Kuat

[Raphanel]

Though the Kuati nobles that owned this section of shipyard put up a good deal of protest at the manner they were treated by the Imperial, they did as instructed, and began to transition construction from the especially lucrative transport and tour business to what the shipyards were built for so many years ago. The private investors from families across the Remnant and Galactic Alliance were horrified to see their profit disclosures dip down from what was initially taken as a complete governmental nationalization of the shipyards but was clarified by internal press release that the KDY shipyards were still independent and had simply shifted 50 percent of their active shipbuilding capacity to war vessels. This was matched by capital investiture by the Imperial Government so that KDY could expand capacity to match their previous revenue stream within 3 standard years.

 

As the classified Star Destroyer Ring was still months from operability, three ships were first commissioned as an initial test of the normal shipbuilding facilities. These, the Kuati shipyard owners would please Beck, until such a time as the first iconic dagger like star destroyers could be launched. In the meantime a ISB agent from the capital reminded the erstwhile Imperial Commander that he was “Not supposed to be such a dick at all times in his soon to be short career.”

 

Outside the large windows of the observation facilities, large masses of employees began to set out the superstructure for the first of the ships, large arc welders began to cycle and place large hunks of hardened phrik and durasteel panels in place in the skeletal superstructure.

[Raphanel]

(3 post modded duel between Imperial Master/Exorcist Cassandra and Apprentice Mordecai + 2 NPCs)

 

And so the darkness stares back

 

Cassandra, Imperial Exorcist, Master in the Knights, and once Jedi Knight stared with sightless eyes into the expanse of heaven’s field. To the Alliance Marines gathered in the transport, jostling and holding their blaster rifles like mothers cradled babies, she was just another sightless Miraluka in grey plastoid. Some looked at her in awe, most looked on with fear. Some with a burning disgust. That had used to bother her. Every stare had. But it had been many years since such a stare brought a flush to her pale cheeks, and Cassandra cared even less now. There was little time for anger, for lust, for fear. There was only the resolve that came from another mission. Another mission after a long string of missions, another miserable failure or blissful success. Some of the stares felt that way, a negligent uncaring that brought a smile to her lips. That was the stare of a truly veteran soldier, one who had seen as much action as she, and she felt a ting of hope in her own mind for this mission's success. 

 

The Jedi could live and die for hope. The knights lived and died by their ideals. And so Cassandra let her hope slip away to be replaced by the resolve that had hardened the hearts of so many of the Rebels that came from the Imperial Remnant. No matter the cost, they would make the Sith pay dearly for their lives. 

 

She sighed, her hand checking her weapons for the thousandth time and felt the tension in the boarding shuttle begin to spike. 

 

So they were there

 

The shuttle bucked under her feet and she followed the marines down the boarding ramp. Letting her mind settle, she took a breath and expanded her presence in the force. A million presences stretched out before her like blades of grass, and among that grass a single presence called to her. A familiar and dark shadow. She smiled widely. The Sith were here in force, and this one was familiar. Borlieas perhaps? Yes. He had been the one left craven and maimed by Ismael. Another life thrown away for the Sith, but this one was still kicking. And he had faced an Exorcist before. 

 

And when he appeared in the hanger she called in a voice of command to the marines that surrounded her. “Leave the Sithari to me.” 

 

That would spare the marines at least an earlier death than they likely wanted. And she could feel the deaths of the Kuati partisans close now. So she gathered the force to her, letting it flow through her with a well practised ease. She angled towards him, her first lightsabre coming to a fierce glow in her right hand. She normally fought with two, but for now she kept the shoto in reserve on her belt and reached out to the force to her surroundings. They were still dozens of meters away so she would do what she could from range. 

 

His aura of hate was so clear, so concise, so sad. So were the presences beside him. So with a flick of her hand she pulled at the ruins of the shuttle that had spilled its life upon the burning hanger and found its weakness. One of the long Lambada styled wings flew from the hanger floor and threw it upon the trio in an attempt to batter them down like one would a housefly. She held up the sabre in a salute. Her mouth moving in words that carried no sound. Her fingers of her unharmed hand dipping into the pouch at her belt, a fine trickle of powder falling beside her to coat the decking as her hand withdrew.  It was the exorcist's weapon, a salty chalk like substance that enhanced the powers of exorcism.

 

Quoniam novit Dominus...

 

((1))

[Raphanel]

And so the first and easiest attack failed. They always did, for the way to victory was rarely an easy path. The anger that filled the trio stained their auras a deep and sickening crimson, their actions spilling out before them like pools of frothing blood. Their anger betrayed them and the force saw through them, and Cassandra, a master of the order of Exorcists let them come, her hand dipping again into her pouch of chalk. 

 

First came the apprentice, the one who Ismael should have slain, barking orders like he was a lord to his peers. He was the easiest to read, and his unbridled rage beat at the force, subduing it with little finesse, its excess spilling out in a vaporous cloud of heated anger. Anger that came from what? What could the young man have experienced that made him so angry? A little slight at not being promoted, a mother favouring a daughter over him? Perhaps it was just anger at the galaxy as a whole, in which case there was little that Cassandra could do to redeem him. Ismael should have not shown mercy, and Cassandra would show none at all. Redemption was something this sith needed to want, and could not be demanded on the end of a lightsabre. This was a war of no quarter, and so the bloody flag flew high. 

 

Two blows came for her from the apprentice and Cassandra let them waste their anger on a slight deflection. Angling the powerful blows away from her by angling her own silver sabre and redirecting the energetic blows off to either side of her. Her footsteps were smooth as she began to spin away from the blows of the second Sith, letting the blow from the sith lord score her armour, cutting a trench through the duraplast instead of her back. It still hurt of course, and here and there she was scorched by the blade along its path, but it was not dangerous. 

 

It was then that she counter attacked, tossing a handful of the salty chalk into the face of the apprentice and the lord, its white powder filling the small space where she had been as she completed her spin. The lightning bolt wasting its energy on her raised sabre. She planted her back foot and dove towards the two Sith (Mordecai and Fahren) Summoning the force to speed her sabre strokes as she pulled at their ankles with the force. An easy move to accomplish, and if it succeeded would result in one or both falling before her blade. Three fast blows for each before she bounded back, letting another handful of the chalk fall to where she had landed. She took another breath, watching the trio through the force, they no longer surrounded her but they were still very dangerous. She took a step towards them.

 

So she drew on the force again, letting the pain from her burns bleed away into the echo of the force. Her mouth moving in words long practised. 

 

 Viam iustorum et...

 

((2))

 

[Raphanel]

Anger still echoed its bloody pattern through the hanger, and Cassandra followed every step of the Sith, their cruelty and corruption would be their undoing. Her pressed attack had left two of them stumbling, but it had not been the finishing blow that she had desired, and if the rebel alliance were to succeed today, then it was very necessary to take the star destroyer and end these Sith. Cassandra breathed out as she surveyed the Sith before her, the apprentice was coming for another rearward attack, one was pressing a forward charge and the last was gathering another force attack. She mentally sorted the threats and stepped forward, bringing the silver sabre up in a high guard as Lord Fahren made his attack,  she knew a lightsabre was enough to delay him until the apprentice came close. The force was building on both sides, Anger and wroth against the still calm of justice. 

 

The force filled her every move, as she deflected and avoided the first few slashes of the Sith Lord, allowing herself to be driven towards the stalking apprentice who was making no move to hide his intentions. She batted aside the last thrust from the Sith lord, his sabre scoring along her armour, and bubbling at the flash of her abdomen in a glancing blow. But she would not die from such a wound as that, and pain was the lifelong companion of an exorcist. She smiled grimly and felt the crawl of danger come up her spine as the apprentice charged and she let the force begin to move its will.

 

It was time.

 

With the speed only given to users of the force, she simply sidestepped the brutal charge, letting his momentum carry him past her. She knew he would not be foolish enough to run headlong into his own compatriot so she continued her step to carry her towards his exposed flank. Letting his blows flurry away at the air as she reached her hand out and simply touched him as he passed. The force making the move as quick as a blaster shot. The fingers of her hand brushing towards the nape of his neck, where she could feel the seat of his anger. It was the hand that she had dipped twice into the bag at her waist and it was thoroughly covered in the fine powder. That same fine powder that had dispersed onto the deck, onto the Sith in their abortive charge, and that same powder that would now ease their end. 

 

Iter impiorum peribit!

 

The words carried with them a command. A desire, a love. A justice. Justice for the rape and murder of Carida, of Kuat, of Coruscant, countless lives that had forever been effected by the Sith and their Dark Lords.Lords that only deserved the Justice of a burning hell. The force called for it, and provided the path of judgement. A channel that would open to steep the Sith in Justice’s fire. And Cassandra was honoured to be that channel. From her hand, from her entire being erupted the hellfire of eternal justice. 

 

The fire of Exorcism, the deep blue fire that would melt flesh like beeswax, and bore through bone like phosphorus. Consuming anger, rage, and hate before it like chaff in the wind. Leaving behind the pure and divine untouched. That fire sought the anger of Mordecai and Fahren, to burn it from the galaxy in deadly finality. 

 

And behind that holy fire was the raised the silver sabre of the Master Exorcist for whatever cruelty the last Sith could throw. For in this hour at least, Justice had come to Kuat.

 

((3))

[Raphanel]

The lightning hit her hard. She could see its wispy form reeling through the force towards her a moment before it hit and knew that she had kept the lightsabre too high. The arcing embodiment of the darkside struck under her raised arm and a searing pain shot through her body. There was little she could do of course, other than wait for the convulsions play themselves out and begin to meditate again on the force, willing her muscles to slow. But she was very lucky, and she knew it. The lightning could have arced through her heart, but had only gone down one side of her body, and though she couldn’t see the effect other than through the force, she knew her foot, which had been firmly planted on the durasteel decking, had passed the lightning through it and into the ship itself. The sole of her boot had boiled away and the acrid smell of burned and vulcanized rubber bit at her nostrils. 

 

As she struggled to her knees, her arm still thrashing about from the electric blast through her nervous system, her senses slowly came back to her. Firstly came her sense of smell, already filled with the smells of the charred boots, now mixing with the smell of seared flesh which could have been hers or the Sith Lords who had been hit by the holy exorcism. She gulped a breath of air to steady herself. And the throbbing humm in her ears was replaced by the shouts and blasterfire of a close engagement. Then at last came her balance, and she shook her head, but before she could get fully up, two strong hands grasped her and a harsh voice whispered in her ear. 

 

“The chronometer is beeping commander. We have run out of time. Now lets help you back to the shuttle.” The strong hands pulled her firmly back from where she could sense the Sith Apprentice recovering. She grinned and nodded. 

 

“Then let us be gone, commander, this is a loss. We have been repulsed and there is little doubt that they knew we were coming.”

She lifted her sabre in a solemn salute to the Sith, and shrugging off her helpers, walked to the shuttle which whisked her back to the Misericordia.