Königreich des Teufels - Demolished Sith Academy (Carida)

[Kala Ianauria]

The song created by the Lightside of the Force left Kala’s heart completely, overwhelmed and replaced by the power of Exodus’s darker song and that of the other Sith. Her own anger created an echo of their dark song within in heart, something that threatened to merge with her own and transform her song into one of pain, suffering, death and decay and unleash her darkness upon the galaxy.

 

Kala sat stunned, unable to think, unable to move. The feeling of her anger coursing through her veins, warring with the remnants of the light within her left her completely mentally and physically paralyzed. It became a fountain of the same despair she felt earlier, only far stronger and feeding from the darkness both Sith radiated like some dark star within the crumbled shadows of the fallen temple.

 

She glanced with dead eyes around and saw one of the statues of a Sith fallen to the ground. Its head and shoulders stood upright and separated from the rubble that once constituted its body. The image struck as similar to something she’d read, something that might provide a lifeline out of the insanity raging around her. Mentally, she tried grasping and pulling herself upward to some sort of lucidity but the image only provide an island of stability within the Darkness. Somehow, everything felt worse, as if finding security meant a temporary reprieve followed by worse.

 

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and began to fall down her face. Instead, they crystalized, burning themselves a permanent place upon her face. Had she been able to see a mirror, she might have noticed each held a small star of silvery material within their depths.

 

Had she had the time to critically look over the statue of the tall blonde Jedi she’d seen, she’d have seen similar diamond tears set within the corner of the woman’s eyes.

 

As it was, she did not.

 

Lost within herself, she barely understood the horror created when Exodus lifted her fallen Captain and animated the man’s deceased body with his unholy light. Some deep instinct caused her to move her legs fractionally, so that when the Captain’s body crashed back down, she found herself appearing to be pinned but yet actually free.

 

The movement of her legs might have been easy mentally, but the physical effort cost her renewed reminders of her abused back in torrents of fresh pain. Her legs reported new pains from slices of masonry dug into their flesh when the Captain’s dead weight fell up on them.

 

Her mind added to the torment, freezing an image of the unholy fire that illuminated the Captain’s eyes that seemed to accuse her of being an abject failure. Her mind began crying out for her to find a way to release her from the pain and torment. Her anger and her need called to the Darkside. Its power tempted her, promised the galaxy at her feet and the death of the monster’s in the room without hinting at the price of becoming as the monster’s she sought to destroy.

 

It suddenly blew away as she heard a faint voice she thought was her master say, “Luminous beings are we, not these crude shells.” The voice contains a beautiful melody that sings almost every word, creating a song complexly scored with wisdom and serenity.

 

A jolt of energy followed the voice in her mind. It flowed from the lightsaber in her hands, up her arms and split to flow into her heart and her mind. When the energy flowed into her heart, she felt a cracking sensation from the frozen wasteland it had become, creating a single beautiful bloom of hope in the midst of a gray nothing.

 

She feels her darkside retreat a little and with it the temptation of the Darkside fade a little held at bay a faint song coming from a reservoir enchanted into her lightsaber. At the moment, she did not have the time or luxury to find the source of this relief, only finding it months later during a period of absolute concentration while attempting to bind the weapon to her.

 

Exodus’s addressing her brought her back to the present after several long moments. While she knew nothing of the artifacts being levitated about, his speech provided her an impetus to shake off her darkness and find a deep reservoir of strength. She wondered how many of those she had and where they came from for a split second.

 

Then she laughed, long and clearly. The laugh transformed into a wordless burst of song. Joy, happiness and the light side of the Force sang in her heart and in the melody that burst from her bones into the darkness of the temple.

 

She found herself gathering her legs and rising to face the back of the Sith. A ringing note of defiant joy sounded when her fingers found the firing studs for both ends of the dual bladed saber still in her hands despite everything happening to her.

 

Calm serenity flooded through her, banishing the beast song to the shadows of her heart and easing the worst of the pain and aches. Even then, she knew she might die this day, might never become the full Exorcist she now knew she wanted to be. Her very bones ached, every breath burned, and every muscle felt bruised and battered.

 

She did not want to dwell on the condition of her heart and soul. She knew that should she survive this, that her future meditations and prayers needed to address the issues raised this day.

 

Her mind reached back to her past and connected the bust of the Sith on the floor with a poem by a major poet from a backrocket world she’d studied under one of her numerous tutors. A smile graced her lips as its lesson became apparent.

 

“Two things, Monster, sang Kala, a warble in her voice related only to her physical and mental state, not to the strength of her conviction suddenly and completely strengthened in a way obtainable only through experiencing life.

 

“You sound like my mother, someone who drove me to find the Jedi and from their my Master. Had you just kept your mouth shut, you might have gained an apprentice this day.”

 

Her voice strengthened as she spoke. “As it is, I looked around and understood the reality of the Sith. Its simple really and a great man wrote a poem about it inspired by the best of Force.”

 

As she focused on the Sith, on staying calm and letting her fear go into the Force (and only partially succeeding) she heard the sonorous voice of that tutor proclaiming,

 

She was unaware of softly singing the poem allowed,

 

“I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

[Raven Nasra]

Aboard The Pride of Dakshee, Captain Kesper Andripov shouted commands to the bridge crew. Status reports were flooding in of hull breaches along the turbolaser emplacements, with only six out of the original ten still functioning. More status reports, the bridge shield generator was down, gutted by a well aimed turbolaser blast. The repair team sent their had detected cold vacuum on the other side of the hull door. It would be assumed that the ten man crew manning the station were space dust. Kesper let his hand run over his smartly pressed collar, there would be a lot of holo letters to write if they made it back home from this. His eyes looked to the silver mass filling their viewport of the Relentless Viceroy, he was grateful for their intervention, without it, they would be hurtling down towards the planet surface within a few minutes more of barrage. He silently thanked the force that there were no enemy starfighters around the Dakshee, he didn’t want to go out like so many of the cream of the officer corps back at the battle of Endor. No A-Wings to come smashing through bridges this time. He thought with wry gallows humor. Just Sith Turbolasers.

 

Raven smiled at Vergori aboard the Relentless Viceroy as the attacks against Nova One began to hit their mark. She considered pulling up the comm to ask for their surrender, that was until she saw the bright glow of their engines light up to full power. Her purple eyes grew huge as she looked to her fleet captain and she could hear her heartbeat thumping away above the sirens and klaxons. She fell into a crouch against the command railing and watched her screen with increasing horror and incredulity as Nova One made the quick dash across a kilometer of space to the Relentless Viceroy. The impact was bone shattering. A second lieutenant that had been stationed at the comms panel was tossed at full speed into the control console of the shield regulator, shattering his spine and tearing through his organs. Most of the crew who were not holding fast or buckled down died just from the initial impact of two ships colliding at flank speed. The full shields of the Viceroy saved them from instant death but even they failed a split second after collision, having been built for laser and turbolaser fire, not an entire frigate’s worth of mass being shoved into them. The shield console on the bridge erupted into sparks and flame as both shield reactors blew, sending power surges throughout the system. The technician in charge of that station died from both the kinetic force of the collision as well as the flames and sparks the fried his face and lungs. His screams did little to drown out the wrenching metallic tearing sound that filled the confines of the ship. At least those portions that were not exposed to hard vacuum. Which were not many.

 

 

The Sith Nova Cruiser impacted at the curved bow of the Relentless Viceroy, opening the ship along its superstructure and venting four hundred crew to raw hard vacuum in a few seconds. Most were lucky to die from the instant explosive decompression, others were unlucky enough to be trapped in a bulkhead or some other airtight section and slowly suffocate when the oxygen ran out. Some, like the gunners, were already in EV suits, and watched as lifelong friends vented by them in a splurge of flailing men and women. The Relentless Viceroy lost all power to her engines and main compartments as the reactor failed. The bridge was left in darkness for a few seconds until the red emergency lights flickered on around the blood covered bridge. Raven rolled over Vergori and grimaced at the sight. The man had smashed his head into the command railing and Raven knew that there would be no open casket funeral for this hero of the Remnant. She stood on shaky legs and surveyed her control board.

 

* Armada/492 Coolant Reactor - Offline

* C1/Hyperdrive - Offline

* C12/Hyperdrive - Offline

* S48/Engine Control - Offline

* Weapon Control - 1/10 Turbolaser Online

* Life Support Systems - Offline

The compartment list was a sea of red and black, signifying damaged and lost sections. The Relentless Viceroy was a dead ship. And one that was in a rapidly decaying orbit. Raven cursed and slammed her hand onto the evacuation control panel. It did not respond, and from the look of it, her path to the escape pods was not very likely. She looked up at the crew of the bridge. Four people remained alive out of the eighteen. Fire Control, Engines, Fighter Command, and herself. The lieutenant in charge of fire command looked fervently into his control station barking orders at distant pilots. Raven smiled, if they were going to die, they may as well go down swinging. The fire control officer smiled back and the one remaining turbolaser churned back into action. Its rate of fire slowed significantly from its reliance on backup generators. The Viceroy would no longer play any meaningful part in the engagement, but she would go down fighting. If only for a minute or two before she was torn completely apart by the dense atmospheric drag of Carida. A few lonely escape pods launched from the ship, tracing arcs of light on the sensors of the Dakshee.

 

 

The Pride of Dakshee maneuvered over the degrading command ship, and Andripov said a prayer for the Head of State and all aboard the dying vessel. His turbolasers began tracking Nova Two, in an attempt to cover their harried fighter and bomber wings, who had taken already heavy losses to the point defense weapons of the Hapan frigate. All power was diverted from non vital systems such as engines to the turbolasers and still marginal shields. The crews working with the furious effectiveness that could only come from seeing friends and leaders die before their eyes.

 

Above the beleaguered Sith Mon Cal, a good half of the imperial star fighter wing 187 was wiped out. Some by missile launched from the Mon Cal, most by the brutally accurate point defense cannons of Nova Two. The five remaining bombers remained on their attack runs on the mon cal as the TIE Defenders launched their remaining concussion missiles at the Hapan Nova Crusier, before scattering around the Nova, in an attempt to dodge the arcing fire of point defense. Strafing away with a mix of laser and ion cannon fire. This would be the bloodiest fight the Remnant had fought in over a decade. And below, the imperial citizenry looked on in horror with their macrobinoculars glued to their faces.

 

((3))

 

((I must say a wonderful duel, thank you))

[AVATAR Kain]

((3))

 

As Kain fully integrated himself into the Mon Cal's computer banks, the reports were grim. Most of the ship was a mess, shields had been rendered inoperable, weapons were offline, life support was failing. Many of the surviving crew had already attempted to use the escape pods to make it to the planet's surface, where they would no doubt become captured by the Imperials. Fools.

 

The enemy fighters had been mostly scattered, should the bombers come back on another run of the Mon Cal cruiser, they would be likely torn to ribbons by the surviving Nova-class, Nova two. The TIE Defenders had done some damage to it with their concussion missiles, a lucky shot slipping past a shield flicker to rupture the hull of a deck on the back port wing, requiring evacuation of two turbolaser banks, but the ship was largely untouched and still fully battle ready. The Dakshee was crippled, the Viceroy mortally wounded.

 

And that was when Kain noticed Nova two hadn't continued tracking the bombers, but instead was following a new course, away from the battle, jumping to hyperspace seconds later. They had likely put two and two together and turned mutinous on their fleet commander, realizing he could and would easily sacrifice them, or that the battle was lost...there were a host of reasons why they could have turned tail, but they would get theirs eventually. The Sith never forgot, and they never forgave...traits Kain admired about their long bloodstained history. The crew would likely become pirates, but they wouldn't live long enough to see the profits of their misdeeds.

 

As the bombers came back around to begin their run, Kain knew there was only one option to ensure the Imperials were truly and fully routed. Two main systems were still online on the Mon Cal, and miraculously main power hadn't been interrupted for either of them. Kain engaged the engines to full, compensating for one main thruster that had taken damage in the first bombing run, and was only working at half efficiency. His course took him directly past the Dakshee, aimed directly at the planet. Kain screamed silently on the space-exposed bridge, his warcry heard by none.

 

"From Hell's heart, I stab at thee..."

 

The tractor beams warmed up, reaching out and latching onto the Dakshee as the Mon Cal hurtled past at almost full velocity, the raw shearing force rendering more hull damage to Kain's Mon Cal, causing three of the four beams to immediately break, and the power to the engines flickered and died. As long as the last beam held, though, the Dakshee would likely not have enough power to be able to save itself from being dragged down to forcibly impact the planet. On the remains of the bridge, the cables Kain had used to integrate himself saved him from too much damage as his ship shook, preventing him from being hurtled across the room like a rag doll. He was much hardier than most organics, but even he had his limits, and had he not prepared, it likely would have meant rendering his chassis inoperable. Stabling himself, he ripped the cords from the console, slinging them over his shoulder. He'd worry about ports and proper disconnects later.

 

He had one chance for escape before the ships entered too far into the atmosphere, and if it wasn't timed precisely, he was looking at a long recompilation cycle. Fortunately, for an AI, timing came second nature. The actuators in Kain's legs fired with incredible power against the deck plates, shooting him out of the hole on his bridge into open space. He was still within the gravity well of the planet though...now all he needed to do was wait.

 

((A pleasure to have written.))

[handofthrawn]

Sith (AVATAR Kain) vs Imperial Remnant (Raven Zinthos)

 

Interesting duel and fun to read. The first few posts were fairly standard back-and-forth setting up, observing some of the tactical difficulties with any engagement of this kind. Tactics equal, Raven began to win me over with solid writing which made me feel like the Imperial crews were real people facing their deaths, something which continued through post 3. I think this was a very good choice, not only for Raven as a character, but in stark contrast to the ruthless tactics of her opponent.

 

Kain had a monster of a post 2 in which he showed that ruthless disregard for the lives of his own crews while gaining a substantial tactical advantage through the ramming maneuver. He then conceded a lot of damage to the bomber attack very fairly. What's more, he did an excellent job in post 3 posting the departure of the Nova Two as fallout for how he spent the lives of Nova One's crew.

 

Ultimately the victory comes down to the state of the fleets in the last post. Since Nova Two departed, all that remains of the Sith fleet is one very-damaged vessel attempting to drag the Dakshee with it into Carida's gravity well with a single tractor beam. Meanwhile the Dakshee is unshielded but more or less half operational, and half of the Imperial starfighters are also still prowling around.

 

All said and done, I doubt the ability of a single tractor beam to drag a capital ship out of orbit, and the Imperials have the resources to avert this disaster by blasting apart the unprotected tractor beam projectors with turbolasers or fighters.

 

In any case, not much of a ruling to be made. Both Raven and Kain themselves seem in position to survive, although they're in tough spots. I'll rule that the Dakshee survives but Kain's command ship does not, and thus the Imperial Remnant wins the engagement. If the Nova Two had stuck around, it would be a different story. At any rate, Kain's ship is still plummeting towards the surface of Carida, and Raven will need to deal with that.

[Raven Nasra]

Aboard the Pride of Dakshee there was momentary panic as the Mon Cal Began to drag them into the atmosphere, but with a few well versed orders, the gunnery crew began to target the Tractor emplacements aboard the Mon Cal. Once freed from the tendril like grasp of the Mon Cal, Kesper Andripov took a moment to look over the battle situation. The Mon Cal was heading into the dense atmosphere of Carida with no shields at full flank speed, and he was merely along for the ride. With no little apprehension in his mind, Andripov looked at what remained of the flagship of the Imperial Remnant. The ship was falling into the atmosphere, leaving trailing bits of white hot hull and fragmented transparisteel in its wake. Before his eyes the Relentless Viceroy hit the mesosphere of Carida and exploded into a fireball. Andripov closed his eyes and winced. At slow enough speeds even star destroyers could enter the increasingly dense atmospheres of planets, but they relied on particle shields and not completely decimated hulls. The secondary and tertiary explosions of the Viceroy shook him in his command chair. The third explosion was likely the reactor cooking off, and that was by far the biggest and the most devastating. Sending chunks that used to be crew quarters spinning off past the Dakshee and into the reaches of space that would re-vector back planetside when they reached the peak of their arc.

 

Transparisteel windows in the cities around Carida for several hundred miles were shattered from the shockwave and citizens cowered under tables and overturned couches. The Dakshee shook and bucked as it hit the atmopshere and Andripov ordered full reverse thrusters, slowing the ship enough to watch the Mon Cal, remnants of the Viceroy, and remnants of Nova One pinwheel into the jungle forests of Carida. The city of Landisferen was completely annihilated by the falling Mon Calamari Cruiser. A hundred thousand lives snuffed out in an instant. Other small villages and farmlands were consumed in the resulting fires, and the impact of the ships on the Caridan surface caused earthquakes and tremors for miles. Andripov squeezed his fist and shook it uselessly at the viewscreen. Mimicked across the Imperial Remnant by a million men glued to their holoscreens that knew that finally…

 

They were at war.

WAR

 

screamed the headlines of the Imperial Holo News Service.

 

DESTRUCTION

 

Shouted the flimsinews.

 

All across the small Remnant the nation was shook by the news and footage of the battle. The peace of a decade was brought to a sudden and deathly end. Without a word, men and women across the sector knew that there would be a price to pay in blood. Business owners who had only just gotten used to a peacetime economy knew that within a few hours, there would be the hard pressed rush of a War Economy. Many sold their stock and went to the Imperial Bureau of Divisional Labour, to receive their rationing details, or orders for production.

 

Andripov was stirred from his musings by a large aft section of the Viceroy that decided at that moment to collide with the descending Pride of Dakshee. A few seconds later, all hands were ordered to evacuate, and the ship was lost. Its engines ruined by the rebounding chuck of its sister frigate. Andripov stayed aboard until all escape pods were launched, watching red flashing lights from the navigation panels that told him that all engine control had been lost. He strode to one command console, inserted his rank baton, and striding to the command console on the other side of the bridge, inserted his other baton. He smiled distantly and pressed the command key in. He would be happy to see those two blue eyed smiling boys again, and that lovely wife that cancer so cruelly took. He would bask in that glory.

 

 

Above the planet Carida the Pride of Dakshee exploded in a controlled self destruct sequence before it could collide with another population center. Thereby ending the Imperial Peacetime Fleet and peace across the galaxy.

 

____________

 

 

The 189th starfighter wing began to comb the skies over Carida marking and tagging EV pilots, wreckage, and crashed escape pods. They were still a bit twitchy on their controls, many still grieving lost friends, but they did their duty. Far below them, the Head of state, crawled out of an escape pod and awaited rescue. Her right leg was shattered, as was her spirit. She had tried to avoid war, to keep the conflict local, but now here it was. Once again the Sith had taken the lives of Imperial Citizenry. There would be an accounting for that.

[Exodus]

The soft recite of poetry the Jedi cried out with was the last words that echoed the fractured temple. “The lone and level sands stretch far away…” A long and eerie silence followed after the final notes were sung. The drawn out absence of sound became heavier and heavier with each passing moment, and while their ears searched for a noise to break their quiet paranoia, their other senses intensified tenfold. Suspense slithered into the temple room without hesitation and filled the air with a thickness one could choke on. Exodus tempered the kill-radius inside of his head, he knew that all who drew breath were knee-deep inside the boundaries he had set but his purpose was far more than just bloodshed. Exodus remained unnervingly still and the tapestries of black that hung from the husk of his body spawned spider-webs of shadows against the dimly lit backdrop. The small licks of flame and the peckish shadows moved wildly to the formula of his dark power. He had a possession of them far greater than anyone would ever know. Demon, they said. The Demon of Dxun in the flesh.

 

Exodus took a moment and turned his stare towards the apprentice. He watched as she fingered her weapon with unease and he knew her distinct wounds betrayed the authenticity of her half-hearted laughter. She bled profusely while her lesions seeped deeply into her clothes. Her heart pounded loud as it worked harder to heal and function under duress. She was finished, and the other one fared moderately better in comparison but was at a noticeable disadvantage all the same. Exodus bowed his head low, and released the deepest exhale. The Force, as a reaction, channeled his moniker for those that could hear it. The whispers were rushed, deafening, and far too loud. It would be hard to tell the quick rustles of sound apart, but his name was buried in an archaic voice for the wise to unearth and was powerful enough to challenge the ludicrous exorcisms by the Jedi.

 

 

• “I cannot promise that she will remain unharmed,”

 

 

BOOM!!.

A mighty shudder beneath the crust of the planet detonated just as the words were spoken. Even Exodus had to steel himself against the sudden violent nature of it. He quickly found equilibrium using his core and jolted his vision towards the skies, through the open ceilings, and distinguished the chaos that weighed far above their location. What set his attention was the encrypted message that filtered through to him, and now he had no choice but to trace glances of the shipwreck from the battle between Kain and the Imperials. It was coming. A second shockwave, this one from the battle above, but Exodus was braced for this one. The Holocron that sat upon the floor burned brighter, a small steam pouring off of the metal it was made of was now noticeable. The stone that the relic rested on was now charring black, and the chassis itself was now singing darker melodies with a tune that sunk itself deeply into the intoxication of the dark side. It was similar to a loud choir thrum that beckoned the arrival of something sinister.

 
 

• “As for my desire, bringer of Light— Look around you.”

 

Carida was on fire. Cities, villages and homes from everywhere were obliterated without warning. Ships fell from the skies while fear and death unfolded all over the planet. He had barely raised his weapon once and a great many had already died in the wake of his arrival. A clear message for those that chose to provoke the Sith, a message that they could not ignore, but one that their foolish leaders had brought to their doorsteps. Sith and Stormtroopers alike lay so disfigured and fatally wounded that it was hard to tell one's body part from the other. Kala assumed that she had figured it out, but the pieces of the puzzle would never be put together so easily by the Jedi, Exodus held the darkest ones within his grasp and would never part with them. The unaided Holocron was now drowning in steam and the piece of stone it sat on now burnt with an orange-hot hue. Exodus took a few steps backwards with a smile hidden behind his mask. He knew it was time to move. The rumbles were now a constant, and the shakes were difficult to brush off. It would seem that the dark side relic was a beacon, but a beacon for what was the question he of course knew the answer too. The sky was falling and the earth was angered, Königreich des Teufels would be no more shortly, and that was the simplest answer. Exodus lowered his knees, and used the force to propel himself skyward in a backwards somersault. He reached his peak nearly thirty feet high and landed gracefully on the edge of a high beam completely void of the stone it once carried. He teetered on the fence of the inside of the temple, and the outside world that awaited him. He stared down at them with the white of the moon to his back and a cold fixation in his eyes. “..Until we meet again.” the words echoed inside both of their minds as his Lightbreaker emerged from the background.

[AVATAR Kain]

The world began to fall on Kain. Or, more accurately, Kain was being pulled towards the planet's surface...but Kain preferred the former way of seeing things. He was superior to all organic life, and as such deserved to have things refer to him in happening.

 

Of course, he was too close to the planet for his ship to rescue him. Pulling out of hyperspace had been done mid atmosphere before, apparently, but the risk of damage was ridiculously absurd. If his ship could not exfil him after rescuing him from his pending impact, what good would it be?

 

No, instead, the air was littered with escape pods from the ended battle...Kain would use one of them. One was nearly above him now, and if he could just adjust his trajectory...the AI twisted his frame in the upper atmosphere, gliding across to intercept the pod.

 

Inside the pod, the two Imperial crewmen heard a loud clang, followed by the door being forcefully ripped open. His skin 'torn' from excessive wear and tear, Kain entered like something out of a nightmare, metallic skeleton showing through his skin in places.

 

"Sorry, gentlemen, it's not quite your day."

 

The screams were short as Kain used his hidden arm blades to execute them, hefting the corpses out of the pod. As he watched them fall, he mused to himself. "Actually...I'm not really that sorry."

 

Its door gone, the escape pod was now having difficulty slowing its descent, as it was no longer nearly as aerodynamic. Kain fought tumbling crosswinds with the mundane flight controls, and deployed the retrothrusters in time to ensure he wouldn't be destroyed in the landing, but as the planet rushed up at him, it was clear that the impact was going to be far less than ideal.

 

Execute

 

The impact was brutal, damaging his internal components severely, but not mortally so. Diagnostics confirmed one nanite generator was operational, and was cranking out repair nanites at a decent speed. Repair time would still take a few hours, and his battery case was cracked. Shutdown was imminent.

 

Sighing, Kain knew what it likely meant. The Imperials had likely tracked all planetside debris to recover pods and salvageable equipment. There was a 1.2% chance he would be repaired before being recovered. Not good. Nothing he could do, though, as his force overrides took over and powered down his externals.

 

And silently, trapped in a useless body, Kain waited.

 

((Sorry this took so long))

[Raven Nasra]

Escape pods, debris, bodies, all of them was tracked to their landing locations by the high frequency sensors that were scattered across the Imperial Capital world. Emergency response was shattered from the destruction of Landisferen, but the response that did come was from the civilian populace and the local militia garrison. All over the daylight side of the planet personal speeders and shuttles raced to the local crash sites to search for survivors, some imperial and sith pilots and crew were recovered, but many also perished when their escape pods crashed into infernos of already crashed ships dozens of survivors perished from the resulting forest fires. It was two garrison troopers in their grey and brown armour and two citizens in hospital fatigues that found the pod occupied by AVATAR Kain. The shock was enough to cause the civilian female to scream and cover her mouth with her hand. Whatever was in that pod was not biological. And it was definitely the enemy.

 

The Troopers fired a mass of stun rounds into the escape pod in case that the being was still alive, They hauled the droid up and placed him in imperial captivity in the Ubiqtorate base for further study. He was placed on life support and placed into a bacta tank. When he awoke, he would find himself face to face with the Imperial Head of state. Who herself was recovering from her injuries in the security of the deep underground secret facility. His nanites slowly rebuilding his outer carapace.

 

She tapped on the glass of his tank, “Wake up SEED project, I need to have a word with you.” She stood back with crossed arms over her bandaged chest. Her Imperial Guard standing ready in case there was trouble.

[AVATAR Kain]

Kain was dimly aware of his surroundings, and stayed powered down long after his power cells were repaired. Had this happened before he was captured, he of course wouldn't be here, he'd likely be in the countryside somewhere masquerading as an ordinary citizen until he could make his escape. But as luck had it, capture had been inevitable. The fools had even sunk him in bacta, unaware of the potential damage to his circuitry it may have caused. And now this...very young woman banged on his vat, demanding his attention. Very well...they would have his attention.

 

While his internal components were still only 86% operational, no attention was paid to repairing the nanite skin, as it would not serve a purpose. They had already captured him, seen what he was, why bother hiding it? The side of his face where the skin had been torn off began to move, tiny actuators and hydraulic pistons that worked the 'muscles' sprang to life. His 'good eye' opened, gazing at her with calm disdain. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, rolling his eye, he pointed to a nearby data terminal, which already had a text based message waiting for her.

 

[it's rude to not address people by their names. I am Kain. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking, oh rescuer?]

[Kala Ianauria]

The Sith’s abrupt departure stole something dark and vital from the temple, returning the inside of the sanctuary to its ruined status. His leaving felt like the departure of a fatal illness whose defeat became the focus of a patient’s life.

 

Still, his presence left behind a residue, tainting the returning warmth and hope that returned with the surging light side of the Force. She felt and heard the return of her heart beat.

 

After two or three beats, a searing burning pain flooded every cell in her body. She felt every muscle in her body cramp simultaneously, collapsing her back to the ruined floor of the temple. Her attempt to rise got her back to her knees when her stomach visibly rippled and blood flowed violently from her mouth and nose.

 

She collapsed back to the floor, unconscious. As she did, the statue in the vault fell over in a flare of light both physical and in the force. The ruins roiled in response.

[Raven Nasra]

Raven had read in the deep data files stored in the Ubiqtorate records about nanites and the SEED projects that used them back when she had just taken office. She had chosen to do nothing about SEED I as It was a particularly nasty time in Imperial history that had resulted in the SEED projects a time heavily influenced by decades of war led by evil and corrupt men. And now, here on Carida of all places, one of those experiments was sitting in a bacta tank, his skin peeled away and resembling not a little like an old admiral from the old Empire. This if left uncontained would lead to a great many disasters. She had made up her mind, all old SEED projects, and their facilities would be reclaimed by the Remnant and destroyed. No good could come from those weapons.

 

Raven’s purple eyes narrowed as the display panel burst to life with words scrolling across them. She pulled her hand away and looked Kain in the eyes. “Who are you? What is your designation, and why do you serve the Sith?” She looked to one of the guards who was busy recording everything through a hand held holocamera. It was not the only one. And she would need to let the Jedi know about this.

[AVATAR Kain]

Kain again motioned to the data terminal.

 

[Now, now, that's not how this works...Raven, is it? Odd name. Lucky to have a picture next to it in the chain of command listings in this database, or I never would have found out. No, don't worry, there's hardly anything worth noting in this terminal, mostly just a base layout and basic information like that.]

 

In the tube, Kain grinned, half of his face twisting and contorting with mechanical workings.

 

[i'm afraid I owe you no answers, and regret to inform you that you will be unable to gain much from this...unless you are willing to participate in an exchange of information? As equals, of course. Respectfully.]

 

Kain made mental note of the guards in the room and the immediate surroundings, beginning to calculate the best route of escape, if he were to escape. Recompilation might be his best way out of this, but he knew he was underground and finding a transmitter wouldn't be easy.

[Exodus]

The cockpit of the matte-black machine slid open and pushed an unfamiliar and rather pristine scent of metal and fabric into the air. Exodus stepped forward and allowed the shift of his complete weight to drop into the cabin of the vessel. “Greetings, my Lord. There are hostiles ships inbound on our location,” The HUD blinked alive and immediately marked swarms of targets that varied distances as well as patterns of trajectories. The programmed AI spoke what was already known to the man, but Exodus drew his weary eyes over the dotted layouts nonetheless. “Sir. There is a large and unidentified target approaching fast from—”

 

 

“It is the sound of Chaos.” The demon voice eerily crawled from the face mask, the sinister modulation slow and measured.

 

 

The thrusters of the starfighter burned silently and lifted them with slow ascension, but the rumble of the land below was now so extreme that it blanketed most sounds inside of a mile radius. The voice of the ship hesitated, and left a moment of silence, perhaps to compute what it was that the new master of this vessel had meant. Exodus stared at the palm of his hand as it shook with slight tremor, distracting him from the alarms that pinged his hostile surroundings. He could feel the soul of the Commander scream for freedom from inside of him, but his cold-blooded aura drowned the cries with the darkest waters of the dark force. He closed his eyes and let them roll into the back of his head as he felt the immediate wash of an incredible dark power fully awaken.

 

 

• ====

 

The expanse of land around the temple suddenly and brutally erupted with tremors of absolute force. The severity of the earthquake was indomitable and the land began to crumble roughly and split apart at the seams. The rolling roar of physical energy created a shock-wave that blew apart the remains of what still stood inside the temple. The holocron that was left unlocked on the floor of the temple was the only object that remained completely still in the chaos while debris and bodies bounced feverishly up-and-down across the surface. Some of the dead slipped into the large fissures that now opened up, while some of the living had a small window to react. The relic seemed to antagonize the overbearing reaction from below as it burned like a bright red star for all to see and siphoned the lingering dark energies that rotated the atmosphere.

 

 

• • KHYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSKKkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

 

Carida thundered as a gigantic mass pulled it’s orchid flesh from the depths of Hell. The creature unraveled and stretched far into the skies with a grace of about three-hundred feet high, and a circumference that measured nearly fifty in the same unit. The loud hiss that belted from the length of its body was ear-wrenching and was filled with such blinding ancient power. The monstrosity untangled itself with pure aggression and seesawed from all angles to grip its bearing. It’s relatively small nostrils were like pistons that shot fumes of breath in sharp streams, clearing it of the under-earth, and familiarizing itself with new scents. The beast embodied the dark side entirely and this Sith Wyrm was no creature to take lightly. Free at long last from its eternal slumber, Lord Exodus had found a tune far greater than any that the Exorcists could fiddle. This song that belted from the Holocron had whispered into the ears of a giant that slept for decades, and hatched him into a world that now filled with traitorous rats in every which direction. The Wyrm would exemplify the defiance of the Sith hordes, there would be no surrender, just a little girl who stuck her hand inside of the bee's nest.

 

 

• "Little Wyrm, feed on these Betrayers."

 

 

The Lightbreaker increased acceleration and then faded into the black of the skies, disappearing altogether.

[Robert McNamara]

Two Gozanti Cruisers dropped out of hyperspace, and before you could sneeze- four additional craft would appear on sensors. The small bounty the cruisers carried- three V-Wings and a VT-49 Decimator. The four ships dropped and swooped to get around the debris from the ships that had been blown apart. In coordination the three V-Wings took up a wing flight pattern in front of the Decimator- vaporizing small bits of debris for target practice. An alert went out and was silenced.

 

"Pilots, divert attention to target marked at the coordinates uploading to your fighters. Alpha priority." A cool female voice called to pilots, a subtle note of concern in the AI's voice.

 

"Copy that, adjusting trajectory. V-One, moving to intercept. V-Two, V-Three, V-T, acknowledge and follow." The lead pilot called to his squadron. Three green lights blinked twice- they had all followed.

 

"Gozanti One, any details on our target?" He asked back to the cruisers- which were moving down as well to the surface coordinates.

 

"Standby V One..." A different female voice called back.

 

V One watched his chrono count down all the while dodging space debris and taking shots when he could. They had jumped close to the surface, but still high enough to be in orbit- a concession of the hyperdrive it seemed, you couldn't preform a micro-jump into the surface.

 

"By the stars, you see that?!" The VT49 pilot called.

 

V One was about to reprimand him, but let it slide after his own jaw dropped- what the hell was that thing?! They could see it from space as it wiggled and whipped through the sky. Calling to the astromech droid- he had it make the calculations until the thing was within firing range. "Gozanti One, Gozanti Two, what are we looking at here?"

 

"Unknown, but take it out- weapons free- danger close. Seems as if it's a Sith Creature of sorts. Reports are still sketchy at this time."

 

He gritted his teeth, but he considered they did rarely fly into something they didn't know what it was capable of. He was just volunteered to lead his squad into some decent trouble. Switching back over to the squad channel- "Alright, you heard her. Weapons free- Danger close- so we have assets on the ground there. Deci- break off and accelerate- come in at vector One-Eight-Zero. V-Two, break off and approach from vector One-Five-Zero. V-Three, approach from Vector Two-Seven-Zero." The ships broke off and in true fashion- the Decimator did accelerate and shift vectors- they had all switched their flight path.

 

"V-Three, Priority One. V-Two, Priority Two, V-T, Priority Three. V-One, Priority Three. Weapons hot." Acknowledgement lights once again- the command identifying their assigned attack pattern. A bit confusing granted they hadn't been flying that long together, but V-One had confidence about as much as he could muster with the unknown threat- which now looked like a worm coming up on their screens.

 

A quick communication and time calculation and he felt they were ready to take the worm. They didn't have to know what it was in order to kill it. They would be able to coordinate this perfectly.

 

V-Three launched his bombardment- the worm wiggled to chase it with it's giant gapping mouth, but Three leaned heavy on the thrusters- and shot out from the creature- then Two went- a blaze of green light filled the sky as Two barrel-rolled through and out of the way of the creature- completing his path through the circle and out the other side- and increased his altitude. One squeezed the trigger at the back of the creatures apparent head- just enough to get it turning to face him a barrage of missiles from the VT impacted the area- cluster missiles that would cause superficial damage, nothing of substance- just to clear some forest area, from their previous mission to Myrkr- but it would still boil the flesh of whatever this thing was. The VT pulled vertical- and back its original vector in- One banked hard to the left and spun to the side- drawing low over the trees- a bit lower than what he would have liked but it was better than getting caught in the shockwave of the blast. One had only seen two rockets impact the creature- but the thing was massive there was plenty of target to hit.

 

"Gozanti One, Two, Are you in range?"

 

"Affirmative V-One, but the creature is too close to our assets- draw it to the Southern Pole- that will allow us to open up."

 

Gritting his teeth- "Swoop Attack- Harassing Firing Pattern. Southern Vector. V-T, engage at will, but be considerate of us." A set of lights winked in agreement. The four small fighters would try to pull the creatures attention to the south.

[Kyrie Eleison]

The song of shadows broke its symphony as dust rained down from the shattering permacrete. Into the song a deep malice began to unwind, bestial in its fury and as unabashed in its strength as the former demon had been in its stealth. The Exorcist wound the silvered tendrils of her fire about her and her padawan, drawing herself into the Force, and away from the senses of the Sith creation. It’s song echoed about her with the reverberation of a thousand groundquakes. Into the mind of her apprentice she passed the warmth of a touch, to raise and quiet her amongst the drumbeats of evil.

 

...Pass from here, return to the Empress… I shall follow you once this Child of Abeloth lies in ash….

 

The young Exorcist ignited her blade, allowing the flow of silvered light to drive back the darkness. The bestial fury was replaced by a dark sentience, with the grasping tendrils of the Dark Side like the weaving heads of the Scylla. Great eyes rose from the clouds of dust, made from liquid flame of swirling reds crowned in soot. Kyrie spoke forth a challenge into the storm of sparks and ash

 

You have engorged yourself upon the roots of this world, where upon blood you feasted from the time of Nadd…

 

The voice that returned to her was a twist on her own, a visage of corrupted Sithspawn. She had sallow, blood orange skin in her reflection, with eyes marked of sulphuric yellow. The words that poured from the lips were intertwined with cinders, as if she was burning from the core

 

I shattered the bonds of the Force… My venom turns blood to smoke… Who are you to face me, a child of the Old Gods?

 

Her reflection was replaced with a twisting reptilian tongue, dripping with fire. Kyrie angled back and away from her padawan, drawing the massive beast to follow

 

I am an Exorcist

 

A breath cast about her, as hot as a furnace, reeking of the souls cast into its creation

 

No… You have a name never spoken…

 

The heat was replaced by the crackling of ozone, and Kyrie leapt into the light, lighting crashing about her in a wave.

 

You appear to me in a field lacking colour, as a fox to stain it crimson…

 

The next wave of lightning she parried with the blade of her lightsaber, drawing the excess power from its powercell into the veil of the Force, letting it feed her own flame as she wove it about her in the dance of death. Into the minds of the pilots she passed a message as she pirouetted across the crumbling cobblestone

 

...Imperial Pilots, strike to its flanks, draw it with me from the husk of the temple where we can lay it bare. Drive it before you and I shall guide it back into Hades...

[Robert McNamara]

Suddenly it was as if they had all been on pause- V-3 saw the other ships, even the VT49, yaw a bit. Then there was a voice and he knew what had to happen. They all did.

 

~~~

 

V-1 was in the lead- he and his squadron had just discussed what just happened- but to no details. There was something down there- a Jedi- that had touched their minds. They each broke off the pattern and folded back- but not in sync. Staggered, they unleashed another volley- but One shot straight past the beast- while the others provided harassing fire. Steadily drawing its attention away from where it had emerged. One knew she didn't call to them over the comm, but there would be some way to see the woman that spoke to them, even if from the air. It was slow, but progress was being made.

 

Shifting his gaze- he realized there was a small luminescence on the move towards the creature. That was light from a lightsaber- his astromech scanned the area and managed to put her into a way point that the pilots could track on their displays.

 

Nodding to himself, he pulled the ship over and up- heading up to his left- an arc over the Jedi below. Leveling out- he line up a shot that would follow the beast up its front portion. His discipline kept a smile from his face as he pressed down on the triggers- green laser fire shot into the giant serpents flesh. Increasing the thusters a bit with the help of the droid- he shot forward his body falling into the seat and shot under the arch of the beast. On his radar he saw the VT unleash another few rockets towards the creature- out of the area the Jedi was occupying.

 

"Gozanti One, V-One, how copy?"

 

"This is Gozanti, good copy, go ahead, V-Leader."

 

"ETA on firing range? Friendly in area- they have a plan. Are you equipped with a harpoon, netting, or a tractor beam?" He would have liked to see the expression on the communication officers face, even V-One would pay money to see two cruisers drown a worm- or fling it into vacuum.

 

"Firing solution is in progress, negative on the other items. Your best bet would be a cliff that leads down to the water about 3 clicks south by southeast of your position. We'll have the One-One-Five in orbit soon, firing solution on the cliff will be completed soon."

 

Two Gozanti and the c90? Hm, they were about to put this worm on a skewer- he thought as he circled around- letting two shots go wide but striking 3 more times where the cluster bombs had just exploded. This thing was going to be a bloody mess.

[Raven Nasra]

Raven let a wry grin stretch across her flash burned face, stepping back from the bacta tank she folded her bandaged arms across her thin chest and nodded. “I will then speak on equal terms Kain, and I am more than happy to exchange information with you sir, maybe even give you and whatever men you have left safe passage off Carida, to the closest Sith allied world. What do you think about that Kain? Will you cooperate, and tell us your master’s plans?”

 

She doubted Kain would talk, and why would he. She couldn’t torture a computer program. Nor would she want to if he was a human being. But she would need to go deep into the SEED records, track down their bases, and pull records and clean house. If he still existed, there were no doubt a thousand creations out there waiting for the Sith to use them. And if this one could copy Jansen’s body easily, he had to be an infiltration model. And that was scary. She steadied herself as the room shook, she chalked it off to another piece of starship impacting the surface far overhead, but her datapad hinted at something much darker. This wasn't the last this once peaceful wold would see of the Sith menace.

[AVATAR Kain]

As the room shook, Kain's eyes almost flashed. Something had...changed. Far above, emergency systems had been switched on, emergency systems that extended to even informational panels, giving them access to emergency communications functions in the event of a seismic cave in or power outage that led to isolation. Ironic that a function to call for help could help aid his escape.

 

But what it really gave him was networked access, via the emergency comms function that he otherwise would have been unable to remotely activate. Lights in the room began to flicker and dim as one by one, the readout monitors flashed to a black screen, a red outline of a faceless avatar displayed. Slowly, purposefully, it spoke through myriad speakers in the room.

"Our...plans? Is...is that all? Why didn't you say so in the first place? We have but a singular goal: to make the galaxy stronger. By empowering the worthy, and culling the weak. It has grown fat and lazy, accustomed to peace...vulnerable to threats on the horizon. We...will rectify that, because nobody else seems to want to."

 

Hacking the holocams in the room was a simple task, most holocams had a wireless port for uploading to cloud storage on holonet services anyways, and he managed to quickly edit the data so that it didn't show his face, but merely an animated cartoon logo of a smiling man:

 

 

After that, transfer protocols through the base's comms relay were negotiated and accomplished in a handful of microseconds, and his shell and iteration of programming became more or less expendable. Inside his droid body, Kain's power cells began to rapidly warm due to a power feedback loop. Given the show Kain was putting on, the guards in the room seemed a little tense, and rightfully so.

"But you would know nothing of that. Your mind cannot comprehend our gift to the galaxy. I'm betting you have the potential to see, but only the Dark Lord can clear the doubts from your mind now. You are prejudiced against what we ideologically represent, you abhor our methods, and yet it is clean, efficient, and simple. Sad, really...when once the Empire held such promise. They sought strength freely, ready to combat the unknown should it strike first. Well...they will rise to greatness again...or will be culled."

 

Kain's power packs blew, the explosion mostly forced upwards through the open top of the tube, but the force was more than enough to shatter the tube they had him in. His mainframe would be obliterated beyond recovery of anything useful, and most major components of his body were of a similar fate. Such was the perfection in the design of the SEED droids, even in death they were designed to leave little for the enemy to work with.

 

The explosion would have sent transparisteel shards flying, but not with lethal force unless the shards were sharp enough, and it would have sent bacta everywhere. Kain...was dead.

 

For now.

[Raven Nasra]

Raven was sent flying into one of the 2-1b droids as the explosion occurred. She cursed vividly and stood, wiping a bit of blood from a shattered transparisteel shard that had gashed her face and looked to her guards who were picking themselves up all around the room. She ordered that the holo cam footage be preserved and then stalked her way to the Ubiqtorate command center. “I want to make sure that this never kriffing happens again, dispatch all Ubiqtorate agents that are available to all old and retired facilities of SEED and the Empire. We are shutting down this shit before it happens again.”

 

Within the hour 12 fully crewed LightStealth-18 Reconnaissance Ships were removed from drydock outfitted for long term recon, one was equipped for underwater activity, and the rest for atmospheric/space flight and sent to all corners of the galaxy where there were rumoured to be old bases, imperial activity, or SEED projects.

 

Raven herself took a hypertrain to the Caridian Capital to begin offensive operations planning.

[Kyrie Eleison]

A wave of thermal energy washed over the exorcist, singing heat to melt flesh from bone. A gout of flame followed, winding itself into the silver-formed flesh of the girl as the rhythm of the song spoke of the starfighter’s attacks. She felt herself entranced in a beat not of her own making, a counterpoint to the beast before her. Its dark words passed into her mind, beginning to burrow through her memories. At once she was awash upon the tides of the traumas of her past, the wraiths of her past screaming and taunting. The first was her little sister, chestnut hair stained ruby-red with blood

 

“You could have fought them, saved me from them.”

 

Angry tears burned in Kyrie’s eyes, stinging with ash and soot. Her own voice seemed faint as if carried across a vast distance. Her words smoldered in her throat, choked by smoke

 

“I did EVERYTHING to fight them. Please Hay-”

 

The girl’s form began to change, her alabaster skin turning ashen, freckles fading into darkened veins that spread like a spiderweb across her corrupted face. Her hazel eyes shone like liquid sulphur, and her fading lips turned to a cruel smile

 

“You could have DIED FOR ME! Now madness has taken me. All because of you.”

 

The smile curled to rage and untempered wrath

 

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT ME!”

 

Kyrie’s own voice was overtaken by a strangling cry of grief, and she channeled all of herself, her song, and the growing fear that turned her blood to ice, into the crucible within her.

 

“Me… Your little sister. ME!”

 

The visage of her sister cracked like glass and shattered into shrieking silver flame.

...Our torments in time become our strengths…

 

A great flash of white blossomed from the heart of the Sith Temple illuminating the twilight like the starlight from a supernova. Its light was blinding, dwarfing the fires of the temple and the lancing blasterbolts from the fighters. The Wyrm reeled back from its touch, as if daybreak had come to cast away a child’s nightmares. In the heart of the light walked the Exorcist, lightsaber held like a torch.

 

“Your horror will grow gentle, your darkness into light… You have my judgement…”

 

The light twisted as the Wyrm made its strike for her heart, fangs dripping with shadows, into a speartip. The Wyrm lurched back, its flesh beginning to burn and crumble into ash. A venomous shriek shook the skies, and under the combined attack of the Exorcist’s fiery touch, and the airborn attacks of the Imperial Navy, it fell to the shattered permacrete, disintegrating into cinders that were carried into the western wind like a field of stars.

[Robert McNamara]

"By the Force, I can't believe we just did that!" V-Two called out, as the wyrm crumbled to the ground- and crumbled into ash. It just dissolved, flabbergasting the pilots who had slowed to watched their quarry burn. They were seeking satisfaction, as they had been out of the main fight.

 

"Gozantti One, cancel approach. Threat neutralized. Situation, by all accounts is secure. Someone should go pick up that Knight down there, do we have any shuttles in the area? Or are we still in Search and Rescue mode?" The wing leader called, half requesting orders- half giving them. The four ships collected themselves and fell into patrol pattern.

 

"Copy that V-One, continue to patrol the area. Call out anything of note and we will respond accordingly- we are still in SR mode, and will continue to do so. Friendlies and hostiles." Gozantti One responded back.

 

Relaying the orders via their private comm- V-One eased back in his seat a bit. The adrenaline was purging from his system and it was a sobering ordeal. Something else seemed to sap away their strength as well. Soon, they would all feel what passed for normal.