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Katarr


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Astrographical Information

 

Region: Mid Rim

 

Sector: Vensori Sector

 

System: Katarr System

 

Orbital Position: N/A

 

Moons: At least one

 

Grid Coordinates: O-8

 

 

Physical Information

 

Class: Terrestrial

 

Atmosphere: Unsustainable

 

Primary Terrain: Barren

 

Points of Interest: Several Abandoned Miralukian Cities

Nihilus' Wound

 

Societal Information

 

Indigenous Species: N/A

 

Immigrated Species: N/A

 

Primary Language(s): N/A

 

Faction Affiliation: Neutral

 

Description

 

Katarr was located in the Vensori sector of the Mid Rim. It was the sole colony world of the Miraluka, a Force-sensitive race that was only able to see through the Force. Although its continents were almost entirely covered by mountains, it had rich flora and fauna, including birds and trees. The Miraluka of Katarr built their cities with a distinctive, round-shaped architectural style.

 

History

 

All life on Katarr was devoured by the Sith Lord Darth Nihilus in approximately 3952 BBY. The attack was directed at a Jedi meeting being held on the planet. From the entire planetary population, only one being, a Miraluka named Visas Marr, survived. Sometime after the destruction of Malachor V, Visas returned to walk across the surface of Katarr. Although the primary motivation behind Nihilus' attack was obviously to devour the Jedi, the fact that Katarr was located almost half-way between Onderon and Dantooine, two key Republic worlds, led some to believe that the Sith wanted to blind that section of the galaxy to the Force, possibly to allow them to make it easier to hide their movements from the Republic.

 

JediRP History

 

After four thousand years, Katarr has became a barren wasteland, voided of all life to substain it's atmosphere. Due to Darth Nihilus, the Force no longer flows here on Katarr, and as such, has remained a wound.

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  • Delta73 changed the title to Katarr
  • 4 weeks later...

As the Helix Class Interceptor exited hyperspace around Katarr, the voided atmosphere of the planet was almost instantaneous. Even Scorpio, having lost his touch to the Force at Onderon, felt the uneasy pit in his gut wrench. His two companions of the Luka Sene simply stood there, fighting to hold the unphased posture that had been so instilled within them. Genesis, on the other hand, quickly felt the sickness erupt from within him as the Force flushed from his senses and the blood flushed from his face, leaving him pale in comparison. Scorpio flipped the ship to autopilot and left the Helix Class to handle re-entry as he went to check upon his passengers.

 

"We've arrived. Genesis, focus on your breathing." He spoke as he patted the boy on the back, helping to open his airway in between heaves as his gaze shifted to Misal to see how she was reacting. "We'll be setting down shortly. Genesis will be making this stroll alone. Life here is doesn't exist, so thankfully, we have no worries about predators." He gave Misal a worried look despite knowing that she was as likely as blind as his two Luka Sene companions. Then again, sight wasn't everything.

 

Moments later, dust lifted as the Helix Class landed upon the once lush now barren soil of the dead world, it's voided echo stretching across it's mass much like Malachor V once did. Genesis had settled down quite a bit, and despite his vertigo, was able to stand. Scorpio gazed at the boy and questioned his ready before placing the rebreather upon his face and sending him in the unknowing. As the pressure within the airlock set to release Genesis, the two Luka Sene moved into place against the innerlock to stand guard and Scorpio settled in for the long wait. Hands sweaty and interlocked, he spoke to Misal. "Have faith in the boy and in the Force. If he falls, we have only lost another to Nihilus. But if he rides to meet his darkness, then we have gained a Jedi."

 

*****************************************

 

Genesis could feel the emptiness before they had ever exited hyperspace. But the surrealism of the wound quickly had taken its toll and left him wrecked with pain. Even the steaming pressure of the air within the airlock sent his skin aflame. It was a strange feeling to say the least, the area silent and dead both to the sight as much as the feel, but also harsh and unchanged, as if time had simply chose to stand still. For Katarr, barren as it was, was frozen in its last moments as if it was instantly vacuum sealed, a snow globe lost to an unknown shelf.

 

Trembling as he first set foot upon it's surface, it seemed like a lukewarm space walk, the only noise he heard was that of his weight and his breath and only increasing the vertigo he felt from the loss of the Force. It felt as if his ears had been deafened, his senses cut off to a near crippling degree. And yet, he was able to step forward into this unknown and see it's horrid sight.

 

"So this is the death of the Force?" He questioned to himself as he gazed upon the flash frozen world. "This is what waits beyond the darkness?"

 

He knew of Katarr's story long before landing here, often reading the datapads he had on it from the Felucia Archives as a means of understanding his Mother's heritage. His Father's was simple as a human and Mandalorian. But her's was unknown, only what was known of her race, his bi-race. He had only ever thought of her's because of his path as a Jedi and his partial blindness, especially because of his newly found connection to Armiena. Both of them were Hybrids.

 

Then came war. And with war, came his Father's lineage. His father's craft. And as much as he loved the man, he shunned that side of him. He wanted no part of understanding it. Perhaps it was his mother within, but he didn't like the idea of taking a life to save a life, only seeing it as justification to take a life. This was why he ran. This was why he hid. Just like on Dantooine until the anger within boiled over and he lost himself in the darkness, forever scarred by the lives he took, beastial or not.

 

Gazing out across the ruined city of the Miralukian architecture, its name lost upon the whispers of time and never carried by the Force since Katarr was drained of life, Genesis felt a strange sensation begin to take hold. It felt almost as if the planet pulled at him, or rather, his connection. And within him, he felt the urge to suddenly be with the others, his mind setting in panic at the feeling of being without the Force. It was almost instinctual, primal, and wrathful, and his gaze adverted toward the distant ship he had arrived upon. And in that brief moment, he craved war.

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From the instant that the bat-like freighter reverted from hyperspace, Misal began to appear physically ill. Sweat was beginning to bead on her forehead. Her hands felt clammy within the thin synthleather of her gloves. She developed a slight list to her left even as she remained seated with her restraints buckled. Her mind struggled to conceptualize what she saw as her Force-senses beheld an absence, an inanimate void that thirsted for meat, a physical nonpresence that was growing closer. The walls of the ship, the only physical object that the Miraluka was certain existed, began to press in on her, and a familiar heat began to rise in her throat.

 

Heat. That was the best way to describe the sensation. It was like baking in a set of full-body armor whose power core had been depleted, and its life-support and sensor functions had gone offline. Heat-haze. Yes. That was the best description her meat mind could conjure to describe this new sensation. It was a limited and incomplete metaphor, but the concept helped her to control her breath and master the nausea and claustrophobia.

 

Nonetheless, the sensation of the ship rocking forward upon landing came as a surprise and she actually gasped with the shift in motion. Then she listened, and waited.

 

_____

 

“Mr. Armegedon. I shall depart the ship. I did not travel this distance so I could sit with four passengers in the hold of a freighter built for two.” Misal declared to the other passengers of the ship. “I will manage. I spent enough of my life pretending to be blind that I have learned to live the part.”

 

Matching action to words, Misal removed her gloves, leaving a small pool of sweat where they lay discarded on the deck. Her shaky hands deftly affixed her respirator to her face, and she stepped slowly towards the airlock of the freighter. Her mind idly counting the carefully-measured steps, she nonetheless overestimated one of the dimensions of the ship and ran her shoulder into the wall. Another bout of fumbling passed as she located the controls to the airlock--her fingers traced the control panel adjacent to the heavy metal doors, then her hand discovered that the control panel was designed along a galactic-standard format and she was able to cycle through smoothly.

 

Katarr, she found quickly, was not a planet that offered comfort in any form. It had been many thousands of years since vegetation or animals--or even photosynthetic bacteria--had grown on the planet, yet its geological activity had not yet ceased. The air had a stale, oily feel on her skin, and Misal thought she detected a reek of sulfur that somehow managed to penetrate through the plasticky membrane of her rebreather. The air was not… completely stagnant, yet the heat-haze caused the breeze to offer her no reprieve.

 

Once her boots touched the surface of the world, Misal ignored the pain and knelt down to feel the ground. Her fingers touched flattened grass, as she expected, but it crumbled in her hands. The soil under it was densely packed--naturally, in the absence of planets or fauna or insect life or any metabolic processes, any nutrients remaining in the ecosystem would merely decay over time without exploitation. It was a quiet world. Life had not touched it in many years, unless one counted the tourists. It was so quiet in The Force that Misal barely perceived beyond the tips of her fingers.

 

It was… not that bad.

 

The Miraluka rose to her full height, arthritic knees shaking with the undampened pain. She watched the heat-haze, felt the warm currents on her skin. There was a vague shift in the breeze, a direction directly behind her from which the current never approached from. Foothills--mountains--or a city, she decided. On this lifeless world, only entropy would cause a city to crumble.

 

Misal began to step towards it, counting each step. At approximately five hundred thirty-two steps towards the disturbance in the breeze, uncharacteristic sounds began to creep into her perception. There was a steady patter of rain, yet no sensation of cold or wetness struck her skin. She thought she detected… buzzing. Whispers of… flying insects? The rasp of singing beetles? There was a persistent hum of an operating ship in there air, and the occasional hiss of landing hydraulics.

 

Then she heard a harsh, raspy, Trandoshan voice that she had not heard in over fifty years. She never would again--its owner was dead. “Look--the schutta doesn’t have no farking eyes! You dumb kriffers got your arses beat by a schutta with no eyes!”

 

Misal paused at step five hundred thirty-seven and frowned. The old Miraluka pressed a hand to the scars surrounding her eye sockets, then continued on. Did this phenomenon really believe that it could bleed her where the scars had healed so long ago? Was it so unthinking that it resorted to adolescent insults?

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Anger plagued at his mind as he stood amidst the barren world, the crunch of the flora beneath his feet leaving little sound in the emptied void that Katarr had became. He could feel the darkened remnants of the wound, subtle, but ever present and ever aching for life. And with each step he took, gazing upon the lifeless world, it seemed to ripple vibrantly outward from him. It was indeed a graveyard, but it felt alive in the same sentience.

 

Back aboard the ship, Scorpio sat alone and in silence. Misal had complicated things by joining the boy outside to face this world even more blindly than Genesis. But even without the Force to call upon like he once had, he still trusted in its wisdom. He knew bringing her along could agitate the situation, but the Force's will was law even in the unnatural. Perhaps she was meant to come along all along and help guide the boy toward the true understanding he was meant to come to. Standing up to look outside, he stared into the abyss.

 

Genesis continued his trek onward, studying the complex he had happened across and found the mummified corpses still as they perished, a sight very few had ever gazed upon in such depth. But he knew that this was meant to be seen and understood, and as he did, he felt a surge of sadness creep into his heart. It was just as he had long suspected. War was wrong, without justification or tolerance. There simply was no excuse for any casualty, especially en mass like Katarr. Such paths were of the Darkside, even for a Jedi. It was intolerable. He held no doubt.

 

Scorpio gazed into the abyss with remembrance, his own stroll across the surface of Katarr still plaguing him to this day like a fresh memory. He could still see his footprints frozen upon the soil, untouched by time and each time he had been here, he always gazed upon them. He remembered his own findings, his own justification here upon this world, within this wound. That in light or in dark, the Force was life. And to snuff it as Nihilus had done here so long ago was an afront to every following and credence. Life cannot exist without it, and it cannot exist without life. To be absent of one causes the other to seek out and feed upon the other, imbalancing it and creating destruction.

 

But there is a lesson to learn from this wound, or any wound, and with each sentient, it differs. Some gain its wisdom while others succumb to it, and each differs from the other no matter which is received. With Genesis, Scorpio wondered the outcome impatiently with as much patience as he could muster. For he had grown attached to the boy, seeing much of himself before Yue and Damon at Manaan nearly two decades ago. He only hoped the boy would find his own wisdom in this final lesson, the lesson of the Miraluka.

 

Like all ripples, once the edge has been reached, it flows back toward it's origin in waves. The ripples of Katarr's destruction were no different. To this day, remnants of it's final moments still haunted his surface not only in visual evidence that Genesis saw before him, but in the Force its self. And as he gazed upon it with conviction and unbridled prejudice, moments of it's destruction flickered to life as a flare of energy rolled across it's surface as he looked on in disbelief.

 

"The Jedi have come seeking answers......."

 

"Enemies in the dark..... Outer Regions...."

 

"Life ceasing to exist....Malachor...."

 

"Remnants of Revan....War...."

 

True Darkness.....

 

Force.... Help us....

 

As Genesis witness the moments flashing in and out, sadness and anger consumed his heart. He couldn't explain the emotions he felt nor could he explain what he saw before him, only that for the briefest of moments he witnessed and felt the Force return to Katarr similar to a solar flare crashing upon a planet. And as quick as it came, it ended, the spirits of Katarr once again hidden from the rest of the Galaxy as the screams of millions washed across the landscape behind the whispers of a few. What was truly a mystery as much as it was mesmerizing, was what he saw before the screams became too unbearable to handle. For a brief moment, his convictions were shaken.

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The rain continued, yet Misal never once felt a refreshing gust of humid wind or the patter of raindrops against her shoulders. That much was different from that almost-forgotten jungle. There was a curious raw sensation at the back of her head, irritating and not completely dissimilar from having a wad of steel wool rubbed vigorously against her skin.

 

“Interesting,” she remarked, tracing a slow circle in her steps as she continued. As expected, that raw sensation persisted against the back of her skull. She had long forgotten the name of that world and the name of that Trandoshan, but it was impossible to forget his amusement at having encountered a humanoid without eyes, nor the sear of his knife or the depraved laughter of his crewmates. Nor had she forgotten that, within a few days, every last one of them were dead. No dramatics had ensued during that episode--just a few blasts of blaster fire, and the queer whistle of metal flechettes and thunder of falling bodies.

 

Those sounds marked something of a turning point in her life.

 

At step five hundred fifty-eight, the ground beneath her feet gave way into silty dust and the Miraluka tumbled down an embankment. Blind and tumbling, Misal tucked in her limbs and waited for the bruising impacts against her sides to end--fortunately, as the Miraluka came to a halt amidst a cloud of dust, she suffered nothing more than an unenthusiastic battering by the lifeless roots of perfectly-preserved trees and rocky outcroppings.

 

The blinded seer removed a glove and swept a circle around her fallen form. The soil was dusty, as before, but of a finer consistency--silt, perhaps--and utterly lacking in vegetation. There was not even a trace of mummified grass to crumble under her touch. A few minutes of cautious steps felt little gradation in slope. Misal sighed. 

 

She had fallen down the banks of a dried riverbed. Even without having sustained an embarrassing injury, her exploration of this world would have to come to an end.

 

Her hand went to her hip and felt the reassuring weight of a blaster pistol. She would at least be able to signal for assistance. With that small comfort to console her, Misal collected her legs under herself and began to meditate...

 

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What was it to be Jedi? What separates Light and Dark? Why was the Force a part of both? Was intent the key? And if it was, why did so many easily fall to it's corruption? What was the lesson of Katarr? The Lesson of the Miraluka and the Luka Sene? The lesson he was meant to learn as a Jedi? So many questions plagued not only his mind, but his heart as well as the moments turned to hours. He seemed more confused now than he was ever before. At least then he knew his convictions. Now he wasn't so sure if they were so easily shaken.

 

Those beings from before, spirits or remnants of Katarr upon it's demise, showed him something within himself that stirred. He saw their deaths, heard their last moments before, witnessed their perishing moments. They were Miraluka, serene and calm even as they discussed what he knew to be Nihilus. They were unafraid, and yet they weren't Jedi. They were Miraluka, beings potential of both light and dark, dependant upon their minds and heart. And even as death took them, their features remained unhindered except by the hunger that consumed the Force within them, content. This puzzled Genesis even more. Were they not scared? Miraluka were known for their Foresight. Surely they saw this coming or knew of its impact.

 

Sensory deprivation had begun to kick in for Genesis. Despite his ability to see and hear amidst the deafened world, his thoughts began to jumble and his sight began to become hazy. There were times he often caught himself beginning to panic slightly and at other times staring into nothingness, as if he had lost time. And the sickness in the pit of his stomach was beginning to get worse. He looked around outside, trying to gather his bearing and where the ship was, but could not gather himself. Only in the distance could he make out something, a figure ahead that lingered upon the horizon. Panicked, he set forth after them, hoping it was Scorpio or one of the others.

 

It had been hours since Genesis had departed. Scorpio was beginning to worry and decided it best to search out Misal and the young Padawan. Even without his touch upon the Force, he could feel the uneasiness of the Forceless world. Unlike Myrkr, it was unnatural, dead to everything around it. And he knew the effects of walking upon such a world too long. He had seen too many fall to it's sickness, it's dark festering wound. Placing the rebreather on his face, he turned to the others and let them know of his departure. Stepping out into the stale world, he hastened his step.

 

It wasn't hard to locate the center of the wound, the place where Nihilus once walked the world in his consumption. His presence and footsteps had festered this world in its death and you could easily feel it's pull whether you felt the Force or not. It was fueled by anger, hate, hunger, and vengeance. And yet, it was void of emotion. It was Nihilus, fueled by his hunger and hatred alone, with only a sole focus. Closer you got to the focus, closer you grew to it's center, to it's focul. Such was the nature of such wounds. And it drew in life just as it once consumed, beckoning all. Like he had before, Scorpio followed to it's center, and there he found Genesis deep in meditation.

 

Stepping beside the boy cautiously, he found him centered and his breathing firm. He could tell the boy had found his center within the wound and found the truth of his path as a Jedi. He spoke, his voice firm with understanding. "So you saw the truth then and took it? Good. Let it be your guidance. It is the truth of us all." With that, Scorpio turned and began the trek back to the ship, his gaze upon the horizon for Misal.

Edited by Stormhelm
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Some time passed. On this still world, the only sounds that Misal heard were her own breath and the occasional meager breeze that floated into the dried riverbed. Periodically, the Miraluka thought that she heard a voice speaking. That was usually her own voice, but it was always from another time… at this point, it may as well have been from another lifetime. Her lips turned downward in a frown. Katarr was supposed to be dead to the Force, even if that ran contrary to the central dogma of nearly every Force tradition in the galaxy.

 

Misal idly removed her gloves from her hands and dug her fingers into the silt. As expected, it was dry and dense. This riverbed had been still for many centuries, and there had not been any rain on these steppes for at least several days. Her thin fingers felt cracks in the soil and dug into the barren earth. Most traditions claimed that The Force was present in all things--inanimate or otherwise. Even the barren silt of a dried riverbed should have a presence in The Force… and yet her hands were groping blindly just to confirm that it was warm soil that she was resting on.

 

“So there was something of an… awakening after Palpatine finally got his just deserts. Most of them came out of hiding became somewhat... “

 

“I think the term you’re searching for is ‘proud’. I’ve seen what some of them wear.”

 

Misal’s head snapped up. That was a conversation that she had had with her daughter only a year ago. How could this planet be turning these memories against her?

 

“Flamboyant. Flighty. Promiscuous--”

 

“Really, mother?”

 

“There was actually something of a baby boom in the years after Palpatine’s death. And I’m certain that they think of me as a stuffy arch-conservative. Some of the refugee groups contacted me. It likely had to do with--please, don’t blame yourself. Frank conversations were had, then we came to a mutual agreement to leave each other alone. It’s a beneficial arrangement for both parties.”

 

“So you have no estimation of whether they would be inclined to ally with the Jedi Order.”

 

“I believe that they would be of little value.”

 

Sputtering, incredulous noises ensued.

 

“Armiena, dear. It isn’t that they aren’t fine people. It’s that I find them boring. Most of the great Force traditions of the galaxy offer some interesting perspective to the mysteries of life or are denoted by some remarkable characteristic. The Matukai have a highly individualistic connection to The Force and some quite literally flagellate themselves into a trance. The Korrunai found a way to live comfortably in one of the most hostile environments in the galaxy. The Dathomir Witches substituted much of your meditation for ritual. What is the defining characteristic of the Luka Sene? Its species. They offer no significant advantage, and the species will be exterminated the moment they enter the war.”

 

“You speak of them as though you’re not a member of that species.”

 

“Begone,” Misal muttered to the silent earth. She refocused her attention to Katarr. Every tradition--even the Sith--claimed that life could not exist without the presence of The Force. Even Myrkr, the home of the notorious, Force-stilling ysalamir, was not absent from its presence. The planet was merely quiet. Once the ysalamiri were cleared from a suitable breadth of land, Misal would have been able to perceive that world as vividly as Coruscant.

 

“At least it’s over.”

 

“Indeed. Carrying out a purge is the worst duty that we can perform. How are you coping, Mister Hamis?”

 

Misal stiffened. The last time that she had been tasked with the purge of an entire cell of her organization was nearly a decade in the past. It was a hideous punishment that was reserved solely when a cell’s misdeeds threatened the whole of the sect--and with the Jedi and Sith Order waging war for decades and billions of sapients being caught in the middle, the risk that a few hundred weakly Force-Sensitive individuals would be exterminated or conscripted was very real. To sacrifice ten or twenty rogue operatives was an acceptable loss.

 

“Not well. I… knew some of them. The cells aren’t supposed to have contact with each other, but… Draenos was alright. She looked after her people, had a training record better than almost anyone in the order. She--she helped me stay sober at the academy. Kriff, why did it have to be us that killed them?

 

“Because… we would have attended to the moment. We would have appreciated how dreadful the task is, and that this must never happen again. These were more than dossiers to us--they were friends, colleagues. Sometimes students. It had nothing to do with our ability to complete the task. I knew all of them, but when they went rogue and began targeting Imperial strongpoints, it posed a significant danger to everyone in the order. Suffering the fate of the Jedi is a risk that we cannot risk. Do you understand, Mister Hamis?”

 

“Intellectually… yes. It doesn’t stop me from feeling like a murderer.”

 

“Then trust your feelings, Mister Hamis. It is an abominable task. The alternative is centuries of fruitless warfare and genocide. We must look to our own--to the people we are charged to protect. They can never be risked. Synch?”

 

“Thanks, Space-Mom. But I’d rather be alone for the moment.”

 

“Silence,” Misal spat to the soil. Why was her mind revisiting these dread moments? Having ripped the planet from The Force, Nihilus surely could not have left traces of his consciousness to torment any visitors. Was the offender her own conscience? There still remained the question of how the ancient Sith could have consumed all life on the world--rendered it dull and dark in The Force--without its final destruction, without crumbling the planet to dust.

 

The answer should have been obvious to her.

 

At that moment, she heard her own voice from only a few years ago.

 

“If you please. I'll take over from here. CoreSec and the Fleet are in chaos. Move boldly. 

 

 “I am a cruel woman, Chandrandin. I apply whatever force that I require to solve a problem, and if that means that I need to lie, or steal, or murder, then so be it. No, shush... consider what you say next very carefully. I don't care about your life at all. You are just the next step to solving my problem.

 

"You know this woman."

 

Sputtering and protestations. “Oh, no--don't know anything about--”

 

 “I'm not interested in what you don't know. I only care about what you do know. You and I are going to have a long conversation. It ends only when you and I understand one another perfectly.

 

"For example, your wife and children. She's a charming lady. And eight is such a wonderful age, mine was such a troublemaker. Inquisitive. She liked to take things apart just to see how they worked. Not quite  as successful in putting them back together, but... the spirit was there. Why on earth you chose to spend your nights with that Zeltron schutta is beyond me--woman wasn't even there when you woke up in the morning, was she? But your predilections are of little concern to me.

 

Last quadrant there were significant advances in micromolecular implants. I know perfectly well that none of the major biotechs were investigating these applications--too expensive, too much risk of rejection, too much risk of metastasis. Where did the prototypes come from?"

 

"I Don't know what you're..."

 

"Were you listening to me earlier? I'm not interested in your ignorance. Come, your Rella--she's... thirteen. That's a difficult time. I suppose you're trying to just keep her focused on where she'll be going to school, not that boy who's keeps seeing--"

 

"We're just the manufacturer! The transfer agreements are all handled by multiple tiers of shell corporations, we're not supposed to know who developed the tech!"

 

"Chandrandin, look at this holo again. My daughter is the most precious thing in my life. There isn't anything that I wouldn't do to ensure her happiness. Her safety. You're a father--surely you understand my perspective.

 

Sputtering and consternation. "“For Force’s sake, you’re a Jedi! You--you can’t do this to me!”

 

“Hardly. I don’t subscribe to their absurd monochromatic moral philosophy, and my order… practices certain techniques that the Jedi would find heretical. When I release you, how would you like to return home and see your wife and children, and feel… nothing?

 

“Everything that you know. Everything that you can speculate. Tell me everything, and I swear that you’ll return to your family unharmed. Otherwise... I don't know what I would do if I lost my family. I'd probably die. A suicide, I suspect.”

 

There was much whimpering, pleading from a subject who understood that they were at the mercy of a party who was little concerned with their well-being or future. Eventually, out slipped a few names--unsubstantiated rumors, drunken ramblings blurted out by indiscreet researchers--nothing terribly useful.

 

"There... was.... something that we learned from our liaisons in CreoVive. Something very classified--hadn't even been given a project name other than a number. Claimed it would set the field forward by a decade. Lots of bribes to members of the Senate STM committee. They were claiming significant improvements in data storage, military applications.

 

"Everything, Chandrandin. Stay focused. Both our families are at stake.”

 

Misal gasped. Something was pressing hard on her chest--she tried to slow her breath, lower her heart rate, but it wasn’t working. Something had gone terribly wrong--something terrible was coming. It was absolutely within her abilities and her intentions to sever that human’s Force Bonds, leave the man adrift in life and without attachments to anyone--simultaneously total freedom and total loneliness, a poetic mind might have described it--and the threat was necessary to ensure her daughter’s freedom.

 

No, the Miraluka had reassured herself, it had not been a threat. It had been a promise.

 

She felt faintly nauseous. Her hands were sweaty. Then… pain. There was a horrible, fiery sensation in her shoulder. Pressure. Something was squeezing her chest in a pincer motion. Couldn’t breathe.

 

“F… F…. N---not here, not now.” Misal spat to the dirt. She clutched at something in her chest, as though her fingers could pluck away what had assaulted her. The Miraluka collapsed to the dirt--her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

 

She would not make it back to the ship. Clambering up that riverbed was a dicey proposition, but now it seemed an impossibility. If she lived that long.

 

With one hand, Misal forced herself and her dusty robes to face the sky. The other groped blindly for her blaster pistol. Unclasping it, the Miraluka seized the weapon in sweaty, shaking hands, and pointed the barrel directly upwards.

 

She fired several times into the sky in a wild, uncontrolled pattern. She kept firing until its power cell was dry--when several more times to produce nothing more than a pathetic metallic click.

 

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Genesis rose to his feet behind Scorpio and began the trek back to the ship, the journey taking hours upon the desolate and dead world. There was a new demeanor in his gaze and in his step, a sense of understanding and purpose resonating within that projected without the aid of the Force, a new found calmness in his soul, a silence in his contemplation. As the two disappeared beyond the horizon from the focal point of Nihilus' wound, Genesis turned back one last time to understand the gravity of its truth in a moment of remembrance.

 

"So that is a wound in the Force?" Genesis questioned amidst the roaring silence of Katarr, his voice echoing across the rise, as he turned to Scorpio. "Explains alot."

 

"Very few beings have existed to create such as that one, but essentially, yes." Scorpio spoke without gaze, his own firmly on the horizon. "They are creations of the darkness in one's soul, moments where a being no longer lives in the Force, remnants of their death from it's will. The Darkside corrupts absolutely, but only when the will of the sentient overcomes the will of the Force, can a wound occur. Such is the path that a Jedi fights to protect."

 

"I see this now." Genesis speaks as he turns back to Scorpio and the journey ahead, his mind wondering one last time to what he saw within the vortex of darkness, the black hole that was the wound, it's hunger feeding upon the everlasting flow that was life and the Force. "It matters little how I fight, only that I fight, otherwise, the Darkness will win."

 

As panic drew within him, and in return, his urge to survive drew him near the focus, Genesis trekked onward behind the spector as it led him to it's core. His thoughts jumbled and erratic, he fought to cling to his sanity. His skin felt aflame with pain and his soul felt as if it threatened to leave his body. And yet, he knew he could not falter. He knew he was close to what Scorpio had foretold, he knew this spector existed as guidance. He could feel it. It pulled at his very heart, it's fastened pace matching the moments of it's drum. This had to be the epicenter.

 

"Members of the Council, Jedi, Luka Sene... We have gathered here for the threat lurking outside the Outer Regions, hidden in the shadows of the wars passed..."

 

Genesis vision blurred, his stomach in knots as he felt the darkness around him grow cold with malice. He felt as if he could not take another step, the Force present here, but corrupt and wicked. It felt of hunger and gluttony, ominous and unnatural. He fell to his knees, his heart threatening to explode as he gasped for air in between heaves, his muscles tense and his limbs shaking with strain. Through the tears of his eye, he looked upward.

 

"This threat is of the Darkside, primal and ancient. It hungers, consuming life and the Force wherever it walks, leaving wounds in its wake, an empty void. Never have we seen such power...."

 

Feeling the Force once again, Genesis pulls upon it's flow in an attempt to substain and focus himself, but it is tainted and foul. The more he pulls upon it, the more he craved it, clouding his mind and his sight until darkness threatens to blind him. His stomach growls hellishly, and he feels his heart begin to grow numb with coldness in its wake before he begins to feel it encompass his all. Emotion, touch, sight, all begins to feel empty. Closing his eye and focusing inward, he attempts to correct it's flow, using everything Armiena taught him, finding it only pointless in his effort. Anger boils within.

 

"These Sith are unlike any other we have faced, their power immense and ability to remain hidden dreadful. We know of no defense..."

 

The Force begins to empower him. Memories of his childhood, his mother, his father, all begin to empower him and substain him as they slowly fade away from his mind like pages ripped from a book. He begins to forget even the smallest memory of himself as his hunger begins to grow. He can feel the power around him and can taste it's current upon his tongue, the taste of metal and warmth of breath. It's exhilarating and consuming. It's temptation is hard to free himself from as he realizes what is beginning to take hold in his heart and mind, his will beginning to loosen it's grip upon caring. Suddenly he feels something within the Force stir, causing him to open his eye as a figure rushes him form like a mist, blade activated....

 

"You!"

 

Genesis falls back choking, gasping for air as his mind returns, the euphoria draining from his form and the strain upon his form returning. He gathers to his knees and hands as his frantic mind darts about in disbelief. The form he followed had just became his saving grace, breaking the hold that this wound had so easily grasped within him. Who was she? And why had she intervened? Was she one of those who perished here? His mind flooded with questions that would provide no answers. And yet, he strangely felt at peace, a new found understanding beginning to fall upon his mind as the effects of this place began to fade as he began to suppress his presence.

 

"Even in the darkest crevasses, the light can still shine vibrantly." Genesis responds to Scorpio, his mind returning to the present and away from the focus of Nihilus. "One just has to use the proper equipment and know when to use it."

 

Scorpio chuckles with a smile and goes to turn when rounds of blaster fire fill the air in the distance. With a quick glance to each other, Genesis and Scorpio take off in its direction just a few kilometers away. When they arrive at Misal's location, Scorpio is quick to begin treatment as Genesis shuffles through his bag for his comm. Within minutes, the ship is enroute. It was about time they left Katarr behind and put Nar Shadaa in their crosshairs. It was time for Genesis to face Armiena. Silently he wondered how mad she was truly going to be despite what Misal had said. Would she slap him? Or would she truly hug him?

Edited by Stormhelm
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Misal’s body was surprisingly light when Stormhelm lifted her--so much, that he could be reasonably assured that she could be lifted over a single shoulder. She didn’t even offer any objections to being treated like cargo to be hauled aboard the Prism; she merely shivered in pain and spat weak, breathy syllables and curses that were barely even audible. It didn’t even matter that her veil fell to the ground and lay abandoned as they retreated to their ship.

 

“F.... Frack… n--not--get me off here…”

 

She was set on one of the ship’s cots, to be treated as well as four disoriented Force-Sensitives could manage with the limited medicines aboard a light freighter--in summary, with not much expertise at all. At some point a breath mask was placed over her sweaty face and the Miraluka breathed greedily from a gas that smelled faintly stale. She pressed the clear mask for her face with one hand, groping blindly with the other to try and discern who was at the side of the cot. Not feeling anything more than the indistinct cloth of cheap trousers, Misal lifted the mask from her mouth to try and gasp something intelligible.


“Heart… been a problem for… scar tissue.” At those words, she faintly discerned the pinch of a hypospray against her arm. Misal returned the mask to breathe desperately with every few words. Still disoriented from Katarr’s wound, she resorted to just gasping the name of the half-Miraluka boy..“Genesis… Genesis… please tell me… you’ve learned something… from this.”

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The moments that followed were a blinding haze for Genesis as Misal was loaded aboard the Helix Class Interceptor and Katarr was left behind. Misal had became like a Grandmother to him, a concept he could never fathom in his wildest imagination until she and Armiena had came into his life. And to be powerless on the surface and surrounding space of Katarr only made the passing moments that much more dire for him to bare witness to. To see someone he cared about struggle for survival, to see them frail and fragile, to see the mortality of them, it didn't make for a welcoming step back into the Jedi Order.

 

Once Katarr's void had been left behind, Scorpio turned to Genesis with a nod as he headed toward the cockpit. The two remaining Luka Sene stayed stationary as vitals were watched and medicine were intravenously injected. But Genesis shook loose the moment and focused himself in the Force as it returned like fresh air. Placing her hands in his as she grasped for his name, he simply smiles, letting the Force flow through him and into her, it's warm and gentle embrace caressing at the focul of her heart.

 

"Yes ma'am. I did." He spoke with a humble chuckle, a new tone beginning to form in his voice with humility and understanding, a Jedi's tone. "But you need to rest and let the Force guide you. We will be able to discuss things more once we get to Nar Shadaa and you can recover."

 

The Force flowing through him and into her amplified its self, current after current gently stroking her heart and settling it's rythm, the essence of life stroking a gentle stroke. Soon it would spread, the light within him and the intent to save her guiding it's hand toward rejuvenation within the Draygo Elder. And all Genesis could do was sit there and watch, letting both the mystism and science of their world work their magic together. 

 

With a subtle rumble, the Helix Class Interceptor entered hyperspace.

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