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Mon Calamari/Dac


Nikolai Kolchak

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I see you in her.

 

It is never more than a twinkling: a glance, a breath, a dismissive gesture. The way she narrowed her eyes to stare defiantly into fear, easily, naturally; the way her clenched hands would find supreme conviction. Are you there, Malachi? The way the waves of whole planets shifted as she dreamed loudly, the lines of sorrow chasing one another deeply across the paleness of her sweet face as you fell in love with something so terrifying. They return me to the moments that she would stand above you when you slept alone, watching your ruthless slumber, hating the way you slept knowing that one-eye was forever watching. You are so distrusting of others, she knew you could see her, standing there above you. Watching her, blade in hand, knowing that she did not have the fire to threaten your life, to stay your hand from those that you assassinated mercilessly.  If only you would fall asleep, she could end it for you.

 

She would stand there for hours, and wondered if she called on all training you had given her, if she moved just quickly enough, maybe her knife could find your heart before yours found another, if she could quench the burning in her chest with your feverish blood and earn your attention for but a moment, maybe just one word, even if it were words that sealed her life then and there. You were much quieter then. It would have been worth it, to break your bond with the killings and rob them of the heart that they had turned so cold. It would have been so worth it. How did it get like this? When did it all begin, she wondered. 

 

The many moons and the distant stars betrayed her pleading, withholding their secrets in fear that you would tear them from the skies. Nature itself trembled before the black power coming from you. She knew your birth-mother was the key, and that when you had lost her, you had lost your humanity. She was losing hers now, over the years of trying to stitch you back together every night. Your wounds were grave and were many, but many did not become more as you grew older. You became untouchable. Your mouth had forgotten how to widen to a smile, as each encounter left you with less and less to show for it. You smile now though, have you noticed? You were more efficient, arrogantly so, avoiding the mess of your butchering if only to exact an air of cleanliness in your fieldwork. She could no longer bandage what was not there, you became as fierce as wildfire, and that too robbed her of purpose. She had nothing to fix, and the warmth from your body had left, colder than the wintry coals of Ziost.  Did you notice when she parted ways? Did you even blink twice?

 

Do you think of her now? What of your mother, Malachi?

Can you see them, as clear as I see you?

"I do."

 

Silence enveloped his personal stateroom, the keepsakes of his past tried their hands at heart-strings that no longer dangled loosely, from a heart that no longer beat as it once did. Yes, he could see that which the dark wished of him, with an indifference that boldly challenged the constant harping of challenging spirits. He sat cross-legged on a raised platform, his body and mind as hardened as the monstrous plates that shielded the skeleton of the Goliath itself, meditating on all that had come to past, internal turmoil, and the task laid ahead of him. Only when the industrial klaxons blared, signaling the end of his hyperspace journey, did his eyes truly open. Rings of magma burning inside of those eyes, saying what his words would not. The face of the King was flawlessly imperious by all regal meaning, unscathed by the black of the dark side and the rot of war. This storied conqueror had just begun.

 

The dreadful skulk of the Flagship Goliath rumbled through the tumultuous dissonance of hyperspace, extraterrestrial streaks of lambent light dispersed wildly as it settled before the azurean planet. Yawning spaces of black played welcome to a spread of warships that blinked into horrifying formation, assimilating with another division of their naval force that had arrived earlier. The Goliath was chief among them, ghoulishly vast in his dimensions, daunting in comparison to the many others that now fleshed out this grand flotilla. In wicked efficiency, the dispositions of the Sith naval power aligned itself dangerously towards the Rebel planet of Mon Calamari. 

 

Reaver-Lead operation is a go. Drop in T-minus ten.
"Copy that, Goliath. Reavers stations."
Reaver-3, check.
Reaver-5, ready.
Reaver-2, 4, 6 are operational with no errors detected, Reaver-Lead.

"Good. Let's run the operation through before jump, I know you lot are itching for green."
"Fives been doing a lot of itching, Reaver-Lead. Said medical wouldn't een' give it a look!"
Comms filled with laughter

 

Reaver-Lead, a grizzled and towering veteran that passed as more machine than man, brought up the holographic display in his helmet's display and fed the image into his squad's optical sensors. "The city of Morjanssik is under quarantine by what we imagine is a sizable Rebel force, intel suggests that we drop in with no less than eight platoons with three mechanized infantry columns, fifteen vehicles total. The local garrison have marshaled their forces in the event of several terrorist operations, the rest have already laid assault to these buildings here-" At his command a sprawling industrial complex was expanded upon, appearing as a cluster of warehouses to the Dark Troopers dissecting the images. "Oh and Reavers, Looks like we've found some Jedi."

 

 

 

______________________________________

 

 

 

Fleet Command (Flagship)

Taskforce Experience (I)

Commander: Dark King Exodus, Captain Rosa Orsaa

Augmentation: Axial Weapon

Xhendora-Class Dreadnought Goliath |20/20|

The Xhendora-Class Dreadnought is one of the largest vessels in the Sith-Imperial Armada. So far only two vessels of the class, The Goliath, and another under construction. These two advanced warships are designated as Fleet command ships, and form the core of a line of battleships and dreadnoughts intended to counter any direct assault in Sith-Imperial Space by a large scale fleet formation. Dense, cutting edge armor, heavy shielding, reinforced hulls, and numerous other internal and external modifications make the hull one of the most rugged ever constructed to serve under the Imperial Machine. The heavy-set firepower, and thick armor make the Goliath one of the most formidable forces in known hyperspace. Direct and deliberate frontal assaults easily overpower lesser opponents. Under the Goliath's relentless assault most targets break and run, or surrender if retreat is impossible.

 

Sith Covert Strike Force

Taskforce Experience Green (I)

- Assigned Callsign -

Reaver

Vornskr-Class Stealth Cruiser |9/9|

Huntress

Raider II-Class Corvette Tracer |2/1|

Raider II-Class Corvette Pandora |2/1|

Raider II-Class Corvette Spectrum |2/1|

Scythe

Raider-Class Corvette Carver |2/1|

Raider-Class Corvette Blade |2/1|

Raider-Class Corvette Haunting |2/1|

 

Heavy Brawler Escort (Hammer and Anvil)

Taskforce Experience Green

- Assigned Callsign -

Shield

Harrower-Class Battle Cruiser Monarch|20/20|

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Exodus

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Chaos. Chaos reigned supreme in the streets surrounding the warehouse district. The people who had just been fighting to get out into the streets and try their luck against the city itself and the disease it harbored now clawed at one another in sheer terror trying to get to cover. Blaster bolts reigned down from above, and while a smuggler here and a mercenary there tried to return fire with whatever smuggled off world weapon they had snuck in, the majority of the off worlders collapsed in shock, tried to hide behind whatever makeshift shield they could find or ran. It was the runners who got picked off first. Nobody was going to get away, the expertly trained and technologically advanced police snipers would see to that. Even as they focused their fire on the supposed Jedi, nobody was shown mercy.

 

And then, suddenly, as abruptly as the shooting had started, it stopped. From their vantage point, the overwatching shooters sensed, heard, and detected the incoming explosives a mere second before those on the ground, the high-pitched whistles piercing the air as the technological terrors hurtled towards the city scape.

 

___________   
 

Leena bristled slightly at the droid’s tone, but she brushed it off. She had dealt with too many young troopers who had a chip on their shoulder or something to prove. 
 

She was breathing deeply, the caustic wave of air eating at her chest and lungs. Before the droid could direct her, Leena turned to the blind Nemodian, “Do you have a rebreather?” She asked as she reached out on the force, grasping at the tendrils of good that lay nestled in the baseness of the world around them. Gently, Leena pushed against the darkness that radiated from Nok’s heart trying to reach out a wave of calm to try and suppress the coughing fit, even as her own lungs burned with each breath. As she did, the red-skinned Jedi came rushing up and urged them onwards through the foul muck and deeper into the blackness.

 

And then, as Mjan rushed by, Leena felt it, fear, a cyclone of fear crashing down. On the heels of that fear, death.

 

Leena tripped and sent muck, yuck, and guck splattering, her already dirty and damaged white healer’s robes being coated in blacks, browns, and greens. “Go!!” she urged Sara, the droid, and the Nemodian, trying to encourage them to run as she picked herself up from the bottom of the pipe, planting a sewage covered hand on Sara’s  back and pushing. “Go! Use the force!” 
 

______________
 

 The sudden lack of laser fire raining down gave some of the frenzied masses pause, but the majority were too tizzied up to even notice. They noticed though. Oh, did they notice as the bombs touched down in unison. From eight individual points, waves of inferno boiled forth, flames rolling over one another as they raced outward enveloping everything in their path. Flesh sizzled, bones cracked, even durasteel began to melt; nothing was left untouched as the fire erupted outwards and upwards into the sky. 
 

Just as suddenly as the flames rushed outwards they ground to a halt, their eruptive force coming to a close. The flames then began to recoil with the hiss of a vacuum. The emptiness of air creating a superpowered vacuum in the wake of the firebomb. The fires collapsed back inwards with force enough to topple buildings in their grip, uproot trees, and knock statues off their pedestals. Nothing was left untouched; such was the power of the incendiary inferno bombs.

 

In a matter of seconds three square city blocks outwards and upwards erupted in a flash of fire and then with a deafening boom that echoed across the city collapsed the warehouse district in on itself.  Outside the perimeter, practically nothing was touched and within the blast small flames licked at the surviving flammable items lying haphazardly about in the devastation. 
 

Silence followed. The screaming masses, the frantic police, the first-world cityscape had been reduced to an outer rim wasteland leaving piping and pits exposed below.

 

And in the next few minutes, the whimpering of the few survivors, burnt and crushed, began to eek through the acidic scorched still air.

 

____________

 

Leena pushed Sara and Nok forward, the explosive flames superheating the air and igniting the Lethane coming up from the fissured septic line that branches into the mines below. The flames billowed after Mjan, Sara, Leena, Xar, and Nok threatening to consume them if something was not done. 
 

The force was swirling about them, darkness, light, fear, peace, passion, emotion, calmness, life, and death; it was all there touching their minds and bodies even as it ached at the sudden extinguishment of life above. Then Mjan collapsed, falling to his knees as the flames rushed at them. Leena skidded to a stop beside the downed Jedi. In the flickering orange glow of the oncoming flames, Leena’s eyes looked from Sara to Mjan and then to Xar and Nok. “We are going to die.” she whispered as the loss hit her in her soul. The young Mon Cal looked at the blooming plume of fire rushing down on them and then at Sara, “I’m sorry.”

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Sara lifted the delicate glass of her cocktail to her lips. The sand sifted between her toes and the lovely muddled Alderaanian mint was cool and refreshing on her tongue. The sky was bright and blue and there were many entertainments scattered all around her; both visual and visceral. It was a lovely reprieve after that last job. Mon Cal was it?

 

Then there was heat. It was already hot on the beach, but the heat that pushed against her was like a ball of fire trying to rub lint off of her entire body. It was almost suffocating. The sound of coughing picked at her ears. She looked around the beach but saw that no one was coughing. The smell of lethane gas and sewage tickled her nose, turning the sweet mint of her drink into a sour sludge. And feelings of despair and pain twisted the bright sand all around her into a black pit of fetid slime. 

 

“Go! Use the force!”

 

Leena’s words awoke Sara’s mind to the discomfort of reality and reminded her that she’d been nothing but a walking ragdoll for the past few minutes. To be honest, she was kind of surprised she’d managed to escape death. Even though she fell to the cold ground - that was harder than it had any right to be - and her body felt like a broken mess that then tried to slowly sew itself back together, she felt inexplicably ‘fine.’ She wasn’t great, she wasn’t good, but she could somehow move and articulate like nothing happened, which left a surreal taste in her mouth. It must have had something to do with that weird stuff Leena did, but Sara’s thoughts were too muddy to decipher what was really going on. The rest of their escape from the warehouse was just a big blur at this point. 

 

Out of the fireplace and into the kriffing lava… Seriously, who comes up with this druk!?

 

“I’m sorry”

 

The guppy’s words were quiet. Sara had trouble deciphering Leena’s body language due to the grogginess that continued to grip her weary mind, but was no less confused by what the young Mon Cal said. Sorry? Sorry for what? For bringing me to this planet when it was under quarantine because you wanted to help people? 

 

Sara, who was apparently at the back of the group with Leena, looked over her shoulder at the raging inferno that rapidly approached the group. And, whether it was the spike in Dopamine and Oxytocin derived from her fantasy, or the fact that so many crazy things had happened in such a short time, Sara didn’t flinch. She grabbed at a long cylindrical device attached to her hip and threw it down the chamber to the approaching fire. 

 

In a bright and violent poof of blue mist, the chamber was consumed with ice and rapidly cooled. The dry powder and anti-oxidizing chemicals from the CryoBan explosive dispersed and attacked the flame, depriving it of fuel and forcing it to dissipate. With no other option, the flames impotently struggled against the barrier and were sucked back up through unknown channels. It all happened very quickly and though Sara knew the grenade would be effective, she didn’t think it would cause the fire to reverse direction. Questions for another time. Two grenades down… one to go. 

 

Sara patted one of her leather pouches, where her last grenade was peacefully nestled. Then, after taking a beat to wipe her forehead, she turned back toward the guppy and the rest of the group. 

 

“Firstly,” Sara began, fishing (heh!) for a small device in one of her other waist pouches, “here, take this.” 

 

The Zeltron tossed a small device at the droid because she was still confused whether or not the Nemoidian could see. “It’s a re-breather I use when working with poison gas. It should help Mr. cough over there.”

 

“Secondly,” Sara turned back to Leena and cocked another small smile, “If I didn’t want to come, I could certainly have taken us to another planet. Don’t waste your time being sorry, it doesn’t help any right now.”

 

Sara took a moment to look around now that the threat of impending flames was not pushing down on the lot of them and found herself at a loss.

 

“And I guess thirdly is, does anybody have any idea which direction we’re headed?”

Edited by Scorpion

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"...Now, if you wish to join me I will not turn you away, but you must promise not to harm or to threaten anyone else."

 

Her words echoed in his head as the former Watcher of the Link looked up to see the small Nautolan standing over him, the warming touch of her hands steadily dulling some of his pain. He could tell his body was healing but he was not the one responsible. 
 

“Thank you,” was all he could manage to muster at first.


Then rising a little, he added, “If you will have me, I promise I will not harm you. But we must--”


His next words were cut off as sniper fire began raining down on the crowd of off-world refugees. As if things weren't bad enough, now they were being shot at!


I swear I am going to murder each and every Quarren on this planet!!!

Struggling to get to his feet, Ro’s chest burned and strung and certain movements stabbed him with sharp pains but at least his legs were still usable. Hunched over from the pain, it also gave him the added bonus of being a smaller target than if he had been standing upright.
 

Way to look on the bright side, buddy!


In the midst of the frenzied hysteria that was beginning to rapidly reach a crescendo, Ro heard the Twi’lek bark out orders, “There is no time. Run Nia. Now!”


He could feel her doing something to his backside as she spoke but he was in too much pain to look behind himself and see what she had done. For a split second, Ro tried to point out the uncovered manhole. If they hurried, perhaps their small party and some of the off-world survivors might be able to make it down into the tunnels before these government assassins murdered everyone. But before he could say anything, Nia and Rose were already off to the races and waving for him to join.

 

Kark.

 

Pushing through the screaming masses was painful but he was aided by the renewed adrenaline that surged through his body as helpless civilians were dropped by sniper fire right and left. 


Nothing like murder, death, and impending doom to get the blood flowing!


But even with his head still ringing, Ro had the sneaky suspicion that he was somehow missing something. He could see it in Rose’s eyes as she looked back and fired off her rounds at the local “law enforcement.” It was as if she wasn’t actually looking towards the snipers. It was more like she was looking up to the sky instead for some reason.


As he pushed himself to catch up and avoid the weapon fire coming his way, Rose frantically motioned for him to run even faster. Still a little bit groggy, he begrudgingly complied, showing off a little as he managed to pass Rose. Now in the middle of the pack, Nia remained in the lead while Rose attempted to provide the group with cover fire.


As they neared the edge of the third block, Ro could feel the exhaustion setting in. It hurt so much to breathe. He was doing his best to control his breathing but dashing through the crowd and over any obstacles or dead bodies that were lying in their way made it almost impossible to do. 


Where are we even going?! How much further! Why don’t we just take cover behind one of these nearby buildings and regroup!!!


But even as he tried to figure out what their next move could be, Ro suddenly witnessed a flash of light dance across Nia’s moist skin followed abruptly by a deafening roar. Eyes wide, Ro looked back.


Karking Kark.


An explosive wall of fire mowed down the terrified survivors like they were overgrown blades of grass. Ro’s life flashed before his eyes. His conversations with Durose when he was brought into his world. His first day at the Link Headquarters. Meeting Victoria for the first time. Fighting that tenacious little blue-haired Mandalorian while Coruscant burned around them. Singing to Rose as she died in his arms.


As he watched the flames streak towards him, his pace began to falter. He missed her. Maybe he even loved her. He didn’t know. He was never given the chance. He would never get the chance.

 

If she was here... if she was here... we could have... we could have taken on the world together! Force Drukit, Rose! Force Drukit!


His eyes began to tear up. He wondered if it should have been him that had returned the helmet. Perhaps this was his punishment for all his sins and failings and transgressions.

He could feel the Twi’lek mercenary pushing at him to move faster as the flames consumed everything in their view. He moved his body to shelter Nia from the impact, hoping that at least one of them would make it. He closed his eyes.


Death, however, refused to grant him his rest. Like a fickle mistress, she had cheated on him once again with someone else. While the wall of fire tickled the edges of his borrowed energy shield, that was the farthest it came before promptly collapsing in on itself and leaving a leveled, acid-scorched wasteland in its wake.

 

Behind him, the others that had also managed to outrun the explosion were yelling and barking at one another. Many were still running. Others were catching their breath. Some had even collapsed on the ground from exhaustion. Leaving Nia for a moment, Ro ran back towards Rose.

 

As she dropped to her knees with an almost unintentionally eerie smile and then fell forward, Ro slid to his knees and caught her. She wasn’t a very heavy woman but the impact made him grimace for a second. Her back felt like hot coals and stung to even touch. Instead of initially trying to move her, he just froze in that position, allowing her body to rest against his chest. He tried to think of something to sing to her. But he couldn’t do this again. Tears rolled down his cheeks as his voice let out little more than a dry croak. There were no more songs left for the dead here. What had happened was no less than mass murder. 

 

Someone will pay for this. Someone must pay for this!

 

Ro couldn’t bring himself to look upon the twi’lek’s actual burns. Truth be told, as long as these burns weren’t too deep and she hadn’t been filled with shrapnel, it was possible to survive an explosion like that. Sure, she might have lost feeling or consciousness. But even if she had third-degree burns on 75% of her body, she still stood a 50-50 chance of survival if she could receive care in time. If he could find some bacta or a Jedi healer, her odds might even be much better than that. What Ro wouldn’t give to have that power right now.

 

3...2...1...

 

Ro wrapped his arms around the body, her backside searing into his fur and flesh, her weight pressing against his lungs and chest.

 

“Arraaahhh!”

 

He couldn’t help but shriek a little as he lifted the two of them off the ground. It wasn’t a shriek of pain. It was more of intense frustration and anger. Pressing his hands against her backside, he yelped a little as he re-positioned her over his right shoulder.


He was in so much pain between his previous injuries, the searing heat from her burnt flesh, and the compression of his chest from her added body weight that the blazing anger swelling within his heart was the only thing keeping him upright. He simply refused to allow anything else to matter to him in those moments. 


Looking back, he didn’t see Nia. Ro felt a sudden rush of panic.


Maybe she had headed to safety? Or did the fire get her? No. No! I was there. She had. She must.


Ro’s breathing was labored. The pain was making it hard to think. He could worry about Nia later. This Twi’lek woman was his priority. He owed her that much for saving his life. He began walking back towards the devastation. He needed to cool her down. There was water wherever those manholes led. It was their only hope. He just needed to push a few steps further.


Just a few steps more. I can see it. An opening in the ground. Must. Just a few.
 

Reaching for the comm unit still attached to her person, Ro put it to his mouth as he spoke with labored breaths, “Bombs--Explosion--I’m--going--to--take--your--friend--to--the--sewers--need--medical--please...”

 

Between his ribs and the swelling and the Twi’lek’s body weight, Ro was starting to become increasingly dizzy. He blinked hard as the ground in front of him behind to blur and wobble. But he was there. He had made it to a nearby opening. There was still a chance. 

 

Dropping the twi’lek down into the water below, there was a splash followed by an ominous sizzle. At the very least, the water would help cool her body down and maybe buy them a few minutes. He could speak to whether she’d manage to keep both lekku but perhaps she was lucky enough to have them absorb a lot of the impact. He still couldn’t bring himself to visually inspect the damage. It didn’t really matter if they didn’t find a healer or bacta soon. If she was still alive, by now every system in her body was undoubtedly freaking out. Her metabolism had surely gone haywire and accelerated, her immune system was probably undergoing changes, and her cardiovascular system was about to falter. And then there was the catastrophic loss of fluid through the burned area by evaporation and through leakage from damaged capillaries.

 

She was on borrowed time if she wasn’t dead already. Of course, Ro wasn’t in much better shape. His body was screaming at him to rest so he could finally heal a little. Dropping down into the sewer tunnel himself, he wade over to the alien woman and pulled her tight to his chest again, this time pressing the burnt part of her body against his. She was much cooler now. At least that was something. Moving a little further down the tunnel, Ro soon found himself in darkness. He fiddled with the comm unit. He hit what he thought might be a locator for Mjan to track their location. But he was too tired to know for sure anymore.

 

Moving along the tunnel wall until he felt the railing of what he believed to be a ladder, Ro removed his belt and used it to tie the twi’lek’s arms in the air above her. With her secure, he leaned her head backwards and let it rest in the water. With his cat-like senses, he wasn’t completely blind in the dark but he still felt around her face to make sure that it wouldn’t sink beneath the water with how he had set it. Satisfied, Ro slumped against the adjacent wall.

 

All he could think about was sleep. He had to sleep. He needed to sleep. And right as he began to drift off to sleep, the funniest thing hit him. He had done all this work but in his entire time, he had been so focused on himself and his pain and just getting them out of there that he had never checked to see if she was breathing.

 

Huh.


___
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Edited by Durose Roshan
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Nok was in awe. When the resounding boom of the explosion echoed through the chamber, he’d felt the rush of force and heat tearing towards them, greater than anything he could have pushed back with the Force. He wasn’t even sure if he could push on something like that. The tentacle-faced man was down on the ground, Leena the Jedi seemed to be out of ideas, and the droid didn’t look like it was interested in saving anyone at the moment.

 

Then the woman who’d exploded with emotion and power at the clinic tossed something, and a burst of cold and power erupted that he could only assume stopped the explosion, given that they weren’t dead.

 

On 4/23/2020 at 4:46 PM, Scorpion said:

“And I guess thirdly is, does anybody have any idea which direction we’re headed?”

 

Nok took a moment to gather himself. “That explosion sounded like it came from above us. I’m guessing that warehouse isn’t there anymore, so we’re not getting out that way. And given what that explosion implies, I’m not going up there anytime soon anyway to ‘turn myself in’.” He frowned. “That was Lethane gas. It comes from cortosis. There might be a mine down there.”
Nok wanted to descend deeper and follow the voice, but admitting you were actively looking for Dark Side voices in deep caverns seemed like a quick way to get a lightsaber to the throat.
He thought for a second, and decided. “I’m heading down there. Better to find a mine or another corridor than to wander around up here and hope security doesn’t think to search for survivors.” He was well aware how crazy that sounded after the dark voice, but he was willing to play up the naive academic in denial a little longer.

Edited by Nok Morliss
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To say Xar was surprised at the events that had just occurred would’ve been an understatement. When he was expecting death, when all the odds were against his survival, when his doom in the form of a rolling explosion was approaching him, he survived. But it wasn’t his own power...was it?

 

No, Xar couldn’t have done that. He was a droid, not a god. Still, neither were these ‘lessers’. Xar didn’t believe in magic. That ‘force’ that the calamari spoke of was nothing more then superstition. Still, it seemed to have done something. Then the Zeltron…

 

Ah, yes, the Zeltron! She had stopped the explosion from reaching him with her grenade after all. So his survival was owed to this being. 

 

“Ugh” Xar groaned when the Zeltron tossed her the mask. “To be in the debt of...no... no...no…” Xar suddenly began to reason with himself. Speaking to no one specifically, Xar helped the neimoidian put on the mask. “Obviously our greatness and magnitude attracted these two to come to our aid. Thus, we are the reason for your safety. Yes, that is correct. And because of that, we survived. Finally, some beings who recognise the greatness of Xar”

 

“As for your question Zeltron…” Xar addressed the being. “That entirely depends on where you are trying to go. If you want to stay in our presence, the next direction in this way…could someone carry that thing?” Xar pointed at the collapsed being. 

 

And with that, Xar began making his way into the darkness. His one eye flickered once and a beam of light emitted from it, giving him a clear path. Whether or not the others could follow him in this void of darkness and sewage was not his concern, though he could provide enough reflection that hopefully the others could follow. 

 

“You see, the sewage...” Xar talked as he made his way, taking a turn to the right. “Is running this way. And as much as we hate walking in someone’s filth, Xar is a droid of honor, and we will make our way through this, instead of getting arrested like Mr. Meer said. Watch out there…” Xar stopped and pointed a claw towards a spot in the sewage. “A small tripping hazard. Could break one of your legs. Oh maybe some beings that way..." Xar pointed towards two heat signatures down a side path (@Ro)  "Help them if you want, but we want to hurry. Anyways…”

 

Xar continued talking the entire way. “You may wonder how we are able to think of such a thing. Well, while having three separate memory cores, this chassis is of a hunter trainer model from...Rodia ugh..."  Xar made a sound similar to something puking its guts out at the word "...such an ignoble place… and one of the core functions of this model is to hunt. Many animals can’t detect possible predators from upstream, so naturally, we prefer to hunt downwards…”

 

The group came to a diverging path, both having the sewage going down it equally. Xar glanced upwards and smacked the pipe. The loud ‘gong’ of his action echoed in all directions. Xar banged again and listened carefully. In the echoes, there seemed to be something. It was so quiet, and with the echoes of the banging, it was almost unnoticeable.

 

“Alone…..cold…dark...” 

 

Xar pointed a claw down one of the pipes. “This way. There is a large area this way, perhaps with a ladder to climb. Though keep that mask on Mr Meer or whatever your name is….there is more gas, and my temperature readings say it is dropping...quite cold really...” and Xar continued on, having not heard the whispers. As soft and quiet as they were, they were there only for a second, and then gone. 

 

Xar continued to point out spots where the beings who followed him might trip. “After all, it would be a pity for you to fall in our presence.” Eventually Xar had to come to a stop. Here, the sewage was running much more rapidly, and flowing over an edge. Xar eased his way forward to the edge and peered over. His light couldn’t find the bottom. It was a huge cavern that seemed bottomless. His own exhaust ports on his chassis were starting to show, its heat visible in the air. 

 

“Well, this is interesting. Perhaps this is where the cortosis mine is Mr. Meer? We do not see a way for you to get down there though…” Xar glanced around. 

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The screens on the centre console of the dropod flashed black, then white as the drop pods were being prepared for ejection. Their external power cables being removed by crew in the star destroyer and the pods taking over with their own internal generators. He looked across his command team. All stoic in their securely fastened helmets, their inhuman ‘T’ visors staring blankly back at his own. Despite the cumulative grins that were beneath them. He looked at each visor and nodded, they nodded back.

 

“Loadout check.” 

 

The final check of weapons began, and frantic fingers flew over securing straps, and eyes looked into HUD readouts for attached weapon systems. Blasters were checked, then resecured onto straps on their sides. Tucked in beside their armoured thighs, in a mixture of leather and crash webbing. On the opposite thigh there was the familiar slug thrower, sonic weapon, or flechette launcher as was the common loadout for  hunting Jedi Knights. The cyclical slugthowing carbine with its heavy thirty round magazines had been produced for the last fifty years. Their flecchette counterparts for even longer, and the ovular sonic weapons even longer still. Delta still preferred his E-22 blaster rifle, and when fired en-masse from multiple squads, no Jedi would live. But he still carried the venerable FWG-5 flechette pistol he was used to. Manufactured by Malaxan Firepower Incorporated on the distant machine world of Outremer, the pistol was nearly as old as he was. He looked down at it as he gloved finger traced the wooden grips, and he said a quick prayer. To what God? He didn’t know, perhaps he would give an offering to Kad Ha’rangir like he used to during the clone wars. But perhaps it was better to trust in the force, something he had no knowledge of, other than seeing it work miracles for people that didn’t deserve them. 

 

The momentary squeal of comm static filled his ears for a moment, followed by a tone that indicated the encryption handshake.

 

“Darkhand One. Command.”

 

The comm transmission jolted him out of his revery and brought him fully back into the present, his back straightening as the voice of the “Devilfish” came flooding through his ears. Propelled by the SCI implanted in the comm unit that was underslung on his pack, the winded cord snaking up to a port on his armour. 

 

He pressed the button beside his armour mounted datapad and transmitted in response. 

 

“Darkhand copies five by five.” 

 

The transmisson remained static for another second before the Sith Lord replied. 

 

“We may have identified target location by a saturation bombing being laid out by the territorial forces of Mon Cal.” 

 

“Bombing?”

 

“Yes Darkhand, flight of bombers just whipped up hellsturm down there.”

 

Delta narrowed his eyes. Local territorial garrisons always seemed to over react, and this time was no different. And while population was almost by definition expendable, the op required the Sith Navy to be the Good Guys to the local populace. He smiled for a second before responding. 

 

“Send a flight of TIEs to drop those birds, make it visual, and dispatch any EV pilots. We can’t let them kill their own populace for the hell of it. And drop us on location.” 

 

“Understood, TAU command, engage at grid one alpha.” A rumble of static and a chorus of excited affirmatives bounced through his skull from the large flight of interceptors.  Who, having been biting at the bit for the better part of a hyperspace jump, kicked their TIEs into overdrive, whipping through the thick atmosphere and launching a hail of fighter to fighter missiles at the fleeing bombers. With a flip in his stomach, the drop pods jettisoned from the Star Destroyer as it hit the edges of the thermosphere over Morjanssik. Delta kept the communication open until he heard a mixture of pilot chatter that confirmed that the majority of targets were down. Tallyhos and splashes for a tangling fight that filled the air of Mon Calamari with explosions and the death of many a Quarren. 

 

It was with the first explosions in the sky of the dying bombers that the Sith Empire and its Navy made its not so friendly rapprochement of the Mon Calamari. The dark shape of a star destroyer could be seen and from it, seconds later, the sky filled with superheated drop pods that heralded a ground invasion. Like a thousand shooting stars coming from the dark shadow of a star destroyer, the drop pods fell towards the streets of Morjanssik. 

 

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Ca'Aran

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Even before the Sith forces began to appear in the sky, the eerie calm that was left in the aftermath of the chaotic inferno and imploding vacuum began to fill with the cries of those few who had managed to survive. Nobody was left untouched. Some were burned. Others broken. Still others were trapped / pinned beneath what had been haphazardly flying debris. In the distance, sirens wailed as nearby emergency forces turned their attention towards what was already being billed as another Jedi terrorist attack conjoined to the hospital explosion. 

 

In the midst of the rubble, a dirt and grime covered Zeltron male clothed in singed bantha-leather pants and vest rushed away from the oncoming sirens. He only paused at the sight of a battered Nautolan, Nia. He paused, extending a hand to the girl, “C’mon girlie, we gotta get out of here before they come to finish us off. I got a buddy with a ship a half klick or so away. If we can get there, maybe we can survive.” He glanced about anxiously before setting off clasping his heavy blaster in his other hand, “We gotta go NOW.”

 

___________
 

Elsewhere, all across the planet a myriad of invisible communications zipped about as government entities, military assets, and civilian watch stations tried to ascertain what was going on with the sudden arrival of a fleet that appeared decidedly set on military conquest. With planetary forces already focused on the medicinal safety of the planet and containing the murmurs of social unrest, the arrival of an alien invasion was the last thing they needed. At least many of the forces planetside were already deployed. Communications were sent to the fleet in hopes that whoever had arrived would respond with offers of peace and aid, although deep in the pits of their bellies those who viewed the scans of the fleet knew otherwise.

 

Then, suddenly, for a moment, the confusion was gone. It was nearly replaced with an exponential explosion of chaos. The fleet was launching invasion forces. It had already dispatched a wing of atmospheric defense fleet bombers that had been tasked with ensuring no one left the quarantine zone to potentially spread the plague across the world. War was upon them.

 

Like that, the majority of the quarantine forces found themselves with new haphazardly issued orders: Defend the world. Repel the alien hostiles. Protect the people.

 

Up on the orbital shipyards, several massive Mon Cal warships languished awaiting more orders for production, which had been lagging of late. Everywhere klaxons blared and emergency stations were manned. Naval personnel rushed to their battle-stations and the massive warships began to disengage from their moorings. Fighter pilots manned their craft awaiting launch. If war was afoot, the Mon Calamari Defense Force would meet it head on.

 

Planetary mounted orbital weapons began to take aim at the fleet dropping into the atmosphere. It would not be a moment before the skies overhead were filled with ion and turbolaser fire.

 

________________
 

Beneath the ruins of the warehouse, Leena blinked in shock, a glimmer of light kindling in her soul. Even in the total blackness of the septic main, Leena could feel it, just as much as she could sense the others still about her. “Hope.”

 

”That grenade was a great idea.” Leena said in what she thought was Sara’s direction as she picked herself up out of the muck. She smiled as relief rushed through her. “The force provides for those who . . .”

 

Leena could not finish her thought as the Nemoidian insisted they move deeper into the tunnel. Before she knew it, a light was piercing the darkness and Xar was urging the group downward. Looking back at the steaming sewage where the fire had been repelled, Leena knew it would be best to follow the group deeper. Away from the heat and carnage. “I think it would be best if we stick together, eclectic a group as we are. I am sure glad that you have a flashlight built in master droid. I’d hate to trip over a . . . something I’d like very much to not think about, and break my leg or get a face full of feces.”

 

Following the group, Leena continued to babble. Truth be told, it helped calm her down and the growing edge of darkness concerned her. The threat of being consumed by  fire was pushed to the back of her mind. Right now they needed to find a safe way out of here. 


“I hope we can find a way out. It is hard to help people when we are cut off from the city. I wonder if the virus is down here too. Oh, glad you pointed that out. Don’t want to trip. So what is everyone doing here? Mister ahhh Meer was it, it seems like there might be more to you than just selling medical supplies. I can still smell the gas, but the air here seems to be cooler and less caustic on my mouth.”
 

Leena paused when she thought she heard the voice, but shook her head. “Just hearing things. Pipes like these can echo anything can’t they? No way there is some other sentient being down here. It is getting cold though. I suppose it beats being baked alive like a eeopie steak though. Oh, we are going left? Doesn’t that one seem like it goes deeper? Don’t we want to get out? I suppose the droid has some built in compass though. I know I have no idea where we are. Do you hear that dripping? I bet we are below sealevel by now. Do you all know how to swim?

 

Leena paused as they came to an abrupt stop at the mouth of a maw where the pipe suddenly took a 90 degree angle downwards. “Oh. That is deep. I do not suppose anyone has a rope? I am not sure I possess the skill to levitate us down,” she gestures down the pit in the dim glow of Xar’s light, “that.” 
 

Overhead as drop pods began to make landfall a series of dull whumping sounds could be heard. “Perhaps the virus is worse than we knew and they are firebombing the city to try and exterminate it. That is not right. Those people have a right to try and survive. Who could do such a thing? We need to be careful guys. There is an abnormal darkness here. Can you feel it? I can almost taste it on my tongue.” A louder whump caused the pipe to shutter ever so slightly. “That was too close for comfort. I don’t know maybe we should, whoops!!” Leena had turned to peer down into the inky darkness and had caught her foot along the edge and began tumbling downwards into the blackness.  “Oh dear.” 
 

As she tumbled, the cold air rushing past her, Leena extended her arms and legs out the air whipping her disgusting robes about her. Reaching out on the force, Leena felt for the force. The darkness played at the edges of her mind, but she could still grasp the tendrils of light; wrapping it about her in a warm blanketing embrace. Leena prayed the force would slow her decent enough to keep her from being crushed on whatever lay below.

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There was a coldness that encompassed Mjan's soul as he sat there, chest deep in muck and feces, his heart shattered and his mind lost in blank emotion. Inside, he felt numb, almost as if he had been cut off from everything he knew or held to be true even as the darkness around him attempted to swallow him up. And yet, he didn't care, couldn't care, because he was incapable of it. Even as the heat of the flames bared down on the group, his soul grasped at it, wishing to feel anything in that moment. But even then, he couldn't feel its warmth, even before it was extinguished.

 

And so he rose to push on behind the others, his eyes blankly staring into the abyss of darkened corridors and endless pipes as he trekked on only to move. It was a scary feeling, to feel empty and pointless, existing to only exist. He felt Rose's final moments, her death as the flames consumed her soul. But now he couldn't even feel Nia, his purpose a failure. Was she dead? He didn't feel it, so she couldn't be. But why couldn't he feel her at all? Was he that pathetic?

 

So many questions filled his mind. So many with not a single answer. And that left him voided, left him worthless. But even in this state, something keep pulling him forward, keeping him going. But it was as unanswered as the rest. And so he chose to heed its call, to follow it forward, to keep going until it revealed its self, even if hope was lost upon him, unphased by what was said around him and even as the structures around him rumbled. He was just there, holding out, existing.

 

And then there was nothing, his body reacting to Leena's falling in a way that was simple reaction. As she slipped and fell into the darkness below, he dove behind her without thought, his broken soul unable to grasp why he even did. He could feel her pulling the force to herself, and yet he did not, simply staring at her blankly as his form passed hers until the moments after when he landed in a slush of liquids and foul odors. And as his laying form was enveloped by it, he remained a blank slate. What was wrong with him? 

 

As his lungs attempted to hold back the tides of suffocation, Mjan found his footing and stood, covered in whatever mess he had landed in. 

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As the group sloshed down the corridor through what had to be raw sewage, Nok kept quiet. The droid and the Jedi together seemed more than capable of filling the silence, and better yet they didn’t need someone to respond to keep them going. That big one though...he was strange. Nok could barely see him from the faint fear and minor aches of the others. He was empty and still, as if he was dead.

 

Still, Nok was grateful to be ignored. It helped him to focus on...the cold.

 

It had crept up on him, but now he felt it sink in. A malicious, invasive presence, moving with hints of intelligence.

 

Dead in the cold and dark.

 

Nok gritted his teeth as he felt a surge of uncontrolled fear run raw against the underside of his skin, the words dredging up a familiar sensation with fresh intensity.

 

No. I am in control of my fear. That vision is my weapon, not-

 

Your end?

 

Nok’s heart seemed to stop for a second. Had that...no, that had been his own mind, fueled by this place, by this presence.

 

Your destiny awaits below. Stall. Stall and run. Run to the sun and be warm.

 

No! He thought fiercely, shutting out the treacherous thoughts as his skin crawled in the chill. I will not give up! I am Nok Morliss! I fought and killed my way to where I am, and I will take anything I want from this pointless universe! Nok’s confidence gained footing as he reminded himself of his victories, his deals, his vast wealth. I’m smarter than them! I’m better than them! Everything I’ve earned and taken from the fools of this galaxy is proof! And I’ll have more, because that’s what I am!

 

I am a conqueror!

 

Nok’s mind turned as cold as the air as he took control. He dissected the fear running through him, analyzing it until it was nothing but a sensation, just like the cold. A tool to be partnered with the Force and his intelligence.

 

Flashes of Nok’s siblings sprang into his mind, memories that had been indistinct suddenly clear. He saw their mewling and their groveling as they envied their elders. He saw himself, pretending to be one of them as he snatched and cultivated wealth and power.

 

You’re just another one of them, part of the set. You’ve always been one of them. You just convinced yourself that you were special. Just like every idiot you’ve conned.

 

You are not real. You’re my own mind.

 

Am I? Then I know you best, don’t I?

 

Nok could feel his control slipping as the fear squirmed free, doubts fraying his focus.

 

You think that because you robbed a few Outer Rim rubes and hedge-fund brats that you’re something special? You’re just an opportunist, a vulture with a little more bite and a little less patience. You think you can stack up to a real Jedi? Or a real Sith!?

 

Nok fumbled in the sleeve of his robes until his fingers closed around the hilt of one of his vibro-knives.

 

This. I earned this.

 

...You only killed one howlrunner.

 

I...no, I had the other killed as a lesson to myself. To never surrender!

 

I think you actually believe that.

 

Nok head throbbed, and his skin felt like he was submerged in a hill of clinging, stinging insects.

 

Be quiet! You’re my mind! Mine! You’re mine! You will-

 

The Jedi tripped and fell into the hole.

 

The “sight” broke Nok out of his trance. His own inner turmoil was providing plenty of negative emotion to see by, but he’d barely realized they’d even come to a pit. And then the Jedi had just...tripped.

 

Then the large one jumped after her.

 

Nok collected himself as he entertained the possibility that he was hallucinating. Could he even hallucinate with the way he was?

 

No. It was real. It felt real. As real as the squish of bodies landing in yet more raw sewage.

 

Nok’s resigned acceptance that his expensive, custom robes were a total loss at this point surprised him. The fear was gone.

 

He grimaced as he sucked in a breath.

 

I am a conqueror.

 

He jumped.

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Xar sighed as he witnessed one by one each organic begin to fall down into the dark pit, out of sight. 

 

“Such....idiots.” Xar looked at the Zeltron, the last one still at the top. 

 

“And you? Do you plan on jumping in recklessly like those ones?”

 

Xar had to pause as he looked the Zeltron over. 

 

“You are able bodied like us, and well equipped. Surely you have something that superior beings like us can use, and not have to resort to such...drastic measures. Perhaps a cable line?” 

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Able-bodied? This droid needed to work on his bedside manner. 

 

Sara watched as the Nemoidian, the tentacle-faced-guy, and Leena dropped like lumpy sacks of rabid womp rats into the void. Acclimated as she was to the low illumination in the tunnel, aided by her heightened senses and the bright light streaming from the combat droid’s optical receptors, she could not see them hit bottom. How deep was it? Would she live? Maybe they were dead? 

 

Some part of Sara clenched up thinking about that; which was odd. Sara hadn’t once spared more than a passing thought for the lives of others. It wasn’t like she was a sociopath, but her realm of focus rarely extended beyond the self. And although Leena’s incessant running dialogue drove an icy cold stiletto through the center of Sara’s brow, something inside the Zeltron - something alien - was pushing her to keep Leena safe.

 

Wincing at the heap of new putrescence that piled on her sensitive nose and hiding a gag, she turned to the droid with a smarmy grin. 

 

“Nope!” She chirped in an enthusiastic sound dripping heavy with sarcasm.

 

Then, with a mocking wave, the Zeltron back stepped and hopped off the edge into the deep black. Warm sludge greeted her body with a liquid glip, followed by a disgusting glop when her dive spread fresh sludge on the bodies that came before her. 

 

Welp. I’m finding new clothes after this; or washing with fire... 

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Mon Cal Authorities frantically flooded High Command with red-tape legislation, desperate chatter that did little more than breathe undertones of just how fearful these people had become under the guidance of the galactic alliance. Independance, boundaries and trespassings were the moaning of the Quarren people, of a system that had been rattled by the rumblings of war in the past. High Command remained stoical in their speech patterns, unmoved by incessant pleas, hardened in their resolve and empowered by the massive armada that swarmed to their call. A dreadful and swallowing eclipse mourned over the diminutive blue planet, monstrous vessels casting a shadow as black as eel ink across the raging waters. High Command was cold and matter-of-fact in how they addressed the Quarren, unbothered by the dressings of their law. This was Sith-Imperial space now, and with the rumors of a rebel alliance, the sanctioning of this world would be immediate and heavy-handed.

 

The Sentinels prepared for drop as the count measured zero. Sentinel Lead resisted the bile that built up in his throat at the sound of it, the nausea that he could never escape at the head of each drop. The old man relaxed himself within the confines of his armor, praying to whichever God would hear him, knowing that the coming turbulence would be anything but forgiving. Drops never were. But, any measure of the scurrying resistance at this point, warranted such a response. As it were when the presence of the Sith and the Empire of old were under collapse, command almost unilaterally preferred small engagements or hit-and-run tactics, charging in like this was definitely something new.

 

 

DROP COMMENCING. FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE…

 

 

The pod shuddered as sub-light engines kicked on, an almost unnoticeable shift in gravity hinting at the tremendous acceleration the drop shells underwent as it jettisoned from the cavernous hangar bays of the Goliath. Inertial dampeners burned at peak efficiency, graciously. Adrenaline filled them. Everything appeared to be in functioning order, the armored pods beginning to rattle and shake as they abruptly entered the atmosphere, nothing but the sound of slightly elevated breathing coming in over the comms. Hard seconds passed, ambient heat leaking through the shielding of the drop pods and the heaviness of their environmental exo-suits chafing against skin. They would shed these once landed.

 

The metal became too jarring, tremoring loudly before boiling to a climax. With a final starving whine, the worst was over. Sensors cleared now that their atmospheric breaching maneuver was complete, and showing the pods of Sentinel team all roughly where they should be, no more than a few hundred meters out of position which was quickly corrected by bursts of the built-in maneuvering repulsor-lifts. Impressively however, the skies were filled with more than just their brilliant metal. It was an iron rain, a storm of Imperial life and vast machines falling fearlessly from the skies as hundreds and hundreds were making land and sea-fall. A swift scan of their target arrival area, and connection to the local Imperial tac net painted a rather bleak representation of the situation on the ground than had initially been suspected, actual numbers and vehicle designations being provided in a rush of information. The warehouses were in disarray, a fallen complex more rubble than it was intact, and a platoon of Imperial Legion first-responders that began to dig in amongst the wreckage. Secondly, a pair of AT-ST walkers mobilized into transportable sentries, monitoring their coordinates while additional carriers fixed positions. Lastly, Sentinel-Lead turned to see another drop-pod unfastening, his eyes were strangely fixated for reasons he could not naturally explain. Ignoring the tactical displays shooting across his visor, he knew that this pod was not enlisted within their drop composition, and that this one must've blown way off course. 

 

 

But when the devilish burnish of black boots clamored from the armored shell, thick incenses crawling from it in sheets of steam, Sentinel-Lead knew that a Sith had arrived.

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Down in the darkness that was the sewers, Leena reached out on the force that encircled her, trying vainly to try and slow her fall into the abyss of unknowingness below. As Knight Mjan whizzed by her. The two splattered into the muck below at about the same time. With a sickening belly flop of a landing, Leena laid face down in the muck for longer than she would ever care to acknowledge. When she did tip her head back to gasp for air, her lungs were assaulted by the overwhelming choking odor of the waste of countless thousands of fishy denizens. It would have been enough to make a full grown Hutt vomit. Given that Leena paled in vileness to such a slug, she did just that; adding the contents of her stomach to the glop that coated her and came almost up to her shoulders.

 

That would have been bad enough, had a splatter not followed right behind her as she was coated in a fresh wave of fecal sludge. Had she been focused, the girl would have felt the dark consciousness of Nok Morliss; but even that paled in comparison to the darkness that permeated the entire pipeline, dark, subtle, ancient and growing. Leenawas not even noticing that though as proceeded to continue wretching as Sara splattered down nearby.

 

Four yards above them, shrouded in the darkness, was a deep and narrow fissure that stretched upwards for a dozen feet or more. It was a place where miners of countless of Dac’s precious minerals had strayed too far from the beaten path and intersected with the sewage line before making a hasty retreat and not bothering to admit their fault and report the error. That would have been hours of paperwork and a major liability. So it had lay undetected for the last 13 months; a ledge staring into the fumes along a tracked shaft deeper into the planet towards the core and the seabed that had birthed this outcropping of volcanic rock. It was still pitch black and the air in the mine chock full of Lethane. The shaft had been abandoned after the first explosion of the gas; deemed to dangerous to continue for the meager returns the shaft had been generating. The whole shaft had been blocked off somewhere high above: out of sight, out of mind was the company’s philosophy.

 

_____________
 

Meanwhile, on the surface, the already taxed-to-the-max local police forces stared in devastation as the solid-state hellifre rained down upon their city from above. Some wondered if this was a Jedi invasion force bent on retaking the planet for their rebellion against the ever-expanding Sith Empire. Others saw the mythalized stormtroopers and just knew the Empire of old had finally pulled out all the stops and begun their reclamation of the galaxy. Others saw it as an invasion force coming to prey on them in their hour of need. There was already death all around them and while some pockets of local government tried to cautiously and peacefully approach the sky-fallen arrivals, many opted for a tried and true approach: welcome through the heavy application of localized firepower.

 

That was the response in the areas of the fire-bombed hospital and devastated warehouse district. Terrorists, offworlders, plague, fireballs, explosions, it was not like it could get any worse right? While officers and troopers abandoned their posts and poured forth to form up some form of barricades against the planet-spanning rain of death-dealing soldiers, Police command was quickly mobilizing in an effort to get to the city bunker, hoping to survive the onslaught there. That is, until a drop pod slammed into the fleeing hooverbus, grinding it to a screeching halt in the roadway.
 

_____________
 

And, like a sick ever expanding fog did the darkness radiate through the gases, through the sewage-filled vapors, through the flames and the chaos. The more death and destruction that echoed on the force, the stronger the presence became; a silent laughter emanating across the city. “It is time. Dead in the cold and dark no more.” 

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This had better be worth it.

 

Nok had smelled raw sewage before, though never from this close, and this stuff was actually worse, despite how impossible that seemed. On top of the overwhelming normal stench of normal sewage, this glop radiated the overwhelming scent of fish. Nok thought back to the nubian spinefish drenched in shaak butter and garnished with powdered lux urchin he’d eaten three days ago, and had to fight not to wretch.

 

Wonderful, now seafood is ruined for me.

 

Nok heard the others moving through the sludge, and saw them through the throbbing aches he’d earned from the fall. He also saw…

 

Yes, there, an opening about 12 feet up. He couldn’t be sure if the others could see it in the dark.

 

Enough. I’m not sitting in this muck waiting for them to find the exit. I doubt they were buying the blind man routine to begin with.

 

Nok waded over to the wall directly below the fissure, firmly ignoring the texture of whatever his feet were stepping in, and slapped his hands as hard as he could against the stone.

 

The stinging in his palms illuminated the stone wall to his mind, showing in stark detail the chinks and cavities peppering the surface. He reached up and grasped a knob of rock, his sewage slick fingers slipping for a second but eventually finding their grip. Then Nok began to climb.

 

He smiled as he pulled himself out of the muck with a SCHLUCK. This reminded him of when he’d first started making his fortune, sabotaging his own customer’s operations to drive them into debt and into his control. He’d been fierce then, hungry. He remembered squirming through air shafts, cramming himself into shipping crates for hours, slicing computers with second-hand local equipment…

 

And now I’m covered in sewage, free-climbing a wall in a Lethane filled mine on a quarantined planet. There was a reason I stopped doing this nonsense.

 

Nok rolled over the lip into the fissure, and took a second to catch his breath. He could barely “see” up here, away from the others and with the stinging in his palms subsiding.

 

He considered calling on the terror of the vision again, but after the internal conversation before the jump he was no longer sure he could control that torrent of emotion if he invoked it.

 

Alright, different plan then.

 

He pulled out one of his vibro-knives, keeping it off, and before he could think better he drove the dull, rounded hilt into the meat of his upper left arm. Then he did it again, and again, until his left arm throbbed with what would definitely be bruises. He flexed, the pain sharpening with each motion and lighting up the passage. Concealing the knife back in his sleeve, he started on the downward path.

 

There was no question in his mind that he was going down, not up. The argument he’d had with himself had lit a fire in him, and he wasn’t going to quit now. Never surrender. He might retreat, rethink, or restrategize, but he would never truly give up on something he wanted. That’s what made him different. That’s what made him better.

 

He could almost hear the voice mocking him with silent insults that struck home nonetheless. Was he just fooling himself? Was he just some lucky and arrogant grifter, a bottom-feeder waiting to get stepped on?

 

Fitting planet to die on if I am.

 

The passage descended straight at first, but eventually changed into a winding passage that moved with the contours of the rock rather than cut into it. The Lethane was growing thicker, and Nok’s lungs started to burn as he struggled to breathe. He channeled the pain into power and kept going. He wasn’t thinking now. He was going to win, he was going to get what he came for, or he would die trying. This wasn’t some con or mission anymore, this was him alone with the howlrunners, the two beasts starved and snarling as they eyed the worn neimoidian. This was wrestling mind-to-mind with that serpent on Kuat. This was fighting for his life against that tree-thing on Garn.

 

Then, like passing through a door into a heated room out of the cold, the Lethane cleared. Nok sucked in a deep breath of sweet air, confused. Had he passed the gas’s source? Lethane did rise, but the change was so sudden, like entering a force field.

 

Nok took in his surroundings, the throbbing aches in his battered left arm acting as his light.

Edited by Nok Morliss
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With silent disbelief, Xar stared into the abyss, watching the Zeltron’s heat signature dissapear beyond his sensors. Alone now, Xar couldn’t believe what had just happened. 

 

“Apparently, being organic does not indicate higher brain function” Xar said to no one in particular. “Has everyone lost their mental facilities? We truly are a king among fools” 

 

Xar sighed and looked around, hoping there was any other route he could take. But there was none. If he went back, he would most likely encounter whatever security and brimstone that the group had barely dodged. But to go forward in this madness…

 

“It’s beyond reasoning.” Xar told himself as he took a step, now on the precipice of the abyss. Xar looked down, trying to calculate where the others may have fallen to, but that was impossible. All he could see below was darkness. 

 

Xar mused for a moment on an old saying the rodians took from the humans. If all of your friends jumped off a bridge…but then again, these people were not his friends. He had no friends. Well, maybe Krexel. Doubtfully, but maybe.

 

Xar crouched and leaped forward, springing himself as far as he could go. As he descended, recognisable heat signatures came into view. With a loud squelch, Xar landed feet first in raw sewage, splashing fecal matter, dead fish, and old food everywhere. 

 

“Gah, this is completely degrading!” Xar moaned and complained as he looked over his chassis. What was once a dark but lovely shade of green had now been mucked to a disgusting brown. 

 

“Meer!” Xar shouted, not seeing the nemodian yet. “You better give us the best oil bath and paint job you can afford, cause no amount of credits…” Xar stopped, realizing that the neimoidian had somehow already moved on. Up ahead, his benefactor had somehow scaled a wall to a fissure in the wall. No doubt this was where the lethane gas was coming from. 

 

Xar looked at the group around him, covered in sewage as well. “You better hurry up. As your only source of light, you don’t want us to get too far ahead. And we don’t slow down for lesser creatures like you.” 

 

With that, Xar moved towards the wall and began to climb. For a droid of his caliber, this was easy.  Once at the top, Xar got a good impression of what had happened. The corridor or tunnel or whatever was scorched. Loose rocks were everywhere. An explosion long ago. 

 

Xar smacked the wall once to test the integrity of the tunnel. Some of the rocks shook but it held firm. Still, it was nerve wracking at how close to a cave-in this place was. What’s more, the gas was actually visible here. Like a thin mist, Lethane traced the tunnel lightly, slowly emerging from further on. 

 

“This is completely asinine for someone like me.” Xar grumbled as he moved forward, not caring if the others were close behind or not. Up ahead he could see the nemodian making his own way. 

 

“Meer! When we offerred our help, we didn’t think you’d be doing suicidal commitments like that…”

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Morjanssik, like many cities that had undergone extensive firebombing in the galaxies’ sorry history, was a chaotic bed of destruction and despair. As low fires gutted apartment complexes, and bodies lay in huddled ashes in the streets, the Sith Naval Marines made their pay. It was through the scream of TIE engines and the distinctive diesel smell of phosphate explosives that cut through the fine filters of his helmet that Delta and his Darkhand commandos made landfall. 

 

Explosive decompression bolts blew the bulkheads off the three sides of the drop pods and in squads of four the command team took cover in the middle of a large pedestrian fareway. HUD GPS told them that they were in the city itself, but none of the surroundings looked particularly familiar from the short briefings they had received. So despite making landfall, they were still no closer to finding or killing any of the Jedi and Delta let his frustration expel itself in a growl. 

 

“Move, bounding towards grid…” 

 

His clear blue eyes looked across the map point that was constantly adjusting as satellite and ground data was moved and reformatted to modern, updated maps. But some was still not in focus, likely from the destroyed infrastructure in the area. Likely where the Jedi had been. 

 

“...One-three-one. Repeat One, Three, One.” The command team beside him, spread out in its company of twelve nodded their heads in unison then bounded for the next burnt out landskiff. This one, however once held a family, who now lay in piles of fine bone and ash in the still burning rear seats. Blacktorin, let out a small moan that echoed over the command interpersonal lines as she knelt in the remains of a crib. 

 

“Spasted garrison forces.”

 

Delta nodded as he continued to watch the mapping software update their location. 

 

“Territorials are KOS. Copy? A plague is one thing, but killing thousands over some Jedi they could have just called us in for? Spast em. We’ll show them how a real government works.” 

 

Or at least that’s what he hoped. And he almost got those hopes dashed right away as a pair of very scared Mon Calamari popped out a burned doorway and began to flee down the causeway in front of him. 12 rifles took aim and as a team they slowly lowered. Mother or Father with a young pre-teenager. Though it was always hard to tell with a species like the Mon Cal. Two national police, quarrans by the look of their tentacles came racing after them with stun batons.

 

This time however, there was no hesitation. A dozen well placed rounds snuffed their lives out before they could even see the Sith commandos beyond their quarry. The bodies looked as if they hit invisible trip wires as their momentum carried their corpses in puppet like confusion as they tumbled and skidded before pitching into the drainage ditch beside the causeway. They did not move again. 

 

“Get inside!” 

 

Delta’s voice boomed through down the causeway, causing the pair to stop in their tracks, their large salmon like eyes staring in speechless fear. 

 

“Mother! Get her inside now!”

 

She obeyed and the pair disappeared into another building’s doorway. Delta and his men moved on, eyes and blasters scanning building tops and side alley’s as they ran. They linked up with several more squads of the scattered Darkhand as they ran until they got into a heavily populated area, where the sick and refugees were clustered in front of makeshift barricades, manned by local police and territorial guard. He did not have to even think twice about the order, and when called out, the crowd parted like a wave. A wave that heralded a mass of concentrated fire from a TIE defender that screeched overhead with all the grace of a falling wampa. The barricades and those defending them melted under the withering fire and the Darkhand surged forward alongside the crowd. 

 

Finding one bright eyed Mon Cal who was walking calmly through the wreckage, Delta pulled her aside. 

 

“The Jedi ma’am, where are they?”

 

before she could speak her flippered hand pointed down. Towards the gratings that covered swer line. So they were to be headed towards the sewers.

 

Great

 

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Ca'Aran

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Nasty, really, really, really, really nast-IS THAT A-no it's just more poop…  Yuck!

 

Excrement seeped through the long-coat and onto her body, chilling her and bringing sharp bumps to the surface of her crimson skin. Parts of her back stung where fresh cuts still lingered. And though infection was unlikely, the reminder was not welcome. Still, she and her ragtag compatriots were not in the best position, and waffling between what to do and when to do it was not an effective course right now. Through the overwhelming stench of feces and waste, there was a bouquet of other smells that bit at Sara’s nostrils. The Lethane smell was stronger down here, but it mingled with Methane and Carbon Dioxide. The Carbon Dioxide thread wasn’t flammable and was common on a number of planets. But Lethane and Methane were both notorious for their flammability; Lethane more so than Methane. 

 

It was a delicate moment that was covered in terrible outcomes. Isn’t that life though? Sometimes you have to crawl through the druk no matter how awful it is to get to the dim light at the end of the tunnel. Right? What am I, a motivational speaker now? What has this planet done to me?

 

The feelings of fear and disgust were strong near her as Leena retched within arms reach and the bigger squid-faced red alien lamented a fresh emotional wound. Oddly though, between the smells scorching her nostrils and the over-saturation of negative emotions, Sara’s faculties were starting to dissociate from her consciousness, allowing her to inwardly scream while moving and doing more practical things. It was a familiar coping mechanism. Pain was a reality she understood. It was a constant in her life since the earliest point she could remember. Being a refugee, you learn to adapt as best you can, or you die. Sure there are those refugees who feel vengeful and/or spiteful toward the crime lords that take advantage of them and then act on the their vengeance, but those refugees also died more often than not. You play the game, you clean the scrapes, you roll with the punches, and you move on; or you die. 

 

Sara scrambled in the sludge, clumsily attempting to right herself. She wasn’t a really good swimmer so she was very thankful that she could feel the bottom of the chamber with her feet. But it was a bitter affirmation. There were things in the slime; things she couldn’t fathom. Of course her subconscious was eager to fill in the gaps with a number of nightmarish creatures - most of them involving tentacles - but she quickly scrambled to push those horrific manifestations to the back of her mind, refusing to acknowledge every disgusting movement she felt beneath the surface of the sludge. She caught the thin light of the droid as it came tumbling down into the waste. And when it moved toward a large crack in the chamber, Sara grabbed at Leena’s slimy figure and attempted to drag the retching Mon Cal with her toward it. The Zeltron drew together what little adrenaline was left and hoped her inherent Zeltron-ness would assist in hauling the taller and heavier alien with her toward the opening. 

 

The droid passed by quickly, bleating about the Nemoidian that Sara didn't notice depart. She held little love for the clunky machine but that did put her in a bind. It meant Sara and the others were working with limited dark-vision; she needed to remember exactly where the fissure was. Cautiously, the Zeltron reached the shore of ‘poop lagoon’ as she’d taken to calling it and ran her hands up the wall in front of her until she felt the rough rocky grips that led to the fissure. With a moment of concentration, Sara intensified her pheromone production to help the other two find where she was. Then, with one hand stuck to the wall, she grabbed at the Mon Cal’s soaked robes and helped her the rest of the way onto the shore. 

 

“Alright,” Sara started loud enough for Leena and the red-squiddy alien to hear; if he cared. “There is a fissure over here that might lead further down. I can’t promise we’ll immediately come out of the gas or that it will be any better than where we are now. But it likely doesn’t have druk falling from the ceiling or a pool of it covering the floor and that makes it a lot better than here. But… And I can’t stress this enough. DO NOT activate your lightsabers in here. The gases in here are extremely flammable and we’ll all blow up if you do. Just don’t. I know how you Jedi like your sabers, just hold it a bit.” 

 

Sara chuckled a little to herself and began climbing the chamber wall. The grips were slipping beneath her fingers, but after a series of strangled grunts she managed to hoist herself into the cavern beyond. 

Edited by Scorpion

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Ro jolted awake to the sounds of explosions and blaster fire coming from above. He was uncertain how long he had passed out. But he could now hear the sounds of deprave Quarren fascists squealing like lecherous pigs in their native tongue. They were close. Slowly getting back to his feet, Ro approached Rose’s body. He was unsure how long he had been out but he felt notably better moving around. He was in no way close to 100%. But it was nice to feel a little better after all he had been through recently. At least, minus the headache he was getting from the smell of fish urine and feces that flowed through these tunnels.

 

Feeling for the twi’lek’s pulse, the former Watcher’s fears were quickly confirmed. There was no pulse. All his efforts had been for naught. In fact, she was probably already dead before he even dropped her down into the “safety” of this muck and mire.

 

Ro could feel his anger boiling over. On Coruscant, he had blamed the Alliance and Jedi for not being there to save everyone. On Chandrilla, he blamed the Jedi for only doing a half-baked job and leaving the refugees to fend for themselves. But on Mon Cal, it was the local authorities that were the true villains. Perhaps it was fitting that this was an Alliance planet. A theme was quickly developing.

 

Rummaging around Rose’s corpse, Ro found a few grenades strapped to the front side of her belt (fortuitous or she might have blown herself and those around her to bits during the bombing explosion). There was also the blaster pistol she had reholstered on her hip before shove Ro and Nia out of danger and the blaster rifle that had partially “melded into the flesh of her back.” Pulling at the rifle like plucking a piece of pepperoni from a sticky slice of cheesy pizza, the blaster rifle took bits of flesh with it as Ro dislodged it from her corpse.

 

Examining it, the flash of the explosion had eaten into her back quite brutally but the burst was too short to melt the metal that her blaster rifle was made of. At least, it definitely looked like it was still functional. At this point, he’d take his chances. Untying her from the ladder leading up to the surface, Ro retied his utility belt around his waste as he watched the body of the twi’lek slowly drift away. It would undoubtedly follow wherever this water was leading and topple down wherever these poop shoots led. Unceremoniously, the twi'lek would be forever to be lost as if she had never come here in the first place.

 

It was a sad end for someone with a good heart like her. She deserved better. This had become a recurring theme as of late. There were lots of people no longer in Ro's life that left this galaxy deserving better. And there were a lot of scum still breathing that deserved a lot worse.

 

You were right to fear, Nia. But I was right to warn you.

 

Removing his tatted and soiled Jedi tunic, he let it hit the water with a slash and begin to drift away. Ro then methodically climbed up the ladder to the manhole above him. He carefully and calmly strained to move the manhole aside. He attempted to do it quietly but in all honestly, with all the blaster fire and screaming going on, no one would have likely noticed even if he hadn’t. Peeking his head out ever so slightly, Ro surveyed his surroundings. 

 

The Imperial Legion?! What in the...

 

Ro paused for a moment. Deep down inside he hoped in his heart of hearts that the Jedi had realized that the Mon Cal crazies had shot down their Jedi transport full of younglings and that they had, for once, acted to render justice against the tyrants of this planet that had clearly been allowed to treat this place like their own xenophobic fishbowl. But no. It wasn’t the Jedi. It wasn’t the Galactic Alliance. It was the Imps.

 

The Imps are here to save the day?! You know what. Screw it...

 

Pulling one of the Rose’s frag grenades from off his belt, Ro examined the positioning of the local law enforcement. With the Imps advancing on them, a nice little collection of officers had found themselves pinned within the rumble of the blast zone and some more had taken cover just outside of the blast zone. Ro himself was on the edge of the blast zone at this point. But his positioning had turned out to be rather fortuitous. Ro suddenly found himself behind enemy lines. Of course, the real poetic beauty of it all was that these serial killing Quarren terrorists were so occupied with the Imps that they surely had no idea that they were about to be flanked.

 

Well, Nia. I’m glad I didn’t promise you not to harm anyone else... because then I’d have had to lie to you.

 

Tossing the grenade into the middle of the largest group of Quarrens, Ro quickly pulled himself up and activated the personal shield Rose had given him when all the initial chaos had started. It felt like a lifetime ago now. But all the same, the Quarrens were caught completely by surprise by Ro's surprise present. A few of them screamed and one or two even caught sight of Ro’s smirk before their bodies burst into a mixture of fire and bloody mist.

 

That one's for Nia.

 

Ro raise the blaster rifle as he back peddled towards the backside of the nearby building to his right. He smirked again as he picked off a few more Quarrens before they could figure out that they had enemies firing at them from all sides. Behind the corner, Ro found a large industrial size garbage receptacle. Straining and grunting a bit, he swung it outwards, creating an almost “T” like formation with the building as the top of the said “T”. Having the receptacle positioned like that would give him cover if anyone decided to approach him from behind but it also significantly hampered any plans for retreat. 

 

He was fine with that, however. He was always retreating. He had lost everyone and everything retreating. It was time for something new. It was time to hold someone accountable. And it was time for the bad people to die so they couldn’t kill anybody for the good people. And as far as he was concerned, the only bad people had tentacles for faces.

 

Posting up against the wall, he peeked around the corner and picked off another Quarren while its friends frantically scrambled to find better cover. They had to know it was helpless by now. He had ruined their best positions of cover and the Imps would surely overwhelm that in no time. Especially if the Quarrens still had to worry about Ro shooting them in the back.

 

Fleetingly, Ro almost felt sorry for the Quarrens. Some of them were probably "good people." Some of them were just following orders. Some of them were maybe even innocent. But they lost their opportunity for Ro to treat them on a case by case basis when them and their bosses decided to indiscriminately murder a warehouse and several streets full of innocent refugees. They could all go and burn in whatever fishy afterlife those vile creatures believed in for all he cared.

___

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The stench that surrounded Mjan would have been almost unable to bear had this not been his first sewer or given that he was nearly dead to the world around him, unaffected even by the globs of fecal matter and cortorsis run off that managed to splat themselves upon his flight suit as he stood there nearly chest deep in the muck with each adventurer that chose to follow. Instead he just stood there, like the living dead laying in wait within the caverns darkness, his gaze fixated on nothingness and yet everything.

 

The thing about staring into the darkness of no light was that eventually things had a way of staring back. Shapes and shadows moved, his hearing heightened by the lack of his sight adjusting to the noise around him that fell upon his absent hearing. Instead his mind drifted upon the currents of his past, remembering memories of his interactions with both Nia and Rose. He chuckled in silence to some, and others nearly sent his soul into the hereafter with pain, but through it all, in wept in silence, his heart shattered and broken. And as the moments past until the droid sent a wave of the gunk into his opened mouth, it only ached worse. It was a pain he had never known before, and it felt like his entire form wanted to fall to pieces from the pressure of being pulled down.

 

Spitting out the sewage and cortosis run off out, the taste of it setting his tongue afire with something worse than smell and his gagging reflex reacting despite his inability to react at all, his mind came back to reality, the pull of something present yanking at his mind even in despair, like a slap that simply added insult to injury. Shifting his vision toward the droid's own gaze, watching the others dredge themselves toward what Sara described as a fissure in the cavern walls, Mjan obliged, and followed suite. In his hour of own darkness, Mjan could feel another feeding upon his own. It felt ancient, demonic, almost as if it enjoy his misery and fed upon his grief, and in that moment, Mjan's own darkness began to boil.

 

As he lifted himself over the fissure's ledge, the last to climb atop, the combination of the gases were almost incapacitating. With each breath, it felt like his throat and lungs were going to boil away, causing the young Tsis to reach into the rear of his flight suit after unzipping it and pull out its rebreather, latching it into place. Grabbing Nia and Rose's own from his satchel, both covered in the gunk they had been submerged in, he looked toward Leena and Sara as he offered them. Despite the pain he felt, despite the anger swelling within him, he knew they needed them more than their owners. 

 

Turning to follow the group, there was one minor problem that Mjan had begun to slowly notice since he began to feel the presence feed upon his misery... his grasp upon the Force was beginning to linger and lose touch.

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Deep within the belly of the planet, connected only to the outside world via an abandoned shaft within which bodies of the burned and dead lay rotting, linked through a sentient-made waste disposal system that had long since needed an overall, a dark lumbering voice began to rumble. It was slow and but a whisper, but as it progressed, it grew in speed and crescendo.

 

“Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

əvvəllər gəzənlər

yenidən gəzmək və üzmək

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

həyat həyatı bilən

yenidən həyatı tanımaq

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

kənardan qaranlıqdan

ədalətli mükafatınıza çatmadan əvvəl

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

cığır boyunca geri dönüş

növbəni dayandırın və yenə qayıdın

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

qadağan olsa da, gələ bilərsiniz

Səni geri çağırdım

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

təbii yüksəlişin üstündədir

yaradılışın məhv edilməsinə yol verilmir

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

dənizlərdən və pirlardan

göydən və alovdan

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

qurbangaha bir daha yaxınlaşın

son hədiyyəni götür

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

qorxu tutuşunu itirdi

hamınızın qorxusunuz

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

ölümünüzdən bir daha imtina edin

itirmək istəmədiyin şeydən yapış,

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

Yenidən sənə ehtiyacım var

xidmətləriniz mükafatlandırılacaqdır

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

bu zaman dayandı

vaxtı yenidən məğlub etməyə çağırılır

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

.........”

 

And the chanting continued on and on.

 

__________________
 

Just as Leena finished emptying her stomach into the goo and ooze that encircled them, a fresh wave of revulsion in the form of the wise-cracking murder droid crashed into and over her. Had she anything left in her stomach, the Jedi-in-training would have surely added its contents to the sewer line.

 

The one positive of it all was that at least the droid brought light with it. Before she could even give voice to the thought the, the inorganic being was off chasing after the supposedly blind goblinoid with a dark soul. “Well then . . .” was all she could muster before she started to heave again. Thankfully, Leena felt herself, being drug forward through the filth by her Zeltron companion. It would have been unnerving, and frankly fear-inducing, had Xar’s light not illuminated the sewage clad woman momentarily. As it was, Leena was glad to have a friend.

 

Slowly Leena picked herself up and made her way towards the uneven wall, looking back towards Mjan, or more accurately where she heard Mjan sloshing through the muck. She could faintly feel him on the force. The senior Jedi was not in a good way, but there was little she could do here and now. They had to survive. The whole place seemed to emanate with some subtle dark side presence that made her uncomfortable. It could have been the descent of the Sith above, it could be what lay below, It could be that Nemodian businessman, or it clumd be something else. Leena had no way of knowing or telling. She did not even know most of it at all.

 

Rolling over the top of the lip into the mine, Leena’s clothes sloshed against the damp cool stone. “Yuck.” She mumbled. It was all she could muster in the moment. The air was thick and it hurt to breathe. She was coated in stuff she did not even want to think about. Her stomach was empty and ached.

 

Lying there for a moment, Leena gracious accepted the offer of the rebreather. “Thank you Master Jedi.” she smiled, grabbing at Mjan’s forearm with a squish of glop as she pushed a reassuring twinkle of light-sided energy along their physical connection in an invisible sign of encouragement. It was all she could muster.

 

She would have liked to have lay there and regain her strength, but the droid and their sole light source was off again, “So inconsiderate,” she pulled herself to her feet and slipped out of her Jedi robe. It landed on the ground behind her with a wet sickly slap leaving the Jedi clad in her equally filthy skin tight sleeveless tunic and pants.

 

With the rebreather in place, Leena looked to Sara in the quickly fading light and made a show of shoving both lightsaber hilts into her waistband. She too had no intention of being incinerated in their damp decidedly flammable surroundings.
 

The going wasn't easy, dislodged boulders covered in the thinest layers of slick moisture made the trek treacherous and more than once the Jedi Healer fell and scraped her elbow, knee, or shin on the uneven surfaces. Still she pressed onwards, only muttering incoherently a few times, after Xar, Nok, and the light.

 

Eventually she caught up with them where they seemed to have paused, Nok having ducked into a clearly manmade room carved from the stone. With Xar still in the hallway, Leena could not see anything inside; but as she tried to follow Nok in her toe found the broken fusion lantern on the floor. She stopped, her eyes staring into the inky blackness. Inside the room lay an overturned table and several chairs, a hodgepodge of maps and a miner’s helmet. In the corner, slumped in a chair was a clearly deceased and crisply singed Quarren. His or her, it was hard to tell, tentacles had all burned off. What was left of the being’s face twisted in a knot of pain and  their eyes stared sightlessly in horror out into the dark.

 

At least the air in the break room of sorts was purer, the Lethane fumes having carried upwards along the steep, slick, boulder-littered tunnel. It only got thicker the deeper they went. The going would only get more treacherous.

 

There in the dark, silence had reigned as king and had been for who-knew-how-long; interrupted only by the distant dripping of water from off in the dark yawning maw of the tunnels. That was, until, faint, as if a whisper, echoing along the walls along the tunnel came a voice. It was small enough now that if one were not listening, it might escape notice. 
 

“bir dəfə tərk etdiyiniz qabığa qayıdın

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

qaranlıq iradənin damarlarınızdakı qan

olmasına icazə verin

aclığın sənə rəhbərlik etsin

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

çağrışımı dinləməyin vaxtı çatdı

zaman-zaman əbədi

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

Ağanınız bədəninizi tələb edir

ağlınız yalnız sizin olacaq

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

alındığını iddia edin

səni lağa qoyanların qisasını al

Uşaqlarımın yanıma gəlin,

müqəddəs əhdi dadın

zənginizi yerinə yetirin

Övladlarımın yanına GƏLİN,

GƏLƏCƏYİN VƏ ƏYLƏNƏCƏK . . .”

 

The voice grew until it’s call rattled the very walls. Dark tendrils of invisible evil seemingly creeping forth. It did not stop, but just grew and grew, the unknown tongue chanting with the rhythm of the ages.  

 

Leena grabbed at Nok’s slimy robes trying to pull him close, the darkness that seemed to echo about them dwarfing what she felt radiating from the man. “Whatever darkness you carry, this is beyond you. Who are you and what are you doing? Can’t you feel it calling?”

 

________________
 

Far above the battle waged on. Where bodies fell they lie twitching on the ground. The fight for Dac was in full swing. A planet that had known the ravages of the Sith, the Empire, and darkness, who had stood against oppression and tyranny, would not go down without a fight. Wings of fighter craft mounted their responses and from the seas themselves, technological terrors built to blend with and accent the natural watery beauty of the world surfaces and unleashed their salvos at the approaching waves of Sith oppression.

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On 5/2/2020 at 6:26 PM, Xar said:

“Meer! When we offerred our help, we didn’t think you’d be doing suicidal commitments like that…”

 

Nok wanted to shout something back about his views on hazard pay, but decided to just ignore the comment. Soaked in sewage, trapped in a cave on an ocean planet with a bunch of lightsaber wielding Jedi, and running towards some...thing, he didn't trust himself to be civilized. So long as the droid did his job for as long as possible it didn't matter if he complained.

 

Besides, if he leaves early, I don't have to pay him.

 

On 5/4/2020 at 8:42 PM, Leena Kil said:

Leena grabbed at Nok’s slimy robes trying to pull him close, the darkness that seemed to echo about them dwarfing what she felt radiating from the man. “Whatever darkness you carry, this is beyond you. Who are you and what are you doing? Can’t you feel it calling?”

Nok wrenched away.

 

"GET OFF ME YOU-" Nok stopped him himself and grimaced. This place, that presence...he couldn't trust himself.

 

I...won't retreat.

 

He modulated his voice to something more polite. "Yes, I feel it. As for who I am and what I'm doing, would you believe anything I told you?"

 

Those words, they aren't old Sith.

 

"I'm not here to hurt anyone. And before you ask, I'm not a Sith. I'm just an...interested amateur." He ran his lie through his head as he talked, until he thought it had enough truth to sound convincing enough to buy. "Look, I found out I was...like you. Sensitive. It's even how I see now. When I found out, I got my hands on every bit of Sith and Jedi lore I could find, but it wasn't enough. The Sith, I mean the living ones, were the only option that had answers. I mean, you Jedi are a bit hard to find and have traditionally...not gotten on well with neimoidian culture. But in any case, I was an idiot, a businessman who thought money and position would protect me from those monsters." He tightened his jaw for effect. "Don't believe whatever the news has been saying, those animals are sadistic killers, nothing more.  Before I knew it, I was drafted or kidnapped or something into serving a warrior darth and was off to the battle of Kuat. Fortunately for me, my new master disappeared in the fighting after giving me just enough of a start in the Force to see once I got blinded." Nok covered his face with his palm. "I wasn't even in the actual battle. It was some animal that got me, a snake I think, though it happened fast and I don't remember much about it. I got off-planet, but the Sith Empire has me in their records, and I'm not anxious to get caught again. More than that, I need answers. I've been having dreams, the same vision over and over and over and it's terrifying me!" Nok shuddered, then collected himself. "Anyway, nothing smooths things over like an old-fashioned bribe. I've found a relatively reasonable Sith that I think I can deal with, but he'll only deal with me if I prove myself by bringing him something. I didn't even know what I was coming here for, just that I'd find something. And I'm willing to bet THAThe said waving his hand at the darkness "has something to do with it. I'm not leaving. I'm not going to go the rest of my life in terror every night, afraid I'm going to die in...that I'm going to die in pain."

 

He sighed. "There. That's my story. I know it's probably foolish, but I don't have any other options. And if the Sith can't give me answers...then maybe something down here will. But I am not dying on anyone's terms but mine."

 

Not a bad try. If I'd had the chance to rehearse it, I could have really emphasized some of those emotional points, but that was still good for an off-the-top.

 

Besides, I don't have to convince her it's true. I just have to make her doubt. Selfless person like her...well, better not to count on anything down here, but I seriously doubt she'll try to kill me now.

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Leena let go of the Neimodian’s robes and shook her head, “That will not give you rest. The Sith are consumed by their desires. They want what every other being seeks, freedom. Freedom through strength and power though is not real freedom. Whatever trinket you are after won’t bring you peace. It will only hurt others down the road and pull you deeper into their snare. Before you know it,” Leena reached out and grabbed Nok’s wrist, “BAM! You are caught in their snare. A snare far worse than any fecal filled cesspool we might have already been caught up in. There goes any freedom you already have. Whatever that voice heralds is beyond what you or I or anyone here, even your supposedly newfound metallic bodyguard can probably handle.” Leena let go of the Nemodian’s wrist and turned to walk out of the room, looking back over her shoulder in the dim light. “I doubt that knife you have up your sleeve will do any good.“


Stopping at the doorway beside her Zeltron companion, Leena added, “But right now it doesn’t look like we have any other way to go. Looks like you’ll get your wish for now. Maybe if you change your mind, and we all get out alive, I’d be happy to take you back to THE Jedi Temple and take a look at your eyes; maybe even soothe those nightmares of yours.”

 

The young Jedi was not sure what the ‘businessman’ was playing at, but he was slimy, she could feel it. She didn’t even need to reach out on the waves of the force, there was too much else going on there right now. The story he was trying to feed her did not stand to reason.

-Not a Sith? But he had had a master, a darth. Maybe he still did . . . 
- -A master who taught him to see without his eyes. . . 

- - - taught him in the same battle he vanished in, ‘fortunately.’ . . . 

- - - The same battle the Nemodian was attacked by some wild animal in . . . 
- - - - On Kuat . . . The world was so terraformed they didn’t even have blood-sucking insects flying around. 

-Can’t find the Jedi? Short of recruiting posters, their locations are not exactly a secret, especially to someone with the funds to have others seek them out. 

 

Those were only the things that jumped out at her in the murky mire they now found themselves in. So she had spoken loud enough that the others could hear the last bit and the part about the knife she felt hidden. 
 

She was not happy about it, but they had to keep going down for now. Didn’t they?

 

Outside the room, the chanting cold voice continued, each best reverberating louder and louder off the tunnel walls. With each syllable the darkness continued to grow, pouring forth from the unknown below, now opened to the world again; for the first time in how many years? centuries?

 

“He has got a blade,” Leena whispered to Sara as she stepped back into the hallway and looked both ways before eyeballing Xar. “You might be our best bet to get out of here master droid. Do you have any sort of sonic or flame based weaponry?”

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The sound of it was expressively deafening. The full tilt of force that the vessel had crashed with, completely broadsided the patrolmen in their attempt at vehicular escape. The steep impact sucked the wind from their throats, and froze their faces in a shock that paralyzed them with fear. It was a sudden violence so unbridled, that it ravaged the metal framework of the hover-bus, irreparably buckling the transport and layering it in the blood and bones of those that rode within.  There were sickly screams; this was not for the faint of heart. The long screech of broken and brassy steel, twisting against the road, was far worse than dragging nails across a dry chalk-board. Those that heard it, screwed their faces in displeasure, covering their ears from the horrifying sound. 

 

A monster of a creature heaved himself from the braised innards of the drop shell, shoving thick electrical cables aside and rising to meet the carnal smell of petrichor in the air. Morjanssik and its earth would be washed before dusk, a telling omen that meant more than just rainwater. Of note was how his jawline was sheathed in a chilling metal, bearing the keen measure of white fangs engrafted into its side. These were teeth torn from the mandibular bone of the White Wolf, skillfully handcrafted into a demon half-mask, or some would say. The natural exuberance of his dark skin played contrast to how it remained untainted by time and rot, covered by a wild wolfish black mane. He emerged slowly, wearing the kit of an ancient Sith God, accentuated by a lamellar warskirt flinching like thick blades of shadows in the wind. Gloomy, narrow eyes brooded within an imperiously beardless face, bearing vestiges of beauty underneath a depository of brutality.

 

Masked lips, long eyelashes, and eyes somehow without a trace of color stared outwardly. They were tempestuous by nature, eyes painted in blind albinism. The rest of the detailings were soft scars and scowls lined with regal bone structure. He wore plates of armor so dark, that the natural light around him seemed only to serve and feed the oily obsidian wyrmsteel. His all whites, now darkened with a clouded grey mixture at the sight of the rallying opposition. The force of him was so raw and so inevitably uncalculating, that he seemed as pure as natural lightning. Undimmed by compromise and untamed by society, even the best of them felt here would feel trapped, so small when they suddenly  realized the lunacy in that creatures like him truly existed. The gathering crowd slowed before him as if facing down a thunderhead, small currents of electricity swimming in and out of naked sight across his forearms. The primal half-mask suited to his face, looked chiseled from runic images of a wild beast cloaked in symbolisms of spiders, fangs and magnetism. The demon mask clicked autonomously before a second plate shot up to cover the unfamiliar face of the Dark Lord, forming into a completed helm.

 

“Status?”

 

 “...Execution diameter confirmed, these people are disease-stricken. We approximate a safe distance of 1.8 meters from all sentient life. Reconcile ground formations. Quarantine our wounded, advised to eradicate all hostiles." A low voice rumbled through his communications unit.

 

The Mon Cal Defense Forces were a little more equipped than initial intelligence suggested with almost a hundred foot soldiers armed with a variety of military-grade blasters and anti-armor weapons slowly advancing on their positions. Three emplacement weapon crews installed themselves into a cover-fire position, readying to hose down the Imperial positions. Three archaic T2-B tanks churned around the battlefield on repulsorlifts, hoping to make use of their shields and light cannons to ensure that their small infantry could cross open patches of terrain safely. Their hope was dwindling fast as they watched what had crawled from that drop-shell. More of the Sith Empire arrived by the second, hoarding the skies and occupying the land. Additionally, several T4-B tanks and old walkers with worn rebel insignia painted onto its hull, were reported as pinned down by superior armor and firepower with the Imperial Offense slowly closing in on them with their advanced treads and armored feet. Exodus absorbed the atmosphere once more before the rain, this time with his mind far-reaching. And to his surprise, there was a voice, whispering a language unfamiliar.

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“Good for him, then he can defend himself. As for our capabilities, you have your weapon, so we are sure if you need to, you can defend yourself nurse” Xar shot at the fishy being. “Besides, who said we are leading you to safety? We are being paid to accompany him. If we do find an exit for you to use, it will because we graced you with our findings.”  

 

Xar was a bit annoyed at several things. He was covered in sewage, he was helping borderline insane lessers, most who did not appreciate his greatness, and he had no idea where he was. He didn’t like this situation. Worse, he didn’t like admitting he was in the same boat as everyone else.

 

“Alright, listen to  all of you…” Xar started, looking at the measly group. “Since we are your only source of light and direction at this point, we are stuck with you. So make yourselves useful to Xar. You two…” 

 

Xar pointed towards the red skinned being and the nurse, both who had drawn their weapons in the warehouse far above. “Both of you cover our back. If a cave-in or something starts, let us know immediately. We know you have weapons, but we still haven’t found the source of the gas, so don’t ignite those blasted things at your hips.”

 

“Mr. Meer” Xar said, turning to his charge. “You will keep close behind us and not jump like some suicidal idiot. We want our pay. And finally, you...” 

 

Xar looked at the Zeltron, whom he glared at disapprovingly. This one had a chance to try to prove herself smarter than the rest, but she failed that opportunity. “You stay in the middle. You Zeltrons are  good at talking and communicating, so you will make sure that whatever those two see and find, if they can see anything, it will be communicated to us. If there is a cave-in, there better be a scream. If someone wanders off, there better be a call for a halt. And if we need your equipment again, we want you close enough for us to call you up.”

 

Honestly, the whole group was a failure overall. The Nemodian was an obvious liar, the Zeltron had something messed up in her head, the Mon Cal was clumsy and forgetful and unobservant, and the other red skinned being was too quick to draw weapons on a bunch of ignorant people. By deduction, the choice for leadership was clear. 

 

And Xar knew that to get respect, he had to demand it. 

 

 “Does everyone understand us? Good. Now let's get going.“

 

And with that, Xar started making his way towards the closest passage, going deeper. He acted as if he didn’t notice the impossible-to-not-notice voice, but he did. He heard the words, but he didn’t feel the dread that the others may have felt. The words were strange. Guttural, but not quite. It was odd, but for Xar it was life, and thus a possible way out. 

 

Making his way into the tunnels, Xar walked slower now. These mines, as he deduced them, were terribly old. The walls were worn smooth with age and the gently flow of water leaking from somewhere. He stopped at one point and scraped a claw over the wall, pulling a few pebbles of a shiny substance off, intermixed with the water. 

 

“Hmmm…” Xar studied it, then handed it back to the Nemoidian and slowly moved on. “Residue. From whatever was being mined here. Is this what you are hoping to find?” 

 

Xar glanced back at the group, wondering if this was truly worth it. They should have been going up to find a way out, but the Nemoidian wanted to find the source of the voice, and this was the way to go. Deeper and deeper. Eventually he came to a chasm that was like a valley, with a narrow stone bridge.

 

Below, the darkness consumed whatever bottom there was. Above, more blackness, though small droplets fell from somewhere. Rusted coils, broken parts, and damaged beyond repair mining equipment were strewn about on the narrow rocky bridge. One side of the bridge connected from the opening Xar and the group were on. The other side  one was feet forward and twenty feet down, leading into more darkness. A terrible downward slant if Xar ever saw one. 

 

Xar sighed and thought for a moment. This area may have once been an entrance for mining equipment from above. Or it may have just been a place with a vein of whatever material was being mined here. But judging by the equipment, that was long, long ago. Besides, there was no way the group could climb up. So the group needed to move forward. 

 

“Oh what a life we lead…” Xar sarcastically mused to himself. Krexel and Co’bo were definitely taking the next mission into the quarantined city.  Slowly, Xar made his way across and looked back, giving the others the use of his light to navigate the stony, messy bridge. 

 

“One at a time! No sense killing yourselves all at once!” 

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Leena's powers of persuasion were lost upon Mjan, his presence within the force growing voided and empty, like a black hole in the depths of space, replaced by a hunger to fill its emptiness. But he smiled in return, nonetheless, and began to follow, using his cylindrical stave as a means to move about in the dark. It wasn't his first time fumbling around in the dark, but unlike last time, he had grown smarter, relying on his other senses to atone for what he lacked in sight within the pitch black.

 

With each step he took, he waved the metallic tip back and forth a few centimeters above the floor in his path, moving around anything it touched with a subtle clink until he drew close enough to see with his own sight what the droid illuminated. Shifting his gaze about, he felt an uneasy settle upon him, especially after his gaze fell upon the deceased Quarren. Stepping closer to get a better view, or as best as one could get in the dimly lit room, a voice whispered from below.

 

Like the spirits of old tales, the annunciation of death foretold, it started afar as a whisper before it rushed forth to a booming overtone, causing the loose rocks and tunnel behind them to rumble. Out of instinct, Mjan settled in a defensive form, waiting for an attack. And yet nothing came, only the chanting of an unknown tongue lost to the ages of Dac and beyond. Relaxing, but remaining alert, Mjan continued his look around, even inspecting the Quarren's corpse. 

 

"Something dark happened here, and not recently." Mjan spoke for the first time in awhile, his finger tracing a considerable amount of dust from the overturned furniture. "If I was a betting man, given this dyslexic chanting and the poor sod there..." Mjan pointed toward the Quarren corpse. "I'd say whatever lies below has something to do with above."

 

Of course, Mjan couldn't prove it, nor could he see any signs of evidence to back his theory. But he knew darkness. He knew the consequences of it. And he knew what his people had done with it for thousands of millennia. His gaze shifted to Nox briefly. "Nothing good ever comes from Darkness." With that being said, his gaze continues to shift briefly to the droid. "And Darkness consumes all who walk willingly into it, so yeah, I've got your six."

 

As Nox and Xar began the trek farther in, Mjan looked to Leena and briefly to Sara. The deeper they got, the more he felt the pull of the hunger below. But he wasn't sure why. In truth, it worried him, especially considering that he was beginning to notice that it was all he was able to feel, the Force almost completely untouchable by him. And within him, a separate hunger was beginning to grow, a hunger to fill the void and pain he felt. Whatever laid below was powerful, and it was feeding on misery. And in return, something within Mjan was beginning to change. And because of this, there was fear evident in his gaze at the two.

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An old aquifer maybe? But the murky liquid that barely reflected the light coming from his underslung glowrod told him the real truth. The Jedi in classic form, had gone through sewage to escape from even confronting the Sith. If it had not been for his close interaction with Jaina Jade, he would have begun to question if they even existed at this point. Or if he was just chasing pale ghosts. 

 

“Command fall in, make sure your armour is sealed.” He looked out down the distant sloshing tunnels. “No open flames. Fire only upon target acquisition with enough units to overwhelm Jedi defense.” He took the first step, and sinking up to his waist in the murk, he grinned. Thankful yet again for the issued helmets they all wore. And behind him, as the lights from each glow rod was extinguished, the command unit for darkhand, alongside a detachment of Charlie company from the second infantry battalion moved forward. A long line of seventy-odd marines, wading through the murk in a ghost hunt, for a bunch of untrained Jedi. 

 

At least they could sanisteam their armour. 

 

As Landgraf and Blacktorin moved beside him so that they could all easily cover the large, expanse of tunnels, he let his HUD flicker through its filters. NOD returned very little other than a low green glow, and thermal optics did little better, being that the sewage was at about body temperature. He flicked it again to the IR spectrum and clicked his rifle’s glow rod to infrared and shouldered it. It worked ok, other than the static reflections that passed beside as the IR was scattered by adverse pockets of methane. He grimaced at the thought of Jedi waiting right around the corner, but he kept the rifle up. 


Ca’Aran

 

Now why was she here? Sharp blue eyes reflected from one of the pockets of gas and Delta almost unloaded the rifle at it. But with a blink they were gone. He checked his suit seals, fearing that he might have been exposed to mind altering gaseous fumes but found no cracks. 

 

Landgraf yelped and looked around, her rifle tracing an unseen line of infrared light on the ceiling as she also checked her suit's seals. 

 

“Status?” 

 

But those eyes were there staring at him again. 

 

“I’m hearing voices, commander, its really creepy like.”

 

Ah. He popped open the protective cover for his arm mounted datapad and clicked her face on the sheet that was displayed for his officer corps. He file flashed up in black and green on the small screen. But it his instincts were proven right on the second scroll through her information. She was Force Sensitive. He snapped the cover shut and looked back at her. “Keep your helmet on Landgraf, whatever the Jedi are doing down here, we are getting close.” She hunkered down next to an outcropping, and Delta moved to cover her. As did Blacktorin, who pulled herself up onto the outcropping itself and held out a hand to him. He took it and pulled himself up onto the duracrete partition. A tunnel of some kind perhaps? He kept his rifle towards the unknown as he adjusted his comm. He triggered his SCI, and after an excruciating minute of encryption the cool voice of the Devilfish breathed into his ear, broken by static. 

 

“Go for Darkhand Intel.” 

 

“Information, pin location, there is an apparition of some type in the tunnels down here. Let the Dark Lord know that we are close to something. I dont think it's the Jedi, but we may have found something better. Something uh...” He searched for the correct phrase. “...Darkside oriented? A place where the force is strong, it's effecting a lot of my men.” He would certainly not say it was effecting him. He couldn't. It would be seen as weakness. And out of all the traits a commander could have, weakness was not one. 

 

“Intel copies.” 

 

And with that the line cut. Delta took a long breath of filtered air and was hit again by a distant voice. The voice whose laughter sounded like a waterfall of joy and he could feel a tingle of painful memory move up his spine.  He took another breath and waved his hand to tell his men to move forward but when he stepped forward his step came down on something soft. He looked down, then pulled at it. Holding it up in the offered light of a glowrod.

 

A jedi robe?

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On 5/9/2020 at 4:33 PM, Xar said:

“Hmmm…” Xar studied it, then handed it back to the Nemoidian and slowly moved on. “Residue. From whatever was being mined here. Is this what you are hoping to find?” 

"Cortosis. No, but valuable," Nok replied, a note of disinterest in his voice. He wasn't here for rocks, but if it kept the others occupied, then they were welcome to it.

 

At the bridge, he grimaced. His ache in his arm was starting to fade, and with it his vision. He stepped out onto the length of stone without waiting and shuffled across.

 

The droid proved its safe, and there's no sense in separating from the one heavily armed thing in this cavern protecting me.

 

He tamped down on his emotions, forcing himself to stay calm. That voice was worming its way inside, but it didn't sound hostile. More like...a call?

 

Is anyone there?

 

 

He cringed after thinking the question, half expecting to hear his own voice mocking him again.

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The city was devolving into chaos. Already taxed, the local defense forces were easily overwhelmed by the unprepared for invading force. Their only saving grace the timely arrival of planetary defense forces. Even as the Mon Cal world was known for the production of their unique yet powerful space faring warships and luxury craft, a lesser known, yet even more potent production area for the aquatic world came in the form of true aquatic naval vessels and forces. There, the Mon Calamari and Quarren were in their element. So even as soldiers, aircraft, and spacecraft moved to engage the attacking Sith onslaught, the gargantuan Mon Cal Navy maneuvered into place. Soon powerful salvos filled the air as missiles erupted from beneath the calm surface of the sea. Anything that was not directly endangering to civilians was a fair target. If all else failed, the city could be sunk, her foundations destabilized by a plethora of submarine based weaponry. Cities could be rebuilt, they had done it before. All that they needed to do was ensure that the people were safe.

 

Along the shorelines and docks of the city, smaller quicker craft had approached in attempts to evacuate any citizenry they could, mostly under the watch of MWC-45c repeat cannon fire; each ship being mounted with one or more to try and dissuade any invaders from getting to close.


Of course, all this was lost on any adventurers below without radio access topside; even then, that was spotty at best, the ionized cortosis veins playing havoc on transmissions.

_______________
 

None of that mattered though to the presence deep within the mines and caves. It had been trapped for far too long and had upon its accidental release began to sow the seeds that were now coming to bear. The chanting grew louder and louder until it was near deafening as it reverberated off the walls and chasms of the mines, caverns, and sewers. Had the city streets above been quiet, it was quite possible that an individual out for a walk may have been able to hear the call.

 

Deep within the ancient forgotten lair, dim lights began to flicker, powered by the chaos and deep dark aura of the force, ((more description to come when adventurers get there)) and voice continued to boom its dark melodic chants.

 

_______________
 

Leena simply rolled her eyes at the droid. The pounding voice was starting to wear at her already taxed mind and she was hoping that they could work together. “Should have known better than to try to ask a machine to care about anyone but their programming.” She muttered to herself as she fell in line with the group. She was going to be a team player, in spite of what the others might want. The fact that the darkness was pressing in from all sides and the Nemoidian had flat out ignored her did not sit well either.

 

Shooting a side glance at Mjan, Leena paused to place a hand on his arm. “May the force me with you master.”

 

Trudging along, Leena tried to focus on not tripping over the uneven boulder strewn step decent, relying on the meager light from the droid ahead and the force to keep her from tumbling face first into the others.  
 

Leena didn’t know much about the cortosis the others had whispered about, except that it supposedly wreaked havoc on lightsabers. It didn’t concern her much though; what concerned her more was the sudden massive chasm spanning before them, a sinkhole into a underground cavern.  Undoubtedly there was water somewhere below; but it was dark and deep enough the yawning abyss could have very well opened into the pits of the underworld for what anyone could tell. Even the droid’s light did not reach the bottom.

 

“Oh. Now he cares” Leena grumbles sarcastically as Xar gave his instructions for the thin expanse of stone that reached out into the darkness across the chasm. “Watch this,” she smiled to Sara, the smile accentuating the tired lines of wear and grime on her face.

 

Reaching within to grasp at the candle of light that she carried in the force and then expanding from there in a wave of purity, Leena silently called on the force as she bent her knees and tensed her legs. Calling the force back towards her, she leapt; propelled upwards and forwards on a tidal surge of invisible energy. Flipping forward through the air, Leena twisted and landed with a crack of boot on stone on the far side of the chasm. Looking at the droid and Nemodian behind him she smiled and raised her eyebrows sarcastically, “One at a time was it?”

 

Leena stood waiting and watching for the others before linking arms with her Zeltron companion and setting forth deeper into the mineshaft. As they progressed, the going got slicker with moisture, the path more uneven as chunks of stone seemed to have fallen from the walls and ceiling and littered the abandoned pathway. The walls were all coated in a thick black slime, ash and soot that had mixed with the condensation. Every so often, they would stumble across  a charred and mangled body, unrecognizable from the flames and following moisture that had set to work on them. One thing was clear, an explosion had rocked the entire tunnel and nearly obliterated anyone that got in it’s way. The cortosis here was thicker, the lethane it had given off accelerating and magnifying the past inferno. Still now, the air was choked with it.

 

___________
 

As the group descended, the temperature continued to drop and the dark presence grew in strength and magnitude. Suddenly, the voice stopped and the tunnels were bathed in silence; save for the dripping of water in the darkness.  

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    Life had changed a great deal for T’ali’au over the last year, and yet the core of what she was doing was what she had always done. Protecting people, bringing joy and harmony, giving thanks to the life giving oceans. She was in a different ocean now, on a different world, but she still felt Loloto all around her. She had come to Dac as an ambassador for her people on Scarif, in the hope that Mon Calamari engineers could stop the poisoning of her world, or maybe even reverse some of the damage. But now Dac was being poisoned, and if T’ali’au could do anything to stop it, she would. Loloto was guiding her now, towards a darkness that might be the source of the infection. The inky depths of the waters beckoned coldmind, but she could not afford to be sluggish and tired right now, so she reached out to the ocean mother for warmth. Phantasmal currents of heat moved through her and reinvigorated her muscles and mind. 

 

    The poison here was like a fungus, lurking deep in caves and spreading its evil like spores carried on beasts and currents alike. It was too hungry, too vast for subtlety, and therefore probably something ancient and forgotten, rather than a nascent new threat. It spoke through the void in words that held no meaning to her, and Loloto’s embrace became as much a cloak against its malfeasance as the cold depths. As T’ali’au descended she realized that its call betrayed it. While the rules were different, just as sound interacted with surfaces, the mental chant’s distortions revealed a natural cave entrance to the source of the poison. It was a welcome alternative to the sewage entrance that the natives had recommended, and T’ali’au was glad to have avoided the toxins (not to mention the stench) that such a route promised. 

 

    Coursing through the caves with well honed agility, T’ali’au began to sense the presence of others in the dark. At least some of them wore light around their spirits the same way that T’ali’au carried Loloto in her heart, and she wondered if they were Jedi, alien holy warriors that sought out and confronted evil. If so, they would be invaluable aid in helping to stop the poison. Perhaps the tides of Loloto had brought them all together in this moment. She reached out to them gently, the metaphysical equivalent of playfully splashing someone with water to get their attention.

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