Remnant of the Aether

[TheDutchman]

Oh my...weapons and tactics from another era, for a war that was fought long ago...and lost.  But does that make the Re-actives obsolete or something that our "modern" Aethans would treat with inclusiveness...or destroyed outright given their antiquated orders?  Perhaps neither, especially given their maxim "Vincit Omnia Aethani"...

...or Aethans conquer all    I know for SOME of the Aethans, this mandate will dovetail perfectly with their own xenophobic doctrines.  Which is one plot point that I have to hand it to LSG: are the Aethans more than just their genetic imperative?  Can they expand beyond what the Technocracy intended, become more than just what is programed into their gene generation?  And what about Nineth's place as the Re-actives "warchief?"  I'm sure that this is going to come to a head when she encounters Valens, who, unless I miss my guess, is a higher gene generation than they are...but they seemed to be implicitly designed for war against the Sith...so there's that.

Either way: I canNOT wait to find out!

My thanks to Dutch for this incredible chapter, bringing new perspectives to my characters integrating their existing backstories so perfectly and an entertaining exceptionally detailed little episode in itself. This is what collaboration and quality look like. To the Chapter itself the contrast between elation and despair, and how quickly that can be triggered, how shallow some wounds are beneath the skin so easily reopened is very well done but that is not the real focus as well written as it is - the key is how within their relationship they have the balm for just such situations, Sofa for Valens and Valens for Sofa, there for each other in good times and in bad is perfectly captured here. I think Dutch has the edge on all of us writing such intimate scenes between couples (Zearic/D'Allyana, Kazic/Saani having numerous examples) - and wanting the best possible honeymoon sequence for my characters there was no question he had to write it, my thanks again!

First: I am both honored and humbled by LSG's praise; this chapter was definitely a favorite of mine to write    And in all honesty, IF I am able to produce the character relationships that LSG has so generously bestowed, it is because of 1) the incredible feedback that I have received (special thanks to LSG, Karm, and Teagin Roan  ) and 2) the absolutely awesome wealth of nuance and development as a result of our shared Forumverse!

Collaborations rock and so do my fellow authors (and artists--looking at you, For Tyeth & PsychoSith  )

My thanks to everyone!

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 8 — The Black Obelisk — Part 2

The Obelisk Array

At last it was ready.

Nearly 750 years ago the Technocracy had developed the original design and built the basic infrastructure …but their work was stopped by the Collapse, the desolation of their world by hordes of Sith from the demesnes, marches and mini kingdoms in deep Core during the Early Draggulch period of the New Sith wars.

Their descendants, the People, however distant in culture had picked up where they left off.

The basic premise was the same, but they had to grapple with challenges the Technocracy designers hadn’t progressed far enough to encounter.

The screening out the back ground emanations, removing distorting effects of local aetheric turbulence required creating an ‘Aether Sink’ that siphoned off nearby back ground energies into an ‘aetheric capacitor’ – the energy recycled, purified and used to charge the Obelisks

Then there were issues of potentially damaging emanations, extremes of rage and spikes of violence or lust that could disrupt the operation of the Observatory they had to design Greysleet dampeners to screen out intentional assaults as best they could.

It had taken just over a Republic Standard year - 220 Aethan days of 43 hours - from mid-Winter when they returned from the Academy to the late spring, a whole year on Aethas lasting 540 days.

A year of healing for Kassyndra and Lydan, and everyone around them, most of all Selaena reuniting with her son, and Milaea with her grandmother.

A year learning from the Extolled, and the Technocracy as more data archives were found under Mount Alixaea.

A year of personal struggle and growth as everyone completed the Guardian training, their abilities enhanced but limitations also exposed.

A year in which they finalised of their Four Aertemsiaea Class Destroyers, the Persephaea and Aephrodaea joining the sister ships the Aertemisaea and Aethenaea.

Then there were the marriages, honeymoons, the planting of new orchards and crops with the help of the Extolled, the growth of the gormin herds and the gopin flocks, even the wild predators, goyruts, gosalam, vosis, vorynx and volurks were returning to a more settled pattern.

Houses had been repaired or built a new, home crafts restored, new tapestries, leathers and wooden utensils as they recovered long resting arts of handicraft, abilities too, Milaea exploring the writings of the Volva’s, Melron compiling new tales of their history.

It was the most peaceful, productive and healing time the People had experienced in the twenty two years since the Devastation.

The activation of the First Obelisk to help find other survivors was a fitting way to end this period and begin the next.

A year ago the control room had been a mess of ancient wires and cords, now it was clean and crisp as any Chiss communications centre, in addition to nanite circuitry were bloodstone veins to carry not electrical but aetheric signals to the Observatory after being passed through the Obelisk and into the nine filter orbs on the pedestal before it. 

Its capacity was barely 5 per cent of what all nine obelisks could achieve once completed, but 5 percent was still more aetheric detection power than they possessed a year go by a hundred fold.

Milaea stood with Adaea and Valens in the control room, the others dotted around the facility to ensure all support systems and backups were functional, Lydan on a rare trip off-world waited on the Aethenaea at a float with the other four destroyers above Aeda.

There was no use having the Obelisks to detect signals if they could not mount a rescue, with four Destroyer class capital ships they could deal with anything short of a whole planetary defence fleet, and with a hundred Extolled warriors and their Sons of Kessel allies they could make up for their low numbers with Elite soldiers where needed.
 
They did not know what or who – if anyone – they would find – but based on experience it was unlikely any survivors they did find would be in good condition – Jarys had been thrown to the fighting puts, Maeson and Kassyndra to dust choked mines, Selaena abused, Lydan mutilated….even Kiraea, Lyaea and Adaea who had gotten off ‘lightly’ barely escaped sex slavery.

Even as Milaea began the process of activating the systems - removing the ‘BlackOut’ Shielding systems and sending aetheric currents into the storage Orbs to ensure they were ready to collect and archive signals for analysis and the creation of a long term mapping of the aetheric landscape of the galaxy as a whole - she was keenly aware that doing this would lead to more violence.

Even a brief glance using her growing seiðr arts showed struggle on the horizon, but under her Grandmothers guidance she avoided gazing too deeply or taking it too much as fact. 

Blood would flow, she was resigned to this fact, but the need to remain hidden from the Jedi would at least keep the Peoples rage focused and precise – whoever they found they would rescue with speed and stealth - where possible. 

Thin lines of blue energy flicked from the chamber walls onto the Obelisk itself, it sank deep into the monolith of Blackstone then filtered out into the filtering Orbs that would refine the signals into a more useable pattern.

The flickers grew stronger, more consistent…then without fanfare without climax…

…it stabilised into silence and calm, passively detecting the currents of the Aether from across the galaxy.

“All systems nominal…” Milaea said checking the read out with her eyes and the aether, Valens and Adaea doing likewise at their stations.

“Time to see the results”

<<<<>>>>

Observatory

It was a map of the galaxy.  And yet no one would recognise it as such.
 
It was a sprawling mess of undulating layers like crumpled bedsheets with occasional spikes sticking through it, arranged in a rough sphere within which were more spiked points or deep wells.

Projected out of nine aetherically charged orbs it integrated all the data the telescope like Obelisk could gather and converted it into an aetheric map of the galaxy.

She waved her hand through the diaphanous projection feeling the tingle of aetheric energies – much like lightning but limited to a feel of static electricity. 

The blue-white mass before her was the result, a near perfect representation of aetheric flows in the galaxy.  The next task though was harder…

She gazed carefully at the output, trying to work out amidst the peaks and troughs in the four dozen or more layers of flowing waves – for they never remained a fixed number second to second – which were different systems – once they could map thirty or so Aetheric vergence points on this map to a normal galactic map they could generate algorithms and predictive models to pinpoint the others…then gradually refine by checking each location by sending scouts with ‘ping’ devices to the different worlds to confirm…it was a large and logistically and conceptually challenging task even for beings with six levels of conscious thought.

Thirty might not be enough…they may have to survey up to a hundred locations to develop a working model and even then it would likely only have 63-67 per cent accuracy...further refinement would take even longer given the constant distortions…

“Aethani Dominabutir Astris “ Valens mused behind her, unusually cheerful since returning from the Honeymoon, followed in by Sofa and Kiraea.

“Aethans Domino what now?” Sofa asked.

“Aethani Dominabutir Astris,” Milaea replied absently her eyes fixed on the rough centre of the map where there was a strange donut shaped depression where numerous sheets of energy vanished at the border and then peaked in the centre.

“It’s an old Technocracy Motto, ‘Aethans shall dominate the Stars’” her reply was off handed in distraction though Valens and Kiraea shared a wickedly ambitious glance.

 “This must be home…” Milaea the sphere of suppression hiding peaks of activity in her hand, “…the depression caused by the Aetheric Barriers the Technocracy built…they must still be functional.”

“It would certainly be unusual for anywhere else to look like that…” Kiraea added wandering to a further edge were the waves washed into a basin like depression of dark blue

“This would be the Maw…” her finger touched the centre then followed along past a few minor peaks to a strange reddened swirl

“And here would be the Old Sith Empire…Korriban, Ziost…,”

Sofa having noted Valens and Kiraea’s conspiratorial glance stepped between them wandering to the far side of the room where there were vast empty stretches punctuated by sharp peaks and troughs.

“Then this would be the unknown regions…what are these places…”

Valens eyes narrowed
“Places that are almost mythical…Ahch-to and the like perhaps...” genehanced cognition and vision calculated the distance between them as 532 centimetres…extrapolating the distance between what looked like the Maw and what looked like home…and applying that to the peak over his wife’s head he could estimate roughly the time it would take to travel there.

“Hmmm…it won’t be hard to pinpoint signals once the software is developed…overlay it against radiation and gravity maps of the galaxy…”

“I don’t think it will be as easy as that…” Milaea replied heading back to where Kiraea had pointed out the Old Sith Empire worlds

 “…here see this – these tides of aetheric winds are drifting the emanations of the planets there…they’re still clustered but not necessarily in an easily derivable scale to each other and the rest of the galaxy…and further turbulence in the aether could shift it back and forth at any moment”

Kiraea nodded beside her

“Yes…and anyway the precision is low, at best we could pick out the Sector a signal comes from, not the system…”

That would be a problem when most Sectors contained thousands if not millions of systems.

“…it’s not impossible…” Milaea went on “…but for precision calculations it’s going to be more difficult…until we have all the Obelisks online that is”

This was the question they had to grapple with – they had limited resources and two equally important tasks to choose from – complete the array to increase precision then search for survivors – or begin their search with the Obelisk they had – it had already been 22 years and only now did they have the resources to help survivors…if any remained…they could delay no longer.

“Do you think anyone else has an Observatory like this?” Sofa broke in as they put that decision into their sixth level of consciousness for the moment, computing probabilities of success with just one Obelisk against the instinctual need to find their People.

“Probably…The original Rakata Star Maps weren’t dissimilar in their original intent…there have been so many advanced civilizations, the Gree, the Kwa, Celestials - I’m sure others have….” Milaea replied

“All seeing is the first step to all knowing…who else but a Goddess could achieve such a thing,” Kiraea teased behind her.

“Indeed….” Milaea’s eyes narrowed considering for a moment the very serious imports of Kiraea’s jest about who or what else might have a similar device. For now she put it to the side.

“We need to start looking now…we can’t wait any longer, we can work on the second and third obelisks simultaneously, have the Extolled and their Dovin basals help to mine the Blackstone for the rest.”

Valens nodded in agreement.

“You’re right, there is no time to waste…every hour that passes another survivor could be dying…” his head dropped causing Sofa to place a comforting hand on his shoulders

“After so long though…I wonder if any do still survive…”

“Only one way to find out,” his wife comforted.

Kiraea unexpectedly grabbed Milaea’s butt,

“Well that’s settled then, and I have the perfect way to get the message to any survivors that we are looking for them!”

<<<<>>>>

Sex Sells

If there was one universal rule of business in the galaxy it was that sex sells. 

And if there was one universal rule of advertising, it was that the more sexually explicit the ad, the further it would travel – either by voyeurism or even better outrage.

“Do I really have to….” Sofa queried positioned in front of the camera, a store room in the Mount Aelia fortress turned into a makeshift studio with a 3D scanner to accurately model the poses and help produce the statues Kiraea had commissioned

“It’s Rite number 32…you can’t do it without your finger!”

“Stars this is embarrassing…”

Kiraea shrugged indifferent to her discomfort “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before…”

“You have…Milaea has…the girls have…but the GALAXY hasn’t.” she positioned her fingers anyway allowing Kiraea to hit the scan button.  The thin circular lenses on stands around the brightly lit ‘stage’ activated and began sweeping blue lights all across Sofa.

“You should smile more, you’re meant to be…

“I thought you said you’d change the faces!”

“Fine I’ll paste a mash up of you and Lyaea…”

Every one of the women was contributing, except of course for Selaena who considering how she had been abused by Outsiders Kiraea had known not to ask - but she did give approval for Lyaea to be involved.

“Alright one more, number 33…” she said to Sofa who shifted up to brush her hair for the next shot.  There were to be 120 sculptures depicting Some of the Arts of Aephrodaea in action, those Kiraea determined were okay to be seen by outsiders considering the need to find more People.

“Why am I doing so many of these anyway?” Sofa complained

“Because you have the largest breasts…and that sells more in humanoid male demographic age 18 to 28 who are more likely to share the images with other males on social media spreading it even further…”

“And you can’t just photo edit your own?”

Kiraea hurled a cushion at her with the aether

“Stop complaining, I’m in charge we do it my way!”

“Fine but if I see these picts on your datapad…”

“Why are you looking at my datapad hmmmm….” The reply cut Sofa short

Once they had the scans they would produce 120 double life size statues all true to life skin colour from marble mined on Mimban, with Ruby and Amethyst based paints, shimmering with a liquid sheen that would add to the sensual lustre of the figures and the activities they were engaged in. 

These would be taken to every Art and Anthropology Exhibition they could buy their way into along with a massive advertising campaign to promote the ‘Arts of Aephrodaea’ exhibit.

The highly erotic nature of the statues and the billions of flyers and ads would spread a message from People for People as far and wide as possible, telling them it was safe to try and reach out, that there was someone looking for them, trying to find them…

A tear budded at Kiraea’s eyes…after so long they would know they had not been forgotten or abandoned by their Goddesses.

Even now they were testing the Obelisk to ensure they could filter out the signals, and Jarys working with Milaea had devised a way to transmit a small burst message back along the aetheric wavelength they got any signals from so they could reply simply….We are coming.

But she was getting a head of herself…the scanner shuttered off and Sofa hopped back up quickly tying her hair back, she had allowed it grow unusually long since her wedding making Kiraea wonder if the rich black hair wasn’t a fetish of Valens…

Sofa quickly glared at her as if picking up on the thought…So prudish! She should be happy to have a husband who worships every part of her like that and share tips with the other women!.

“Alright…you’re done…Mili you can be Aephrodaea, Lya you’re Aertemisaea so put on the quiver and hold that arrow…”

<<<<>>>>

“Oh….” Lyr’s eyes watered as he glanced through the ‘pictures’ Kiraea had sent

His hand clapped over his mouth…if his wife Nxi saw him looking at this she would slap him.

“OH…”

Lyr was no stranger to such things, he had worked as a Hutt’s major domo after all and some of the sights entertaining guests and his master would stay with him forever….but they had never been intended for public consumption on this scale.

“A problem,” Valens asked staring out of the office window over the seas of Fresia below.

The building was on one of many small islands on the core world known for advanced manufacturing companies notably Incom. 

It was here Lyr and Colm Maynard had set up for their ‘masters’ a ‘legitimate’ enterprise Aertemis Industries – funded by vast amounts of stolen credits and intellectual property, and the occasional Cargo hauler load of utlradense minerals for sale on the open market.

They had bought a half occupied island outright, evicted the prior tenants and were ‘rebuilding’ a new compound to suit their ‘needs’ currently Lyrs office was in the only old tower not yet demolished – slightly eerie in that it had 112 stories and five occupants - himself, Nxi and Churi, Maynard and Xandra.

“No problem…just we might have issues with classification boards permitting this on some worlds and getting traction…the main adult industries sell things far more explicit than this, it’s unlikely to sell in those markets….”

“We focus on trying to pass it off as mainstream Art and Museum pieces…it should get more attention that way…”

“A cunning plan…those larger than life statues though…to get them into travelling exhibits may be more expensive that I first thought given their…nature…”

“I thought the opposite would be the case….”

“One would think…but many systems are not so…liberal culturally….it may provoke…”

Lyr stopped himself realising the plan more fully, outright explicit vid’s and pict’s were a dime a trillion on the holonet, but if they were placed in galleries…

“Outrage…you want the outrage to get more people talking about it, all press is good press,”

Now Valens smiled…that scared Lyr – when Valens smiled outsiders died

“Outrage it is then….” he swallowed

“I’ll find whatever freedom of speech and libertarian groups I can and give them donations…to do the arguing for us…and make those that might oppose it very aware of it...”

Lyr tapped away at his accounting spread sheet.

“Of course the galaxy is vast, even using multiple advertising agencies our reach will be limited...to get even 0.5 per cent market awareness will cost…around…8 billion credits….”

He left the price hanging, even with all the banks he and Valens had taken ownership of through….persuasion so many years ago….their cash reserves still only amounted to 10 billion on top of net assets in stocks, cargo vessels and automated transit hubs, and the very island they sat upon of 200 billion.

“No price is too high…” Valens whispered “We can acquire more credits as needed with our…Persuasiveness…I want this message spread, from Coruscant to Jakku….”

So Valens spoke so Lyr’Ca’Njo obeyed as he had for the last twenty–two years.

The search for the Remnants had begun.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

[TheDutchman]

Excellent time jump here; works perfectly within the narrative, especially considering the burgeoning Aethan military/industrial complex.  But the real jewel here is the communications obelisk: not only because of the uncertainty concerning the logistics but also functionality.  And after everything that the People have been through during the interim from the Devastation, you can feel the eagerness to find and save any and all survivors.  Speaking of...

Brilliant strategy to throw a proverbial light into the darkness with the "Arts of Aephrodaea."  On a meta-level, this was one of LSG's (awesome!) contributions to _{***shameless plug***} "Schisms" that now becomes such a big pay-off as we see just HOW the Aethans can find their People despite being scattered throughout the galaxy.  Unsurprisingly, this continues yet more of a favored storyline that I am really enjoying 

And I love the pic of the Observatory!

YES!!! 

Once again a BRILLIANT collaboration between LSG and our resident visual master, FT!!!  These banners are FANTASTIC!!!

_{...I've GOT to steal borrow this!!!}

[For Tyeth]

YES!!!  

Once again a BRILLIANT collaboration between LSG and our resident visual master, FT!!!  These banners are FANTASTIC!!!

_{...I've GOT to steal borrow this!!!}

Hi Dutch, I can't take much credit here, LSG told me what he was looking for visually and I just did a basic "cut and paste" and page layout for the poster (I learnt Desktop Publishing at college   )The earlier poster I designed with characters lining each side of the poster was much more complex.

[TheDutchman]

Hi Dutch, I can't take much credit here, LSG told me what he was looking for visually and I just did a basic "cut and paste" and page layout for the poster (I learnt Desktop Publishing at college   )The earlier poster I designed with characters lining each side of the poster was much more complex.

Props to both of you!

Every time I see these it inspires me to write 

Seriously, wonderful work between the two of you!!

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 9 — Chains Within — Part 1

Jenaea

FWWAP!

“Hehhh….” The filthy alien leered behind her as her butt felt the tingle of the slap.

She didn’t even bother taking note anymore…just kept scrubbing away at the floor, cleaning up the vomit from last night’s guest’s party.

Waiting for the inevitable she was pleasantly surprised when it just wandered off, another forgettable slap…better than a groping…but she didn’t even record those anymore either.

The scent of the vomit mingled with the cleaning chemicals in her nose…she could tell everything this creature had eaten before spewing it across the wall…it had been the soup she’d made to order...even that lack of appreciation she didn’t record.

For the longest time she had remembered everyone of the filthy outsiders that offended her, her list grew so long though…eventually she started forgetting at over 3000…now it was a simple list with one entry that encapsulated all those who she would take her vengeance upon.

‘Outsiders’ was the only title there…

The chaffing of the shock collar reminded how unlikely it was.  The cutting of the overly tight ankle bracelets reminded her of her last attempt to enact her plans…scars on her back even more so.

The only thing she was thankful for was the unhealed cut on her face that made the jeering drunk throngs of customers less likely to try and rape her when they saw her damaged features…

But it encouraged the bad ones.

She had wanted to kill herself so many times…so many…but convinced herself life was…Something better than nothing…

Though the somethings too often hurt her and she wanted the nothing…but the ‘Master’…

Pttt! She spat every time she thought of him

…would never allow it…the collar didn’t just electrocute her when she was disobedient it tracked her vitals and shocked her if they dropped too low….she had tried to overload it to be fatal…but in a sick irony her body was too strong to be killed so easily, the poor food yet left her too weak to fight her way out.

“Huzzy UP!” the master yelled behind her

“Clean room 602 before next hour or shock you!”

602…it has a great view of the space port…

“Yes Master…”

<<<<>>>>

She hauled up the dripping mattress – it was mainly faeces this time…usually it was urine of some kind mingled with booze and drugs.

Outside the viewport she looked across the pirate and merc hulls coming and going – she’d been brought on one of those ships…taken to the Casino across the main boulevard of the rotating space station…lost in a game where best cheater wins.

But blasters trump all…and now stuck for who knew how long working at the winners hotel, before he too got shot and she was sold at the estate auction as a “Pretty worker with years of experience, chipper and playful with your valued guests…”  the filthy creature had pulled off her smock

“Breast a little small but supple…”

She squinted her eyes looking for anything out the ordinary.

Jenaea didn’t know what to expect really, what kind of ship would they come in on? Would they come at all?

She dropped the mattress and touched the brochure in her underwear. 

Ragged and covered in dried…fluids…it was half an advertisement for the ‘Arts of Aephrodaea’ Exhibit on Corellia a distant planet that built many of the ships she saw come and go…and produced some of the worst pirates who stayed at the hotel, they all thought themselves charming and smooth – in the end they restored to force of course…it was more galling to her that they even tried to ‘seduce’ her or the other workers…just get it over with….

The brochure was still there…sometimes she thought she imagined it…that she was hallucinating…would she know if she was? Probably not…

She’d found it in an upturned bin after ‘big Night’ – the night every twenty days when the local miners came in from the nearby moons and asteroids to blow all their wages on booze and bitches.

As a ‘cheap’ hotel she got some of the grottiest louts, most too drunk to do much damage to anything but the furniture.

The Master wouldn’t be happy having to replace another mattress…she would just put this one in the den to dry out by the generator…a soak in some used laundry soap it would be good as…

It could be for a decades soiled piece of filth like me…why would anyone come for me…

“HEY! What you looking at!” the Master yelled behind her.

As Jenaea tuned back to her work a black ship slipped into the system blotting out a single star on the horizon.

<<<<<>>>>

After she’d done the rooms and cooked the meals dumped into the buffet she had to wait the tables, trying to upsell more drinks.

This batch seemed standard, a few Gand, Rodian, couple of humans, a boisterous Gamorrean…

She weaved through them, getting pinches and slaps, grotty old credit chits slapped on her tray to pay as she poured out the ‘house’ brands that were little better than pure ethanol mixed with the grimy water of Hgla station –named for the owner of the whole shellty place Hgla the Hutt, from what Jenaea understood he was a two bit player content with moderate control over this intersection between a few unexceptional jump points to various mining and agricultural systems and Klatooine on one side Nar Shadda on the other giving it a reasonable level of traffic.

The station itself had seen better days in Exar Kuns time one of the guests noted beneath a heavy robe in the corner…a wretched hide of sum and villainy…a text book example of Hutt infrastructure…bolted on upgrades, fixed when its broke, catering to cheap and nasty crews who couldn’t afford the docking fees on Nar Shadda and enough booze to get soused so they came here instead…

A lower class of reprobate than Nar Shadda was a sight…and smell to behold she mused.

“What can I get you?”

His face dropped beneath the Ubese helmet as he saw her marred features and lifeless eyes.

“Nothing…” he said quietly – but the words boomed out through the Ubese helmets speaker as ‘Na-To!’

She wandered off indifferent to take a Rodians order, the filthy thing reached up and grabbed her between the legs as he ordered a ‘Slick Selonian Slurper’

He bit back his blinding rage…Soon…Soon….

As they laughed at her as she went to get the drink he stood and headed past the metal bar patterned with decades of spilled drinks into an almost pretty rainbow, dropped 50 credits into the tip jar and a gift along with it.

<<<<>>>>

The bar was quiet enough, and she was tired enough. 

As she opened the ‘safe’ drawer to tip out the takings and ‘tips’ for the master she noticed something black in the jar. 

Reaching in she pulled out a finely wrought…statuette…it was hard to make out what it was…she held it to the light but it just ate it up like a shadow…

“hmmm…” she stared intently and drew circumspectly on the aether to look at it…it was hard to use the aether here, and dangerous…she’d felt hideous creatures come and go from the hotel over the years- as vile as they were to look at their aetheric presence was worse, she was afraid what attention using it bring…

It had been a big risk to signal outward after she’d found the Arts of Aephordaea brochure…she’ held it for weeks trying to work out what to do…even now she worried it might’ve been the wrong choice…

Her senses clearer she saw the figure in full…a feminine form in loose fitting practical dress drawing an arrow…

Aertemisaea….

“Hey whazz DAT!” the Master grasped her wrist

“NO!” she couldn’t let him defile it…but the brutish Besalisk was too strong for her prying it from her fingers

“Eh you Steal diz! You Steal from Cuztomer…you get caught I cut your hand ov!”

He held the small statue in his hand looking it over

“Heavy…hmm…sell maybe…hmmm…”

Lips pursed angrily she swiped her hand out to grab it back off him

“NO! you can’t have it!”

Two of his arms grabbed her waist, another reached for his shock collar controller

She squeezed the heavy totem so hard it cut into her hand, blood flowing into the recesses of the statuette as if it were made to be so covered

“ehhh Guardian…” she struggled against the squeeze of brutish hands

“Kill them ALL Guardia…”TZZZZR

She flopped down under the twisted pulses of the shock collar.

“You not steal! Nothin’ yourz all Mine…you clean up…disobey again I shock you till you earz bleed!”

<<<<>>>>

She had barely gotten her breath back when the master called again

“You Clean diz!” he boomed pointing into the hall.

Struggling to walk for the burns from the ankle shocks she wandered into the hall.

The Rodian who had grabbed her was face down on the floor, blood trailing up the wall. 

That wasn’t unusual in itself, they got about one murder a week…what was was just how it had happened with no one seeing or screaming…and how they had used his blood to write a single word on the wall.

Tommorrow

<<<<>>>

Even as she cleaned up the beds she had a smile on her face all day…because she knew no one would be sleeping in them tonight.

The other slaves wondered what she had to smile about as the Master constantly threatened to cut her thief hands off, indeed her persistent smile annoyed him so much he decided to give her ten lashes.

But every one that struck was one she now knew would be repaid over and over again.

<<<<>>>

Moving in the shadows where nobody could see, half a dozen figures silently stalked through the passageways of Hgla Station toward a grimy hotel built into the decaying durasteel overlooking the main port.

Following in their wake a small band of hooded figures lead by a short stout Psadan whose name they could never pronounce right so they simply called him Mumbles.

In room 802 a marauder foolish enough to open the window to smoke his pipe offered the perfect entry to one of the shadows climbing like an arachnid up the sheer face of the hotel – by the time his ears widened in shock his head was already dropping past the window of 402.

The woman they were here to rescue had asked the Guardians to ‘kill them all’, and whether one of the party of six liked it or not she could not countermand the cultural imperative that placed on them. 

They could however define ‘who’ was included in the ‘All’ to exclude the other slaves

Jenaea didn’t know exactly what to expect as ‘night’ or the equivalent on a space station that never stopped, had fallen, at first nothing seemed to change…except there were no new guests…and even as she scrubbed along the floors no one left their rooms for an unusual amount of time…

It became terribly still and quiet, no hocking, vomiting or banging frelling sounds….

A shadow caught her eye at the edge of the stairs, growing unnaturally…an…obelisk of darkness filling the wall and curving around.

Jenaea leapt up knocking the bucket over as she backtracked trying to out run the tide of darkness.

Something clattered to the floor beside her – the cutting pain around her ankle was gone…then something else…

A weight lifted from her neck as the shock collar…vanished…

Warmth filled the room…a sense of calm and safety she had not known since…

Out of the darkness there was a mechanical hiss and movement, out of the depths of black a feminine face appeared neck length red hair and familiar features it looked like the Guardian Karintha…but not quite…she had two nieces…Yorna and….

“It’s alright we’ve rounded them up…I’m Kiraea I’m here to take you home!”

<<<<>>>>

The Master’s introduction had been more sudden and more shocking. 

Sitting at his desk counting the takings he had looked up to see a black wall in front of him.

He had then risen off his chair and his arms spread out under some hideous power that was not his own. 

He had tried to scream but his mouth was glued shut – till it was opened and an invisible pole was shoved down his throat to choke him as he was dumped on the grimy invariably broken tiles of the lobby beside other guests, in the bar across the entrance the slaves were huddled together being spoked to by a little Psadan in hushed tones before an Aqualish closed the door so they didn’t see what came next.

One of his workers, the naughty one came down the stairs followed by a walking shadow with a human woman’s face.

“Shall we kill them now or later?” Kiraea asked simply

Jenaea thought for a moment…as she felt the weight of the shock collar in her hand…she could have them tormented for days on end…

It was at this point the Master soiled himself.

“Years if you like” Kiraea noted ensuring the so called master heard the threat.

But Jenaea decided to be nicer to them than they had been to her

“Now…Kill them now…” she paused looking at her dishpan hands

“And make a mess.”

<<<<>>>>

Mmbri had known Maeson and Jarys long enough not to be surprised by any level of horror they could inflict…still this scene was in the top ten.

Limbs hung from the ceiling, heads had been inserted in…orifices….blood and haemolymph had been scrawled into a detailed warning on the walls that asked slavers and masters to….consider….the example given here.

He doubted it would make much of a difference…but it was a start.

“How many…” Maeson queried beside him

“Seventeen in all…”

“hmmm…” they both knew there were hundreds more across the station…but time and resources were against them both.

Maeson’s people were forces of nature, they could wipe out the life of every master and slaver on Hgla station in a matter of hours…but then what. 

The Sons didn’t have the resources to care for the freed brethren, even with the credits Maesons kind could offer the logistics were now beyond them, and a massacre of an entire Hutt station would bring attention neither of them wanted…or at least not yet…

It was painful, but Mmbri knew he had to look to the long term, 17 was better than none, and one of Maesons folk was a boon worth thousands of freed brethren one day…

Mmbri did not pretend to understand them, didn’t dare try…but he knew they saw the Sons as Friends and they would one day help their friends…but at the moment they were too few and under resourced to do so….
 
“One day Mumbles…” Maeson confirmed his thoughts “When we’re strong enough to step out of the shadows…” they wandered along the now empty floors of the hotel as Komo and the others looked for loot.

Mmbri paused at Jenaea’s forgotten bucket and sponge, setting it upright for a reason he couldn’t quite articulate…it just seemed Fitting…

“One day….You’ll help all the other Scrubbers.” Mmbri finished.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 9 — Chains Within — Part 2

Jenaea

For the first time she could remember, Jenaea woke when she awoke rather than at the horrific trill of an alarm or the energised blade of a slave prod.

She looked around the cool blues and greys of the neat room and felt….

Out of place

….she was defiling the crisp sheets, polished floor by her presence.  Violated and virulently exposed to the filthy taint of outsiders – how could it not stick to her – could it ever be removed?

A soft chime at the door prevented stewing further for the time.

“Oh…uh…come…come in…”

An immaculately beautiful red headed young woman holding a pile of fluffy towels r worth more than her entire hotel entered.

“You are you feeling?,”

No one had asked her that for so long Jenaea stopped with mouth agape.

The woman smiled setting her pile on a small table

“Here,” she went on unclasping a canister which opened into multiple small cups and bowls.

“Chilled gormin milk, kyala fruits and warm Gopin stew…”

The names were familiar but…did she really know them?

“…and towels and soaps for you to bathe when ready, just through there…if you need anything just ask, we can all hear you anywhere on the ship…oh of course, my name is Milaea, also here are Kiraea, Maeson, Selaena, Kassyndra and Valens.”

There was little recognition in her face Milaea realised…although the People had numbered just on 2000 at the Devastation and many knew each other, it was quite possible she didn’t know any other survivors.

“Is…is the Guardian here…” Jenaea finally said quietly looking at the food but not touching it.

Milaea nodded, there was much to update her on – but not now – the familiarity of the old ways would be best.

“I’ll get Kiraea, she’s a Guardian niece of Karintha,” against she seemed oblivious to the names

“And Valens, Grandson of Old Andis,”

“Andis…Old Andis…is he here?”

“No he…”

Always the truth Milaea reiterated to herself

“Was killed by Outsiders many years ago,”

The others arrived in short order, Milaea worrying how Jenaea sat like a ronto in headlights.  She had been relatively buoyant, understandably vicious even at the hotel…but now her captivity was over…

<The shock is setting in> Valens noted telepathically as he entered Kiraea just behind.

“Jenaea,” Valens said kneeling before to avoid intimidating her by height,

“I am Valens, son of Lyssia, Grandson of Andis,”

“And I Kiraea, daughter of Yilaea and Karan, student and niece of Karintha,”

“Guardian…” Jenaea whispered

“Am I…are we…”

“Yes Jenaea, you are free at last, we’re on course for home now,”

Even as Valens explained her face became ever more pallid.

<Perhaps you should speak to her alone Kiraea, a woman and Guardian might be more settling…>

<Agreed>

“Kiraea will tell you everything, Milaea and I will see to the ship.  The trip through to the deep core is long unfortunately, we will make a few small stops as well,” he offered a rare smile.

“It has been a hard road, but soon, you’ll be able to rest with People and the Goddesses.”

Milaea and Valens headed out leaving the other two women alone.

Kiraea sat on the floor cross legged before Jenaea who had barely moved.  She pushed a gentle probe in the aether but the recoil was instant – understandable after all she had endured.

“Why don’t you try and eat something, it’s all from home!”

Jenaea looked at the food, smelt it, saw its thermal image, behind her electromagnetic radiation sight, even felt it in the aether, it was real food but she…

“Guardian…I…I can’t I’m….I’m…”

Kiraea leaned forward as Jenaea burst

“Filthy! Unclean, unworthy, I couldn’t protect…couldn’t stop…the outsiders…”

Like lighting Kiraea had her arms around her pressing Jenaea’s head onto her breast.

“You are clean and pure! It was not your error, the Outsiders did this, the guilt and punishment will be theirs…” Kiraea could barely keep her own voice from trembling with rage –and regret for not slaughtering every Outsider on Hgla Station.

Jenaea’s tears pierced through Kiraea’s light lace outfit – lingerie Sofa called it – comfortable Kiraea termed it.  Along with it came sweat and the smell of decay that still clung to Jenaea’s hair – as soon as they got her on board they put her to bed with a gentle suppressive totem – hopefully once physically clean she would feel better…

Kiraea knew it would not be a cure all, but it would be a start.

With gentle prompting verging on a Guardians order Kiraea had her eat the majority of the food, undressing with her took her into the shower, gently but firmly helping Jenaea scrub and wash everything years of unhygienic living had scaled upon her.

Her body was almost emaciated, rib and abdominal bone plates that distinguished Aethans further from other humanoids and protected their organs better visible under taught skin.  Pink scars and purple bruises from beatings and electric shocks possibly months old were still visible.

It was testament to the hardiness of the Technocracies genetic design she was alive, Aethans required heavy metals and super-dense proteins to thrive – Outsider humanoid food ‘thin’ and barely able to sustain them over the long term.  Up to a quarter of an Aethans cellular energy derived from photosynthesis from a vast range across the electromagnetic radiation spectrum making the most of the high radiation in the deep core that was fatal with prolonged exposure to other species.

Up to 60 percent of Jenaea’s energy was being derived this way.  While not as damaged as Lydan her recovery physical and psychological would be extensive.

Finally finished Jenaea seemed hesitant to touch the warmed fluffy towels, again Kiraea sensed a fear to contaminate them.

Very Extensive.

<<<<>>>>

Maeson

A head exploded beside him spattering this Mark 1 armour with gore.  It was added to seconds later as he rammed his left fist through the chest of a Pantoran, his right firing a charric rifle to blast another’s head apart.

The operation was going well from what Maeson could see.  It could hardly not.

A Pantoran Smuggler and slaving vessel the Sons had been tracking for sometime had landed in an abandoned industrial district on Nar Haaska, it served as a staging point, forgotten and ill defended given they were only a three dozen man operation of prison exiles from Pantora

Four Aethans was overkill.

Himself charging through the bulk of them Valens just behind every swing of his sword splitting a body – Selaena on a rickety control tower sniping anyone fool enough to try anything smart – and Milaea keeping back from the main fighting but hurling defensive barriers around two dozen Sons of Kessel and a further twenty Extolled who had come with them from Aethas for some ‘blooding’.

The Pantorans would’ve stood no chance against Valens alone – the battle was over in less than ten minutes, the last blaster burnt corpse dropping to his knees.

Kicking it indifferently Maeson sighed.  This was such low level work it was embarrassing…but that was all the Sons of Kessel could manage, the main goal here was to capture the ship for a few small pickups under the cover of being slavers. 

Mumbles, heavy booted and short strode up beside him.

“This ship will help…we can free at least…” Mumbles almost sighed at this
“A hundred, maybe more…”

Hondo station and Vulpter had been a turning point for the Sons, their fleet destroyed their forces reduced to less than a thousand they had made a final flourish killing the Vigo’s Aur Hondo and Xithar…with substantial Aethan help…and then split into small cells of barely a dozen to avoid the retribution of ambitious Black Sun lieutenants who saw taking a Sons head as a way to gaining quick prestige.

It had not gone well for them since then, cell after cell had been hunted and made examples of...numbers were uncertain but the Sons now had no more than 400 across 30 odd cells.

“Better than none,” Maeson noted flatly “Did you want us to escort you at all?”

Mmbri shook his head

“We’ll be fine from here, you need to get back…though if you could…” he took out a small databpad that looked ludicrously tiny against his enormously thick psadan fingers as he tapped away.

“Another of our cells…on Boonta Sagplan…we haven’t had even the usual check in for…too long…if you get a chance…”

Boonta Shagplan was home to a very exclusive slave market and clearing house for the Hutt Throne worlds, a high end target to try anything on.

“An infiltration cell?”

Mumbles nodded

“That was what we’d hoped…deep cover of a dozen Sons trying to get jobs in shipping and logistics to pass on intel back to the other cells…last we heard they’d made a start...but then nothing…”

It was a bold move to infiltrate there, but made a lot of sense, deep cover operatives in place for not just months but years would be invaluable as the Sons rebuilt.

“We’ll check in on them, send me the codes and call signs…” he gripped the shorter beings shoulder

“Farewell Mumbles…hopefully next we meet I’ll have a dozen Aethans with me.”

Mmbri could think of nothing better.

<<<<<>>>>>

Jenaea

The time passed in many ways no different to usual for Jenaea, so used to artificial gravity and lighting.

The gravity was gradually being reset back up to Aethas normal level of 2.8 times standard to help her adapt, the air was full of the noble gases that made her lungs feel full.

The food was richer, she felt full after gorging on gormin milk and gopin stew

And then there was the nature deck.  A large mid-section opened up full of plants and animals native to Aethas where she could touch grass, trees…

One of the women was always with her, Milaea, Selaena, Kassyndra or Kiraea.  She didn’t know any of them except from sight at the Gatherings so many years before.

They talked to her briefly of their experiences, their hopes, offered her food, games, and small tasks to pass the time…

For all this attention she felt out of place, tainted.  Her home was not and had never been with the outsiders – but how could it ever be Aethas after the outsiders.

She didn’t feel like herself – her usual sarcastic and persistent in the face of adversity self.

It was as if that person she was at the hotel mere days ago – the woman that paid no attention to the myriad abuses, sloughed on despite the beating and shocks, who kept her head despite it all - was gone…

In her place was a shell shocked woman who obsessively remembered every offence against her, every failed escape or retaliation, every stab and lash she’d endured.

And felt soiled for it all.

She found tranquillity only in brief moments, watching the gobril race around Obirio trees, Kreekles pluck at mushrooms that responded with aetheric resistances.

Noting this it was on some day or other while the rest of the People were off on some stop that Kassyndra took her to the Nature deck once more.  As much as Kassyndra would like to get Jenaea home quickly, she understood the need to help repay the Sons for their assistance in pinpointing her and helping Jarys, Maeson and Selaena for so many years.

“I’ve been working on some embroidery,” Kassyndra said as the turbo lift glided down
“Did you mother, or aunts ever teach you to sew?”

Jenaea was simply staring forward.

“Jenaea?”

“Hmmm..oh yes a little…they were…potters, kiln workers mostly…”

“Oh that is wonderful, perhaps Maeson can help you set up a kiln when we get back…I’ve found doing those things I did with my family again helps.”

“Perhaps…”

The doors slid open and the burst of freshly cleaned oxygenated air wafted over them.

Stepping along the walkway that turned into a large curved path through the vast soil filled beds and small natural looking mini-creeks and brooks water pumped between native chunks of stone, Jenaea noted a hunched body near a large pile of soil and cut branches.

She could see the body visually, thermally, smell the abnormal particles…but not in the aether.

The figure stood, a wretched pointed face with neither nose nor lips and creatures scuttling down moss covered plating that served as clothes seemed to smile at her.

She screamed.

<<<<>>>>

“Ruus, one of the Extolled gardeners was working there….” Kassyndra whispered just outside Jenaea’s room, one of the eight large rooms on the Aertemisaea on the fourth deck reserved for living areas, gymnasium and medical facilities.

“Of course I couldn’t sense him while coming down…she was quite shocked by him…I think he was even more terrified seeing an Avatar cry like a Banshyy at him.”

The slip up was forgivable, no one’s fault, but still it was a large set back after only very minor progress.

Kiraea sighed, “I’ll talk to her explain the situation that the Extolled are Friends…but I think for now if they could schedule when they are on the nature deck….”

There were thirty Extolled with them on this trip, five gardeners, five shapers and twenty warriors, serving both as support, Elite re-enforcements as well as an explorative team of their own to learn more about the Galaxy.

Milaea nodded “I’ll speak to Kor-Ash I’m sure she and the others won’t mind,”

“Perhaps we should head straight back…” Kassyndra suggested

“Maeson agreed to stop off at another Hutt world first, it’s not ideal but the more we can get done on one trip the better…it should only take half a day extra, mean time perhaps two of us should stay with her instead of one…she needs healing, and we can only do that in numbers,”

<<<<>>>>

Jenaea had mostly calmed down when there was a gentle tap on the door.

“It’s Maeson with some fruits…he can leave them outside,” Kassyndra explained from what she sensed.

“No it’s fine…” Jenaea was still on the bed sheets tightly wrapped around her resistance to touching things for fear of contaminating them diminishing KAssyndra hoped…

or she considers them already soiled by her…

Maeson entered with a large woven basket brimming with Kyala fruits.

Jenaea tentatively probed him as he set it down on the table opposite the bed.

“Plenty to eat, fresh from the nature deck…first ones to grow in space in fact…”

“You were…the one at the hotel…who put the totem in the tips jar,”

He turned with a sad smile

“I was…I’m sorry I didn’t take you then…I was only equipped for reconnaissance…”

“Maeson lead the operation with our allies to find you after we heard your call for help in the aether,” Kassyndra added

Jenaea didn’t reply expect to look at him, a world weary face trying to find purpose and joy again. Not so different to her.

“Well I’ll leave you two to rest,”

<<<<>>>>

Maeson had been gone a little while, Kassyndra clearly feeling from Jenaea the attraction toward her saviour.  Jenaea was a few years older than Kiraea, had she been healthy and on Aethas…

“You know Maeson was once trapped just like you and I, forced to labour in mines for years,”

“But he had the strength to escape…” was Jenaea’s self-depreciating reply.

“No, Jarys rescued him, with the help of the Sons of Kessel who had helped Jarys escape Nar Shadda and kill the Hutt responsible for the attack on our village…”

Even as Kassyndra continued trying to console Jenaea that there was little to nothing she could’ve done a comment almost forgotten stuck with Jenaea.

“Jarys killed the Hutt responsible…”

“Yes as he escaped the fighting pits,”

“How, exactly how?”

There was a predatory and lively edge to Jenaea’s tone, one that Kassyndra was pleased to hear, the stirrings of recovery.

“He used the aether to tear the Hutt, Myzm was the name, eyes out, rammed them in the fat creatures mouth before immolate it with the aether,”

“And the body?”

“Unfortunately Jarys had no time to display it as a warning to others,”

For quite a while Jenaea sat silently brooding, thoughts long lost recurring in her memory…names…faces of all those who had harmed her…the list she used to keep of all those she wanted to punish.

Finally it struck her.

No amount of water or soaps could cleanse her of accumulated outsider filth - it wasn’t what they had done to her that made her dirty…it was her lack of retribution.

She had given the order at the hotel yes…but she had not done the killing herself. 

Only the blood of outsiders could cleanse her, make her feel redeemed and avenged.  But she was not a warrior, barely two thirds her healthy weight…yet….

She had to do it before she went home…she could not return to Aethas so unclean.

Her limbs trembling with resolve she gripped Kassyndra’s hand,

“I must speak with the Guardians,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 9 — Chains Within — Part 3

Milaea

“I don’t like it…” Milaea said in the privacy of the Aetheric Nexus, Valens, Maeson, Selaena and Kiraea with her, Kassyndra still with Jenaea .after she had made her plea to Kiraea

“It’s…not the righ…”

“Not the Jedi thing hmmm?” Kiraea intercepted with a smile

“My love if Jenaea feels this will help her, why not, they are just Outsiders,”

“And if it doesn’t, if she just feels more empty bloodlust?” Milaea replied uncharacteristic venom in her tone.

“Jenaea is People, and not raised by Jedi…” Valens noted his voice firm but non condemning

“The need to punish those who have wronged you is natural…Jenaea has been unable to fulfil that need, if we can help her it will be a step to her recovery,”

“At the cost of other sentient lives? How can harming others heal oneself”

“You would defend the lives of slavers and traffickers on Boonta Shagplan?” Selaena’s tone held more shock than anger

“I would protect Jenaea from further trauma…there will be more than enough blood spilt in the future…let her do it after she is trained and ready, and on a field of war, not a kill box for her benefit – what you’re proposing is cold murder.”

“Outsiders can only be culled like beasts, not murdered,” Selaena whispered

The plan was simple, while Maeson and Valens backed up by the Extolled investigated the Sons cell, Kiraea and Selaena would mind control a few slavers and traffickers, bring them to a quiet spot then let Jenaea slaughter them to her hearts content.

“This is not a debate…” Kiraea’s hand cutting through the air to end any dissent.

“Whatever Jenaea feels she needs We will provide, the only reason we don’t slaughter every last slaver on that world is because we don’t have the numbers Yet - Goddess knows if there were not other slaves that might one day join Our Allies I would personally unleash a Terror or Thought Bomb., and I don’t think you’d stop me would you my love?”

There was no point in Milaea pretending she would do anything other than actually help Kiraea in such a situation.

“It may not even be possible, we don’t know what the situation is there yet…” Maeson noted trying to find some middle ground, a protective inflection in his voice.

“The Sons may have a few targets, help them and help Jenaea,”

<<<<>>>>

She felt frustrated, angry even a she strode toward Jenaea’s room.

But ultimately they had been right…this was not about her, it was about Jenaea, who was Milaea to tell her what she needed to heal.

She stopped in the corridor to calm herself.  Violence to liberate enslaved People was one thing, rounding them up for slaughter was another.

Milaea knew in this case she was on the losing side of the argument, she had no love for the Slavers they would target, the problem was, if they were on another world without slavery, would they simply round up random citizens?

“And perhaps that masks my true discomfort,” she admitted aloud to the cool white-grey walls inset with bright lights

She had felt that primal urge herself, most potently after witnessing her Mother and aunts death while flow walking…pulsing need to cell by cell explode the tormentors of those dearest to her.

Perhaps she still feared the Dark side.

It was a thought for another time as the door opened.

“She’s asleep,” Kassyndra said before seeing Milaea’s expression

“My baby what is wrong?” her grandmother cupped her shoulders

“Just…what Jenaea asked sits ill with me….but if it is what she truly needs…”

Kassyndra offered a motherly smile as her granddaughter once again had to accept a situation she considered less than ideal. She could support her granddaughter even if she could not agree with her on such things.

“Then it is her choice…come, healing will help,”

Milaea nodded followin her in, Jenaea’s sleep was unusually deep for the Triquetra and Goddess Totems on her breast, each working subtly to repair hormonal and cellular imbalances. The lack of nutrition and natural light had resulted in her body, as it should, adapting to survive with what little it could get, however it meant many systems were shut down or unresponsive.

Much like they had with Lydan and Kassyndra herself, Jenaea required some holistic genetic realignment, the best time for which was when she slept, having to explain it might cause an upset.

Attaching the IV filled with nutrients in a saline solution they jointly began, while Milaea was the expert she was progressively teaching all the other women the methods, Kassyndra had advanced most rapidly, next to surprisingly Selaena - as Kiraea put it being mothers meant they were more in tune with Aephrodaea.

Red light from their fingers they set to work speeding Jenaea’s recovery by a week every hour.

<<<<>>>>

 

Maeson

It looked like any cosmopolitan core world city, the only distinguishing feature the wide low doors and bulbous architecture attuned to Hutt anatomy.

Boonta Shagplan was on the very fringes of the Hutt throne worlds, the most restricted parts of Hutt space which were kept strictly policed – a rare and possibly only agreement the Kadjics honoured, as much as they fought among themselves there was still an underlying unbreakable unity among the Hutts.

It was also home to one of the most exclusive slave markets in the galaxy – figures were hard to come by but if it didn’t move as many slaves in volume it did at least as much in value as Nar Shadda or Rorak IV.

There were glittering skiffs plying controlled air traffic lanes, Nimbanese administrators who managed much of the cities infrastructure, Klatooinian Guards who bore a planetary insignia rather the sign of any Hutt Kadjic, emphasising this was ‘neutral’ territory. 

More Hutts than he had even known existed were carried or even slithered along the wide boulevards from the star port to the main markets, each attended by retinues of various sizes and species.

Maeson wanted nothing more than to raise the place to the ground, the hissing disgust of his Extolled escort was likewise full of venom.  Clad in Ooglith Masquers to appear as humans, their thick sea-weed cloaks hid amphistaff’s thud bugs and blorash jelly weapons.  Between himself, Valens and the seven Vong warriors they were confident they could deal with any threat they encountered.

Valens pulled beside him, the Extolled without word moving to cover his prior position in the rear, they arranged in a loose formation ready to intercept attacks from any direction, the discipline of the Extolled absolute in protecting the Avatars of the Gods.

“The scale…hundreds of planets, trillions of beings…” Valens voice was low but laced with as much adamanitum as his visage.

“Thousands of years…how quickly though we will bring it crashing down one day…” he patted Maeson on the shoulder and took point.

Soon enough they reached the enormous Inflexed arch that stood before that market the vast markets that was a city in and of itself, holding pens, a vast levi-rail system, water recycling plants combined with enormous algae vats that produced the nutrient dense slop the slaves were fed with.

“This is a place of shamed ones…” Gnuur, the leader of the Extolled squad inquired

“Yes, where they are sold to new masters, given over as you were to Sicara for experimentation,”

“Rnnnn” the growl was one of barely restrained rage.

Maeson had a list provided by Mumbles of the contact points and passcodes.  It was unnecessary.

Barely half a kilometre into the Markets at a wide central plaza overlooked by ten storey piles of cube like cells, around an unctuous and curved fountain, in full view of the thousands of slaves from the shimmering force fields were durasteel spikes etched in old dried blood, two hundred in all, thirty of which were currently occupied by impaled beings.

Eight of them Maeson’s eidetic memory recognised despite the lacerations and post death bloating as members of the Sons of Kessel. Two of whom were the contacts placed working in the markets. 

<Still four Sons left…we find them the hard way.>

<<<<>>>>>

Jenaea

Surreal half conscious hallucinations, dislocation and disreality flooded over her in the moments between sleep and waking fully.

Jenaea expected the smell and sense of the Hotel to reappear…instead only the crisp air of the Aeretemisaea and the darkness of the cabin resolved.

Every waking she felt stronger, more herself…the shock of the transition was wearing off, both physically and mentally…the aether flowed more strongly in her body each awakening, she could sense more of the ship around her.

Kiraea and Milaea in the room next door, Kassyndra a few decks down, Selaena on the bridge, the strange void of life where the Extolled allies that had frightened her were…

She was for a time alone.

In silence.

Nothing but her soiled self.

Her scream filled the room and the aether.

<<<<>>>>

Maeson

They followed the marks.

Etchings in posts, upside down glyphs known only to the Sons, markers in public places only other members knew to look for, or their meaning.

It took some time, but with Maesons superhuman perception enhanced by the aether they soon found in the lower class districts – indentured servants barely above the slaves they fed, cleaned and watched be sold – a small two room apartment.

A quick slice from Valens and the stench wafted outward.

Three Extolled slid in as Valens and Maeson hugged the door posts.

“These ones are all dead…” The Extolled warrior stated bluntly

Maeson peeked to see the display.  Three more bodies drooping from hooks rammed in the ceiling.   

The display of corpses came as no surprise to the Extolled, Aethans even, it was a sign of prowess and warning to others…it made sense in the plaza but here…

Valens gripped the air around the Extolled and hurled them as a bundle out of the room, Maeson threw up a kinetitie bubble to protect against the shockwave of the blast.

<It’s a Trap!>

<<<<>>>>

Jenaea

With every step forward there seemed another two back.

Waking up alone in a strange place after so many years in cramped overcrowded dorm had terrified Jenaea.

The women had quickly attended to her apologies.

“Nothing to apologise for,” Kassyndra comforted as Selaena brought some food

“We’ll soon be home and then…”

<Trap> the signal hit all their minds at once, the ‘voice’ a combat mind of Valens and Maeson.

<Enemy?> Kiraea asked immediately

<Klatooinians, lying in wait for the Sons, 74 Shock Troops…>

The analysis across the group mind was instant - the Hutts were taking no chances. Whilst the Aethans were well aware how few and vulnerable the Sons of Kessel now were, the larger galaxy was not.  Propaganda videos of the Sons killing two Black Sun Vigo’s – Aur Hondo in his undersea palace on Ando, then destroying Xithars flagship on Ord Mirit were still circulating across the outer rim, carried and sought by those seeking hope.

It cut both ways – it kept the Sons reputation alive as their numbers dwindled, but also made their enemies alert for them.

The information threatened to overload Jenaea, the data on weapons, position’s, escape options, limitations, implications of they engage in this battle today for centuries long strategic goals.

Any fear of being isolated was instantly wiped away with a new terror of being subsumed by the complexity and depth of the group mind.

She held on as best she could as information flowed back and forth slowly through equivalent terabytes of data rammed into her mind each millisecond she understood the situation more clearly, she could almost fully see the whole. 

The apartment had been torn apart by the explosion, Klatooinian squads nearby pouncing immediately – Maeson and Valens had devastated the first few, the Extolled gleefully ramming their amphistaffs into bodies stuck by blorash jelly.

But the re-enforcements had arrived swiftly the squat six storey apartment blocks were rent with chain-laser fire, Cryobang and adhesive grenades blasted shanty like rooms apart as they pursued the ‘Sons’ relentlessly.

Two Extolled were injured, one on each of the Aethans backs, the idea of recovering a fallen warrior, and indeed retreating from an attack no doubt still creating subconscious dissonance in the Yuuzhan Vong warriors.

Their presence was the main reason the Aethans could not escape – Valens and Maeson were more than capable of vanishing using aetheric stealth techniques…but these could not be used on the aether dead Extolled and they could not abandon their servants.

Servants…. the word in the group mind was ‘allies’ yet Jenaea’s mind interpreted the layered nature of the relationship with reference to her own lexicon as Servants.

Kiraea and Milaea scanned through satellite imagery cross referenced to rapidly downloaded underground utility maps to feed information to the men on where they could best lose the pursuers.

They would retreat through the lower districts to the border with the industrial areas, descend through artificial metal cliffs to the gaping wound of an industrial sewerage outlet, by the time they arrived Kiraea and the rest of the Extolled would be in position to create a diversion in the cramped confines that would throw them off course.

She took all this information in passively, just as she had for so many years decisions were made around her and for her.  But this time she did have a say, she could make demands.  And she did so now.

“I’ll do it,” her words stunned Kassyndra for a moment, the woman who had been crying terrified mere minutes before now spoke with resolute severity.

“I’ll help them get away, just tell me what to do and I can do it,”

So many times she had been shown what to do and done it – clean a radiator, unclog a refresher waste pipe, deal cards, mix drinks or cleaning chemicals that made her eyes water. 

The grudging almost snide determination to continue on, the vicious desire to inflict suffering upon her tormentors, or at the very least those equally complicit in the socio-economic system that facilitated her suffering, exceeded the shock and dislocation of her recent freedom.

In any other situation they would not allow it, Jenaea was untrained and unhealthy.  But the opportunity was perfect and avoided the more cold blooded plan Milaea had objected to.

“Keep your mind open,” Selaena arriving with the food set it aside, always eager to help in taking vengeance on outsiders, “And we will guide you,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

 

Chapter 9 — Chains Within — Part 4

Maeson

It was an increasing grind through the cluttered streets.

The Klatooinian Shock Troops rained down fire from half a dozen skiffs as they raced between cover, smashing through thin walls, leaping across rooftops. 

All he had to do was squeeze and Maeson could implode the lot of them – but on a highly populated well governed world like Boonta Shagplan, the unexplained destruction of expensive combat skiffs would not go unnoticed or un-investigated.  The chance of tracing it reaching Jedi ears was low, but far higher than Hgla Station.

The weight of the Extolled on his back was insignificant, the overly stiff nature of the limbs made carrying him cumbersome.

He snapped shots with his pistol when he could, their allies hurling Thud bugs that knocked Shook Troops off the Skiffs, blorash jelly that slowed the ground troops as they would through the increasingly sparse housing that gave way to small factories and in cheap durasteel sheds.

A cryobang explosions up sent one of the Extolled flying backward toward him, the freezing blast turning the ooglith Masquer black with flash frost bite.  Not missing a beat as the ground behind him was churned by blaster fire Maeson caught the Extolled by the collar of the seaweed cloak and dragged him, pace not slowing one metre per second.

They were coming to the chasm like break between city sectors, a four storey drop into a vast drainage channel.  Valens was leaping across the rooftops, pistol shots hitting heads every time, Maeson on the ground spun to fire three more Charric blasts into the engine vents sending it into a black smoke spewing spiral downward.

The damage done here was no compensation for the loss of intelligence a cell on Boonta could’ve provided but if ascribed to the Sons it could help recruitment as a show of activity.

Winding through the churned shanty town the smell hit them before the view of the yawning chasm dripped in green and brown rusts.  It reeked of excessive chlorination and acid’s used in manufacturing masking faecal wastes as it glugged away from the factories on the other side.  An insulting parody of a river.

Hard right they ran parallel to the ravine of duracrete sighting the exit sewer – a non-flowing outlet in the opposite wall – 600 metres ahead two storeys down.

The Skiffs banked hard, the Kaltooinians sneered thinking they finally had them trapped against the muck filled drop and had their re-enforcements come round to catch them from the front and sides.

Trampling through crates and tents of those desperate enough to live beside the hideous ravine Maeson caught an-antiglare of something dark atop a building he passed, the Extolled still running now panting keeping up with him, their shaper implanted biots gave them unnatural speed and strength but only in short bursts.

A wave of burning air hit is back and added to his speed as the skiffs just behind were struck by the yellow-orange flare of the first explosion.

Jenaea held the detonator tight to her chest as she watched crouched beneath Selaena in a grotty hovel that jutted out enough to let them view the chase from behind.

The other Skiffs slammed their reverse repulsor drives just as they had anticipated.

She hit the next button.

Another blossom of flame burst from a two storey shanty behind the wreck of the first the shields on the Skiff protected it from the flame, but the concussive wave sent it spinning over the sewer river as Maeson and the others gained distance, now only a hundred meters from the ‘leap point’.

Vulnerable, and uncomfortable as it made her Jenaea kept open to Selaena as she fed unconscious guidance on when to detonate the next mine.  It had been a quick trip to the surface with the other women, Milaea had dominated the minds of the denizens of the hovels to leave as Jenaea, Selaena and Kassybdra planted the mines, and Kiraea took position…

A position she used to good effect now as the Re-enforcement skiffs arrived charging head first at Maesons group.  Neither sound nor flash erupted – the only evidence of the shot was the Sergeant’s helmet popping open at the rear to splay brain and skull on the Shock Trooper behind him.

There was no time for panic as Jenaea hit the next button, turning another evacuated hovel to a flaming wreck, she felt buoyed by the deaths she inflicted, but it was still too Distant.

The third mine blasted skiff smashed to ground barely six meters ahead of them, metal and bodies mixed, one flickering spark of life in the inferno of flame that set the skiffs power cells trembling, a plasma breach imminent. 

Maeson quickly pinged his intentions and Valens agreed.  As Valens pivoted to leap across the sewer way, Maeson still dragging one Extolled and carrying another crashed through the flames to grab the skiffs only survivor.

The Klatonninians cursing the terrorist Sons pulled up to avoid losing more men to the obvious trap as Maeson burdened by three beings took a running leap across the chasm, hurling the two he was carrying by and for Valens to catch, and landing with a dura-grate shattering thump into the pipe.

<<<<>>>>

There as an open wound in the Klatooinian’s back that had nothing to do with the injuries sustained from the skiffs crash.

Telekinetically ripping out the tracking chip Maeson now crushed it in his fist as he slammed the captive against the wall.

“Where is the last one?” he seethed as Valens contacted Kiraea to work out their exit point and the Extolled attended to their wounds.

Here were twelve members of the Sons cell, eight were impaled in the plaza, three in the apartment.

“I will not,” was the guttural reply that echoed in the dark brown rust tinged sewer intersection that had never seen sunlight to the point most of the mosses and algae’s were stark white under the Extolled small yellow lambents.

“You will,” Maeson replied gathering his strength to plunge deep into the creatures mind before re-considering.

“Gnuur,” he called to the Extolled squad leader

“Belek-Tui!” – Command me was the furious obedient response – a creature that knew its place in the presence of Children of the Goddesses.

“Show me how the Yuuzhan Vong interrogate a captive,”

Gnuur was beside him in an instant taking a small writhing scorpion like creature from a living leathery pouch.

“Kos - Bruk tukken nom canbin-tu….” Gnuur explained with a lipless grin as the Klatooinian sneered defiant.

First – weaken the hinges of the enemies fort.

<<<<>>>>

Jenaea

She was still shaking, hands clammy.  The sensation had been…exhilarating on reflection.

Jenaea had held power in her hands for the first time in…

The detonator controlled life and death, flame and ruin, and the choice of when to use it had been hers…she comically compared it to holding her old mop, though she had no choice about the mopping for the shock collar, she could control how much she did, and even took on occasion some pride in cleaning, even though under duress it was still something she had control over.

But it was nothing compared to the control she had felt blowing the skiffs to pieces. 

“Did…did they get away?” she finally asked in the cool of the Transports bedroom.

“Soon, they’re making their way through the industrial district,” Selaena explained, similar experience gave her an affinity with Jenaea, and she fully intended to support her desire to have her vengeance against the Outsiders.

“After that we will leave this place, you have been too long from home and the Goddesses.”

In another sign of growing confidence Jenaea shook her head

“I can’t, not till I feel…clean of these insults…destroying those creatures with mines felt…”

Selaena nodded – she understood very well.  For her it had been enough to explode heads and occasionally eviscerate an outsider with a combat knife while serving with the sons, but everyone was different in what satiated their needs.

Further back in the ship the ramp hissed open as the men and Extolled returned, the other Extolled quickly seeing to their comrades as they shared tales of the ‘Avatar’s Glory’ in saving them, something unheard of in the old Yuuzhan Vong warrior creed.

“Took your time,” Kiraea huffed at the hours long wait,

“And Goddesses you stink!”

Valens rolled his eyes, holding back any retort, they had bigger issues.

“And what might those issues be?” Kiraea demanded sitting on a crate in the hold arms crossed.

“They still have one of the Sons alive,” Maeson explained, Gnuur’s interrogation had the desired effect, and was achieved by means, though educational, he had no wish to see again.

“And intend to auction them off at an Up-City gathering…”

Kiraea’s eyes focused as her mind rapidly pieced together the situation.  They had killed 11 of 12 Sons, publically displayed 8 bodies, used the others as a trap for a relief team, why spare one unless that one had intelligence – which was not possible since breaking up into cells each worked almost completely independently to prevent the capture of one compromising any others – no amount of torture could extract what one did not know.

There was only one logical conclusion…the Sons member they had captured and wanted to display alive had to be…

“Keison…” Selaena said entering. 

Over twenty years ago Keison, the galaxy-weary bald scarred human had recruited Jarys to the Sons on Nar Shadda, trusted in his abilities, helped rescue Maeson and Selaena, then with the three Aethan Vorynx squad doubled the Sons numbers, tripled their capacity and come breathtakingly close to moving them from a guerrilla faction to a military-state…until the Black Sun under Aur Hondo had shattered that dream and a Hutt crack down delivered the final blow.

He was the face of the Sons on holo-vids narrating executions of masters, Vigo’s and Hutt’s, a bounty of 20 million credits on his head.  After Ord Mirit Adaea had created various holographic orbs to give to each Sons cell to make him appear everywhere and keep their reputation alive.  He was the only member of the Sons any slave owning society would bother to keep alive after interrogation.

Maeson shared a look with Selaena, her hatred for Outsiders knew no bounds, but even she had a grudging debt to Keison for his help, one she could now repay. 

“He is a friend of the People, we must will him if we can” Maeson concluded

<<<<>>>>

Milaea

Speed and discretion were their two tools. 

Getting a berth in the Upper City, a forest of bulbous Hutt towers away from the main markets, where the more ‘refined’ traders dealt in ‘exotics’ was easy enough with their credits, finding out about where Keison was held less so.

Overheard conversations, subtle mental delves, remotely hacking holo-pads, all were employed as Milaea, Kiraea and Valens scoured the upper reaches, each accompanied by two Extolled, while the others prepared.

Milaea could see the mag train was out of control already, a bloody and vicious ending would ensue, but there was no stopping it, and in many ways she didn’t want to.

Every moment on Boonta Shagplan tempted her rage, the suffering of so many beings, and worse the apathy of those resigned to their life of ‘indentured servitude’ could not be blocked out.

There was no helping it, to find Keison she needed to remain as open to the aether as possible, seeking out from the millions of thoughts the key words ‘Sons’, ‘Exclusive’, ‘Keison,’ and the like.

In her regular red and black leathers she strode down the opulent enclosed shopping strips, it looked like any other high end fashion mall in the galaxy – and Sofa had certainly taken her to a few between missions – bright light grey flooring and glistening chandeliers over the promenade between rows of two storey stores mae of vast window displays with attendants waiting at the doors to greet the next customer - the only real difference was the Hutt friendly aisles, widened entrances, and a slick laminar flooring to make slithering easier.

But the staff, not the managers of course, were all ‘long term indentured labour’, the system the Hutts often cloaked their slavey in.  Compared to the cages and squalor of some slaves, the finery seemed somehow worse, an ever present salt in the wound, to be part yet separate from upper class life, favoured pets.

As she noted the prices on living beings were less than some golden jewelled hutt arm bands glittering on a small turntable in a window she had to flow through a calming sequence to keep herself from shattering the entire building into molecules.

A single thought and Jarys would come with the rest of the Extolled and Aethans, between them they could tear this would apart and make the Night of Madness seem an appetiser to the destruction unleashed here…

But she couldn’t - and that was the hardest part.

She was powerless, a woman who could tear buildings from their foundations, turn Gen’Dai to dust, plant false memories in the most powerful Jedi masters…couldn’t feed and clothe, rehabilitate and heal the millions of ‘servants’ trapped here even if she let them loose.

A twi’leki woman, hunched with age scrubbed at a bulbous green stain on the floor, up ahead a Hutt with his retained suck some kind of aquatic creature and spitting the gloop to the ground.  Despite her pristine uniform the band with two glowing lights around her wrist told Milaea all she needed to know.

It reminded her of Jenaea…she had done the same, scrubbed and scrubbed others filth, and like Milaea felt now, was powerless to change her situation.

Perhaps that is what Jenaea wants, to take her power back…however violently…and who am I to deny her

Smiling sadly she passed close to the old woman, dropping discreetly a 50 credit chit in her bucket.  The woman looked with open mouthed awe as Milaea slid past and removed from the twi’leki any memory of her ever being there – wishing she could do the same for herself.

<<<<>>>>

Jenaea

They followed the Nimbanel female at a generous distance, superhuman hearing and sight continuing to catch her idle chatter on her comm-link, complaining of her husbands work hours and the high price of feed for her servants to an equally over indulged Nimbanel administrators wife on the other end.

Kiraea was impressed by Jenaea’s ability to remain concealed, then she quickly recalled it was not through training but necessity, years of trying to avoid a Master’s whip had sharpened aethan instinctive stealth abilities.

<Can you take it?> Kiraea asked telepathically wishing to give her the option, the best way to help her recover Kiraea believed was to get her involved – Jenaea was used to unending chores, time spent in quiet and solitude was still foreign to her and no doubt the cause of her distress on the Aertemisaea – rest was just too much of a shock to her usual routine.

<I can…>

Nimble yet hidden, Jenaea wove through the crowds head down in a defeated posture that came all too naturally, it stung Kiraea to see that ease of self resignation in a Person, even if she understood the reason for it.

Looking like any other beaten down handmaid no one paid her the slightest attention, the Nimbanel woman they were tracking did not even glance away from the delicate Whorl Flowers decorating a mist covered florist.

A quick ‘bump’ followed, the misdirection to the Nimbanels left as Jenaea snuck her fingers into the bag was expert, the snatch fast, the palming discrete – were Kiraea herself not so adept at pickpocketing she wouldn’t have noticed.

“Apologies mistress!” Jenaea muttered,

The Nimbanel woman gave her a brief scornful look but didn’t deign to speak to the ‘help’, simply tightening her grip on her bag and continuing on her way.

<How many?>

<Three…> Jenaea answered referring to the invites to the ‘Special Event’ auction their eavesdropping had uncovered.

<We’ll need more…>

<<<<>>>>

A gentle tap on the door as they dressed in clothes cleaner than anything Jenaea had seen in years. 

Again she had been almost afraid to touch them, felt out of place around them, but with the supportive urges of the other women she soon passed through – if not yet able to avoid – the distress.

“Got some fruits,” Maeson called behind the door, Kiraea checking everyone was dressed before letting him in to place the tray down.

“Just picked myself, the trees are doing well on the Nature Deck, better than I thought,”

While only miniature Kyala fruits, half a palm size unlike the full grown ones, they were a welcome relief from Chiss produced nutrient packs.

Jenaea watched every movement he made carefully in the seemingly innocuous task of setting the plate down.  Kiraea not failing to note her attention on him, the only male not obviously marked by another woman’s pheromones like Valens was.  No doubt after so many years alone Jenaea would have some pent up desires…and Kiraea was only too happy to stoke them with a convenient match.

“Maeson worked very hard with the Extolled to create a miniaturized breed capable of growing quickly in artificial light,” Kiraea explained to Jenaea before turning on Maeson

“You will show Jenaea the new orchards soon after we get home won’t you,” It was less question than command

“It would be my pleasure,”

“You found a way in then?” Kiraea asked keeping the conversation moving

“Valens is with a few Extolled preparing the way, a hostile takeover of one of the catering firms…”

Kiraea smiled at the thought of the lolling drooling outsiders Valens was leaving littered about some large kitchen.

“I think Jenaea wished to tell you something didn’t you Jenaea?” Kiraea’s sudden turn of conversation stunning both of them.

“I well…I was curious…” She faltered

“’er yes this Keison was your friend Selaena tells me, helped all three of you…I’m very sorry he has been taken, I…”

She paused uncertain for a time as he looked at her, calming brown eyes with a hint of sadness behind them.

“I hope I can help him,”

The smile was warm in reply

“I’m sure you will, and yourself as well,”

“Oh I’m certain she will,” Kiraea concluded.

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 9 — Chains Within — Part 5

Cleansing

Toopark scanned the ident passes one after the other, checking idly the holo’s on the concierge pad.

They all matched with varying degrees of photo editing evident on some of the passes, one obese Nikto appeared far slimmer and younger in his holo, an aged Sephi had far less white hair…

Another beep and he looked up at the strangest pair of Nimbanels he had ever seen, alabaster white human skin rather than pale pink, luxurious red hair instead of a bald scalp and feminine aquiline noses instead of the large tusk’s and no facial hair at all.

Tooprak simply shook his head. Kiraea, Kassyndra and Milaea smiled as they passed the concierge.

<<<<>>>>

Hui’Cal observed the gathering crowd from the balcony overlook the main shop floor.  A large round three storey space that was peppered with displays of his finest products in hovering holding sphere’s so his customers could get a full view of the luxury products from every angle.

Amidst the throngs the Nimbanel kept a close eye on the serving staff, Your-esh had been ill, in his place was taken by a human fellow who seemed rather taciturn.  Regardless so far there appeared no difficulties.

He checked his Bvagara Chronometer inlaid with white gold hands, the unveiling would occur soon.  Most of the most likely buyers were already here, Hutts of course on elegant hover sleds or gliding about the polished floors, but also other traders.

It had taken a veritable sea of ‘lubrication’ to convince the nominally ‘independent’ Klatooinian Guard of Boonta Shagplan to give him the task of selling the terrorist leader – the majority of the sale of course went back to funding the Guard, a nifty cost recovery policy who owned the exlcusive product, but Hui’Cal would obtain the prestige of being the one who sold and displayed the product.

Given the bounty was 20 million credits it would fetch no less than that of course, but the glory of having the notorious leader of the Sons of Kessel as a trophy was worth triple that at least – whether he would be kept as a pet, encased in carbonite or sold onto another bidder Hui’Cal could not care less.

To ensure nothing went awry given the recent trivial skirmish between the Klatooinian Guard and the Sons terrorists Hui-Cal had, in addition to two dozen Klatooninian shock troops and his own personal guard of fourteen, employed twelve Echani Eclipse-Guard warriors, the one evening cost for the elite warriors in svelte pale blue reflective armour was exorbitant, but on this occasion he would leave nothing to chance. 

His silken robes tight to his body he proceeded down to the second tier balcony, idly noting among the crowds a gaggle of red headed human women who he oddly did not recognise…likely retainers of a Hutt with a fetish of some kind.

The chattering below and gentle hum of bid on the other far less interesting Exotic products died down as he stepped to the caster to commence the crowning achievement of 25 years in the Trade.

<<<<>>>>

Sickness and decay was all about her.

While not virulent it was still visceral.  It was a moral putrefaction, an indifference and blindness to how the galaxy could be any different.

Beings in a semi suspended animation hovered over Milaea’s head naked as ‘Masters’ wearing a moons worth of clothing gawked and bid in silent auctions upon discrete datapads offered at the door.

Yet what struck her most was the similarity to her own people.  They might be – in this instance – on opposite sides of an economic and social issue, but both had entrenched unalterable beliefs on how the galaxy should be. 

If the Aethans helped the Sons abolitionist cause it was not, in truth due to a moral position, but a complex cultural belief in the proper place of things, other beings should remain on their native worlds with their local Gods, travelling only for occasional trade and study among ‘friends’, interrupting this idyll of racial and cultural segregation was the true enemy they fought with the Sons to end. 

How long will it be before they realize that she wondered – as it was with the Extolled so it was with the Sons – they ultimately served the People’s goals, a People that could never realise the hypocrisy of their actions or double standards in their galactic view.

<He’s moving to the lectern…as soon as we have eyes on begin> Kiraea ordered as they fanned out, Selaeana and Kassyndra staying close to Jenaea, Kiraea on the first balcony.

Maeson and Valens were on the main floor, the Extolled comical in their ooglith maquers, all covered by clean pressed black waiting uniforms, moving as innocuously as possible toward the shimmering blue of the Echani Eclipse Guard – out of a total 50 guards, it was these twelve that posed the most danger, the near human Echani were skilled as any Jedi in close combat, often better for their more aggressive and wide ranging technique – and while Aethan reflexes and strength would overcome them one on one easily enough, if the Echani were strategic they could make things very difficult.

“Friends, tonight I present to you a rare and exciting prospect,” the Abednedo Hui-Cal utilized a discrete Huttese translator in his elaborate necklace, the language in which business was conducted on this planet.

His mouth tendrils glistened with disgusting anticipation as if salivating at the prospect, Milaea felt even less merciful, if not quite insensitive to his inevitable fate.

“Behold, Keison the Reviled, slayer of Vigo’s, the formidable Aur Hondo the Stern and the incomparable Xithar the Epicurean”

A large piece of the central floor opened with hidden seams, the marble peeling back like a flower to allow another fluid filled cube with a being to levitate on micro-repulsors, hovering above the crowd circled around it.

Within was a bald, scarred and battered man, even through the liquid haze he was suspended in it was obvious he had been tortured, puncture marks and purple bruising littered the body.

Milaea was now on the verge of enjoying what was about to transpire.  The Klatooinian Guard was too well informed to not know how the Sons now operated two years after their defeat – each cell operated independently of any other, only data on targets was shared, never details on specific missions or bases of operations, he could not reveal anything of the rest of the network for he did not know, the torture had been gratuitous.

<That’s him…> Maeson confirmed as Kiraea and Selaena slipped their hands under their dresses detaching the EMP’s and transmission scramblers tied to her thighs.

That was all the signal they needed, Milaea headed toward the door as Hui-Cal continued to extol what a rare opportunity this was.

<He’s barely alive…without immediate healing…> Kassyndra her senses acutely probing the body
<…and even then…> 

There was little hope for their friend, as powerful as Aethan shatter point healing abilities could be they were…not suited for Outsiders – they could heal their own People marvellously by instinctively re-enforcing Aethan genetic patterns and optimal homeostatic rhythms – applied to outsiders it produced…strange effects and transformed rather than restored. 

The Extolled’s emergency medical equipment, involving rapid implantation of symbiotic creatures was little better as an option.

On another being they might apply such a treatment, but Selaena and Maeson had been clear in the planning, Keison would never want to be ‘remade’ as a semi-super human even if it meant death –as a former slave his bodily autonomy was sacrosanct – as his Friends they would respect those wishes.

The crowd was full of whispers and guffaws at the once feared terrorist brought low, gestures crude and profane were directed by various masters in his direction.

All eyes on the prize Hui-Cal felt budding joy at what he would soon earn.  Milaea found only grim amusement in the Abednedo’s thoughts as she gently slid into a side hall where the refreshers were, at least two Eclipse and three Klatooinians noting her departure, but thinking nothing more of it as she entered a stall.

With a blaze of red in her eyes Milaea tore the heavy doors to the showroom from their motors and fused them together at the seams into a single block of doonium, covering the entire chamber in what the Arts of Aephrodaea call the Veil of Mist – a suppressive aetheric field that blocked sound, light, heat and emotion from escaping the vast bubble that only she was strong enough to maintain alone.

Idly noting the intricate designs on the refresher stall walls she turned a blind eye to all that was now unleashed beneath her Veil.

<<<<>>>>

Silent detonations unleashed scrambling waves of energy that disabled all comms in the showroom, Kiraea and Selaena crushed the now spent devices under their feet. 

Milaea’s Veil cast the entire room apart from the planet beyond, almost putting it outside of time for the half hour or so she could sustain it, a feat incredible even by Aethan standards that would require all the young woman’s attention.

The Echani, always more attune to such things began to notice the change to the flow of eldritch energy in the room moments before all their comm’s lost their signals.

As they began to rouse the other guards discreetly as possible – as per Hui-Cal’s instruction no unnecessary disruption would be tolerated – slithering living weapons wrapped around Aethan and extolled waists crawled up shirts and down arms.

They needed no blasters or metal’s, there were very few technologies in the galaxy yet capable to detecting Yuuzhan Vong weaponry.

Jenaea slid out the two Couffees she had been given, bone growth blades sharp as worked Cortosis.

“…now friends we shall warm up by opening bidding on the other items in tonight’s collec…” Hui-Cal would never finish that sentence as his world ended around him.

The universe seemed to move in slow motion as Extolled and Aethan swiped with concealed blows at the Eclipse Guard with amphistaffs of piercing red locking scales.  The Echani reacted swiftly, avoiding the main thrusts of all but Kiraea, Valens and Maseons strikes which hit true shattering their luminous blue armour and the muscle and bone beneath.

Selaena threw her hands forward and unleashed torrents of precise lighting straight into the lenses of the Klatooinian guard as the Extolled not engaged with Echani hurled thud bugs at Hui-Cal’s ostentatiously armoured personal guard.

The entire showroom erupted into chaos.  Masters and their retinues rushed to the doors, banging ineffectually on the still hot fused lumps of metal, fumbled with useless comm’s – a few drew their own secreted hold-out blasters and weapons, one even had a lightsabre – but the confusion was so great they knew not upon whom to turn them, killing fellow customers, guards, and shattering Slave stasis cubes rather than doing any damage to the main attackers.

The Extolled found glorious challenge in the Echani as the Aethans tore free from their waiters uniforms and fine clothes to devastate the Klatooinians two or three at a time with superhuman speed that left the shock troops no time to block, and strength that broke bone and ruined muscles and organs with every impact.

The Echani were quick and precise, their only disadvantage was they had never encountered weapons such as those the Extolled wielded – blorash jelly that pinned their feet to the floor or arms to their chest –thud bugs that slammed repeatedly like Blurg Cavalry charges into their back, amphistaffs that were rigid as a sword one moment, lithe as a whip the next before spitting venoms that sizzled on their blue plating.

Blaster fire began from the upper tiers, Kassyndra’s threw kinetite shields around the others to bounce the faux energy she resented away with one level of consciousness before two others sought the artificial energy pockets high above her and heated them till they exploded in their guards hands moments before Kiraea and Selaena, having depopulated the second level, reached the third and tore through them like acrobats – barely touching the ground they waltzed upon the burly warriors with kicks and stomps that broke necks or crushed skulls.

Hui-Cal gibbered as an Extolled reached him, soiled himself as the amphistaff toward his face was stopped an inch from hitting by an Eclipse guard blade, his credits never better spent.

Two Eclipse onto one Extolled the Vong warrior found himself outmatched, energy swords slicing his masque to shreds and cutting deep into his muscles and biots that pumped hormones furiously through him, a last gasp as he was taken apart he managed to claw one of the Eclipse down with him, smothering the blue armour with his black blooded hand and ramming his bladed-arm horns into the gaps so they died together.

Somewhere amidst what turning from battle into butchery, a blaster bolt fired from the ground floor by a Shock trooping hoping to hit the floating form of one of the two Aethan angels of death above bounced against an instinctive aetheric shield into the hovering cube that contained Keisons’s limp body.

Compressed green Plasma energy struck the upper micro repulsor sizzling it in an instant as the discharge overloaded the petty shield about the stasis fluid Hui-Cal kept his slaves entombed in.

Before any could prevent it amidst their own engagements the containment cube failed, viscous liquid falling to the floor, Keisons already shattered body with it.

With a wet crack the leader of the Sons of Kessel for twenty years, once commander of an army 10,000 strong, a fleet of 70 ships, reviled, feared and celebrated in equal measure, and more than all this a man who turned grief for his families suffering into salvation for others died piteously as his ruined body struck the floor, numbing agents in the stasis fluid denying him even a last moment of consciousness.

The death was one more dull light out in Maeson’s aetheric senses, yet one of the only Outsider lights that held any worth.  Fury through his hands snapped the neck of the last Echani – not satisfied he lifted the limp body and cracked it open on his knee before dumping it beside the fallen Extolled.

Hui-Cal, shuddering forgotten under the three bodies wept at the loss of his prize – the self indulgent feelings catching Maeson’s ire fully.  Lifted by invisible hands into the air above the throngs as the battle continued across the three balcony tiers and main floor, the fearful masters watched with cruel magick Hui-Cal was dissected into organ, muscle and bone then left to drop upon the floor.

May your Six Gods find you Friend… Maeson prayed to the hidden deities of Keisons forgotten home world.

For all the madness the battle was short.

Less than five minutes after Milaea’s Veil was established the guards were dead or critically wounded, the Extolled gnashing to finish them off as the Masters in various alcoves, behind columns or under tables cowered.

A few remained standing proud and undaunted.

“You Sons will never succeed!” a Phindian spat beside an equally firm looking Hutt who now spoke

“You defy the natural order, kill us if you will, but you will not change the reality, the weak serve the strong, by compulsion or compliance,”

Maeson strode toward them, left arm bloody as the amphistaff around his right hissed to feast further..

Without a gesture he raised both from the floor, their hands, long fingered and stubby alike clambering for constricting trachea.

“Jenaea, you may now begin,”

<<<<>>>>

She once had a list.

3000 long, mostly just descriptions for she did not know the names.  Of beings who had hit her, groped her, whipped her or worse.

Jenaea had spent hours that turned to years imagining punishing each of them, watching them before her as helpless as she had been.

The list had grown so long over the years her memory began to fade, she realised now it didn’t matter.  One outsider was as putrid as any other, and her vengeance could be inflicted accordingly.

Blood a half dozen different colours was up to her shoulders, strands of meat and flecks of bone in her hair. The stench of creatures soiling themselves as they were dragged telekinetically toward her by the others settled into her clothes.

It had been years since she felt so clean.

She killed them all, watched as they writhed, mouthed words she couldn’t hear with offers of credits, power, even, and she laughed at this – slaves  -that one she made eat its own vile reproductive organs.

The other masters watched locked to the floor by the aether, blorash jelly, or outright horror waiting for their turn.

Their helplessness amused her,

This is how it feels, this is what you’ve done, to others and now I do it to you

It seemed to go on for weeks, yet the ornately gilded time piece on what had been Hui-Cals wrist showed barely twenty minutes had passed - before it became so stained it was unreadable.

Even the Extolled turned at some of the punishments inflicted by the Avatar.

Her limbs soon tired – the Coufee’s she had used drenched and dull, amphistaffs left to feast on the fallen bloated and full. The ever curious Shapers among the Extolled took a chance to perform quick hands on dissections of various species, their crab like hands working wonders to divide tissues, sacs and fluids.

Her arms were shaking from the fatigue, mind reeling from the endless parade of those who had harmed her that played across her mind as she slaughtered and mutilated, vicariously punishing each and every one of those beings an eidetic memory could not truly forget with the blood of these ‘masters’.

“Masters…” she sneered as one of the last lay half alive before her

“WHO’S YOUR MASTER NOW!!! WHO”S YOUR MASTER NOW!”  with each syllable she kicked the creature whose species was obscured by the pool of flesh it swam in.

Finally sinking to her knees she felt the warm glow through her limbs and whispered her reply to the question,

“I’m my master now,”

At last, washed by the blood of her enemies she had freed herself.

<<<<>>>>

Thirty minutes after they had left through Hui-Cal’s apartments and into the cluttered traffic of upper Boonta-Shagplan the first alarms were sounded when the Eclipse Guard failed to report in on schedule.

Klatooinian Shock Troops in standby for another Sons attack arrived too late.

In total 263 beings had been killed, 23 product missing.  This alone was enough to warrant investigation and lead to the replacement of the Klatooinian Senior Guard and Intelligence officers for their failures – the state of the 263 bodies, displayed in gruesome totems and piles, others splayed open with autopsy like incisions – prompted horror and outrage.

The final piece, upon the far wall made from limbs pinned by knives and swords in place was a warning in the curling Huttese script – the catch cry of the Sons.

“We Are Coming,”

<<<<>>>>

[Lord_S_Gray]

Chapter 9 — Chains Within — Epilogue

Endings

The lightless moon in a system with a designation but no name was where they met Jarys and the others on the Aephrodaea before descending, the 22 rescued slaves handed over to the Sons cell on the fringes of Bothan space still unconscious from the stasis fluids.

They simply had no time nor resources to handles them.

Upon that un-walked empty plain they piled fallen branches from the nature deck beneath Keisons body, the atmosphere just sufficient for the cremation.

A Friend of the People had been slain, worse he had died in captivity after a life time trying to avoid it.

A harrowing reminder of how many of their own People had done likewise that they would never know of.

Jenaea would never meet Keison, but she felt what might be understood as sympathy that he had died re-enslaved - mingled with joy that she, with the protection of the others, would not.

They stood in a circle about the azure flames as his body turned to ash.

He had fought hard, long, come so close to establishing a Military state of freedmen as warriors to liberate others – arguably he had pushed too hard, attracted too much attention too quickly and suffered as a result.

In light of the suffering every day, no one could fault him for his urgency.

His legend would live on, how he died unimportant compared to the leaked truth from the point of view of the Klatooinian Guard – 263 Masters and their warriors dead, Keison the Reviled Terrorist escaping, no trace would ever be found, for decades after bounty hunters and mercenaries would try and claim the 30 million price on his head, for a century his tale would be told in hushed whispers in the spice mines of Kessel.

Somewhere in hyperspace between hungry runs sipping poorly filtered waters Mmbri heard the news with growing despair.

The glory and the publicity of the massacre on Boonta Shagplan would be the Sons…and theirs the backlash as well.

Much though Mmbri respected - even loved as siblings - Maeson, Jarys, Selaena and their kind for all their help, their devastating power, he now realised at last what Keison might never have – they were a blunt and excessive instrument unsuited to what the Sons needed.

On Ando and Ord Mirit they had killed Vigo’s, now they had killed even more masters on the fringes of the Hutt Throne worlds – it sounded like a coup, but the retribution that would inevitably follow was too much for the Sons to bear.  The Aetherians using the Sons as cover for their horrific slaughters was a liability they could not afford.

One day, in better times their extreme violence and destructive potential could be used…but for now.

Thick Psadan fingers turned the small oblivion orb he had been gifted over for the last time before placing it in a small box that contained ancient relics of the First Sons where it would wait until another time.

On Aethas Jarys would carve a memorial statue that would one day sit across from Yoda’s in the small grotto that in some years would be renamed the Cavern of Friends.

In the dying light of the pyre Maeson reaffirmed his promise to one day finish what they had, as brothers in arms, begun.

<<<<>>>>

Beginnings

Certain as the sun came the knock on the heavy Obirio wood door, so much nicer than the electric buzz and ‘light’ shock of a collar to wake her up.

Jenaea made no hurry to answer it, knowing her visitor was more than content to wait.

She was lying beside the warm glow of the hearth, embers still smouldering from the night before, smoky charcoal scents mingled with the rich musks of the fresh wool and flax of the furniture’s. 

The entire house was new built down a little tree lined path from Kassyndra’s, though she could’ve stayed with any of the others Jenaea was coming to enjoy her privacy after so many years in cramped bunks moist from alien sweat.

Here everything was clean, fresh, new and quiet, and she liked it that way.  She could lounge about as much as she pleased with no demands or clock to concern her.

“Coming…” she finally deigned to reply throwing on the shawl she had recently finished, Kassyndra was right in that respect it helped to keep busy with things from her youth, she would still wake disoriented on occasion but the frequency was now less than one in every three days.

The long house already had a pleasing level of clutter, mostly around the workbench and wheel where she was taking her time on making pottery as her family once had – she would not now, not ever be hurried in her work or made to clean up again.

There as always was ‘Farmer’ Maeson with a basket covered full of foods covered in the same cloth covered in carefully stitched whorls, his skin showing a touch of heat from the walk from the orchards on the plains up to the Mountain village.

“Morning Jenaea, I’ve brought you some grain breads, dried Kyala and Gopin jerky today,”

He set the basket down on the small table she had Jarys make her expressly for that purpose.

Taking off the cloth she could feel the pride radiate off him at the produce he had cultivated, even as he held the stitched cloth tightly - she had asked about it some weeks ago, it was stitched by his wife, now passed. 

It saddened her imagining all this kindly man had lost, all this farmer who relished the simple tasks of seeing to his orchid and flocks of Gopin had been forced to become, seeing him now so comfortable in simple workman’s leathers only emphasised how out of place he was in Oblivion armour.

“I’m not sure how I’ll eat all that…” her appetite had stabilized as she recovered physically and slowly returned to a normal weight.

“…perhaps you could join me later, after your morning work,” her smile warm and inviting – other as her nutrition improved, to her surprise other appetites so long forgotten had grown.

She enjoyed watching as he had built a kiln in her yard, digging out a large hole for the firebox, lined with rough hewn chunks of greysleet they cut by hand, then stacking shards from the mining of Mount Aelia to built the dome over it.  Of course the other men had helped, but Maeson had done the bulk of the work, staying after sunset to ensure it was made as quickly as possible for her.

It was a gesture she understood as more than mere assistance in her recovery, or protectiveness of the woman he had lead the expedition to rescue – there was an element of desperate servitude she had felt as he worked those cold nights – he wanted to work for not just the Women of the People, but a Woman of the People again.

Jenaea had every intention of enabling him.

“And then, unless you have other chores, you could finally take me to see your orchards?”

He returned her grin with a soft spoken one of his own.

<<<<>>>>

[HesaHeart]

Wow the words are strong with you great stuff

[Lord_S_Gray]

Wow the words are strong with you great stuff

Thanks! I owe a lot to the feedback and support from the other writers on here, especially the Dutchman and Karmack, for improving since I started.

[TheDutchman]

What a chapter!  From Jenaea's hopeless slavery to her emancipation, her PTSD to her bloodlust, this is one of your most poignant submissions, a character study of a broken woman that--while having her resolution--she is still not whole.  Of course, that is from MY moral filter; for Jenaea...well, Aethans have proven themselves as subscribing to an entirely different (and alien) ideology.  Still, I can't fault her for her desire for justice/vengeance after everything that she's been through (and let's face it: seeing bad things happen to bad people IS vicariously cathartic).

But I think that, once again, this chapter underscores precisely WHY the Aethans' experiences are NOT just black and white: would they have become what they are without the Devastation, led by unscrupulous Sith like Lord Yn?  Or was the Technocracy already heading towards that mindset?  Regardless, the story arc that has led/is leading them towards their future is fascinating, easily amongst your best, LSG 

Keison's death also is a turning point here, and not just for the Aethans but the Sons.  Of course, this becomes an excellent catalyst for the "modern" group that we see in "The Gray&the Unchained" and one of the reasons why they operate the way that they do.

Once again, we see the Extolled fighting/serving next to their Avatars.  But SOMETHING must be in the works since they aren't around (or at least seen) in our "modern" era.  More here than what we can see, certainly...

Again: I am loving this story arc!  Can't wait to read more (ESPECIALLY with what you've teased us with)!


OMG!!!

What an AWESOME rendering of an Aethan Star Destoyer!!!  I know that FT does INCREDIBLE work and this just shows it!!!  ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL 

Thanks! I owe a lot to the feedback and support from the other writers on here, especially the Dutchman and Karmack, for improving since I started.

I completely agree with this!  I KNOW that my own writing has improved thanks to the constructive criticism and support of Karmack and LSG; indeed ALL of the feedback that we receive is appreciated as it really helps us, both for improvement and, admittedly, intrinsically rewarding