Felucia - Jedi Temple

[Zeris Mons]

*Encrypted message arrives addressed to Leena Kil's comm code*

The hologram of a woman in a flight suit and overcoat, sitting on a bar stool and smoking a half-gone cigarra, flickered and danced with subspace interference.

 

"Client." She jerked a thumb at herself in introduction. "Zeris Mons, mercenary. Reaper Joe traded me your info. You still need Core transport, I'm available. My resume is attached." A list of successful bounties and jobs scrolled next to her image. "60,000 credits for round trip. 10,000 for each extra passenger. Price negotiable." She paused. "10% up front. Not negotiable. Call back if interested."

[Zeris Mons]

*Encrypted response to Leena Kil's message, originating from Mon Cal"

 

Zeris' holographic image saw her walking down a crowded street surrounded by Quarren and Mon Calamari.

 

"Salvage rights acceptable, plus 6,000 up-front. Reaper Joe's planet coordinates enclosed. Meet you soon. Ship is The Crate."

 

____________________________

 

The rusty, weathered Nu-class attack shuttle that entered realspace around Felucia had seen better days. Rusty brown and streaked with corrosion, the Clone Wars era attack shuttle looked more like a museum piece than a military spacecraft. However, as the ship banked and set itself in orbit over the lush planet, its smooth movements hinted at retrofits and modern upgrades that belied its appearance.

 

Zeris chewed the end of a cigarra, left unlit to not give the ship's filters extra work.

 

Her scanners filtered through readings, and slowly Zeris got a picture of what she was looking at.

 

"...Jedi...

 

...Hmm..."

 

She broadcast an encrypted message to the surface, directed at her client's comm code 

 

"Client. Zeris here. Requesting landing coordinates."

[Zeris Mons]

The front of The Crate unfolded into a ramp, and Zeris Mons walked down. Her eyes took in the people as her metal feet sunk into the dirt and undergrowth.

 

Refugees. Scared but...hopeful. Then her eyes landed on the Iktotchi, and her body froze.

 

The Echani saw fighting as more than an art or a discipline. To them it was the purest form of communication, and anyone trained in their practices learned to read people by their motions, their stances, and their stride. This man was not an ordinary customs officer. His whole body sang of training, discipline, and an inner peace most people never even approached. There was an awareness to him, as if he was listening to a broadcast only he could hear, funneling it to the back of his mind as he dealt with the puerile and mundane.

 

A Jedi.

 

Zeris held still for several moments longer, the impulse to attack the man and see what a warrior of legend could really do almost overwhelming her. A dreamlike expression fell across her face, and her servos whirred to a higher gear.

 

Then she relaxed, senses regained. This was definitely not the time or place, and if there was any golden quality to bounty hunting, it was patience.

 

After the Jedi had finished his questions, she held up her arms, revealing their metallic nature.

 

"Cybernetics. Combat grade. Weapons under Galactic Alliance law." She then fished out her datapad and called up a series of files and handed it over. Displayed were all her various identification forms. Her various bounty hunting licenses associated with different law enforcement groups across the galaxy. Her work visas for a dozen different major systems. Her permit for the limited use of combat gear issued by the Galactic Alliance (when that had mattered). Even a holocopy of her old citizenship ID card from her childhood on Arkania.

 

She said nothing more, and waited. Her was a passive mask as she finally lit her now thoroughly chewed cigarra.

[Zeris Mons]

Zeris waited patiently as she walked beside the talkative apprentice. When his chatting stopped, she responded laconically.

 

"Client," she shrugged. "I'm meeting them here." She gave a small smile. "No healing required."

 

When the padawan brought her to the lockers and asked her to relieve herself of her weapons, she gave no visible emotional response. Instead, she extended both of her arms. With a sching, twin cortosis alloy blades sprang out, extending a full foot from her wrists. Then with a click and a pneumatic hiss, the blades jutted jumped forward another few inches and fell away from her arms. Her mechanical hands rotated at the wrist and caught the falling blades.

 

She opened one of the lockers and stowed the blades.

 

"Good enough?"

[Zeris Mons]

On 10/28/2021 at 9:53 PM, The Jedi Order said:

A few minutes later, a red-skinned Twilek garbed in sterilized gown and gloves stepped outside alongside Apprentice Healer Larka. “Zelis Mons?” she inquired pulling her gloves from her hands with a snap before extending one in a handshake. “You are here for Master Kil.” It was a statement of fact, revealing the fact that the rogue’s presence was known and expected. “She is not here. If you wish to find her, I believe she has been offering aid to the residents of Tik’ta Village about 14 klicks north of the Temple. They were hit hard by the Sith. If you are going that way, we have a shipment of supplies that could be taken that way. Apprentice Larka can escort you back to your ship and arrange for the supplies to be ferried to it. If you will excuse me, I need to return to surgery.”

 

Zeris shook the woman's hand, keeping her grip light out of courtesy and common sense.

 

"Master Kil?"

 

A Jedi Master would certainly be a first for a new client. It also explained why Sith involvement was a danger, though beyond that Zeris still knew little about the job.

 

That excited her.

 

"Alright."

 

She turned back to the Iktotchi apprentice. "Come on. Let's go."

 

______________________________________________________________________

 

The Crate touched down at the edge of Tik'ta village. The old shuttle settled into the greenery, and after a moment the roar of the thrusters cut out. The bow of the starship opened into a ramp, and a moment later Zeris emerged touting two large, bulky crates, one on each shoulder. Either metal crate alone would have been a full load for a grown man, but Zeris hefted them like they were plasticlear food containers. Her feat of strength was a testament to her training as much as her cybernetics. While her arms and legs could take the load easily enough, her core and torso were still meat. Incredibly well conditioned meat, but meat all the same. Balance and poise were second-nature to her, drilled into her bones by the Echani.

 

Zeris set the crates down so fast a casual observer might have thought she dropped them, yet her graceful and controlled motion barely made a thump as her cargo settled into the mossy dirt.

 

She ignored the stares of the villagers as she pulled out a fresh cigarra, lit it up, and took a long puff.

 

Finally she met their eyes.

 

"I'm looking for Master Kil!" She hooked a metal thumb at the boxes. "Got supplies for the village."

 

 

[Zeris Mons]

Zeris' eyes narrowed by a fraction of an inch as she watched the native Felucian approach. Tough, determined, disciplined...a fine example of a warrior upbringing characterized by a harsh environment. People like this were dangerous to fight, and even more dangerous to underestimate. Anyone who lived their life fighting against the odds knew how to even them. But it was his stance that caught her eye.

 

Rear foot held further back than normal. Grip on spear wider, and angled upward several degrees more than necessary.

 

This warrior is used to hunting large game. Very large.

 

When the Mon Cal that Zeris presumed was Jedi Master Kil emerged, her attention broke away from the Felucian warrior and to her new prospective client. This one was...different from the other Jedi she'd already seen. Zeris couldn't put a word to the feeling, but for a moment she remembered living in the halls of the Echani colonists, walking with her adopted siblings, being given her first meal by her adoptive mother. She remembered living on the cargo freighter she'd stowed away on, grinning like a stunned idiot when the crew threw her an impromptu birthday party, or standing in disbelieving silence as the captain handed over her first pay.

 

Then she remembered further back. She remembered a long bunkhouse on the edge of a mineshaft surrounded by thick snow and glaring sunlight. She remembered her first bed, carved up with a little girl's doodles. Her mother, cradling her. Her father, hugging her.

 

Zeris blinked, and the memories faded, and she immediately understood why Jedi were so dangerous.

 

Goodwill. This woman radiates goodwill.

 

Keeping her composure, her mood already lapsing back into ennui, Zeris listened to what the Jedi had to say.

 

2 hours ago, Leena Kil said:

“Make sure they’re synced right or even see about growing you some skin or new arms and legs. When time allows of course. Is there any chance you would want to go and heft a few fallen beams from some collapsed huts on the east side of the village? They haven’t had the time what with going out every day and nursing their own. Besides,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning in towards the mercenary, “they are wirey and strong, but it will take a half dozen of them with pulleys and winches working all day to clean up those firebombed community buildings”

 

She held up her arms, giving them a once over before flexing at the elbows.

 

"I'm fine. And sure, I'll help. Come get me when you're ready." She started walking away, calling back, "Ship won't take off without me."

 

_______________________________________________________

 

Zeris found the burnt out huts easily enough. They were black, ashen blots in what had once been a community that would have disappeared into the jungle if you looked at it from the wrong angle. Wooden beams, cracked and dark from fire, lay scattered across the burnt out frames of huts. Zeris considered the problem with the same care she'd examine a difficult bounty or dangerous opponent.

 

The problem was he body wasn't *fully* upgraded. With her torso still flesh, bone, and blood, she had to be careful what she lifted or she could wrench her own spine or worse. Some of the lighter beams might be safely within her capabilities, but the larger ones would need a more careful approach.

 

In the end, Zeris decided to go about it with a different (albeit just as direct) approach. Saying only "Master Kil sent me," as explanation to any curious onlookers, she approached the first large beam until she stood at its base. She checked where it was resting, what was resting on it, and rechecked three more times until she was sure she understood what she was looking at. Then, she drew back on fist and punched.

 

The beam shuddered, as a crack shot up the center of the beam where she'd struck, following an existing grain that the fire had already forced to separate. The next punch struck the same spot, and several more cracks formed and lengthened. Then the next punch came. Then the next.

 

Within seconds, a sound not unlike industrial equipment rang out through the jungle as Zeris' jackhammer fists took apart the beam, and it was soon followed by a splintering sound as the beam gave away and crumbled into the ash. Zeris moved along its length, and with several more sessions of rapid-fire strikes, reduced the whole beam to several smaller sections of splintered wood.

 

She moved to the next beam, barely winded and her arms still at full capacity.

 

Day was just getting started, and she had work to do.

[Zeris Mons]

I heard the visitors before I saw them. The crunching of underbrush signaled them as foreign to this world as I was, but it was the natives that gave me my real warning. Each of them tensed a full second before I'd even picked up the sounds of the approaching pair, and I watched one warrior adjust his grip on his spear while "casually" leaning against a wall. These people had been through a lot, and I certainly wasn't about to blame them for being jumpy.

 

When the two emerged, my eyes immediately locked onto the droid. I'd like to say it was threat assessment or something impressive sound like that, but honestly it was just a lot of droid. Definitely Baktoid design, but not a model I recognized. I racked my brain, calling up fuzzy images from old history books, but I couldn't remember any Trade Federation droid that had looked like it had been built around the skeleton of an abyssin bodybuilder. I briefly glanced and then did a double take at the very recognizable frame of the buzz droid with the big guy, and my breath caught for a second. You go through one bad job with a couple of those little chittering monsters crawling all over you with their saws whining will make anyone nervous. I've punched people who tell me they're "harmless".

 

Or worse, "cute".

 

The other one was a warrior. I could tell before his face even registered. The armor, the stride, the posture, all of it screamed veteran. Then I recognized the armor, and took a closer look. An Imperial Knight out here, working with the Jedi. Mix in the droid duo and myself, and this was turning into a pretty eclectic group.

 

I stayed silent but kept my eyes steady as they approached.

 

On 11/20/2021 at 10:14 AM, TerrorBot said:

“Attention undisclosed female. This semi-independent droid is designation B5-87, codename: RUIN.  My designation is F5-18-1. Codename: FERA. We are searching for…” 

“Killer healer. We are looking for a killer healer. And Sith. Got to kill Sith. You got good arms. Good to kill Sith.” At this, Ruin gave a nod towards the female’s arms." 

“Yes…” Fera continued. “We are looking for Healer Kill. Would you be able to assist us?”

 

On 11/20/2021 at 11:36 AM, Skyshatter said:

"Ruin...Fera..." Lok spoke as he stepped beside the two droids, offering the young girl a brief nod in his arrival as he pointed out the fleeing guard. "I don't believe we will be requiring her assistance. Our ward shall know of our arrival momentarily."

 

An accountant I'd once hunted who'd had a very impressive vocabulary (but not the common sense to not get caught embezzling company funds from his personal computer) had called me "phlegmatic", "laconic", and "taciturn". At the time I hadn't understood what those words meant. Echani don't talk much as a principle, and impromptu freighter crew families tend to teach a whole different kind of vocabulary. After I'd looked them up, I'd learned they were all just fancy ways of saying I don't talk much. And...I don't. Maybe Lady Tajara and the Echani way of life rubbed off on me more than I thought, but I always saw talking as kind of like fighting. You don't get points for fancy flourishes, or how fast you can flurry-punch the air before you get down to business. Its about getting the job done, and doing it right. If two words can do what 20 words can, then why waste your breath? Plus it helped sell the whole "stoic" thing, and branding is important in any commission business.

 

I pulled out a cigarra and lit it up, taking a few puffs to steady myself before responding to the pair.

 

"Leena's this way." I started walking away.

 

"Also, I'm your pilot."

[Zeris Mons]

My second meeting with the Jedi I'd be taking this journey with confirmed my initial impression, perhaps more so than the first time. This woman was Good, the capital kind. It was the kind of good you carve into the face of some hero's statue, the kind you put in a bedtime story because you don't believe it could really exist, the kind that doesn't feel like it should exist outside of a philosophy holobook. Which made it all the more wondrous when you realized it was the genuine article.

 

I took another look around at the group around me. The bizarre (and probably violent) droid duo, the fierce Imperial Knight, the noble and kind Jedi...if this group wasn't the kind to get into some strange shenanigans, then my instincts were dead and buried.

 

I could feel my lip twitch into a shadow of a smile. I liked shenanigans.

 

3 hours ago, Leena Kil said:

Gesturing for the group to step out of the ward into the village clearing, she pulled the door behind her. “I am glad you are all here. Too much time has elapsed already. There is much to discuss. I do not know what you have been told already. Even I do not have all the answers, all I know is that we are traveling to a world of darkness, unnatural evil wrought by the Sith in some way. If you have any pressing questions, ask them now; otherwise, let us gather what supplies we need and meet with Captain Mons and her ship.” Leena turned to Zeris with a gesture, allowing her to give details of her ship and where to go.

 

I nodded at her cue, and took a long draw on my cigarra before answering.

 

"Ship's 150 yards that way," I said, jerking my metal thumb over my shoulder and out the door. "Old Nu-class attack shuttle, but she's got new parts, so don't worry how she looks." I took another draw on the cigarra, finishing it off. Not wanting to leave burn marks in the hut (I'm not a total boor), I put it out between my prosthetic fingers, crumbling it into black soot that I flicked into one of my coat pockets.

 

I turned back to the Jedi. "I'll go prep the nav. Takeoff on your say boss."

 

I walked out of the hut and started hiking back towards the ship.

 

If I had to be honest, I'll admit I was a bit excited. This was exactly the strange kind of nonsense I'd needed.

[Zeris Mons]

On 11/24/2021 at 12:59 AM, TerrorBot said:

“Fly and Fry” Ruin said as he stepped closer to the vehicle and placed a metal hand on a wing, creating a slight scratching noise as the palm slid over the metal slowly.  “Fly and Fry. Crash and bash. Guns and gas and guts. Smoke and smash.  Bad time, good ships.” 

 

Ruin looked at Captain Mons, and tilted his head. “Not white? Eh, still good. Fly good. Fly fast. You fly fast?  I fly fast. Crash fast too. Flash and crash, heheh. You ever flash and crash?”

 

I keyed in the access code, and the gangway of The Crate lowered as the large droid talked. I started to wonder about him. Most droids either talk less than even I do or they love the sounds of their own vocabulators so much they wear them out in a week. This droid was different. It almost sounded like he was experimenting, like a kid who'd never held a sword suddenly taking one for a few swings.

 

"You're fun," I said around what was left of my last cigarra. I really needed to slow down on these. "Don't break anything." I grinned then, a genuine grin, and that surprised me. It wasn't just the excitement of the mission. Something about this droid was...I wasn't sure...charming? "Yes. I fly fast."

 

In truth, a long time ago I'd disabled a few of the inertial dampeners on The Crate and never repaired them. Just enough to cut the compensation a few percentile of course, not enough to be dangerous. But enough to feel some of those Gs.

 

My smile got a little wider.

 

On 11/25/2021 at 9:56 PM, Leena Kil said:

When Ruin and Zeris approached, the natives clambered off the craft. One, their leader, a sinewy and taut war-painted veteran hefted an intricately crafted spear of salvaged durasteel and held it up in two hands, parallel to the ground. The head was fused to the shaft and offered a wicked jagged point complete with spines that seemed to be intent on inflicting as much fleshy damage as possible. “For you.” He proffered the weapon. “To kill those that did this. Avenge us.” Another warrior hefted two sealed containers. One was a sealed container of acidic metal-dissolving goo derived by unspoken ritual by their people. The second, a fast-hardening resin to recoat the spear  to make sure the acid did not eat it away. The warrior that pressed the ornate containers into Zeris’ hands hissed with a chuckle as he eyed Ruin. “Works on those brutes too.”

 

I blinked at the unexpected gift. To be given a weapon in thanks by strangers...that said more of the quality of these people than it did of me or what I'd done.

 

I accepted the spear with all the solemn gravitas I would have given an Echani master bestowing a title. Taking the spear in both hands, I bowed to the native.

 

"I will be worthy of it."

[Zeris Mons]

"Strap in everyone," I called out as I powered The Crate up. The Imperial Knight, the Jedi, and the droids had boarded, along with their respective supplies, which I'd double checked to make sure it was secured properly. The last thing any pilot wants during a rough landing or a weave through an asteroid field is a loose crate plowing into the controls.

 

I keyed up the nav computer, and the screen was immediately drowned in a series of overlapping fields and crisscrossing, color coded lines. I'd been struggling to find a safe path to these coordinates since I'd gotten them, and what was on screen was my best attempt. The problem was that this world was in the Deep Core, and therefor surrounded by uncharted gravity fields, unpredictable stellar phenomena, and stars packed more densely than anywhere else in the galaxy. It was like a second Unknown Regions, only this one was home to old Empire outposts and secret bases that no one knew how to reach anymore. And this particular planet was DEEP inside, almost halfway to the galactic center. Anything even resembling a straight path would be suicide.

 

Empress Teta (or Cinnagar if you were an Imperial revisionist) was the obvious starting point. True, it was on the far side of the the Deep Core from the destination, but it was the "Gateway to the Deep Core" for a reason. Old Mining Guild hyperspace routes were still good, so long as you stayed away from the old Imperial astrogation charts, back when they tried to restrict access to the Deep Core by feeding non-essential ships errors. Honestly, half of the Deep Core "never seen again" expeditions nowadays probably died because they were using those charts.

 

After that, it got iffy. I knew explorations had been made into the Deep Core, but charts were next to impossible to find and even harder to verify. So, this would have to be done manually. I'd already plotted in every visible star along dozens of different paths, but that only accounted for a fraction of the potential problems we might face along the way. And if we strayed too close to any one of them...poof...we were space dust.

 

In the end, the partial solution I'd found had less to do with looking for a safe path, and more with looking for the most dangerous spots. I nearly burned up the nav computer on calculations, but I pinpointed several areas with incredibly strong gravitational fields and dense star clusters, denser than usual for the Deep Core. I then double checked the stars' relative position against the oldest records I could find, back from around 20,000 BBY, and noted which clusters were coalescing the fastest. These were dangerous areas, of that I was sure. Going through them was as suicidal as diving headfirst into an active starship thruster. Buuuut...if I skirted the edges...most of the dangerous stellar phenomena should have been pulled deeper into their respective star clusters thousands of years ago.

 

Most.

 

It was the best shot we had. Half of the star clusters I picked was more out of instinct than rationale. Our route was all educated guesses, acceptable risks, and a collection of tidbits and rumors on the Deep Core that I'd collected over the years.

 

I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth.

 

This definitely wouldn't be boring.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

"Takeoff," I called back.

 

The Crate lifted off from the planet's surface, the thrust pushing me back in my seat, and soon enough we were breaking atmosphere and rocketing out into the void.

 

Here goes nothing, I thought to myself.

 

The hyperdrive whined to life, the stars stretched, and the cold black of space was replaced with the glowing blue of hyperspace.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

All in all, the trip took 17 hours, and I wasn't away from the pilot's seat for more than 5 minutes of that time. 17 hours of tense, white-knuckled (so to speak), hellish uncertainty. And I'll be honest, I loved every second of it.

 

I know it makes me sound suicidal, and maybe I am. Or maybe I have an unhealthy belief in my own immortality. Whatever. I'm not going to apologize. We were going into the Deep Core. The Deep Core! We were delving into a region of space so dangerous people had been telling stories about it since before the Republic was even a thing. And I was doing it with a Jedi, an Imperial Knight, and a couple of crazy droids at my back, and only my astrogation skill and luck between us and instant death. This was what I lived for, and that was something I'd realized about myself a long time ago.

 

This was going to be fun.

 

In the end...we didn't die, though it came close more than once. Granted, to anyone not in the pilot seat, it was only a couple moments of the ship shuddering and a little red light blinking on The Crate's control panel. but to me those moments were the brief indications I got that we'd skirted something that would have shredded us into our respective particles.

 

Finally...we dropped out of hyperspace, the blue resolving back into the starry, infinite sky.

 

I sat back in my chair, suddenly exhausted. The planet lay below us...an utter mystery.

 

I fumbled in one of my pockets until my metal fingers emerged with a small bottle that clicked and clacked as I shook it. About 6 left.

 

I opened it and dumped one of the caf pills inside into my palm, and promptly swallowed it. I'd need rest soon, but this would keep me wired for a little while at least.

 

I walked back to the transport bay, where the old seats clone troopers would have ridden in had been left mostly intact, with a few sporting new leather covers while others had withered and flaked away until just their metal frames were left.

 

"We're here."

 

*Story continues on Byss*