What You Leave Behind

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 35 — Holiday — Part 1

Ken

It felt strange to be on the Gryphon without Ry.  He was not alone of course, with his grandfather, Julwynn and Balnard Kohl along, but still…  It had been strongly suggested by the new Kage that they all stay as far from Aertemis industries as possible after the Canto Bite disaster, which meant getting off-planet in the short term.  The only ship available that could accommodate them all was Gryphon.  Ken understood the logic, but this had been his and Ry’s ship…however difficult their first outing to Csilla was…it was still theirs.  It was hard not feel like the others were interlopers … and he missed Ry.   Terribly.

They floated at the edge of the system waiting for orbital control to upload their request of all jumps out of the system since the battle as well as a dump from the deep system sensors of all astrographic anomalies in the same time period.  They hoped to correlate the two and determine approximately where Morrigan could have gone.   It was a long shot but it was the best they could do to try and find her.

Ken was well aware that had Aertemis really taken her on one of their black ships…well there wouldn’t be much hope of tracing her at all. This was busy work to get the Mack’s and their friends off of M’tzigon and out of the Kage’s - and Artemis’ - hair…

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t put his all into the effort.

“Coming through now…” Chillum noted as R6 – Ricky – beeped with excitement to analyse the vast sums of data.

Ken checked the feed.  “Ooof…600 Terabytes….that’ll keep you busy Ricky…”  The blinking yellow on the droids main ‘eye’ indicated genuine excitement on his part.  “Try and focus on gravity anomalies between M’tzigon and the moon. If I were trying to hide my approach and departure, that's the best place to do it.”

Their ships might be invisible to normal sensors – but they still had mass and that meant gravity, however small.

Ricky blinked and blurted away assessing the data as Ken idly scrolled through the records, huge lists of coordinates and estimates of mass…till he came across one

[12.667.881 < > ERROR READING < > 38,598,321 MT]

“What the…”

“Found something son?”

“An error…38 million metric tons of error…”

Ken brought up the logs associated with it from Orbital control…it had been deleted as an obviously erroneous reading, the sensor satellite that picked it up was now scheduled for repair and recalibration.

“Bal…” Ken called out

“Yep…yep here I am!”

“How much does a star destroyer weigh?”

“Eh…ooh Imp Class 1…about 40 million plus or minus,”

“So this satellite detected something with the same mass as a Star Destroyer which appeared for 2.1 seconds and then vanished…” Ken could understand why Control deleted the record as just being a bizarre error.  In any other situation it would have been.  But recalling the Black Dagger ship he had briefly seen while working with the Sons….

“Ricky…I want you to look for only gravity distortions with a mass of 30 million tons or larger…”

The droid booped with excitement.

“The only thing that big was the Requiem.” Balnard noted, “Pretty hard to miss something that huge.”

“Not necessarily…” Ken switched to Ricky’s feed.  “Just because it weighs as much as a Star Destroyer doesn’t mean it’s as big as one…”

Chillum nodded in sudden understanding.  “Ultradense materials…it could weigh just as much but be half, maybe even a third of the volume.  A Star Destroyer sized object is hard to hide, a Frigate or Cruiser sized ship…?”

“Exactly…orbital control would write off the reading as an error because they can’t see a thing…but you can’t hide from gravity forever,”

Ricky tweeted and bounced on his legs as a summary scrolled up the screen

“Three instances…the one we just saw…another…”

“That was the day we came back from Canto Bite…” Chillum recognised.

“And the final one…about nine hours after the battle…on the other side of the system…they get around quiet in between, these signals must be when they make a Jump to hyperspace…the one in the middle was probably a micro jump to the edge of the system.”

Chillum clapped his hand on Ken’s shoulder
“Looks like you got em Son…we should forward this on to the Navy, have them keep their eyes open”

Ken considered it for a moment but thought against it.

“No…if too many people know it’ll get back to them and they’ll change tactics.  Hiding is what they do best.  We need to limit who knows, maybe just a few people, like my cousin Ellyn and Captain Nath for instance,  to keep an eye out.”

“Loose lips sink ships eh,” Balanrd nodded “I agree…anyone who can cloak a ship that big – or rather heavy - is a lot smarter than M’Tzigon military intelligence or Naval firewalls…no offence”

“Only question is where they went from there…assuming Morrigan was even with them…”

“Best lead we have son,” Chillum added supportively.

“Ricky,” Ken asked

“What planets does Aertemis have a presence on…apart from Fresia and Canto Bite?”

<<<<>>>>

Morrigan

The warmth and heat flowed all round her as she lay naked in the sands.

It had cost 500,000 of her 10 million credits to get even this mid tier accommodation on Spira – costs had peaked with the war it seemed – but it was worth it to feel sand, sun and sea breezes again.

She could hear the sounds of people chatting, laughing, living . 

For a brief moment it was as if she had been her for a thousand years, listening to the surf…but the icy memory of her prison soon returned tingling down her back despite the heat of the white sands beneath her.

Her rest broken she stood and brushed the sand away heading to the umbrella’s surrounding the beach bar.  M4 stood in a small section reserved for assistance droids, the enormous Dark Trooper dwarfing trembling protocol droids beside it.

The entire island was the property of the Luxury Hotel that towered in the centre of it, a subsidiary company of Aertemis Industries that M4 had chosen for her to stay at deeming it ‘safer’ than the others on the planet. 

The hotel was a towering 50 storey building of deep blue glass with wide shaded balconies built atop an expired volcano in the forest centre of the island, small recreational buildings, bars, gymnasiums and such were dotted around connected by neat winding paths that light with gentle blue lights at night.

Sitting down she took a sip of the free iced waters, gazing across more living beings than she had seen in one place for centuries.  Most were in bathing suits fitted to their species, a few like her completely undressed, the hotel seeming indifferent to the guests choice so long as the bill was paid.

Yet despite all these beings she still felt terribly alone, as if she were a mere observer in a holographic game of some kind…she could talk to the other characters if she liked…but none were truly real and soon she’d wake in her snow bound prison once more anyway.

They didn’t seem real because she still didn’t feel real.

<<<<>>>>

Ken

“We have very clear and strict policies Sir” the nasally voiced docking officer explained

“And I will not breach them whatsoever,”

Balnard crossed his arms with a helpless sigh and looked back to Ken who was leaning on the wall behind him at the Spira Orbibtal Customs and Check-In station 33-1B.

Of the various planets Aertemis had a known presence on that were relatively short jumps from M’Tzigon – and not in contested space – this was the second they’d looked into, Chandrilla the first under the New Republics control had only, as it turned out, an Aertemis Industries Fashion house, that apart from – according to Julwyyn – an excellent rage of high end clothes – showed no signs of Black Armoured beings of even the Aertemis Girls being present.

“Come on…I know how this works,” Balnard leaned forward,
“500?”

“Sir! I must inform you that attempting to bribe an officer of the Spira Customs and Border Protection Department can result in a fine of 20,000 credits and expulsion from the system for 5 years!”

Well…I’m already banned from Canto Bite Balnard ruefully thought on the disastrous attempt to secure the Holocron of Soryu

“I think…you should just show us the records,” Ken said finally stepping up beside him.

“Sir I will most certainly no…..”

“…show us the records, you will most certainly show us the records,” Ken pressed, mind tricks were not his parituclar strong suit, and he did question the morality of them…but he could not deny their effectiveness.

The customs officer’s eyes appeared slightly glassy for a moment.

“Sir I will most certainly show us…I mean you…the records of arrivals over the last week…”

A few quick taps and then the officer spun his screen around – it was till behind protective transparisteel that divided the officers from the travellers but it was legible if only just.

Balanrd standing closer squinted as the list scrolled.  He didn’t expect to see the name ‘Morrigan’ but he hoped for something out of the….

“That ain’t usual,”

“Got something,”

“Four days ago, ship docked on a station other side of the planet…Raider 2 Class Corvette, passenger and droid shuttled to Lysana Island Hotel…female human aged 30 named ‘Melinda Mo’ris,”

Ken chewed on it for a moment thinking back to the de-briefings after the battle of S'Kar'Yom…

“Zearics Bane…Mendax’s Raider 2 Class ship was never found was it,” Ken noted

“It just was,” Balnard smiled.

<<<<>>>>

Morrigan

An ancient riddle, if a tree falls in a forest an no one is there to hear it does it make a sound.  Sure it might cause displacement of air, a wave in the molecules…but is that a sound.

Applied to her own situation, if a person lives and there is no one to notice they live, do they exist? Had she existed for all those long years alone when no one spoke to her, saw her, even considered her?

Morrigan would not allow herself to be so vanished again, she needed to be seen, to be heard, to be…touched by more than the hulking grey form of M4.

Undoubtedly she could turn to the Aertemis girls that had released her, embodied her, provided for her…but they had their own agenda’s and if there was a second promise to herself she would make it was not to be part of anyone’s schemes or plans again.

She would find her own companions to prove her reality to herself.

Two hours in the hotel salon and a stop at the attached shop had her shining, blonde hair wafting seamlessly into the creamy silken dress as she strode into the hotel bar, lights only half dimmed, the well dressed upper class clientele blending seamlessly into the tastefully opulent furniture’s of dark leathers and hard woods.

She easily picked out the single human men among the crowd, how they flitted to and fro trying their luck with various women. 

Anyone of them would do so long as she got something…it had been much too long.

Taking up a chair she tentatively opened herself to the Force, the connection still raw at the edges but firming in the core as it healed.

She could still remember all the Songs…dark songs Dorian had called them derisively…one in particular she would use…a ‘Siren’ song, one to lure beings in, a quick and entrancing melody on her lips tuned to the beats of energy she let slip.

A few bars was all that was needed and they would come to her.

<<<<>>>>

Ken

Mind Tricks can get a Gray very far…but not past a droid.

“…have a good day,” the unmoving face ‘smiled’ as they were beaten again.

To get to the Lysana Hotel one needed either a reservation…or to book a room.

They didn’t have the former and the latter…well Ken had a small budget for expenses…but not the 100,000 credits for the minimum stay, especially after the costs incurred on his Mothers mission to Canto Bite, and with the reconstruction on M’Tzigon there was no way Er’Lav would approve additional funds to see if Morrigan was there.

He turned back to Julwyyn defeated s the next in line a Nemoidian with a hat as tall as he was pushed up to the desk sneering at Ken in his out of place well worn travelling utilities.

“No luck….” He sighed,

Julwyyn shrugged

“I’m sure Bal with come up with something…he always does,”

“Taking my name in vain?” the older man said coming up from behind with Chillum

“Bal any luck?”

“Eh’ a bit, won’t be comfy…or nice…but we’ll get there…”

“An understatement…” Chillum noted “I suggest we take a change of clothes…”

<<<<>>>>

Morrigan

Bodies warm and alive lay littered around her room in between discarded wrapper of confectionary worth more than most beings houses.  Her own was flushed and hot, wet with sweat in the humid air.

Surrounded as she was by life, as fawned upon as she had been by the three lovers she had picked out and brought here, still she was cold and alone.

Stepping over the younger of the three – was that the Banker, gym junkie or the one who had defied his wealthy family to join the police but still lived like a billionaire, she couldn’t recall.

Three nights before she had listened to their words, how men loved to speak of themselves, as she worked her song – she hadn’t really needed to, as she entered the bathroom she saw the beauty of her body in the full length mirror that was more than enough to have one of the three, the Politician as she recalled, ditch his spouse to go with her.

The auto sense tap turning on she splashed water on her face to cool down.

Did she feel more alive for indulging in the most basic of a biological beings needs for the last three, now probably four, days?

Did she feel more ‘visible’ to the galaxy…more ‘real’.

In the screaming thrusting moments where sensation filled her advanced body from tip to toe she had…

But not now…

These men shells, disposable items to be used and discarded, their gaze didn’t validate her, their affection already boring for being too easily won.

<<<<>>>

Ken

“It’s never coming out is it?”

“No son…” Chillum said voice muffled behind a handkerchief across his face

“It won’t,”

The trip was not comfy, and they needed a change of clothes in a plas-sealed bag.

To get onto the Hotel island Bal had found a sufficiently inebriated transport flyer playing Pazaak in a bar on the orbital docks between shifts, Chillum had cheated him out of a few hands with the Force, and now the pilot owed Bal 3000 credits to be repaid by smuggling them to the surface.

Of course the flyer piloted one of the many Garbage transports that took rubbish from the hotels and resorts to a recycling plant on a barren planet closer to the sun, they got to enjoy the vast empty hold that stank like a rodians arm pit on the return journey.

As the ship lifted off they moved cautiously through the largely empty staff passage ways of the vast hotel complex.  At this level they were populated only by droids that simply went about their programmed routines.

“Here!” Julwyyn whispered as they passed a large room full of hissing and spinning machines

“Laundry – staff uniforms…”

“Good…” Ken replied “Bal work out an exit but stay off the main floors,”

As convincing as Balnard could be his lack of the force meant he was a higher risk if caught out of place compared to the others who could suppress curiosity with the Force or mind trick if needed.

“The rest of us will spread out and look, we’ve got three slicers each for data nodes, use them sparingly,”

He checked his chrono

“We meet back here in 6 hours, remember Melinda Mo’ris,”

<<<<>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 35 — Holiday — Part 2

Julwyyn

She paused at the corner as three unshaven dazed looking men plodded past her, while many guests wandered around in bathers; these were in regular underwear and didn’t look like they had just returned from the beach.

Julwyyn shrugged and tapped her Housekeeping hover cart to move along.

After splitting up she’d made her way through the staff levels, following a woman of similar build she had hacked her locker open after her shift to take her staff pass and clothes, swiped one of the dozens of housekeeping sleds then checked the cleaning rota which was unfortunately absent of names, instead she squeezed behind a reception desk to slice through to get the room she needed.

She wandered carefully toward the door just as another opened.

“Oh there you are at last!” a worn rotund woman with a sunburnt face burst in front of her

“I’ve been waiting nearly two hours! Ridiculous, well get to it,” she turned to the open doorway

“Kids get moving!”

“uh I…”

“I want that refresher clean enough to eat off, And don’t expect a tip!” the woman complained pushing past her followed by a gaggle of pudgy children

Julwyyn didn’t move as the door further along that she was here to inspect opened a blonde woman stepping out.

“Well get moving, lazy staff I tell you…”

Little choice but to keep up her cover Julwyyn headed into the rotund woman’s room gloves on.

<<<<>>>

Ken

A string of beeps in Cantor- Code vibrated the comm in his pocket.
<Found – 14-52 – blonde cream dress – delayed – room check>

It was progress of a sort, Chillum had been waylaid by a Vordan couple insisting he inspect their creaking bed, his grandfather having worn a concierge’s outfit as cover now paying the price leaving only Ken to seek her out.

Walking round the airy colonnades of the ground floor that seamlessly connected the palm lined beaches and manicured jungle walks to the hotel on the look out for a blonde woman Ken began to wonder what he was even doing here.

The Nameless One, the most powerful Dark singer the Mak’tor had records of, enemy of Dorian a legendary Master singer, had been revived by powers unknown – though likely Aertemis as they had Mendax – for reasons obscure…

He should be feeling honoured to be sent to stop such a deadly and powerful enemy…

And yet…

Ken wasn’t chosen because the Kage had faith in his abilities to capture or confront Morrigan, only to get him off world because of the politics and problems his father had created.

My father…if anyone should be hunting down a Dark singer on the loose it should be him, the ‘Master Singer’…but no…he’s off to Coruscant chasing the shadows of his own paranoia….

All he’d received were increasingly troubling updates from mom by text over the last few days.

The bright sun of Spira seemed scorching as he stewed on his own resentment, blinking away the heat haze and humid air coming off the crowd wandering to and from the crystal blue waters he nearly missed the shimmer silk covered figure waft past him.

Somehow he knew…something about how she moved, how she carried herself, it was like Talia’s friends Vesi and Sophi, like the BA he had spoken to briefly on Csilla, it was elegant, beautiful, radiant…but so…

Inhuman, too perfect, like it’s by design, forced beauty…

Whatever the reason he was on this joke of a mission, he would see it through to the best of his ability.

<<<<>>>>

Morrigan

Even as she approached the attendant at the Droid Locker trembled.

M4 had that effect on people, the hulking Phrik covered Dark Trooper was classified as her ‘Personal Assistant Droid’ and stored with the other domed astromechs and jittery protocol droids.

Pressing buttons the convey belt lurched and groaned under the weight as it was released to accompany her outside, droids being banned within the hotel itself expecting for species that required their assistance for locomotion or survival.

Strolling just outside M4 greeted her as usual
[Goddess how may this unit assist you]

“Just follow along while I go for swim…” she sighed hoping the salt water would wash the emptiness away.

<<<<>>>>

Now there was no doubt at all…a hulking Dark Trooper Mark IV parted the crowd before Morrigan terrifying children and making a number of beings nauseous by its mere presence.

Ken followed at a distance weaving behind the main wake of staggered holiday makers. 

She headed through the airy colonnades to the jungle path at a leisurely pace, bare feet on the sandy path as the sun lit her hair even brighter.

Ken watched her moving from column to column, behind trees and umbrella’s wondering more every second

What in the Makers name am I doing here, why am I doing this at all…The Kage doesn’t care, Morrigan’s not doing anything evil or illegal even…

To fulfil the duty set by the Kage was the role of a knight – and yet when the Kage didn’t care, when there was no true meaning to the work assigned?

Finally coming to stop beside a small bar attended by a dusty looking droid he simply watched the incredibly beautiful Morrigan swim in the ocean, her hulking droid providing drinks and towels as she required.

As she towelled off salt water and sand she felt the eyes upon her, her Force powers regrowing day by day. 

Ken quickly busied himself collecting empty glasses on the bar as she looked in his direction, until the serving droid aghast at its task being appropriated fought to wrest one off him.

“Like what you see?” a sweet honeyed voice crooned in his ear

Ken swallowed hard turning slowly to come face to face with the Nameless One – the Dark Singer, the unspeakably evil woman who had created demented song crystals, enthralled hundreds.

And she was Beautiful.  Her look, her smell overthrew all resistance as he felt his mind melt into the sheer pleasure of being in her presence, a feeling he had never experienced except with Ry – the Chiss girl now a faded distant memory.

“Come boy…show me what kind of Man you are,”

<<<<>>>>

Chillum

Where is that boy?

In his ill-fitting suit he had gotten to where Ken had reported he had cited the woman, but he was nowhere to be found.

He tapped his wrist commlink in their variation on binary code

Location

There was no response.  Breathing out he knew he had to trust his grandson.  Ken would always be the tiny baby pressed to his weeping daughters breast to Du’an Chillum, but he was a grown man now able to handle himself, and importantly knew when to ask for help.

If only his father did too,

<<<<>>>>

Bedroom Dalliances

14-52 was a sizeable suite with one master bedroom, two living spaces, kitchen and large balcony.

There were various bags full of new clothes scattered on the lounge, the bedroom was an utter mess that held a familiar bodily scent…and in the Force Julwyyn could sense the remnants of Mating Ritual Arts as her Dathomiri heritage would term them.

Effective, but forceful they were used to subdue more aggressive males in her matriarchal society, it seemed Morrigan had her own version, somewhat more ‘lyrical’ in keeping with Mak’tor tendencies to use force songs.

What Julwyyn wasn’t certain of was if this was really enough of a use of the force to be considered incriminating.  It was certainly domineering, but no more than a mind trick, and on her own home world perfectly acceptable.

She had found nothing else untoward, no dark crystals, no lightsabres or weapons…

A sudden click from behind signalled the arrival of Morrigan, soothing whispers growing louder as she approached.

Rancors eyes! her cleaning cart was in the hall, she quickly grabbed up some sheets left strewn on the floor, some still slightly moist.

“Housekeeping!” she yelled out as the bedroom door opened

Morrigan stood in her bathing suit, her arms draped over the tall muscular young man who had lost his shirt in the turbo lift as he frantically kissed her neck and shoulders.

“Ken!” the Housekeeper for all Morrigan knew burst out, the night sister sensing the sensual enchantment upon him

“Come back later,” Morrigan said dismissively irritated at the intrusion

Ken simply rolled his head in lazy circles staring at the shorter woman with unbridled lust.

For Julwyyn there was no point trying to maintain any cover.

“Let…let him go,”

Morrigan stared incredulously, why did the help care? Why was there a tension around her regarding her intended plaything…

No there is...deception…intrigue…

“Who are you really…” Morrigan said slowly, stepping forward, Ken following like an obedient Rancor pup.

“I...this boy is marked as mine, my apologies for…”

“Night Sister!” Morrigan sensed, if only her abilities were better recovered she’d have known sooner. 

Julwyyn winced as the once powerful Dark singer probed her and Ken

“and Mak’tor!” Morrigan could curse her slow recovery

“Release him!” Julwyyn said confidently drawing her Arts into her body to prime for a counter spell

“Oh you don’t want to do that little witch!” Morrigan snapped – she might not have her finesses, but she had her fortitude of power.

“You couldn’t leave me alone could you…” Morrigan carefully stepped to the side giving Julwyyn a clean route to the door.
“…sanctimonious, puritanical sycophants, all these millennia and you’re still the same, pandering to your Makers ridiculous rules…now get out and leave me to my sport,”

“No, release him now,”

With a grin Morrigan struck.

The room lit with raw magicks, Julwyyn’s Light tempered powers and defensive charms sparking off Morrigans blasts of mental and telekinetic energy.

Pillows exploded and the bed crumpled in the cross fire.  Ken remained oblivious with a dumb smile as Morrigan hummed a tune of battle on her lips and Julwyyn recited the strongest dispelling incantations she could.

The air glowed with runic talismans of Dathomir that Morrigna unwound expertly with counter tunes  - two very different methods of wielding the force clashing and twisting around each other’s rules.

The sheets twisted as invisible winds lifted them, the trasnpaisteel of the window overlooking the wide sandy beached buckled outward, cupboard doors slammed open and shut.

Julwyyn couldn’t get an edge, her opponent lacked a certain precision but more than made up for it with raw power.

Morrigan pulsed out her song, it was inelegant, all deep bass notes of hammering intensity, but it did the job – one finally shattered the eldritch shield of the witch and slammed her backward, two more knocked her shoulders into the back of the wardrobe.

Leaping over the bed Morrigan used her meta-human bodies speed to slap the witch unconscious with a single hardened blow.

“Bitch…now you…”

With beckoning finger Ken wandered up to her.  She pushed his chest hard as she could slamming him onto the bed.

“Tell…” she passed as the inebriated male kissed and caressed her oblivious to the ruined state of the suite.

“Me…” She slammed his arms above his head, pinning him down with her weight.

“Everything,”

<<<<>>>>>

“Hey what?” Balnard asked as he finally reached 14-52, having been held up by a very irritable Duro throuple asking for directions.

The door was wide open and there were clattering sounds inside. 

He gingerly pulled his secreted hold-out blaster, crouching low he stalked into the main living area, a male voice speaking softly from another room.

As he neared careful to stick close to the walls a female voice briefly intruded as he peered around the doorway.

In nothing more than a two piece bathing outfit the woman sat astride the male who mercifully was clothed from the waist down still.  He peered closely but couldn’t make out the man’s face.

The room was a mess, he glanced across the floor, the ruined bed legs to the wardrobe where…

Jul! she was unconscious, a small trickle of blood from her left nose.

Without hesitation he jumped up
“Parties over girly,”

Morrigan leapt astounded she hadn’t sensed anyone there revealing a groggy looking Ken.

“What ‘ta….what have ya done to him,”

She sneered

“What I’m about to do to….you….”

There was nothing there…not a trace…a Force blank…

Blanard saw the momentary look of confusion he had a dozen times before when a Force user came up empty against his Force Blindness.

He didn’t waste it.  Firing he landed three quick stun bolts into her barely clothed chest, sending her writhing on the floor.

Rushing over he checked on Julwyyn,
“Lass…c’mon lass…”
A cough from her chapped lips as the most beautiful sound he had ever heard

“You alright Lass?”

“Huckkk….yes…but we need…Ken…get out…she’s too strong…”

Ken was sitting up staring at the still spasm filled Morrigan in a daze.

“Those bolts’ll keep out for…”

“unnnnggg….”

“Or not…” What Blanard had not anticipated was Morrigan’s new meta-human body being far more resilient than his stun setting allowed for.

An instinctive telekinetic blast slammed Balnard back into his wife before he could reach over to fire on Morrigan again.

“You….get….”

Two more bolts slammed into Morrigan from the side as Chillum entered.

“Grab Ken, Bal got an exit?”

“Yes’sir, taking her with us,”

Chillum with surprising strength for his age reached down and lifted her, needing the force to help given her weight.

“And hope we can….”

His spine froze in time with his rapid non-conscious movement.  Chillum leapt to the side, the Force guiding him as the heavy fist of M4 sought to remove all threats from his Goddess.

“Oh frag….” Was all Balnard could say – there was no way just he and Chillum could take down one these darn ‘Kage Killer’ Mark IV’s without their regular armour and kit.

Fortunately M4 was only concerned with swiping up Morrigan in its arms and taking her to safety.  Cradling her like the baby she was compared to the enormous machine that barely fit in the room, it smashed its way through the outer wall, its proton jets flaring.

Just lucid enough Julwyyn used the force to redirect the backwash of thrust to the far wall over Ken’s head as it escaped.

“Bal we need that exit fast!”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 36 — Home Fronts — Part 1

Karmack

The cabin once occupied by Knights Ja'Mason an Do’No’Van was musky and humid with the sweat of Karmacks exertions.

Fidgeting and restless he had rushed through his healing trance to work on more practical necessities - in this case twelve Kyber crystals floating around him, the Song resonating stronger in each orbit in front of him.

The monotony of the ‘tuning’ was getting to him, performing the same task on twelve Crystals in sequence, and worse making the same little mistake and then correction on all twelve was intensifying the itch behind his eyes.

But it would be worth it.  The Crystal Choir he was forging would channel and magnify the power of the Ancient one which alone floated in place before him at all times.

Dorian and the Other entities within the crystal might not be accessible, indeed possible ven blocking him out as they stuck their metaphorical heads in the sand, disconnected ghosts that they were, regarding the imminent threats to the living - but the Power of the Ancient one to channel and strengthen the Song was if anything greater now than before…

No…the Crystal hasn’t changed Karmack realised as small flare of yellow sparked between the Ancient One and the Choir crystal
I’ve grown stronger…Odjina’s training, the Fight with Mendax…I can feel the change in me now more than ever…Ascendant…

So deep in his crafting he didn’t even realise Alex had been standing staring at him for the better part of ten minutes.

The Younger Jedi Sentinel holding the tray of fresh cooked food both fascinated and perplexed at the Mak’Tors incredible power.  Alex had no clue what Karmack was doing, but by the Force it looked amazing and felt terrifying.

Finally Karmack opened his eyes returning from the depth of his own ascending song to the mundanity of the galaxy around him.

“Uh I ah hope I’m not interrupting…” Alex whispered

Karmack stretched out his hand, the ancient one settling back into the disassembled lightsbare that then locked together in perfect clicks and seals under his telekinetic control, the Crystals of the Choir settling in a small box.

“I’m finished for the moment, is that for me,” he pointed to the tray.

“Uh…yeah…” Alex tentatively set it down in front of the Master Singer.

Karm only just began to feel how hungry he was, grabbing the glass and gulping down the blue milk then devouring two pancakes.

“Thank you,” Karmack said belatedly as Alex continued to stare, less with his eyes than the force trying to puzzle out the strange confluence of energies.
“Was there something else you needed?”

Straightening a little Alex asked
“Well when we get to Coruscant, where exactly do you need to go? Tel’Owna was scant on the details said to ask you,”

Karmack sighed
“The Original Mountain, the Spire, deep beneath the Old Jedi Temple,”

“Jedi Temple I didn’t know there was one?” Alex asked eyes wide with naivety from Karmacks point of view.

“Of course you wouldn’t know, you’re too young…” he sighed once more “Beneath the Imperial Palace, but what we’re after is deeper, there are still ways to access it  further out, we’ll need the very deepest, the Catacombs were dug beneath the mountain by the Mack of the Tor, the Kings of the Hill, before even the Republic…I only hope they haven’t caved in…”

“Wait hold up…beneath the Imperial Palace and beneath ground level!”  Alex could hardly believe the near insane audacity of such a thing

“That’s…that’s crazy, everyone knows the further down you go the worse it gets, unstable mutants, crazed droids, the toxic wastes,noxious gases, radiation!”

“Just get me as close as you can, I’ll handle everything from there,” Karmack said forcefully
“Now unless there is something else you need….”

<<<<>>>>

“So…” Joanna drew out the vowel as she stacked the pots into the Sonic Cleaner
“Have you known Karmack long?” she asked Arnor who sat at the galleys small table shuffling the last few pieces of hydrated bantha steak around.

Arnors look was quizzical
“Known…oh we’re…I guess it never came up, he’s my husband, over twenty years now,”

“Oh!” Joanna startled in reply “Tel’Owna didn’t say…and I didn’t realize,”

“No…” Arnor said glumly “I don’t expect you would have…”
Karmack had not even spoken to her since the ship lifted off, only the strange fluxes of Force energy from the cabin were evidence he was even there - physically if not mentally.   

Joanna brought her caf over shuffling the chair closer to the obviously hurting older woman.

“I guess things have been really hard, with your planet being invaded and all,” Joanna said not needing to spell out the problem that was obvious to them both.

“It’s part of it, but even before that…he was becoming distant, more involved in pursuing…power...I didn’t discourage it, Maker knows I supported him, with the threats we have faced, the threats we now face I can’t disagree with what he’s doing but…”

“It’s the way he’s doing it,” Joanna surmised

 “It feels like he’s so focused on protecting us, he’s stopped caring about us, didn’t even speak to Ken before he left…”

“Ken?”
“Our son, a knight as well,”

“Oh that, that must be hard having your family all part of the Order, I know with Alex…we work together but I fear for him, just being able to feel the Force puts a target on your back.…I can’t imagine how you must feel for your husband and son…”

“My Father is a Knight too, I grew up knowing that each time he left it could be the last, and the Empire, the Inquisition, we could never control those things, just do what little we can to be ready to fight if they came…I stopped being afraid of what people will do to us because of the Force a long time ago” Arnor replied staring into the murky brown of the caf

“What I really fear,” she looked up through the wall to the cabin where Karmack sat engrossed in his Choir once more

“Is what the Force can do to us.”

<<<<>>>>

   
 

Er’Lav

Hand cradling her forehead after three too many meetings on Finance, Supply and an update on the Civil war, Er’Lav wanted nothing more to collapse into the frankly very comfortable chair of her new office.

She groaned when she saw who was currently occupying her chair.

“Maker, not you,”

Cha with finger pressed leaning back in the Kage’s chair had a slick smile that twisted into a faux sadness,
“That isn’t happiness to see me darling…”

She ignored that
“How did you even get in here, aren’t you on the other side of the planet with Zearic?”

“A magician never reveals his tricks,” he replied

“Tricks are all you seem to have…” she sighed, taking the chair opposite, forced to look across the table at Cha beneath the painting of Revan’s Fall.

“Sometimes I wonder if there is anything underneath, or are you just facade all the way down?” she went on recovering quickly,
“So to what do I owe the displeasure?”

“You wound me Kage, deeply…” He looked forlorn in a soap opera fashion
“I’m here to extend an invitation, President Sophi of Aertemis Industries would like to meet with you personally at her Hotel in six hours time,”

“You couldn’t just send a holo-mail?”

“I never miss a chance to spend a fleeting moment with a beautiful woman,”  he said raising his hands as if helpless, Er’lav noticing a strange shimmer about his arms as if he were not quite fully there, and between his arm and torso the lack of any indent in her chair from his weight.

Not a hologram but perhaps some kind of astral projection - Maker knew how he could achieve such a feat without a crystal or…

Then she realised, there must be some kind of device in the Kage’s office acting as a receiver to let him project his image.

That explained many many things

“And here I was thinking you were keen on Arnor?” Er’lav replied, irascible as Cha was, she had to admit she found him entertaining.
“Or is that just to make Karmack see red?”

He offered a self satisfied grin that for the first time reached his eyes 

“Beautiful and perceptive, the Mak’Tor have finally chosen their Kage wisely.”

“You truly hate him don’t you?” she said, taking a seat opposite the intruder.
“All because he killed your brother,”

Er’Lav had read Karmack and Arnor’s reports of their interaction with Namman Cha very thoroughly and recalled the more vile details of the pain Namman had inflicted on Arnor as she stared at Nimmin.

“You think I’m so cliche?” he asked

She raised an eyebrow with a withering gaze.

“And If I were?” he went on “If this is all a grand conspiracy as Karmack suspects...What would you do?” he leaned back with a victorious smile

She replied with a cold stare preferring to let him talk himself into a hole than rhetorically expose herself.

He let the silence drag on meeting her gaze with a self satisfied grin, until realizing she wouldn’t flinch he finally shifted.

“Well what reply shall I give Madame President?”

“I’ll meet with her,” Er’lav suppressing any hint of emotion he might try and latch onto for advantage.

Cha leaned forward, the oily expression he always wore slipping away revealing something almost sincere.

“This is a rare opportunity to reset another strained relationship Kage, make the most of it,”

If she didn’t know better, Cha almost seemed…concerned about improving the relationship…but then really what did she or anyone know of Cha.

“I’m willing to meet in the middle, if they are,” she added

“Sending Karmack offworld has already been interpreted as you taking a step toward that middle,” Cha assured her, his tone serious

“And choosing a woman as Kage, trivial as it may seem, carries a great intangible weight in dealing with my employers, if you give a little and personal assurances they will back off a lot,”

Er’lav took very careful note of his words, but even more of his posture, glossy and artificial as it was from the projection that was beginning to fade at the edges, whatever Force ability he used was not sustainable.

“Why are you being so helpful now, or is this another game,”

Cha shook his head.
“No game Kage, we both have a lot to lose if things sour further, your predecessor was never willing to bend on the Karmack issue so he…and too many others…broke. From what I’ve read, and what I’ve seen you won’t make that same mistake.”  his eyes squinted slightly as if he was losing sight of her.

“And perhaps I’ve simply taken a fancy to you,” - the sliminess of his voice returned abruptly, as if someone unseen had peered in and he suddenly needed his ‘mask’ back on.
He ‘stood’ but was only a torso fading fast at this point.
“A token of my admiration, your colour I hope,” he finished gesturing to the seat he had just ‘vacated’.

Stepping round to her desk she found a small pink hued crystal on the seat, fastened in a pendant on a Glimmer-Silver chain, no doubt the Crystal he had used to project himself there.

Taking up the trinket in her hands she couldn’t help but feel a spark of hope his admiration was genuine.

<<<<>>>>

     
 

Orfa

With a dull flicker the overhead shield deactivated and lowered down the crate containing the water provision for the next three days.

The riots and clashes had become so numerous the M’Tzigon guards had stopped any direct contact with the Pirate prisoners, put a shield over the top of the enclosure and limited supply drops as much as possible

The bottom of the crate hit the ground with a dusty thud.  Dozens of famished pirates stood motionless.

Guards on the catwalks above stood perplexed, usually there was an absolute frenzy to get at army surplus meal-sachets and hydration-pouches.

From the crowd six of the more muscled thugs approached surrounding the crate.

Lifting sticks from their belts and clothes wrapped in rags, lighters fashioned from scraps and lights set the make shift torches alight, they were then gently lowered onto the boxes of supplies.

The Plas-board was slow to light but inevitably began to catch, the plas-pouches starting to melt ruining the rations.

From within the crowd Orfa stepped out before the slow smouldering supply drop drop raising her arms and calling to their captors.

“Famine for Freedom!”

“Famine for Freedom” came the echo across the pirates, the echo of the latest protest spread fast and loud. 

<<<<>>>>

Er’Lav

Er’lav had never been in the Sierra-Luxe before, the thirty storey hotel with its own private docking berths was perhaps the most expensive and opulently decorated building on M’Tzigon, showcasing the best of the planet natural materials in rich brown-red woods and soft tan marbles to offworld guests.

It would cost a year's salary to stay a week here.

Artemis had booked out the entirety of the top five floors - given the disruption to tourism caused by the Civil war - let alone the Artemis Girls…talents Er’lav suspected they had gotten a very good deal.

Security was tight after the Battle, she had to show her newly minted credentials to get through and do an ocular scan before entering the private turbo lift that gently chimed a soothing traditional M’tzigon Alpine melody as the lift ascended along a Transparisteel wall, Sierra receding beneath her as she rose, the scars from the battle covered in tiny workmen and dozens of high vis yellow and orange construction bots.

Even the new Temple's foundations could just be seen from here.  A soft chime indicated the turbo lift had stopped, indeed it was so smooth she hadn’t felt the motion at all. 

A restrained but still high end entrance room was behind a man in a neat suit he looked uncomfortable to be wearing waiting for her.

Without a word he directed her through past a few doors, behind which she could hear girlish giggles, another a hushed conversation, to the living room of one of the suites, sofas and lounge furniture moved aside to make space for a large desk that Sophi was sitting at.

Taller than Er’lav with her neck length brown-black hair swept in a business fashion, Sophi had troublingly clear blue eyes that seemed to cut like mining laser through everything they caught.

And yet if it weren’t for her stern expression Er’lav could picture Sophi as the model for a cosmetics brand or fashion label, her facial proportions all too perfect and blemish free - like she was the product of design rather than nature.

Her guide closing the door behind him Sophi gestured to the chair in front of her.

“Kage we are both busy women so I won’t waste your time with pleasantries.”

“I appreciate that,” Er’lav sat briefly noting as she did a few lines on the papers Sophi had been looking at, mostly invoices for building supplies, but a few bore M’tzigon Government Seals.

“The distrust and friction between Us and the Mak’Tor needs to end...with your elevation I feel we can finally take a step in that direction.”

“With my elevation?” Er’lav was quick to note.

“We respect ability, but prefer dealing with other women...after all we’re far less inclined to get into competitions over virility and size…”

Er’lav could see Sophi was trying to build rapport, put them on the same side - women against irrational men. Even more interestingly, Cha had been telling the truth.

“We accept there has been...inconsiderate behaviour...on both sides, I hope our recent assistance with your cities rebuilding is understood as a sign of our contrition,”

Both had red in their ledger Er’lav had to admit.  Artemis' revival of Mendax, while unproven, was horrible - but still didn’t make them directly responsible for Mendax actions. On the other hand the Canto Bite fiasco was solely in the Mak’Tors court. 

The catastrophe of the Driods firing on the Knights at the Temple and Silman’s subsequent death...well Er’lav was detached enough to know both situations were murky as to where responsibility lay. 

The Military used the droids untested and too soon, but they arguably should have been better programmed, Silman had been obdurate against the Artemis agent ignoring valid credentials, but that Black Armour shouldn’t have been there in the first place. As for the Nameless Ones’ disappearance...well in some ways Er’lav considered that merciful compared to indefinite detention on that mountain top.

For the good of the Mak’Tor Er’lav couldn’t hold onto the lingering grudges.

“I’ll accept that, so what is your proposal going forward,”

“That we work together for the mutual defence of our Peoples against the threats that loom against us and our mutual allies,”

“Hard to do when we don’t know who your ‘People’ are or what they truly want,” Er’lav was quick to reply.

“Safety and prosperity, no different to you,”

“And Karmack?”

“Karmack is outside of this conversation, ever since he began taking steps into a ‘larger world’ he has stepped outside the remit of the Mak’tor and mundanities our truce covers,”

For a moment Er’lav didn’t understand till pieces began to fall into place.

“The Ancient One, his Mastery of the Song...you’re saying he’s above worrying about M’tzigon or even the Mak’tor,”

She could see Sophi suppressing an eye roll.

“It is not so simple, yet you’re correct.  There is a point at which a being can reach a level of power in the Force where their role in it changes, their considerations become far wider and yet far narrower,”

“Well if that doesn’t feed his delusions of grandeur…” Er’lav chuckled as a defence trying to understand what Sophi meant, a vague concept forming. 

Karmack had reached a new stage, his mastery of the Song let him see and understand things the majority could not, like a Seer of old he saw the world behind the world - it was a blessing and a burden.

“...what does that kind of power do to a person?” Er’lav asked mainly to herself.

“To a human? It exposes who they truly are,” Sophi replied to Er’lavs surprise,
“...and who they might be.  Karmack is experiencing that now, and in consideration of that, we will no longer hold him as part of our dealings with the Mak’tor or M’tzigon anymore…”

“But by the same token,” Er’lav leaned in now comprehending, if not what was happening to Karmack, then at least the implications for the Mak’Tor

“You don’t want us to be bound to support him, or retaliate for what you might do to him...basically if I want to keep the peace with you, I have to cut him loose.”

“Kage...Er’lav...he’s already beyond your control unless he chooses to submit,” Sophi said, not with any sinister intent, but a simple, almost sympathetic, fact.

Er’lav couldn’t fault her.  The Kage closed her eyes briefly, knowing that this was perhaps the most difficult decision she would ever face in her tenure, barely two weeks from her elevation.

And if that tenure was to last long enough to see a new Kage come after her...one choice remained.

“Alright...what happens between you and Karmack, stays between you and Karmack,” she said with a sigh, then firmed the condition.

“Up to and until he comes back to M’tzigon and reaffirms his Oaths to the Mak’Tor, M’Tzigon and above all the Maker...I can’t deny his recent behaviour shows he is tiptoeing the edge of breaking that faith...whatever new ‘level’ he’s operating on will either consume him or he’ll learn to control it, until then…”

She looked past Sophi to the dimming evening sky

“He’s on his own.”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 36 — Home Fronts — Part 2

Arnor

She stood unnoticed in the doorway at a man who looked like a stranger. In a sweat stained loosed shirt and shorts, floating a foot off the floor surrounded by Kyber crystals, Karmack appeared more like a fanatical mystic, cheeks gaunt, scars from the battle with Mednax still red and angry, than the husband, father and friend Arnor knew he was.

Was…Past tense

“Anything I can do to help?” she asked finally.

His mouth twitched, in annoyance or just exhaustion she couldn’t tell.

Blinking his eyes open he replied

“Check the seals on our Envirosuits and the personal shields are all charged, the Underlevels are merciless,”

“Alright,” she replied, turning away on the errand.  Karm felt the antipathy spike.

“Arnor,” he staggered up body weak from pushing too hard, taking her arm
“I’m sorry, I’ve been…distracted…but…” he shook his head finally able to smell just how musty he had become after a few days without showering or changing clothes.
“The Choir, the Ancient One, I have to make sure everything is tuned as finely as possible, I don’t know what we will face on Coruscant…only that I need to have the Song as strong as I can possibly Sing it.”

“I…understand,” Arnor replied nodding
“but Karm…by the Maker you look exhausted…and you stink,”

He offered a half grin
“I’ll take a sonic shower and sleep until we reach Coruscant…I’ve done all I can for now,”

A sense of relief washed over Arnor, her husband was not ‘lost’ just, justifiably, buried in preparation.

“Good, Alex says we’ll need to make a few extra jumps, the Smuggler Alliance is reporting a build up of Alliance ships near Corellia so we have to take a detour, so you’ll have 5 or 6 extra hours sleep,”

“I certainly need it,”

“You do,” she gently cupped his face, kissing him on the cheek, his lips parched and breath far from fresh before dimming the lights and closing the door with a hiss to give him privacy.

Sweeping up a bottle he drank the contents in one gulp, he would shower quickly, but there was no time to sleep - and with the Song to sustain him he didn’t need it.

The Choir was ready but there was much more to do, new Notes and Chords of the song to open, and counter melodies to the Black Armours to devise.

Everyone else, even his wife, didn’t truly appreciate the threat like he did, didn’t have the knowledge or skill to even try to resist the enemy like he had…

Maker if only he had time to teach more, to explain more…

But he didn’t, Artemis wouldn't allow that he scowled

He was on his own.
 

<<<<>>>>

Cliff

Flanked by four Sword of Light Suppressors in matt black heavy armour, further surrounded by a circles of six Power Armour marines General Elax Cliff in his own armoured Winter fatigues, dull brass stars on his shoulder the only indication of rank, walked with determination born of the need to remove a nuisance as the pirates and merc parted around him.

The shimmering electro fence reactivated behind them sealing them in with the prisoners.  Cliff would not leave until an agreement was struck.

A corridor of the wretched and damned formed by some natural process of freebooter ranking to lead him straight to the would be Queen of the prison.

She gazed down from a throne made of hunched over yinchorri and barabels, a visual sign of her dominance to use her crew as furniture.

“General,” she announced
“Welcome to my humble home, to what do I owe the pleasure,”

His escort stopped keenly eyeing the crowd about them that snarled, hissed and barked.

“We’re putting an end to this today,” was his demanding reply.

She cocked her head twirling the tip of her left lekku in her fingers

“Are we…why don’t you join me in my tent and we can discuss this further,” like a Queen of the damned she slid from her living throne as led the way to the largest of the tents, Cliff entered with two Sword of Light, his escort surrounding the tent.

“You want out and we want you gone,” he stated bluntly
“To that end I’ve chartered a private vessel, at significant cost I might add given your numbers, to transport you to Socorro, from there you can go wherever the hell you want,”

“Do your soldiers respect you, General?”

He was taken aback at the offtopic question.

“I...like to think so...but as I was saying the transport will arrive in three days to….”

She looked idly at her hand inspecting her finger nails

“I will never be respected, a female twi’leki never can be more than a pleasure toy for these thugs...if I am to be obeyed I must be feared, if I am to be feared I must be the most vicious and powerful person in the situation….”

One of the Suppressors hand moved to his holster, the other comm-clicked the guards outside in an unnecessary gesture, all ten of the escort were already on deadly alert.

“How long do you think it will be before I’m stabbed, mutilated and worse by one of the goons I’ve had to beat down and humiliate to protect myself by staying in control?”

Cliff felt his stomach sink, he couldn’t imagine life among pirates was easy for any woman, let alone a twi’leki with their stereotype of being submissive flesh trinkets.

“We can make a separate arrangement for yourself and a few others if needed,” he relented slightly intent on getting a deal.

“Oh general!” she laughed

“Do you think this conversation isn’t being overheard by the whole crew out there?  There are half a dozen species with hearing and vibrational sensory organs to know every last word, If I make a special deal for myself now they’d turn on me in a flash - and yes even with your bodyguards here - I’ve done unpleasant things to stay in power, vengeance is never forgotten, only suppressed by fear of a painful failure.”

“General…” a Suppressor commed to his ear piece
“The crowd are getting closer, we should leave immediately,”

“Neither I nor the others will ever trust you not to shoot down whatever transport you put us on, or gas us in the hold - it’s what we would do after all...so to kill two mynoks with one blaster….”

The incident was short, sharp and vicious. 

One Suppressor got off a shot that went slightly wide, the bolt bruning through the plas-cloth of the tent, Orfa used her force enhanced strength to pin the other.  The Sword of Light activated their micro suppressors to deaden the force, but it was little use  against the brute strength of the pirates that crashed in and around them.

The Marines servo powered fists, crackling with stun energy, smacked and knocked out over two dozen  goons, but sheer numbers tore them down.

His own blaster free Cliff fired on the twi’leki who dodged effortlessly then snatched the weapon from his hand with the force.

Not missing a beat he pulled his stun baton as the second Suppressor took all her attention leaping at her stun cuffs at the ready. 

She spun out and caught a baton hurled by one of her goons to take the blow the Suppressor was following up with as two more thuggish creatures with more tattoo than skin rushed in at Cliff.

With a grunting huff and weary thought he was too old for this dren, Elax managed to bloody ones nose and knee the other in the groin before numbers and youth overcame him.

Orfa duelling with the suppressor gave into her fear of being consumed by her own thralls, a surge of lighting blasting into the M’Tzigon soldiers chest sending him flying backward, clattering out of the spacious tent.

The ruckus had died down

“Join us!” she shouted across the divide between the camps.

Unmoved in their formation Nordas lifted his hand...then gilded it back down, 500 Imperial officers and troopers all sitting on his command.

He would not get involved.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 37 - Daemons Dilemma - Part 1

This Chapter is Contributed by theDutchman, another great display of his ability to paint visuals with words and keeps his main protagonist Zearic constantly evolving, oft fumbling(!), and developing into perhaps the most human of characters in the series, in all his flaws and virtues.


Day 6
As the powerful, salt-tinged ocean winds blew inwards from the S’can’Dere Ocean, large-powerful guls indigenous to M’Tzigon’s southern continental coasts soared upon them, their two-meter wingspan allowing them to glide for kilometers at a time. 

As the winds continued inland, the guls flew across the southern continental divide and along the boundaries of the Solitudenum Rift, enormous peaks consisting of the renowned M’Tzigon granite jutting up high into the troposphere, lenticular clouds dotting the sky where the strong wind currents caused the air mass to rise above snowcapped mountain tops.  Having lost much of the ocean moisture, the salty wind continued inwards towards the center of the high plateau, the granite giving way to white gypsum desert…one that covered great swaths of the plateau’s valleys.  It was here that the winds deposited the last of their salt, adding to the environment’s seemingly endless white sands.  Because of this, the guls continued to fly ever eastward, hunting and instinct having taught them that there was little-to-no food to be had here.  After all, this was one of the driest places in all of M’Tzigon.

The Osa Dormeondo Dunes.

Yet, although the guls flew by, there was life in the desert.  However, the difference here (and one that the guls themselves recognized as paramount) was that these particular lifeforms could hardly be considered “prey.”  Besides: they were the only humanoids in a land stretching for hundreds of square kilometers.

Had there been any witnesses, they would have seen these two figures fighting opposite one another.  Just as their sabers cast red, blue&silver hues across the desert, their boots and clothes were a stark contrast against the harsh white gypsum silt, both men as hard as the rock strata that stabbed through the desert sands.  And while they were of a height, that was where the similarities ended. 

One had a slender yet muscular build, handsome tanned-skin face clean-shaven showing an easy, oily smile clad in off-white robes that served to keep him cool, yet did nothing to hinder his movements, his tan boots seeming to hover just above the sand before disappearing yet again like a mirage. 

The other was much wider, heavy shoulders and barrel chest beneath a bearded face sporadically peppered with white, his own salvaged ivory cotton wraps keeping the worst of the sun and heat from him, his dark brown boots sinking into the desert floor as if the man weighed as much as the surrounding rock, intensely odd hazel eyes which bespoke of hardship…

And resolve.

...She left you behind for a reason... The words of the Nocte were burned into his mind…right next to his self-indictment courtesy of his wife’s secrets.  Ironically, both served to hone his emotions.

As they circled one another, the heat currents rising from the Dunes played many visual tricks upon the eyes, although they weren’t responsible for the dark, twisting shadows that orbited the larger of the two combatants.  As their lightsabers clashed, the shadows seemed to move of their own accord, almost as if they were living contradictions to the light beating down upon the two men.  …Apropos sentiments… The larger man thought.  The two shadows seemed to drink in the light of M’Tzigon’s sun.  Still, he could not afford any distractions; his opponent was too dangerous.

…Case in point… He told himself, his daggers automatically countering a Force Push meant to surprise him, while he furiously worked his sabers.  Simultaneously, he focused part of his attention on the double shadows circling him, creating a barrier against his opponent’s superior saberskills.  And when the time was right, those very shadows would be key in defeating his enemy.

All he had to do now was survive.

”Translating Force energy to Kinetic is known by all,” Cha's voice was no longer conversational like earlier; instead, his tone was almost...explanatory.  Of course, he still often sounded pedantic, his speech dripping with unctuous overtones. 

But not always.

“Your daggers turn the kinetic back into Force energy, that is why they appear immune from telekinesis, they switch enemy kinetic power back to the Force and only allow their owners power to move them.” He said as his saberstaff arced furiously through the heated air of the desert, the yellow-white sands a stark contrast to the light-eating, spinning daggers as they continued to orbit around Zearic's massive shoulders.

The big man didn't bother to respond.

Cha would often offer up a bit of trivia, most of which having to do with their "deal:" that he would train Zearic, from the ways of the Inquisitorious to Cha's more mysterious benefactors.  And sometimes--not often, but still with sporadic frequency--the former Inquisitor would let slip something about said benefactors.

Like now.

"Your daggers will only respond to their rightful owner--in this case, you--while drawing upon some of your more...shall we say, "base" emotions?" He suddenly disappeared again, this time amidst a torrent of spinning sand that erupted underfoot, all but blinding Zearic.  Careful of his lightsabers, he used the sleeve of his gray overtunic to clean the sand from his eyes, ears alert for any tell-tale sounds around him while he was temporarily blinded.

After a second, he reminded himself of how exposed he was.  Almost instantly, he wrapped himself in a Buried Presence technique, but not precisely what the Vhal'Dan practiced.  No, this was copied straight from Cha himself: it only used a trickle of the Force and allowed him to raise and drop it at leisure.  The best part: he became virtually undetectable, even to powerful Force users.  It was an advantage that Zearic knew would be absolutely necessary...because once Karm was empowered by the Ancient One...

Well, the large maenowan knew that the Master Singer was amongst the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy while he had the Ancient One in his command.

Giving his head a shake, Zearic moved swiftly yet silently, using the Force to subtly erase his tracks in the sand while extending his senses outward in an expanding passive awareness.  While his face was impassive, his emotions were a roiling sea of turmoil beneath a calm veneer, specifically Fear, Aggression, & Doubt.

These emotions were what controlled his daggers, each eldritch blade innately eliciting the requisite feeling to help empower their owner...as well as acting as a trap for any other person who would be foolish enough to try to claim ownership.

And if the wide Vhal'Dan had any problems maintaining those, Cha's offensive was as frightening as it was feral.

With a flashing roar, the suddenness of the former Inquisitor's overhead attack surprised Zearic, his deafening yell causing the bigger man to backpedal.  Luckily, somehow he'd insinuated his icy blue mainsaber blade between himself and the executioner's cut that would've ended him.  But there was no time to celebrate or even think: Cha's saberstaff seemed to be in a dozen places at once, each strike turned away by a riposting blue-, silver-, or midnight-black blade.

Zearic knew that Cha's blitzkrieg was intended to overwhelm, to distract.  In quick succession, several Force Pushes attempted to knock him from his feet, all but one intercepted and absorbed by the orbiting, spinning daggers.  Unfortunately, the last attempt was able to surprise him, knocking the wind from his lungs as a result.

With jarring suddenness, he found himself on his back trying to regain his senses, his legs swept from under him as he tried in vain to gulp in air from his oxygen-deprived lungs.  Before he could blink, a red plasma blade filled Zearic's vision, the tip hovering unwaveringly mere centimeters from his nose.  Looking past the blade, he saw Cha's face break out in a wide, empty smile.  "Oh, did you not mean to let that last one through?  Well, I'm certain that you'll remember not to lose your focus next time."  His teeth sparkled almost as brightly as the white sands of the desert.

...Bastard... Zearic thought, angry at Cha but moreso at himself. 

Ignoring the proffered hand, Zearic slowly rose to his feet as he tried to get air into his lungs.  After a moment, his breathing returned to normal, noticing that all the while Cha had affixed a bored look upon his face.  Unceremoniously, Zearic bent over to pick up the twin black daggers that had crashed to the sand when he'd lost his concentration.  Again.  Cha kept insisting that he needn't worry, that the daggers would respond better to instinct than any actual focus, but Zearic kept having a gorog's time accomplishing it.

Not for the first time did the large maenowan grind his teeth in frustration, overwhelming annoyance and self-resentment at his failures an anchor that refused to give up the ghost.  ...Shavit... He thought and not for the first time.

"You need to submit." Cha said quietly, suddenly, as if reading his thoughts.  "Only then will the daggers act and respond with their full capacity."  Silently, Zearic stared at the former Inquisitor.  Gone was his smile or any hint of humor in his eyes, much less his tone. 

"You are of their blood, no matter how diluted.  You are the rightful owner of the blades."  His face was blank but for the intense gaze from his eyes.  Zearic had never seen the look on Cha.  "Remember: it is you who are the weapon, not the daggers.  They are merely extensions."

Zearic blinked, Cha's words sinking in, a moment of complete candor passing between the two men.

They were not friends.  They were not comrades.  They weren't even allies...but by either the decree of the Maker, the will of the Force, or by accident of circumstances, they both had similar goals: to train Zearic to maximize in the fullest to the best of his new abilities.  The Vhal'Dan was motivated to ensure the safety of his family and friends.

He had absolutely no idea why Cha was doing what he was doing…but right here and now, whatever masks he hid behind, whatever barriers he'd erected, the former Inquisitor was stating the unvarnished truth.

Nodding slowly Zearic inhaled, thinking of his wife D'Aylanna and his daughter Jorya, of his father Kazic, of his friends Jaim and Arnor.  And, as always, Karmack.

To help his friend, he must needs be the one to save him, even from himself.

"Again." Zearic's quiet voice was full of conviction.  Without preamble, he tossed both daggers in the air, the twin black blades immediately taking up a close orbit around the wide man's shoulders, their razor edges a blur of motion.  Cha's nod was almost imperceptible but the look on his voice was one almost bordering on...respect.

Zearic didn't care; he knew that one way or another he'd pay a steep price for this knowledge...but it was one that he knew to be absolutely vital.  "Take what you want and pay for it." Kazic had told him years ago.  If what he'd bought saved his family and his friends, then he was more than willing to pay the price.

...She left you behind for a reason...

Igniting his sabers, the icy blue and silver blades hummed softly against the backdrop of the Dunes' windy sun-swept silence.  He vowed that he would not let his daggers drop, not again and not anymore.

Cha smiled, an obsequious and sickening mask firmly reestablished upon his face.  "Of course."  His voice was almost foppish with its flippancy.  But his eyes...

The mirth of his tone was completely absent from his eyes.  Instead, a dangerous look of furious resolve shone from within, a brief look through the keyhole into the true soul of the man beneath layers of obfuscation.

But it was a look that Zearic would not forget and--more importantly--would not underestimate.

<<<< >>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 37 - Daemons Dilemma - Part 2

Day 10
As the reddish-orange sky began to darken, the brightest stars began to appear in the heavens.  Already Zearic could make out Orpheus' Lyre, the largest and most recognizable constellation in M'Tzigon's night sky.  Jorya had been the one to teach him that, having learned it from time spent with Master Chillum.  It was an errant thought, one that flitted across his consciousness.

However, that didn't mean that he was distracted.

Like a dark halo shadowing his brow and shoulders, his twin daggers spun in a tight orbit around Zearic, a deadly defense that he now no longer gave conscious thought to.  It had been four days since they'd fallen from their place and during that time they'd never once touched the ground, even during his sporadic bouts of sleep.  And now he was almost ready to test out his next discovery concerning the Oblivion weapons.

All that he waited for was Cha's next inevitable (and imminent) attack.

The last he'd seen of the former Inquisitor had been almost an hour before when, after a sustained offensive that had lasted almost 20 minutes, Cha had suddenly withdrawn...but not before he'd disabled Zearic's mainhand saber. 

The big maenowan had been defending against the former Inquisitor's twin saber attack, intent on taking advantage of an opening in Cha's defense, when closed his trap, knocking his icy blue lightsaber wide and targeting the crystal furnace, his ruse only now evident.  ...Damned fool... Zearic had castigated himself for falling for the ploy. 

Cha's red blade hadn't destroyed the hilt--they were still using the "low-power" practice settings of their weapons--but the strike had managed to dislodge the kyber crystal from its housing, rendering the saber temporarily inoperable.

And so Zearic used this precious downtime to attempt to field-strip and, hopefully, fix the weapon.  The only problem was that the crystal had to be aligned perfectly...or risk a catastrophic failure, one that would result in a violent explosion.  Smiling mirthlessly, Zearic thought to avoid such at all costs; after all, he'd only just recently been given back his right hand.  It had been as inexplicable as it was unexpected yet a miracle that he'd nevertheless determined not to squander.

Giving his head a mental shake, he focused on the problem at hand.  It was only the latest in Cha's training: distract, regroup, surprise...always keep your opponent off-balance, never be predictable. ...Well, he's for being unpredictable... He mused, surreptitiously gathering the Force around him.  What he attempted next was done as clandestinely as he could possibly manage.

...Slow is smooth and smooth is fast... He repeated like a litany, from one of the very first lessons that Kazic had taught him after finding him on Dalos IV.  His daggers spun around him unnoticed, only an iota of awareness of their existence in the back of his mind.  Using the Force, Zearic carefully opened the saber's furnace housing the crystal.

Sure enough, he could see even in the fading evening light that the crystal was misaligned, the permafrost kyber scintillating light from within.  It would take several minutes to fix, during which time he'd be completely exposed.  In other words: the perfect time for an ambush.  ...Sometimes you've got to roll the hard twelve... He thought, a grim smile barely turning his lips.

Slowly, deliberately, Zearic used the Force to first withdraw the icy blue crystal from the hilt while simultaneously creating an invisible barrier ensuring that no sand or other foreign object would soil the lightsaber's furnace aperture. 

Inspecting both the hilt and the kyber, he was satisfied that everything was as good as could be.  Now came the hardest and most delicate part: reinserting the crystal correctly to ensure proper flow for the plasma blade.  If done correctly, the weapon would function as intended; if not...

Well, if not then he'd have to get used to another less-than-perfect cybernetic replacement, one made all the more deficient by his body's innate rejection syndrome.

...Slow is smooth and smooth is fast... He breathed, the permafrost crystal hovered between the two contact points, the most delicate part of the process...

Which was precisely when Cha attacked.

With the former Inquisitor's Buried Presence sloughing off, he was already in mid-swing with both of his sabers--having separated his saberstaff for more flexibility--intent on catching Zearic preoccupied with his repairs.

Time seemed to slow, details revealed in crystal-clear acuity for both men: Zearic kneeling on the ground, his mainhand saber in front of him, Cha striking above him as both blades scythed through the air between them.

The plan had worked perfectly...for Zearic. 

Release

The large maenowan's mental command took effect in-between the seconds of Cha's flawlessly timed attack, a commitment that even his Shatterpoint-enhanced body (again courtesy of his mysterious benefactors) could not disengage from.  As the twin red blades arced through the air, Zearic's mainhand saber disappeared, or rather seemed to instantly move a meter above its original position.  He hadn't teleported the saber; that would've taken too much of his reserves.  It was another trick from Cha's own repertoire of powers that Zearic had learned, and now adapted.

Force Illusion.

But that had only been the bait.  Having given the mental command, both of Zearic's daggers released their stored Force energy in a potent kinetic wave of Anger, Fear, and Doubt--all of their owner's "base" emotions--catching Cha completely unaware.  Even for as swift as Cha's considerable defenses were, he was unable to block most of the wave's energy.

With the extra time afforded him courtesy of his surprise attack, Zearic was able to finally align the crystal within the furnace while simultaneously propelling himself forward after Cha, his silver shoto in one hand while catching the Nocte before it dropped to the desert floor in his other.  Even as the Tenebrous fell impotent in the sand, Zearic had already covered the distance between himself and Cha, the former Inquisitor desperately trying to clear his head from both the kinetic wave as well as the antagonistic emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

In one smooth motion, Zearic tossed the Nocte back into the air, the deadly blade already beginning to spin around him again as it fed from his aggression, while his silver shoto arced through the air towards Cha's throat.  Zearic allowed himself a grin as his mainhand saber fell into his open hand, allowing him to immediately ignite it.  Stabbing the icy blue blade into the former Inquisitor's chest, the big man smiled widely...

...Only for his blade to pass through nothing but vacuum, leftover from Cha's Teleportation.  Zearic knew that doing so required an incredible expenditure of Force energies, especially for an entire body.  It was a desperate move: even though the former Inquisitor had shunted himself a single meter to the right, the big maenowan could see the strain evident on his face.

It took only a split second but Zearic knew that it was he himself who was now exposed.  He acted. 

With only centimeters to spare, he was able to instinctually block the red blade of Cha's saber, one that he'd somehow managed to hold onto.  Moving again by instinct, Zearic flowed to the right, bringing both sabers to bear against his opponent.  As an adept Jar-Kai practitioner, Zearic should've had a distinct advantage over the man and his single lightsaber.

But, try as he may, Cha's reflexes were even faster than his own newly restored body's, the former Inquisitor's strength greater than his own.  He'd always been strong--especially as he'd needed to adapt to his cybernetics--and his restoration had only supplemented that strength further.  Not that he'd have beaten a Wookie in an arm wrestling contest, but he'd always had a baseline higher than average...and with his new limbs and Force strength, his body had likewise been augmented.

Cha was somehow stronger still.

All of this went through Zearic's head in an instant.  He knew that he could not overpower his opponent with brute force; he'd have to be smarter.

Wrapping himself in Buried Presence, he gambled.  With that last move, Cha's Force reserves would probably be close to depleted, hopefully giving the large Vhal'Dan the edge he needed.  Drawing as much of his own reservoir as he could, Zearic focused first on himself, then Cha.  As the veil of his Buried Presence dropped, Cha was already in motion, his superior speed and strength powering his attacks, even knocking the Nocte away, an offensive that Zearic had no chance whatsoever of countering.

Which was why he hadn't even bothered trying.

Despite his obvious exhaustion, Cha's lips parted in foppish laughter, his saber blade arcing toward Zearic's head, stomach, and then shoulder believing that there was no way possible for the wide man to avoid or block the former Inquisitor's increasingly swift attacks.  And Cha would've been precisely right...if Zearic had actually been there.

When the large maenowan had dropped his Buried Presence, he'd actually done so for the Illusion-double that he'd made of himself.  While the effort had taken everything that he'd had--including the power stored in the Nocte--Zearic was able to maintain the ruse long enough to flank the former Inquisitor.  As Cha delivered what he expected as the "killing blow," he felt two unexpected and unpleasant sensations: the first being that his saber blew through the Illusion absent any substance to halt his strike and, as a result of subsequently overextending himself, the second was when he felt Zearic's now visible blue blade tap the side of his neck.

It was the first time in almost a week that Zearic had come out on top.

As Cha's eyes met his own, Zearic saw a flash of the man underneath the oily facade: a dangerous glint of sadistic fury tempered with shock and annoyance passed across his face.  "Well now that was interesting." Even his voice lacked any of the characteristic effete tones that he often affected.  Turning, he closed down his lightsaber, eyes weighing Zearic.  "Stabbing a man in the back isn't very 'knightly' of you."

"No, it isn't." Was all that the larger man said as he extinguished his own sabers, hanging them on his belt while fetching both of the Oblivion daggers where they had fallen in the sand.

By the time Zearic had holstered both midnight black blades in the cross-carry belt, he was surprised to see that Cha had made a fire with two sets of rations and water arranged opposite one another.  Without comment, Zearic sat by the comfortable blaze, tearing into the rations and canteen, all the while fixing the cotton wraps in order to help cover his head and shoulders.  It was almost comic how small the head scarf looked on his broad, thick shoulders but it served its purpose.

With night falling in earnest, both men ate silently, taking measured drinks from their respective canteens.  The stars shone brightly in the moonless M'Tzigon sky, giving Zearic the impression of a stargazing outing.  Suddenly wistful, he closed his eyes, thinking of his wife and daughter.  Wordlessly, he prayed to the Maker that they were safe, in good health, and that he would be able to see them soon.  The silence of the night descended upon them like a blanket.

Only to be shattered a moment later.

"My brother loved astronomy and loved to teach it." Cha's sudden voice broke Zearic's reverie, despite being just above a whisper.  "He taught me all of the constellations seen from Prakith: The Rancor, The Gualaar, The Maid & Knight-Errant... One every night, for 103 nights straight...one for every constellation." He reclined on his elbow, one boot easily balanced on the toe of the other.

Zearic blinked.  Cha actually sounded nostalgic.  It made the former Inquisitor sound almost...human.  ...Don't be fooled...he's a gundark in a bantha's hide... He was forced to remind himself.  Still, his curiosity got the better of him.  "Your brother?" He said between bites, loosening his tunics, trying to relax strained muscles and aching limbs.

Cha nodded absently, his eyes seemingly lost in his memories  "Namman was always looking towards the stars, always saying how he'd join the Empire and 'make a difference,' promising a 'better future.'" He barked a scoffing laugh.  "Always reminded me of a COMPNOR recruitment holo-advert... 'Loyal?  Prove it!'" He chuckled this time, shaking his head slowly.  For a time silence pervaded camp, not even the desert fauna making any noise.

Quietly, Cha suddenly sighed, his face suddenly becoming hard.  "He was such a kriffing pfassk.  Always goading me...nothing I did was ever good enough."  His hands were balled into fists.  "He was always smarter, stronger, faster...better.  And he never let me forget it.  Not once, not ever.  I hated him."  He let a slow breath out through gritted teeth.  "I loved him." The last came out as a whisper, so quiet that Zearic wasn't certain that he'd intended to be heard. 

But he had.

Cha continued.  "I followed him into the Inquisitorious, not because I wanted to but because I thought I should...Namman had done so; isn't that what a good brother was expected to do?"  Staring into the sky, the firelight dancing across his face, Zearic could see that--for the first time since meeting him--Cha was absent all of his masks.  Saying nothing, the big man listened.  "We fought together, we fought each other.  But we always were family, always together, always one... Not even when Lord Vader died, the Empire collapsing around us giving rise to pretend warlords and would-be conquerors, not even then did we leave one another..."

The muscles of Cha's jowls rippled in the firelight as he clenched his teeth hard.  "And then, without any reason nor detail, I was informed that Namman was dead."  Despite his even tone, Zearic could hear the fury in his voice.  "It wasn't until I was serving my current employer that I even learned of the circumstances surrounding his death..."

With his curiosity piqued, Zearic asked, "Why Artemis?"  There was so much more that he wanted to know, that he had to know(!), especially if he was to somehow keep his family safe.

...She left you behind for a reason...

Cha's gaze fell onto Zearic's face--and through Zearic--before he answered.  "For two vows - they gave me everything that I'd ever wanted."  He sounded honest enough but there was a sharp bitterness to his words one might interpret as regret.

Zearic thought about whether or not to ask just what those "two vows" could be, but decided against it: as if reading his mind, Cha's face suddenly changed, mask once again firmly in place.  "Ah, but to live amongst the gods--even at their feet!-- is better than being in their way."  His ingratiating tone dripped of glibness.

Zearic knew that the moment had passed.  At least for now.  "Right." He whispered, his trepidation for his family renewed.  Finishing his ration, he put the other bars away in an inner pocket of his tunic, replacing his canteen in his pack. 

He glanced towards Cha.  He appeared fast asleep, his breathing slow and deep. 

He'd learned much...but wanted--needed!--more.  Casually, he threw both daggers up, giving into his instinct and unconscious control as they took up their protective orbit around his shoulders.  Not for the first time, he rested his chin upon his broad chest, settling in for another night of sleeping upright.  The last thoughts before sleep took him were of his family.

He would find a way to keep them safe.

Somehow.

<<<< >>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 37 - Daemons Dilemma - Part 3

Day 14
Under a cloudless azure noontime sky hot winds drove stinging sands in sporadic gales, blanketing the entirety of the Osa Dormeondo Dunes.  Although not quite a sandstorm, these events were frequent enough so as to obfuscate the local area from the watchful eyes of the large scavenger birds that frequented them.  However, that was not the primary reason why this particular area of the Dunes was home to many of the indigenous animals of the region; it was due to one almost universal necessity that most sentients throughout the galaxy needed, oftentimes fighting (and even dying) over.

The deep waters of the Y'Psilanti Oasis.

This far inland where water was increasingly scarce and that much more precious, was home to one of the main underground aquifers that finally breached the surface rock of M'Tzigon's notoriously hard and dense granite.  The baking sun would heat the exposed granite fingers as they protruded from the desert floor, hot air radiating from them creating many a mirage.

However, unlike the phantom mirages of myth, the Oasis provided enough continuous water year-round for vegetation to take a hold, providing the local fauna with a plentiful source of flora bearing nutritious desert fruits.

Which, for Zearic, was absolutely Maker-sent.

He'd exhausted his store of rations three days before; he'd drank the last swallow of his canteen last night before last.  For the hungry and thirsty Vhal'Dan, the Y'Psilanti Oasis was a literal paradise.

Still, he did not simply run out to the largest of the ponds nor did he indiscriminately grab at the bulbous, brilliant red fruit hanging from the mangrove trees straddling the waters.  He knew that Cha would've set traps for just that reason.  No, he needed to think smarter.

Apropos of such, he stood motionless, all but invisible within the shroud of his Buried Presence, his ever-present unseen Oblivion daggers silently orbiting above his head.  Much like Cha, Zearic was now able to "pulse" his Force consumption, making the most of his increased strength and stamina...which was all for the good since Cha was still somewhat stronger.

Yet next to Karm and the Ancient One, even his newfound strength would not be near enough.

The only way to even attempt to match the Master Singer would be to utilize his daggers to the best of their--and his--abilities.  He hoped that they would be able to mitigate most of the power that the Ancient One provided Karm.  With that done, then their strength would be almost equal.  So controlling his emotions would be more important than ever, ensuring his full focus to power his Oblivion weapons...but his mastery still wasn't perfect.

He would have to change that if he hoped to ever face Karm and live.

But first, he had to take care of the needs of his body.  Extending his Force Senses outward, Zearic passively scanned the Oasis.  Aside from a few birds and small desert rodents, he could detect no other living things, even those that may hide amongst the blowing sands.  Grateful for the layered cotton wraps and headscarves, he was able to breathe through even the worst of the gales, to say nothing of the oppressive heat of the sun overhead or the blast-furnace that was the desert proper.  Also thankfully, his tunics kept the worst of the heat at bay, the hardy synth-cloth able to resist both the harsh heat of the day and the chilling cold of the night.

For a verdant, beautiful alpine world, M'Tzigon's Osa Dormeondo Dunes were as deadly as any Tatooine summer during the day or Hoth winter at night.

And unfortunately he still required water.

Dropping his Buried Presence, Zearic made careful his approach to the Oasis' waters, discerning gaze trying to see everything around him.  Even with the blowing winds subsiding, it was still difficult to see anything beyond a few meters.  Besides, he still didn't sense anything larger than a rada-cat around the Oasis.  ...Nothing ventured, nothing gained... He thought to himself as he carefully waded into the largest of the ponds to his waist, the water cool and inviting.

Maintaining his due diligence, he grabbed his canteen and submerged it into the large pond.  As the water filled the canteen, internal filters purified it, making it immediately potable.  Before it was even half-full, Zearic's immense thirst got the better of him.  Upending the canteen he took a long, gulping drink, pulling as much water through the neck of the container.

The water was both delicious and refreshing, slaking his thirst with each swallow.  Thankful to finally be able to refill his canteen, he submerged it again while keeping a watchful eye around the Oasis, the mangrove trees too sparse to hide anything larger than a rodent.  Certainly not enough for Cha to u--

Something suddenly grabbed his arms, viselike grip making escape impossible.  Before he could act, Zearic was pulled down into the deceptively deep water, the cool pond rushing in over his head as he sank downward.  Fingers of durasteel encircled his throat, his broad back finally hitting the pond's silty bottom as underwater sand churned the blue waters murky.  Panic crushed down upon him, all cognitive thought forgotten, claustrophobic silence save for the muted currents that his boots made as he sank further downward as Cha continued to squeeze.

His sight began to shrink, first around the edges but soon becoming a tunnel, the light at the far end growing ever further away.

...Stop...!...Think...!...Act...!... A voice in the back of his mind--one that vacillated between sounding like D'Aylanna's and Kazic's--cut through the panic.  As blackness continued to compress down upon his consciousness, his coherent mind was shunted aside, the instinct of his ancestors rushing to the forefront as an intended survival mechanism, one fabricated by genehancement ...my daggers... It wasn't so much a deliberate command but rather the cognitive interpretation of primal intent.

He sensed more than heard or saw that Cha's body shook as if impacted by something, his fingers finally releasing their quadranium-like grip as the former Inquisitor disappeared from the water.  Lungs burning, Zearic desperately pulled his booted feet under him and, with a powerful explosion of his legs, propelled himself towards the pond's surface.  As his head broke through the water's top, he inhaled deeply, sweet, clean, blessed air rushing in.  Thankfully the wind had stopped blowing so fiercely leaving only a cool breeze.

Trudging over towards the edge, coughing and gulping air, the big maenowan grabbed one of the head scarves floating on the surface before collapsing into a crumpled mass, half in the water, half in the sand.  For long moments he did not stir, save for his ragged breathing.

"Get up." Cha's tone was stoic and pitiless with an undercurrent of pain.  "Now."  He hit Zearic's hip with his boot, not hard but certainly not gentle.  He wanted nothing more than to just lie there but something deep within him drove him to rise.

Coughing, Zearic slowly stood on his feet, still shaking and unsteady.  "Frell you." His voice was vehement and quiet.  "You almost drowned me, you bastard." He coughed again as if to punctuate the event.  But he continued to stand.

"And now you'll be more careful of traps, maybe you'll be more creative in planning them yourself." Even though Cha's words were flippant, his tone was dangerous.

"Are you kriffing kidding me?" The Vhal'Dan spat on the ground.  "I'm barely standing..." The anger in his voice burned hot as he stared blaster bolts at the thinner man.

To no effect.

"If you're not dead, you fight." Cha stood rigidly looking unconcerned.  "If you can't use your legs, use your hands; if you can't use your hands, use your teeth."  Yellow eyes bored into hazel as Cha stepped forward, a half-meter separating the two men.  "If you can't use the Force, use your head; if you can't use your head, use your instincts."  As if to emphasize his point he turned around, showing Zearic his back...



...Where, blade buried halfway, the Nocte protruded from his shoulder.  "Which is a lesson that I'd say that you've learned well enough."  There was no anger in his tone nor any hint of accusation, to say nothing of his characteristic foppishness.  If he had to guess, this was Cha completely absent all of his masks.

Zearic had to admit that whatever else Cha affected, it was his dispassionate apathy that he found the most disconcerting.

Without a word, he grabbed the Nocte by the hilt, carefully withdrawing the deadly blade, blood beginning to pour forth.  While his own abilities with Force Healing weren't as bad as his father Kazic's had been, he was still far from adept, less so any sort of expertise.  Nevertheless, Zearic directed what meager Healing he was capable of into the gaping wound.  After a moment with the blood staunched, he took out one of the strips of poly-bacta he'd recovered from his tunic's inner pockets and applied it to the wound.



That done, Zearic looked around, "feeling" for the Tenebris.  He was unsurprised that the larger dagger hadn't readily responded to his commands; unlike the Nocte, the weapon hadn't been specifically given to him.  Still, after these last few weeks of training, he'd mastered the dagger more than any of its previous owners, no doubt courtesy of his heritage no matter how diluted.  After several seconds, he sensed the dagger towards the edge of the pond.  Lightly coughing, he reached into the water, withdrawing the midnight-black Oblivion weapon, the twin edges dulling even the daytime brightness.

It was then he found himself face down in the wet sand, angry and confused.  That bastard Cha had attacked him!  He was lucky that he hadn't landed on the Tenebris when he'd fell. 

With growing fury and indignation he jumped to his feet, assuming one of the advanced Vhal'Dan Pankration katas.  From this position he could either defend or attack, both from a position of power...

But as his eyes fell upon his opponent, he paused.  Cha sat in the sand, casually straightening his damp robes, an expectant, serious look upon his face.  With his guard still up, Zearic stared at the former Inquisitor, waiting.  Cha did not disappoint.

"Never drop your guard around your enemy.  Never turn your back to your enemy...to anyone."  Anger and another emotion that Zearic couldn't identify distorted his entire face.  "Never, ever assume that anything short of crushing your foe entirely will be the end of any contest..."  His eyes shone brightly.  "...Even if they be your 'friend.'" He practically spat that last part.

While his anger cooled, Zearic no longer saw red when he looked upon Cha.  As much as he was loathe to admit it, he had a valid point.

Saying nothing, he retrieved his canteen, filling it to the brim, all the while keeping Cha in sight.  Taking a place opposite the former Inquisitor--several meters between them--Zearic picked two of the largest desert pears from the mangrove branches.  Taking a seat, he indifferently tossed one of the fruits to Cha.  Even though he easily caught it, Zearic saw Cha's eyes widen almost imperceptibly in surprise.  "You're right." He admitted.  Cha then nodded as if he'd been told that water was wet.  ...Kriffing bastard...

As Zearic ate the pear, he was reminded of an Anzati anecdote that Kazic had once told him: "The tempered sword is grateful for the strengthening fires of the forge but not necessarily happy with them."  He finally knew what his adoptive father had been talking about.

As well as the obverse: he needn't be happy for a harsh lesson learned.  Chewing the fibrous flesh of the pear, Zearic stared at Cha, the former Inquisitor's face completely blank.  A harsh lesson indeed...

But learn it he had.

By the time that he was ready to move on, the hot sun had completely dried his clothes.  Taking several of the shriveled, sun-dried fruit for later, Zearic stored them within the deep, inner pouches lining his tunics while continuing to eat more of the just-ripened pears from the trees.  Rewrapping the scarves around his head and shoulders, he noticed two things: the first was that the sand gales were beginning again.

The second was that Cha was nowhere to be seen.

...Of course... Zearic sighed.  His father's words echoed in his mind.  Grateful...but he need not be happy about it.  He thought of D'Aylanna, of Jorya... By the Maker, he even thought of Karm; no...especially Karmack.

And he would do anything to keep his family safe.

...She left you behind for a reason...

Zearic's eyes scanned the sands around him, several blasted rocky granite anticlines stabbing up through the desert floor, the blowing sands both concealing and exposing.

...Bring it on you bastard... He thought, his hard face etched with conviction.  Anything for his family.

Anything.

<<<< >>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 38 - Flight or Fight - Part 1

Morrigan

Her hand hovered above the Qixoni crystal on the workshop desk, surrounded by various polished pieces that could build a lightsaber in a variety of configurations.

The crystal held potency and power…raw anger denied satisfaction from the previous owner, mingling despair turned to sadism in the owner before that…a storied thing that one day she could create something spectacular with…

But she was still not yet recovered enough to do so even if she had the time….she needed Dark Crystals to protect herself from the Mak’tor…

After M4 had whisked her off there had followed a cacophony of errors as the Hotel managers tried to work out what had happened.  She had explained her room was invaded by four people dressed as staff, all of whom had been waived through by a guard claiming to head to the hospital – none had arrived of course.

There followed copious apologies, a full refund and vouchers for a years stay in one of the most opulent suites…but the brief holiday was over, spoiled by the Mak’Tor sniffing.

And so she stood before the Qixoni gift of her benefactors contemplating all the little boy had told her once suitably ‘inspired’

”my father, Karmack is the Master Singer wielding the Ancient One…he’s looking for the Starfire, he was so angry when he heard you escaped….”

She vaguely remembered Karmack from her time as a shade, less explicit details than a sense of a puritanical certainty about him - exactly the kind of man who would inevitably come for her - and she was far from ready – yes her abilities were recovering but still not enough.

She needed Dark Crystals fast - the Qixoni would be perfect for such if only she were strong enough - better even than the ones she had made so long ago before Dorian had defeated her and destroyed them…

Or would he…

Dorian’s greatest failing was his belief that people needed to be and in their ‘hearts sought redemption in the eyes of the Maker’

She sneered in incredulity…might he have kept her crystals in ‘hope’ she would turn from her ways…that was why he trapped her for millennia…though she doubted he had intended it to last that long.

“Of course you would keep them wouldn’t you…you couldn’t bring yourself to destroy me, you wouldn’t destroy them…but where would you hide them…”

She hopped into the work chair leaning back thinking out loud

“Not Coruscant…not M’tzigon….where would you bury the belongings of a ghost old Fool…”

<<<<>>>>

Ken

“…on….son….”

Eyes heavy as lead in deep water threatening to sink him further Ken struggled to rise himself to the surface.

“Son…” there was genuine worry mingled with exhaustion in Chillum’s voice.  The escape from Spira had been a messy affair – the chaos of a Mark IV dark Trooper punching through wall had distracted security for the most part, between them Balnard and he had been able to shuffle out with Julwyyn and Ken, with a little Force suggestion to the first Security guard to arrive Chillum had told them they were injured in the blast and were taking them to the onsite hospital.

The Guard had no reason to doubt it and let them pass, then followed a rapid backtrack to their gear and out the way they came….

That familiar smell, more than his will, broke through to wake Ken up.

“gah….that….”

“Thank the Maker Son!” Chillum sighed trying not to breath too much of the garbage about them in.

From his check with the force Ken seemed fine physically, his mind simply befuddled by Morrigan's powers.

Ken sat up quickly placing his shirt over his face for some protection from the fumes in the dark cramped garbage hold.  Balnard and Julwyyn in the other corner.

“What do you remember son? Anything?” Chillum asked after giving him a drink.

“Everything…the beach…she came up to me and…”
“Julwyyn said you were in a trance, not your fault son,”

Ken stared into the empty black about him. This was not the first time he’d had his mind toyed with…used…by someone for their own purposes.  Bitter experience meant this second time was easier for him to deal with.

“I know…the things I did…felt like doing with her…” Ken shook it off…fortunately it didn’t go too far before Julwyyn arrived…at least not in a way that would betray Ry…no, he had betrayed the whole Order under the compulsion.

“…things I told her…when she realised I was Mak’Tor she wanted to know everything and, and I told her – who the Kage is, how many knights, why I was here, and…Morrigan wanted to know about the master singer…my father…”

Chillum was not surprised by the information delve, nor that Ken had yielded the information so readily, Morrigan was the most powerful Dark Singer in Mak’Tor history, even Chillum could not have resisted her enthrallment.

He felt a wave of regret sweep off Ken – yet not related to his disclosures…his grandson sat silently intensely thinking as the ship shuddered, no doubt hitting the gravity break point.

“What is it son?”

“I think…no…I know we’ve made things worse – Morrigan didn’t control me because I was Mak’Tor – she just wanted a boy toy for the afternoon – I don’t think she had any intention of making any moves against the Mak’Tor at all to be honest…but now…”

He shook his head so as to not curse his father in that moment.

“I told her about Dad…about how he went off in a frenzy to find the Starfire to destroy her and Artemis…I think telling her that is what will make her justifiably paranoid…Maker…Pa - we should’ve left well enough alone…”

Chillum leaned back contemplating.  What Morrigan’s intentions were before, power, revenge – well that was exactly what Er’Lav had nominally sent them to discover…but now in the process of observing the situation they had changed it, and not for the better.

He nodded proud at Ken’s deduction and clear thinking even after such a heavy mind altering experience.

“I’m afraid you’re right…”
 

<<<<>>>>

“Ossus…” Ken said looking over his grandfathers should as they read through the Testament and Teaching of Do’Ri’An’Xandir looking for any clues on where Morrigan might head next.

While they had not detected Zearic’s Bane leaving the system they knew it was only a matter of time.

On Ossus Dorian had, according to legend hidden away the Nameless One’s dark crystals after her defeat in the hopes one day she would reclaim them in service to the Maker…

Now it was more likely than not she would try and reclaim them to protect herself from Karmack.  The problem was the location of Ossus had been lost of the better part of the last Millennia.

Ken stood back arms crossed as he thought

“We need to get a tracker on her ship before she leaves…that means getting to the orbital she docked and getting to her bay…given she’s seen – and sensed - all three of us  on Spira…Bal….”

Balnard gave a wry smile

“Righto I’ll get the job done, might need to borrow Ricky though”

<<<<>>>>

Morrigan

Clean was the best way to describe them…too clean.

The Spira Trade Guild Orbital station featured an impressive, and surprising array or Bodyguard and Private Security services, all with slick holo-ads in front of their shop showing heavily armed star ships blasting ragged pirate ships apart, mannequins dressed in clean lined polished armour to show off their wears, display cabinets full of weaponry, and framed photos of founders listing military records for the ‘Empire’, ‘Republic’, ‘Confederacy; various other companies and independent sectors, one for a Feeorin even noted experience stretching back to the New Sith Wars.

Strolling along she curiously observed the clientele – dressed in upmarket and fashionable outfits they chatted to receptionists and sales people about ‘protection while on holiday’ or need to ‘secure transport of my stock trapped Taris’

For these people the galactic war between the Alliance and Empire was an inconvenience to their privileged lives that required them to pay extra to go about their jet setting lifestyle, and the crisp commandos for coin provided the lubrication needed to ensure they weren’t ‘put out’

Lost in her wandering she only just realised she felt the heat of eyes on her, glancing about carefully she noted a man in dusty grey armour with a scowl instead of a face unkempt rough dark brown hair and stubble but unusually light and soft looking skin that bore none of the scars that covered the armour.

She ignored him for now, she’d been getting stares from men all over in her new body…the flattery was beginning to wear off.

A brush against her shoulder that she could not ignore stopped her in her tracks.

The man was right beside her, had somehow rapidly snuck up and was leaning down his bulky dusky armour over her to intimidate with his height as he sniffed actually just sniffed her

“What Are you?” he asked with a voice otherwise appealing marred by gravelly anger.

She pushed him off

“Get away from me Freak!” her voice shrill with irritation gaining the attention of those nearby, the polished armoured commando’s of the Blue Suns and Vorta Vanguard taking notice.

The Freak eyed them, sniffed once more then stepped back and headed in the opposite direction.

If this was the attention her feminine beauty would attract she might just need more than M4 to look after her, the bulky droid behind her spun its head a full 180 to follow the Freak as he left.

Returning to her reason for being here he continued window shopping security services popping in at the most likely looking ones.

As impressive as they sounded, as welcoming – if not toadying – the receptionists and salesmen were none impressed her at all.

She already had five Dark Trooper Phase 4’s newly pressed for her imminent protection, and none of these ‘corporate warriors’ seemed the type to be able to tangle with Mak’Tor if it came down to it, let alone help her reach somewhere as distant and likely still wild as Ossus.

That and there was never enough credits to make a man willing to die for you – she needed someone who wanted to fight and die for the sake of it, for whom the credit were just an added bonus.

Mandalorians.

If they were still as they were when she was alive –the first time – then they should suffice.

The crusty old woman in battered beskar was sitting staid and posed waiting for prey it seemed.

Morrigan was not intimidated – she had seen under that armour in her prior life more than once and knew how they bled when a dark song pulsed and widened their veins.

“What is the target”

“No target, escort, to Ossus”

The woman paused no doubt consulting a data search in her helmet

“Ossus…that system is not known to us…”

Strange… Morrigna thought, it was a well known location in her day…and was on Zearic’s Bane Navicomputer

“I know the way,”

“Very well…what is the opposition,”

She shrugged

“No Idea, last I knew Ossus was a wasteland long since ravaged by Exar Kun,”

The Mandoa’s head tilted not knowing the history, Morrigan sighed

“Unknown, but at the very least I am having trouble with Gray Jedi,”

“Jedi…Jedi are expensive…”  the Mando’a paused

“You need a Jedi Hunter or ex-Inquisitor…” she paused again consulting something in her helmet

“I can provide recommendations,”

Morrigan’s lips twitched in irritation

“Very well, who is your top recommendation…”

The Mando’s provided an uplink on the datapad  -apparently a necessity in this day and age – and she headed out…

…right into a wall of dusky grey armour.

“What do you want Freak?”

“You want help getting to Ossus, and problem with Gray Jedi…” the mad creature that had sniffed her before leaned over her in a paltry attempt to intimidate her ignoring M4’s looming bulk…that in itself was…unusual…even the Gray Jedi had recoiled from M4 however unconsciously.

“You need me, these others the Mando’a suggested are inferior beings…”

“Inferior beings?” she crossed her arms in incredulity…and perhaps a little defensiveness, he had a strong force presence…but…twisted, violent and unstable, exciting…

“Mere humans and a Sephi…” he paused very intentionally and reach his armoured hand toward her cheek

She rapidly flung her hand up to slap his hand away,
In a flash he caught her wrist.

“Unlike Us” he leered as she shook her arm in his grip

“Let go…” she insisted backing her words with a mid strength Siren Song.

He dropped her hand, she felt the red sting of his grip linger.

“Go talk to these fools…then I will see you again…”

With a hard turn he put his back to her and strode down the concourse, pushing through a group of trandoshans…one hissed at him - then dropped to the floor gagging, its nest mates pulling the reptile back up as the Freak seemed to vanish from sight.

“M4…next time you see that Freak…blast him.”

<<<<>>>>

Balnard

“Frell…ooops!”
It had been a while since an expletive slipped through, Julwyyn increasingly disapproved, but if any situation warranted it…

Zearic’s Bane was on the other side of the ventilation grate he had bribed a bored Ugnaught cleaner to get access to so he could place a tracker on the hull…

What he hadn’t known was it was being patrolled by two Dark Trooper Mark IV’s...if they needed any proof Morrigan was in league with Aertemis this was it…of course they could claim she simply bought the droids – but where does – as Bal understood it – a 3000 year old ghost get the credits for that.

Regardless it made things difficult, he needed to get that tracker on there…without those damn droids seeing…

If he had the force he could levitate the little round tracer with a magnetized lock to the hull…but he didn’t and had to be more creative for it.

Cracking his knuckles out of habit he got to work moving further through the ducts.  Bereft of his usual modified Mandalorian style armour plating due to the cramped confines he still had the under suit on a harness packed with dozens of useful little tools decades of experience told him would come in handy.

The first he used were micro-magnetic clamps on hands and feet in combination with a localised sound suppressor to climb up the emergency ventilation shaft that were far larger than normal to deal with the heavy fumes ships this size could potentially leak if damaged.

Second he used a micro slicer and a laser prism to get through the off the shelf motion detectors at the top of the shaft before crawling along further to the next open grate.

He was now above the Raider 2 ship, it still looked near on brand new, only the odd bit of Jump burn and carbon scouring on the TIE like fins and upper hull plating.

Now it was time to be slow and steady.

With a small lever he pried the grate open a little at the side…then checked…still too small for the tracer he….

Vrrrmmmm…

…Waited

The Hulking Dark Troopers were moving in helix like patterns around the ships entire axis using their proton jetpacks, one sweeping under him is hellfire red eyes sweeping out a plane of energy that bounced back to its sensors to detect changes in the the room, he snapped back away from the grate until it passed.

Flipping out a small hand mirror he’d taken from Julwyns toiletries bag he glanced in it to check it was…

FRELL

The hulking machine was hovering on blue jets staring straight up at the great.

[ANOMALY DETECTED] Its bass voice beat out [INVESTIGATING]

Fast as his old bones could manage he scrambled away from the grate barely reach the edge of the vent he had just climbed as red laser light poured through the grate.

[STRUCTURAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED. ANALYSING…..]

Then the obvious struck him. 

He let go and tensed for the fall, the sound suppressor masking the loudest of the clatter as he hit the bottom, the ferroctrete between he vent and the hangar hopefully masking the vibration, he rolled to the grate on the ground floor and flicked the tracer on, immediately feeling the magnet try and lock onto the vent wall.

As suspected both Droids were hovering at the top of the ship. One hand keeping the tracer from flying off he rapidly pried the grate open and trusted his good arm

Catch it…

The universe slowed as the tracer flew across the line markers floor and the Mark IV’s swept down at their faster than human speed.  For a brief heart stilling moment he feared they would do just that, catch the tracer and blast him to warm fragments.

Relief flooded his body as they went to the smaller side door where a figure in dusky grey armour strode in, the Droids confronting him out of Balnards hearing, then letting him pass just as the trace clicked onto the ships underside and shimmered invisible as the cloak activated.

The feeling of accomplishment was short lived as the Dusky Grey armoured soldier dragged in headless corpses.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 38 - Flight or Fight - Part 2

Morrigan

Hiring a mercenary, at Spira at least, seemed to involve a copious amount of paper work. 

She’d spoken to all three ‘Jedi hunters’ the Mando’a had recommended, two humans and a Sephi, each expounding their talents, one showing two ‘genuine lightsabre trophies’ and providing various contract documents that M4’s oversized fists could hardly hold should she agree to their terms.

Only the Sephi, an elder of that species with a touch of Force power and a grizzled look seemed appealing.

Shaking her head in annoyance at the overdrawn process she slid the key card into the side door to return to Zearic’s Bane….

And there sitting on a crate at the foot of the ship's ramp was the Freak from before…in his dusty grey armour…beside him three poles.

On each pole was a head, eyes wide open, mouths agape in terror and surprise as fresh blood dripped down in gluggy globs.

And each head belonged to one of the ‘Jedi Hunters’ she had just visited. None had been weak, they were all capable mercenaries…now they were all just so much meat.

“Inferior…” his voice was a whisper but it carried across the distance between them as maintenance droids went about their business checking her ships fuel lines and gas exchangers as if nothing untoward was occurring.

“Kill him,” she ordered M4.

The droid didn’t move.

“Hmmm….” He smiled viciously

“M4 kill this Freak!”

[Error…Target Designated [Person] Unable to comply.]

She scowled at the droid, by the time she turned around the Freak was right in front of her,

“Your toy soldier can’t hurt me, It knows what I am, just like I know what you are…even if I don’t know why They made you,”

The word They was spat with bilious hatred the way she would speak of Dorian.

“But you don’t want to belong to Them, to be Their Pawn,” the hatred was palpable…she revelled in experiencing it vicariously, but needed to keep her focus.

“So what do you propose?” she replied keeping his gaze

“What are you looking for on Ossus?”

“None of your business,”

He sneered “Something you think will keep you safe from these Gray Jedi?...hmm what kind are they, Templars, Vhal’Dan, Mak’tor…”

She didn’t even reply the micro expression was enough

“Ah…Mak’tor…we’ll need Force pattern disturbance Orbs…break the ‘Song’ flows they use, how many?”

“At least two”

“Rank?”

“Young knight and old man, a woman who seemed more…primal than the others”

“Recon for a larger force?”

“Possibly,”

“No matter, you have four droids plus that one, and I’m worth at least six of them,”

“Six!” she broke out incredulous

“Is that not evidence enough,” he thumbed the heads

“No it isn’t,” she said clearly the shock of his appearance wearing out more with every passing second

“And what do you want for your Superior assistance,”

He leaned forward and sniffed at her again, before she could stop him his hand reached round to grip her rear and drag her close, his scent was a mix of armour polish, fresh charges power cells and a firm musty scent.

“I want you…”

“I’m not a prostitute,”

“I’m putting my body on the line for you,” he countered “and in a much less pleasurable way,”

She couldn’t deny there was an attraction, she could only imagine what he looked like beneath that armour, the strength to wear it alone.

She’d barely spoken to him five minutes and she could tell he was a brute, a psychopathic sadist…and yet far more fascinating than any of the boy toys on Spira, she could feel tingles of excitement near him mingled with the terror that he might kill her…

It made her feel for the first time in Millenia truly Alive

“After I get what I want, not before,” she replied, not bothering to argue his other point – it wouldn’t make any difference – once she had her crystals back she could control this fool like a puppet…he would make an excellent enforcer….

“Agreed…but I get the trophies and the bodies of any Mak’tor…now what is you name…your real name…Partner”

“Morrigan, and yours?”

“Aydyn”.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 39 Caverns of Unconscionable Depth - Part 1

Coruscant

He could almost hear the pounding Imperial March as Star Destroyers huddled within shells of escort ships passed across the sub-light lanes at the edge of the Coruscant system.

Red and yellow buoys blinked angrily as the vast vessels ignored them on their patrols.

Ysanne Isard had fortified the system well, but her grip was brittle, rumours of an imminent Alliance ‘liberation’ were already spreading, from what Alex had heard on the Smugglers Networks the Imperials were sticking tight to their garrisons on the planet as the streets outside the highest levels and upper society areas became ungovernable.

Sliding out a hidden tray featuring a number of bland looking unlabelled toggles of his own design Alex clicked on the IFF for the Gabriel,  a trader of Hapan Dark Opals for Maascheriin Luxury Jewelry with all necessary clearances paid for and approved. 

“Here goes…” he sighed as they came to the next in line at the heavily patrolled entry point, dozens of probe dorid circling as TIEs cruised past with bulky scanning equipment.  Boarding the thousands of ships that came everyday was impractical, and Coruscant absent any natural resources needed constant supplies of food anyway - algal vat produced slurries were not to everyone's taste.   

“Freighter Gabriel transmit your credential on channel 551.302,” the curt demand came over the comm.

“Transmitting,” Alex replied, exuding as boring a sense as he could across the Force around him as possible - while the Corvette housing the officer was too far out of range to affect it was still good practice.

Just any other job he reminded himself as another Star Destroyer passed over head.

There wouldn’t be any Inquisitors, he was certain…well…hopeful…Ysanne Isard they said had no time for the loony religious fanatics and had turfed out the few on Coruscant as soon as she could, he doubted that policy had changed.

“Gabriel your credentials are invalid, permission expired 12 solar days ago, proceed to exit 17-B to be escorted to out bound jump point.”

It was of course just then that Karmack walked in.

“Uh those credentials were valid though, we were delayed in getting here by two weeks due to the war, damn rebs cut holonet access across half the Corellian run, nowhere to renew the authorisation before it expired…” Alex replied with just enough exasperation to play the role of a small time delivery freighter caught short.
Damn second hand sellers Alex cursed he’d paid a lot of good credits for those credentials as he scrambled through some flimsi for another document.
“...It’s not my fault, I’ll renew as soon as I get in range of the in-system holo net,”

“I repeat proceed to exit 17-B…”

“...wait hold up my landing authorisation is still valid for ten days, makes no sense right, I mean I’m allowed to land but not enter the system,” Alex half joked at the bureaucratic bungle
“Permission to land does not translate to permission to enter the system,” was the cold reply
“Hang on but what’s the point in being able to land if I can’t…”

Karmacks eyes were fixed on the corvette intently, irritation at the fumbling delay building like pot bubbling about to boil over behind him.

“I have it under control,” Alex whispered
“If you can just patch me through to your commanding officer I’m sure we can…”

“I have no time,” Karmakc leaned over him pushing his will through the ancient one and across the void.
“...the landing permission is fine, Freighter Gabriel may proceed,”

On the Imperial corvette a junior officer sat bolt upright, eyes watering as she spoke

“The landing permission is fine, Freighter Gabriel may proceed…” from the autonomous reflex of hundreds of such permissions given he keyed the downing of the small shield barrier and ticked the associated IFF to conditional approval.

Alex bit back any response as he accelerated forward

<<<<>>>>

Coruscant was a city under martial law - or the upper levels at least.

Stormtroopers patrolled the walkways, anxious and apathetic at the same time.  Anxious about when the Rebel invasion would come, apathetic about their ability to do anything to resist it.  Some of the more fanatical or duty bound would certainly resist, many more would vanish into the streets.

Their permissions required them to dock at a mid level bourgeois zone nominally to deliver the Hapan Dark Opals, Zu-zu would coordinate the delivery dorid to make that appear to happen, on the off chance anyone even cared, as the found humans headed to the Factory district through ghostly empty mag rails and turbo lifts.

“Feels like the invasion could come at any minute,” Joanna said as they descended ever further into the murky orange haze of the Factory levels, the tip of the Imperial Palace just visible in the distance as the fluor level numbers zipped passed by the dozen.

“Let’s hope we get out of here before it does,” Alex agreed hand resting on his saber beneath the heavy travel cloak that concealed their Envrio-sealed armour.

Their progress was smooth, all things considered, but long.  Arnor, Alex and Joanna simple followed Karmack who strode ahead of them like a man possessed.

“Must be focusing on the Force to guide him,” Alex noted to Joanna with more hope than evidence.

Karmack stretched his senses through the ancient one an half a dozen crystals of his choir, amplifying the tunes of the ancient Mak’Tor into a beacon in his mind that he instinctively followed.

The mundanities of the walk and occasional rail line were ignored or sneered at as necessities.  Every moment he was away from M’Tizigon Artemis would be digging their claw in deeper, of that he was utterly certain.

Level by level, section by section on their diagonal descent the temperature rose, the aesthetics degraded, and the number of beings out an about increased, here they began to enter sections that had likely never even heard of the Empire, entire civilizations for whom the ‘top worlders’ conflicts and cares were an irrelevance.

The clang and smoke of automated factories that stuffed their nostrils and stained their faces gave way to the salty sweaty tang of manual workshops where the subsistence denizens toiled, astonishingly cheaper than robots or droids.

Local gangs eyed or ignored the four wanderers, Alex’s suppressive field backed by Arnor diverting attention away from them.

The temperature was rising a degree with each level, there was now an endless hum of long forgotten generators and moisture harvesters that fed into plumbing networks. The thickness of the metal walls couldn’t hide the orange glow of molten heat seeping through.

The air became too thick with toxins, their masks quickly on, hissing seals keeping out the worst.

“We’ll use filters for now…but it's getting bad fast, we’ll have to switch to oxygen pods soon,” Joanna commented, they had about six hours of air each if they needed it in the miniaturized pods.

“How close are we?”

His suit sealed Karmack was already marching ahead

“Hey!” the three raced to catch him
“How much further do you think?” she insisted, he paid her no attention.

Karmack’s mind was focused on the Song he was following. It was a tentative thing…the echoes of millenia past, even with the choir it was nigh on impossible to hold onto.

And above all that he had to follow it in a circuitous manner, the labyrinth of tunnels and caverns was complex, he trusted in the Song to guide him on the right path.

“Karm!” Arnor gabbed his arm breaking the spell. 
“Nggh, What!” he snapped as he nearly lost the thread he had been struggling to hold
“Are we getting close,”

He rolled his eyes beneath the helmet
“We were, now I have to retune, this isn’t easy to find, the path isn’t straight, I need to fully concentrate - without interruption,”

Giving him the benefit of the doubt they continued on.

The populace began to thin as the heat rose and the tunnel narrowed, many more rust than metal, graffiti on ferrocrete became more sparse as they reached areas fewer beings visited.  Joanna warily eyes the grates and vents along the sagging cracked walls, half flashes of tentacle and fungal growths slithering in between but always vanishing out of sight.

Light became scarce, they switched to night vision suffusing the area in a green haze, off bones clustered in small piles here and there of unknown species who had stumbled too far away from the factories and the ghettos never to return.

Duracrete paths gave way to rickety grated metal, they passed on swaying bridges over cavernous depths that glowed red, artificial volcanoes to power the vast towers overhead.
Even the half spied mutants began to thin out, mechanical clanks and grinding was a perpetual orchestra attending every cautious step.

“I can’t sense anything ahead…” Alex said over the suits comms
“Nothing alive at any rate…”  he had never been to the underlevels before the enormity of the place was still astonishing, a barely 4 hour trip and they were in an entirely different world.

Crossing over another vast humming generator, a valley of metal on either side, they came to a large wall that stretched up out of sight and down into yellow tinged depths below.  Dozens of sealed doors each wide enough for the Hope II were along it, archaic aurebesh signs printed with faded warnings.

Karmack slowly approached each one in turn feeling out which would lead him to the Mount and the Catacombs beneath.

Danger, Do not Enter without escort and authority from Coruscant Geoengineering. the one legible sign read.

“This one…” Karmack said his hand hovering over the door.

“Alright,” Alex stepped up looking at the door and the various pipes, cables and sealed maintenance boxes around it.
“Shouldn't be too hard to find an override, old tech a standard hot wire should…”

With a blink Karmack swept the vast sheets of metal aside with a telekinetic pulse, a wall of pitch black lit by tiny lights that resemble stars stared back at them. 

“Or that…”

Without a second thought Karmack plunged into the darkness to save the Light.

<<<<>>>>

Er’Lav

“The captives will remain unharmed and be brought with us on the promised transport to Socorro in three days time,” The very well spoken Weequay announced to the negotiators behind a wall of riot shields, his escort of two growling Shistavanens a reminder of the feral death the general could expect if their demands were not met.

“Once we reach our destination they will be released, but not a minute before, my Lady suggests we wait for the arrival of the transport amicably and peacefully.”

“We’ll need proof they are still alive….” the negotiator's voice trailed off as the holo recording volume was turned down by President Alvarez himself.

“What are our options?” he asked the assembled Emergency Council, consisting for three Generals, the Mak’Tor Kage and ministers around the main table, aides and asides on chairs or standing behind in the large conference room in the under levels of the Presidential Palace.

The one figure Er’lav found noxiously out of place was Nimmin Cha.

He was not a citizen of M’Tzigon, let alone a member of the Security Council.  His presence, on the Presidents invitation, showed disturbingly how much Artemis had integrated themselves.

“I suppose it bears no repeating we cannot allow the hostages to board those transports, once they hit hyperspace they are good as dead, even in the unlikely event they actually go to Socorro they will most likely be sold or shot,” General Kor’Lin’Masst who held position of acting Joint Chief of Staff while General Cliff was captive said

This was met with murmurs of agreement.

“We have anaesthetic gases and stun nets ready to deploy, however the variety of species among the prisoners means not all will be effected at the same rate, there is a moderate chance a few of the reptilian species will be able to harm the captives before the tranquilizers take effect and our troops can get in range,”  he brought up a schematic based on orbital scans of the camp.

The pirates were surprisingly well organized, the arrangement of patrols, lookouts and troops diffused enough to ensure they could detect and respond to an attempt from any direction, the only option would be to encircle and hit all sides at once. 

The risk was they would activate the Electrofences and seal an attacking force - however temporarily - inside until the control booth could be retaken.

The fences were on a fixed line circuit, no connection to holonet or any wireless receivers so they can’t be hacked remotely,

“There is also the issue of the Imperials, so far they remain in their...sit in...but are taking up manpower to keep an eye on.”

Alvarez turned to the new Kage
“Can your knights perform a more subtle extraction?”

Er’Lav had to shake her head,
“Too many remain injured after the battle with Mendax, and at any rate against those numbers…”

It was not auspicious to be refusing the president in her first crisis meeting.

“Understandable…” Alvarez sighed well aware of the damage the Knights had taken in the Temple District when the droid went haywire….

Yet that very resource provided and opportunity, he turned to Masst

“Those new droids, could we use them now the IFF’s have been corrected?”

“Colonel,” Masst addressed Ta’Re who stepped forward.

“The Friend Foes software has been amended and the Men-At-Arms loaded in as friends but again, there have been no field tests as of yet, much like last time I would consider it too early to risk using them,”

“And you Mr. Cha, are you confident your droids are up to the task?”

“Undoubtedly Mr. President, though there may be some minimal collateral damage, the Droids, after all, are designed for more...blunt...operations.  Whilst I have the utmost confidence in our programming, as the Colonel said it is untested.”

Er’lav found herself surprised by Cha’s caution, she was expecting him to wax lyrical.

Alvarez chewed on the reply as competing requirements tousled in his mind. 

He could not negotiate or give into the prisoners demands, but nor could he risk any more lives in a rescue - wounds from the Battle were still raw enough as it was without this getting out of hand damaging public confidence in the military when it was needed the most.

“We have spent a very, very large sum of money on those droids. Cliffs reports said they worked damn well in the orbital battle close confines when they breached ships, this isn’t so different surely - just take their guns off, who cares if they break a few bones of the scum we are holding in that damn camp. So unless anyone can come up with a better solution I want them in the air within an hour, Masst can you make it happen?”

“Mr. President with all due respect we don’t need to hurry,” Er’Lav spoke up

“You trust the word of desperate known pirates already involved in one attempted invasion of our world not to harm the hostages they’ve taken?”

She couldn’t say she did.  She looked to Masst in case he had any alternatives.

“We’ll gas them first, tranquiliser and smoke, time it so they hit just before the droids, limiting resistance and casualties…”

“Very well, clock is ticking, let’s get our people out and safe.”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 39 Caverns of Unconscionable Depth - Part 2

Ry

Foot taping on the ground, Ry's eyes darted from the screen to the clock in the same anxious pattern for the last fifteen minutes since receiving the order.

All 20 Dark Trooper Mark IV’s were on the ferrocrete landing pad just outside the main base, their bulky grey form still intimidating despite the lack of their Assault cannon, and empty missile launchers.  In twenty minutes they would launch, arriving mere seconds after the first smoke bombs hit the camp.

“Are we good?” a nervous Lieutenant with a comm straight to General Masst asked.

“As good as I can tell, the identifiers for all the hostages are loaded, I’ve checked them one by one,” with only 11 hostages she had personally checked each entry in the Droids Friend Database was up to date after being given the list of names.

“There is no need to worry,” Aeresdottir chimed in spinning on her chair

“The extraction software will work perfectly, my aunt wrote it . They will use thermal and infra-red to locate the hostages and extract them in minutes.”

There was no concern for the droids themselves, their armour was more than capable of handling the shiv’s and appropriated weapons designed for crowd control not armour penetration.

“Then...we’re good,” Ry said a feeling of dread in her stomach and the Lieutenant relayed the confirmation and she overheard Maast give the order.

As soon as she saw the Droid lift on Proton streams she knew they had made a mistake.

<<<<>>>>

Coruscant

Limbs of every length, sparking with wires, spinning serrated blades or simply clawing with broken digits sought her out.

It had started as a trickle, now it was a tsunami. 

Deep beneath the Factory districts on the incline toward the old Temple was a dumping ground for ancient droids, primitive self preservation routines caused those retaining functionality to seek power sources and self repair, over centuries feeding off the Coruscant power grid and harvesting components from more and more dorids tossed into the depths.

Everyone of them was an abomination of different components, shambling and clawing at anything it regarded as useful for its repair, in her case she assumed, her Envirsuit.

“Down!” Joanna called firing off another clip from her blaster rifle, the bespoke weapon able to fire in an arc to slice dozens of the machines apart as Alex and Arnor defended her with saber and Force.

It bought them only a few seconds as more filled the void drawn to the concentration of energy and light so otherwise absent in the hellish depths.

Nearly three meters wide Arnor made out the figure of a vast shambling droid its front like a wall of durasteel, she tensed ready to hurl it backward telekinetically when a wave of energy nearly knocked her off her feet.

Alex braced Joanna from falling as Karmack struck, six Kyber crystals floating in a ring around his head like a halo of an angel the Song reverberated with vicious sheer power that smashed the machines like a wrecking ball into sparking chunks.

Not even looking his Saber was moving through the droids that closed in on him, hissing limbs and protrusions dropping to the floor before he blasted a group into a nearby tunnel, his fist twisting up to send the huge droid into the opening to block it up, sparks flying as the balled body scraped the durasteel.   

“Come on, we’re getting closer,”  he spun and quickly moved ahead. 

It had been nearly seven hours, they were already tired, now they were reaching the point of exhaustion.  Karmack raced like a beacon of yellow ahead, pausing only to ‘rescue’ them when they became overwhelmed, seeming to resent the impediment to his progress.

Arnor ruefully thought it might have been better had he gone alone…

Rolling under a buzzing saw she rose to slice through the mercifully brittle and easily cut metal, the rot and rust down here at least made the ravenous hordes easy to cut through.

To the side a blue white flare erupted as Joanna tossed the second of their three Electro-grenades down a hatch, Alex then using the force to dump a pile of bodies on top to stop them climbing up if the explosion wasn’t enough.

The tunnels were narrowing as they went further, the heat and concentrated gases rising, it must surely mean they were getting close. 

The thvump of Joanna’s rifle echoes beside the humm of sabers, Arnor switching to her Dl-44 guided by the Force to save saber energy and keep the tide at a manageable distance, Alex taking up the idea firing a fragmentation grenade on the underside of his own rifle into the dark behind them.

A satisfying whining smash of metal and bouncing pieces of droid chassis was their reward as they looked to see Karmack out of sight once more, their suit auto-map showing he’d rounded a corner.

“It's such a waste,” Alex huffed with humour
“Who knows what unique models are down here, how many rare parts!”

“Do you ever stop thinking with your spanner!” Joanna snapped at her gearhead husband.

Feigning hurt they pressed on, idly slicing or shooting the droids that shambled after them, finding Karmack had clogged up a number of tunnels, hatches and vents on the way.

When they finally caught up he was standing in front of a jagged wall

“This is it…” he pressed his hand against the uneven surface
“This isn’t ferrocrete, this is actual rock…the Mountain, the Tor…”

Impossible to tell the difference using just night vision, they took his word for it as he walked round it through the narrow dark path, idly blasting a handful of droids to pieces with a kinetic wave.

“There must be an entrance somewhere…”

“Hopefully none of those droids are in there, we really need to hunker down and rest…” Alex complained
“I don’t know how we’re gonna make it back up if we keep going at this rate,” his thoughts were firmly fixed on Joanna, unlike the Knights she couldn't draw on the force to supplement her energy.

Karmack kept looking, content they could handle themselves while he searched - it seemed as if a vast structure had been built around this section of the mountain, and based on the very shallow curve of the path he must be near the base.

Arnors saber back on he slashed through three dorids, spinning round to hurl a blast of energy to send four more flying then retreated behind Alex who took the rearguard.  If anything Donovan had understate the young couples skills, and they had easily settled into a rhythm together fighting the droids off.

“Here…” Karmack finally found something unnatural, a sport jammed into the side, his and followed it to a welded door frame in the mountain side, switching on his light for a better view a metal plaque on the Front identified it is as ‘Hanna Institute of Antiquities - Coruscant Expedition 4-Esk 15th Year of His Highness Emperor Palpatine’.

His heart sank at the thought of Palpatine having already plundered the ancient Catacombs…if Imperial sympathizers had taken the Starfire it could truly be anywhere…

Even so he might at least be able to find some clues as to its next owner inside.

Yellow saber hissing on he cut through the welded joints, a gust of musty air escaping as the door was loosed.

Just as he took a tentative step in he recalled the other.

“In here!”

Almost buried beneath another wave of the frantic machines they couldn’t hear him, saber spinning and blasters pumping they were surrounded by piles of crackling machinery when Karmack arrived, his Crystal choir blasting the hordes back.

The Force flowed through the ancient one to the Master Singer, his will imprinted upon it in sonorous chords of rhythmic intent then channeled out through the Crystal choir and the Ancient one once more as incredible telekinetic power that tore the durasteel as easily as paper.

Joanna had seen her share of Force powers, illusions, energy blasts, in that sense what Karmack was doing was nothing new.  What made her gasp was the ease with which he was doing it, Alex had always said using too much power for too long would cause a kind of ‘burn’, Karmack seemed to be immune to it.

If Joanna was astonished, Alex was terrified.  He could hear the echoes of Karmacks use of the Force clearly, felt the ripple of the Song wash over him without even trying, the intensity was beyond anything he had experienced…the only comparison he had was that sickening moment seeing the Oblivion creature on M’tzigon which the dark antithesis of Karmacks shining power.

A glowing hand lifted Arnor from a staggered crouch, her husbands touch strangely cold and distant as he released his saber that spun like a circular saw down the path severing droids by the dozens before he led them away.

<<<<>>>>

Cliff

For the umpteenth time he tried to loosen the bonds.

But once more succeeded only in getting an angry grunt from the burly guards.

Slumping backward he sighed out hard, the Pirate Queen wandering back in.


“You’ll never get off this planet alive now, you know that,” he said to her

Cliff was kept in Orfa’s tent, tied to the unconscious near naked forms of his bodyguard, their armor and weapons stripped.

She made no response as she stared out the flap over her ‘domain’.

“I understand why you didn’t take the deal,” he said, he had nothing but time to think after finding no obvious escape, one of the Suppressors had managed a quick break, only to be brought back sporting a number of painful purple bruises.

“It has to be your deal, you need to be in total control or these creatures will turn more rabid, you’ve got the nexu by the tail.”

“I was never getting out of this life alive,” she replied with eerie calm.

“Traded between Capitan and Mercenary commanders, a talent for witchcraft, all that stood between me and death...I tried to make my own way, but every time...I just can’t get out of this cycle, it’s all I’ve ever known.”

“I can protect you, get you out alone, just let me contact…”

“It’s too late, general,” Orfa replied grimly as the first missiles struck.

<<<<<>>>>

Ex Machina

Twelve pressurized canister exploded overhead, raining anaesthetic gases over the camp in a white mist through which dozens of stun nets were lobbed, the energised weapons spread in a  scatter pattern aimed at the hovels sparked and crackled as they hit, the handful of pirates hit writhing into unconscious slumber.

In the War Room satellite images were switched to thermal as the gases obscured everything, the oxide mix filling the respiratory system of the dozens of species that comprised the pirate crew, they staggered and dropped as their limbs became unresponsive.

Not every species was affected, gand and other non-oxygen breathers reacted in one of three ways, they either raced toward the Mak’Tor prisoners to enact the promised kills, resigned themselves to surrender, or gave into wild panic.

A trandoshan guarding a Marine who had already fallen unconscious from the gas had only just drawn his shiv to end the flesh things life when the countdown on Ry’s timer reached zero and the Mark IV Dark Troopers arrived.

Prioritising [Conscious - Motile] targets based on complex thermal and electromagnetic scans the enormous Droids struck without pause or mercy. 

through the gas haze a fist of Phrik overlaid on a Duranium alloy skeleton gripped the trandoshans muzzle and crushed, the immediate threat eliminated it grabbed the [Friend] unit and slung it over its shoulder, before proceeding to eliminate all remaining nearby [Hostiles]

[Hostage 1 Secured]
[Hostage 3 Secured]
[Hostage 7 Secured]
[Hostage 2 Secured] 

The feed on the War Rooms large display was overwhelming positive, tiny blips showed the first five Dark Troopers jetting out of the mist, carrying 5 Marines and one Sword of Light out to the nearby Men-At-Arms redoubt, leaving only General cliff, one Marine and three sword of Light to rescue.

The Mission timer ticked over the first minute.

“Brilliant” President Alvarez boomed as another hostage was secured
“This will be over in five minutes!”

Er’Lav and General Maast were not so certain, 
“The Bio-Electrical impulse signatures…what is happening with those…” Maast asked a nearby technician pointing to a cluster near the latest rescue ping.
“Likely just unconscious sir but…”

“No,” Er’Lav disagreed dread filling her breast

From the camp opposite, mouth covered against the gas Lieutenant Nordas spied what was happening in the form of two barabels racing to the electro fence that largely contained the gas.  They thrashed and clawed impotently to escape as a vast shadow in the mist walked casually behind them, enormous hands pulled them back.

He squinted to see more in the haze.  A reptilian body bloody and broken slammed into the shield.

20 Dark Troopers had deployed to liberate 11 hostages, 10 were rescued, but the other Dark Troopers did not leave, systematically eliminating the mostly unconscious [Hostiles] by stomping them.

“Frell it we have to stop them!” Ry yelled, jumping onto the Control console for the shut down override.

“It won’t work,” Aeresdottir said disinterestedly “The President was very clear, the operation isn’t over till all the hostages were rescued there is still one left…”

Her breath stilled and calm to keep out the gas Illiv Orfa stood ready to face her death.  The Entire tent was torn off in a single swift motion, three giants surrounded her - red eyes somehow cold the only feature she could make out in the pure white particles.

Half awake Cliff looked up to see the crackling flare of an abused woman’s anger at a life of suffering pour as blue white lighting into the vast uncaring forms of the Mark IVs he had purchased to spite Silman. The Force Lighting twisted to the Troopers Blackstone core that served as a sink for just this purpose- a Kage Killer indeed - a droid made by Force users to kill force users. 

With indifference the nearest one grabbed her by the neck and squeezed as cold hands larger than his Troso lifted him up.

Winds began to sweep the gases clear as the President's glee turned to horror as bodies cooled and the evidence of the massacre became clear as the day that was just breaking.

[Hostage 11 Secured] scrolling across the feed was cold comfort as the murder continued unabated. 

The Mission finally accomplished, Ry slammed the override feeling exhausted despite having barely moved a muscle.

Of just under five hundred pirates nearly 400 were dead.

“An unmitigated success,” Cha smiled to the President and his Generals, Er’lav too horrified to react

“All hostages safe and sound, and the problem of these unwanted guests all but dealt with…I’m so glad our collaboration has expanded the Droids areas of operations to search and rescue successfully.”

He was met with only stunned silence as the enormity of what had happened sunk in, 400 unarmed, many unconscious beings murdered by machines sent to rescue a handful.

“This wasn’t meant to happen…” Maast finally spoke
“The identifiers…”

“Worked perfectly,” Cha grinned “All M’tzigon military personnel were rescued…of course the droids had to make sure they were safe from any threat,”

He was right, the identifiers were working, but that was the problem: anyone not a member of the M’tzigon military was a Hostile, and treated as such. Taking the Mark IV’s plasma rifles off them made no difference, they were still 3.5 meter walking dreadnoughts able to punch through doonium. 

“I don’t know why you’re upset,” Aeresdottir sighed in the Droid Control Centre as Ry fought back tears for her complicity, wondering what she had gotten wrong in the programming.

“They did what we programmed them to do,”

She strode over behind the young Chiss women looking at the readouts.
“Inefficient though, still 92 alive…you should finish them off,”

Ry stared silently at the screen for a minute longer
“Don’t you have any empathy…a shred of mercy…they might’ve been pirates, but they were unarmed, unconscious!”

Aeresdottir had no understanding of what point the Chiss woman was trying to make.

“That just made them easier to eliminate,” was her factual reply

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 39 Caverns of Unconscionable Depth - Part 3

Coruscant

With a pile of droids and the Hanna Institute door flash welded by Alex’s hand-fuser they had a reasonable barrier between them and the droids outside.  Unable to bash the barrier down the droids soon gave up and began scavenging from the hundreds they had torn to pieces.

The tunnel walls were smooth, columns for decoration carved into the rock, old Mak-Tora Runes running elegantly along the sides, a few words Arnor could make out indicated they were likely passages from the Proto-Courscanti-Book of the Way. 

“I can’t believe this place hasn’t collapsed under the weight of everything above it…” Alex huffed slumped in a corner with Joanna
“According to my map we're almost directly under the Imperial Palace…”

“And the Jedi Temple it was built upon…” Karmack added reaching down at the far end of the entrance tunnel, foot prints six or seven years old still in the dust from the Hanna Institute Expedition.

The tunnels ahead were narrow and low.

“Stay here,” he ordered
“I’ll go on alone,”

Arnor almost argued, but her wobbly weary legs pre-empted her.

“Stay safe,” she called as her husband vanished into the darkness.

Karmack drew in deep breaths of his own recycled air, pushing his mind ‘back’ as he had on Geonosis as he hummed a rhythm in tune with the Force around him.  The Catacombs Song was a mix of grief, nobility, celebration, despair, stoicism and Hope, all the emotions clustered around the dead and grieving, but also those of the many pilgrims who had come here to pay respects.

As he passed a narrow intersection he caught movements from the corner of his eyes, Robe figures without legs holding Candles in a procession, six men bearing a casket upon their back before vanishing into Time.

The Crystal Choir sung sharply and painfully in his head, the Flow Sight was hard to sustain even with the Ancient One.  He turned the corner following the ghostly procession  down well worn steps, past dozens of niches where ossuaries sat quietly in family grouping, plates and cups from ancient practices of leaving offerings to the dead beside some of the oldest, Urns of valuables near others.

The Solemn procession went on, the Robed Mak’Tor of old carrying bodies by the Dozen, the loads seemingly heavy, Warriors interred in their full armour after embalming.  Wall niches and ossuaries gave way to larger sarcophagi as practices and times changed, the carvings of the occupants peaceful as if asleep, some so real he could almost imagine them waking at the sound of his footsteps.

He came to an arch carved into the Mountain, Mak-Tora Runes announced the ‘Honoured Warriors of the Great War’, the Ancient Ones echoes of generations allowing him to read the archaic script easy as he had when he found the Moonshadow on M’Tzigon just 12 days earlier.

His heart beating faster with expectation he entered the tomb, rows of burials lined the walls, sarcophagi heavy with age but in remarkable condition, the prayers etched on the sides clear.

There were dozens, the flower of a generation of Knights lost at Ruusan in the New Sith Wars. 

Releasing the Flow Sight at last he felt a sense of relief as he focused on seeking out the Star Fire. 

His helmet light began to sputter, damaged by a droid somehow, he lit his saber instead.

Under the yellow light of his blade he carefully read the names and tales on small plaques on beneath each of the sarcophagi, tales of heroism, dedication and camaraderie, legends of a time long forgotten, warriors who knew what the Light was, knew to fight the Dark not ignore it as too many of Mak’Tor did now…but by the same token Knights who would’ve marched to their deaths against the Empires vast resources had they been transplanted to more recent times.

The Mak’Tor and the galaxy had changed much.

Heading toward the far end of the tomb he stopped dead at an empty hollow.

Empty.

He looked toward the end, behind him, up and down…This couldn’t be intentional, at the end of the Tomb was an Altar to the Maker, uneven weathering on the wall where a Triptych had been removed.

He counted 12 in all, the twelve Knights interred nearest the altar were all gone, and whatever had been behind the altar vanished too.

His heart now beat with fury.  The sweep of his saber light caught aglint on the rocky floor beside the altar, something plastic and reflective.

It was a plas-tag ‘HIoA_C15_sr0003391’, the kind that would be affixed to artefacts found on a dig site. 

HIoA. Hanna Institute of Antiquities 

The hilt of his saber dug into his palm as he squeezed it tightly trying to contain his rage at the despicable looting of these hallowed ruins, and the resultant delay to his attaining the Starfire, at the very moment the Order needed a Knight like those of old to Rise again and cast down the Darkness of Morrigan and Artemis!

Sneering angrily he gave the room a last look over then headed out.  As he wound his way back a gust of air carrying whispers passed him, drawing his attention.

Turning his blade he heard faint footsteps

“Arnor? Alex?”

Whispers?

No an argument…

“Arnor?” he strode forth determined his sbaer now in a defensive stance providing light and protection in equal measure.

“...what I had to do…” that was no mere breeze, no ghostly echo - he heard that.

Running now the voices grew louder

”...let her go!...” A second voice, male for certain
“Arnor!” he called to the black as he followed the sound, skidding and shimmying through narrow gaps in the rock.

Rounding a final corner he saw three figures in soft candle light vanish as his saber lit the small annex fully.

There was no one there, just a few dozen small niches with ossuaries, two niches empty.

“A vision…” Karmack wondered out loud, he hadn’t been intentionally Flow Gazing…this had to be the Makers guidance.

Peering around his suspicion was confirmed, every name on the ossuaries ended in ‘Xandir’, and there in the upper left corner was the ancient MAster himself, the maker of the Sunfire that would pass down named the ‘Ancient One’, the Genius who crafted the Moonshadow os recently uncovered that had shielded M’Tizgon for centuries, and the polymath who had, if not founded, then established full the tradition of attuning crystals to the Song among the Mak;’Tor.

“Klu Xandir!” Karmack gasped,
“What did you wish me to see…” he wondered running his fingers along the stone near the ossuary an unseen force guided his hand down to the empty niche beneath
“Kar Xandir…what became of you…”  next to this was another empty niche for ‘Jem Xandir’ and below those two…

”What have you done!” shock and disgust in the old mans voice
““I’ve given her time…a chance to be a mother like she always wanted…not just to one child to…something better…something greater than anything we could’ve imagined…”
“What did you do to her body Kar!”

Maker, what happened here! Karmack thought as the loose threads of forgotten words spoken millenia before trickled in his ears. 

His hand went further to the next Ossuary…’Kay Xandir’ - the sister no one remembered, the one Klu had made the Moonshadow crystal for - the sequence was becoming clearer to Karmack, three Crystals for three siblings! Klu, Kar and Kay Xandir, the Ancient One, the Star Fire, and the Moonshadow…but what had befallen them, what had caused the argument he was hearing as whispers, what did Kar do and to whose body?

The box containing Kay’s remains was carefully etched in a feminine script, oddly the deal around the lid was extra thick, a shadow in the yellow light of Karms saber obscuring the first few words of the writing.

Yet as he leaned his saber across the shadow didn’t fade but expanded and defined itself, a rough cylinder that seemed to absorb the light. 

A Flare of the Force Karmack intensified the energy through the Ancient One and into the saber blade to illuminate the object.

Its resolution disgusted him even more than the Hanna Institutes desecration.

The image was of three women back to back, arms looped together in a column like statuette of Oblivion material, each female slightly different, one appeared to be a scholar, the other a warrior and the last covered in flowers, all were shown in partial states of undress.

He knew this figure from the description Julwyyn had given of a similar totem on Canto Bite, this was Artemis idol, placed in the Mak’Tor Catacombs consecrated to the Maker.  Its presence was an abomination and an insult…Worse it implied they had been here first, they had come to this sacred place of the Mak’Tor and done…Maker only knew with their natural law defying powers!

“Everywhere I look…Everywhere I go…” Karmacks voice was a wrathful whisper barely above the humm of his saber,
“No one else sees it, no one else believes it…”
Yet there it was evidence the Artemis hatred of the Mak’tor descended to desecrating their most ancient tombs- the effort to even get here just to perform his sacrilege!

The Black Armours were truly pathological in their hatred of everything the Gray Order stood for.

The eyes of the statue looked at him, one with curiosity another guarded suspicion, and the third with lustful enticement.  He gripped the heavy thing in his hand, he would not let this edifice to barbarity remain.

The Song beat heavy and fast, pulsing with the angry beat of his heart, his face contorting in anger matched by the changing expressions of the statue that seemed to despise him just as much.

Days of frustration, weeks of exhaustion, months of stress poured from his soul through the Ancient one and into the statue, the Oblivion Stone creasing and cracking from the overflow, the squealing of the substance as it broke apart like the shriek of a banshee till it finally exploded into micro-fragments with a flare of yellow that lit the entire tomb.

<<<<>>>>

“Karm…Maker…Karm what happ…”  He simply strode past Arnor to the sealed doorway.

“There is nothing here, Artemis has taken it all.”

“Wait, Artemis, what are you talking about?”

“They were here…” he seethed staring at the ground
“They defiled the tombs with their Idols, and the Hanna Institute, probably working with them, stole a dozen bodies and other artefacts…I will make them both answer for this desecration - whether they have the Starfire or not.”

Even Joanna was able to feel the rage radiating off of the Master Singer, instinctively leaning as far away as the cavern wall would let her.

Without even asking if they were ready he sent the barricade flying into the Droids snooping behind it smashing them to fragments.

Front the depths of the Caverns of Coruscant Karmack raged like a whirlwind of Tuned destruction through the droids back to the surface, his countenance darkening as the closer they came to the light of day.

<<<<>>>>

[TheDutchman]

I was SO glad to see that "What You Leave Behind" had progressed while I was unable to log on! 

SO: while I will do a much more "in-depth" review as soon as I finish reading these last few chapters, I just wanted to extend my thanks and awe to LSG and Karm for this INCREDIBLE story!

I can't WAIT to read more (and look forward to the upcoming chapters)!   

[TheDutchman]

Interesting interweaving of the story threads here between Karm&Co, Morrigan, Ken&Co, Ry (and the Mak'Tor).

Once again Artemis' interference/attention is subtly (and not-so-much if you're a Mak'Tor) felt behind the scenes as the resurrected Morrigan attempts to not only assimilate to her new reality but also to subjugate it as well.  It comes as no surprise that she'd ally with an Aethan towards realizing those goals (hopefully Ken will stay as far away from her as possible since I doubt that Balnard will always be around to help via his Force-void ability).

From one young lover to the other, Ry's own dealings with Artemis are certainly of concern (to say nothing of the culture-clash in encountering a xenophobic, self-centric & -serving species of Force demigods).  Worse: the Mak'Tor have so much as "invited" them for negotiations (made worse with Cliff's own and personal dislike of Karm and anyone related to him).  As the 500 pirates could attest to (if they'd survived), for Artemis there are People, Friends, and Enemies.  Period.

Unfortunately, Karm is himself part of the problem: while he sees the potential and real problems that Artemis represents, he has now convinced himself that it is he (and he alone) that can deal with them.  The fact that Artemis tends to have people of questionable morals (Mendax, Cha, Morrigan) associated with them only serves to act towards Karm's further suspicions against them.  From their presence at the Temple at M'Tzigon to the underworks of Coruscant, he feels/sees/senses Artemis' involvement in what he views as affronts against the Order.  And while he's not precisely wrong, Karm is altogether convinced that he is the only one who can do anything about it...much to the detriment of those around him (especially Arnor).  Between Karm and Morrigan, the Song hasn't been this discordant since probably the New Sith Wars.

Meta-note: Between what Karm and LSG are doing here, this is a MUCH better "Saga" than anything that we've been given from Disney IMO.  And--with the exception of "Andor"--THIS is how to present "ambiguous moral dilemmas" correctly^^
Special mention goes to the pictures!  I know that LSG is responsible for providing them and they--much like the attendant story--are compelling, interesting, and awesome 

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 39 - Fools Errands — Part 1

Morrigan

She sat once more at the work shop desk the Qixoni behind her awaiting a proper tuning as he fidgeted about with a vibro knife from the small but adequately equipped armour of ‘Imperial’ weapons.

M4 had summarised this ‘empires’ history for her, but it was one of dozens that had come and gone during her imprisonment and held no true interest apart from the immediacy of its collapse affecting her ability to travel safely.

Sliding the knife under the belt of her form fitting white flight suit she stood as she sensed the Freak…or Aydyn…approaching.

Checking her golden locks despite herself she wandered to the ramp where her two DT-IV guards simply ignored him…yes she still recalled that non compliance M4 stated the Freak was a ‘Person’ – she hoped an atypical example thereof.

“What is that for?”

Her nose scrunched with disgust as he dumped a bag full of viscera onto the floor of the hold.

“Trade…Ossus is populated by small techno barbarian tribes, meat is a valuable commodity,” Aydyn replied “With this we can pay off whatever tribes are near…wherever you need to go to stay out of our way,”

“It’s not easier to just decapitate them,” she barbed against his violent nature,

He sneered “It takes too long compared to this and draws too much attention…do you know where on Ossus your trinkets are,”

“I’ll know when I get there,”

“You better,”

In more formal talks after initial agreement she’d explained, partially, what she sought and the terms of the agreement, after arriving at Ossus she had ten days to get what she needed, Aydyn would provide security and act as a local guide.  After that ten days though…he would take his payment in full whether she liked it or not.

Many things about him disgusted and repelled her, made her wish to run as far as possible…but just as many made her curious..

“How do you know so much about Ossus, you have been there I presume?”

She asked, leaning against the wall, arms folded protectively across her breast.

“Presume all you like,”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“This conversation is irrelevant,” he sliced down with clipped tones that betrayed an accent she couldn’t pick and he wanted to hide.

She strolled closer as he secured the load with straps.

“It is not irrelevant if you know something that can speed my search…”

She was just out of arm's reach

“The faster I find what I need the faster you get…your reward…”

“Nothing that can help you with your task…whatever that is,” he stood and stepped toward her again leering over her with his height and weight

“I’ll smooth your path…and keep your body safe…” his hands moved swiftly one to her hip and one to her back as his filthy smiled widened,

Just as quickly her free hand pulled the vibro knife from her belt and thrust it up to his exposed neck beneath what could’ve been a handsome face were it not twisted by hate.

“Go on…press as hard as you can,”

She did, both with the knife and with the force trying to feel him out, understand why…

“…you want…no, need something only I can provide….” Her words soft as she probed deeper and his mental resistance grew, the knife pressing against the skin but unable to penetrate the genetically engineered dense keratin

“Get out of my head schutta….” He growled

“Something you can’t take by force…or you already would have…” He was more than strong and fast enough physically, and while his primitive aura made comparison difficult she suspected he was almost as strong as she was at her best in the Force…which she was far from for the moment..

More barriers came down but Morrigan pressed harder, the blade beginning to pinch in as they leaned every closer to each other, whether in spite of or in response to the tension their head leaning and lips almost brushing in mistrust filled excitement .

“Something you need…and you hate that you need it, abhor what it’s cost you pursuing it…disgusted by the power it has over you…but you still just have to have it…”

“You don’t know anything…” he spat into her face.

“I have to be willing…something…something more than just physical....”

With a burst of fury he hurled her off sending her banging into M4’s bulk. Aydyn gripped his head, blood rapidly sealing dry on his neck where in the push her knife had finally found purchases and cut through

“Ever try that again tralk and I might just see if I can force it…”

She wasted no time snapping back

“And what is it, certainly not love…”

“You’ll work it out…” the voice more animalistic growl than coherent words

“But know this…no one, no woman will EVER control me! If I have to trade for it, so be it, but I will never be a slave like They would make every male…”

He left with a trail of bitter rage…and disturbing excitement for being so close to each other…in his wake.

<<<<>>>>

Karmack

“Chandrilla…The Hanna Institute is still based on Chandrilla,” Alex confirmed consulting the Holonet on the Hope still keeping a wide berth from Karmack.

The Master singer had dark patches round his eyes as if he hadn’t slept for a month, yet in their ascent to the surface he seemed fit and sprite as a Padawan and powerful as Palpatine himself, shredding the feral droids like reeds under the scythe of his yellow saber.

Chandrilla was still officially neutral in the civil war, but really was Alliance as could be, no Imperial presence and several reports of ‘Rebel’ ships passing through.

“It shouldn’t be hard to get to, but the landing fees are steep….” Alex glanced to Karmack
“Not that that seems to bother you…”
“All on the tab I guess,” Joanna whispered

“Get us there quickly, we’ve wasted enough time as is, Artemis is getting stronger with every passing moment,”

Sweeping out Joanna waited till the door slid shut of its own accord leaving her alone with her husband in the cockpit.

“Is it just me or is he getting worse by the hour?”
Alex nodded
“It’s worse…I don’t know what kind of power he’s tapped but…in the Force it’s like…he’s just become a flame of energy, I can’t tell where he starts and the Power ends, and it's all…anger, desperation, fear…”

“Isn’t that like the Dark side?” Joanna asked, she knew a little of the Jedi Lore

“Usually yes but this is…I don’t know,” Alex leaned back, closing his eyes trying to find the right way to describe the indecipherable sense of another being's soul.

“He’s driven by a need to protect, to defend, to fight the Darkness...which is the Light side…but it's so intense it's like…so bright it's dark…”

<<<<>>>>

“Did you need any…” Arnor’s offer of more food was negated by the untouched state of that she had left on the bunk beside her husband before she had gone to wash.

“Karm you need to eat!” 

Meditating once more he waved the concern away.

“I’m fine,”

That was the last straw.

“No you’re not,” She replied firmly arms crossed over her light clothes hair still misted from the sonic steam spray removing the oils from the Coruscant low level air,
“You’re not eating, you’re rampaging around leaving us behind, barely explaining what is going on, and when was the last time you even slept?”

Slept He couldn’t remember…it didn’t matter, the Maker provided all his needs through the Force.

“It doesn’t matter, stopping Artemis is all we should be focused on…” his face creased in frustration
“Everywhere I go there they are, Vyth, Geonosis, now Coruscant…let alone M’Tzigon…they’ve been planning this for years, doing everything they can to stop me getting the Starfire and trying to force me to use the Ancient One so they can study it…”

How much of that was true and how much was paranoia Arnor could not tell, in truth it was a mix of both, she couldn’t deny Artemis was pulling many strings - Mendax, Cliff…but still Karms response was becoming increasingly irrational.

“Well you can’t stop them if you’re not healthy,” she pleaded, kneeling down in front of him.
“Karm please, you’re really scaring me…using the Force so deeply for such a long time, the Crystals…”

“I know what I’m doing, I’m a Master Singer,” he replied with uncharacteristic hubris
“In the Catacombs I destroyed their Oblivion Idol, a little more refinement and I should be able to use the same technique to breach their armour…then they will have no advantage over us anymore and we can drive them from M’Tziogn, by force if necessary,”

“Karm…are you hearing yourself? Taking on the BA’s, the Kage would never agree to that, they could turn those Maker forsaken droids on us by the thousand,”

“The Kage…” Karm sneered his thoughts bubbling “Er’lav is an Artemis pawn, as soon as I have the Starfire….”

Seeing the distress on his wife face he stopped the darker train of thoughts as to what might be required to get rid of Artemis completely.

“Arnor…I wish I could show you what I see,” he said more sympathetically “There is an entire Web of darkness in the Song underlying all of this…every discovery we make it grows larger and more complex…their influence over the government, power to revive the dead, manipulation of the Sons, freeing Morrigan…and now desecrating our tombs…the only way to stop them from choking us in their web is to slice straight through it, and for that I need the starfire…the only thing they fear is Me...”

He gripped his saber tightly, the energy flow between himself and the Ancient One strong as his resolve.

“That’s why they tried to tempt me on Commenor, sent Mendax to destroy me, and now have done all they can to keep the Starfire from me.  Once in my possession I’ll be stronger than Odjina or Dorian ever was,”

That was precisely what she was afraid of.

<<<<>>>>

Er’lav

Meetings and briefings passed with taciturn nods and grunts of assent, the ripples of the disaster of a successful rescue weighty on them all.

Whispers of the President preparing his resignation were growing, a full investigation into the crime a certainty.

They may have been pirates, they may have taken hostages, but they were still in the custody of the M’tzigon government, and they had still been slaughtered unarmed, a war crime under their own codes.

Closing the door to her still barely furnished apartments, the official residence of the Kage, Er’lav wished for nothing more than to vanish into the darkness of the room.

A chime at the door roused her, idly wondering what new disaster was about to unfold.

“Oh Maker, I don’t have the energy for this,” she sighed seeing her visitor.

Nimmin Cha stood in a newly pressed suit with an opulent bag under his arm.

“I thought you might appreciate some company…” he reached in and pulled out a bottle of Lorrdian Vodka
“...and a distraction,”

“What makes you think I would want to spend any more time with you than I absolutely have to?”

“Because dear Kage, I’m all that is on offer fo the time being,”

With a resigned shrug she walked to the lone couch slumping down but leaving the door open, resistance seemed futile.

“I love what you’ve done with the place…minimalist…” he said cheerily, heading to the kitchen for cups and a plate for his box of confectionary, noting the marks where furniture belonging to Silman had so recently been removed.

He offered the plas cup, disconcertingly cheap for the expensive vodka and the plate, Er’lav taking only a few of the handcrafted Glucose melts to suck on.

“I must say I’m surprised, your predecessor would surely have placed the blame squarely at my feet.”

Er’lav leaned back staring at the ceiling

“You’re a temptation we gave into, Cliff bought your droids, Alvarez decided to use them despite the disaster last time, you’re just an arms dealer,”

“How quaint,” he smiled at being reduced to a mere salesman.

Er’lav had no desire to speak about all that though, with nothing in the blank room to distract her except Cha, she turned her curiosity on him.

“Why do you work for them?” she asked, slamming down another three lollies.
“Artemis?”

“You’re surprised they would lower themselves to employ such a cad?” he offered a self deprecating smile

“The opposite,” she replied
“I wonder why a capable man such as yourself would willingly surrender your freedom to a gang of petulant teenage girls,”

“Capable do you really think so,” he batted his eyes in a mocking fashion

“Come on, I know this…persona…is all an act – a damn good one I’ll grant you, but you can’t have survived this long and risen this high walking that talk.”

With an oily smirk he settled on the floor at her feet.

“What makes you think I’ve risen from anywhere? Perhaps like an Angel I’ve fallen from a greater height,”

Anyone else would give up, irritated at Cha’s verbose obfuscations, Er’lav knew there was something deeper to find and digging here kept thoughts of the fallout of the prisoner murders at bay. 

“Because what little intel we had on you showed a cad, a lazy one at that, taking his brother's scraps…”

There was the slightest twitch in his eyes at the mention of his brother.

“What do you think Kage, what is your ‘read’”

“What I think...you followed your brother into the Inquisition but couldn’t keep up, made too many enemies, needed an out Artemis gave you that and more - all the selfish dreams you had as a young man come true.  You took it, you indulged in it.
Then it came time to pay, you were fine with that for a while, but now, a decade later, you regret it, you’ve grown up, you got all the easy women, cheap thrills and gaudy clothes you could have asked for and you still feel empty, because none of it lasts, none of it is real.”
She leaned down toward him
“Grief changes a person,” Er’lav went on,
“Loss breaks us, but it remakes us, that’s what the Mak’Tor believe, and you lost the last person who genuinely had any affection for you when your brother died - slim as that affection was -…I think that woke you up, and now…you want to get out of Artemis control but they will never let you leave.”

Cha remained silent for several beats in which he would usually toss around meaningless quips and faux flirtation.

“The Mak’Tor…chose their Kage well this time,”

He slowly stood up, taking the plas-cup, filling it to the brim with vodka and downing it in one deep swallow.

“Sleep well Kage, all our problems will still be there in the morning…and more besides,”

Cha left without another word, Er’lav still on the couch, he was right, her problems weren’t gone, but at least in Cha himself she now had something else to think about till exhaustion took her.

<<<<>>>>

Ken

“Just like you said pa…” Ken confirmed as he watched Zearic’s Bane jump to hyperspace on the long range scanner

“A heading consistent with where we believe Ossus is located…”

No one fully knew the location, but a Mak’Tor Archaeological mission had recovered fragmentary evidence that narrowed it to a few sectors…further investigation was stymied by the outbreak of the Clone Wars.

“…and the signal is strong…or was till they jumped,” Ken turned to thumbs up Balnard.

“Now we just wait till they drop out again and leap frog behind them…and then…”

Ken leaned forward uncertain at what the next step even was.

“...if nothing else at least we find Ossuss.”

<<<<>>>>