Private A Piece of Home

[FN-999]

Dosunn - 874 ABY

DOSUNN
Avalona - Prosperia - Victoria
N I N E S
The world which had once been the beating heart of the First Order now stood alone against the galaxy.
​

Dosunn was a bustling metropolis, with a population in the billions. In its storied history, the world been the capital of the First Order twice over. Its neoclassical architecture had been among the galaxy's finest, displaying the sheer power of the First Order for all to see. At its peak, it rivalled the jewels of the Core Worlds in economic and political value. From the district of Avalona, the Supreme Leader and his Moffs dominated an empire that straddled the Core and Unknown Regions alike. Enormous prosperity defined Avalona and its sister cities, protected by the mighty First Order warfleet and a seemingly endless army of stormtroopers. Even as the First Order engaged in total war against the Galactic Alliance, Dosunn remained a beacon of power.

However, all good things eventually come to an end.

The Supreme Leader's disappearance amidst the war with the Galactic Alliance provoked widespread fear throughout the capital, whose previously joyful mood took on a much more serious tone. To many, their leader's disappearance on the most secure world in the First Order was an ominous sign. Surely enough, mere weeks after the Supreme Leader vanished, alien invaders arrived. Travelling through ancient hyperspace lanes long thought to be extinct, a vast horde of marauding Ssi-Ruuk emerged above Dosunn, rapidly annihilating its defensive fleet and then descending upon the planet with vengeance. Enticed by the immense riches of the capital, the Ssi-Ruuk disregarded the lives of its residents, slaughtering billions of civilians and soldiers alike. In later years, this cataclysm would become known to First Order historians simply as the Fall.

Ironically, the First Order had negotiated the Galactic Alliance's surrender just days earlier.

By the time they had sated their genocidal greed, the alien invaders had left Dosunn a ruined husk. The Moff Council had been slaughtered nearly to the man, with its few survivors fleeing to become warlords of scattered rump states. Whatever civilian and military survivors remained fled to the tunnels of the sewer system deep below the ruined city, where they scavenged for whatever they could, with detection by Ssi-Ruuk hunters a constant threat.

Eventually, some survivors escaped the planet on abandoned spacecraft. However, most simply perished.

Tragically, it was food poisoning that triumphed over the Ssi-Ruuk as the main killer of the Dosunn sewers.

Years later, the Yvarros, one of the few high-ranking First Order families to survive the Fall of Dosunn, decided to lead a massive reconquest that would later be remembered as the Reclamation Campaign. Striking from their Unknown Region strongholds, the Yvarro armies merged with or outright conquered their regional rivals, uniting the warlords of the post-Fall First Order under one banner. Two years after the campaign was announced, the irredentist Yvarro armies arrived at Dosunn, eradicating the Ssi-Ruuk from the face of the galaxy.

A triumphant Ariel Yvarro declared the return of the First Order, and her old friend Natasi Fortan became its Supreme Leader.

However, the revived Order's cracks had already begun to show.

The armies of the former warlords, now consolidated under the First Order, were increasingly outdated compared to their galactic counterparts. The reconstruction of the core First Order industrial and population centers cost untold quadrillions of credits, bringing the nation to the verge of bankruptcy mere months after its reinstitution.

Then, war struck once more.

Woefully overextended, the First Order capitulated to an Alliance-Jedi-Confederate alliance, effectively losing its status as a major power.

The First Order had then quietly withdrawn from the galactic scene, any sign of its presence vanishing from the galaxy. It was not the frantic withdrawal that had characterized the Order remnants after the Fall, but an ordered retreat, its leaders careful to erase every bit of data in the First Order archives. Even in the present day, the whereabouts of the remaining First Order leaders were shrouded in mystery and conspiracy.

For Dosunn, the First Order withdrawal and been nearly seamless, with the formerly First Order aligned company Primo Victorian Enterprises taking control of the planet. It secured Dosunn as an independent, self-governing world, setting up elections and encouraging a transition to democracy. Local police officers replaced stormtroopers in maintaining order, personal freedoms expanded, and economic recovery continued.

In the present day, Dosunn was by galactic standards a minor metropolis, but nonetheless a thriving center of commerce and culture.

FN-999 had been sixteen when Dosunn fell to the Ssi-Ruuk. Already a sergeant of a group of similarly aged stormtroopers trained from early childhood, he had enough foresight to flee to the tunnels before the Ssi-Ruuk overwhelmed the last gasps of resistance above ground. FN-999's squad survived for nearly two months in the sewers, living off only stale rations and cooked rodents, with sources of clean water few and far between. They occasionally met other survivors. However, the squad had nothing to give them. All they could do was give some prayer out of sympathy, and then get enough distance between themselves and the survivors that they would not hear their screams.

There was just one exception.

One month and two weeks into their search for a way out, the squad encountered a FOSB officer with a small escort. The officer had been FN-999's personal handler, and he was willing to help his mentee find a way out as long as the pair could have a brief meeting in a secure location within the tunnels. FN-999 complied, and the pair had the last conversation they would ever share. Two weeks later, the squad boarded a shuttle due to be scrapped before the Fall and left Dosunn, never to return.

Until now.

From the viewport of a modernized Lambda shuttle, FN-999 stood speechless as the vast and beautiful urban expanse came into view. Memories threatened to surge up from all sides, his heart pounding and his brain working overtime to keep himself in check. He had graduated from junior military academy on this planet, in facilities annihilated by the Ssi-Ruuk and rebuilt during the brief revival of the regime. The vast megalopolis was nearly as bustling as it had been sixteen years earlier, but at the same time it was nearly unrecognizable. Vast monuments dotted areas of city he had remembered as covered in skyscrapers, and entire new districts stood where old famed centers once were. Even the spaceport they were rapidly approaching, Armitage Intergalactic, was strikingly similar in design to the classical First Order architecture he had grown up in, yet completely foreign to him.

"Nines." called a voice from behind him, abruptly snapping him out of his nostalgic thoughts.

"Yes, Bigfoot?" replied FN-999, turning away from the viewport to face his longtime lieutenant and friend.

"Could you please repeat our objective?" continued Bigfoot. "I'm still a little confused on how much force we should use."

"Very well." responded FN-999.

"Last week, a classified ISB source informed High Command that a First Order relic of great value was on this world. According to their report, there is currently a large red gemstone for auction on the black market, its value increased by the powerful Force energy radiating from it. It shares a striking resemblance to one of the two gems that graced the arms of the Supreme Leader's throne before it was destroyed along with the Imperial Palace during the Fall."

"Does the seller know this?" asked Bigfoot.

"According to the ISB, no." replied FN-999. "It is unknown how the seller got the gem. However, the mere fact that they are selling the gem rather than thoroughly investigating it suggests a degree of ignorance about its origins."

"Anyways, the seller is the 'eccentric executive' type who will buy and sell quite literally anything in pursuit of profit. Fortunately, the seller is currently offworld checking his Coruscant assets. Our task is to infiltrate the seller's warehouse, dispose of any security, take the gem, and escape the planet unharmed."

"To answer your question about the use of force - many of the local police still use old First Order armor, just like we've geared up in right now. As long as we act the part, we can make it to the warehouse unmolested while also justifying being armed and armored. Basically, until then, don't fire unless fired upon."

"We're landing now." called the shuttle's pilot, who sat to the left of the two troopers.

"Very well." replied FN-999. "All right, Bigfoot. Let's get the others."

The pair exited the shuttle's cockpit, entering its main passenger hold where ten other stormtroopers stood in modified First Order armor. A brief, violent flash of nostalgia struck FN-999, the group reminding him of his old First Order squad. He shook his head violently, dispelling the illusion.

"Does anyone else need to be reminded of our task?" asked FN-999. "If so, let me know NOW."

No one spoke up.

"Good." concluded FN-999. "Let's go."

The hangar door opened beneath them.

FN-999 was home at last.

Valery Noble ​

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit | Weapon | Appearance

Location: Dosuun
Items: Necklace

A soft sigh escaped Valery's lips when she fell back into her chair and plopped her datapad down onto the small desk. For a few hours now, she had locked herself up in her small captain's room aboard her shuttle, just to read up on Dosuun and its more recent history. Most of it wasn't too crucial for her mission there, but it gave her the context she wanted when it came to the Supreme Overlord, his disappearance, and especially the emergence of an artifact.

It wasn't too uncommon for relics of the past to be found and traded on black markets across the Galaxy, but the fact it was tainted by the Dark Side made it not only a lot rarer but also very concerning. Few understood just what kind of effect dark side artifacts could have on the mind of those around them, and only trained Force-sensitives were typically able to shield themselves against it. But even if it didn't lash out at people, the power imbued within the object could still be used for all the wrong reasons.

So once again, Valery decided to tap into her training as a former Jedi Shadow to handle the situation. There weren't many others like her out there anymore — it had always been a small group of mostly extremists, and with the Jedi being far fewer in numbers these days, barely any committed to a path focused on purging the Dark Side in all its shapes and forms. It meant that whenever these highly specific problems appeared, the Jedi quickly requested her to deal with them.

"Master Noble, we'll be arriving shortly," her protocol droid said after it entered her room.

"I'll be right there," Valery said with a faint smile before she pushed herself up and walked into the shuttle's cockpit. Once there, she lowered herself back into the pilot seat, deactivated the auto-pilot, and plotted a course for the surface. To not stand out too much, she had arranged a civilian shuttle with a proper registry in these parts of the Galaxy, allowing her to get through any checks without being stopped.

She wasn't sure if the people here were overly hostile to Jedi, but she preferred not to take any chances.

With a slow and steady descent, her shuttle finally came down inside the planet's spaceport, where the engines were powered down. The ramp lowered and after turning off non-crucial systems, Valery stepped outside and began the walk to the warehouse, where this artifact was supposedly stored. The plan was to be more stealthy once she got close, and infiltrate without someone ever being able to see or detect her, but for now, she just disappeared into the crowds.

FN-999 ​

 

[FN-999]

Dosunn - 874 ABY

DOSUNN
Avalona - Prosperia - Victoria
N I N E S
For the first time in sixteen years, FN-999 set foot on Dosunn.
​

He half expected the floor to fall from beneath him, as if the entire experience was a dream and he was just about to wake up in his Borosk estate. However, the steel and concrete of the landing pad held, and the legion commander accepted his situation as reality.

He was home.

The group walked out of the shuttle in an orderly line, two columns of six walking side by side. FN-999 led the line from the right, Bigfoot led to his left, and the rest of the troopers followed. They all wore the standard variant of First Order stormtrooper armor, their blaster rifles augmented by riot batons reverse-engineered by Imperial weapons specialists to resemble their First Order counterparts. The group approached one of the exit gates, where two genuine local police officers stood in identical armor.

This would be their first test.

"Identification?" asked the first officer to the group.

"23rd Police Squad, redeployed from Victoria to reinforce Avalona on request of the chief." recited FN-999. "If you want our IDs, go ahead."

"Yes, please." replied the officer.

Each of the disguised troopers pulled out a forged ID produced by the ISB prior to the mission and handed them in to the officer. The officer then took the IDs to their partner, who placed them individually under a scanner mounted on a table.

"You're all good to go." stated the second officer.

The officer approached a keypad secured to a nearby wall and entered in a code. Seconds later, the steel gate opened up, revealing the full glory of Dosunn's scenery.

A vast metropolis loomed in every direction, its steel arches and towers masterfully crafted. The streets bustled with countless millions of humans and humanoids, with the occasional nonhuman species sprinkled into the crowd. Even the seasoned stormtroopers of the Empire had difficulty muscling through the crowd, finding the main avenues of travel and sticking to them as well as they could.

"Back when we were cadets, wasn't Victory and Memorial Park here?" asked Bigfoot, pointing to a large, memorial-filled plaza.

"Yes, I remember it." replied FN-999. "We had our graduation ceremony there, didn't we?"

"Yeah, we did." responded Bigfoot. "To think that we entered the army at age thirteen. Looking back at it, I'd say there was something a little sketchy about that."

"To be fair, the Stormtrooper Corps back then had a grand total of maybe... five soldiers." remarked FN-999 in hyperbole.

The pair chuckled, lamenting their mutual nostalgia. Out of the ten troopers of his original First Order squad, Bigfoot was one of one of only two others who remained. The other survivor, now-lieutenant Silvertongue, was currently on a three-day leave on Borosk.

"Yeah, fair enough." replied Bigfoot. "So much has changed since then. Even the basic physical stuff. There definitely wasn't an immortal flame in the Park when we graduated."

"Yeah." replied FN-999. "Sadly, we don't have time to observe the scenery for much longer."

The group fell back into silence, and their march continued.

Eventually they came to a branch in the main road, turning left as planned. Here, the road was smaller, the buildings shorter, the crowds less dense. The troopers now had the physical freedom to enter a light jog, gently pushing aside any careless bystanders. They were still in Avalona, but they were now entering a blue-collar zone, away from the major business and tourist centers. Here, the buildings were strictly utilitarian, rectangles of various shapes and sizes lining the edges of the sidewalks.

One of those rectangles was the warehouse.

It came into view on their left, a rectangular building about a hundred meters wide but as long as a frigate. A simple "Dosunn Storage Services, LLC" label was printed on its facade, beneath which a large pair of steel double doors lay sealed. No doorknob or doorbell provided any clear way of allowing visitors in, ruling out the possibility of a normal entry.

"So, are we going to have to break into this joint?" asked a trooper behind him.

"Probably, yes." replied FN-999.

The irony of people disguised as cops robbing a building was not lost on him.

Valery Noble ​

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit | Weapon | Appearance

Location: Dosuun
Items: Necklace

The benefit of traveling with a false civilian registry was that security checks weren't that bad after landing at the spaceport. The real difficulty was going to be moving around the city with gear, but without being recognized as a Jedi. Even more so because Valery's typical attire offered no space to hide her weapons — they were very much on display. So to address that, she had brought a set of long robes and kept them wrapped around her body while she moved through the spaceport.

Luckily, she was trained not to stand out when she didn't want to, and so she was able to leave the busy crowds there behind within a few minutes. Outside, she did stop for a moment. From what she read on her datapads, she expected a beautiful city, lively and prosperous, but seeing it with her own eyes was something special. It made it feel so much more strange to know what kind of history this world had within the Galaxy, and what possible threat was still out there.

Her thoughts didn't linger there too long, though, and after figuring out where exactly she was, Valery began to head in the direction of the warehouse.

Each step she took now brought her closer to an area where no civilian was supposed to be, and with law enforcers patrolling the area as well, she knew it was time to disappear completely. Drawing on her training as a former Jedi Shadow, Valery wrapped the Force around herself, cloaking her from sight, audio and any type of sensor that relied on those things. Eventually she'd have to step out of it, but until she had infiltrated the warehouse, she was quite confident that nobody would detect her.

Hmm...

When she finally approached the building from the Shadows, her eyes turned to a group of law enforcers or soldiers that had gathered nearby. She wasn't quite sure why they were out here, but they seemed focused on the warehouse as well. Perhaps guards of the building? Or was something going on already? Without an answer to those questions, Valery kept her distance and observed the group for now.

FN-999 ​

 

[FN-999]

Dosunn - 874 ABY

DOSUNN
Avalona - Prosperia - Victoria
N I N E S

"Split up and scan the building for an opening." ordered FN-999.
​

The squad promptly split into two groups of six, heading down the left and right flank of the warehouse respectively. For the most part, the walls consisted of interrupted bricks and concrete, with hardened windowpanes at standard intervals four meters above, too high for the troopers to reach. However, the group scanning the right flank found an exposed vent on the wall at ground level. They called their comrades over, and soon the entire squad stood around the vent.

It was a perfectly square vent, with side lengths of about two meters and its entrance obstructed by steel bars. The bars were evidently tough enough to resist the tools of most petty criminals, but they were no match for the Empire's elites.

"Nidas, cut here." ordered FN-999, pointing to the perimeter of the vent where it intersected with each bar.

"Just one moment." replied the stormtrooper named Nidas, withdrawing a vibroblade from within his waist belt and activating it. The rapidly vibrating metal cut through the durasteel bars slowly but surely, and within a minute, they had all fallen away, leaving the entrance open for the squad to enter.

They promptly entered the vents, one at a time, engaging their night vision settings as the light from outside faded. After walking about five meters in, there was a right turn, and then another vent opening in an undecorated hall inside the warehouse. The squad paused for a moment, making sure that no one was approaching. After hearing nothing, Nidas moved forwards once more and cut open the vent exit, allowing the squad to spill into the warehouse.

The hall was an unremarkable path of steel surrounded by walls and a roof of concrete, with industrial lights humming overhead. Fortunately, there did not seem to be any security cameras in the hall. Perhaps the dealings done in the complex were too shady to risk being recorded.

Their brief moment of peace was interrupted as they approached a three-way fork in the hall. Just as the squad was about to turn left, deeper into the compound, an armored axe-wielding Gamorrean appeared from the left fork, immediately turning to face the stormtroopers upon hearing their footsteps. Before they could try to trick the dim-witted warrior into letting them pass, the Gamorrean charged, lunging straight towards FN-999, who stood in the front of the formation. His squadmates behind him turned and opened fire with their rifles, but the Gamorrean's armor held, and his axe blocked any shots heading for his unprotected face.

The Gammorean swung his axe down directly at FN-999, seeking to split his skull in two. However, the berserker would not have his way.

The twenty-five year veteran sidestepped to the right around the axe, which instead buried itself in the ground to his left. The Gammorean dropped his axe and swung a fist at FN-999's head, only for him to catch the guard's fist midair and grip it hard, causing it to rapidly lose circulation. Shocked that a puny human had matched his strength, the Gammorean didn't notice that FN-999's free hand was barreling towards his head until it connected with his mouth, knocking out several secondary teeth and causing him to wobble. A third and final blow to the forehead sent the Gammorean to the ground, knocking him out.

A brief clapping noise came from behind FN-999, and he almost withdrew his pistol before he realized that it was some of his own men, inspired by his skill. He turned back and gave them a pointed glance, having none of it.

Then, with renewed urgency, FN-999 led his squad into a jog deeper into the warehouse, rifles raised as they passed by the unconscious Gammorean.

Valery Noble ​

 

[Valery Noble]

Outfit | Weapon | Appearance

Location: Dosuun
Items: Necklace

Without a need to reveal herself, Valery continued to observe from the Shadows and watched as the group split up into two groups to take a closer look around each side of the structure. But soon enough, one was called over to the other, which suggested that they had settled on their own plan to enter the warehouse. Valery made sure to quickly move up behind them, still hidden in her cloak, and spotted the vent they were cutting their way into.

It didn't take them very long, and once they had all entered and moved along a little bit, she followed after them. In her cloak, she made no sound, and as long as she wasn't right on top of them, they wouldn't ever be able to smell her either, which was the only thing her ability did not mask. Eventually, the group reached the exit point, cut their way through, and slowly moved through the warehouse, which looked almost exactly like what she would have expected from an Imperial facility.

Everything was there with purpose, simplistic and clean.

But their luck of getting through it all completely unnoticed didn't last forever — a Gamorrean guard attacked and after a brief clash with the apparent leader of the group, he was knocked out. This gave Valery an idea. Jumping out of the exit vent herself, she looked through the hallway and raised a hand while she channeled the Force and focused on the lights above them. In an instant, several exploded, which not only left them in a lot more darkness but also created quite a bit of sound out of nowhere.

She of course hoped it would draw more guards, which could potentially give her a path to the artifact while these still unknown intruders would be kept busy.

FN-999 ​