Space

[Emerald]

"Shassa," Emerald yelled, slamming a fist down onto the arm of her seat. "Why in the slimy ryll dens would they do that?" Fuming, she stood abruptly and began pacing the cramped space at the rear of the cockpit, barely concealing her desire to kick something. The only way on or off the ship was easily the most anonymous way to board, so their identities would be even easier to conceal. But the fact that their quick-escape avenue was cut off disconcerted the lithe pirate. Having her exit strategy compromised always sent Emerald into a bit of a panic. Unless...

 

Striding forward, she rested a hand on the back of the pilot's chair. Her mind whirled with hope that this could work.

 

"Are there escape pods in the hotel decks? We could leave the Glory in high orbit, take the beckon call, and then blast off that floating Pleasure Island in a hurry if we needed to."

 

Shooting a bemused sidelong glance at Ruby, she added, "And I think your disguise is no longer relevant. I think it would be to our benefit to switch roles, if Sapph can make the necessary changes to our IDs."

 

The staunch Chiss bodyguard and the underestimated lightweight floozy, incapable of watching her own back, out to spend her daddy's credits. Well, if nothing else, at least she'd have an excuse to wear her new dress.

 

And in classic fashion, Ruby would probably take the opportunity to wear enough explosives to take down a small planet.

[Fynn Relmis]

Kern cursed. He cursed louder than he had in his entire miserable existence. Merkava was gone, or he had the incorrect coordinates. There was little to no evidence of the planet, and he sat fuming in empty space. Again, the secrets of Merkava were lost to him, and he wished in that moment that the entire galaxy had just one giant neck so that he might crush it to gain relief.

 

The pain struck him, the injury above his left eye sparked again, and he felt an inexorable pang of the nerves clustered there. It tormented him, this pain, sought him out in his very soul. Burning him with a firey discontent. He had glimpsed true power with Furion, seen it reflected in his progeny Lallu, but still it was beyond him. His blood boiled at the thought of his wasted life, at all the time he had spent honing his worthless jedi skills. What were they now? Mere parlor tricks compared to the power of Lord Furion.

They would pay… they would all pay. All those who lied to him, led him to the weak path of a jedi, pushed him into obedient compliance with worthless platitudes. They had called him ‘friend’ but he saw the truth of it now. He could see their faces as clearly as he could the digital display in front of him…

 

Mistress Skye, Darex, Andon, Kirlocca, Armenia,… Darla. All would be made to suffer, their families torn asunder, their peace burnt to ashes. They would be crushed and made to lament their damnable conditions. Then in the final moments of their anguish he would give them the choice, to serve his Master in glorious union with the darkside, or perish for their stupidity.

 

As he imagined how each would meet there fate, he noticed a transmission from his new master. They were orders to oversee a project deep in wild space. Obediently Kern turned the ‘Vanguard’ in a new direction and entered in the new coordinates, he would do the will of his master, and one day, one day soon, he would have his vengeance.

 

(exit to Kesh-->)

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

It was cold in space. It was always cold, and always reminded Tirzah of the cold reception they had always met on the populated worlds she and Mommy had gone to settle on. Hapes, Nar Shaddaa, Corellia, Taanab. Every one was full of people, going about their too-important business, turning a blind eye to a displaced blind girl and her mother. Endor was the only change: perfectly alone by the lake except for the Yubblegrub Clan. And Dika. She missed him already.

 

Wrapping her arms around the plush likeness of her furry friend, she stared out into the oblivion of hyperspace, sightless eyes unfocused. Mommy hadn't given her the name of the planet where they were going, and Tirzah wondered if she even knew where the Jedi were. From the stories she had heard whispered among the other children at the orphanage, the Jedi were supposed to be impossible to find if you didn't know where they were. A Jedi in hiding didn't exist in the world as normal people could see it.

 

Mommy had slipped away, out of the cockpit, with stern orders of "hands-off". The seven-year-old knew the dangers of a quick reversion from hyperspace, or an unplotted course deviation. But maybe Mommy was just getting away from the navicomputer because she didn't, in fact, know their destination. So Tirzah would have a look. The logic was perfectly sound. Climbing up into the too-big navigator's chair, she pulled herself up to the computer.

 

But owing to her blindness, she'd never before been allowed to use a computer. The Sight that she had could only tell where the computer was, not what it showed. But that wasn't going to stop her!

 

Experimentally, she tapped at a few buttons, holding her breath in the intense concentration of a child desperate not to be caught disobeying. A querying beep sounded from the machine, and she pressed another button indiscriminately. A musical tone followed, so sweet to the ears of the undersized child that she pressed it again. The same tone followed. An impish grin crossed her features, and she began to whack at the buttons rhythmically, singing along loudly in her tinny little voice.

 

"TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE SUN, HELP ME FLY THE KESSEL RUN! IF YOU SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON ME, THE WINNER I AM SURE TO BE, TWINKLE TWINKLE--"

 

The single beep suddenly became a cascade of musical notes, and the ship shuddered, throwing Tirzah from the chair she had neglected to buckle herself in to. The aspiring musician felt the drives reengage, and in a moment of childlike horror, she knew. The ship had changed its course. Without a second thought to the avoidance of punishment, she jumped to her feet abd sprinted down the hallway, bawling "MOOOOOMMMMYYYYYYY!" at the top of her lungs.

[Ashley Jade Skywalker]

Ash felt the deck shudder beneath her feet a split second beforre Tirzah came bowling down the corridor, screaming. She sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead, turning to intercept her daughter's pell-mell dash down the hall and trying to make sense of the words tumbling too quickly from the child's mouth. "Tirzah. TIRZAH! What did you do?"

 

Somewhere amidst the jumble of words, Ash caught "Twinkle, Twinkle" and groaned. Tirzah's love for the children's rhyme had resulted in one too many repetitions- in both Basic AND Ewokese, as she'd felt the need to share it with Dika- and Ash's mind quickly made the connection between the simple notes to the song and the chiming tones of the navicomputer. Muttering to herself, she swept a sniffling Tirzah into her arms and flew back down the corridor to the cockpit. Depositing her daughter into a seat well away from any computers or buttons, Ash turned her attention to the navicomputer, hoping her daughter hadn't caused any irreparable damage.

 

...And blew out a breath, emotions conflicting within her as she read the words flashing at the top of the screen. "My ship has an emergency beacon linked to the Jedi. That somehow gets triggered by a children's song. When does this stop getting weirder?" she muttered under her breath, watching as the computer quickly updated their destination and displayed the new coordinates. "Lehon. Ooookay." Running a hand through her hair, Ash bit her lip as she thought through how to react to Tirzah's actions.

 

"Little one... we need to have a talk about listening to what Mommy tells you to do." Kneeling in front of the chair her daughter sat in, she took one of Tirzah's hands in hers and tapped her daughter on the chin. "ESPECIALLY when it comes to playing games on very important computers." Torn between the need to punish her daughter for disobeying or praise her for finding a solution to their relocation dilemma, Ash sighed and shook her head at the stuffed-Ewok-clutching child sitting in front of her and decided that Tirzah's blind panic had been punishment enough. She settled for tousling Tirzah's hair. "I love you, sweetie, just please listen next time I tell you not to do something, ok?"

[Jaina Jade Skywalker]

An occasional sniffle escaped from Tirzah intermittently. "Okay, mommy," she said quietly.

 

They hadn't crashed into a star, or a ship, or a planet. Mommy hadn't seemed to change anything that Tirzah had done, and the little girl had the distinct feeling of satisfaction. Today might not be such a bad day after all.

 

"I'm a good pilot, huh?" she grinned, clutching Dika-plush tightly. "I'm going to be like you, mommy."

 

She jumped up, zooming about the cockpit with her arms outstretched before her, envisioning a dogfight in her mind. The hovering, hazy presences of the big metal snubfighters, the loud blast and pinging of the blaster cannons, the deep boom of explosions. Sputtering sound effects with her mouth, she acted each part of the battle in her mind and finally collapsed in a fit of giggles, yawning, "Good work, Rogues, back to base!"

 

She was only dimly aware of being picked up and carted back to her bunk, and as she drifted away, she curled her hand around mommy's. "We'll find the answers where we're going, won't we?"

[Ashley Jade Skywalker]

Still smiling at her daughter's antics, Ash laid Tirzah in her bed, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead as she pulled the blanket up over her. "I hope so, sweetie... I hope so." Tirzah sighed softly as she dropped off into slumber, and Ash just stood there for a moment, staring down at her daughter, before turning and heading back toward the cockpit.

 

Stretched out in her chair, feet propped up on the copilot's seat, Ash stared out at the blue vortex that was hyperspace and let her mind wander.

 

What am I doing?

 

With nothing to distract her or keep her busy, the doubt that she'd been trying to keep at bay came rushing back all at once. What kind of mother uprooted her child from a stable environment just to drag her halfway across the galaxy on some half-baked chase based on nothing more than a dream?

 

Ash buried her face in her hands for a moment before running them back through her hair. She stared at the navicomputer, her hand hovering over it as she considered the idea of throwing all of this away, turning around and going back to Endor to live in peace.

 

No.

 

She pulled her hand away and turned away from the computer, pushing the thought from her mind. She was doing this for both of them. No, this was the right thing to do.

 

A beep from the navicomputer pulled her from her reverie, and she turned back just in time to see blue swirl of hyperspace changed to lines, and then stars, and then a planet sat below, floating in the quiet of space.

 

"Well... too late to change my mind now." Reaching toward the computer, Ash punched in a course to take them down to the surface below.

[Serpe]

An E-Wing class starfighter raged through hyperspace en route to Lehon.

 

Moon cannot wait to see her Jedi counterparts again.

[Delta73]

The Asteroid cluster nestled deep within the Corporate Sector was a favourite for pirates. This particular belt comprised most of the old Cadomai Prime system. Whos planet was rendered uninhabitable by various natural disasters over the last several decades. It did however contain one of the most profitable mining operations in the Hydian Way. The recent expeditions by the Galacti-Mining Corporation had found a large strain of Kammris, located in the ruined belts. A key element in the construction of large starship components, the Galacti-Mining Corporation was quick to capitalize on the mining field, bringing a boom to the economy of refinery worlds in the Hydian way.

 

This was unfortunate. The Galacti-Mining Corporation was famous for being incorruptable, only selling to civilized shipyards of the Galactic Alliance. GMC was quite satisfied fulfilling government contracts. And that. That would not do.

 

Black Sun was here to ruin the party.

 

Five XJ-series Xwing starfighters detached themselves from one of the far asteroids where they had been waiting for several hours until the shift rotation on the Golan II defense platforms. They had exactly half a galactic standard hour until the Golans returned to full operational capacity. The Xwings distinctive S-foils unfolded as they made their way towards the first of the great mining vessels. The XJ's were painted a brilliant crimson.

 

“This is Scorpion One, free fire is on." Laughter echoed through the channel. "Shields double front. Let's scare these bastards from their 'moral' high ground. The first one to kill an GMC Executive gets a million credit bonus and a place among my bannermen.” Delta grinned as he flicked his control switch to proton torpedoes.

 

The battle had begun.

[Delta73]

A warning siren sounded as a stream of green energy streamed across Delta's rear shields. With a jerk that sent the control stick slamming into his thigh, the rear stabilizer disintegrated as the shields failed. One lucky turbolaser strike and he was spinning into an uncontrolled dive. The R5 unit bolted behind the cockpit screamed loudly and then filled Delta's ears with static as the second blow from the turbolaser tore the pot shaped head from the top of the R5.

 

This was bad.

 

Very bad.

 

Delta triggered his engine overdrive and shunted power from the failed shields to engine power. He pulled the control stick to the port side and stabilized the spin. So instead he was screaming toward the Golan II hanger deck.

 

Great.

 

Kriffing wonderful

 

He cut the speed, thankful that they had not seen fit to close the heavy blast doors. Before he made his epic landing however. He triggered the comm package, signaling that the boarding troops were to enter system immediately.

 

He lowered the landing struts and made a landing that was not exactly holo-worthy. Though he did manage to disrupt a group of technicians that he left in a red smear upon the durasteel bulkhead. Delta jumped from his opening cockpit and came out shooting.

 

At nothing.

 

Save the fleeing technicians whom ungratefully accepted a stream of red bolts through their colourful flight suits. Delta laughed and reloaded. He glanced around the landing bay.

 

“Any chance I could accidentally launch two proton torpedos into the main reactor from here and make an annoying reference to podracing?” He looked around and frowned. “I guess not.” He angrily kicked a still full helmet across the flight deck and headed farther in.

[Rookwood]

Space was truly beautiful, but the refueling station Rookwood had stopped at was certainly not. How homeless degenerates had ended up on a space station he would never understand. As he stretched in his black robes beside his starship, he could just barely hear a whole gaggle of them trying to panhandle a newly arrived passenger-liner. Bending his lithe body into the Halasana pose of Ithorian yoga he lanced past his craft’s landing struts at the new-comers.

 

From the looks of them, there were perhaps a hundred young females of various races all in light green skirts and vests, adorned with a variety of badges and medals. About them lounged an assortment of dirt-caked and disgusting individuals. The homeless, all holding signs and begging for change. It disgusted him. Standing, Rookwood pushed his way through the throng of girls and towards the group of homeless. Raising his voice, he called to them in one

 

“Come you unfortunate bunch, I’m going to treat you all to a buffet. I’m sure they have one on this kriffing station.”

 

With a wave of his hand he commanded them to follow, and like the pied piper leading the children to be enslaved by Italians, he led the group of 50 homeless through the halls, holding his breath as to not be overwhelmed by their stench. Spotting a cargo-freight airlock, he approached it, and with an application of The Force to their drug-addled, and war veteran brains, he changed the sign to say to them not “CAUTION: AIRLOCK” to "CITY-WOK BUFFET"

 

It was too easy. The ensembled mass of dirty bums rushed into the airlock, and Rookwood stood, tapping his foot, waiting for them all to enter. He sighed and glanced at his chronometer as he waited for a disabled Rodian to try to drag his legless body towards the door. He had not the patience. Slapping start cycle, he felt the spike in fear and despair as 49 of the bums were ejected out into the cold void of space. Glancing to the rodian, he decapitated the useless being with one slash of his lightsaber.

 

It was good to have fun on vacation.

[Delta73]

Blood sprayed like crimson confetti as a flechette round caught a young man in the carotid artery. His uniform showed him as a musician for the 117th PRIDE parade that was occurring for the exotic member of the station's crew. How he would have loved to be drenched in fluids. Had it not been his own life blood that was spraying all over his face. Twas a pity. Twas indeed.

 

 

Dancing to the music of gunfire, Delta loosed a thermal detonator into a crowd of rapidly fleeing civilians who were managing to push and shove their way onto a small shuttle. How terrifying it must have been to be the little boy who got pegged by that throw. The spinning silver orb dashed into the child's face before detonating. The boy and everything in a 5 meter radius around him vanished, as the baradium within the detonator went super critical. He shuttle was more than damaged. Its entire side was gone, destroying half of the engine housing as well as a great many innocent lives.

 

Delta laughed softly as family members screamed for those lost to the crackling orb of the thermal det. Brutality was the name of the game. Engine coolant from ruptured lines mixed with irradiated reactor fuel that lit up into a massive billowing flame. Screams died on the lips of those inside as the shuttle melted around them. Most did not die instantly.

 

Delta coughed slightly, and turned his guns to the ragtag security officers running towards him

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kyle Keeling, a novice pilot from Delta's XJ wing squadron was having a tough time of it. His shield generator had been hit earlier in the battle, meaning that he had no defense other than the fragile durasteel hull that cocooned him from the void of space. He vaped another of the turbolaser batteries on the outward station and sighed a breath of relief.

 

His sigh caught in his throat as his R6 unit began to screech.

 

“Bodies? Where-”

 

The last thing that went through his mind was a frozen homeless man's outstretched and still dirty arm. Even frozen human could do a lot of damage at 900km/hr.

[Ruby]

Plus side to growing up on a ball of ice- the cold of space didn't bother her. Any normal human would have been curled into a ball, trying to conserve body heat. Fortunately, Ruby was neither human nor normal.

 

She currently had the control panel ripped apart, having already removed and destroyed the onboard tracking device, and was now engrossed in hotwiring the emergency radio to the Blood Gems' encoded channel. With a last critical glance at her wiring job, she flipped the transmit switch. "Sapph? Sapph, can you hear me? I'm... kinda stranded in space right now. Need a pick-up."

[Sapphire]

Sapphire had spent the last several hours in hyperspace plotting in vain various ways to rescue her fellow pirates, as well as strengthening the tendrils of connection she had with the Gambit's computer systems. She had gotten fairly entrenched, enough so that even if her bug was discovered, it wouldn't terminate her connection to the system. Sitting there sifting through lines of code helped her think, but the only solutions she thought of were far-fetched. No, she needed more information, and unfortunately, until then, there wasn't much she could do.

 

A ping over the speakers interrupted her in the middle of a data stream, causing her to jump and accidentally hit a firewall. She jumped off of it quick enough that it would be a minor blip only if a tech was looking at that particular subsystem, but she chided herself. "Getting sloppy," she muttered. Rising, she headed to the cockpit to see what the deal was.

 

A light was flashing on the dash, and a sudden rush of excitement and disbelief shot through her. A message was coming over the Gems' emergency channel. One of the others had found a way to contact her that wouldn't be tracked! She immediately keyed the acceptance and Ruby's voice came over the comm.

 

"Ruby!" she commed back. "I'm in hyperspace training the Gambit. Give me your coordinates and I'll pick you up."

 

Once the Chiss had done so, Sapphire counted down and dropped the Glory out of hyperspace. There, floating the cold dark void, was a lonely escape pod.

[Ruby]

Ruby let herself breathe a sigh of relief once she was finally back aboard the Glory. "I never want to see another air duct ever again," she muttered as she followed Sapph back up through the ship to the cockpit. "I'm gonna have nightmares about that, I think."

 

She dropped into a seat across from Sapphire, propping her feet up and staring out the viewport into space. "What I have absolutely no idea how we're going to accomplish is getting Em off of that Sith-spawned ship. I don't even know if we're going to be able to get back aboard." Something resembling guilt chewed away at her, and she ruthlessly shoved it away. They all knew the risks. Emerald would have done the same if Ruby had been the one to be captured.

 

Frowning, Ruby turned her head to look at Sapph. "Do we know where the Gambit's heading now?"

[Sapphire]

Sapphire was enormously relieved to see Ruby alive and in one piece. Her imagination had been going into overdrive ever since Ruby's hastily cut-off emergency communication hours ago. But the Chiss seemed fine, and more than that, she seemed focused on the task at hand, which seemed to be rescuing Emerald.

 

Sapphire frowned. "Sure we do. It's published all over the galaxy." She tossed Ruby a datapad with the advertisement for the Gambit's much publicized maiden voyage. "But Ruby, before we do anything else, you've got to tell me what happened. When I got your comm that you two were in trouble, I tried to get back up to the ship, but it jumped into hyperspace before I could. What happened? What went wrong? And where is Emerald?"

 

Finally, she'd get some answers. But she wasn't sure if she'd like them. She had had a bad feeling about this venture the entire time, but she had trusted Emerald's instincts over her own. It looked like that would be the last time she'd do that.

[Ruby]

Ruby rubbed a hand across her face and sighed, the fatigue from her endeavors finally setting in. "We got sloppy. Called a tech to the room and took his access cards, then dumped him down the garbage chute. Never occurred to either one of us that they'd send someone looking for him... or that it would be an entire kriffing security team when they did." She glanced down at the datapad in her hands, idly flipping through the Gambit's itinerary, trying to distract herself. "They raided the room. We tried to get out through the garbage chute... that's when I lost Em. I don't know what happened, how they got her, but she never came out, she didn't answer any of the comms I sent her..."

 

Ruby's fingers on her free hand tightened around the arm of the chair she was sitting on, her knuckles changing to a pale blue, standing out in stark contract against the rest of her skin as she stared unseeingly at the device in her palm. "Kriffing cameras were everywhere, and I stuck out like a Wookiee in a room full of Ewoks. They sent another team after me, tried to take me down in the middle of one of the casinos. I escaped through the air ducts. Got to the escape pod. Now I'm here."

 

She finally looked back over at Sapphire, frustration, anger, worry, and distress washing over her features. "I don't know where they took her. I don't know what they're doing to her. And I kriffing left her there to fend for herself."

[Sapphire]

The news was pretty bad. They had messed up, big time, and now Emerald was paying the consequences. It made Sapphire angry and frustrated. She hated making mistakes. They had gone in knowing that this place would have the tightest of securities, and yet they had still gotten sloppy. Her temptation was to blame the other two. The thought crossed her mind that if she had been there, this wouldn't have happened. But there was nothing she could do about it now.

 

"This whole idea was bad from the start," she snapped, a little more forcefully than she intended. "Now we've got to break Emerald out of a cell block under the noses of a shipwide security team that is on alert already. And there still may or may not be a Sith involved!" She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. There was no sense in being angry at Ruby. But the red-head had always had a temper that was difficult to control.

 

"Luckily," she said after a moment, her tone growing a bit calmer but drier. "I have a toe in the door. I've hacked into the Gambit's computer. I haven't done much; I just got full access about twenty minutes before your comm. And of course, once I start messing around with things, we'll have a very limited set of actions we can take before they purge the system and I'm kicked out. I think our best chance to hack into one of the security cameras in the detention area and see if we can find Emerald. If we can, then there is a chance I could cause a system failure. It'd only last a minute, and it would be all I could do from here, but it should unlock her cell and give her a few seconds to get on the move. She'd have to take her chances with the guards, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem."

 

She rose from her chair and began to pace. "In terms of getting her off of there, however, I'm not sure what we can do. We could wait until the Gambit reaches it's next destination and try to board her then, but given how they slammed the door on any new arrivals so quickly back on Coruscant doesn't give me much hope that we'd be able to board her using the Glory. We'd have to stow away on a legitimate passenger's ship. And of course, that's all assuming they'll even take on new passengers at this stop."

 

Her frustration showed through again. "Our comms are compromised; they'll track any communications we send. So even if we did have a plan, we can't communicate it with each other. But we can't just leave her there."

 

Well, technically, they could. But to do so would be against the code by which Sapphire tried to live her life. She was a pirate, sure, and her morals were pretty loose, but Emerald was a friend. Frankly, she and Ruby were the only family she had ever cared about, and it didn't sit right with her to abandon a sister.

[Ruby]

Sapphire's last words twisted a knife in Ruby's gut, reminding her of her failings. Combined with her exhaustion and her proclivity towards volativity, it was too much.

 

"I know we can't just leave her there," she growled, pushing herself out of the chair. "I never wanted to in the first place." She stalked out of the cockpit before she said something she would regret. She knew that Sapph was really just thinking out loud, trying to strategize a way to get Emerald off of that kriffing casino, but all it was doing right now was reminding Ruby that she had abandoned their friend.

 

She wanted to hit something. Hard. Unfortunately, her punching bag was still stashed in the Onslaught's cargo bay, since she'd seen no reason to bring it on this particular mission, so she'd have to make do.

 

Time slowed and blurred for her after that, as she found an empty corner of the Glory's cargo bay and ruthlessly pushed herself through repetition after repetition of push-up, sit-ups, and any other exercise that she could think of, anything to take her mind off of the fact that Emerald was still sitting in a cell somewhere instead of here with her and Sapph like she should have been. She would keep pushing herself until she literally dropped from exhaustion, if that's what it would take for this feeling to go away.

[Stephen]

((Post deleted; just don't have time to RP properly guys. Don't want to be a negative to the forum's RP scene.))

Edited August 20, 2013 by Guest

[Sapphire]

Ruby stormed off, clearly as frustrated and angry as Sapphire herself was feeling. The blue-eyed Hapan sighed and collapsed back into her chair. She really needed a drink. But once she had one, she'd just want another, and she couldn't afford to get wasted right now, as tempting as it was. If she was drunk, she wouldn't be able to make a plan to get Emerald out of what had turned into her floating prison.

 

So she forced herself to focus. Think, Sapph, she ordered herself. How do we get her out of there? She checked her chrono and compared it with the Gambit's flight plan. Alright, three hours until the ship comes out of hyperspace. Ideally, we'd have Emerald out of her cell by then so that she can... And suddenly, an idea struck her. It was crazy, it was risky, but it might just work.

 

She took a few minutes and thought through every angle. Then once she was satisfied with it, she headed to the cargo hold. "I have a plan," she told her sweat-drenched Chiss partner. Carefully, she spelled out every step. Finally, she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "So what do you think? Will it work?"

[Emily]

It was supposed to be a normal, standard refueling spot along the Hydian Way. Eris thought little of it. It was ordinary, routine. Most ships stopped here on their way from the Outer or Mid Rim to the Core.

 

But when the Shadow's Shine came out of hyperspace to refuel in the Cadomai Prime system, the cockpit filled with alarms. Eris jerked upright in the captain's chair. "Multiple signatures attacking the Golan defense platform in orbit around the mining facilities?" she asked no one in particular, frowning. "Pirates?" While it would appear that was the case, something told her to investigate further. The niggling feeling in the back of her head itched as she pulled up the ships' info.

 

Five XJS-class fighters and several larger boarding-style craft, and the XJ's were designated "Scorpions". Memory flashed through her, and for one brilliant second she could not believe her luck. Clearly, the Force was guiding her. For she recognized those callsigns. The man she was hunting was here. Her mind slipped into the mode of a hunter. It looked like the action was taking place mostly on the Golan, which had been pretty much stripped of turbolasers by the XJs. If she brought the Shine up on the opposite vector, she would be able to dock in the confusion and head off on foot to find the Black Sunner. Perfect. That was how Eris would prefer it.

 

She carefully maneuvered her ship and brought it up to the now-useless platform. Twenty minutes later she had docked. Clad in her green armor, her lightsabers at her hips and her darts at her side, Roe'gall trailing behind her, she descended the ramp. Now it was just a matter of following the trail of destruction to her target. "Let's do it, boy," she muttered darkly to Roe'gall, and then she faded into the ship, her presence undetectable, putting all of her training into practice. She'd swoop in, kill him, and get back out without anyone even realizing she was there.

[Ruby]

Ruby sighed as she heard Sapphire's footfalls coming toward her, pushing herself into a sitting position leaning against the wall as her partner came into sight and announced her plan.

 

”So what do you think? Will it work?”

 

Ruby tilted her head slightly to the side, considering what Sapph had laid out before her. “I think it's probably our best bet,” she said honestly, reaching for her towel and mopping the sweat off her face. “ I honestly can't think of another way we'd be able to get Em out of there.” She glanced down at her chrono, checking the time. “Three hours? I'm gonna go hit the 'fresher and get a few hours of shut-eye before this goes down. Wake me when it's time?”

 

She slung her towel around her neck and headed back toward the main lounge, pausing in the doorway and looking back over her shoulder. “And Sapph? Sorry for snapping earlier.”

[Sapphire]

Sapphire nodded, her face softening at Ruby's apology. "Don't worry about it."

 

Ruby headed off for her shower and nap, Sapphire stretched. It would be more practical to break Emerald out once the Gambit had arrived over Corellia, for the busyness of transferring passengers back and forth would buy them a bit of cover. So she technically had the same three hours off. And now that they had a plan, she didn't feel quite so bad about relaxing a bit. Before she had picked up Ruby, she had forced herself to go over the code again, try to think up some desperate course of action. But now, the time would be best spent making sure she was alert and operating at her best ability when the time came.

 

So she worked out a bit, grabbed a shower, and had lunch.

[Emily]

Eris and Roe'gall stalked the halls of the Golan Defense Platform.

 

Eris could easily avoid being seen if she wished. After all, she had done most of her practicing on a hectic luxury Star Destroyer. Hiding from frightened station officers and dead bodies was really a waste of her talents. It was equally easy to locate her quarry. Between the blood trails, screams for mercy, gruesome laughter, and blaster shots, she didn't even need to use the Force.

 

A few minutes later, she arrived. The crowd shifted, and--there he was. The sight of him made her blood boil. Rage and a desire for revenge bubbled up inside her, and she grinned ferally. But after a moment, she retreated to the icy plateau in her mind, where nothing would matter except the deed itself and where the dark side was icy cold, clear and accessible.

 

The area was a minor hangar bay, mostly housing a few small escape shuttles that were being crammed with the fleeing. Delta's focus was on them as he joyfully slaughtered some and blew others up in the shuttles. A thought and a small application of the limitless Force sent Roe'gall back into the hallway while she boosted herself up into the rafters that were the docking clamps for larger ships. Keeping herself shrouded in the Force, a series of practiced acrobatics brought her across the room until she reached a small nook in the ceiling that was secure and steady. There had been two reasons she had aimed for this particular sniping spot. The first was that she was almost but not quite above Delta's position. The second was the bundle of durasteel-wrapped cables that were within cutting position. If she sliced through those cables with her lightsaber, she would not only plunge the hanger bay into blackness, but open the hanger door and depressurize the chamber. Positioning herself so that both hands were free, she reached into her pouch and drew one of her new weapons, leaving her lightsaber unlit in her other hand.

 

Finally, she touched a small button on the belt of her armor and a hum that was too low-pitched to hear above the chaos began as a small shield projector flickered into place around her, one of her older purchases she had never gotten around to using. It wouldn't offer any protection against blasters, but it would hold off small projectiles. She had previously been attached with flechette rifles; she would not make the mistake of being vulnerable to them again.

 

Now, she was ready. Her mind an ice-swept plain with her only thought revenge, she took aim and threw the throwing star directly for Delta's neck, trusting that the Force would guide it to exactly where it would do the most damage, and counting on the chaos below to make him unaware of the threat until it was too late. Even if he did manage to dodge the unusual attack, Darth Eris was ready. Your death will be at my hands.

 

((Killshot request on Delta73))

[saberforce]

Tros sat within the cockpit of the Orar as it moved quicker through space than a Jedi Order through Grandmasters. Tros took a moment to glance at the holonet feed that he had before him as it flashed up information of the Bounty Hunters Guild, the Jedi Order, The Sith, and whatever else the beroya thought would be helpful in in soon crowded hunt on Ossus. The information held much, yet even then it seemed that Tros was far more distracted with the very nature of Larkin and her movements within the bar on Coruscant. It seemed to Tros that there was an absence of her mind, almost as if she was not in control. Either way, the job she offered up was too simple with too many credits on the line for him not to take it. And for him to argue a point that might be moot anyways would be di'kutla. The fact that Tros even took the job was largely due to Chalchiir, a person that Tros was now guuror. With his buy'ce at his side, he scanned through the information once more before he closed his eyes, trying to conceptualize what may actually go down on Ossus. If he was not the only one looking for the datapad, he could be late in arriving, let alone to arrive when everyone else did. If that happened, Tros understood that skills in combat survival, the skill set that Larkin alluded to, would come into play....

[Delta73]

Blood dripped in fierce agony from the glowing wall panels as the security team surrendered to the flechettes. Their bodies convulsed as the silver needles pierced organs and bone alike. They died crying for their gods or mothers. It was kid of sad.

 

A double click from his helmet's headset told him that his boarding company had in fact made landing within the platform, though none were currently present. Which Delta found disappointing. He looked towards the burning shuttle and sighed. No doubt there was someone in the blaze that had a pocketful of credits. He mentally told himself not to recklessly set rich families ablaze. He looked down at his rifle and began to reload as he walked towards one of the still destroyed shuttles.

 

Suddenly his HUD blinked red that an attack was incoming, and he dropped into a crouch next to one of the acess panels for a decommissioned shuttle. His years of training coming in handy. He brought the rifle up and the sensor package on his HUD began to track for where the attack would have come from. If he was in luck, his sudden change in stance would save him. If not, well...a thick armourweave jumpsuit under his armour wold likely do the trick.

 

((Killshot Defense))

[Raynuk Montar]

Alrightly. Killshot on Delta.

 

By and by, the killshot seemed more like the opening volley of a duel. Given the nature of the weapon being used (a throwing star), the distance from which it's being thrown (a good 10m at least by my estimate), and the target (A humanoid neck), that is a hard kill to make. I will give Emily the credit that is due from her training with the new weapon religiously, and given the added advantage that comes from being able to use the Force to adjust the trajectory. However, given all the above, and the fact that Delta is armored, has a sensor HUD, and basically ducked...

 

KILLSHOT FAILED.

 

The throwing star barely misses Delta, wedging itself into the floor where he was standing miliseconds prior. Delta is now aware that someone is trying to take him out, but he has yet to spot Emily in the rafters. Sounds like we have a fight on our hands ladies and gentlemen!!

[Emily]

Opening pleasantries out of the way, Eris' mind was flitting from one plan of attack to another. She had hoped that the throwing star would have at least caused a scratch, but it wasn't a big deal. She could see the eye slit of Delta's visor panning the room, and she knew he hadn't yet discovered her. But that would soon change with the fancy electronics his helmet most likely packed. She had planned to quickly slash the controls and cause the hanger to depressurize, clearing out the rest of the screaming, panicking people and leaving just her and the shell-cased man below, but now she didn't really think it gave her that much tactical advantage.

 

Instead, drawing herself even more into a shroud of the Force, she took a few light steps back and forth across the various rafters and equipment until she got to a new location directly above Delta. Hopefully moving would buy her a few more moments of invisibility, and she would use that time to her advantage. As she took in what she saw, what she most noticed was that he was armed with several different types of blasters. He was currently wielding the flechette rifle, but she thought she spotted a regular blaster and a sonic blaster as well. The former wasn't a problem, but the latter was.

 

An idea came to her, a daring idea, but dramatic. She smiled. All she needed was a distraction, and she knew the perfect one. It was time for a trick she had learned oh so long ago...

 

Drawing on the Force, Eris reached out to the air molecules in the hanger. They were endless and varied, but she knew what she was looking for. Her father had taught her this trick when she was seven years old. It had been a favorite of his, something he alternately used as a party trick and as an attack. She hadn't practiced it much since his death, but she didn't need a big display. The Force let her see the molecules she needed very clearly, and the intense training in focus she had received under Quietus allowed her to drown out the hubbub and confusion for a few seconds so that she could concentrate on the minute atoms. Drawing the atoms together next to Delta's leg, she collided them, and a spark of fire appeared. A half-second more, and it was a flame, and a half-second after that, the fabric that lined Delta's under-armor suit between his knee joint and his greaves ignited.

 

Eris was smart enough to know that the fabric was most likely flame-retardant--hers was, after all--but even a flame-retardant fabric would melt and burn a bit before dying out. All she needed was a second of distraction, and it was completely natural for any sapient being to be distracted by the fact that their leg had spontaneously combusted.

 

The moment the fabric caught, Eris leapt out of her hiding position, falling straight down towards Delta in a crouch, her red lightsaber ready to ignite as soon as she landed on top of him, ready to melt through the armor he wore like butter and end his miserable existance.

 

((Killshot number 2! ))

[Delta73]

Republic Commando training was severe, so severe in fact that many never made it through the training module alive. Having survived that training and having participated in many of the grand campaigns, and later having dealt with jedi and sith alike had grown Delta's concentration to his surroundings. His complex sensor packages within his helmet were scrambling to pick anything up. The threat assessment package had figured out the distance and angle of the thrown instrument of death in several milliseconds. These it routed to both his HUD and the other complex sensors within Delta's helmet.

 

Now personal shield generators were considered the best thing to have when trying to attack innocent Black Sun operatives. However, most if not all generators required an extensive energy generator and power cell. The type of personal generator used by the lady sith would no doubt be very effective in the short term against anti personnel flechettes. However the energy field generated by such personal shields did in fact create a disturbance in normal environments. The light humm of an active generator is small in a chaotic environment as is the field generated. It is however, not invisible. Complex sensor packages designed to pick out such things pinned the location of the sith girl in milliseconds. Labeling her as a threat upon Delta's HUD.

 

No doubt a Jedi or Sith. As the throwing star had so deeply penetrated the floor, it was likely Force aided. Protocols hammered into him since he was a child started to activate as the threat sensors showed the energy field moving. He dropped the flechette rifle and with well practiced ease brought the Sonic rifle to bear. Its settings set naturally to kill. The power of a sonic weapon was about the same to a blaster rifle, and was perfect for hunting Jedi. He had used one in conjunction with flechettes to bring many subjects into order.

 

Delta's HUD beeped again as damage controls identified a fire spreading along the armourweave at his leg. Delta winced. Luckily for him, there was no prior damage for the fire to penetrate as had happened to him multiple times before. His tactical mind identified the threat as nominal, it would likely burn through the armourweave if it had something other than oxygen to fuel it. But that would be in minutes, not seconds. He labeled it as a distraction, which meant that the actual attack would likely come very...

 

And then it was there. The HUD sensed movement and he brought the rifle to bear. He squeezed the trigger a multitude of times. Sending cone after cone of sonic energy out in an earsplitting roar. No doubt the threat would die before it landed, but he was never sure. He braced his crouch, and prepared to leap away as needed.

 

((Defense))

[Raynuk Montar]

ROUND 2!

 

Somebody's gonna be in a very bad spot when this ends. Either Delta is gonna be swiss cheese, or Emily gets wrecked by a sonic rifle. So lets examine it. We've got Emily, having missed with her throwing star, realizing her backup plan isnt going to help and having to think on her feet. So she decides to try and light Delta on fire and then jump on him from the rafters with her lightsaber, which she isnt going to ignite until the last second. Meanwhile, we've got Delta sweeping the area with his visor as only a trained Commando could, using all his sensors and tactical processor to his advantage. His ability to trace the throwing star back to its origins stands to reason, as does his identification of the shield generator, which then leads him to spotting and tracking Emily; the rest is just commando instinct.

 

The fire Emily lights would be a great tactic -- if Delta wasnt wearing his armor. The first, and perhaps only thing, Delta would sense is the heat of the flame, by which point his armor has already identified it as not an immanent threat. As Delta pointed out, given minutes perhaps the fire would pose a problem, but not a simple flash in the pan. I would hesitate to say that Delta isnt distracted by it at all, but I certainly dont think it would be enough time for him not to be able to react as he did; by taking aim and letting lose a volley of sonic rifle fire. Given the fact that by this point Emily is already in the air, falling towards Delta with a lightsaber thats not even turned on, I dont see very many ways in which Emily can defend herself against the volley.

 

Clicky clicky for the result and aftermath!

 

 

KILLSHOT COUNTERED!

 

Pouncing in the graceful way that only a Sith Lady can, lightsaber un-ignited, Emily comes to the sudden realization that perhaps pouncing a commando from such a height isnt the best idea, as she is defenseless. Delta scores a number of hits on Emily, which due to their sonic nature pass through her personal shield and completely overload her sensory control via her ears before she lands, un-gracefully on the ground in a heap, given Delta's preparation to get out of the way. Emily is alive, but in a fair amount of pain between having her brain scrambled and her un-controlled decent into the durasteel flooring. Take note boys and girls; a lightsaber thats on is always better than one thats off!

 

Delta; the move is yours. You may choose to finish off Emily, or spare her. Post either way.