuit board below her, around it situated a small collection of capacitors, motion sensors, and superconductive plates of ultrachrome. A larger power cell had already been connected to the circuitry, ready to be rigged to the fingertips of the gauntlets. The other piece of equipment that she had misappropriated from the arsenals of the Imperial Knights was a stokhli spray stick. A meter long and more than twice the weight of a blaster, it would make for an awkward weapon for a Jedi. However, the staff-like weapon was optimized to incapacitate big game at a safe distance; a significant portion of that bulk was occupied by pressure chambers and an oversized focusing nozzle. None of those features were required for point-blank range. Miniaturized versions of that equipment--not dissimilar to hyposprays for subdermal medications--would be sufficient for a range of thirty meters or less. Draygo took a sip of cold caf and grimaced. This first incarnation of the armor would need to be crude. Time had become more precious still, and she could not afford the luxury of spending days completing fine finishes on a suit of plastoid. She began by placing her hands on the suit’s pauldrons and calling to The Force. Breathing deeply, Draygo reached for a power cable from which she had stripped the shielding. The Force shielding her from the vast amount of energy that flowed through the cable, she allowed her body to act as a conduit into the plastoid plate. The pauldrons and gauntlets soon began to warm and deform; the Imperial sigils melted away to conform with the curves of the armor. A brief treatment with a foul-smelling solvent caused the crimson paint to evaporate into acrid mist--only the featureless grey of raw plastoid remained. She breathed deeply despite the fumes, peeling apart the plates with her bare hands to reroute superconducting fibers through the armor’s systems. Armiena next reached for the gauntlets and placed them with their palms facing upwards, and sprinkled a few of the scraps of ultrachrome into their palms. Linking fingers with the gauntlets as though holding hands with another sapient, she allowed that vast store of energy to flow directly into the superconductive metal. Though enormously heat-resistive, the scraps soon glowed red, then white--then began to sag and melt into a puddle of lightsaber-resistive metal. Draygo allowed this puddle to spread over the fingers of the gauntlets and into the wrists. That conductive metal would be critical for allowing the charge from the power cell to course through any dispensed stokhli spray. The rest was merely a matter of routing wires and programming the motion detectors, a routine task that lasted only an hour. After uploading the firmware, the armor was complete--imperfect, as her touch had left finger-sized divots in the pauldrons and gauntlets--and functional. Upon registering a specific gesture, the magazine of stokhli spray in the vambraces would dispense, coating a target up to thirty meters away in the viscous mist. A mere touch of the hardening jelly would transfer a vast amount of energy into the target, potentially incapacitating them. It was crude, ugly, and an unfinished prototype, but it was at least functional. Her equipment completed, Draygo began to transmissions to the other Jedi Temples throughout the galaxy The Sith were on the move again, and a disaster would befall the galaxy if the Jedi could not retaliate against their offensive.

There was at least a partnership between the weapon and its master, then. There was a muted vibration in The Force that emanated from the hulking warrior’s position--the greatsword and its wielder were definitely communicating. In more peaceful times, Draygo would have taken some time to study the weapon, attempt to ascertain the means of its forging, determine if there was something that could be learned or if the weapon needed to be disposed of. There was no time for that. The greatsword and its owner needed to be separated--and then it would be back to the battle. Incapacitating that armored brute was going to be quite the challenge. He was younger than the veteran Jedi--not an insubstantial advantage, as he had fewer lingering injuries of the kind that persistently slowed his opponent. He was physically stronger--far more physically powerful, of greater mass, certainly more aggressive, and better equipped. However, Draygo had possessed a significant advantage that few Jedi were willing to deploy. She was willing to escalate, to wage her life on a gamble. The Jedi Grandmaster drew her blaster pistol immediately began to spit azure stun blasts at the leaping Sith warrior, eclipsing his sides in their shadows. They were snap-shots, fired in a rush from her off-hand and rendered inaccurate by her double-vision, but even a graze might slow her opponent. Only a heartbeat before he and the barbed ice-mace struck home, she hopped to the side--nothing more injurious than mud and shards of ice assaulted her person. She allowed the pistol to fall from her hand--it was immediately buried into the mud by the stamp of the Sith’s darksteel boots. Another minute application of The Force plucked Draygo’s remaining grenade from her belt. The cylinder fell just beside her boots and buried itself into the mud. A second later, the shell detonated into a blinding flash of light that rivalled the storm-bolts above them and a blast that would instantly deafen the two duelists. Draygo, standing almost on top of the flashbang when it exploded, was instantly blinded and deafened, seeing nothing but a curtain of yellow-white and hearing nothing but a keening chime in her ears. Being robbed of two of her senses mattered little to a Jedi, however. The Force could see and hear for her, and instinct and decades of experience could guide her lightsaber. It was a terrible gamble, but Draygo could guess that the Sith brute lacked either of these advantages--that he would hesitate for a brief moment after having his senses stolen from him. She felt her lips thin in a grim smile. Draygo ignited her lightsaber in an unseen emerald torch and brought the blade in a sweeping arc around the blade of her opponent’s greatsword. Again, the undulating edge of his serpentine flamberge caused her own weapon to vibrate almost uncontrollably as it crested each curve of the greatsword, but she managed to wind her own emerald blade around the Sith’s and redirect it in an almost-perfectly executed parry. Almost--when she took a step forward to execute the disarm, the bind of the two blades slipped and the greatsword sliced her left forearm down to the bone. Warmth immediately spilled from her arm--the pain would have been blinding, but Draygo had just inflicted that upon herself. She pressed forward in a pair of steps, the two blades sliding over each other until the two duelists were standing almost shoulder to shoulder. A second vibration rattled her faltering grip as the lightsaber caught on the greatsword’s crossguard... ...and came the Jedi Grandmaster’s last gamble. Unlike the Sith brute, Draygo had no intention of trying to kill her opponent. Her every blow had been an attempt to disarm, wound, or incapacitate the warrior--threats that were significantly more difficult to detect through warnings from The Force. She extinguished her lightsaber for an instant, causing the hilt to pass through the crossguard. In the next, she reignited the blade and hacked upwards, attempting to deprive the warrior of his weapon--and both of his hands. ((Round 3: Draygo fires a few inaccurate stun blasts as Blackmorne leaps after her, dodges out of the way of the mace and drops a flashbang almost directly at her feet. She is blinded and deafened for the rest of the fight, relying only on The Force and instincts to guide her blade. She parries the overhead chp from the Sith warrior, gets badly sliced on her left arm, and attempts to hack through Blackmorne’s hands to disarm him. Been a pleasure.))