Corellia

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena appeared next to Camsie a couple seconds later. She smiled. "Coronet City: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere," she quipped.

 

She was really trying to hide her weariness. Corellia had a few memories for her--most of them bad. She pushed them away. She needed to focus on her training, not her past.

 

She forced herself to relax, though that was a bit difficult, combined with her anxiety and hours of reclining in her ship's piloting chair. "So, Master, shall we begin?"

[ObliviousKnight]

During Camsie's short lecture, Armiena suddenly became aware of a lack of weight at her side. She looked behind the Caamasi to see her weapons retreating back into her ship, suspended by mere air. Then Camsie hurled the other pole at her.

 

She had begun to sidestep away from the pole's flight, but she had no time to get out of the way. Even if she had moved as quickly as possible, the pole would have struck her in the shoulder like a thrown spear. At least the pole didn't have a sharpened point.

 

She focused on the pole, and reassured herself that it was just like levitating a bamboo stick--only that she needed to funnel her power to stop the pole, instead of summoning it to her hand. She tried grabbing it with the Force as though it were her own fist, hoping that it would stop before it hit her. Failure, and the embarrassment that would come with failure, was not an fate she wanted to choose.

 

She shut her eyes tightly, willing the projectile to cease her flight, almost quivering with concentration. When it made contact with her shoulder lightly, she thought she had failed. Then she opened her eyes again.

 

The metal pole was suspended in air mere millimeters from her body, practically welded to the shoulder of her robe. She took a step back, and although it wobbled slightly, she held her grip on it. Before she feared she would lose it altogther, she rose her hand, and called the pole to it. She caught it easily.

 

She resisted grinning triumphantly. Training was sure to be harder than hovering durasteel poles.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena nodded. She looked up at her Master's falling form, which was just reaching the apex of his jump.

 

"I think so. The basic idea about levitation and basic matter manipulation can be transferred to other methods. The same principle for levitating an object can be used to stop its flight, or moving it," she finishes just as Camsie lands neatly.

 

This was going to be a bit more complex. He was probably using the same technique, only to boost his jumping power, and lessening the effect of gravity through levitation at the same time. Multi-tasking with the Force, Arm... Think you're up to it? There was no doubt in her mind that she would at least try. She had to learn, even if she made an idiot out of herself.

 

She glanced down at the ground, spreading her feet to jump with all her strength. She jumped...

 

And didn't even reach four feet. She had only used muscle strength, with a minimal amount of aid from the Force, if any. Armiena glanced at the ground again, willing her body to separate from it. "Come on..." she whispered to herself. She jumped again...

 

She felt the breeze rushing past her, scattering her hair. She wasn't even sure how high up she was; all she knew was that she was jumping far higher than any non-Force-user could. When she reached the apex of the jump, she looked down again--but that wasn't even necessary. She had applied the Force unevenly, and her body was almost parallel with the ground. She would be hitting the ground with crushing force in just a moment.

 

Use the Force, Arm! Come on... She hoped--needed, really--her body to rebalance. The world righted itself as her body turned vertical again. She landed a little unsteadily, her knees buckling as she made contact again with the floor. She held a hand down on the plating for balance.

 

"I've really got to work on my control..." she muttered to herself.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena held out her hand for the almost forgotten pole; it lept up like it belong there the whole time. Eyeing Camsie's defensive position, she settles into an offensive stance, the tip of her pole angled towards him, feet behind one another to advance.

 

Taking a deep breath, she charged. She was moving far too quickly to stop in time, but she dug the heels of her boots into the plating, and used her momentum to spin around. Camsie easily blocked the blow that was aimed at his neck, both poles vibrating fiercely with the impact.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena had already started to block Camsie's blow, but as her pole came down to block, she knew it was too late. The metal pole connected solidly with her thigh. She knew she was going to have a painful bruise on that later.

 

She used the pain to sharpen her concentration, and thrust the tip of her pole at her master. The two weapons wove an intricate pattern as he guided the tip away from his chest, and he finally came out on top, striking at the same spot on her leg. She knew this was going to hurt a lot if she didn't block in time.

 

Armiena's pole moved with blurring speed, and intercepted the pole centimeters before impact. She batted Camsie's pole aside, and returned to her guard.

[ObliviousKnight]

"Trust the force, Armiena!" came Camsie's voice.

 

Armiena was already up to her neck in the Force, or so she thought. She imagined treading water in a pool of thick, blueish-green liquid, as though she were physically immersed in it.

 

But now was not the time for daydreams. She was already fighting to protect herself from more painful blows. It's just like the exercise with the discs. Except I don't have anyone to save me from my mistakes, she thought. She whirled around to intercept a flying hydrospanner. Her pole slipped through the head, but with a quick twirl of her wrists, the tool flew off, not even grazing her.

 

A hollow impact on the plating alerted her to other threat. She turned to face a small storm of bolts that had escape its durasteel prison. Armiena groaned inwardly; there was no way she could block so many projectiles--she didn't think anyone could--and she couldn't simply throw them away one by one. She was bracing herself for a painful barrage when an idea came to her; perhaps she could funnel the Force into "hardening" the air into a wall? It was worth a try. She abandoned her guard, collapsing on herself to concentrate. She badly needed this to work...

 

She reinforced the air before her into an invisible wall, drawing the individual molecules together, mortaring them together with only the Force. She was still strengthening it when the flurry of metallic projectiles hammered into it.

 

Armiena was so caught up in her concentration that she didn't even hear the sounds of the bolts falling to the ground, stopped by the invisible wall. But, at last, her barrier failed, just in time to let a single bolt through. It hit her painfully on the forehead.

 

She opened her eyes to see a small pile of bolts on the ground, and another lying at her side. She could feel a painful welt forming above her left eye. She touched it gingerly.

 

"That worked better than I hoped." She pauses. "Ouch."

 

She realizes that she was still training, and returns to her guard.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena ignored the stinging from the cut on her forehead; Camsie's praise made it all worthwhile. There was nothing quite like doing well, and having others admit it.

 

"Tidy this place up a little..." she mutters.

 

She formed the Force into a closed fist, forming it around the mound of bolts that was lying at her feet. She simultaneously lifts the hydrospanner that was lying against the wall, and started to spin it in the air like an out-of-control stylus.

 

One by one, she throws the bolts against the hydrospanner. Most of them make contact with the head of the tool, and ricochet towards Camsie's general direction. Not needing the hydrospanner to bat the bolts away, she hurls it at him as well.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena's eyes didn't even have time to widen when she saw the garbage compactor flying in her direction. If she didn't act immediately, she would be paste in a few seconds.

 

The most efficient way to avoid getting crushed was to get out of the way, as she saw it. Reflexes amplified by the Force, she dropped to the ground, rolling under the compactor's flight. As she felt its wind pass her by, she slowed it down, and kept it from toppling over as it landed noisily. For protection, she removed a crushed droid from the inside of the compactor, and levitated it in front of her, like an old-fashioned round shield.

 

She simultaneously levitated the hydrospanner that she had previously thrown at Camsie. Its purpose of molesting her master was not fulfilled yet.

[ObliviousKnight]

((This is not a double post--check out the date of Prophet K's last post. Where are ya, buddy?))

 

Armiena suddenly couldn't find her master; he was clearly hiding, perhaps forcing her to use abilities that she hadn't yet learned. She let the crushed droid that she was using as a shield fall, and it landed noisily, almost crushing her foot. Careless... Armiena, careless... She also retrieved the hydrospanner. Even though she knew she looked ridiculous double-wielding a bent durasteel pole and a hydrospanner, she knew how to wield two weapons.

 

"Master... come out, come out, wherever you are..." she murmured in a sing-song voice. She already knew how to sense attacks coming at her. Perhaps she could use the same technique to sense the presence of a Force user? It was worth a try.

 

She allowed her mind to drift, as though pushing her consciousness to fill every shadow in the hangar. There were so many people around... milling about the area, doing... errands, she supposed. She forced her attention off them. She needed to focus.

 

She found Camsie, alright. She sensed another presence, hiding behind the shadows of the garbage compactor that she stopped, intensely focused on her. Armiena didn't even see him moving, he must have run so quickly. Not that running quickly was much of a feat with the Force, she reminded herself.

 

But the tactic didn't work as well as he planned, because Armiena had found him. She gathered her concentration into aiding her jumping powers, and vaulted over the compactor. This time she landed much more easily, almost cat-like, right next to her master.

 

"Surprise."

[ObliviousKnight]

The moment the Jolian Tru popped out of hyperspace and into Corellia's orbit, Armiena felt incredibly tense. It wasn't just because she was about to meet the woman of a man she recently killed, she also had... intense memories of this planet. Ordinarily, she would have tried to avoid this planet, but if Skye had chosen to meet with her here, it would have been beyond rude to renegotiate the setting.

 

Armiena spent the entire trip down through Corellia's atmosphere staring a thousand meters away, desperately trying to keep her mind off of that terrible day, nearly a lifetime ago. Her hand unconsciously balled into a fist. When the Jolian Tru landed on a grassy field overlooked by a rural retreat, she finally seemed to relax. Her mother gave her a reassuring nod and squeezed her remaining hand, then the trio silently rose from their seats and exited the YT-2400 freighter.

 

The Corellian freighter's boarding ramp lowered to reveal a veiled woman, clearly strong in the Force but with no formal training, Shawn Kenobi, and then finally, Armiena herself.

 

Although Armiena was clearly strong enough to walk, it was obvious why she had contacted Skye Organa, the best known of the Jedi Healers. Her face was completely mutilated, most of the skin and muscle sliced off of the bone by her own vibroshiv. Only a few scraps of flesh remained, framing the reddened bone. Her left arm was also severed by a lightsaber, neatly amputated by Armiena herself to prevent an infection from spreading through her body, but the Jedi Knight gave no indication that the injury was of much concern to her. Losing an arm was a small sacrifice to make, in comparison to losing her life to an infection.

 

She was already hard at work designing a prosthetic arm, one with unusual capabilities that nobody would expect. Her foolish pride would accept nothing less.

 

The pain rolling off her mind was incredible, and it was a true testament to the power of the Force that Armiena was able to keep control of her body. Still, her breathing was suddenly shallow, rapid... but not because of her injuries.

 

Fear shone in her emerald eyes. Armiena was genuinely afraid... afraid of what Skye would think of the woman that killed her brother.

[ObliviousKnight]

((For clarification, Misal Draygo is an NPC of mine. Ordinarily, she never plays a major role in my RPing, but I really didn't want to turn Sith.))

 

Armiena nodded slightly in response, inwardly sighing in relief. Between the wave of comfort she felt over the Force, and Skye's immediate acceptance of her, the Jedi Knight finally relaxed. She was actually amazed by Skye's immediate acceptance of what happened, and what she had to do in self-defense. If she was in the same position as Skye at this moment... she didn't know what she would do. Perhaps that was what made the Jedi Master one of their finest Healers; she was willing to be forgiving, and extend the hand of mercy to anyone who requested it... regardless of their alignment.

 

"Thank you, Master Organa." Armiena suddenly felt formal. "This is Shawn Kenobi, my Padawan, and Misal Draygo, my mother... whom you've already been in correspondence with." Her mother simply smiled, content with watching the scene unfold and studying them.

 

Armiena's eyes travelled to Skye's back, and she immediately spotted the wings... and dismissed them just as quickly. How the Jedi Master got them didn't matter to her at the moment, nor did she need to know. Either way, the explanation would likely be mind-boggling, to say the least. She mentally shrugged; there was a lot going on behind the scenes that Armiena didn't know about, and some of it left physical clues that she could sense, but what was happening in Skye's personal life didn't concern her.

 

"Lead the way, Skye... and congratulations."

[ObliviousKnight]

"I'm busy designing my own prosthetic. A few day's hard work and access to a datapad, I should be ready to have it built." Armiena shrugged slowly. "I'm a bit stupid like that; I love a challenge, and I won't accept anything less. If I'm going to have my arm replaced, why not make it something special?"

 

The Jedi Knight followed Skye through the sterilization field and tried to ignore the tingling sensation that it produced. She also listened intently--perhaps too intently for politeness--to Skye's explanation her family ties to Nahstaa and the origin of her wings. As she expected, the brief explanation opened up more questions than it gave answers, and the mystery became even more strange.

 

Don't judge her, Arm. Your family is probably just as strange. Indeed, Armiena was in no position to judge Skye's family. After all, her Miraluka mother had faked her own death to escape Palpatine's Jedi Purge and lived on the Outer Rim for most of her daughter's life, completely out of the picture until recently. Her father was perhaps overly secretive, and had woven a fine web of deceptions for the sake of her own protection that she still hadn't unravelled. There was no doubt, Armiena had had a strange upbringing.

 

The woman took one look at the gown, and her eyes filled with mirth.

 

"I have bad memories of hospital gowns. They're rather... open to pranks, if you know what I mean." She chuckled, then left to change into the accursed garment.

 

A few minutes and a glorious struggle to get her severed arm through the left sleeve, Armiena returned. She had only been in this gown for about thirty seconds, and she already missed her robes.

[ObliviousKnight]

The moment the IV was inserted into Armiena's arm, she was grateful that she was lying on the operating table. The effects of the sedative were immediate, and decidedly powerful.

 

"Betcha I'll make it to... g'night..." Without another word, Armiena fell into a peaceful, drugged sleep.

[ObliviousKnight]

"You know, I have to wonder if you're starting to enjoy bacta tank immersions." Corporal Selene Novall greeted Private First Class Armiena Draygo when she finally stepped out of the bacta tank, and handed her a towel.

 

"Shut up." Armiena grinned at her, enjoying the banter. The thing she hated the most about the bacta tank was that it was impossible to interact with the outside world--it was possibly the most maddening sensation she could think of. Just being able to engage in playful banter with her friend helped bring her back into the real world.

 

"No, seriously, that's the third time in the past six standard months, isn't it?" Selene's shy grin began to surface on her face.

 

"It's been ten months."

 

"Six."

 

"Ten... being drugged up to the eyebrows and wrapped in bandages doesn't count."

 

"Still impressive--I think you're now the Rebellion's most expensive combat trooper now. Congratulations, that's quite an accomplishment!" She slapped Armiena bare back. "Tell me, what's your secret? Are you some kind of magnet for trouble?"

 

"Sadly, yes. You'd think that every single grenade just has to fling shrapnel in my direction. No, stormies don't notice the massive, 6' 5" guy with enough equipment to run Industrial Automaton; they notice the woman with a few satchel charges." Armiena finished towelling off the bacta residue and began changing into her uniform.

 

"Have blaster bolts started bending towards you yet?"

 

"You know... there was that one incident on Averam..."

 

"Aw, that was an accident. Who would have expected the shot to richochet at that angle?"

 

"You didn't, apparently. I know it surprised the hell out of me."

 

Out of nowhere, "Reveille" began playing at full blast. Armiena's immediate instinct was to wake up and report--

 

--And the Jedi Knight woke up to find herself in Skye Organa's clinic.

 

Something had changed during her sleep, that much was obvious. Armiena ran through a checklist of sorts, much like how one would proceed through a start-up sequence for a spacecraft.

 

Legs... were unchanged, but they hadn't been injured during her duel on Coruscant. Arms... the same, though her left arm had been properly treated, instead of merely being sliced off by her lightsaber. The pain in her left arm was also gone, because it had been properly amputated and the painkiller was still working. Everything else seemed to be unchanged below her neck.

 

Her hand rose to her face, and touched firm, soft skin. It took her a moment to process the fact that she was touching synthesized, untattered skin, and not bloody bone. Her eyebrows rose in amazement, and then Armiena suddenly realized that she had eyebrows.

 

She smiled at the droid leaving her bunk. "Hey, while you're on your way out, would you mind telling Skye that she's a genius?"

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena felt a rumble in the Force, a tremor generated by a sudden wave of death and suffering. Soon after came a wave of pain, grief, and shock at something that just happened. The Jedi Knight cringed; she knew exactly what had just happened. Someone had managed to kill an awful lot of people at once.

 

For Force's sake, can't a Jedi get a moment of rest in this galaxy?

 

The sooner Armiena was back on her feet, the better. However, disobeying a living Healer's orders was somehow a lot more difficult for her than simply ignoring the medical advice of a medical droid. The woman sighed, and let her head fall back to her pillow. She would have rather preferred being on her feet and helping at the city that had just been attacked, instead of resting in safety, even though she was recovering from a fairly major operation.

 

___________________________________________________________

 

I-Nine rolled up to Skye Organa, and whistled a long phrase in his nearly unintelligible mechanical voice.

 

The closest translation was: "Your patient is awake... and she says that you're a genius." The droid chirped a few times, as if chuckling at Armiena's message.

[ObliviousKnight]

Armiena appeared unusually thoughtful, and her right hand slowly traced one of the scars left over from Skye's operation. With time and a healing trance, they would probably slowly fade into nothingness, leaving only memories behind. Awful memories, perhaps, but she would eventually recover from the ordeal... she had recovered from far worse trauma before.

 

Amazing. She thought for about the hundredth time in the last few hours. Her hand fell to the datapad lying on the table in front of her, and idly tapped a few keys. At the other side of the guest room, her mother meditated.

 

An incredibly complex diagram was on the screen of her datapad. It was an engineer's diagram of a prosthetic limb, a basic design that was available from the Holonet. Armiena planned to strip it down to its essential parts, then add her modifications... Perhaps an armored core... maybe strength enhancement. One thing was certain, she definitely missed Dine. With his holoprojector and infinitely powerful calculating abilities, he made this job much easier.

 

The Jedi Knight shrugged and pushed the datapad aside; she would have plenty of time to complete the prosthetic.

 

Armiena finally seemed to come out of her reverie, because she glanced up, and started when she saw Shawn right in front of her.

 

"Sorry... I got a bit drawn into my work. Just... thinking." Again, her eyes disfocused as she thought about where to continue Shawn's training and for her to complete her healing process. Not much left... Just a couple more lessons, then it'll be time for his trials. A faint smile crossed her lips. Where does the time go?

 

There wasn't much they could accomplish on Corellia. She knew that Fynn Relmis could handle the situation on his own, and she knew by painful experience that Corellia's emergency response system was excellent. One Jedi would excel in this situation... more would probably trip up on each other, and as much as Armiena wanted to help, she knew she was in no condition to rush into crumbling buildings and pull out injuried civilians.

 

There were plenty of peaceful planets in the galaxy they could go to, and that was exactly what Armiena wanted. A pleasant, peaceful planet, away from the troubles of the galaxy so she could heal, meditate, rest, and perhaps even complete Shawn's training. If the planet was sparsely populated, that would be even better.

 

"Borleias... let's go to Borleias."

 

Even though she knew the old Jedi Dojo on Borleias had been ruined during the Sith attack, she was incredibly fond of the world. Cherished memories far outweighed the bad ones, and she knew that the area surrounding the Dojo would have recovered by now. Of course, they didn't have to go to that region; there were plenty of peaceful areas in the mountains, untouched by the Sith.

[ObliviousKnight]

I could have sworn that transit between Gala and Corellia took longer...

 

By now, it didn't matter. Armiena had taken a few minutes in a Jedi rejuvenation trance to compensate for her lack of rest after the Battle of Csilla, and now she was fully alert, although still a bit irate after the humiliating episode at Naboo. She was fully aware of the dangers of going into battle with a desire to rip something to bits--even more reason why should would have preferred to have an hour or two to vent her frustrations on a training dummy, rather than rushing to yet another battle.

 

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Wait. Had she said those words on an open-air transmission? Yes, yes she had. Everyone had just heard her exclamation of disbelief.

 

However, it was an absurd situation for the Imperials. On a lesser planet, two Victory-class Star Destroyers would have been a harbinger of doom; those ships were well-known for being able to deliver a punishing bombardment. However, Corellia? The Rebellion's intelligence on Corellia was a bit sketchy, but it had apparently amassed a fair amount of firepower; even the Golan platform was capable of holding off both of the VSDs on its own, if the Imps decided to take a shot at it. And then there was the intervening mercenary fleet. That alone would have probably been enough to give the Imps the fight of their lives.

 

What in blazes was going on here?

 

However, there was no reason for her arrival to precipitate the first salvo. Even though she was actively scanning the armada, such as it was, for threats and was maintaining her shields, her weapons systems were still deactivated and she continued to skirt the edge of the possible battlefield. Until the first salvo was fired, hopefully, she would be seen as just another random bystander, rather than the forerunner of another party to the conflict.

[ObliviousKnight]

"That's right, evildoers!" Armiena bellowed into her helmet with a strange accent in her voice. Damn it all if she was broadcasting in clear air; she just felt like shouting out nonsense. "Run before the light of... justice! Run, ya bloody cowards, run... oh, to hell with it, I need a full night's sleep."

 

Armiena turned her starfighter about in a languid loop, already plotting a course back to Gala. As she waited for her craft's nav computer to finish its calculations, she returned Master Organa's communication.

 

”œThe Imperial fleet retreated just a few minutes after I arrived. It seems to be over now. I won't be needing to speak to you at Gala, so if you'd like to check on your mother, be my”¦ um”¦ her guest.”

[ObliviousKnight]

The Switchblade appeared out of hyperspace on the edge of the Coruscant-Corellia shipping lane. Its pilot, Armiena Draygo, got on comms and hailed Corellia airspace control and established contact with the local authorities as per trade regulation. Coronet Control assigned her vessel, which was currently taking upon the sensor signature and emission spectrum of a Barloz-class freighter, to a landing vector to a landing bay near a biomedical research institution.

 

The Alderaanian pilot let out a sigh of exasperation when the conversation was concluded. The clearance code that she used identified her cargo as a shipment of research isotopes and would give her ship a wide clearance while she made her approach… at least until the situation hit the fan and she broke out of her landing vector.

 

However, the Switchblade’s sensors had picked up the Blur in Corellia’s atmosphere just as Aryian’s ship was landing. Somehow, her ex-husband had gotten here before she had, despite having left after her. Clearly something had gone awry with that souped-up hyperdrive that Correlli had touted when she was buying the Switchblade… another problem that was going to take days of filthy work to correct. Assuming, of course, that the Switchblade was still spaceworthy by the end of this mission…

 

Armiena continued to grumble as Corellia grew larger in the canopy and she worked to still the ripples of the Force around her. Her nervousness was doing nothing to help. Clenching her teeth behind the gel mask that was sealed over her mouth, the ace pilot began running through the weapons diagnostics for a third time. Waiting was not something that she did particularly well.

 

“Stupid, stupid. Should have planted a tracer on him. Or a bug. Anything.” She bit short a curse. “Come on, Aryian…”

[ObliviousKnight]

Still approaching the planet, Armiena received her ex-husband’s transmission and frowned. Having at least one screw knocked loose by a lifetime of battle, she didn’t quite grasp the reference to an eight-cube, but she perfectly understood that he needed close air support and had managed to clear the ground after tripping a fire evacuation of the Corellian Stock Exchange. Jamming the throttle forward, the pilot hastened her descent and got Coronet Airspace Control on the comms unit.

 

“Coronet Control, this is Sigma-22, approaching Coronet from Coruscant radionucleics lane.” She shot a quick glance out the canopy, noting a cloud of media airspeeders that was beginning to complicate the skies near her destination. “Clear the airspace in the vicinity of the Corellian Stock Exchange.”

 

The deadpan voice came back immediately. “Sigma-22, be advised that Coronet City Aerospace Control does not recognize the authority of a solitary tramp freighter that has no standing in this star system, and that attempting to blackmail, coerce, or otherwise manipulate an agent into altering atmospheric traffic patterns is a Class Two felony, subject—“

 

“Dammit, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to say this.” Armiena growled. “This is Jedi Master Armiena Draygo, part of a task force investigating an incident that has just occurred on Dantooine. We believe that the situation in the Stock Exchange is connected. In the name of the Jedi Order, close the airspace in the vicinity of the Corellian Stock Exchange, or so help me, any vessel that finds itself in the middle of a dogfight gets what it has coming to him. Get me some fracking airspace, now!”

 

Watching the skies near the tower that housed the exchange market, Armiena noted the departure of most of the interfering traffic. A number of vessels remained, most likely vehicles belonging to the public safety departments, judging from the aurora of emergency lights flaring on their chassis—and the foolhardy journalists that they were trying to herd from the scene.

 

Dipping the fuselage of the Switchblade near sea level, Armiena deactivated the holoprojectors that camouflaged the interceptor’s hull as a tramp freighter. The disguise of her vessel cast aside, Armiena activated the ship’s shields and weapons suite and took up a patrol pattern two kilometers outside the Corellian Stock Exchange, circling the edifice at a sufficient altitude so she could quickly supply close air support or respond to any interlopers.

 

“And here I am, in an interceptor, holding a predictable flight pattern above a ground target. This is going to get very interesting if our interloper has friends of his own.” Armiena complained as the Switchblade shot over a block of substandard apartment housing. “Right. Building is mostly evacuated, save for a few stubborn individuals and… huh.” The Alderaanian frowned as her sensors registered the entrance of another sentient being. “Who’s this clown?”

 

Meanwhile, her retinal implant was sending minute-by-minute updates of the situation as the local media understood it. Apparently the system’s stock market had crashed, amid widespread speculation of illegal market manipulation. Interesting.

[ObliviousKnight]

After many orbits around the Corellian Stock Exchange, Armiena’s nervousness began to morph into a sense of dread. Something was clearly going wrong on the ground, otherwise there would have been some sign of a struggle—and Aryian was perfectly capable of causing mayhem on a mythological scale. Yet, she had to hold her station as air support. If the scene at the stock exchange turned out to be a trap, the Switchblade would be needed to deliver close air support in the form of a strafing run or a low-speed bombardment of the structure. And if their interloper turned out to have friends in the form of air support…

 

Armiena decided to risk revealing her presence and relaxed her grip on the perturbations of the Force about herself, sweeping her senses over the structure she was maintaining a clear sky... and discovering that the interloper was none other than Vladimir Faust.

 

Her hand twitched reflexively on the control stick of her interceptor, causing the Switchblade to jerk gracelessly through another orbit of the Corellian Stock Exchange. This was not the moment that Armiena would have chosen for her confrontation with Vladimir Faust. However, as unprepared as she was and with so few forces arrayed against her perennial tormentor, the meeting had come. Breaking hard to redirect her craft directly towards the stock exchange, the Switchblade gained altitude and its pilot surveyed the structure that she had been patrolling around. The Corellian Stock Exchange was a rather old building, a somewhat squat edifice comprised primarily of steel and concrete when most of the newer towers in Coronet made use of more modern developments in transparisteel and higher-grade materals—and possibly Alderaanian tastes, judging from the daring curves of one tower that was still under construction. However, there were still skylights installed over the axis of the Exchange, through which Armiena could easily discern two figures facing each other inside.

 

Armiena threw the throttle forwards and her ship plunged towards the Stock Exchange. Taking a position at one side of the building, the expert pilot kicked in the repulsorlifts and maneuvering thrusters to point the nose of the Switchblade directly at Vladimir Faust, chainguns revved up and laser cannons fully charged. The black profile of her ship could be seen through the skylights, drifting slowly from side to side with minute corrections to hold the interceptor steady.

 

“Come on, you little…” Armiena growled a curse under her breath. The Bhelliom was still yet to be spotted by either her ship or the more powerful, longer-ranged sensors that Coronet Traffic Control possessed. Still, if opportunity presented itself and Faust made a move, she would take the shot and fill the Stock Exchange with a storm of hot lead.

[ObliviousKnight]

Again, Faust had outmaneuvered her. That man’s most valuable asset had always been his talent in deceiving his enemies and misdirecting them into a trap. At least this didn’t turn into the kind of disaster that had ensued when he had succeeded in misleading Ara-Lai and most of the galaxy into believing that he was dead. Even though his recklessness had bordered on a search for martyrdom, Aryian had succeeded in averting that kind of massacre. Still, as Armiena jerked her interceptor away from its planned strafing run and back into a course that would take it into orbit, her hands shook and her teeth ground with frustration.

 

“Hold up, Aryian, got a comm…” Armiena glanced to port and noted that one of CoreSec’s paramilitary snubfighter’s, alarm strobes blazing, was keeping pace with the Switchblade. “Should take just a sec…

 

It was the local CoreSec station chief. Apparently, the locals were not at all impressed by the stunts pulled off by the two former Jedi. Between triggering an evacuation of the Corellian Stock Exchange through a fraudulent disaster drill, demanding (coercing, more accurately) CoreSec into establishing a no-fly zone around the commercial sector, and sending the Switchblade zooming all over Coronet like an ominous reminder of the devastation which Corellia had miraculously evaded despite the recent war, their actions had not gone over well with the local security forces.

 

“Hold on, chief, hold—spast!” Armiena cursed as one of CoreSec’s E-Wings streaked across the flight path of the Switchblade, forcing her to send the interceptor into a dive that caused her to nearly “red-out”. “You trying to get your people killed? Call off your patrols and… let’s say that I’ll owe you a favor. What kind? The kind where you send one former Jedi Grandmaster into a situation instead of your own people, no questions asked. Situation resolved, none of your officers hurt, and you get to blame any collateral damage on a prodigal Jedi that half the galaxy thinks has gone unhinged. Sound acceptable? Great, now, Aryian and I have an ex-Imperial war criminal to hunt down…”

 

As Armiena cut the outraged bureaucrat off, the pilot noted that Aryian’s Blur had just entered hyperspace. Sighing, the Alderaanian instead sent an encrypted message to Darex, who was presumably still on Dantooine.

 

“Darex, it’s Draygo. We’ve… made a bit of a mess of things. We can confirm that Faust is involved somehow, but he’s managed to get away. No civilian casualties that I know of, but… you know how it is. I suggest we meet up on the Eternal Vigilance and make our plans before he rears his head again. Oh, and I think I might have an outstanding warrant on my head for coercing a public official into establishing a no-fly zone. Yeah, if you could keep CoreSec from boarding the EV, just in case, that would be great.”

 

And, having one more competitor to play comms tag with, she sent another message to her ex-husband. “Aryian, Draygo. We’ve left a mess on Corellia. I’m heading to Coruscant, the Eternal Vigilance. I suggest you not talk to CoreSec for a while. They’re… less than pleased with us. I’ll see you there.”

 

Her path finally cleared of interference from CoreSec, Armiena made one last course correction and sent the Switchblade into hyperspace.

[ObliviousKnight]

As Draygo had said, there was no time to lose. There was only time to run through additional lightsaber drills with Genesis, and try to steal a few hours of sleep despite the imminent threat of battle. An alarm klaxon jolted the veteran Jedi from her sleep. She pushed herself off of the command consoles and rubbed at the indentations that the freighter’s controls had left on her cheek. Only a few seconds later, the haze of hyperspace receded to reveal a star system in chaos--Sith and Rebel fleets were arrayed in the vicinity of Corellia, and McShipface’s advanced sensors were picking up energy surges that were indicative of ongoing dogfights between the fleets’ pickets.

 

And there was something big out there. Draygo’s senses couldn’t quite pick out the presence, but the Force and her ship’s sensors were warning her that horrible danger was lurking many kilometers out into the void.

 

She keyed the ship’s comm systems and hailed the Rebel fleet, her fingers skidding on an unidentified moisture on the controls.. “This is Master Darkfire. Standing by to support. Awaiting tactical data.” She terminated the signal and grimaced; she had been drooling in her sleep.

 

“Ryu!” The veteran Jedi called into the rear of the ship. “I’m sorry. I said that I would petition the Grandmaster regarding your case, try to get the Jedi off your back while you picked through your memories. I…” Draygo ran her hands through her hair, feeling as though the vacuum was trying to reach through the hull to grab her. “I can record a message for you, just in case I don’t… but if I do, I’ll come get you. Bag--has a comlink, a few days of rations, and some credits if you make it to a city. Now, please, take the easy way out of this one and ride an escape pod down to Corellia.”

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Draygo said nothing, her pale-green eyes shifting between her Padawan and Kakuto Ryu. Once again, her expression remained carefully and stoically neutral, even if the seizure of emotion that rattled through the Force suggested that the veteran Jedi was experiencing some strange combination of profound stress, existential terror, and hopeful calculation. Her left eye, however, twitched. But that was easily explained by the lack of sleep over the last week and the acrid scent of cold caf that lingered in the cockpit.

 

“Shippy has a state-of-the-art sensor array and the best comms suite this side of the Force. Her engines…” It went unspoken that McShipface was a research ship and her engines weren’t suited to outrun anything faster than a flock of mynocks. “We’re going out there to see what the Sith are mustering at Centerpoint, relay to the fleet, and try to not die in the process.”

 

She got up and led the two to the ship’s armory. It was a small room, barely larger than a Coruscanti closet, but the lockers had enough blasters, breastplates, and vibrodaggers to outfit a squad of commandos. Draygo’s mouth formed words as she punched in the access code--the motion of her fingers clearly indicated that guessing a string of six consecutive numbers was the only barrier between an intruder and access to enough explosives to level a city block. “Help yourselves, the white-caps are duds,” Armiena offered as she tucked one of the aforementioned dud grenades and a concussive flashbang into her belt.

 

“Ryu,” Armiena added, placing her left palm on an armored casket. The little box opened, revealing a pair of lightsabers. The hilt of one was scarred and corroded by a mixture of fire and a battery explosion, but the other was a nearly pristine hilt with hand-carved wooden and leather inlays. She pressed it to Ryu’s breastbone. “This lightsaber was loaned to me during a desperate moment by Roene Givrah. He’s been missing in action ever since Coruscant fell.”

 

Edited July 24, 2020 by ObliviousKnight

[ObliviousKnight]

Draygo had significant difficulty accepting praise from anyone, and noticeably paused while inspecting an armored vest. 

 

“I’m a fool. It’s a requirement for any half-decent revolutionary,” Armiena responded as she donned the armor and stretched her shoulders to test the range of motion. The veteran Jedi retrieved a small vibrodagger and made a delicate cut at the seams on the sides, just enough for her to worm her fingers into the fabric and remove the encumbering weight of the a set of small plastoid plates. The armor would still provide some protection to the vitals, but the absence of the side plates would afford her a nearly full range of motion. 

 

She then retrieved an additional pair of short-bladed vibrodaggers, tucked one of them into her right boot and the other into a scabbard on her right shoulder. A slight adjustment of the clips on her gunbelt brought her lightsaber and blaster pistol closer to the sides of her hips. Closing up the lockers and securing the armory, Draygo sighted a fixed point on the far side of the ship’s miniature hangar and drew her blaster pistol in a single-handed grip. She rested the barrel of the weapon on wrist, clutching her lightsaber in her left hand.

 

Armiena just gazed over the sights of the blaster for a handful of seconds, observing the natural bob of the sights with her breath. It was certainly an unconventional fighting stance for a Jedi--it was more reminiscent of the close-quarters combat techniques that some commando units practiced--but it would allow her to transition from her pistol to her lightsaber in an instant.

 

“Rule number one of combat as a Jedi--keep yourself alive.” Draygo patted her Padawan on the shoulder as she followed Ryu to the cockpit. “Your lightsaber will give you plenty of options. No need to take a life when you can take a limb… and a few kilos of high-grade steel makes for a wonderful cudgel. Ryu,” Armiena tried to smile as she collapsed into the pilot’s seat and began to prime the ship’s powerful active sensors. Instead, she only managed a sort of pained grimace that twisted her mouth and didn’t quite reach her eyes. “If we both live through this day, we will have a long talk about why I’m so terrified of you. It will be a difficult conversation, but you won’t be facing the Jedi Grandmaster completely unprepared. Now.”

 

Her metal hand racing over the controls of McShipface’s astrometrics suite as though it were a rehearsed motion, Draygo focused the vessel’s powerful sensor dish into the void. To anyone directly targeted by the sensors, the surface of the hull would begin to vibrate and emanate at a keening, ultrasonic frequency as it was buffeted by a wave of energy that was outright unhealthy for an unprotected organic to absorb. To the veteran Jedi, however, all she observed was that the overhead lights dimmed noticeably as the sensor arrays spooled up and probed deeply into the deep space surrounding Centerpoint Station. Draygo’s lips thinned as she observed the report and transmitted it to the Rebel fleet--a sizeable fleet consisting of several Star Destroyer-sized vessels, numerous frigates and cruisers, and a Star Dreadnought of an unknown design had been mustering in-system.

 

She just let out a little sigh and gunned the engines.

 

[ObliviousKnight]

Draygo growled as hundreds of icons began to appear on the sensor boards, all of them marked with red pips to indicate that landing craft and starfighters were descending into Corellia’s atmosphere. For a few seconds, the veteran Jedi just lowered her head and considered the tactical options. An invasion force of this size was likely to require coordination from a central command center, almost certainly the largest of the Sith Star Destroyers in the vicinity of Centerpoint Station. Only… no comm chatter was being picked up within the vicinity of Coronet City. Then it would be local command only--or even coordination the old-fashioned way, with each unit of troopers memorizing their objectives as well as their adjacent units.

 

She sank into the Force and began to probe the area around Centerpoint Station. The aerospace was rife with the inimitable static and chatter of dozens of dogfights: bomber wings and gunners calmly reporting impacts and secondary explosions, starfighter pilots pleading for help or shouting in triumph, and the death screams of dozens of sapients in a dozen tongues every second. The Force roiled with emotion--Armiena pushed past the static and reached deeper into the capital ships of the Imperial fleet. Something there was bubbling grotesquely, like a turbid, viscous liquid that was boiling over. Draygo contacted the presence for the briefest of moments--she did not dare plumb its depths--and found that it hadn’t extended unctuous tentacles around the maelstrom in a Sith simulacrum of battle meditation.

 

All coordination of the battle was being handled through local initiative, then. That was unusually decentralized for Imperial ground forces--more typical for Rebel commandos… or first-wave marines establishing a beachhead.

 

Draygo pulled away from the Force and opened her eyes. Pale-green eyes flickered towards Kakuto Ryu. “Let’s make some friends, then. Genesis, on the guns and try to keep them off our engines. Ryu, have… fun with the arms and wait for my signal. I’ll look for a point of entry.”

 

Into that chaos McShipface plunged, a hulking amalgam of civilian and scientific equipment amidst the swarms of sleek and swift starfighters. Laser fire was spitting from the freighter’s keel, but Draygo had no time to coordinate fire. Draygo dipped the freighter into the shadow of turbolaser blasts in a set of evasive maneuvers that caused girders to groan. As an emerald barrage grazed the shields and caused the lights to dim, unsecured equipment leaped off the walls and crashed into expensive piles of wreckage. An alarm howled for attention as the ship closed the distance to the Sith fleet, indicating that they had just been targeted by one of Goliath’s point-defense batteries. A flip of a switch focused the freighter’s powerful sensor arrays on that emplacement, blasting it with so much energy that it overloaded the fire-control systems. Blaster bolts bounced off of McShipface’s shields as it raced to the flagship’s hull--but then they were through the defenses, racing along the lines of the ship’s surface.

 

Armiena’s eyes darted from point to point, searching for a specific location on the ship’s superstructure. The ship darted along its lateral trench, racing past gun emplacements and hangars, then up its command superstructure. Finally, she located a singular point that would allow them to make ingress without getting bogged down in the hangar. The Jedi Ace slewed the ship violently to port, bringing the engines to a halt and filling the viewport with the sight of a personnel airlock. 

“Ryu! The airlock! Open it up open it up now-now-now!” Armiena shouted, unbuckling from the pilot’s seat and leaping across the cockpit. She tore open a cabinet, revealing four emergency respirators. They were sitting ducks for Goliath’s combat air patrol and point defenses in these critical seconds.

[ObliviousKnight]

Seconds of frantic, thoughtless activity ensued. Draygo only had time to toss one of those cheap, plastic respirator masks onto Ryu’s lap. Her hand tapped frantically at one of McShipface’s control boards, setting the autopilot to retreat to a set of coordinates somewhere between Corellia and Duros. Then, rushing down the ship’s interior towards the airlock, Armiena attempted to place one of the masks over her face and toss the remaining mask towards her Padawan. At the airlock, the veteran Jedi only had a second to throw open a maintenance cabinet and grab a single item.

 

And then the airlock opened to vacuum. Atmosphere whipped around her oversized robe and threatened to drag her into space. Items from that maintenance cabinet, left carelessly opened, spilled out and bombarded the hull of Goliath with a collection of hydrospanners, glow panels, and coils of wire and solder.

 

The trio leapt over the chasm between the research vessel and Sith flagship--no significant feat, considering that two meters of null-gravity separated the two ships. Nonetheless, she stumbled and pitched forward, overcompensating for what she anticipated to be a rushing headwind. Instead she was met with nothing--just a cold hallway, lit dimly by crimson emergency panels and filled with only gasping vacuum.

 

Exposure to vacuum was a nightmarish sensation. Contrary to what the holoflicks liked to portray, bodies didn’t simply explode in the void. The reality was worse. Every drop of liquid on the body--blood, sweat, and began to boil. The side of the body that was exposed to the nearest star was instantly racked by intense heat; the other side by cold that approached absolute zero. While the torso didn’t grossly rupture like a bag of rotten melons, microcapillaries and blood vessels close to the surface of the skin would begin to burst. A brief exposure would leave bruises all over the body. More than a few seconds would cause migraine headaches and severe gastrointestinal distress.

 

Minutes, even with assistance of a portable air supply, invariably resulted in excruciating death, whether from progressive decompression or hypothermia or the blind panic that tended to ensue from being exposed to an environment that was as thoroughly hostile to life as the vacuum of space.

 

Armiena kept her eyes half-lidded and deliberately kept her motions slow. Slow is smooth--smooth is fast, the veteran Jedi repeated to herself. In the absence of atmosphere, her footfalls were silent--as was the probable screaming of a Sith trooper who sailed by, attempted to latch onto one of McShipface’s antennae, then lose his grip and drift into space. The loudest sound was the racing beat of her own heart, racing despite her will to not panic. Only at this moment did she glance at the objects in her hand--a roll of duct tape and a high-yield glop grenade. She moved with efficient slowness, wadding up a mass of the tape and fixing the glop grenade to the ceiling--then she armed the grenade and jogged to join Ryu and her Padawan.

 

In the vacuum, there was no telltale chime to alert of an imminent detonation, just Armiena’s internal countdown. At four seconds, Draygo took shelter behind the same support girder as Ryu--just in time for the grenade to “detonate” and spray adhesive foam all over the corridor. An imperfect plug of adhesive foam having formed in the airlock, the shriek of wind began to return along with the atmosphere, but the trio were still trapped within the voided compartment. Making a hand gesture, the veteran Jedi led them to a vacuum-proof portal--a simple and effective armored door that sealed the rest of the ship against the breach in its hull. Far from an automated blast door that would open to allow the passage of entire squads of infantry, it was a one-man passageway that screwed shut with a mechanical lock.

 

Not daring to shout orders with atmosphere at such a premium, Armiena made simply hand gestures, pointing towards herself and ticking down numbers on her hand. Herself--one. Ryu--two. Genesis--three. Matching action to words, the Jedi stood two meters from the door and drew her lightsaber. She stood in a runner’s crouch, prepared to first fight the buffet of wind once the portal was thrown open… and then whoever was stationed on the other side.

 

Edited August 17, 2020 by ObliviousKnight

[ObliviousKnight]

Just behind them, there was a roar as the sublights of Armiena’s ship blazed to life and propelled it from the Goliath. Its departure drew fire from a pair of TIE Fighters, but only for them to peel away once it was observed that the ship was not taking evasive maneuvers, returning their fire--or indeed behaving in any manner other than that of a freighter on autopilot. For the Jedi that it left behind, it was left to them to conquer or die. That wasn’t unfamiliar territory for the veteran Jedi--but the last time that she had led a boarding party, it wasn’t a former Dark Lord of the Sith that she was expecting to watch her back. While Ryu hoisted the body of a fallen Sith trooper as a human shield, Draygo coolly stepped out from behind his advance, swiping away blaster bolts from the remaining two stormtroopers with almost contemptuous ease.

 

There was a brief lull in the blaster fire just as the lights of the service corridor shut off with a metallic clang. The veteran Jedi danced to one side, knowing what was coming next. The next volley of fire was a wave of azure stun blasts that left her left arm tingling in their wake. Draygo drew her blaster pistol and spat a pair of stun blasts into the floor, causing the two Sith troopers to tumble to the ground amid a battery of silent curses. Draygo strode over to the fallen Sith troopers, calmly trading fire until the resistance was finally silenced by a pair of stun blasts to one’s neck and the other’s wrists.

 

“Ryu, Genesis,” Draygo turned to face her companions, her face illuminated only by a meager beam of turquoise. “This is a smash and run. Guessing there’s a turbolift shaft about four hundred meters up. We hit the bridge and start breaking things. Priority is comms and helm. Ryu--Ryu!”

 

The Dark Lord was staring down the corridor as though attempting to discern a vague shadow a hundred meters away. She should have known. He had only just escaped five years of imprisonment in the dark, with nothing but his own tormented thoughts to keep him company. It should have been perfectly predictable that he would be erratic in the pitch darkness of a starship. Draygo marched several meters up the corridor, scanning the walls in the trembling light of her weapon. Finally--she located the local power distribution module, a little box of circuit breakers, fuses, capacitors, and transformers. “Should be on a separate circuit…. schutta!” Armiena yelped as she slashed through the circuit panel. A shower of sparks and burning metal burst from the wall, bathing her in blinding light. As the murmur of ventilation shafts died and the glare of the electrical fire died, she was illuminated in the combating shades of crimson and amber from the local emergency glowlamps.

Draygo gestured with her lightsaber and set off on a jog. Midstep she was muttering into a comlink, “Draygo--requesting reinforcements aboard Goliath. Will need extraction--repeat, will need extraction from Goliath…”

[ObliviousKnight]

((Accepted for KR / OK v Exodus))

 

As the whisper of Goliath’s mechanical air filtration died, the smoke moved in and stung at Draygo’s eyes. Even the amber and crimson glow from the emergency lamps was soon swallowed by shadow. Those glowlamps were to provide damage control crews with some degree of illumination for many hours without an additional power supply. At seeing them extinguished, Armiena instantly understood that the darkness encroaching upon them was not the natural product of a ship that had lost power, but the arcane manipulations of a Sith, sitting in their lair like some great malevolent spider from old fairy tales, belching out shadows and swallowing up adventurers that had stumbled into her web. Unfortunately for this Sith, it had been decades since Draygo was last frightened by the dark--and even longer since she was afraid of Spiders.

 

Before she could shout out a warning to her Padawan and to Kakuto Ryu, the erstwhile Dark Lord had thrown out something ahead of her and charged. A dazzling flash and a crash of thunder emitted, illuminating the Sith for only an instant before Armiena’s vision was darkened by the flash blindness caused by the grenade. Only a heartbeat behind the berserker, Draygo sprinted to match his advance. Unlike the erstwhile Dark Lord, the veteran Jedi understood that she would have no use for her physical senses and extinguished the turquoise glow of her lightsaber. The rhythmic pounding of her boots against the durasteel deck would be the only warning of her advance--and in a moment, there would not even be that to alert the Spider. Draygo skidded to an almost-halt just as Ryu made a vicious swipe with his lightsaber blade and crouched to all fours on the armored deck. 

 

Calling to the Force, she pounced like an overgrown cat to fly past the wake of the viridian slash as well as its intended target. Much like the panthera that her charge emulated, the veteran Jedi hit the deck hands-first and she rolled to absorb the momentum of her advance. Upon stopping, she wheeled about and let slip the top half of her lightsaber. With a crack of escaping gas like a gunshot, the top half of the hilt launched itself towards the Spider on a wave of compressed gas, connected by the other half only by a delicate strand of liquid cable. It would pass unseen in the gloom to wrap itself around the Spider’s ankles and legs, potentially pitching him to the deck unless evaded.

 

((1))

Edited August 31, 2020 by ObliviousKnight

[ObliviousKnight]

So the gambit had failed and Draygo and the two Sith were exactly where they had started, with the Sith assassin neatly leaping over Ryu to avoid engaging in a melee with the veteran Jedi. All that had changed was the density of the black smoke that continued to seep into the hall and the force of the damnable chanting that continued to pound in her skull. Rather than tangling up the assassin’s legs, the hilt of her double-bladed lightsaber bounced harmlessly along the deck until it reached the extremity of its reservoir, rolling soundlessly from side to side.

 

Draygo detected a buildup of tension within the Force that suggested an imminent attack. A wisp of stinging smoke was the only visible sign of her maneuver as the veteran Jedi stepped to Ryu’s back, left hand lifted to receive whatever was coming. The sickly blue-white glare of Force Lightning illuminated the haze, for the first time making the grim smile and the lightning-scars on the veteran Jedi’s face visible. She sucked up every erg of energy that was channeled her direction, lips twitching from the delicate paroxysms of pain that accompanied the occasional tendril of Lightning that escaped her grasp.

 

And then she held onto it, even though fusillade of malice threatened to burn its way out of her fingers. Draygo held onto the energy even as she stepped over Ryu’s unconscious body, flicking her lightsaber upinto a conservative guard. She held onto it even as she ignited the turquoise blade and made a delicate vertical swipe that threatened to bisect the Sith Assassin from groin to neck--but it was at the very tip of the blade and could have been evaded by taking a single step backwards. She held onto the energy even Ryu unexpectedly rose from his stupor, growled an unheard phrase and let loose with another set of projectile’s. The first must have been another flashbang, judging from the crush of pressure in her deafened ears… but there were still two more projectile’s that the Force warned were still in motion.

 

He didn’t. To loose two fragmentation grenades into an enclosed space that he was within was so reckless that it bordered on suicidal disregard for his own life.

 

But Ryu did just loose two fragmentation grenades within an enclosed space. No cover was to be found. Ryu had to know that he was within the kill radius of his own grenades. Taking a short leap backwards to avoid any counterattack, Draygo gripped the two grenades with the Force and deployed a barrier to flatten the arc of fragmentation. The concussive wave dispersed the foul smoke and vapors that permeated the hall, as well as casting a storm of hundreds of slender steel and plastoid shards that bounced all over the walls, ceiling, and deck, shredding exposed pipes and wiring, the delicate cable that connected the two halves of her lightsaber, the few remaining glowpanels that attempted to penetrate the gloom… as well as the sleeve and muscle on Armiena’s left arm. A searing bolt of pain coursed up the arm and then was silenced, only partly by the intervention of the Force. The lack of sensation was worse than pain--she had just lost use of the arm.

 

There was no time to test what little control she had of the limb. Ryu was up and running, roaring something apparently significant--an oath or a hated name--straight past her to engage the Sith assassin with another crashing blow. Reaching out with the last erg of power that the Sith had gifted her and then some, Draygo ignited the lightsaber hilt that lay abandoned behind him. It levitated at waist-height from the deck and raced through the corridor, blazing a molten line along the wall to perfectly silhouette the Sith assassin. Its owner advanced at a steady stride to meet it, her lightsaber tracing a similar line of superheated durasteel from the other direction.

 

((2))