Remnant of the Aether

[For Tyeth]

While the Next Chapter is under construction a nod of appreciation to something very special already built by For Tyeth, without which my characters would be 'grounded'!

Aertemisaea Class Destroyer

Hi LSG and Dutch, Oh I am really liking the digital overlay you (LSG) have added and especially the colour you chose, it really ties the text to the picture as if it is part of the ship's onboard system's readout!

Thanks both of you and points when I can add them.

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes —Part 1

Screams and Silence

The Old Man set food on the young world.

Still without a name the lumpy amalgam of heavier elements was still accumulating mass in an accretionary disc around a fledgling white sun.

The Karintha class transport had been constantly peppered with micro asteroids dodging larger ones as it descended, mostly water they dissolved in the heat of the cool Chiss sub-light engines.

The vessel was empty, quiet and cold.  Micro meteors had left the hull strewn with holes and age had killed any power and warmth it once had.

In Melrons hand was a tiny ultradense marble that stood in stark contrast to the abyss cold whites of the frozen fluids on the surface.

Perhaps these would one day form an ocean or atmosphere. Would this world just live to grow old enough to see the children it birthed in geothermal pools yet to spark with heat die before their time, lost to pitiless frozen void never to return to the soil that was their home to rejoin the cycle.

The Orbs' pulses of terror in his hand denied him darker paths, being Old enough to have seen the Young die could drag him down as surely as this vessel had been.

It led him inside past the charred corpses floating by the drive nacelles, the mummified hollowed alien forms in the exposed corridors where his footsteps made no sound for lack of gas.

Until he reached the center hold where an arm stretched out to him, a sick blue hue to the skin that was freeze burn tight on the muscle beneath.

Six.

Trapped in cages whose power cells were long faded, six People eternally scraped and dragged in voiceless stasis to escape the crashed vessel.

Screams of six people had led them here. Six dead Aethans greeted him with Silence.

<<<<<>>>>

Asyn

He had to take her with him.  The strange eyeless outsider was the only being he had any semblance of connection or care for.  Why he did not know.  The hollow where eyes should be was troubling to even contemplate, the veil the Domina made her wear couldn’t make him forget.

But something dre him to Nissa, and so when the time came - if he could - he would break her out too.

The slivers of metal he had accumulated waited in a hole behind a loose brick in the wall.  The trophies of a hundred fights in the pits of Rorak IV.  His grandmother was a blacksmith, he knew enough to forge a simple dagger with the aether.

It would have to be enough.

<<<<>>>>

He had been right to take her.  They had escaped but he had been wounded, on the drifting ship Nissa had cared for him, her face covered in blood, little of which her own, hovering over him, hands guided by her sightless vision.

He could feel her in the aether, communicate with her that way, almost as deeply as with other People...or how he remembered communing with People, it had been so long he had lost track in the day and night less space city.

Touches at first practical and medical became tender and affectionate.

<<<<>>>>

The farm was on land even the seller claimed was hard to work, but Asyn wasn’t, bothered, it was a place, a start, a home and he knew he could labour far more intensely than the beings of this forgotten world.

And it was all the damaged vessels sales could buy for two runaway slaves.

And with Nissa there...he had a reason to.

<<<<>>>>

She would watch from her window as he stood staring at the stars every night before coming in from the long days work.

Nissa always felt she was kept outside from him, Asyn never spoke of his home, his kind, but he couldn’t conceal his feeling in the Force, she knew how he missed them, how given the chance he would….

But he didn’t know where, and they had barely enough peggats to afford water purifiers for their own consumption.

He would stare at those rotating stars for exactly nine minutes, mutter a few silent words then come back to her.

<<<<>>>>

“It’s not right…” he seethed angrily

“Asyn...we have enough...just…”

The Local Warlords bands demanded ‘Rent’ from all the farmers, but as the Warlords ventures in the Southern badlands had failed the price had increased.

She gently caressed his care and work worn face.  She knew how hard he strived, how he skipped his own food so she had enough...and how despite the incredible physical endurance of his species, it was taking a toll.

“A Guardian protects the People, doesn’t exploit them...Goddesses is a Guardian were here they would show those fiends….”

“I will pray to Ashla the next harvest is more fruitful…”

<<<<>>>>

He felt her breathing and heartbeat steady and slow as she slept beside him.

The stultifying dry heat made unbearable by the anxiety.  Asyn drew his hand down his gaunt face.  He knew he was running out of time.

All the Hubba bulbs on this damn planet couldn’t provide the nutrition his body craved, its distant sun gave off barely enough energy to allow him to switch to photosynthetic energy sources.

Nissa had spoken of Alpheridies, the home of her eyeless Miraluka People...he longed to take her there...he needed hundreds of Peggats and he was earning only dozens of Wupiupi a week.

And the Warlords Band could come any day demanding their ‘rent’...rent for land he had paid for with the vessel he escaped in...sometimes he thought they’d have been better dying in the void...but then…

Then he would’ve missed Nissa’s love…

Goddesses what was he going to do?

<<<<>>>>

The next part of the story told from the ashen ruins of the farmhouse stung Milaea’s eyes with tears.  The Warlords band had come, demanded the rent, Asyn had offered all he could spare - barely a third.

Insistent that he was hiding the full amount they took to ransacking the impoverished farm house.  When they found only a single peggat - worth barely as she understood around 30 or 40 credits - they determined to take Nissa as ‘collateral’ till he could pay.

Asyn would not let that happen.

He fought… he fought damn hard, broke necks and electrocuted a dozen with the aether, bashed even more with his bare fists...but in the end….

“Six years…” Valens voice broke Milaea from the flow walking mingled with Psychometry that showed her the last painful moments.

She nodded that sounded about right for how late they had been responding to Asyn’s plea to the goddesses for help.

The old ash was mingled with dust blown off the abandoned farm slipped through her fingers, fresh dirt kicked up when they had set down, their transport hovering in what had been a small herb garden.

Milaea stood staring over absence that had been a farm house, a place where Asyn and Nissa had tried so hard to create a life….

“Only Asyn died here…” She said sadly using the aether to feel for any fragments they could bury.
“They took Nissa…”

Valens jaw clenched, of all the People he more than any other, empathetic to a Person who had forged a relationship with an outsider, and People always felt a connection to Miraluka, one of their ancestor species.

“Maekal...track down the beings that did this...then wait for us to arrive,” Valens instructed the young easily excitable and overly confident Aethan.

“I will scour each grain of sand for the sinners, interrogate each blade of grass on their passing! They will feel our divine wrath fall upon them like the magma spittle of Apep, The Mighty Serpent that encircles...”

Valens rolled his eyes and held up his hand to stop the young man’s diatribe -  Maekal never lacked enthusiasm for violence, nor an abundance of unnecessary religious references to every imaginable situation.

They found only a handful of bone fragments belonging to Asyn, Milaea’s arms and knees covered in dirt from digging for them.  By the time they had taken genetic samples, cleaned, wrapped and prepared them, Maekal had located the fortress containing the surviving members of the Warlords Band.

Half had died in the intervening years among the interminable internecine warfare, according to the half-starved creature Maekal had abducted from the Fortress’ servants, the Warlord of the time had been killed and a new ruler dominated these lands having inherited the remaining forces.

These outer rim Warlords were little better than underlevel gangers, and just as poorly armed and equipped, eking out an existence as trapped on this backward world as any of their unwilling vassals.

The servant knew nothing of a ‘blind woman’ and was sent on his way, mind altered to forget the interrogation, unnecessary but good practice for Maekal to be more...subtle...in his use of the aether.

Valens acceded to Milaea’s preferred approach in dealing with the Warlord.  A simple aetheric glamour and handful of genuine credit chits bought them an audience with the unhygienic warlord who seemed to consider….mating...with his ‘concubines’ during an audience an appropriate display of his ‘virility’ - and sealed his fate.

The members of the party were brought in as credits and mind tricks greased the wheels and diminished any sense of danger.

Maekal was chomping at the bit to be let off Valens leash for “Insulting My Lady Milaea, Avatar of the Goddesses, Most hallowed Sanctified gaze with such unkempt fornication” - while the double standard of his own behaviour as ‘Anointed’ was lost on him, his zealous adoption of protectiveness  toward Aethan women was appreciated, if in Milaea’s opinion slightly troubling.  

Maekal seemed to have traded one religious extremism for another that had ‘stronger’ Goddesses.

Milaea knew there could only be one outcome.  Asyn was of the People, he had to be avenged, Nissa was chosen as a mate by Asyn, any suffering she endured had to be accounted for equally.

Perhaps Milaea was becoming more...harsh...less merciful...more like ‘People’...but looking at the filthy bunch before, sensing the depredations and screams that lingered in their aura of crimes past, she didn’t much care.

“What happened to the Miraluka - the blinded woman, six years ago” she asked a flare of red from her eyes to compel their candour.

“Her...we ah played around a bit ‘den took ‘er back...the Lord didn't like ‘er so she wa’ given to da’ troops till she was put down...”

His sentence ended when his mouth turned to dust.  

Milaea’s hand was outstretched, red wisps, of energy wafting from her palm, hardly aware she had blown the filthy murderer into dust until after she had done it.

She felt no regret, only the sudden light headedness from the extreme blast of energy in a compressed space of time necessary to deflagrate a being in a nano second.

Seeing her shaking from the exertion Valens slid beside her to prop her up.

“Maekal finish the rest. However you please,”

The leash off, Valens guided Milaea out as Maekal gleefully enacted the Divine justice he had promised.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 2

Illaea

Sparks from severed droid heads died down leaving irritating burns on the lush Camelidae fur carpets.

The mediocre store bought security system easily deactivated by the most basic of Chiss remote slicers was shut down.  The windows and doors of the modest rural manor, overlooking otherwise charming fields, locked from the inside to ensure there were no visitors.

An above middle age woman floated above the tasteful faun Alderaanian chaise lounge, her feet far above her head and oblivion daggers tip hovering barely a millimetre from her eye with the control only genehanced muscles could manage.

The third stop of their tour they were on the fringes of the inner core and colonies, a small forgotten agri-colony settled by Alderaanians millennia ago, it was this signal in particular that had caused Sofa to be placed on this route on the Aethenaea with Jenaea and Maeson.

It was a barely audible, sobbing, repetition of an old Aethan lullaby, the ‘voice’ clearly that of a child, the hope was Sofa was better placed to assist with her training in trauma counselling and working with children in the Temple.

But...as had been the case the last two stops, they were too late by several years.

It was Jenaea not Sofa holding the dagger.

Maeson had mumbled something about securing the perimeter before he got too angry.
By a sick callous grown of their own trauma’s only Sofa and Jenaea remained focused enough not to end the bitches life - largely by virtue of the calming and focus techniques Soryu had taught Sofa, and Sofa had passed onto Jenaea during her training  

The only positive was the pride and gratitude the women felt to each other for the lesson and the learning.

“I’m not even going to torture your sorry arse,” Jenaea sneered
“Every nanosecond alive is one more than you deserve,”

The dagger got even closer to the eye if that were possible.

“In all the years I was smacked around, used, abused, I never got the chance to ask why...so this is how you will spend your last filthy moments polluting the galaxy - tell me why you do these things to People?”

Sofa winced at the tragedy of the question.

The Noblewoman who didn’t deserve the title or name, in fact make it Wretched-pile-of-dren, would answer according to her understanding of the word people as encompassing all sentients more or less.

Jenaea of course had meant People only in reference to Aethans - not the other hundreds, if not thousands of victims.

A cruel barbed metal wire of compulsion threaded into the Wretched-pile-of-dren’s brain to force it to speak.

“Why...why not...the poor serve the rich, the weak the strong, I had money to buy what I liked and do whatever I wanted with what I purchased….”

“You think People are poor, weak!” Jenaea seethed

“The galaxy is unfair, people with power use it - I used my power to do what I wanted, overcome the resistance of others, just as you are now - we’re the same, the only difference is the peculiar preference,”

The Wretched-pile-of-dren voice held a touch of upper class clipped tones, enough to sicken with its haughty entitlement.

Might makes right Sofa sighed inwardly, it was hard to argue against considering the whole Aethan way was founded on the same concept - they did what they liked, and mind controlled anyone who got in their way if they were lucky, took their head if not...their entire presence here enacting vigilante justice - however justified - was an example of it.

But such double standards didn’t trouble Aethans one bit, it just left them confused.

“We are People,” Jenaea said with a sinister low tone

“We do as we please, you outsiders have no rights over us…by why do that in particular to the most defenceless of People, why?”

“Haven’t you ever wondered why things are taboo, wanted to breach them just to see what the fuss is about, to play, to taste the forbidden flesh of a hundred species?  To show you’re better than them, that you Can”

A power trip, Sofa realised, a sick power trip to say ‘I can buy you, torment you, and consume you, and I will because I can,’

“I’ve heard enough…” Jenaea sniffed

“Anything else?” she asked Sofa.

Sofa shook her head knowing nothing had been learnt in the exchange, and nothing gained for the People but more grief and proof they were always the victim and always right.

Blood soaked the chaise lounge.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 3

Davyn

“Tell those who stand on the edge of Xibalba that I send more on their way to the First Level along the Bridge of Skulls soon!”
 
With a squeeze Maekal crushed the Nothoiin’s throat, tossing the golden skinned native of the Anoat Sector into the pile of six more.
 
They were deep into the bowels of Burnin Konn, one of the Four prime mining worlds of the Anoat System, below the levels where the Nothoiin Nobles that ruled the mine pretended they employed their laborer’s for inspections. 

Here in the pinkish orange labyrinth of tunnels bored over centuries of exploitation those that mined for  Chromium, Doonium and above all the valuable Ur-Diamonds, was the refuse of Nothoiin society – nobles who had been ‘disappeared’ in inheritance disputes, illegitimate children whose existence might imperil succession, and in the majority, simply the dregs of society press ganged into ‘work’.
 
With unnecessary spite Maekal stomped the skull in, revelling in his strength and prowess. 

Day by day his powers grew under Seraphim Lord Valens guidance. 

Maekal had ascended from the playpen of the world he had been raised on to the grander stage of the wider Heavens, where his race of Angelic Aethans strived against the races of demons that infected the purity of existence. 
 
He smiled to himself as he headed back to the main group, he had thought his crusade on a single planet of such monumental importance, now he realized how he had underestimated himself, his destiny was not to purify a single world, no, the whole Galaxy needed to be brought into perfect submission to the True Powers, the Goddesses of Aethas!
 
That was a challenge worthy of him once by Mighty Valens guidance he reached his full potential.
 
“Where were you?” Lydan’s slightly exasperated tone came over the comm as the Maekal re-joined the group.

“Crushing the life from the heretics that pollute our Galaxy,”

Lydan slumped slightly

“I told you not to engage, to stay quiet as we worked deeper, we can’t risk being detected and the Nothoiin’s collapsing the mine,”

Lydan’s voice should’ve been stern, instead the gentle shepherd sounded pleading, causing Maekal only to deride him more.

“Inefficient, with a display of our strength the others will all the more readily give up their secrets before we slay them,”

They had been traversing the tunnels for days following only the thinnest of thread in the aether deeper and deeper, stealing stray thoughts and conversation when they could, interrogating quietly when they could not.

Evyn and Evaea, the other half of Lydan’s team, they moved like a black mist soundlessly through entire crowds of workers.

“Sneaking about is so dishonourable, inefficient and boring, a panicked man talks,” Maekal emphasised, though shorter than Lydan he leaned to overawe him.

“And usually tells lies,” Evaea intercepted, “Did you gain anything from your slaughter of worth?”

Redirecting his dominant stance toward the young woman Maekal beamed proudly
“They revealed to me the ‘aliens’ are kept in the depths of Level 62 down Turbo Elevator Cerek. I will go immediately ahead to clear the path of this rabble so they don’t offend your august sight any further,”

Maekals attempt to impress Evaea flew straight past leaving her telepathically shrugging to her twin at Maekals queer behaviour.
Drawing his sword he set off.

“Hang, hang on!” Lydan interrupted

Valens had put him in charge of this rescue, he needed to assert himself. 

Goddesses, why was it so easy for him to shout down a Vorynx, or glare a Voursus away from his herd, but hard in dealing with other People…

Maybe that is why Valens put me in charge…to learn

“We should, we s-s-should confirm that with the local d-databases, it's a long way down if you’re information is wrong,” Lydan felt the irritation at his stammer returning as the cold sweat of anxiety took hold despite the balmy geo-thermal heat.

“Wrong! No mere mortal can lie to me!” Maekal countered with a wink to Evaea who again merely frowned confused.

“No, Evyn and I will find a local terminal, you and Evaea find a smaller shaft down to level 50...quietly no killing no detection,” Lydan tried to assert himself under the withering barrage.

“A waste of time, but if you wish to you may,” Maekal dismissed as if permission was his to give.

<<<<>>>>

They coasted through the local hub quietly, the clank of metals and the dimness of un-replaced burnt out fluro-lumens making it incredibly easy to avoid detection, swipe the key card off a dozing rotund overseer and access the local main frame.

The mines were not centrally run, each section was owned by a different noble family, commerce guild or freeman investor, sharing little more than the main turbo lifts resulting in a chaotic patchwork of equipment, systems and maps of the mine.

<Some notes of aliens in the lower levels> Lydan note feeling calmer now he was focused on analysing the reams of data, though the mechanical screens red tinge was uncomfortably similar to the vague memory he had of ‘Surges’ sensors when he was a cybernetically grafted slave.

<I suppose Maekal was right,>

<I wouldn’t tell him that,> Evyn’s voice, even telepathically always a whisper.

<You need to be firmer, as Sensei would say, the Taste of the Rattan soon fills the mouth of the Boastful>

<What’s a Rattan?>

<A cane for discipline,>

<I don’t think hurting him is the solution, you have to be gentle with young gormin for them to trust you, they always bite sometimes…>

Evyn remained quiet as they slid out of the small office that stank of mouldy still water, concerned Lydan was mistaking a vorynx for a gormin.

<<<<>>>>

Black hands sprung front he shadows and lifted the Nothoiin by the neck, his wiry body thrashing

“Where are the humans and aliens, how many are there, when did you see them last!” a gender less rasping voice came from behind.

“I...I...Don’t...I…” The Nothoiin quickly soiled the ragged one piece work suit, fortunately it was so dirty it could only stink less for the additional fluids.

<Disgusting> Maekal crushed the creature lifeless and let it drop.

<That was unnecessary> Evaea chided

<Indeed, but such are the uncouth manners of the maggots beneath us>

<I was referring to killing him and making so much noise not the fear induced defecation> Evaea corrected, she had seen plenty of that in her time hunting for Sensei.

<Are we not tasked with destroying all the enemies of the Goddesses?> he countered

<Concealing our existence is more important,> was her riposte as they slid ever further down the passage ways to the endless moans of drills and rhythm of power picks on harsh heated stone.

<None of the creatures here will live for much longer,> he smiled
<As soon as we have recovered our fallen Angel brethren I will turn this world into an offering to the Aertemisaea-Timoría>

Evaea ignored the rambling foolishness he spouted, he continued blathering on as they moved forward, Maekal gleefully pouncing on any creature they found along the way in a predictable pattern of forceful mind rend then execution that served no purpose other than to create an easily trackable body trail.

He didn’t understand why she was not impressed with his display of martial prowess…perhaps because the opponents were so pathetic.

<These are truly unworthy bovines made for the slaughter,> he explained
<Nothing compared to the Great Chiefs and Tribal Braves I have defeated, even as a boy I defeated a Sa’Urai warrior with my bare hand, and my power has grown four fold since,>

Coming across a band loading up a dozen cart on a durasteel track he rushed forward
<I will remove these impediments from you!>

Evaea did not need him to do so, she was more than capable of using her stealth abilities to simply avoid them entirely, a cleaner more efficient way that his dispatching, lifting fully loaded carts off the tracks to bludgeon creatures into the wall in a vain attempt to show his physical strength, all but liquefying others in telekinetic grips.

She simply waited arms crossed increasingly annoyed.

<Not even the hint of a sweat> he smiled <Truly I long for a more serious challenge to display the full range of my power and glorify the Goddesses, I will dedicate the heads of my enemies to your incomparable beauty.>

Her childhood utterly focused on training, his attempts at flirting were without purchase as they continued on.

The elevator shaft was in reasonable condition, but the cab itself was higher up in the mine.

<We keep going down,> Lydan said as he re-joined them.
<Just as I already said,> Maekal sniffed.
 

<<<<>>>>

The deeper they went the hotter it got as they neared the heated mantle.

They parkoured down the shaft to level 60, five levels above the end of the shaft.

High above Evyn’s impeccable senses attuned to the slightest disruption felt the stirring fo alert and panic as Maekals handiwork was found and the – fortunately for them rather ramshackle – amalgam of different House Guards, Professional security and Overseers began to investigate.

<They know something is wrong> he reported to Lydan
<It will take them some time to organise>

Lydan nodded moving quickly through the almost pitch black tunnels, boots scrunching through wet gravel, not water but flammable liquid petroleum’s that squelched uncomfortably loud for Evyn and Evaea’s preference for utter silence.

With heat, mass and aetheric senses they looked through the largely empty tunnels, trace whispers of sudden gurgling death in the aether…

<They breached a deposit of oil…> Lydan surmised <It drowned the workers here…>

His hands trailed along snaking tubes on the ground.
<They just pumped it all out anyway…>

Maekal was being unusually quiet.  That worried Lydan.

They traced back the flood point to discern the likely flow of the thick substances, extrapolating as best they could where bodies would’ve accumulated in the flow, in crevices, divots and snares in the rocky walls.

Their armoured hands plunging into the syrup like holes they dug out bones still covered in disturbingly preserved flesh, bruised from impacts as they were swept away by the underground tide.

So many beings left dead and forgotten…most Nothoiins, but around a third were not, the tracking orb was thrumming gently but not drawn to any one direction.

Evyn was the first to find something – an arm broken and skinned, but the musculature was unmistakably Aethan. Half a torso, legs and hips came next before finally they came across the eerie eyeless flesh drawn skull.   

Too late once more. 

<He must’ve been close to the burst of oils,> Evyn traced out the distribution pattern of the body parts
<The pressurized blast struck him, sent him into those jagged rocks with enough force to rip him open>

Lydan frowned
<Could he have known…deliberately opened the breach? To end his suffering…>

He knew there was no answer.

Further in the cavern Maekal felt out the lines in the deep geo-strata, nodding satisfied he had found an adequate Shatter point, he detached a large cylinder from under his armours rear power pack, roughly twice the size of their water bottle it weighed nearly 80 kilograms due to the density.

“W…what is that?”  Lydan called across sensing the uptick in Maekals heart squeeze

“The tool of our vengeance for this egregious crime,” Maekal grinned

“N…no what is it specifically, tell me now,”

Maekal rolled his eyes as Lydan approached his worry growing.
“A mere trifle I concocted learning demolitions from Maeson - Naquadha encasing a core of unrefined coaxium,”

Evaea’s eyes widened, Evyn stepped between her and Maekal protectively – not that it would do much good.

Unrefined coaxium was volatile and explosive at even standard room temperatures, the super dense mineral Naquadha native to a handful of the planets in the Aethas system, and mined by the Chiss to drastically enhance their nuclear warheads explosive radius and strength, could amplify such energies several hundred fold depending on its purity.

“You’re…You’re insane,” Lydan was the first to speak, his mind computing the explosive potential of the bomb, roughly equivalent to a Chiss tactical warhead, sufficient to destroy the vast majority of the mines on this side of the planet, the shockwaves and damage to the mantle would create earthquakes devastating the rest. 
“You’ll kill us all,”

Maekal snapped round faster than Lydan imagined he could - slamming his fist into Lydan’s helmet, following up with a knee to his stomach causing the shepherd to double over.

“Cur, I am a Living GOD, Angelus Splendidus, Living Wrath of the Goddesses that shall shatter the Infestation that blights our Realms one by one just as I conquered the Tribes and City-States of an Entire world!”

Maekal looked down on the pathetic form of the mere farm boy.

“While you herded Gormin I commanded armies of thousands!” he knelt slightly and stuck his finger right under Lydan’s chin.

“Valens only put you in charge as a test for ME to show my undeniably superior abilities in taking control of a failing situation,”

The mix of egotism and rank disrespect was thick in the already clammy air.

None of the other men would’ve tolerated such - Melron, Maeson and Jarys – even Taryn - would’ve put Maekal out like a light. 

Evyn, in consideration of his being Evaea’s twin, Maekal left alone - the calm gentle Lydan was the only male Maekal could - without risk - show dominance over to ‘raise’ his place in the pecking order to impress Evaea..

If he thought such posturing was alluring he was grossly mistaken, but the ever discrete young woman showed no response.

“See how timid you are, completely unfit,” Maekal dismissed
“Take the remains I will ready the Pyre of Annihilation,”

He could tackle him, strong as Maekal had grown under Valens tutelage, Lydan wrestled with Vorynx almost daily.  But that wouldn’t deliver enough of a blow to his overinflated ego.

“Evaea,” Lydan said
“What do you think of Maekal, and his plan?”

She shared a glance with the young Shepherd and understanding of what Lydan really needed her to say passing between them, filling Evaea with a slight disgust as she realised what Lydan saw and she had not.

“It is incomprehensibly foolish, explicable only because Maekal is a barely sentient violent maniac with no qualities I find in any way pleasing,”

She turned fully on the young would be deity

“Your complete lack of tact and lunatic like ramblings lyricizing your ‘achievements’ which consist of nothing more than beating impoverished starving tribesmen generate only disgust. Sensei would have found you too vile to even consume and thrown to the depths of Dypseth…the thought that you desire to mate with me is beyond repellent, if you were the last male alive I would rather see the People extinct than pollute future generations with your genetic legacy.”

Maekal trembled under the comprehensive rejection, incredulous any female would speak against him, the child of Gods. 

Lydan knew he had struck home. 

Nothing was resolved when young gromin bulls butted heads over and over.  But if a gormin heifer rejected the winner from a bout, well that showed the bull it had to have more than just strong hind legs and horns.

Maekal unable to comprehend any rejection of his perfect self was stunned.  Then angry.
“Y…y…you…ungrateful little bi…”

Evyn’s round house kick smashed Maekal into the far wall as Lydan swiftly jump up and teleported the bomb into his own hands.

Before he could even get up Evyn was over Maekal stomping don on his chest.

“Speak to my sister in that manner again…”

The taciturn young man’s voice finished with a dread weighted unfinished sentence.   

Lydan carefully plotted out the shatter point lines of the naquadha applying careful aetheric energy to break it from the Coaxium vial, grateful as ever for his wife’s persistence in teaching him everything about everything he recognised the precarious state of the hyper matter.

“We need to leave, now,”

Evaea and Evyn were already half way back down the corridor
<How long?>
<Maybe fifteen standard minutes> he replied feeling the heat come off the coaxium.
Even with the naquadha encasement removed, its mere presence would amplify the explosion albeit nowhere near as much, if the Nothoiin’s were lucky only the bottom twenty or so levels would be destroyed.

Gingerly placing it in the ooze on the floor Lydan turned to Maekal who was crumped up in the corner, astonishment radiating from him.

“Come on,”  He grabbed Maekals limp arm without a hint of a grudge or annoyance, strength built from carrying chubby gormin calves more than enough to carry the young aethan.

No matter the tussles between the young bulls, Lydan always knew the herd must care for each other.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 4

Myraea - by TheDutchman

As Ari felt the Artemesiaea] enter hyperspace, her other five consciousnesses were fully engrossed on the holoprogram that she studied: a dossier that Lyr had put together for her, a collection of everything known (and even some covert intel concerning) Neuro-Saav Biotech.

"Nav-comp's set.  We'll make planetfall at Tiss'shari just under a week." The young man announced, dropping into the seat next to her, his leg straddling one of the chair's arms.  "Which means no miffed Old Man taking the piss outta everything I do.  Game of Sabacc to while the time?"

Taryn's tone always held a hint of swagger, at least to Ari's ears.  It reminded her of one of the koawan Shadows who served under her Mother Saani.  Inadvertently, she smiled.  "Can't.  You heard same as me: Myri needs us...and I need to know just what to expect."

After her whirlwind of activity on return from Csilla Ari had begun to feel a little...lonely. 

No, that wasn't quite it; true, she was relatively alone, but what she felt was more of a…longing.  Now that...she had left, Ari could finally admit what she had been feeling for some time now.

She missed Mili.  A lot.  It was something that she'd wanted to ask Sofa, Kiraea, Karintha - Adaea even, any of the married women.  Better still: Saani.  When she was with Saani and Kazic, she never really got really close to anyone her age...and D'arial and Syrena had been like sisters to her...and that's not what she felt for Mili.  It was something...stronger, deeper even.  ...Because you really, really like her… A small voice in the back of her mind whispered.

The strength of the yearning  hit her surprisingly hard such that she almost hadn't the Obelisk signal had tuned into something more substantive.  It wasn't until Taryn had entered--and verbally called her attention to it--that she'd even responded.

<...please...help...mother...Goddesses...Myri...please...help...mother...Goddesses...Myri...>
Had repeated, at least long enough to get a fix on the origin: Outer Rim, Xappyh sector, Tiss'shari System, Tiss'shari Prime. 

As they had drawn closer they received a shock: they could hear and see Myri in the Aether!

<...please...help...mother...Goddesses...Myri...please...help...mother...Goddesses...Myri...> Ari stared wide-eyed at Taryn, his own face incredulous.  How...how could they hear and see this Myri; not even Mili was powerful enough to do that...

Undaunted, Ari projected her consciousnesses outward in the Aertemisaea’s Nexus chamber, not as strong as the Obelisks but still powerful enough as an amplifier. 

<...we hear/see you Myri...!  Hold on; we're coming...!>

<...thank...Goddesses...will...hold...on...>   And then: nothing.

And as Ari learned more about Tiss'shari Prime, the more she felt a sense of urgency: it was one of the corporate hubs for the Neuro-Saav Corporation, specifically the Biotech division.  Ari's eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched.

"Someone take the jam out of your donut?" Taryn's tone was light but Ari could feel the menace underneath; he could feel that her mood had changed, and not for the better.

"Taryn, can we push the hyperdrive motivator?  110%?"

Without even bothering to question, he hurried towards the controls.  "Might shake us arse over tit but I'll deal with it."

Ari gave a quick smile, the gratitude in her eyes unfeigned.  "Thanks, Taryn."

<<<<>>>>

Neuro-Saav Biotech was known for its cutting-edge development of medical bio-technology, so much so that their designs were illegal in several systems.  As with all things, just because something was labelled "unlawful" did mean that it diminished demand.  As a result, a burgeoning black market emerged, one that the Neuro-Saav parent company took full advantage of.

While publicly disavowing the practice, in private the Biotech arm did everything that it could to fulfil as many of its customers that it could.

Or more specifically, those that could pay.

Any calls for "Humanoid Rights" were clamped down on hard, the Company resorting to bribery, intimidation, and even wholesale murder...all the while Neuro-Saav's quarterly records reported record profits.  But for those with money and influence--in this case, Lyr--there was intel to be had...one merely had to dig determinedly enough.

That...and have a hard stomach.

With enough casualties to rival the worst of the New Sith Wars, Neuro-Saav's "policies" had accrued a body count of prodigious numbers.  Chewing her lip, Ari was suddenly reminded of something that Kazic had once told her, an old Shifalen saying (courtesy of his master Stryka Annix): "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."

Ari had learned the lesson that Kazic had taught her, and learnt well: as long as no one made a fuss, millions of deaths would do nothing more than become a footnote in galactic history.  Well, she and Taryn would do more than "make a fuss."

<<<<>>>>

<...please...Aresaea...Taryn...help...!>

Ari's eyes shot open, the last vestiges of her dream evaporating away amidst the Aethan adrenaline response where she went from deep REM sleep to complete alertness in an instant. 

Swiftly inhaling, she pounced from her bed, exiting the room and heading exactly where she knew not where.  Soon she found herself in the Garden Deck, the soft grass comforting under her bare feet, the warm ersatz sunlight softly alighting her face.  Yet despite such solace, she could only think dark thoughts of what she'd learned about Neuro-Saav Biotech and the incessant worry about her People.

In this case, Myri.

While Myri had not exactly told her what had happened to her, Ari could feel the pain that she was in, her sense of urgency.  And for every night the past six days, Ari had always dreamed of Myri, a visceral fear that even now threatened to choke Ari with unnamed terror.  And every day afterwards, Ari would worry that much more about Myri.  Unconsciously, she found herself rubbing her wrists, throat, and stomach, a phantom pain accompanying her waking mind.

"You too?" Came the easy voice behind her.  Turning to face him, Ari slowly walked towards Taryn, grateful for his presence here. 

Even though he often came off as flippant, it was the injected levity that helped Ari from succumbing to the obscure horror she constantly felt.  Smiling, Ari was appreciative to say the least.  She was reminded of Kazic with his wordless strength, a harbor that she could always count on.  Plus, Taryn's shared experience with Ari concerning Myri provided a kind of...mutual empathy when it came to expressing themselves.

"Yeah... Taryn, I'm worried about Myri." She saw that despite the lateness of the hour, Taryn was still fully dressed, the black undersheath that they wore under their Mark I armor eating the light even here.

"Me too, Poppet..." He said quietly, the tone of respect still evident in his voice.  His face suddenly hardened.  "..gotta gear up, after everything I read from that farbot Lyr's dossier...well, there's only one way to deal with frelliks like these."

Ari suddenly felt introspective, glancing at the man in front of her.  She hadn't realized it at the time, but her decision to ask Taryn to accompany her was probably one of the best choices, even had everyone been available.

Taryn had stared into the worst faces in the galaxy--his response to laugh and brag in its visage--was perhaps the only form of resilience that could keep him sane through those years, to say to the brutish reality "you're bad, but I'm badass."

Ari knew that the galaxy was full of those ready and willing to exploit, subjugate, and outright kill others for their own ends.  And she knew, of all the People, Taryn would not flinch away from the horror. 

Some might consider it sadistic indifference, but Ari understood it was calloused survival.

She held no illusions: Taryn was absolutely right.

Her mind suddenly made up, she nodded.  "Agreed.  I'll suit up; we should be only a few hours from planetfall."


 

<<<<>>>>

Using a combination of Buried Presence, Mind Trick, and Illusion, the two black armored beings looked nothing like themselves.  Instead, they had the appearance of wealthy, overindulgent, upper echelon elites, used to doing as they pleased and getting everything that their desires could imagine.

The first being that they visited was a midlevel gatekeeper bureaucrat, a massive human with more chins than could be counted.  His answers served to confirm precisely what Ari and Taryn had been worried about: Tiss'shari Prime was a major port for illegal Humanoid Trafficking.  And while he himself didn't know any precise details, he helpfully "supplied" that his immediate superior did.

It was from this superior--a native Tiss'shar--that they learned that Neuro-Saav Biotech dealt in much, much more than Trafficking.

The Company was responsible for ALL of the Anti-bioengineering Laws in the Republic: they had been involved in the first Genetic Augment Programs, these ultimately leading to the more seedy Trans-humanoid Trials and, finally, the grissly Bio-graft Replacement Procedures where wealthy (and often but not always ailing) clients could..."upgrade" themselves.  Faster.  Stronger.  Younger.  More attractive.

All for a nominal fee, of course.

With the subtleness of a blunt hammer, Ari Delved the anthropomorphic therapod, Compelling him to show her the secret list up on the holofeed in his opulent offices.  With his tongue hanging limply from his reptilian face, blood began to run from his eyes courtesy of the multiple aneurysms as Ari's anger translated through the Aether.

Countless names from countless species from countless planets scrolled through the air as both Aethans scrutinized the projected list.  Finally, one name among legion highlighted, along with a location and status.  Either by the will of the Force or by luck, Myri was in the very building that they were already in, though in a room further down the kilometers-tall structure.

Disgust radiating from Ari in waves, Taryn knew that the time for subterfuge had come to an end.  Dealing first with the League High Officer, Ari and Taryn took the turbolift down, the elevator doors cutting off the ocean of blood that inundated the room, rivulets pooling below the grisly remains of what could no longer be identified as a body.

 

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 5

Myraea - by TheDutchman

“You getting’ a sense of déjà vu?” Taryn asked as the turbo lift descended with a quiet hum of repulsors. “Not the metal’n’ferrocrete…but the feel of the place”

Ari had been too focused on the task at hand to notice but now Taryn mentioned it, there was a strange undercurrent of relentless--one might say reckless--intent to delve and refine the secrets of Life in this building.

“It’s like the Technocracy ruins at home…the remnant emotions of the Scientists drive to create…well us…from lesser beings…”

“Yeah, that’s it,” Taryn agreed rolling his neck to loosen it up.  “But here, it’s all for the mighty credit hey.”
 
The contrast of course was the technocracy's genetic engineering worked on enhancing subsequent generations to create a society of Gods rather than ‘revitalizing’ current beings for profit… Still, Goddesses knew the Technocracy must've paid just as high a price in failed flesh in those first millennia to create her ancestors.

Feeling ever more comfortable with Taryn, and wishing to fill the silence with something upbeat before whatever came next--which both sensed would be harrowing--Ari diverted to another topic ever niggling at the back of her mind.

“Taryn how did you…or when did you realize your feelings for Lyaea were more than friendship?”

“Ever since I saw those lusty eyes in the Arts pamphlet - she’s the hottest piece or arse in the damn galaxy, heck she’s got extra-galactic fan-boys in the Extolled…and the one damn piece of booty I couldn’t get my hands on…you don’t friendzone that, you score a home run or you strike out and head back to the stands…why do you ask?”

Ari was thankful her helmet prevented him seeing a slight blush.

“Just curious how you integrated back into the People…developed connections”

“Upside down telekinetically pinned to a tree mostly,” he chuckled sardonically
 
He seemed on the verge of asking a follow up Ari did not want to answer…fortunately the turbo lift came to halt just at that moment.

Before the doors had completely opened, twin streaks of midnight exploded from the lift, leaving those within the room with a most perplexing problem of what could've moved so fast...right up to the moment that their world went red, the amount of blood from the League High Officer's station a drop in comparison to the ocean that soon covered almost every surface of the laboratory.

 

<<<<>>>>

Finished with their grisly job, both Ari and Taryn got to work questioning the lone survivor of the room: a Siniteen in an ill-fitting labcoat.

"Here, tosser.  You will tell us everything." Even with the strength of Aethan Compulsion, both of them knew that the Siniteen could not be induced with the Aether, and a Delve would cause massive brain damage, possibly erasing the information that they desperately needed.  "Where is Subject 804X-3N7Q being kept?  In which cell?"

The Siniteen's yellow eyes were as wide as they could possibly go, his chin lifted high as Ari held her deadly tremorsword against his throat, a gram or two worth of pressure the only thing keeping his carotid from being opened.

Without consulting any datanodes, the Siniteen's face twisted, a questioning look upon his face.  "Wha...what do you mean?  That subject isn't in any cell; she's already here, primed for Procurement."

Their faces hidden beneath their helmets, Ari and Taryn exchanged glances, their telepathic conversation unheard by the Siniteen.  <What do you think he mea--Taryn, what is it?> Ari started, suddenly realizing the change in Taryn's demeanor.  While she had no idea what "Procurement" meant, he evidently most certainly did.

"You frelling bastard."  A flash-step too fast for the eye to see, the Siniteen found himself lifted bodily by the neck, the black armored fingers lifting him effortlessly.  Taryn knew that Ari was tough, no gormless waif and whatnot.  But this... "Tell her."  He leveled his Hades rifle and stuck the barrel right between the Siniteen's eyes.  "Tell her now, you kriffing git!"

At first, the Siniteen's words came sporadically, fear dripping from his mouth but as he continued to speak, his voice became stronger, more confident...a professional lecturing about his favored trade.  "That particular Subject is a popular item, even moreso once we found out that the usual cloning procedures wouldn't work, the genetic helices too convoluted, the engrams too complicated to mass-produce...every time we tried, the results would always destabilize, culminating in inert biomass, rendering the entire product unusable.  However, after showing our more wealthy clients the virtues of the Subject, they could not wait to apply for Procurement."  A small smile began to spread across his face, the Siniteen lost in past successes.  "Now, the League has secured many more elite patrons as a result!"

As Ari listened, the disgust that she'd first felt from reading the dossier that Lyr had supplied her paled in comparison to what she now felt.  Suddenly, Taryn smashed the but of his Hades rifle against the Siniteen's face, rupturing his left eye.  "Tell her what 'Procurement' is, you prat.  NOW."

Blood pouring from his broken face, the Siniteen's voice sounded wet.  "...The client is taken to one of our med-suites, readied pre-surgery by an injection of bacta-laced anti-rejection meds...synthesized from the Subject's epithelial cells.  Then, once the client is ready, the replacement appendage or organ is grafted, allowing for full rejuvenation.  And because supplies are limited, the price has increased exponentially..." As if realizing what he was saying, the Siniteen made the first wise decision since the two Aethans had burst into the room: he fell silent.

Fury, absolute and unbridled, consumed Ari, thoughts of Myri's ardent pleas for help, for her mother screaming through her head.
 Involuntarily, she thought of Saani, how her own Mother had protected her...which only served to reinforce her anger manyfold.
 She stepped towards the Siniteen, her helmet bare centimeters from his bleeding face.  "Show.  Me.  Now."

As Taryn threw the Siniteen to the deck, he slung his rifle; however, the enormous tremorsword was still pointed at the humanoid, the black blade deadly and threatening.  Quickly, the Siniteen rose on shaking legs, using the databench for support.  With his fingers dancing over the controls, a final biometric lock rose from the datanode: a retinal scan.  After two unconscious attempts to use his ruined eye, the Siniteen finally switched to his one remaining good eye.  With the locks disengaged, the entire far wall opened up, revealing its secrets.

There in all manner of transparisteel jars both large and small, floated excised and vivisected organs, body parts, and tissues, the entire collection macabre, repugnant, and dreadful.  Aqua blue eyes stared into nothing, the ocular nerves winding around a nutrient sac, a delicate hand twitched sporadically if regularly as a bioelectric current continually ran through the limb, meanwhile an eight-chamber heart continued to beat absent a circulatory system, various tubes running to-and-from the excised valves instead.  And in a larger vat, what Ari recognized as a partial reproductive system--uterus, a singel fallopian tube, and two of the four ovaries--floated suspended in a protein mixture designed to keep them "viable" for Procurement.

But what caught Ari's eyes the most was small jar holding a brain, one in which was missing its left frontal lobe...and that even now was being mapped by nanomachines along synapsis and glands. …Myri... She knew.

...help me...mother...please... The girl's plaintive cries in the Aether ripped through Ari.  Suddenly, she was back at Jorol's and Tsarvung's apartments on Galtea, surrounded by a dozen Vhal'Dan Sentinels, all of whom where overseen by Anson.  Only in this memory of Anson, his eyes were more shadowed, his smile more wicked, his face more evil.  ...Mother...Saani...NOOO!... Myri's panicked cries had somehow become Ari's, indistinguishable within her mind, Wrath giving way first to frightful apprehension...but then transforming to something…more.

Something powerful.

Now as before on Galtea, violet electricity began to arc across her body, her once-aqua eyes now completely white and glowing preternaturally, Aphrodaea's Vengeance hijacking her adrenal glands in order to supercharge her body's response to stressors, strengthening her muscles, bones, ligaments, her connection to the Aether primal, indomitable…pure.

Taryn shielded his eyes, realizing that doing so was ineffective; Ari's aura was a blazing pulsar within the Aether, a raging violet-white storm that could be felt by every single Forceuser on the planet.

And she drew more deeply upon the Aether still.

Had Taryn not been looking at the Siniteen, he doubted that he would've believed it; as it was, he was staring right at the big brained bastard as he averted his gaze from Ari.  What Taryn saw was as awesome as it was terrible.

The Siniteen seemed to glow, a subtle emanation that spread like a flashfire across his entire body while a savage, visceral scream erupted from his mouth...only to stop a split-second later, the Siniteen gone completely and in his place nothing but charred dust and vapor, the distinctive smell of ozone suddenly in the air.  For any other sentient, the process would've been near-instantaneous.  For an Aethan like Taryn, he saw everything in detail.

Just before he completely disintegrated, the Siniteen's skin vaporized, exposing the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in a caricature of an anatomy chart.  These too disappeared, the exact mechanism as Taryn saw it was that each organ, each tissue, each cell would attenuate as physical, chemical, and even nuclear bonds lost cohesiveness, the Siniteen discorporating entirely.

As suddenly as it had began so too did it end: from one moment an avatar of a Goddess, the next an exhausted young woman, gulping air as she fought to remain sensate.  It was only Taryn's swift reflexes that saved her from collapsing, his strong arms supporting her as she attempted to stand on senseless legs.  Mentally commanding both of their helmets to depolarize completely, Taryn could see Ari's face, now blank and numb.

"C'mon Poppet!  Not this, not now."  But everything that he tried, every word he said seemed to make no difference: Ari remained stupified and in a daze.  Mentally shifting gears, he tried another tactic.  "Aresaea...Myri needs us."

That did the trick.  As her eyes regained focus, Ari gave a small shake of her head.  "Sorry...Taryn..." She mumbled, her voice barely above a whisper.  "I...she...he..." But try as she might, she could not speak further.

"No worries, Poppet.  You're knackered; I'll take care of what's what." Taryn's tone was gentle, at complete odds with the urgency in which he moved towards the jars.  With a swipe of his tremorsword, he was able to retrieve several of the biologics that had been tasked for "Procurement:" the ovaries, the hand, the rest of the brain, and, of course, the heart.  These he reverently placed into a stasis box, said box mechanically attaching to his armor's backplate seamlessly.

For the rest, he leveled his Hadesrifle, holding down the trigger until nothing remained but hyper-heated slag, the entire laboratory--including all data depositories concerning Procurement--utterly annihilated.

Half-carrying Ari, Taryn gave the place a once-over before placing a thermal detonator on the lone standing chair.  The timed explosion immolated the entire structure, the building collapsing as the Aertemisaea sped from the atmosphere, disappearing in a blink of pseudomotion, leaving nothing of their presence for anyone to remember.

<<<<>>>>

Feeling defeated, utterly exhausted, and melancholy, Ari had sank against a tree, trying to find something comforting in the warmth of the Garden Deck's faux sunlight.  But every lightyear that separated them from Tiss'shari Prime, the worse she felt, even the verdant nature that surrounded her reminding her of how...ephemeral life was.

...Mother...Saani... Another tear slid down her cheek. ...Papa Kazic…

"I'm sorry, Poppet." Taryn's voice held absolutely no hint of his usual bombastic tone.  Even still, Ari felt relieved that he was with her.

"Not your fault." She nodded at him.  "But thanks..."

The sudden silence surrounding them felt oppressive, underscored by the fact that Ari felt completely drained.  Whatever it was that she'd done had left her feeling...empty.  She only knew that it was something that had to be done.

"Take what you want and pay for it."  She had heard Kazic say before.  Well, it was a price that she was more than willing to pay...

Still, when Taryn spoke again, it helped to dispel some of the clouds around them.  "You know, if you wanted for me to stop flirting, you could've asked; no need to go all 'Goddess-Mode' while breaking bad." He winked, producing a small, fatigued smile.

"Sorry...just saw you looking at my legs and figured I'd give a warning..." She joked, her voice little above a whisper.

Nodding with a grin on his face, Taryn seemed to quickly sober.  "Ari...one thing that has me flummoxed: how is it we heard...spoke!...to Myri?  I know that I didn't just up and imagine that."

For long moments, Ari was silent.  Trying to work through the pain and exhaustion, she latched onto that which comforted her most: her family, but one in particular...

Saani.

The pain did not go away but at least it was...lessened by the remembered love for her Twi'Lek Mother.  And Kazic, she happily admitted.  But also her thoughts also seemed to drift towards Mili whenever she thought of people she...cared for.  She thought she should be surprised but, more and more as time went on, Ari considered Mili as more than just a friend.

"Poppet?" Taryn's voice was soft but steady, as if nothing could unnerve him.

"Sorry, thinking..." She stated.  Not only did thinking of Saani remind her of Kazic (and now Mili), but she was also reminded of another Vhal'Dan that had influenced her during her time at Galtea...

Anson.  Oh, he had never been a friend--much less family!--but he was incredibly powerful, as strong as a full Guardian.  And, if Kazic's attestation was indication, one who was a master of a very difficult skill.

Flow Walking.

"You're right; we did talk to Myri." Ari turned to face Taryn, staring into his eyes.  "Only we were not speaking to her in the 'Now' but instead from 'Then.'"  A silent tear escaped her watery eye, running down her cheek.  "We...we were the last people she spoke with, before...before they...before they murdered her."  She thought of the phantom pains that she'd experienced, the connection finally becoming apparent.  Goddesses she wanted to scream...

Taryn's face remained impassive.  "OK." Was all that he said.  Rising from his place, he walked past her.

Ari felt the grass beneath her, slowly running her fingers through while feeling each individual blade.

"Aresaea." Taryn's voice startled her; she'd thought he'd left... "You did everything you could.  And that includes giving Myri some bit of comfort during her last."  The look on his face was intense.  "Always remember that."  The hard look in his eyes seemed incongruous with his tone.  "I'll handle Myri's remains, prepare them for the Goddesses."  With that, he left her alone to her thoughts.

But try as she might, all Ari could think about is how--like the individual blades of grass--once deprived of vital breath, everything living would eventually wither and die...

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 6

Maryn

Coronet City, the Jewel of Corellia, famous for its space port that pumped the ‘best pilots in the galaxy’ across the stars, second to none Space Museum charting the history of star travel from the first combustion rockets to hyperdrive technology and everything in between.

CorSec patrols kept a clean and tidy city.

Until one passed the Blue Disttirc limits under the river to the industrial zones where Coronet shipping and Corellian Engineering had their enormous factories and near ground level dry docks. 

There the factories and work yard were secured by the companies iron fisted security that were for all intents and purposes private armies acting in their ‘special economic zones’ as militarized industrial states.

And past that on the 65-C subway that cut through the tunnels where the Mustela species Selonians made their abode, were the slums, the great unwashed workers that shuffled to the factories for 14 hour shifts, then returned to their shanty like pre-fab apartments that were old during the New sith wars, to pay half of their petty wages in protection money to the local gang whose symbol was painted over the previous gangs tags on the same patch of wall, the acrylic patina sometimes centimeters thick as the internice conflict caused entire hab blocks to change hands several times a decade.

But with those few precious hours and handful of remaining credits the workers made their simple lives in cramped single, or if lucky enough, two room apartments sharing with at least three, usually five generations of their family.

It was in the towering favela’s that two signals had come from.

Splitting at the ‘last safe subway station in Coronet’ Sofa headed ‘up’ into the apartment complexes while Jenaea and Maeson headed ‘down’ into the more gang infested lower levels, each following the thrumming pulse of the Tracer orb in their hip clasps.

Cloak over her armor Sofa mused how similar all these places were across the galaxy.  She could be on Courscant, Denon, Taris, Carratos... everythere there was always a vast underclass of impoverished beings scratching out a living exploited by the high and mighty in distant gleaming towers behind force-shields and riot troopers.

The People, for all their hatred of others, were the most purely egalitarian society she had ever witnessed, everyone had a place and role based on their talents, and everyone afforded utmost respect, Adaea’s savant like engineering genius was just as valued as her husbands gormin herding skills.

But then...when there aren’t even twenty of us everyone has to have a role she wondered if things would change as the population grew, a division not based on wealth as such concepts were foreign to the Aethans, bu perhaps the generational divide - the ones who remembered the world Before the Devastation, and those born After.

Suppressing her presence with the aether she moved at a normal aethan pace through the streets, to the humans it would look like a professional sprinter.  It was largely unnecessary, the majority of beings here were so focused on surviving the day they paid no attention to another wandering robed vagabond.

She’d been thinking a lot about the future of the People recently.  Things were changing, of all the rescues, Karintha and Yorna’s resurrection seemed to have changed the dynamics the most, Valens was only a reluctant leader and Karintha offered an safer option for him to handover than the fickle Lyaea or unwilling Milaea.

That would leave him free to focus more on her, and building a nicer home in a Hapan/Alderannian style, and then populating said home...

Stopping in front of another bland tower of hab-apartments the tracer orb pulsed up.  she took brief note of the Gang tag next to the rickety double doors - Black Vulkars - she offered a smirk, she had heard a tale of Bastila Shan once, a famous Jedi taken captive by the Black Vulkars millenia ago on Taris - she strongly doubted these were the ‘descendants’ of those swoop gangers, just a Corellian homegrown gang trading off a well known name.

With a sigh she strode in, taking the jittery turbo lift until the drag of the tracer orb evened out at level 38.

As soon as she stepped into the off brown walled corridor, floor and occasionally mopped plain durasteel she felt a presence ahead...no multiple presences...one familiar - not personally but in essential type, the other three....were...People?

Quickly down the hall she came to the thick bolted door and knocked gently.

There was no response.

She knocked again and a small eye hatch slid open
“What do you want?” a teen girl by the voice asked, cadence quick for a human.
“I’m looking for a lost friend of mine…”
“They’re not here,” the girl replied quickly, Sofa could feel a ripple in the aether as the teen instinctively strengthened the door - the girl was force sensitive.
“...well maybe not, but can you do me favour and let anyone who does, or used to live here know Aephrodaea came to visit…” Sofa knelt down as she spoke
“I’ll leave a flimisi with a holo-call number and some credits for your trouble,”

The eye slot slammed shut and Sofa’s genehanced hearing made out a conversation behind the door, her aetheric senses detected a calming presence, focused and kindly.

Heavy deadbolts clanked and the door opened.

<<<<>>>>

Her lip curled in disgust Jenaea sloughed off the glob of algae from her shoulder.

She’d spent years cleaning up excrement and emissions of all kinds, in one sense she was inured to it, but in a far more fundamental way she was soooo sick of it she couldn't abide being near the alien emulsions.

The tunnels beneath the towering favela’s were a haunted underworld populated by coughing and vomiting homeless, pickpocket children, and loan sharks with beefy tattooed guards wandering under dim blue lumens, stepping through algae patched puddles in the ferrocrete, and damp tangled reeds hanging down from rusted piped above plopping dollops onto passers by.

Turning into another rounded pipe twice their height and equally wide they proceeded down the sloped grated steel floor, at the end of which were two ramshackle gangers with orange arm bands playing pazaak on a blue milk crate.

Seeing her approach they hurriedly stood

“Ey you can’nay c’m ere wot!” one grunted

“Less em know da passing word,” the other sloughed out, Jenaea astounded he knew how to count to 20 to play pazaak.

She had zero time for anyone or anything in her way, her tolerance had been burned off by thousands of shock collar punishments years before.

“What's the password then?” her words backed by mental compulsion strong enough to cause the firsts nose to bleed and the second with ironically so little cognitive capacity there was barely anything to damage to stammer out the word.

“Muck-luck…”

“Muck-luck, now open the door,”

The big dumb on duly complied grabbing and bunching a handful of stripped wires together.

Maeson followed dutifully after her not saying a word, merely pausing to loom over the two dullards to ensure their most primal instincts registered the Aethan pair were not to be bothered again on pain of...well...pain.

Jenaea truly liked Maeson, he was a simple good man.  He tended his crops, worked at his carpentry, and went out every morning before sunrise to train so that on days like this he would bring quick brutal death to the enemies of the People.

He didn’t ask anything of her, only appreciated the time she spent with him. Maybe it wasn’t a love in the consumptive tradition of Orphys and Erydaea, but what was going between them slow and steady as the branching vines of Maesons crop was what they both needed - a tender comforting companion after so many years isolated and indentured.

The more fiery side, Jenaea was certain having oft spied Maeson barely clothed hefting soil, would certainly come later.

Proceeding to a large open area that had once been an intersection of dozens of sewer pipes into a vast bleak plugging drain further down they saw the orange bandana gang members scuffling about their petty tasks, programming slicers, hacking apart power packs, program scrubbing stolen droids, others asleep or eating in alcoves.

They paid them little attention as they passed through following the orbs call, suppressive aura’s avoiding scrutiny.

Jenaea made a mess as she went plundering through boxes and cabinet looking for whatever the orb was being drawn to, astonished gangers taring in confusion as, to their eyes subconsciously diverted from registering the existence of the two Aethans, objects flew from shelves of their own accord.

At a larger ‘store’ full of weapons and curious she finally found the source of the signal, a simple Triune Goddess totem made of polished durasteel.

Taking it from the bench the Duro store keeper looked at the seemingly floating item in puzzlement as Jenaea inspected it, finding etched on the bottom a single word.

Casaea.

<<<<>>>>

The teenage girls name was Mara, her younger sisters Mira and Meli, and barely walking brother Mase.

For Sofa it was obvious their real names were meant to be Maraea, Miraea, Melaea and Masyn.  The first sight of their faces was enough to see the ubiquitous facial identifiers, their presence in the aether. 

The two bedroom apartment was barely enough to fit them in, the living area served as a bedroom for the mother, the kitchen hardly divided by a low bench featured old worn metal utensils and perpetually empty plas food containers.
For housing four children it was remarkably clean and homely, but then they likely hadn’t the money to afford anything to clutter the place with.

The final piece of evidence was behind the small dining table, an old holopict of an obviously to Sofa’s eyes Aethan man, a weary sadness in his gaunt cheeks and darkened eyes that spoke of years of toil and isolation. 

On opening the Door Mara had greeted Sofa with a slug-shot gun to the chin, she was called off by the only adult in the room, seated at the tiny table - in neat but travel worn brown robes a Kel-Dor Jedi.

Unclasping her helmet the younger girls had looked in awe at her clean features, the Kel-dor who introduced himself as Ilm Nooro was genial inviting her to sit.

“Is that you father?” Sofa asked of the picture ignoring the Jedi, for now.

“Yes…” Mara said uncertain, the Slug-shot still on her lap.

“It’s alright Mara, she means you no harm,” Ilm comforted having sensed no deception nor ill will from the strange visitor.

“What was his name?” Sofa went on exuding a calming trusting presence toward the girl. 

Mara flinched back from it but couldn’t deny the familiarity of the touch.

“Maryn,”

“Maryn.  Did your father tell you stories, about Aephrodaea, Aertemisaea and Aethnaea,”

Mara remained tight lipped but Meli nodded
“Do you know any more?” the six year old asked
“Shhhh!” Mara insisted, protective of her sister.

“I do,” Sofa smiled even as part of her mind filled with worry and dread.

Their father was Aethan, but they were not fully - by some trick of biology they were part Aethan part human, they retained common external physiological features,but their thermal profile and mass was too low, most of their organs were human, if substantially stronger, and they possessed the aetheric sensitivity native to all People.

Sofa knew how protective the People were of their genetic purity - what she did not know was what they would make of such ‘half breeds’.  She, better than any, knew they could be ‘remade’ as full Aethans easily enough...but what else would be lost in the process, and how could a child choose such commitment, would they even be given a choice?

And if they didn’t accept them as lost children...would they purge them as little more than another example of outsider abominations? They had not flinched to destroy those Lucovis perverted with Sith Alchemy, and for too many of the People the difference in how genetic ‘contamination’ came about was irrelevant.

Whatever the case it was clear Maryn had tried his best to care for his children.  Had the operative word, it was immediately apparent his sense was fading from this place and the sorrow at his loss was etched in the aura of the older children.

“I’d be happy to tell you some a little later,”
Sofa turned to the Kel-dor
“What brings you here,” her tone was snippy

Ilm bowed slightly
“I am a Recruiter for the Jedi Order, I found these children on my usual rounds, I believe they might all make good candidates for the order,”

“Is that so…”
“And you miss Aephrodaea was it?”
“She can’t be though cause…” Mira said till Mara hushed her with a look.
“You’re right Miraea, I’m not Aephrodaea, but I do know her, I came looking for Maryn...and I’m sorry he passed away, but I’m happy to meet all of you now,”

“You knew the children's father,” Ilm inquired
“We’re distantly related,” Sofa said, giving little away to the Jedi.
“Will your mother be back soon?”
“Not for a while…” Mara said slowly warming to Sofa.

“Well while we wait why don’t I get us some food?” Sofa offered.

<<<<>>>>

At first they had fought.

Then they tried to run.

Now they simply waited their turn.

Maeson held the next up by the throat over the deep descending pit in the center of the sewer nexus of the orange bandana as Jenaea asked them the same question with increasing frustration.

“Where did it come from?” she asked with sledgehammer subtlety in her mental barb as she waved the totem.

“d...don’t….”
With a roll of her eyes Maeson let him drop.  there was no sound for several second then a crack and splosh.

Goddesses she was tired of this.  This whole damn signal tracking thing was depressing enough, but the utter lack of any kind of success had shredded what little patience she had for it.

“One of you must know something!” she yelled to the rest, cowering with various broken limbs from their initial resistance, she brandished the totem like weapon as she strode along the ranks of the defeated gangers.

“This didn’t appear out of thin frelling air. Where!” she punctuated each of her next words with a kick to the already beaten figures.

“Did. It. Come. From!”

The last kick outright shattered the sternum and ribs of the human leaving him fatally wounded.

“It…” squeaked a Chandra-fan
“It been there long as anyone remember...maybe traded multi-year ago?”

“Is that it?” she glared hands on her hips

None of the others seemed to know any more.

“Then frell the lot of you,” in a single smooth sweeping motion she drew her haders pistol and fired into each other heads.

“I’m sick of this, had it just had it,”

Maeson felt it too, the gnawing emptiness of another lead coming to a dead end.

“It’s no just that,” she snapped
“I don’t want to be here, I’m tired of running around doing...things…anythings,”

He looked puzzled,

“Ugh! You’re so simple, too simple!” she stormed off back the way they had come past the still smoking skulls.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 7

Maryn

Leena was a mid forties human with the worn features common to workers in the Corellian Drive yards, clearly a tad underfed it was immediately obvious she had to take on a lot once her husband was gone.

But her love for her children shone bright through the toil.  As soon as she entered she swept them in her arms, the younger girls chatting all at once while Mara held the little boy.

“Slow down,” she smiled through dust covered loose hair
“Master Nooro, is this another Jedi,”

Sofa restrained any reply

“Actually I came here looking for Maryn,” Sofa explained extending her hand
“Nena,” she introduced herself, she didn’t know Master Noroo, but didn’t want to risk the name drop.
“Nena…” Leena stood

“I...I’m sorry to have to tell you but,”

“I know, but we can talk more about that later, I’ve brought some food and games for the childrens, I’ll cook something up while you clean up.”

With a nod from Nooro Leena agreed, within an hour the children were fed and playing on the kitchen floor with a small board game Sofa had bought.

“Thank you for the food Nena...so how did you know Maryn,” Leena asked just the three of them at the main table

“We are family from before if you take my meaning,”

Sad recognition lit in Leena’s eyes
“Oh...I...I understand Maryn told me, not much but enough,”
Noroo seemed inquisitive at the shared secret but remained silent.

“I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner,” Sofa said
“I’m amazed you came at all, Maryn...he always hoped but…”
She shook her head
“I wish you had too,”
“If I may,” Sofa leaned closer
“How did he…”
“He...he worked so hard to provide for us...he could put out more units than anyone on the line...but I think it was too much in the end, he just started to waste away, the Doctor had never seen his...well his species before and didn’ know how to help - not that we could really afford any treatments...”

Based on the pict Sofa could guess it was simply lack of nutrition in the end, the People could survive a long time on limited rations as part of genetic design for prolonged warfare -, but their diet inevitably required heavy trace elements rarely found in any ‘outsider’ food- indeed often toxic to humanoids. As a child in the Temple Milaea had to always have a number of supplements along with her triple sized meals, with limited finances Maryn could never have afforded what he needed even if he knew the names of the elements and isotopes.

It was astonishing he lasted as many years as he did.  The giggling children on the floor had probably added 10 years to his life through sheer will power to provide as long as he could.

“He wanted so much more for the kids, worried about them so...it’s been so wonderful to have the master here, he thinks they might be Jedi,” she beamed

“They are strong in the Force, at the Temple they will have a far better quality of life,” the Jedi agreed.

Sofa might not be certain how the others would react to news of half Aethan children, but she was absolutely certain she would never allow a child to be taken by the Jedi if she could prevent it.

“That won’t be necessary master,” Sofa turned to Leena
“Leena I can give you all the credits you’ll need to get out of here and buy your way onto Alderaan or Chandrilla, you’ll be safe there,” she quickly reached for her hip pouch producing three fresh 1000 credit chits

“Much more where that came from...We couldn’t help Maryn in time, but I will make sure your children are kept safe,”

Even from their own People Sofa thought darkly

“I...I don’t know what to…”

“Exactly where are you from ‘Nena’” the Jedi asked
“You seem to have an abundance of highly advanced weaponry and credits,”

“I told you, I’m related to Maryn distantly...Leena trust me don’t let the Jedi take your children from you, they are not the shining knights you think, they are in more danger of being abused in that glittering temple than if they slept on the streets of Nar shadda,” 

Sofa could feel her own trauma and fear for her children bubbling in her words. 

What if one day as she was nursing her own little baby the Jedi came for them, took the baby and the same things that happened to her happened to her child.

She didn’t flinch from it, she gave into her emotion to spite the teachings of serenity the Jedi had force fed her after stripping her from her family, leaving her parents to deal with the fallout of the depredations of her own ‘recruiter’ who exploited the sister she never knew, Nena, on a return visit to check if ‘she also had potential like Sofa’. 

She wouldn’t allow it - and she had the strength of a dozen Jedi to stop it.

“I...I need to think about all this…” Leena slid the chits back to Sofa
“Thank you for the food and games Nena, but I think it's time for the kids to go to bed, Master,”

Noroo nodded and stood to leave.

“Till the morrow,” he said through his breathing apparatus

Or sooner.

<<<<>>>>

Wandering aimlessly through the partially drained sewer networks Jenaea clutched Casaea’s totem in one hand, her pistol in the other. 

Vagrants, gangers, pickpockets and hawkers largely left the stomping black walking shadow alone.  The handful that tried anything were among the unhappy few in the republic to learn what Chiss Macro-maser energy tasted like.

She reached a natural end at an opening to the polluted river several dozen stories below, the corroded grate letting in bars of muddy orange light changed from pure yellow by passing through the emission haze above the vast Corellian Engineering Corp buildings across the river.

Maeson jogged behind, cleaning up the chaos she left in her wake with blade and blaster.

“I don’t want to be here,” she said as he approached closer

“I’m sick of the travel, the droning of the hyperdrive, clasping on this heavy junk to wander round stinking outsider filled space ports following whispers and rumours only to find shavit all….”

As if to emphasize the point she sagged under the weight of the ultradense mark 1 armour leaning against the grate to the outside that groaned as its rusted bars were stretched.

“Haven’t I done enough?” she pleaded

“Twenty years slaving in filth, my neck burnt by a shock collar every other frelling hour, months with those stinking blue faced Chiss, grinding my teeth to follow their rules...home for a few months before being dragged off to these scum pits looking for crumbs of clues...I’m tired of everything...I just want to do what I want to for once...do nothing...”

She slid down the wall hand loosening to let the totem roll into the murky puddles.

Jenaea well understood the why of it all - their vastly limited manpower, the urgent need to find any survivors they could - Maeson didn’t doubt she wanted to help - she just didn’t have the mental resources to do so. 

She wasn’t used to the constant Deploy/Fight/Retreat as Maeson had become accustomed to with the sons, itinerant combat like Taryn in his pirate days, not raised to be a Guardian as Yorna and Karintha.  This was not the life she had wanted after being rescued - pushed too hard too fast in response to events instead of being given her own time and choices.

“I’m sorry…” was the least he could offer kneeling before her picking up the totem. 

Apart from the whispered cry for help there were no other obvious traces of memory his psychometric abilities could detect, Milaea or another of the stronger People might detect more, and an analysis of the exact composition of the durasteel might offer some clues - but nothing more could be done here.

“...we’ll head back to the ship, nothing for us here....I can speak to the others, see if we can skip the rendezvous and head back…”

She shook her head feeling some consolation in that he truly understood.

“I don’t want to delay things, just...just get this whole thing over and done with while we’re out here…”

Taking her hand to help her up she leaned into his chest, annoyed at the blackstone plate between them.

<<<<>>>>

Turning down another corner there was no longer any doubt she was following him.

“Was there something you wished to discuss, Nena?” Master Noroo asked, pausing in the middle of the humidity wet path between buildings.

“I won’t let you take those children, don’t come back here,”

“That is not your choice to make,” The Kel-dor turned slowly, hands open and outstretched to show he desired no conflict.

“I can sense your genuine desire to protect the children, willingness to support them materially, but you must understand the Jedi order can offer them a far better life than anything they can find here, one of meaningful service and…”

“Shove your propaganda,”

“I do not understand this…revulsion you have for the Jedi, clearly you are skilled in the Force, you are actively choosing not control your aggression, it is a poison to the soul to harbour such hatred,”

“The only poisons I suffer from are the ones the Jedi injected me with,” heavy boots stepped forward, the Jedi remained in his place unwilling to show a retreat - not out of pride but careful knowledge that to flinch was to fall against such an unstable being.
“I won’t let you do the same to anyone else,”

“Those children need training, guidance to control their powers, the Temple is the safest place for…”

“SAFE!” the entire alley shook with the booming refutation
“No one is safe in that den of sexually repressed dogmatic old men...least of all children stolen from their families with no one to turn to - no one who will believe anything bad being said about the ‘honoured masters’,”

Nooro began to comprehend the source of at least some of her rage.
“There have been tragic incidents in the past, terrible oversights, but the Order has removed those elements and put in place…”

“The Order is the problem!”

She was barely an arms length away from him now.

“You make children soldiers, subject them to gruelling training, emotional repression that would count as child abuse if it weren’t protected by your sick deal with the Republic and veneer of ‘religion’”

“Nena, I don’t know what you have suffered, but I give you my word, these children will be protect…”

He slammed into the wall with more force than his aged frame could cope, feeling the pop of his shoulder and hip, a forearm blacker than the depths of space cracking his collar bone as it pinned him half a meter above the ground.

“I am the only one who can protect them, from You and Them”

Her mind was made up - she would not risk exposing the children to either the strictures of the Jedi, nor the monocultural xenophobia of the People.  After all the family had suffered they deserved to be free to make their own life un-shadowed by the War in the Pitiless Stars between Aethan and Outsider.

Ilm Noroo was past his prime, even without the broken bones he knew this Nena woman was a grade above him in sheer strength. He had only his wisdom built over decades to try to save her.

“Nena...this will not soothe your pain,”

“I’m not trying to,” was her cold reply as she let him drop to the eternally wet with backed up sewage ground.

“Get out of here. If you tell anyone any of this….”

<<<<>>>>

<We’re ready to leave, we found a totem made by Casaea that was sending the signal, but no other information. Need any help?> Maeson singalled across their telepathic link, a sense of urgency to be done with this world in his mental ‘tone’

It came as a relief to Sofa giving her more time.

<Head on to the ship, I won’t be long...I found Maryn, he died of malnutrition a few years ago, I just need to tidy up a few loose ends.> her words were truthful if omitting key details.

<Problems with the gangs?> Maeson queried

<Just a few footprints I need to sweep up,>

Sofa brought up an analogy to the experiments the Revenant had performed on Tarasens body, implying if not stating some genetic material short of a body needed to be purged.

<Understood, here if you need us,>
<Thanks Maeson,>
The main telepathic link shut off she knocked on the door.

Again Mara peered out.

“Morning Mara, I’ve come to talk with your mother,”

“hmmmm Okay…”
Mara was slow to trust, having taken on the role of protector for her younger siblings.

“Nena...sorry I really need to get going to work, I’m late as it is getting the kids dressed for school, Master Noroo was to come over and help but he hasn’t showed up….”

“You don’t need to go to that factory ever again Leena,”

Sofa placed a newly bought satchel bag on the kitchen counter.

“I took a short trip to the outer city last night, look inside,”

Puzzled but curious, she opened the satchel to reveal vacuum sealed new clothes, a plas-envelope with three Coronet Banking Cards and newly printed first class subway tickets to the inner city.

“There’s 750,000 credits in the main account, 250,000 in trust for each of the kids...I’ve also booked you a suite in Coronet, you can stay here or find a secure liner anywhere in the galaxy.  Get changed and I’ll escort you there,”

“Nena I...I can’t even believe this....” Leena looked to Mara who was scrutinising Sofa.

<Who are you really….> Mara asked telepathically, her face furrowed in concentration, the ability clearly not as natural to her as a full blood Aethan.

It was a good question, and one perhaps Sofa didn’t ask herself enough.
<My name is Sofa Neirai, I used to be a Jedi, I learned first hand how they destroy people's lives and families.  I joined another family of People like your father...the People of Aethenaea, Aephrodaea and Aertemisaea.  They are close, and loving, but dangerous and unpredictable.  We came looking for Maryn, and I’m afraid if they discovered you they would give you even less choice than the Jedi,>

Sofa avoided any hint at the possibility of a more violent outcome

<I want you to live a life of your own choice, and keep your family together - that means staying away from the Jedi, People or anyone with powers like them.>

<Who is Nena then?> Mara probed further as Leena looked puzzled by the two staring at each other.

<She was my sister, she...died...because a Jedi hurt her.>

Mara looked to her own siblings then to her mother

“I believe her,” she said firmly

Leena nodded slowly as her heart beat excitedly

“I know my children are special, they see things, know things that…” Leena said there was little more for her to say, as she didn’t understand herself.

“If Mara trusts you then I know you really mean what you say,”

She turned a knelt to her children handing out the new clothes

“Everyone get changed, Meli help Mase, then pack up all your toys we’re finding a new home,”

<<<<<>>>>

She plonked down on the opposite side of the tree trunk to Jenaea, the faux light of the nature deck that tried its best to imitate the high radiation of Aethas star turned up to its highest setting.

“Sucks,” Sofa breathed out feeling more comfortable after finally getting out of her armour

“Sucks,” Jenaea agreed

During their training on the Steppe they had become close enough to understand the others' exasperation and bitterness at any reminder of their trauma’s or imposition on their time or choice.

“Nothing?” Jenaea asked
“Nothing left to do,” Sofa affirmed truthfully for a different context.

“How much more before we get to go home…” Jenaea asked rhetorically, less about this particular quest for signals than the whole process of trying to reground their society.

“Too much…” Sofa replied, the fresh memory of Leena’s children bouncing on the big clean double beds of the hotel making her only more envious for her own family.

“too much…”

<<<<<>>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 8

Xaraea

If she was concerned for herself, it was only because her wellbeing was critical to her daughters.
She had awoken in a cage, a dried bloody scar on the back of her head, hair matted.

There were lots of cages with other things in them, even after so many years on Carratos Xaraea hadn’t learned the names of all the species that was always...always her husband's area...until he vanished...leaving her and Xanaea…

and now..she was vanishing before her own eyes.

She grabbed the bars, the electrical field tingling but not hurting her, and pulled them apart.

The furred feline creatures had reacted swiftly firing their blue bolt weapons at her.

She got to one of them, her hand on its face she simply squeezed and its skull imploded in a blood mess in her hand.

But by then their burning electrical whips were around her from all sides, the stun energies gradually plunged her into the balck again.

This time when she awoke the smell was stronger, and there were no bars, just blank dark metal walls, her body doubled over to fit her into the box.

There was a constant tingling static on her skin, a current passed through to keep her in a perpetual state of semi-electrocution, a thick painful collar around her neck that jolted her ever half second keeping her from gathering enough wherewithal to telekinetically bash the box open.

Only her primal desperation to get back to her daughter escaped

That cry was heard, followed and now burned into Selaena’s senses as she sat before the cage that had held not just one, but at least five People over the course of the Zyggerian slave haulers lifetime.

They had tracked it with both the Obelisk array signals and more conventional means of docking data Colm Maynard had obtained.

the Queens Leash was a vast Zygerrian Slave hauler that made the round of the mid-rim. While slavery was nominally illegal in the Republic, the Zygerrian’s still made a good trade by following a circuit of dozens of less law abiding systems picking up victims sold to them by local gangsters, warlords, corrupt politicians, and corrections facilities selling off ‘extras’ from overcrowded prisons. 

Lyr called it a ‘sentient garbage collection service’. 

The Twi’lek was lucky Selaena’s rage was focused elsewhere at the time.

That rage was now unleashed upon the feline slaver species.

The ship ran a predictable route through the galactic northern mid rim. While slavery was nominally illegal in the Republic, the Zygerrian’s were made a good trade by following a circuit of dozens of less law abiding systems picking up victims sold to them by local gangsters, warlords, corrupt politicians, and corrections facilities selling off ‘extras’ from overcrowded prisons. 

Lyr called it a ‘sentient garbage collection service’. 

A well placed Dovin basal had dragged it out of hyperspace - an extra vehicular leap had put her and her daughters on the hull.  Lyaea mind addled the bridge crew into seeing their worst nightmares become reality leading to a vicious free for all, Adaea had hacked into the control panels to open the docking bay doors to admit thirty EXtolled warriors baying or blood.

Selaena had torm the doonium hull open with her bare hands and raced through the corridors and Slave cage decks like a shadow wind of death, the more superstitious cat-men calling her Tez’cat’lipoca, the Black Jag’uuar God of Zygerrian Myth.

The Zygerrians were armed to fight slaves with electro whips and stun rifles - few lived long enough to realise they were ineffective against the Voduun Crab armour of the Extolled.  None lived to see how ineffectual it was against Oblivion Armour. 

The Slave Cell holds were mired in anesthetic gases that kept the slave docile, half awake at best.  The more ‘difficult product’ got triple the dose and electrified stun ‘boxes’.  Nothing else could’ve kept an Aethan in for long.

Selaena’s fists clenched, her arms were covered to the elbow in blood, her daggers only clean because the shatterpoint enchantment repelled any detritus accumulating upon it.  Both had drunk over a dozen throats.

She pressed her mind back across the Temporal plane even as the fighting continued around her - Extolled thud bugs shattered Zygerrian torso’s, amphisaffs rigid were hurled as spears. 

A few of the Zygerian marines rushed out, finally with lethal weapons from the armoury - Adaea stripped them from their hands with a telekinetic grasp then punctured an oblivion arrow through three of their necks - the rest ran.  The Extolled dragged them back.

Selaeana looked on at the five People who had been held here, an eldritch calculus in her mind working out the approximate time in the past they had been held based on the aetheric energy needed to Flow Sight backward to see them.

But there, just two years before, was a woman with Xanaea’s precise features but worn by malnutrition and stress.

Xaraea....she was crying, terrified what would happen to Xani.  Selaena wished she could tell her, comfort her…

...but such industrial metal didn’t hold the aether tightly, on a vessel that moved billions of kilometers a month less so, she couldn’t touch her in distant then and there and tell Xaraea that she had found, brought back home, and would care for Xani and protect her as one her own children.

But she might yet….

There was still a chance.

<<<<>>>>

This was a family matter.

Xani was everyones little sister.  The brightest hopeful spark among the People with her indefatigable curiosity and excitement for anything and everything. 

That both her parents had been stolen from her was the done shadow on her sunshine disposition.  Having found her fathers remains on a moon of Trandosha was, if not relief, then closure.

Adaea was hopeful they could find her mother, if anyone deserved a reunion it was that sweet girl...but she was pragmatic enough to know that a second closure was likely all that would be found.

They were deep under the vast Mesa’s of Zyggeria, beneath the ‘Exchange’ - the trading arm of the Zygerrian Monarchy that purchased the vast majority of slaves from the independent Zygerrian ‘Product Seekers’, then with an appropriate mark-up, sold them to offworlders or local Zygerrians generating the vast wealth of the Zygerrian empire in the margin between the buy and sell price.

They had entered the system under the Queens Leash, then sent the slave hauler - emptied of its victims whom they had handed over to a grateful Mumbles and the Sons of Kessel - straight into the Zygerrian Naval Platform at the edge of the system.

Adaea loved stories, and knew their power.  the Story of the Sons of Kessel wiping out the platform and two regiments of Royal guard and as many Zygerian marines in their own system would spread far and wide, keeping the light of their reputation alive even as their numbers remained insignificant.

For now she followed the Chuk'a - mollusk-like worms bioengineered by the Extolled that could dig through all sorts of materials even metal and stone with their pincers, excreting the digested material into useful mater forms for Yuuzhan-Vong buildings.

The guest house manager hadn’t understand why they wanted the basement instead of a room near, but she was so addled by Adaea’s mental suppression she didn’t question when eight other heavy beings carrying large undulating living containers followed her down.

The worms tails suddenly stopped, an indication they had reached a different strata layer and were contemplating whether to try it or not.  the Shaper Tssag linked to the beasts through a biot-neural net turned to her

“Gracious Avatar we have reached a structure,”

Stepping past the worms slid backward giving her what little space they could.

She quickly saw the Ferrorcrete, shifting away more moist dirt she saw the micro fissures she needed.

With a simple tap of her aetherically strengthened knuckle the shatterpoint energy cracked the render into chunky fist sized fragments and she stepped into the computer core.

The room was large with wall covering quantum processors flicking with yellow lights in the dark, enormous ventilation shafts keeping them cool.

She scanned the large databanks for input terminals, finally finding a maintenance console she connected the Chiss Slicer, the Cheunh based coding lacing through the ‘outer’ firewalls easily enough, she set to work on the inner.

It was like a game to her, all the technical science and mathematics, like unpuzzling a knotted ball of yarn in her mothers sewing box. 

Coding a breaker on the fly she waited for the system defence to be overridden by linking in a data drive in preparation,and hacking the nearby holovid cameras to a loop.

Suddenly feeling a shift in mass nearby as the turbo lift doors swung open.

“Wha….” the short Zygerrians words stopped quickly

“Nothing is wrong here, go about your...actually...can you unlock this terminal for me?” Adaea asked telepathic needles skewering any resistance from the technician.

“Oh...of course, nothing is wrong…” the feline went on in a haze readily assisting her.

“Strange you came down here so late,” Adaea mused

“Oh the temperature spiked...that hole in the wall I suspect…” He pointed to her entry with one listless hand as he kept typing.

A comm in an upper pocket of the zygerrians work outfit buzzed

“You should answer that,”
“I should answer that...hello…”
“Status report,”
“Everything is fine” Adaea coached
“Everything is fine,” he repeated to the stern feminine voice on the other end
“The temperature increase has been addressed, no further action,” she went ont
“The temperature increase has been addressed, no further action,” he mirrored.
“Good boy!” she smiled
“Good Boy!” he added
“huh?” was the response on the other end
Ooops… She grabbed the comm link and switch it off hurriedly, hoping they didn’t investigate it further.

“It’s unlocked,” he informed her, the data pouring across the screen of ‘Product ID’ and sales details.  her hands moving faster than the Zygerrian could track filtered and cross referenced records to the time frames they estimated the People were taken.  While species was listed there was of course no entry for ‘Aethan’ given barely anyone knew their species existed.  She focused on ‘Meta Human’ and ‘Other Humanoid’.

That resulted in thousands upon thousands of entries, so many beings...for a brief moment she wondered if there were outsiders out there sad at their losses too…

But quickly dismissed the idea, outsiders were much too callous and brutish to care for their own.

They didn’t care and love each other like People, if they did, slave empires like Zygerria wouldn’t exist at all, the Twi’leks, humans, togruta - someone would’ve blasted the feline face things into the dust for their egregious crimes.

If only Adaea mused as she delved the data, re-routing server capacity to deal with the enormous amount of records, they had some way of bombing all these outsider worlds from the comfort of Aethas...maybe the Obelisk array could be…

Her mind flared as the Turbolift once more moved the idle thought dissolving.

Four Royal Guards stepped out their Electro-pikes at the ready in keeping with their training.

“The system just locked out access across the entire market! What is going on down...” the leader topped as she saw Adaea - or rather saw an vast black silhouette of humanoid proportions.
“...here…”

<How annoying…> Adaea sighed. As their pikes flared on, their bodies flew back into the wall with a kinetic ball in each of their chests.

Adaea never even turned from the screen as they struggled pinned.  She would just have to analyse a copy of the data back on the ship.

<Lya, can you help me clean up?>

Her sister now by marriage and adoption was quick in coming peering at the Zygerrians
<Let’s have some fun…> Lyaea determined, ever eager to pull a prank, she tapped the first Zygerrian on the hear pushing compulsion upon them that decimated their will power.

 “This little Zyggy went to the markets, and blew himself up in the bidding crowd…”

“This little Zyggy went crazy with thermal detonators tossing them all about!” Adaea joined in

“This little Zyggy started stealing credits and sending it account 441-XTG-9912!” Lyaea added the payment code to one of their shadow bank accounts.

“And this little Zyggy went wa wa wa and chased the Queen all around!” Adaea finished.

“Of course all the little Zyggy’s forgot we were here, and explained to the Commander the hole in the wall was caused by….” Lyaea left it hanging

“A giant pink Bantha!” Adaea finished
“Oh but we forgot this littlest Zyggy,” she looked at the slowly rocking technician

He had been helpful, he deserved some special task.  What would Xani think is fun….
“And this little Zyggy...made all the cruel Zygerrian systems stop working for a long long time and made all the trading systems play ‘Ewok Adventures’ episodes!”

<<<<>>>>

There had been a moment.  A Bright shining painful moment when they dared to hope.

Adaea had discerned one of the records, they stopped at a mid jump point to get some details from Colm to confirm the account owner and then headed straight to Cantonica.

It was a moment that, as Lyaea had learned of all thing entertaining or amusing, did not last.

Now she sat on a Mossfe-Silk lounge kicking a the Casino manager tied to the chandelier by the ankles upside down via a hissing amphistaff.

Xaraea had been here, for three months, the majority of which were spent in a basement being ‘disciplined’ for failing in her task as a ‘Glamour girl’ to ‘entertain’ the high rollers, and not being appreciative of the ‘wonderful life’ the Manager, a Caskadag who had purchased her along with half a dozen other female on Zygerria, had given her.

Xaraea managed to escape - the Casino far less experienced in holding slaves whose will was unbroken than Zygerria -  killed three guards, stolen a speeder and come so close to getting a ship offworld…

But not close enough.

An example was made - eventually - the other ‘Glamour girls’ who had witnessed it explaining that before...Xaraea had telekinetically garroted half a dozen security and police, they had to stun her unconscious before they…

An example would be made in turn of this Caskadag.

Finally bored of simply kicking him she knelt in front of him.

“What do you love the most…”

His deep set eyes flickered to his twi’leki paramour -also upside down pinned to the wall by two oblivion sword in his hips, blood staining the white silken gown they had found the pair cavorting in.

“No…not him…” Lyaea pressed all business now

His eyes moved again to his latinum plated desk, currently stained by his own blood from when they had broken through the wall rather than bother with the door to grab him.

“Your wealth, you Casino...your legacy…” she purred
“Well you’re going to die knowing that all you have built is going to be stripped from your Clutch, and taken by mine... “
The desert dwelling and relatively long lived Caskadag placed great value on ensuring the continuity of their wealth through their ‘Clutch’ or family lineage.

This garnered a reaction at last.

“Tssag…my loyal servant…” she flashed her eyes with lighting to impress the Extolled shaper, Goddesses she grew bored of catering to their zealous need for attention and affirmation, like petulant Holo-Movie groupies, but they had too many uses. 

“Avatar, I live to serve,” he bowed

“What is the worst you can do and leave him alive…”

“The plaeyrin-kol acid I believe will stimulate this creatures nerves constantly...but I have never encountered this species…”

“Feel free to experiment,” she smiled, Tssag’s loyalty she understood had less to do with religious devotion than being given free reign to indulge his morbid curiosities.
“We leave as soon as Adaea has transferred the ownership of this place to us,”
A casino could come in handy one day she figured, and provide steady revenue.
“...assuming you can wait till then mom?”
Selaena nodded even as she caressed her dagger, the Goddesses Vengeance though delayed was never denied.

Xaraea was lost, Xanaea would get closure, and a story to carry with her of her mother, little consolation.

Lyaea strode to the ornate Hapan Crysta-glass window framed with Worshyr wood panels overlooking the breadth of the Casino, her new plaything, a new gem to add to the horde of their possessions of technology and wealth accumulated since the devastation.  Her face only showed a bitter uncharacteristic grimace as she recited to herself.

"See the worlds we have conquered...we win every spin of the wheel...get everything we go after....But I'd trade all these worlds we have conquered for one moment of one yesterday..."

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 9

Emyl and Wynaea

“...so I said ‘That may be, but my power cell still has a charge.”

The punch line was followed with the raucous hollow laughs echoing within the beskar helmets of those crowded around the long table strewn with empty glasses of the local ale.

Galv Hedt took another long draught of the syrupy fluid, then slammed the glass onto the table cracking it.

“Ahhh, Laandur [Weak]!” he complained, turning to the Dug bar tender whose tiny forelimbs were cleaning some cocktail glasses under the dim pink lights of the bar.
“Oya, Got anything stronger?”

With a grunt the Dug sought out a few bottles under the counter, the Mando’s made a mess but they tipped well.  As he hopped over to put the bottle on the table another customer entered cloaked in a dark robe taking a seat alone, unnoticed.

The drinking and tall tales continued for another hour, the only other customer seated still hooded behind an untouched drink.

Finally the Mando’a, many of the younger ones deep in their cups, decided enough was enough and each tossed a handful of chits on the table, never paying attention to how much they handed out compared to the cost of the drinks themselves they typically ended up paying double which as why the Dug didn’t mind the fact they scared off the rest of the customers late on the darker cycle of the ever shadowed moon.

As helmets clicked on the other customer turned toward them.

“You’re Galv Hedt.” the voice seemed absent high pitch of a woman or lower rumbles of a man.
“Eh, who wants to know,” the Mando’a mercenary grunted, always surly when drunk.

“Al'verde of the Tracyn Akaata, who rides the Basilisk Kyr'ad Kyr'vhetine ” the shadowed figure stated,

That was in basic - the commander of the Fire Battalion who rides the War Droid mount ‘Death Harvest’  - a ‘free company’ of Mando’a the Fire Battalion cared not for clan or kin only ability, Hedt possessed one of the few remaining Mando’a Basiliks still in operation, an ancient semi sentient war droid said to have seen fighting in the age of Revan...though given upgrades and repairs over the years the physical shell was totally different but the droid mind was said to be the same.

It was a potent and powerful object of near veneration that had allowed his company to grow.

“What do you want Aruetii,” Hedt growled
Aruetii was a pejorative term for ‘outsiders’, but also ‘traitors’

“You rode your Basilisk to Ylesia, destroyed a spice mine there from above,”

Now the others were paying attention, fingering their blasters and vibro-swords.

“Years ago,” Hedt strode forward, hands on his belt close to his holstered disintegrator pistols, dark grey metallic armour gleaming in the pink light.

“The mines and refineries were manned by slaves, one of them was a man named Emyl, he died, incinerated from Basilisk fire he never saw coming in a war not his own between two Kajidics who had traded him back and forth as no more than a fixture of that refinery a dozen times before...you don't even remember do you?”

“I’ve blasted dozens of hutt dumps over the years, why would I?” he sneered

“Because Emyl was there - because he called for vengeance upon those who had harmed him...and that is why I’m going to kill you,”

Mando’a hardly needed much prompt to attack, those simple words more than enough.

Pistols and rifles were drawn, crush-gaunts charged - but quick as they drew, their hands kept going as if gripped in an invisible fist, ramming their barrels under the helmet into their chins and neck before the triggers pulled of their own accord.

Half of Hedts men shot themselves.

“Turjaryr,” Sorcery, like the fabled Jetti he cursed.

In the blink of an eye the robed figure was gone, a walking shadow in its place twin swords of burning blue flames as it leapt forward.

He should’ve pulled his disruptors and deflagrated the thing...but his hands were frozen in stone.

He stared helpless as the black wall of a helmet filled his vision, scratching fire plunging into his chest as the beskar shattered.

Kiraea swiftly ran the blades up and through slicing his torso into thirds. Beskar was tough even for Blackstone to breach, it had taken the majority of her blades' shatterpoint enchanted energy to crack it along the micro-fissures, but to see the murderer of Emyl flop into meaty cauterized chunks was worth it.

The other Mando quick to respond, but not quick enough - drunk and clumsy they were not at their best - fast and furious she was close to hers, slaying through them with a combination of telekinetic grips to pin their limbs in awkward places and drive her swords into armour joints, the flame enchantments consuming all the bio matter they could leaving smoking husks within beskar plate.

Merk managed to get close, grabbing one of her arms with his crush gaunts, the reactive fabric tripling his strength - it creaked against the ultradense plating of the Mark 1 Armour but wasn’t quite able to crack it - leaning back he tried to use his weight to drag her down, but had not accounted for the fact she weighed more than twice he did, a lean into his grip and he lost his footing, flailing she grunted to lift his whole weight on one arm and slam him down into the table. as her other arm blocked a handful of shots.

Eyes flashing blue she sent a kinetic wave to throw off the remaining Mando before driving her blade into Merk’s neck.

A few tried to run from the witch, only to have their ankles grabbed by her mind and hauled up to the ceiling leaving them dangling awaiting decapitation.

Within three minutes the whole fight was over.

As she strode out into the night, Colm Maynard slipped in and slid the 5000 credit untraceable-Crypto-Card to the Dug as agreed. 

Nominally there to handle the ‘routine’ tasks of piloting, docking, and general transport, Karintha and Valens had suggested Colm keep a close eye on Kiraea, still recovering from some terrible incident his demi-god employers did not deign to discuss, and Kiraea certainly wouldn’t.

To that end as part of ‘scouting’ for the Mando’a using his underworld contacts he’d made sure to arrange for a little extra to be slipped into their drinks before telling Kiraea where to find them and when.

The Dug took the card happily, the Mando had been good customers, but they did scare others away and he didn’t need their kind of boisterous behaviour giving his bar a bad name.

“ A little extra,” Colm slipped six regular 100 chits
“For the Clean up, Sordon Tower 42-A, feel free to take a set or two,” he explained to arrange some of the beskar and weapons to be sent to his ship, the Sons could always use good equipment and there was none better than that - accepting his own masters Chiss/Aethan Hybrid tech.

Colm might be mind slaved, but part of that was taking a long view to whatever benefited Kiri and the others.

A task especially important when she couldn’t see past the next fight.

<<<<<>>>>>

Rain hissed to steam as it struck the cauterized stump that had been a neck.

The Mirialan dropped, its lightsabre rolling onto the weather flooded street bubbling the water then switching off, its red glow gone, the washed out whites of nearby buildings were all that remained.

“He was unworthy,” the Master said, her voice haughty as her posture, though shorter than both her former apprentice and his killer, she seemed always to be looking down upon them. 

For how could she not, she was Dark Lady of the Sith, of the True line of Bane, apprentice of  Darth Lucovis himself.  Her Master had been killed three years earlier in his foolish games with the Black Sun as Vigo Xithar.  It was an error, she understood, to become so prominent, Lucovis had wasted too much time and energy on his criminal empire not cultivating the darker arts as a Sith should, and staying to the true deep shadows of the Republic.

Her own crimson Qixoni lightsaber blade thrumming and hissing with each drop of rain Kiraea smiled with satisfaction.

Not only at her latest kill, but the foolishness of the so called Sith Lady before her - Lucovis had a dozen ‘back-up’ apprentices - Valens himself had killed six on Nimban, Milaea and Adaea another each during those fraught times. This would be Sith Lady was one of probably four or five more scattered about lost without their master and oblivious to the fact Darth Vectivus - Galdin Krennic - who had escaped Ord Mirit was the true inheritor.

No doubt Vectivus would take care of them, but he was a cautious and precise operator and would take his time.  It served the People’s purpose to leave him as the true Dark Lord, for he well knew to keep his distance from the People.

“...but you,” the Dark lady said over the endless patter of the icy rain
“...show potential - a little old perhaps,”

oh please make me hate you more Kiraea did not conceal her rage, allowing the Sith to sense the primal anger would only ingratiate Kiraea further.

“You may yet make a fitting apprentice….but you will need to offer further proof of your skills,”

The woman paced along the empty street looking for something to use.

“You have skill with a blade, but the force? Lift that bin as high as you can,”

Kiraea never took her eyes from the woman nor moved a muscle and it leviatated two meters holding firm.

“Good,” The Sith said “You’ve even broken the habit of hand waving - such a give away - using your mind alone,”

I never had that habit to begin with you disgusting bitch

It had taken nearly two weeks to find her, fortunately she was still on Kijmi - Kiraea suspected she lacked resources to leave with whatever credits Lucovis had once supplied long since running out.

The signal had been one of the clearer one, as Kiraea had approached,  Colm helpfully piloting ot let her focus on the signal, she had gradually made out precise if resonant words

...able to convince her I believe her crazed ideas and ingratiate myself as her new apprentice by killing the last one...she’s strong in the aether, but I'm Learning fast...soon I’ll be able to…

The message had been stored on a Kyber crystal, fashioned as close to possible in the form of a Triune Goddess Totem,  Kiraea had found it in a deep ravine, her and Colm having spent several hours digging through the mud to reach her buried body.

Wynaea, she had been barely Xani’s age when Kiraea knew her.  How she had come to Kijmi she would never know - only that at some point she determined the best way to keep herself safe and get off world was to take up the role of this Sith woman's apprentice and eventually kill her.

No doubt the Sith had been eager to take on an Aethan apprentice, probably thinking together they could destroy Lucovis. 

But the Sith woman had either discovered the duplicity or Wyni had underestimated her, and been killed on the outskirts of the city years before leaving only the pleading Kyber crystal behind in a broken saber clutched in the clawed hand of Wyni’s skeleton.

“What other abilities do you possess,” The Sith asked of her.

“Are you not meant to teach me Master?”Kiraea obfuscated

“hmmmm…” the Sith was no fool, but was caught between ambition at having a new powerful apprentice and caution at the familiar Force presence of this new aspirant.

If there was one thing Kiraea could always rely on, it was Outsiders wishing to exploit the People for their power and genetics, and that desire made them hesitate to strike.

“...but are you willing to learn…” Darth Vedana gazed at her with more discernment, the mind was closed to her - not unexpected indeed it saved time instructing how to do such - but the emotion was strange, inhumanly excessive in some ways, and bizarrely absent in others as if they were less felt emotions that mere physiological status.

She had felt such before...yes the young woman who had served her for three years, strong, a strange super-human species…

“Ah...now I see…” Vedana light her own saber

“You have come to avenge the other...are you her sister, mother? How trite….” Vedana sighed slowly stepping forward water up to her ankles as the rain continued, the drains long since clogged washing detritus back onto the streets exuding a wet mouldy smell.

“A true Sith has no use for the act of revenge, only the power it’s desire brings,”

Of course there could be situations where revenuge was obtained but only as a nice aside to another strategic goal - but such thinking was likely beyond this opponent.

Vedana took up a firm Ataru stance, knowing she would quickly shift to the defensive Soresu - she had come perilously close to defeat against the other of this species, underestimating the raw physical strength and speed even after so long under observation.  They attacked hard and fast at the outset, and then if they didn’t win played for time trusting in their Force and physical endurance to win - as such Vedana needed to play a careful strategy of deflecting the initial rush, then taking the win before she was worn down.

Kiraea could already sense this Sith was not as smart as she thought she was. Wyni had not been a fully trained Guardian with Mark 1 armour, if the Sith thought Kiraea was even twice the strength, she was underestimating severely.

Like black lighting, mid air drops of rain were split by the spinning Qixoni saber from Kiraea’s hand as four shikkar glass daggers sped just above the frothing water line aimed at the Siths ankles and knees.

Vedana spun her blad in tight arcs to deflect, shattering three of the daggers, a white flare as the two red blades met, the strength of the thrown Qixoni greater than she had anticipated as she pushed it off only to be met immediately by Kiraea’s twin swords.

The Sith was immediately on the defensive, then cried out as the fourth dagger hit just below the back of the knee, the hilt snapping off and the glass shattering as it had been enchanted into hundreds of tiny shards working through the calf muscle.

Drawing on the reserve of her hate and pride Vedana pushed against the kinetic attacks and fortified her mental barriers with the pain in her leg providing raw visceral energy to buffet away Kiraea’s metaphysical thorns.

If she thought she could exceed Kiraea with such emotional fuel she was sorely mistaken.

Kiraea need only hint at her own losses and those of her People that she carried to fuel a blaze of aetheric energy that doubled her previous level, battering the now flagging would be Sith further down.

Vedana’s guard remained up but it was weakening, her bones and ligaments were jarring with each mag-train like impact, her deflections narrowing to dangerously slim margins as the lightsaber flared a constant white from the ceaseless impacts.

Clearly a grade or two above her former traitorous apprentice she would have to show the breadth of her mastery of the Darkness.  Dipping into the endless black of the Dark side she drew forth the strength unlimited that creased her skin and yellowed her eyes as mere flesh struggled to contain such power.

Glass shards in her leg were thrust out, muscle and bone re-knit with twisted dark strength.

The battle flipped in an instant as Vedana struck back with waves of kinetic energy that mingled with pure horrifying dread enough to drive a typical humanoid psychology mad.

Hunched tight against cover Colm peeked round with a bulbous thrumming weapon, Kiraea suddenly buffeted back and under a barrage of blows that to him looked like a solid wall of saber red he poked out with the ungainly cannon and fired directly at the melee.

The Rad-cannon sent a burst of Gamma radiation at them both, an invisible barrage of intense shortwave length photonic energy.  Deadly to most sentients after prolonged exposure the focused beam would damage every cell in the Siths body simultaneously, Kiraea’s body even if not shielded by oblivion armour which blocked the majority, could absorb the majority of energy in radio-synthesis mitochondria that turned radiation to cellular energy, the few lengths not collected easily repaired by Aethan natural healing factors in a few days. 

The effect was immediate with Vedana sagging visibly, the cells were not destroyed nor rendered non functional, but hundreds of proteins, mRNA and hormones hit by intense wavelengths were split disrupting innumerable homeostatic systems at once.

Whatever her dark powers, they still needed a physical body to flow through.

Kiraea’s lips creased with irritation at the intervention.  The Sith’s outburst was strong, but not sustainable, even without the radiation blast Kiraea would’ve soon overpowered her or worn her down. Kiraea could draw from the same blackend realms of hate far deeper than the Sith had.

But now she hardly needed to, Vedana’s attack began to falter, the dark side waves halving in power as the Sith woman sought to repair her body's damaged proteins and DNA - but the dark side from which she drew could not restore, only rebind by weight of force.

Kiraea locked Vedana’s saber between her swords, cascaded aether flame down the blades and onto the Sith’s hands - Vedana tried to douse it with raw pain fuelled force energies, but Kiraea’s flames were born of pain - of her and her People’s losses - more pain generated power intensified them.

The flesh blackened and flaked off at the elbows, Vedana stared in confused terror - her last sight was an Aethan fist into her skull.

<<<<>>>>

“I didn’t need your help,” Kiraea hissed in the rain, Vedana’s body showing remarkable resilience as the dark side energies flowed out slowly keeping it in a form of life - it was no threat with a punch pulped brain incapable of transmitting any coherent commands to the flailing limbs

He knew from long experience there was no point arguing.

“Why did you do it anyone, who put you up to it,” she demanded, the rain soaking red hair flat against clear alabaster skin.

“Karintha and Valens...asked me to look out for you, said you were still recovering from something that hurt a lot,”

He could not lie or refuse a question, the intensity of her mind control so many years ago still sharp as ever in her presence.

She huffed, hands on hips staring at the slowly stilling Sith body.

“They worried this search...well...all we’ve found so far is bodies and revenge...would be hard on you,”

She couldn't deny that any gains on her own recovery were set back with each body found, any flare of the burning enthusiasm she was known for lost with each head she took in grim retribution

Kiraea was treading water, neither improving nor deteriorating so long as she was on this mission. How much worse if she didn’t have Colm for company and to deal with the more annoying aspects of outsider interaction.

“Well at least it saved some time,” she conceded of his intervention
“And proved that Rad-Cannon works…”
Kiraea could still feel the hyper activation of her radio-synthetic mitochondria generating an excess of sugars and oxygen spurred by the gamma rays, a few patches of Keritinocytes damaged on her epidermis but minimal easily repaired damage on lower skin cells.
“...but don’t use it too often,”

She headed over to collect the Sith’s saber and search the body for anything of value.

“So you all right then?” he asked uncertain

“Not yet…” she said, with a sneer tossing the now fully dead body into the flooded gutter.

“But we have a job to do...where to next?”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 10

Ghosts of Nar Shadda

“A Place of pilgrimage,” Karintha’s voice barely above a whisper as she stood staring through the view screen at the black orb of a moon before her, the eternal night side surface speckled with artificial lights of yellow and white that twinkled in a sick joyful contrast to the vile scar that the Persephaea waded through to approach it.

Nar Shadda was and would always remain a monument to Aethan suffering, a place they could barely speak the name of for the conjured memories of the death and torments.

For Karintha that made it as important as any other commemorative site, it was part of the Peoples story. 

After the Devastation, while a substantial number, possibly around a quarter – of the slaver vessels had stopped at other points along the way to make quick sales without paying their Hutt masters percentage – the majority had been taken to enormous Slave markets on the blighted moon.

Here her culture had all but been extinguished, while she lay dead.

The surprisingly soft footsteps of Melron came behind her.

“A hard place to visit after a tough few weeks,” he said, voice holding the same gruffness she remembered as a child, but against all experiences since, had softened over time.

“All sufferings in one season,” she replied with the old saying, to get all the bad out of the way in one hit.

Since leaving Aethas they had chased down four signals. On two they found little more than faded echoes of People who had since moved on leaving no trace or clue as to where they went next. 

A more conclusive end had come on Clak'dor VII, more colloquially known as Bith.  The planet was mired in a civil war between the city states Nozho and Weogar over the rights of hyperdrive designs of all things.  In the wake of an exchange of biological weapons the Bith – physically weak and pathetic to Karintha’s eyes - had turned to offworld mercenaries to fight over the few ecosystems and sealed townships not utterly ruined by their bio-apocalypse.

Cutting in their stealth drives pushed to the limit while Kassyndra wove more conventional illusions of distraction the Tracer orb led them to a mushy swamp perpetually beneath a cloying pink-white mist left over from chem-weapons.

It was a graveyard of slowly sinking bodies from a dozen or more mercenary companies.  It took nearly six hours of hurling dirt that was more melted flesh than soil to find the body of an Aethan man, all but the bones dissolved by the toxic sludge, wearing the armour of the Alion Nova Guard Auxiliary – the true force made up according to Lyr’s intelligence only of Alion species member, other species were ‘recruited’ to fill roles the Alion could -or preferred - not to, in this case heavy weapons and cannon fodder.

That a mercenary company of such repute would employ an Aethan was unsurprising given their biological superiority, that he had fallen only two to three years before tragic and had affected Kassyndra greatly when she recognised the victim as Korys of the Mountain Village, a carpenter.  The older woman had pledged to investigate how Korys came to be a part of the Alion Guard when the opportunity arose.

The Final signal had found no body…but abundant evidence of how the Aethan woman had died. The planet of Kabal despite its vast forests and seas often suffered food shortages suitable for most sentients. 

How the woman came to the planet Karintha did not know, only that, given an Aethans requirement for far more nutrition than a human, she was forced to resort to stealing to survive, but was arrested, and, as an example to others by the brutal Oligarchy, burnt at the stake.

Incensed at the injustice, that an Aethan was punished for their hunger, Yorna had gone straight up to the responsible Oligarchs Estate, telekinetically levelled his guard with a wave of her hand, and put the rest to blue aetheric flames that Karintha suspected might still be burning. 

Like Kiraea, Yorna had complete assurance of her actions, and talent for aether fire, rather than pour energy out of herself, Yorna would provide the impetus and use the natural aetheric energy of the planet to keep the fire going – she was the spark, the background life energies dry grass. 

The Goddesses justice might be delayed, but it was never denied.

Nar Shadda seemed a deeper step into the dark.

“I want to understand, try to appreciate just how it felt…” Karintha explained to the old man.
“…as much as we can,”

Both of them had ‘missed’ that part of their Peoples experience.  Karintha and Yorna being dead, Melron on the Steppe far from the village when the attack came. Karintha saw how this was a benefit, she was not scarred by the same wounds, but she could not truly empathize with the others as a Matriarch should.  This stop over would help with that.

“The transports are almost ready, berths booked…” to come and go by choice seemed to Melron almost an insult to those taken there unwillingly never to return.

“Did you ever imagine we would be here, with all…” he gestured to the ship, the moon, Space itself

“This…metal boxes that ply the stars, giant slugs that control worlds of metal forests populated by tentacle headed goblins and snout faced trolls.”

“No…” she half chuckled “my life seemed so clear, the girls would grow up, marry, Taran and I would…”

The bitter absence of her husband cut quickly at her own offhand mention of his name…of all the signals still none from him…until he found his body she would never stop looking.

“…would have our own family, and then after Old Andis passed surrounded by his grandsons and their children I would take stewardship over the People…”

She at her own hand, covered by synthetic weaves embedded with micro-circuitry, delicate slivers of blackstone grafted on as armour for each joint of her fingers.

“A People that I fear no longer exist…”

Melron sensed a deeper unspoken disquiet in Karintha, always quick to understand and yet deep minded, ever since she was a child.

“Something else troubles you?”

“The first devastation destroyed us by shattering flesh and bone, scattering us across the stars…I fear a second is underway, one that will dissolve the Soul of the People.  The Younger ones have assimilated too much of outsider culture, using technology is not a passive action, it changes how we think and relate to the world…or rather galaxy…”

“You fear the People will dissolve by assimilating too many outsider ideas…” he surmised,
“Lose what makes us unique,” He knew to whom she was referring, Milaea, Aresaea, Lyaea, Taryn, those that had been so very young when exposed to the galaxy.

“That is one risk, the other…the middle aged could descend into purposeless slaughter, trying endlessly to Cleanse the Stars of outsiders.”

In that description he knew she meant Kiraea, Valens, Jarys and Selaena.

“We cannot ignore the outsiders, but nor can we destroy them, worse still would be to culturally integrate with them,” mere thought made Karintha’s skin crawl with disgust as she spoke
“If anyone can forge middle path,” Melron stepped closer to her supportively
“It’s you Kari,” he used her nickname, unheard since she was a teen
“The Goddesses brought you back to guide the People back to ourselves, I truly believe this,”

Buoyed by his confidence she turned to take his hand, not seeing the grief scarred age drawn features, but the hearty full face of the man who had told the best stories around the hearth when he visited.

A gentle chime sounded as the Chiss droids completed their pre-flight checks.

“Let us then continue on the path of better understanding what was lost so we know how to regain it,”

<<<<>>>>

Her heart squeezed with two conflicting desires.

The first was to turn and run from the echoes of trauma on the moon that was rising to meet her.

Yorna’s empathy for her People would not allow that.

The Second was to unleash a fiery hell upon the moon and Nal Hutta, the gluttonous blob of murky green behind it.

The limitations of her power and need to avoid excessive attention would not allow that either.

It left her stuck uncomfortably between fight and flight.  But she had at least those choices theoretically, those whose after image in the aether she followed did not.  The hopelessness of their plight scratched at the ever-present group mind of the three of them, Kassyndra having elected to remain on the ship rather than return to the moon on which both her daughters had died.

None of them could begrudge her that.  Kassyndra showed exceptional strength just to have agreed to Karrintha’s request to visit the system.

After visiting a dozen worlds now she was inured to the astonishment of traffic and the novelty of landing, their craft, her curiosity was more aroused by the diversity of different places, Nar Shadda was so different from Csilla in feel and form, towering hab blocks, ancient skyscrapers, much technology yes, but where the Chiss had precision, hygiene and order, Nar Shadda was muddle, mess and chaos.

They did not, as Karintha would otherwise insist, introduce themselves to the local Gods.  It was abundantly clear the Hutt Gods – Ardos and Evona – had set their bulbous eyes against the Aethans.

The buildings with their array of bolted on air filtration units or gaudy neon signs seem to have sprouted from the invisible ground deep below and accumulated whatever detritus flew past onto their durasteel shells.

They were accompanied on the trip by the jittery Twi’leki servan Lyr’Ca’Njo.  He had originally been sent here to provide on ground intel and support as a theatre expert at their next stop - Rorak V. 

As their ship glided toward the berth they had booked Yorna poked at the twi’leki
“You seem nervous, didn’t you used to live here?”

“Ah...yes that is...well there are a number of beings on Nar Shadda who might not be happy to see me return...a few people I still owe some credits to,” the twi’lek’s naturally green skin seemed to look ever more sickly.

“Don’t worry we won’t let anyone hurt you,” Yorna smiled
“You’re too helpful to us!”

Strangely that didn’t seem to comfort him, Yorna couldn’t understand why. Outsiders were indeed incomprehensible as Kiri said.

Armoured, but cowled in thick cloaks Lyr guided them along the edges of the wound in the People's heart to its source through pedestrian bridges, up turbolifts, along travelators to the raw wretched hole that was clean and brightly lit, a vast plaza between ten large skyscrapers, each leading into a different Hutt Clans premier slave market.

The plaza was thronged with thousands of beings, accosted at every turn by hawkers trying to attract them to lower priced offerings on lower levels, Weequay and Gamorrean guards either moving them along or taking a Credit chit handshake to let them stay- occasionally indifferently beating them if they didn’t pay enough.

What had once been the Market of Myzm the Hutt was now named for the inheritor of the Kajidic, Ozrym.

“That is the place…” Lyr squeaked pulling his cloak closer across his face
“If you don’t mind I might wait outside, I don’t wish to cause any complications should my presence upset the new owners,”

“Won’t they be happy to see an old friend,” Yona asked with utter sincerity

“Ah...former Major Domo’s of the previous Hutt master are not welcome guests...all the embezzlement and such found out after they leave….”

“You stole from your previous masters?” Karintha raised a brow

“Oh yes but they were terrible terrible Hutts, despotic slavers, it was an effort to….”

He wanted to say something noble, that he was ‘fighting the system from within’ by undermining the Hutts...but Valens decades long compulsion forced him to speak the truth.

“...earn enough money to get the hell off this dump and retire to Alderaan with a dozen twi’leki slave dancers.”

“Aren’t you glad we saved you from such a fate,” Karintha noted dryly

Leaving their uncomfortable guide to hide in a tap-caf the three Aethans moved through under a cloak of obliviousness, a technique learned from burrowing lice on Aethas that made the animal whose fur they inhabited ignore their presence even when touching or sniffing right at them.

It worked equally well on outsiders who could be staring at them and not see them at all.

Each step was harder than the last as they approached, the collective scream of the People etched into the metal of the building itself, and – unfortunately for the People – so congealed and compacted that it was impossible to flow walk and see precisely who was sold when and to whom.

Determined to understand, to bear witness, she pressed on.

<<<<>>>

Her finger gently held the trigger but did not pull it.

Kassyndra positioned the targeting reticule directly above the towering columns of durasteel that harboured the so called ‘markets’ where flesh was traded for small pieces of metal whose worth existed only in the minds of those who accepted the notion of currency.

A tiny button on the rear of the targeting stick allowed her to lock in six positions for the Oblivion Rods that would, if she pulled the trigger, jet through the atmosphere and strike them at a fearsome velocity. 

She could then add some Macro-Maser fire to a further six targets from orbit, it would in mere seconds level a substantial portion of Nar Shadda and coat the rest in dust and debris for decades. 

But for a mix of reasons, the main one being her People were down there Kassyndra held off.

Her granddaughter had said the furious desire to inflict revenge, even if indulged, left only emptiness in its wake. Kassyndra was not certain she fully agreed with Milaea but as she sat in the quiet she realised that whether she had pulled the trigger or not once the others left she would not have changed.

Billions would be killed, but the People would not benefit from it materially, it would only expose them to too much risk too soon from a Hutt reprisal.

“Another time…another place,” she pledged to herself.

<<<<>>>

Here amid rows of floor lit force cages that lined three levels of a display room, cylindrical cages dotted in the centre featuring ‘specials’, was the deepest of the wounds Karintha had sought.

The place had been changed, Ozrym evidently disliked the former décor and ‘refurbished it’ in the twenty five years since his nephew Myzm’s all too serendipitous death.  But no amount of plasteel and plaster could hide the aether.

She opened herself fully to the haunted echoes of her Peoples suffering it, let it infuse her, joined it as if it were a group mind still alive.  The voices were legion yet cried with one voice of despair, confusion, fear.

It threatened to overwhelm her, Yorna and Melron, but they had each other, they had the knowledge that the terror here was not the end, though broken, battered, bloodied and forever changed the People survived even if individuals did not.

Scant consolation for the ghostly presence, but it was all she could offer in exchange for the glimpse of devastation she received.

But what People had survived, the young osmotically absorbing outsider ways, the older trapped in cycles of destruction, building weapons less for defence than unbridled assault.

She had to bind them all, the pain, the hope, the lost, the found, if she were to lead them forward.

The cost to her would be great, but she could bear it with Melron, Yorna and the others' help, a Matriarch was nothing without those who held her up.

Firming in conviction with every moment she looked to doleful faces of the slaves behind the force cages. 

In that there was a lesson on the middle path she had to tread, as Jarys had realised earlier the young and hopeful – Milaea, Aresaea – could be placated with freeing them – the older and callous by using the slaves hate to forge them into an army and let ‘outsiders kill outsiders’.  As Adaea had found in melding Chiss technology with Ultradense minerals of Aethas.

That was the path she needed to steer the People along, reign in the outliers to a calmer controlled middle.

Her focus caressed the pained ghosts of Nar Shadda, settled them for just long enough.

<Yorna, now>

Melron appeared startled as Yorna produced the large Bloodstone orb concealed on her back, handing it to the older woman with ritualistic care. 

A modified version of the very Aura orbs Milaea and Aresaea had used to revive them both, the capacity a function of the orbs radius, at 20cm radius it had 18X the capacity of the 7.5 cm aura orb they had made under instructions from the future.

Accounting for the decay rate on the Aether repellent Nar Shadda it would be enough.

Karintha channelled her own compassion to drawn in the semi subdued haunted remnants into the Orb, pulling the scattered conscious shards into the Orb, while a wound in the aether would always remain they could free the pained sentience of it for proper burial on Aethas, the Orb would be place in a place of reflection and mourning, an eternal reminder of what was lost.

Her mind stretched out grasping gossamer threads and bundling weaving them into a rope to pull into the Orb as Melron now understanding stood guard, cloaking them both in a stronger miasma enchantment so the women could focus all their energy on the ‘recovery’ effort.

Her head and heart strained as she felt the burn of aetheric overuse, but she had to succeed, had to bring them back.

This filthy moon was not worthy of the Peoples Suffering.

Drawn to their People the semi-sentience settled in the Orb closing itself in the endless circular terrors.

Trembling from the effort Yorna moved to support her of the physical burden of carrying the orb feeling the ghostly echo in her mind at the mere touch.

The Exorcism was complete.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 32 — Screams and Silence — Echoes — Part 11

Ghosts of Nar Shadda

Rejoining Lyr they were heading back through the thinning crowds as ‘Darker Night’ settled in on the shadowed moon - the brief two hour window most of the more ‘upmarket’ businesses closed temporarily for cleaning and ‘restocking’ with work crews of chealy employed labourers rushing about.

Yorna spied a column of armoured soldiers, they had no ‘thoughts’ or emotions like all the other sentients, just a bloody minded primal focus.  Lock step in five columns of ten they wore light sienna armours over what seemed ungainly muscled bodies, head pieces with multiple red glazed optical scanners that whirred with telescopic motion long then short.

All such visual information was irrelevant compared to the trace scents her olfactory senses, as precise as a Vorynx, of inimitable Aertemisin - the combat hormone that boosted Peoples already incredible strength, endurance and speed to new heights when in periods of combat stress.

And all of it was bleeding off two of the soldiers in the front rank.

Lyr noticing his masters had stopped followed the line of their stares.

“Oh Ciy’Keueketka, or just Ketka, unusual to see them off of Rorak, you’ll see plenty of them when we get there,”

“What are they,” Yorna asked

“Ciy’Keueketka, it’s huttese for ‘Pure Warriors’, ‘Unblemished’...slave soldiers made up mostly from runts off visiting ships and the sky-slums,”

“Runts - children like Taryn was,” Melron noted grimly

“The Flesh Crafters - the Pohna Kakea -  of Rorak take them or buy them and erm...enhance them...with cybernetics, psychosurgery and adrenal-gene therapy and constant training into perfectly obedient soldiers..no personality only precision they say. They sell them in ‘Kwamon’s’ - five hundreds as bodyguards or private armies, tough as barabel hide, and as expensive as Ithorian Teeth - but they only live fifteen or so years, the gene-crafitng and combat-stimms stress the bodies too much.”

Their eyes never left the front two bleeding an unnaturally vast amount of Aertemisin, traces wafting off the other 48 soldiers.

“They act as a kind of Police force on Rorak V, keeping the largest slave market in Hutt space nominally neutral ground between the Kajidic’s and even the independent operators with markets there, Pykes, Zygerrian Outcasts, Black Sun, even some Cor-Sec subsidiaries.”

“Those two are People,” Yorna said with no doubt of the two with the strongest scent in the front row.  Based on the Aertemisin she could smell though their bodies were producing a vast overabundance, their faces hidden largely behind durasteel cybernetics in the place of eyes, a blank solid plate of rounded ceramic-polymer where a mouth should be.

There was no question or doubt in Yorna’s mind as to what had to happen next.

“Ah My Lady might I suggest this is not the most auspicious place from which to ‘liberate’ one of the divine master race,” Lyr’s voice wavering as he looked around the crowded plaza and knowing from previous trips to Rorak he had never seen anyone live to face Ciy’Ketka twice.

“They’re heading to that building,” she pointed tracing their direction and pace
“What is that,”

“Besadii Kajidic Trading, one of the most heavily fortified buildings on...the...planet….” his voice slowed as he realised he had just given them information that made an abduction here seem even more a good idea.

<Aunty will you be alright?> Yorna asked quickly
<I will, I’ll clear an exit with Lyr,> she confirmed
<Then there’s no time to waste,> Melron added <We can’t let those People suffer one second longer,>

Karintha breaking off with a resigned Lyr,  Melron followed Yorna covering her back as they made straight for the Ciy’Ketka.

Both Aethans subtly let slip Shikkar’s floating and Implosion grenades rolling along the ground, cloaks thrown back to allow better access to their weapons as their minds effortlessly co-ordinated a strike and grab. 

They stood directly in the path of the Ciy’Ketka, the rest of the crowd leaving the ‘Pure Warriors’ a wide berth.

Ocular scanners zoomed in on the impediment to the ‘dokwacha’ - a unit of fifties - path.

“Remove Yourself,” the voice was not a voice, merely a digital modulation of orders for an impediment, perversely projected from speakers where the ears usually were.

Yorna truly looked at them. 

They had the bodies, however twisted by the Pohna Kakea, of People, but none of the soul or mind, only an instinctive Aetheric Callous the kind every child was born with that was a feature of the most primal parts of the Aethan brain, creating a shield of sorts from aetheric attack - although the absolute lack of cognition meant there was nothing to mentally attack. 
The entire main cortex was likely a virtual intelligence grafted into the absent brain cavity in an even more comprehensive way that poor Lydan had been.

<There is nothing left to save> she sighed sadly
<Only an abomination to destroy>

“Remove Your….” the second warning was ended not by the Aethans attack but the Ciy’Ketka’s rapid switch from marching stance to defensive as the advanced sonic sensory systems on formerly sullustan members detected the quiet roll of the implosion grenades. 

The dokwacha battle net assessed the threat emanated from the two impediments before them and attacked.

The Clash was rapid and explosive, caught with barely a moment to spare Yorna and Melron unleashed - Shikkar drove into gaps in armour, implosion grenade triggered - Ketka dove out of the way, or fired their enormous FWMB-39 Heavy repeaters - the Aethans were already moving Yorna’s twin swords finding the Aethan-Ketka was already blocking - their reflexes incredibly as fast as her own even enhanced with the aether - Melron likewise finding his target not a push over even as he used a telekinc wave to blast the other Ketka aside.

A handful of the crowd screamed and ran, but the majority indeed to the constant violence of Nar Shadda streets merely watched on.

The Gommoreans, Weequay and Klatooian guards merely ushering their guest away from the fire fight rather than intervening.

Karintha took aim with her bow and sent three arrows, each piercing into a head, but the thick armour prevented clean penetration. The grenades and shikkar had downed a further twelve in the opening attack, but the remaining thirty five were quickly surrounding the two Aethans.

<Kassyndra we might need a quick exit,> Yorna signalled, knowing it was asking much of her to come down here, but also there was likely no other way.  They couldn’t let this chance slip.

Yorna’s dual blades worked in a frenzied ballet leaving devastating blue fires in their wake corroding armour and weapons they touched, Melrons sword with its shatter-point enchantment cracked anything it touched - flesh or steel - open as it send precision energies to expand micro-fissures.

Even so they were vastly outnumbered, restoring to activating their own aetheric shields, Yorna a blue fire, Melron a Lighting - hers adding to the inferno of anything that touched her and absorbing blaster energy shot at deadly precision, his sparking arc to singe the flesh between cybertic grafts.

Hurling his blade into a chest Melron pulled his pistols slamming a dozen macro-maser shots into the chest plate before it cracked, Karintha switched to her own Hades rifle, the chiss tech based weapon shattering the personal shields but still struggling against the heavy armour - her only consolation was seven Ketka broke off to pursue her.

Yorna took the brunt of the melee from both Aethan Ketka, their strength as great as her own, she could smell the aertemisin output double in second to enhance it further.

But she had her own bio-weapon.  Weaving under the blades and blaster fire she unclasped the seal on her helmet squeezing pheromone glands in her mouth to hiss out a spray of Aephrodaesin, enough to knock a male out face to face the aerosol spread with an aetheric wind should turn them into compliant gobrils.

It had no effect - the Pohna Kakea had removed sensory and reproductive centres in the brain unnecessary for combat entirely leaving the pheromone with nothing to latch onto or neural systems to activate and her strategy in ruins.

<Uh-oh…>  rapidly reassessing her options she saw Melron hard pressed, the old man was strong, four more Ketka lay dead at his feet, another four meters away had its neck telekinetically snapped. 

She looked to Karintha crouching behind cover snapping shots with ehr pistols, the Hades rifle now a smoking makeshift explosive on a Ketka chest.

And finally to the Aethans she was trying to save...and the orb that held the ghosts of those that they could not. 

She had struck fast and hard before they could vaish behind the iron walls of the Besadii, it was not a rash decision but a Goddess given opportunity she would have to make work.

Her concern for her family, anger at the desecration of Aethan flesh and confidence in the Goddesses built into the charge she needed as she touched the Ghosts in the Orb.

Busting up she brought her swords through the spine of one of the Aethan ketka, shattering the armour and back as her fire shield collapsed into her.

Then Exploded out.

A wave of uncontrolled fire consuming metaphysical fuel of grief and loathing for outsiders spread from her on all sides like a bomb, flash melting durasteel components of the Ketka’s cybernetics into their bone.

Her eyes flashed blazing yellow tinged blue as she create compressed balls of aetheric fire inside the Ketka’s attacking Melron and Karintha’s chests, then released her telekinetic restraint to allow them to explode outward deflagrating their cores from within.

Now even the most calloused of the crowd were running as she gripped the nearby flailing Ketka and crushed the variegated boned and hardened inter-organ structures of different species into the softer key organs the Flesh Crafters had left.

The Aethan Ketka with their instinctive Aetheric shield rose staggering - even the one with spinal cord cut, redundant nervous connections taking over even if it couldn’t right itself properly.

The flame wave, not enough to break the aether resistant shield completely only drain it significantly, rapidly she moved on them, her feet and blades smashing apart every inch she could reach with triple the intensity even they could produce with their artificial hormone induced zenith.

Relieved Melron and Karintha took a vicious toll on the Ketka struggling with internal burns fuelled by the insatiable hate of Aethan ghosts that Yorna had lit, the ghosts power leveraging her incredible pyrokinetic abilities three fold.

The guards around the plaza now began to react - but in typical fashion for the divided Hutts they simply retreated behind the quickly shuttered doors of their Slave Emporiums content another Kajidic suffered instead of them.

A screeching humm signalled the unsafe approach of Kassyndra in a Karintha Class transport, the oldest woman breathed out with relief as she aimed the magnetic accelerator cannons on the Ketka unleashing phirk bolts designed to penetrate ship hulls expertly on ground trooper heavy armour with the expected flesh rending results.

Popping the back ramp of the transport Karintha grabbed Lyr and the Ghost orb, the irritation of fatigue not stopping her stride and leap inside as Melron covered Yorna.

The young woman's conflagration had cost her a lot, she couldn’t sustain it much more than a dozen seconds - all of which she used to telekinetically hurl the Aethan-Ketka into the craft.

<Go up sweetling!> Melon ordered as the dozen or so remaining Ketka continued to fire and rush on them, testament to the incredible work of the Flesh Crafters if they weren't killed outright they kept going.

Yorna jumped with a nod, Kassyndra now crouched on the ramp with a Macro maser Repeater, the heaviest of their Hades class weapons it was based on fixed position anti-infantry weapons on Chiss fortifications.  With a sneer she revved the barrels and unleashed on the moon that had been the sight of so much pain to her People, coving Melron’s escape seemingly secondary to punching holes in the Ketka and the plaza’s pavements.

Karintha by now was already lifting the ship off, they could collect the one they came in at a later time,the ramp closing with a hiss, Melron 'securing’ their passengers with anything he could get his hands on, Yorna coming down off the high phasing in and out of consciousness.

Kassyndra pushed to the cockpit, the seat beside Karintha was empty, all she had to do was jump in and in three second she could fire off all four of the ship’s torpedoes into the markets below….

Lyr coughed.

It reminded her that they’d already made a ‘scene’, but one that with a few bribes and tall tales through Lyrs networks could be passed off as a hit on a Kajidic’s Ciy’Ketka and more than likely result in just another round of internecine fighting between the Hutts...if she simply bombed the moon today the Hutts would look into it as a united force as they would know their enemy was a common one.

“Another time…” she reminded herself.

<<<<>>>>

It looked as if it had been designed to fit there.  The Large Bloodstone orb in the center of the Aetheric Nexus chamber on the Persephaea that insulates it’s potent effects from the People as they went about their daily tasks.

Even so Kassyndra found herself visiting it often as they travelled to the next location through hyperspace, in between her more grisly task.

Her own fears were in that Orb from when she had been on Nar Shadda...and...both her daughters.

There was a measure of comfort to know their pain was not, and now never would, be forgotten.

“We’re coming out soon,” Karintha whispered behind her, Kassyndra having hardly noticed she was there at all.

“Where do you think we should pace it when we return home?” the slightly taller Guardian asked

“The Catacombs seem fitting…” Kassyndra replied “...but perhaps its own place, beside or beneath the monument to the Devastation,” she referred to the large statue Milaea had carved shortly after escaping Ord Mirit and the Jedi’s gaze.

“Hopefully there those feelings will settle,”

Karintha nodded in agreement,

“Every year it will feel the coming and going of more and more recovered and newly born People, in time though its suffering won’t die, it will know we have survived and thrived,”

“I hope that is so,” Kassyndra replied with an edge of doubt
“We have come too far...and yet not far enough…”

Kassyndra summarised Karintha’s own feeling well, they had ships, weapons, abilities to exceed all but the most determined opponents, yet the People were still very much in a holding pattern, apart from a few sprouts - Lydan and his Herds, Maeson’s Orchards and Jenaea’s kilns, there was little recovery of their true way of living underway.

“The time will come,” Karintha reassured
“When we can place our swords upon the mantle and turn our arms to the scythe and plough,”

“But before we forget how to use them?” Kassyndra countered with reasoned worry the People would become ever more militarized.
“That...is what we of the older generation must make sure of.”

With a nod of agreement Karintha came a knelt beside her. 

Seeing to the emotional wellbeing of her People was alway the first task, now that was settled for the moment she could move onto the next topic.

“What did you find?” Karintha asked of Kassyndra’s macabre work on the Aethan-Ketka.  Kassyndra had undertaken the process largely alone making full use of the medical suite replete with chiss devices she had trained with during their induction for the first time.

“They are Aethan...but they are not People...not born on Aethas,” Kassyndra’s usually motherly tone adopted a hard edge as if instructing a recalcitrant child how to do their chores. 

“Their bones - they didn’t have teeth anymore - heavy metals have a different range of isotopes than are found from ingesting food on Aethas,”

“They were born offworld like Xanaea…”

“Born...is not the word...there is something wrong with their development, their brain cavities are small, distorted even accounting for the artificial aging they underwent,”

“How old?”

“Fourteen years,”

That was astonishing, each of the ‘men’ were as large as Jarys. The Flesh Crafters were clearly expats in their arts.

“Clones?”

Kassyndra shook her head.

“I don’t think so...they were born with abnormalities, and the genetic testing showed the same father, but two different mothers,”

A number of scenarios ran between the two women - each darker than the next building on Karintha’s growing understanding of outsider perversity.

“We were already set to investigate three signals emanating from Rorak next...the home of these Flesh Crafters and their sick progeny,” Karintha stood

“The Ciy’Ketka are too strong for us four to reckon with alone, I will summon the others to join us, Aethenaea grant us wisdom to discover the truth behind these abominations.” Karintha said rising

“Aertemisaea the strength…. and Aephrodaea the heart to destroy them,” Kassyndra finished darkly, eyes never leaving the Ghost Orb.

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

The word "EPIC" comes to mind reading this chapter, not only in length but--more importantly--in content!

Seems that reality has once again caught up with our Aethans who are learning that not every rescue has a happy ending.  This is actually incredibly poignant, especially with a point that Karintha was contemplating: the ideological schism between the young (Mili, Ari, Yorna, etc.) and the elder (Valens, Jarys, Kiri, etc.) is not only polarizing from Traditional Aethan culture BUT also--and I think that it is important to underscore how each FAILURE during these rescues is adversely and severely affecting those who participate--against Outsiders as a whole.  Granted, the Aethans were already xenophobic and fixated upon PEOPLE: FIRST, LAST, & ONLY, but now those who had more moderate views are leaning towards the conservatism (OK, more like outright HATRED) that Kiraea and Janaea in particular are galvanizing into.  The question is: can Karintha help to moderate such trends?  And, even if she does, she is CERTAINLY disposed towards Aethan isolationism, just look at her critique of the "younger" members and how "dangerous" it is that they demonstrate an assimilated perspective.  As Matriarch, she WILL have to deal VERY carefully with this, especially since we know that such isolationism continues into the "current time."

A few items of (meta-)note: the disparate details of the different galactic cultures are wonderful!  LSG's encyclopedic knowledge really adds multiple layers that is a MORE than worthy addition to "A galaxy far, far away" 
I want to thank LSG for trusting me with part of this incredible story arc, the freedom to let the characters take us (The Reader) where they led, and his incredible suggestions for plot points!
OMG these posters are FANTASTIC!  One and all, they really add another layer to an already amazing narrative (and on a personal level: the poster for Ari, Taryn, & Mryaea could've come STRAIGHT from my mind!  THAT'S how good these are 

How do you follow this up?

If nothing else, I know that LSG WILL 

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 33 — Screams and Silence — Absences — Part 1

The Unknown Regions

Teeth gritted he squeezed the throat as his knees fought for purchase in the muddy ground.

The bearded Tof spat and cursed him from below, his enormous frame dwarfed Jarys own even in full armour.  The Tof, a patriarchal culture from somewhere beyond the unknown regions were a massive species that grew to 2.5 meters tall, over muscled to be strong as wookies, but far more rotund.  This made them physically just below and adult Aethan in strength.

A wet crack signalled the breaking of the neck bones and Jarys was instantly up to splash through the blue tinged mud fist first into the gut of another of the beasts trying to bring his blade down.

The Tof’s weakness was their lack of dexterity and limited speed.  Aethan genetic design integrated extraordinary strength with extreme flexibility and four times humanoid reflexes, boosted to eight times with the aether.

It allowed him to implode the creatures ribs, twist around, draw his sword and sever the legs of another at the knees, the top half of the body falling into the sloshing grime.

Valens was some twelve meters behind, his bow working like an auto cannon sending blackstone arrows into eyes, then telekinetically seeking hearts before teleporting back to be fired again.

The Tof had not expected a frontal attack, they trusted in their reputation and sheer massive bravado as a deterrent.

The Brothers had used that against them.

Their attack had begun with an overwhelming fusillade of Hades rifle fire on the Tofs outer barricades, bringing the whole lot of them into their second trap, a half dozen implosion grenades they had teleported into their midst.

The teleportation had cost their aetheric stamina dearly limiting further use for the time being -  but it was worth it to see the Tofs by the dozens twist inside out, water exploding from individual cells - viscera dripping pieces still hung from the gnarled leafless trees that peppered the mudflats under a back lit cloudy green sky.

Jarys sliced through more bodies as they lumbered too slow to get any hits in, the majority wore barely any armour, only the ‘leaders’ were coated in a thick heavy plate that looked like it had been hammered into a rough cuirass shape with rocks.

Their greatest risk was being surrounded, both men had taken a few wallops from the creatures, their Blackstone armour had resisted any damage from the lower density metal of the Tofs weapons, but the kinetic impact was still intense when both trunk like Tof arms were brought to bear.

The wretched planet barely had a name, only a designation for the Unknown Regions off the Relgium Run past Ord Thoden.  How a Tof Clan had gotten this close to the Republic they didn’t know nor care to understand.

The next wave lying dead the Brothers joined up in a half run as the ground firmed up, ahead were moss stained ruins of some dead civlization, the statues and already broken pillar toppled further by the Xenophobic Tof’s, replaced with their own weird Dryad and Nymph totems.

Their target was in the deeper half flooded ruins ahead, the Tof Patriarch.  Of the little intelligence even the Chiss had on the Tofs one key point was this, their long stellar crusades on vessels crammed with only males resulted in the Tofs displaying - in Chiss euphemism - ‘reckless lust’ toward any humanoid females, with female captives offered to the highest ranking Tofs first then…’passed down’.

The brothers had joined midway through the search of all the signals, splitting from the other groups to follow up on the worst of the screams and pleading that the Obelisk had uncovered all emanating from the ‘near’ Unknown Regions. 

From this planet had come only a primal hopeless piercing shriek, indisputably female. 

The sight of three Tof ships in orbit when they arrived - sparking on terminal orbital declines from the unannounced impact of Shikkar torpedoes into their engines - had explained the rest.

Vaulting the three meter wall they splashed onto the flooded stone courtyard where the Tofs made their neolithic abode, crude drawings on the walls, raw meat piled in corners, arcane rifles hastily grabbed to fire at the two Aethasn who moved in the dark shadows along opposite sides to divide attention, both with pistols out firing macro-maser shots from Hades pistols into torso’s, clearing out the weak before advancing in with swords.

Blackstone ate into slow flesh, the more senior Tof’s with better understanding of their comparative strength and weaknesses adopted firm guards limiting the brothers' advantages. 

Jarys doubled down with his primal anger to cut through their armour and limbs, Valens cold rage rounded the hulks and stabbed into gaps in the armour, the enchantments Sofa had imbued his sword with flashing lighting into the nervous systems of the victims causing them to stiffen as muscles contracted painfully.

This was what the brothers were made for.  They were the First, and the Last.  Jarys the First Brave, the champion of the People who would always be first into the battle to challenge the enemy Brave to single combat, a walking image of the implacable strength their opponents risked facing by not surrendering outright.

Valens was the Final Sanction, the God killer who strode through bodies broken by the People, himself fresh and uninjured, to drive home the final blades into the enemies battered forces, and take the enemy warchiefs head to offer to their Goddesses in thanks for victory.

With a rumbling bellow the Tof Patriarch entered flanked by his housecarls.

He was enormous, even for a Tof, 3 meters tall and at least 2 wide, a vast mace sparking with electrically charged spikes that would’ve weighed as much as a wookie resting lightly on his shoulder. His housecarls whilst shorter were equally as wide armed with various clubs and pikes.

His thick feet crunched the water covered stone beneath, amidst his water damaged algae ridden exuberant outfit were dozens of skulls.  None of this interested the brothers, his scent did.

Tofs did not - intentionally at least - bathe -instead coating themselves in heavy perfumes. 

While the majority encountered so far had stunk of nothing more than mouldy sweat and dried blood, through the miasma of stench and artificial fragrances the brothers Vorynx like olfactory senses spied the thin traces of Aethan pheromones - a failed attempt by a frightened woman to use her biology to control the brute that destroyed her.

Pulling his sword from a twitching body Jarys as always stepped up first.

The Tof grunted out something in its native language for which his helmet uni-trans had insufficient data to translate, apart rom garbled semantic predictions equating to Violent displeasure, cowardly barriers and imminent amputation

With a bitter grin Jarys detached his helmet in response to one of the vague interpretations, he wanted the last thing this creature saw to be an Aethan face taking the Goddesses Vengeance from it’s flesh.

With a war cry of his own Jarys charged in head long for the leader while Valens went for the Retinue of four.

The Patriarch was smart enough to know he had to rely on a strong defence against a faster opponent and determined to play the long game.  He underestimated Aethan stamina in that regard.

Jarys struck with flurries of four to six blows then retreated back, a hit and run tactic that wore down the Patriarchs armour and mace integrity as he took more and more chunk from it, micro aetheric fires from Kiraea’s enchantments upon Jarys sword further degrading the equipment.

But the swings of the Mace got closer, the Patriarch timing it to just after Jarys sequence had finished and he was slightly exposed moving backward. After three sequences of attack and retreat the patriarch stuck home.

The mace hit Jarys in the side with more strength than a charging gormin sending him skidding into the midst of Valens dicing with the pikes of the two remaining housecarls, The Patriarch rushed forward with surprising speed for his size slamming the mace down, Jarys rolling ot only take the blow on his upper right shoulder.

The sheer force penetrated the Mark 1 armour, lodging three electro spikes into his shoulder blade and upper back.

Rolling just in time to avoid a second blow he swung hastily to cleave into the mace, the Tof pulled in the opposite direction, the jammed weapons grinding as they splashed up more of the ubiquitous water.  Tension released as the sword slid free, but not without leaving aetheric fire burning the mace from the inside out.

Rising up Jarys slashed again, the heavy block revealing the fragility of the mace as it shattered open.

With a roar the Tof turned to durasteel knuckled fists arms like pistons driving at the far smaller frame of the Aethan.

What Jarys couldn’t avoid hit like a pneumatic hammer, his own sheer bulk as the largest Aethan and decades of intensive training keeping him from toppling as he worked for an open, finally catching a chance to throw his arms over a the Tof arm almost as thick as his torso, pulling in close to him and crushing the muscle, popping blood vessels and the bone within.

He allowed the Tof to pull the arm out to relentlessly strike at the weakened side, tearing chunks from plate, mail then flesh.

The Patriarch fought onto the last spitting and gnashing as repeated skewering’s proved insufficient to kill the enduring behemoth, Jarys resorting to simply kicking its gigantic skull in, the blood from the Tofs long since having turned the watery floor red.

<<<<>>>>

The Vagaari had a sick habit of using living shields - sentient beings trapped in transparisteel-like plastic bubbles and mounted on the outside of their ships hulls or carried on grav sleds as ‘mobile cover’

They believed it deterred attacks as anyone assaulting them could see the pained faces and hear the cries of those inside. 

The CEDF had special training course to inure their commandos, who engaged the Vagaari slaver empire of the Unknown regions, to the tactical necessities, even so many still required lifelong counselling after having ‘killed’ their own species to get at the Vagaari - sacrificing the few to save the many ringing hollow when it was the terrified faces of the few rather than the faceless many that haunted your dreams.

The Brothers had no such emphatic weaknesses.  Punching Hades rounds through the living cover meant no more to them than if it were made of blank dead durasteel.

Swarms of Schostri, tiny slightly translucent insects surrounded them trying to stab through the joints of their armour, the nomadic Vagaari utilized living weapons bred for purpose, similar to the Yuuzhan Vong, albeit not nearly to the same degree.

Having trained extensively with the Vong they were more than capable of ignoring the swarm, the Schostri were faster but far less impactful in their stings than Vong Thud bugs, lighting and fire shields deterred the majority as they pushed forward.

The entire city was occupied, the Nomad Vagaari typically occupied a world for a few months, stirpping it of slaves and resources before moving on, perhaps an echo of their own long distant occupation by the Rakattan Infinite Empire.

The natives of this world, tall thin humanoids who resembled Xexto but appeared to possess an imbalance number of limbs, three or five, were still fighting making their insertion onto the storm ravaged planet far easier

Using the traditional Aethan Veil of Mist techniques they had woven through the urban warfare that was shot down by a seemingly endless thunderstorm of ugly brown lighting on blakc clouds in the lower atmosphere, civilians fled as the native warriors fought a losing battle for each household, toward the main Vagaari lines.

The living shields broken through the brothers crouched behind a thick lightning rod tower - seemingly the method by which the natives had powered their civilization - and focused fire into the Vagaari - thor armour was adept at taking Charric hits, indeed the Wolvkils around their necks - long-snouted headed creatures with clawed forepaws - actively clawed over the Vagaari bodies with astounding speed to take any shot on their organ decentralized body, another layer of living defence.

The Hades weapons were based on Mega-Maser technology miniaturized into a weapon frame only slightly larger than average, never mass produced as they were found to be too heavy for Chiss commando’s to carry for protracted periods, the weight was a trifle in Aethan hands.

The extra impact struck the wolvkils harder than they expected, they survived only two shots instead of the regular four to five. By the time the Vagaari realised and tried to run they found their ankles telekinetically dragged back, ever silent they nonetheless clawed the mosaic footpaths to get away as the brothers advanced, idly stomping their heads in.

Wasting no time they broke into a run of nearly 80 kmph, avoiding Vagaari where they could as a black blur, leaping across ruined buildings and courtyards filled with dour looking natives waiting to be put into stasis for transit or taken to nearby mines to be worked to death.

With every moment the signal they had been tracing weakened, they shouldered through barricades, hurled lighting blasts into living shield walls, and aether flame blasts over their own body when a swarm of Schostri neared.

The crater where the Vagaari Mass hauler had landed was comprised of ruined buildings once ornate and tiles in mosaics.  They seemed to have landed directly on top of the native seat of government, the brown waters of the rain were mingled with sticky stasis fluids - they Vagair had landed without regard to the stasis pods full of living beings on the bottom of the ships hull - why should they they had just acquired millions more.

Jarys eyes scanned the vast wall of glassy blue pods that obscured the true shape of the vessel beneath. in each was a being, while a quarter or so were dead from starvation, the remaining three quarters were a mix of resignation, apathy and frantic rage.

He was only looking for one.

<There row 14 from the top, 53rd along the right>

Inside was a Person, flagging, dying from dehydration, Goddesses alone knew how long he had been in that pod.

<We’re coming> Jarys pushed out telepathically hoping to allay their fear.

There was no response, only hundreds of Vagaari around the ship who suddenly scrambled.

<What is….>

Screeches came from overhead as out of the roiling storm clouds above dart like ships with dozens of thin antenna plunged straight down, the metal protrusions dragging eddies of murky brown lit lighting with them.

Valens threw his arms out in desperation, Jarys tried to yanks the pod at a distance of over 600 meters to try and stop it. But there were too many and the impact too extreme. Valens knocked a few off course stopped two dead, but it only took one.

The natives suicide bomber hit the top of the Vagaari vessel, the lighting following it, smashing through the living shield wall and sending the atmospheres boiling energies through the whole of the Vagaari ship.  A secondary explosion indicated the dart ship must’ve been packed with explosives, and as three more hit more lighting wrecked the pods by the dozen.

The one of thousands they had wanted to save was among them.  A Person died.  Their pyre was an electrical storm of explosions and millions of pieces of shrapnel raining down as the natives continued ramming more and more ships into the by now utterly crippled Vagaari vessel.

The low wall they were crouched behind crumbled as Jarys punched it in bitter frustration. His fists clenching and kinetic focus still in the distance Valens simply slammed his failed telekinetic effort directly down, sending ever more blazing sparking fragments flying up.

It was nearly three hours before they reached their ships in the wilds outside the main cities. 

There was no consolation in the dozens of Vagaari they killed along the way, and no sense of adequate punishment for their failure in the wounds they took.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 33 — Screams and Silence — Absences — Part 2

The ship was at a dead float off a half chartered hyperspace lane.

Over 500 meters long of unknown design they had done three fly pasts before boarding.  The engines and many sections along the hull were breached, but the curve of the shredded metal showed the explosions had come from inside the ship.

Their clinking boots maglocked to the exotic metal deck curve in strange undulating patterns as they paced through the vessels central corridor toward the only however marginal heat source.

Bodies floated crisp in the depth of space, humanoid but features were obscured by the ruptures caused by explosive decompression.

<I have a bad feeling about this…> Jarys noted as they paced ever deeper the trace orbs thrumming as it neared

It was clear they would not find anyone alive, but they might yet find a body.

They checked what few consoles they could as they went but none had power and appeared to be of a sufficiently different technological basis as to make connecting them to their own power cells difficult.

<This dust…> Valens noted his hand moving through a floating cloud of crackled dark grey hovering near what had been an atmosphere vent.
<It doesn't match the colour of any of the materials the ship seems to be made of…>

<some kind of gas or liquid fuel?> Jarys wondered, observing the mottled silver of the round thin columns.

<Perhaps> Valens replied uncertain approaching a large round blast door, the trace orb all but jumped from his hip to meet the source of the signal it sought.

Valens carefully inspected the door as Jarys watched his back.

<It was sealed from the inside…> he noted
<Stand back>

They went down five meters from the door positioning in cover as best they could rifles at the ready, the dull red glow of the Macro-maser energy primed.

<Now>  Valens ripped the door open with an adamantium aetheric grip.

A veritable tide of the dark grey dust puffed out with more bodies, their faces mummified in endless screams.  As they bounced off the pillars and roof their bodies creased in unnaturally as if they were nothing by bone and skin, all organs long since gone.

<What could do that>  it was clearly not natural exposure to void, Jarys asked even as Valens took tentative steps forward.

<We will soon find….> he stopped dead.

Shambling toward them in the dim blue glow front heir helmet lights was an Aethan woman, grey black ooze dripping from her eyes sockets, nose and ears, behind her a living throbbing wall of the grey ooze twisting into strange polyps that branched off into living pseudopods following her, others into branching cords that reached toward them. It’s own thermal heat kept it liquid in the ice of a dead floating space hulk for possibly a decade.

Whoever she had been, this woman was long since dead and infected by the ooze.

“I’m here…” its voice was a slick twisting of dead vocal cords over thin air
“Bring me home….”

Valens eidetic mind raced through the holo-perfect catalogue of different life forms he had read of in Chiss archives of the Unknown regions, only one fitted.

Mnggal-Mnggal - the shapeshifting, host taking super sentient being dispersed across countless tonnes of gray sludge like organic matter.  entire civilizations in the unknown regions had been wiped our, or subjected their own populaces to nuclear holocaust to stop the spread of the insidious living liquid that could fill a beings body consuming it from within to act as a host and spread to others in disguise.

He shared all he knew across he bond with his brother instantly, the critical piece of information was they must not be touched by the creatures natural form. Their armour wa well sealed, but the fluid creature could easily forge spike of its own body to try and pierce.

Gathering their strength rapidly both drew on the enchantments laced in their Oblivion armour plates.

Jarys armour flared with blue fire, Valens a slightly dimmer electrical crackle.

As was tradition a wife would enchant all her husbands weapons and armour, Jarys equipment naturally was infused with intensive Aetheric Fire capabilities in keeping with Kiraea’s expertise.

The darting Mggnal tendrils burnt and recoiled from the flames, but found more opening between the lighting Sofa had infused Valens armour with.

<Kill it!> Valens ordered, their fingers already on the triggers Macro-maser fire shredded the closer arms and faster pseudopods as the woman shambled forth with unnerving speed.

Relenting to the inevitable, and against every instinct in his body Valens fired direct at the woman, the maser fire searing through the hollow sack of skin lodging in the writhing ooze beneath.

The brother backed down the corridor keeping the fire constant, but the mggnal mggnal slipped around the edges along the walls and through hidden pipes and vents to lash at them from every side.

<RUN> hurling an implosion grenade Valens switching to firing with one hand, Jarys pulling his dagger to slash at the nearby tendrils the aetheric fire eating into them for a few seconds after each cut.

As fast as they retreated, as quick as they fired, as much energy as they poured into their shields more and more ooze seemed to seek them, awakened after so long drawn to their heat.

Giving up his rear fire Valens locked his rifle on his back and unleashed a torrent of aetheric fire behind him as a last ditch attempt to slow the creature.

Pursued they didn’t have the luxury of weaving carefully through the narrower sections of the corridors, instead merely shouldering them aside with aether powered tackles, Jrys bulk usually more than sufficient for Valens to slip through after.

It gave Valens a chance to dedicate one thought level to the controls of their transport, never more thankful for Adaea’s endless ingenuity he grabbed the blackstone core controls to guide the ship toward the end of the ship they had entered.

Jarys dagger never stopped moving taking the tips from the Mnggal-Mnggal feelers, Valens pistols risked overheating even in the cold of space from firing so repeatedly.  A last implosion grenade behind him was soaked up by what was now a living bubbling wall of Mnggal, a gurgling splurt as the bomb tried to twist the already formless creature inside out.

The exit was nearing but so were the pseudopods, the dead bodies they had passed before seeming to leer with the voice less invitation in their cold dry mouths to join them.

Jarys hurled a ball of pure kinetite ahead to slam the column and cracked metal ahead apart into a wide opening.  The Tof Patriarchs head on their ships prow a strangely welcome sight.

Reaching the edges they leapt to the side as Valens used his telekinetic control to fire the transports macro-maser cannons down the guts of the ship, the aether pushing them to fly off into space, then direct Valens to the hull, grasping the sleek plating as best he could before reaching out to his brother.

Jarys raised his hand not to grab Valens but to hurl a bolt of lighting straight at Valens back, blasting off a pseudopod into the frozen abyss.

Finally catching each other they bathed one another in aetheric fire and checked their suit seals even as Valens directed the transport on full reverse.

Quickly inside, frustrated, angered and messy they began the process of obliterating the derelict ship to the finest grains of dust their weapons would allow.

<<<<>>>>

Groaning metallic whines and heavy thumps announced the ship's silent binding.

They were lucky the Ebruchi pirates took most ships whole.

Their Karintha Class Transport was one of the most technologically advanced vessels the Chiss had ever produced for its size, Aethan biological tolerance for high levels of radiation meant it could feature power, cloaking, shields and weapons systems without onerous bulky rad-plating and EMR shields needed to protect less tolerant Chiss bodies which soaked up tonnage and power.

Against the vast majority of vessels in the Republic it was substantially superior. 

The reason the Chiss had to develop such advanced technology was because the predators in the Unknown regions like the Ebruchi were a match to them.

Caught in a ‘Flux Net’ an enormous intangible electro field spread access several hundred thousand square kilometers on safe hyperspace paths they’d been ripped out of the pseudo motion and their sensors blinded.

Only with the Aether did they sense the approaching Capture tugs.

Electron-cutters sliced down the thin edge of the ramp, taking nearly an hour to pop it open.

Muscular Tarro in thick flak armor tossed in stun grenades.  They were followed by four armed Morseerians.

One of the creatures peered at the two statues in the hold as they rest began systematically itemising everything in the ship.

Passing its scanner over the largest of the black statues the Morseerians blinked curiously behind its methane breather mask - there were vague indications of life signs but how could that…

Valens had jutte forward to grab the filthy creature's face and in a single exercise of his forearms muscles crush it inward. Simultaneously all of his co-species environmental suits ruptured under telekinetic blades leaving them gasping for methane.

The Tarro found themselves suspended inches front he deck their hearts pulped by kinetite fists

Jarys moved first striding straight out into the grimy cramped deck of the Pirate tug, straight into the path of six more Tarro who had detected their clansmens life signs suddenly spike then vanish.

They stared in momentary confusion as their armour lenses tried to adjust to the anti light of the Oblivion armour.

It was more time than Jarys needed to sweep his sword through the necks in one motion, and tug the rib cages of the rest apart with a clenched fist.

They had fought Eburchi and their numerous joiner races on behalf of the Chiss just before Taryn was rescued, they knew how they operated, and how best to kill them.

The tentacled face Ebruchi were a despicable multi-racial society, taking in any species as their own, using their unique gifts to their benefit, the Tarro as grunt troops, Morseerians as engineers and repair workers, Eickarie reptilians as scouts and snipers.

The tug was not large, the Ebruchi preferred a large number of smaller vessels in their raiding parties, within minutes their inexorable advance had depopulated the vessel and they were on the bridge surrounded by headless corpses. 

Valens worked quickly to unlatch the Flux-Net Ident Emitter of the tug so they could attach it to their own vessel and pass through the sector without further incident, Jarys just as technically focused prepared a parting gift for the Ebruchi fleet around them.

Transmission began to come in front of the other vessels asking for an update.

Valens followed the mental threads back in the aether and slurried their brains or filled their minds with vivid hallucinations sending them on murder sprees on their own vessels.

Jarys hit the tug’s huge external doors open and hurled with all his might the Proton torpedo core into the void, telekinetically guiding it as best as he could among the dozens of vessels for maximum effect.

<Done?> he asked Valens
<Done.> Valens confirmed as they strapped into their ships cockpits and jump started it, the Flux Signaller installed and transmitting.

A curious morseerian noticed the signal go offline then return front he tug mere second before the proton core was triggered by Jarys telekinetically.

A blue white blast struck the shields of a dozen vessels as the Tug seemed to explode from within, Valens blasting their way out, then as the Eburchi sensors were filled with radiation spikes from the explosion jumped to hyperspace, the brothers feeling only irritation at the delay.

<<<<>>>>

Some were barely the size of a thumb, others large as Grav-tanks.

All were vicious as they were feral.

The irradiated plains of the dead world were a flurry of activity for the first time in decades as cocooned Killiks awoke to the first sign of life on the planet since it had been subject to a nuclear rain that left it a pock marked lunar like landscape of deep craters filled with radioactive dusts.

Whatever war had plagued this world was long since over, the Killik Hive borken, its group mind collapsed beyond all repair by the genocide, leaving the scattered survivors -chitin dusty from malnourishment on the vast plains - crazed and primitive, drawn to the artificial light of the transport, and more so to the two living creatures it brought as the first source of non cannabilistic food in half a decade.

Back to back the brothers shredded through the seemingly endless splay of clanking claws and thin stabbing legs.

They swatted smaller ones into the dust, sent surged of lighting into the larger ones cores, sliced the bulbous heads off the humanoid sized ones.

What the nuclear bombing had started the aethans finished in three hours of slogging through the insect army, greatly assisted by the fact many so desperate for nourishment after their hibernation started consuming their own dead making them easy pickings for a Hades pistol shot to the thorax.

Skidding down the lip of one of the larger craters, a vast six legged insect leapt from a bump in the impact compacted glass soil, its gnashing fangs absent any toxins for lack of water - all flash boiled from underground aquifers long ago.

Catching their descent Jarys bashed a serrated pincer from his brother freeing Valens to cut at the join, thick ichor gurgling out.  More insects from the pits below, all showing signs of mutation from radiation exposure in bulbous cancerous growths rushed forward.  The large insect staggered slightly, Jarys blasted its tensing ‘arms’ back with a kinetic blast wrong footing it causing it to slip, its eight glassy eyes a clean target for his rifle.

Half standing they met the next throng headon, a wave of Hades fire thinned the ranks, a blast of lightning broke their center - their swords did the rest.

Finally at the base of the crater they dusted themselves off and marched on.  Both wondering when it all ended.

There was little in the crater but fragmentary pieces of whatever degenerate structures the killiks created, astounding in durability to have even survived in this devastated state.

Suit sensors detected what the men already felt, the radiation here was dangerous even for a species adapted to the deep cores extremes.  They had perhaps half an hour.

The tracking orb led them on a hard run to the rough center of the crater, the ground a cracked jagged glass.  It now guided them down.

With fist, rifle, and aether they tore at the knife like plates that had once been earth, uncovering the odd slurred piece of melted metals, calcium and carbon bubbles of what had likely once been organic matter.

A hole almost Jarys height was dug in a matter of minutes, nearly a tonne of debris telekinetically hurled to the side to find little more than an amalgam of what had been flesh and bone, tell tale heavy elements bled through it indicating the species with little doubt.

It explained the sudden piercing height then utter silence of the scream...an Aethan hit half a kilometre from a nuclear explosion, now reduced to a fragile brittle slab.

Three weeks in the Unknown regions pursuing seven signals without full sleep or rest. Over fifty hyperspace jumps to navigate the uncharted zones safely, dozens of Tof’s, hundreds of Killiks and a close escape from Mnggal-Mnggal….

And this was all they had found of any of the lost People from this side of the galaxy.

Jarys sunk to his knees, his weight cracking more of the glassed ground, and stared up at the cold orange sky from which nuclear fire had descended.

Who had launched the bombardment against the Killiks? How had a Person ended up with the Killiks? Were they a mind controlled Joiner? Had their death been a relief from the insects' nefarious influence? Or was the party responsible for this devastated world murderer of an Aethan that needed to be found and punished?

None of these questions could ever be answered.

Valens knelt beside him carefully collecting the remains, if so much compacted fragments could be called such, into a vac-canister.  Jarys took the canister to carry with him back to the ship.

Helping each other up they trudged back through the dead wastes, knowing their reward was another awakened horde of mad insects to cut through.

<<<<>>>>