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« Reply #154 on: June 14, 2018, 09:42:44 PM » |
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CHAPTER 21: Cloudy Skies
The facility was washed in red light as an alarm blared softly. Suddenly, the alarm stopped, and the facility fell silent. The giant man in his steel mask stood silently beside his slender comrade and waited, pouring his malice into the air. After a moment passed, there was a small cry of desperation, and the sound of boots on a blood-soaked floor as the prey fled. Nadia couldn’t see the dark smile spreading across Rakham’s face, but she knew it was there.
…
The thought most prevalent in Anto Gimm’s mind as he ran through the halls was simply How?. How did the Templars find this facility? How had only four of them overcome their security so easily? How was he going to get out of here? Unfortunately for him, he would only ever know the answer to the last question, and the answer was that he never would. As he ran, Anto made the mistake of looking over his shoulder. He only caught a glimpse of his pursuers before his feet caught on the corpse of one of his comrades and he tumbled to the ground, sliding through a pool of blood and landing on his back. The Templars were on him within a second. “Please-” he gasped, but before he could speak the one wearing the Mask placed a hand on his head, and with overwhelming power scoured Anto’s brain. He was looking for anything about prisoners of war, and savagely racked Anto mind until he was satisfied. He released his hold on the smaller man and spun the blue saber in his hand. The Revenant foot soldier didn’t have time to cry out before the blade came down.
…
“Dala. Dala!” Tasrii rasped, shaking her old friend by the shoulder as she tried to use Force healing to stem the flow of blood from the lacerations across the Twi’lek’s abdomen. “You can’t go to sleep, Dala. Stay with me, we’re too close to give up.” Dala’s eyes flew open, and she gasped for air. She placed her hand over Tasrii’s and added her meager energy to the effort. Slowly, the wounds began to close. “We’re going to make it.” Tasrii said, and Dala responded with a weak smile. For a week and a half they’d been held in this tiny, dark cell, and they only left it when the Revenant dragged them to a torture room for daily interrogation. That’s where they’d spent the last two hours, and Dala had gotten the worst of it today. She always got the worst of it, but they were close. The Revenant had put up a suppression field to dampen their Force abilities, but they were managing to fight through it. “Tas, I don’t have much time left.” Dala said, struggling to form the words. “Then we move today. I’m ready. We can do it.” Tas replied, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to put strength in her words. “When they come to take us, that’s when we do it.”
…
D’Aylanna, Nadia and Faradi were all standing around a holoprojector displaying a star map aboard the Fugitive. They all still bore the sweat, blood and soot of their raid on the Revenant hideout. Rakham sat in the corner of the room, an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth and a bandage over his still sightless eyes. “There’s only one place left that we haven’t hit. Rylus IX.” D’Aylanna said, tapping their current location on the star map. The blue marker signifying a Revenant base turned red. There was now a long trail of red markers across the map, and only one blue. “Has there been progress made on the interrogation, Faradi?” Nadia asked, referring to the Revenant Wraith D’Aylanna had captured. “I apologize, master, but I’m afraid not. It takes time to break into the mind of a Force lord. I would say that the subject requires another week in the deprivation tank, at least. Then the unpleasantness may begin and information will be extracted.” “We understand that what you do takes time, Faradi, and we appreciate your efforts.” Nadia replied, rubbing her temples. “Let’s get to Rylus IX and get this done.
…
The knock on the door came at it’s usual time. “Prisoners! Stand back!” One of the Revenant guards who would be escorting them to the torture room barked. Tasrii helped Dala to her feet and the pair complied. Tasrii closed her eyes and leaned against the back wall of the dark, cramped cell, and drew upon the very last of her energy and will. She felt her skin begin to buzz as she overcame the Revenant Force suppression, and a fiery heat swelled in her chest and spread to her fingertips. The doors slid open with a hiss, and her fiery eyes flew open. As usual, there were three guards. Two the doorway holding electroshackles, one standing by the control panel. Tasrii sprang into action. First, she reached out with the Force and grabbed the first guard, meaning to snatch him to the floor, but overdoing it and sending him tumbling into the cell at the same time she leapt out of it, slamming an open palm into the second guard’s chest with a brutal Force push, slamming him into the far wall. Immediately, the final guard punched the control panel, triggering the emergency lock and closing Dala in with the first guard. Not wasting her momentum, Tasrii clasped her two fists together and slammed them into the back of the last guard’s head, causing him to smack his forehead against the wall. She turned to the second guard, who appeared to be either unconscious or dead, and grabbed the lightsaber from his belt. Just to be sure, she pointed it at his chest and tapped the activation button, burning a hole through his heart before spinning and bringing to saber to her preferred low guard to deal with the last Revenant. To her surprise, the man was lying on the floor with his neck twisted at a hard angle. Must have hit him harder than I thought. She thought as she moved to open the cell door and kill the last guard. When the doors opened, however, Dala was standing over the bisected body of the Revenant guard, his lightsaber hilt in her hand. “I’m alright.” Dala croaked, and opened her mouth to speak again before an alarm began to blare. Tasrii began to curse, before a familiar female voice came over the loudspeakers. “Revenant scum,” the thickly accented voice began. “We have come to recover the Templar prisoners you hold. Your leaders are dead. Your facility is under our control. If you attempt to resist us, you will be met with indiscriminate brutality. We have already captured your barracks, your armory and your hangar. You will not escape us. You will not defeat us.” With a click, the transmission ended, and the alarms did not resume. “That was Nadia!” Tasrii exclaimed hoarsely. They could both feel the Force suppression fading, and with it’s its fading away came a feeling of chaos in the Force as the Revenant scrambled for control of the situation. Even as the suppression faded, Tasrii began to lose her grip on the energy that had empowered her, and she stumbled. “We have to find Sahka and and Stikes!” Dala said, and with a nod from Tasrii, the two leaned against one another for support as stumbled through the abandoned halls.
…
D’Aylanna moved like water as she cut through the Revenant attacking them. It was a stark contrast to the jerky, savage, but lightning fast movements of Faradi, his silvery horned helmet turned a demonic poison green by the glow of his lightsaber. D’Aylanna was one of the most dangerous women in the galaxy, but the motions she had trained for so long to carry out seemed somehow easier and faster than ever before, and she suspected that it had to do with the artifact Rakham was wearing, a dark steel and crimson mask. Even now she could feel it’s power as he fought at the other end of the facility. It was a warm feeling, that she could tell would have inspired ferocious loyalty in a weaker-willed individual. It seemed to make you want to impress it’s wearer, and then provide you with the tools you needed to do so. Brough quickly back to the present by a charging Revenant, she sidestepped his great downward cleave and brought her saber across his back, just as Faradi spun his green blade into the man’s neck. He fell to the floor in three pieces with a series of grisly thuds. The hallway they were standing in was strewn with bodies, and there were only three living souls left among them. Standing before D’Aylanna and Faradi was a terrified looking young woman with a single ring tattooed over her eye and a lightsaber clutched in her shaking, white-knuckled hands. “Drop the weapon.” Faradi commanded. Surprisingly, the Revenant girl did so, and raised her hands slowly. Faradi marched forward. “We’ve seen your records. We know you have our people here. Where are the prisoners?” “The ward is on the seventh floor down! Please, don’t kill me!” She replied quickly, her voice cracking. In response, Faradi thrust his green blade into her stomach and pulled her tightly against him, putting his head next to hers. “This is for Choh’leni, Revenant whore!” He hissed in her ear, and let her body drop, a final expression of shock and fear etched on her face. D’Aylanna grimaced as he stepped over her and marched to the turbolift dowl the hall. Just as he reached for the keypad, the door hissed open, and another batch of Revenant charged out, throwing the two back into combat.
…
“Indiscriminate brutality?” I rather like that.” Rakham said as he walked into the turbolift with his old friend. “I thought it would be nice to add a little flavor. It seems as though it worked.” Nadia replied. “You can almost taste the panic in the air, but it won’t take them long to figure out that you were making up all that about capturing this place.” “True enough,” Nadia said as she pushed a button on the lift that would take to the seventh floor, “They should be able to fix the pizdec we made of their communications system any second.” “With any luck, we’ll be out of here before that happens.” As he spoke, the doors of the lift slid open, and they stepped out. “Pizdec.” Nadia repeated flatly, and activated her lightsaber. There were at least two dozen of the Revenant’s self repairing droids marching down the hallway, their backs to the lift. Rakham drew and activated both of his lightsabers, and the droids were already spinning around to unleash a storm of fire. The red, green and blue blades were spun into walls of light as the pair advanced on the black droids, sending the cascade of red bolts into the floor, the walls, the ceiling and back to their source, knocking an impressive portion of them to the floor. They met the rest of them with fury, moving through their ranks like a scythe through wheat until they came out on the other side of the column. Already, the first droids they had “killed" were beginning to stand and fire again. Nadia cursed again and pulled a thermal detonator from her pocket. She flipped the switch and tossed it into the writhing pile of droids before sprinting off into the first cell block, with Rakham close behind. Just as they passed through the door, there was a deafening Boom!, and several chunks of twisted metal sailed through the door behind them and clattered against the wall, but neither of them noticed. Before them, bloody and battered but alive, stood their lost comrades.
…
D’Aylanna’s communicator began buzzing halfway through their fight for the turbolift, but these Revenant were a hardier bunch, and demanded her full attention. Finally the last one had fallen, and she was able to key up the device. “Rakham?” “You were starting to worry me for a minute there, Marquessa.” “Ah, it was nothing we couldn't handle. What’s the situation?” “We’ve got them. Head back to the hangar, and watch out for these damn droids.” A wave of relief washed over D’Aylanna, and she relayed the news to Faradi and they turned away from the turbolift. In the two short weeks since their friends were captured it felt like an eternity had passed.
It was a only a short walk back to the hangar where they’d left the Fugitive, but their progress was interrupted by a quickly marching column of Revenant and their droids. They heard them before they saw them, and shrank into a conveniently located supply closet. They marched past towards the hangar, hundreds of them. D’Aylanna keyed up her communicator again and whispered into it. “Rakham, we have a problem. The Revenant are gathering in the hangar.” “Alright. I’ll make the call.”
…
Two hundred Revenant Battle Droids stood in the hangar, and fifty Revenant were with them. In front Annora stood, tapping her feet impatiently until finally the eight figures they were waiting on walked through the bay doors. Rakham Crescentfall walked in front, cradling his wife’s limp form in his great arms, and at his sides were his protege Tasrii Kepressa and a Hapan woman who Annora did not recognize. Behind them, the rest of their party marched with heads held high. They all stopped after crossing the threshhold, and Rakham shouted. “Stand aside or die!” Annora laughed, a sweet, clear sound. “Are you sure that’s all I can do for you? Could I fetch you a glass of water? Give you a back massage? Perhaps arrange an escort back to your Archive? I could be wrong, as no one can be correct one hundred percent of the time, dear, but I don't believe you are in a position to make demands of me! As a matter of fact, I believe I could make demands of you, should I please to, but I don’t. That mask you’re wearing is stolen property, and I intend to pry it from your severed head!” Annorra shouted back, visibly losing her ever-present calm. Rakham hung his head low and shook it disappointedly, but did not respond. Instead, with a noise that sounded like the planet tearing in half, the Narudar appeared outside of the hangar, two gunships immediately jumping out from it’s hangar bay as the ship’s auxiliary blaster cannons began to rake the Revenant forces with fire. The gunships were upon them in an instant, their beam lasers cutting swaths through the droids before the ships sat down for just long enough to allow their passengers to disembark. Two squads of Mandalorians with heavy Verpine weaponry began to lay down fire as Sam led a small group of Templars into the fray, clearing a path between the Fugitive and Rakham’s group. Within a few moments, they were all dashing towards towards the ship, and in a few more, they were docking with the Narudar, and heading home.
…
But for two figures, the Archive landing pad was deserted, and a gentle rain fell. One of the figures wore a dark robe, and glared out from under the hood with a scarred face twisted into a grim look of concentration. In her hands, a red blade crackled and popped, not humming as much as growling. Across from her was the tall, dangerous form of Jorya Fah ni’Vih’Torr, a purple shoto in one hand, a blue saber in the other. The two circled one another slowly, until, in a flurry of motion, Jorya attacked. Her blue blade caught the red one, but before she could bring the purple one around, the hooded figure tripped over her own poorly placed feet, but instead of crashing to to the floor, she was slowly levitated down. Jorya deactivated her blades and rushed to kneel at her side. “Edda! Are you okay?” “I’m fine!” Edda replied with a raspy laugh, and drug herself back to her feet. “Thanks for catching me.” “Huh? I thought you did that?” Jorya replied with a look of confusion. “Are you two certain that it’s wise to spar with live sabers, in the rain, considering that one of you is as much a novice as one can be?” Heditt Crescentfall spoke from the shadows of the Archive entrance, pulling his hood up as he walked out onto the landing pad. “Master Rakham’s orders, sir.” Edda explained. “He said that Jorya would not hurt me, and that I could not hurt her even if I wanted to.” “I suppose he failed to consider the danger you present to yourself.” Heditt mused with a warm smile and drew his saber, holding his hilt in a low guard but not activating the blade. “Edda, when you move, don’t cross one foot over the other, instead bring on foot to meet the other, and repeat. By keeping both feet flat and near to the ground, you have much better balance, and your strikes will have more power if your feet are planted.” He demonstrated the motion before putting his lightsaber away. “Thank you, Master.” Edda said, and began to test the movement. Heditt turned to walk towards his starship, and shouted back over his shoulder. “Thank me by remembering, and I’m nobody’s master!”
A peal of thunder came as Heditt’s ship lifted into the sky, and the clouds that had been a cool but friendly grey began turning angry and black. Edda and Jorya turned to retreat inside, but before they could make it, the sound of pulse engines running full tilt split the sky, and the Fugitive lanced through the clouds, with the Narudar close behind. Both ships landed hard, and the Narudar’s ramp was already coming down. Three stretchers were rushed off, but neither of the women could tell who was on them, though Rakham and Nadia were walking beside them, with Faradi and Sam close behind. The Fugitive’s ramp descended, and D’Aylanna marched down it, looking tired but optimistic. “Mother!” Jorya called, and ran over, Edda shortly behind. “What happened?” “We found them, but other than Sahka Tekk, they are all badly hurt. Sahka just seemed… hungry. They’re trying to get them into bacta tanks. It looks like they’re going to be okay.” D’Aylanna replied as they walked towards the Archive entrance. “So what’s next?” Edda asked. “Ultimately, that’s up to your council, but Master Stark did manage to find a lead when she was digging around in the Revenant’s computers.” “Do you think we’re going to mount a full scale attack?” Jorya asked. “The only thing I know for sure so far is that Rakham and Nadia want blood, and so do the Mandalorians. They want to end this war, and they want to end it soon.”
CHAPTER END
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