Private A Twisted Task

[Yol Kan]

Aboard the 'Thin Edge' a Lone Scout model C-3
Enroute to the Deep Core
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Yol Kan once more found himself sitting in the cockpit of a Sienar-designed scout ship, hurtling towards dangerous reaches, relying on his reflexes, experience, and the strength of his ships' sensors to guide him.

Years ago, when he'd navigated through dangerous and energetic phenomena, he'd never dreamed how far the skills he'd picked up would take him. First, to DDSI, a corporation entirely concerned with scientific research. They'd needed experienced pilots to penetrate terrible ion storms and wrest forth the secrets of the storms' high-energy interactions. Then the Empire had needed the same skillset. After he'd proved himself capable, they'd made him a Major.

A provisional Major in a provisional Army.

Straight out of the bacta tank after the Empire's last disastrous engagement- one which they'd somehow won- he'd been dragged to this new assignment: Chauffeur for Moff Maldor Mecetti. That was how his career with the Empire had started. Perhaps that's how it would end, too.

The Scout ship was a plausible enough conveyance, at least. Unlikely to draw the attention or ire of GA authorities. A multitude of similar vessels were in private or corporate hands, performing hyperlane scouting, scientific research, and galactic surveying for a thousand masters in a thousand corners of the galaxy. No one would peer too closely at the Thin Edge.

Hopefully.

If they did, the ship was not without its defenses. Still, Yol would have preferred a starfighter, or his personal Blastboat. The clandestine nature of the mission be damned.

Moff Mecetti was sleeping in his bunk in the midsection of the scout ship. Meanwhile, Yol was flying into increasingly dangerous gravitational anomalies. He hadn't been told the point of the mission. He'd been paid enough not to ask. But there was no amount of money that would prevent him from wondering.

What did an Imperial Moff want with a gravitationally suicidal expanse in the deep core?

Perhaps Yol should wish that the answer to that question remained a mystery...




Her Maldor Mecetti

 

[Tales of the Rule of Two]

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The Deep Core, Galactic Center, Kalist system, Kalist VI.
Tags: Maldor Mecetti

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"The Deep Core is a maze full of anomalies that skew the senses! The task of finding one world within it is impossible!"
-- Trill.

In the centre of the Galaxy churns a gargantua known to some as the Galactic Center. To most this term is a direct reference to the planet Coruscant: a place where those who rest in their seats of power often direct and affect the course of galactic events. For the Sith this ecumenopolis-- which stretches across the entire planetary surface-- has often been the target for their dominance over the stars for those who rule there often dominate the entire Galaxy; and while many civilizations have sought dominion over that certain city world the same cannot be said for the supermassive black hole which binds the Galaxy together in it's indomitable grasp for all those who know about it do their best to stay away less they become trapped for All Time.

No man, woman or other Humanoid has said to have placed their gaze upon the gargantuan phenomenon that many fear too much to traverse the space colloquially known as the Deep Core. Darth Bane once pondered on his pilgrimage to Anobis about the meagre existence he would have to endure should he fail to safely traverse this region for those who are caught in the gravitational well of the beast are fated to orbit it for the rest of eternity.

If the existence of Galactic Center was not enough to deter someone from travelling in this expanse then there is the presence of other stellar phenomena such as antimatter, gas and approximately thirty million condensed stars which closely surround the black hole. It is also said that after the conclusion of the Second Great Hyperspace War that the remnants of the Brotherhood of Maw were scattered around the several star systems which still exist to this present day despite how ancient this place. That is if the memories of one Ronval Rubat are to be trusted.

Of course, in the modern day, the Deep Core is a hotbed for military patrols and skirmishes for the Dark Empire-- a civilization founded at the turn of the century by the late great Ignacious Korvan, and Darth Solipsis-- initiated Operation: Shadow Hand and conquered the planet Tython which sparked the C o r e W a r s. While the planet Kalist VI remains in Alliance territory it is now not too uncommon to find both allied and Imperial patrols passing through the Kalist system in search for incursions or opportunities to strike at the enemy.

It is believed that Humans once originated from this place where they would later become the first settlers of the planet Coruscant while myth and superstition passed on by the Jedi indicate that The Force was first discovered and studied upon the same world where Solipsis launched his bid for supremacy across the Stars as his begun his quest for revenge against those who defeated Him in the last great Star War.

But before the self-proclaimed Sith'ari attacked the Galactic Alliance, in the shadow of a long lost civilization, it is here in this place that His predecessor-- a woman who conquered the Core Worlds nearly fifty years ago as a member of the late great One Sith-- landed in A City Lost to Time, and in doing so, re-established Bane's Rule of Two through a most serendipitous set of circumstances birthed with the help of a former Knight of the Old Republic, and a Nomad known only to Her as Darth Mendacium.

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[Alicia Drey]

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The Deep Core, Galactic Center, Kalist system, Kalist VI.
Tags: Maldor Mecetti

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"I have freed you. Better than that I am too sick to stop you from leaving. Yet you are still here. Why haven't you left me?"
"Both of us have been killed in our own way, Ayra. The least I can do is make it hurt a little less before you pass on."
"Will you avenge Us?"
"Of course, master."
-- Darth Ayra and Ella Nova's conversation on Childhood.

[POST THEME]

Forty-Nine Years Before Operation: Absolution.

​

A fire roars in the confines of a ruined city. It's flames glance, and flicker in reflection upon the stained ramparts of which had been a fine tower. Monuments raised millennia ago peer down almost in judgement of the proceeding that was about to take place; their Humanoid faces both alien, and eerie in the night. At the base of the mammoth funeral pyre stood a former Jedi Knight standing in reverence of a woman who had once been her enemy.

For ten, long years they had stood on opposing sides waging war upon one another in service to their late masters. The fate of the Core Worlds had hung in the balance for a time until the Imperial war machine had wiped out every trace which proved that there had once been a Galactic Republic which once stood for peace, order and justice throughout the Galaxy. That was until the One Sith had risen out of the destruction of the Sith Empire to snuff out the last pillars of hope in their insatiable thirst for glory, and certainly, their revenge.

Ella had been there on that day when their Star Destroyers had seemingly appeared out of no-where and begun their attack on Coruscant. She had been a witness too it all. Watched as the Knights of the Republic rose in defiance of the Sith Lords who had been banded together by the indomitable, mysterious Dark Lord of the Sith whose will was seemingly only rivalled by the great stellar phenomenon known as the Galactic Center. Yet all their sacrifice had been in vain. Star system after system fell in the wake of the Sith's incredible march towards victory, and now, as she stood here in this ruin, watching the pyre cremate the corpse of the late great Darth Ayra-- burying the Afflicted, the Conqueror of Kashyyyk-- Ella knew that the One Sith had accomplished their revenge against the Jedi Order.

The Stars were now theirs to burn, and destroy, as they so pleased.

It was the Jedi who had lost the war, and yet here Ella stood-- a former Jedi Knight-- paying respect to the one who had destroyed civilization and replaced it with the barbarians who now ruled the Core. Oh, how they had all paid the price for that certain day on Dac. In their ignorance the Jedi truly thought that they had defeated the last of the Dark Lords of the Sith. But Carnifex had survived, and they had all been deceived until it was too late to stop them.

"I could not save you," Ella whispered to Ayra. "But you have given me the tools to finish what I started. I will avenge us."

SNAP-HISS!

A violent blue burst into life in Ella's right hand. She lifted the hilt of the Lightsaber up before her and admired the weapon. It had been a fine instrument created to protect, and serve in a more civilized time. Yet it had only been used to wage war against the Sith. The woman who had once wielded it had been murdered after the war had been concluded, and the One Sith won their right to rule the Galaxy.

In the wake of Ella Nova's destruction something new had been made.

"Through destruction I breed creation," Ella muttered the lesson to herself as she deactivated the Lightsaber and lowered her arm. Lifting her gaze up to the pyre she found the skull of the late Sith Lord starring back at her through the flames. Ella smiled knowingly as she turned back up what had once been a street. Clutching at the hems of her robes she turned and entered the entrance to the tower where she stood to look upon the Nomad as he went about his craft.

"I am leaving now. There is nothing left for me here," Ella said to them. Her eyes travelled away from the stranger to look about the room. He had been busy: a table had been erected in the center of the entrance to the tower with it being crafted out of the remnants of the ruined city. Whatever the material was it had to be rare. Not even Arrfor knew what it was. Yet the Nomad appeared to be an expert with it.

"I fear that you will not find what you are looking for out there," replied the Nomad as he chiselled away at the rock. "You have already failed to destroy your enemy. Peace cost you your strength. His victory has defeated you."

"Carnifex is just a man. He is not God."

"Yet the dark side has anointed him. Look upon the ideals that He destroyed, and weep upon His works." The Nomad lifted his hand away from the rock, and blew upon it to scatter the dust. Ella leaned her head to the side in contemplation of it. It appeared to be a chair. "Carnifex was defeated on Dac. The Jedi stopped him," Ella retorted in defiance.

"Then they sparred him, and look where they took him: into the hands of their grateful enemy." The Nomad returned to his work and the chisel hammered away to cast another grove into the seat as it begun to take shape. "Their failure cost them everything, and so too will yours."

"I am not the same Jedi as I was before. I am stronger. More powerful."

"You may talk like the Sith that you just buried, but you are still a Jedi. A Knight of the Republic you may not be. Yet you are still You."

Ella lowered her gaze to the Lightsaber in her palm. She contemplated cutting down the last Builder. But mercy cast aside the momentary desire.

"You could be right," Ella muttered in acknowledgement. Her thoughts turn to the Sith Holocron that was stored away on board the Initium nearby and the knowledge that had been left behind by Darth Ayra. Through her teachings Ella could yet discover the means of bringing Darth Carnifex in-- not for justice this time-- but to end the greatest threat in the known Galaxy now that she knew that His mysterious master had been slain by their apprentice.

Wordlessly Ella turned away from the Nomad and left him to his craft. From what little she knew about the Builder he had revealed himself to be a man who did not act on sentiment. Saying goodbye seemed pointless. Hours later, as Kalist's star was beginning to rise at dusk, Ella boarded the Initium and took off to begin her work. As the modified star courier begun it's ascent the Nomad watched from the side of the smouldering pyre and it's dead Sith Lord while clutching the Sith Holocron within his left palm.

"You are not the only one who seeks revenge," he declared.

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[Maldor Mecetti]

Aboard the 'Thin Edge' a Lone Scout model C-3
Enroute to the Deep Core
___________________________________________________________________​

Alert klaxons roused the scion of House Mecetti.

As a noble, Maldor was not used to rude awakenings. Life had brought him a taste of strife and toil and challenge, but only a taste. He had fought for his life, he had trained painfully, he had killed men. But these things had been brief interruptions upon an otherwise luxurious and trouble-free existence. Difficulty was a pit stop in paradise for such men as he.

And so he rose with anger flashing in his blue eyes. How dare the universe intrude upon his sleep?

It took a moment for him to gather himself. To remember where he was.

He was on a ship. Not his well-appointed command ship, but a small scout. The cramped cot he slept upon was one of the substandard arrangements for the crew- built for efficiency rather than comfort.

He supposed he was now the crew. Him, and his hired gun Yol Kan.

They were headed to the Deep Core, seeking a world suggested at in half-forgotten charts and whispered rumors. A legend, rather than something actually known. To get there, they had to navigate through a hundred flavors of danger.

These klaxons suggested the danger had become grave.

He made his way to the cockpit of the ship. It had all the hallmarks of a Sienar design, of which Maldor was well familiar. Sienar and Kuat had provided the foundational architecture for much of House Mecetti's fleet. The House had switched from native Tapani Sector designs during the reign of Palpatine's Empire, and only occasionally built to those old influences nowadays.

The galaxy had moved on, and even the traditionalist Mecettis had begrudgingly moved with it.

Taking the co-pilot's station, Maldor alternated between looking through the viewport of the cockpit and consulting the sensor screens. He wasn't half the pilot Yol was, though. He had trouble appreciating the fullness of the danger.

"What is it," he asked at last, impatient and grumpy from his interrupted sleep.


Yol Kan
Her

 

[Yol Kan]

Aboard the 'Thin Edge' a Lone Scout model C-3
Enroute to the Deep Core
___________________________________________________________________
​

Yol Kan suppressed the urge to sigh as he turned to look as his co-pilot.

More like a back-seat driver.

"We've been forced out of Hyperspace," Yol explained to the young Lord and Moff.

"The multitude of gravitational masses set off the hyperspace safeties. Much as with an interdictor, but these gravitational masses are no mere specters. They are quite real, representing very real and deadly obstacles. Hundreds of stars lie in our path. Stars, dark stars, and other terrible things.

If we are to continue onward, I must disable the safeties."

He waited a moment, and saw the word 'So?' in his employer's eyes.

"The slightest misstep in navigation will spell doom for us. I am a very good navigator, but I believe this to be a task beyond even my skill. It's not just the detectable obstacles we have to contend with. It's the many unknown objects these gravitational masses have pulled in over the millennia. Countless astronomical debris which now circle and wind their way amongst a multitude of singularities.

We are not merely flirting with death, here. We are thrusting ourselves between her legs."

Yol watched his employer's face, seeing him process the information.

He feared that this word of caution would not have the desired effect.

He sensed that Maldor hadn't come all this way just to turn back, now.


Maldor Mecetti
Her