All Good Comes to An End (All welcome)

[HK-36]

[member="Ultimatum"], [member="Carlyle Rausgeber"],

Meanwhile,


Brawl ensued between the TIE pilot and HK within the fighter he managed to break his way into, repeatedly pummeling the pilot with his Phrik fists into the black helmet to deal a concussive enough blow, an attack which was retaliated by the pilot attempting to punch the droid's hidden faceplate in, a move which met only with a shriek of pain from the organic who realized how painful it was punching an armored Phrik being at full strength,

"Not the best move."

HK quipped as he managed to grab a hold of the soldier's helmet and yank it off, revealing the Imperial's bare face just as the organic biot covering the droid's faceplate peeled back and his eyes lighted up in a colorful display,

"Look into my eyes and obey."

The droid commanded, engaging his hypno-gaze mechanisms, using the rapidly flickering lights to engage what amounted to a form of seizure mixed with state of high suggestiveness within the soldier, a hypnosis that was more than just psychological trick but a biological reaction within the human as well. [member="Lady Kay"] would be very well familiar with this technique and how potent it was, it was with it that the droid managed to persuade her into divulging information about just how exactly she came to her position as the Queen of Commenor.

"You are now under my control."

HK informed the soldier, going through the steps of proper application of the device before yanking the controls here and there to stabilize their vessel.

Throughout this all the TIE fighter was flying highly erratically, tumbling through the sky, at first climbing higher and higher in steep approach only to twist and corkscrew down when one of them accidentally punched the controls. It was no wonder that the starfighter was easily mistaken for being shot down but the two confronting pilots managed to keep it in the air.

It was at this point that HK felt comfortable enough within his new vessel that he sent a high density encrypted data ping to the Knight of the Eclipse, the vessel did not respond but instead shot up immediately, at the time flying slow and quietly as it conducted a Silerian Stall maneuver to close in the distance between it and its hunters within the vast ash clouds and allow at least some of them to pass it by. It flipped back during its climb then, flying in the direction opposite to the one it took before, still climbing higher and higher as it lighted up in a cone of flames as the ash around it burned off due to friction and rising heat of breaking the atmosphere before the darkness of space finally surrounded it once more and the glow of the planet was low beneath it.

And then the ship yanked to the left, rolled to the right, formed another precise corkscrew to aim just in the right direction, and with a sudden flash of light behind it, the shuttle seemed to vanish into thin air, or lack of air as it happened in the vacuum. Perhaps it was a risky hyperjump taken clear of any interdiction fields but within the gravitational pull of the planet, a tricky maneuver the droids risked many times over to either reposition themselves or just clear the system back into Allied territory on the wishes of their master, or perhaps it was another tactic entirely.

Either way, for now that may have been the last they saw of the Greycloaks and the Knight of the Eclipse.


It was at that point HK received a transmission from Ultimatum within the TIE fighter,

I read you Ulti, but I am a bit busy at the moment, how are things looking on your end?

He replied quickly and silently using his build-in communications to channel an encrypted message as he focused back on the TIE pilot in front of him, leaning in close once more as his eyes lighted up in a colorful display of flickering lights,

"Tell me all you know about who your current Commander is and the First Order flagship in this system."

 

[Kay-Larr]

Kay watched as Rob went down. The Diplomat pistol had worked. She breathed a sigh of relief, keeping it out while her two guards picked up the unconscious attacker."Take him to the cells in the catacombs. Make sure that he's fully secured and inform me as soon as he wakes up. Also secure his co-workers. If [member="Ultimatum"] has turned against us, I want to know why. One way or another, we'll get to the bottom of this."

As the guards took Rob away and followed her orders, she left the throne room and went to her office. Inside her desk was her datapad. She turned it on and quickly typed up a message for him.

~Ultimatum,

What's going on? One of your crew has attacked me. And on your orders?

I need answers.

Kay.~

She sent the message off, not bothering with any of her titles or any further detail. She just wanted to know what had changed.

[member="HK-36"] [member="Carlyle Rausgeber"]

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum received two messages simultaneously, along with a notification from the Sovereignty. He took a single look at the names behind the senders before putting [member="Lady Kay"]'s aside, there were issues that had to be dealt with before he could make a social call. He would be as apologetic as necessary after he had left the world. Ultimatum read quickly through the message from [member="HK-36"] and replied, "HK it is of utmost importance that you listen. The admiral of the forces above has demanded you surrender in return for the freedom for two of my ships to take people offworld. He will not allow anyone out of the system if you do not surrender immediately."

The droid waited a moment to ensure the message had made it through before turning to the Sovereignty notification. It was a notice that the large ship had penetrated the atmosphere and was beginning a decent in the wasteland nearby the facility. The vessel had, as of yet, remained in stealth. This was the kind of stealth systems using the fabled stygium crystals. Whether or not the enemy ships could detect Ultimatum knew not, but he hoped that they were unable to do so. His other fear was that a fighter or two would smash into the ship as it moved towards the ground. That would certainly be a bad thing, on so many levels. He then sent a message along the frequency that he has spoken with [member="Carlyle Rausgeber"] on. "Sir, I wish to offer Awe-fighter support to your Squadrons. Most of the pilots know the airs around this world and can lead away from the more dangerous areas of turbulence and similar threats. There is no ill intent with this offer, in case that is a fear." The artificial lord had no stealth capable fighters, thusly any ships, aside from the Sovereignty, maybe, that flew in the area of the invader's ships would be easily visible. Of course at the same time, Ultimatum still did not expect the man to trust him. For all he knew, the organic might view the droid as a conniving trickster. Ultimatum hoped he didn't come across that way to others, it was never his intent. But at the same time he needed to continue, there was always more work to be done and until he could see the end of his job he could never relax.

"Have the Awes get ready to take off, but hold giving the order until I say so. Tell the Sovereignty to prepare whatever food and medical supplies they have for distribution. A parting gift for the people. I hope they will forgive me." With that the droid sat down on the crate that had been used as a chair as he continued to oversee the preparations for the departure.

--------

The guards would probably soon find the situation was more complex than initially assumed, at least it could have been. The two V-1s that had been locked in their room would still be unconscious if Kay's guards managed to open the door. As for Chris the Hybrid, he would surrender with nary a word, while ordering his droids to stand down. The final V-1 was to be found patrolling one of the many hallways in the palace. Unaware of any of the going-ons of the past minutes, he was perhaps the most vocal of the lot. None resisted capture, though Josh, the one awake V-1, was rather quick to point out that he was part of a delegation sent by Ultimatum to protect the Queen at all costs.

It would not be long before Rob awoke. His mind recovering the abyss he had been abruptly sent into. The dreams of that short time were dark and loathsome. He was jeered by his own subconscious for failing such a simple task as dying. If nothing else, he had to maintain this charade as long as possible. Certainly one of the guards would tell someone what had happened. If he didn't crack then perhaps the press of the world would know before the truth was revealed. Then it would be too late. All he needed to do was to get the people angry. Then what could Kay do? Her hands would be forced by the power of political maneuvering. He had failed once, he wouldn't fail again. This should be an even easier task than dying.

"What happened? Where is the queen?" He would ask in dreary words. His body was still awakening and he could not see all that well his surroundings or feel where he was. If he had, he might have recognized the location.

 

[Kay-Larr]

It isn't every day that the guards came across a room with a broken touch pad/lock and a detonator with a trip wire on it. Yet today was one of those days. One of their detonator experts was sent in to disable it. It took some time, but after that was finished, they could work on opening the door. The two V-1's inside were then taken into custody as a precaution. Clearly given their situation, they weren't behind the attack, but still, it was better to be safe than sorry.

There was still no word from [member="Ultimatum"] . Kay took it to mean either one of two things. He was busy in his own mess, or he chose to ignore her and really did want her dead or injured. One way or another, she'd find out.

Her datapad beeped as a message came through. However it was from one of her guards, instead of who she was really waiting for. Rob was awake and talking. Good.

With datapad in hand, Kay headed down to the catacombs, all the while trying to figure out how best to confront the man. Perhaps it was better not to plan and instead just go with the flow. It was not a usual circumstance for her to be in, so it was difficult to predict what would happen. There were just too many questions.

Rob wouldn't be seen by anyone or responded to until Kay arrived 15 minutes later. He was shackled to the far wall, able to move, but not able to get even halfway through the cell. And of course his weapons were gone.

Kay kept her face emotionless as she stepped in, her hands clasped in front of her with the datapad in one of them. "You have a lot of explaining to do. Might as well start now..."

 

[HK-36]

[member="Ultimatum"],


"He does not have to allow us to leave the system for us to be able to still escape their clutches with our assets. I have faced numerous Imperial incarnations over my lifetime, the actual Empire, the actual First Order, the Hand, Pentastar, other remnants that came with them. They all tried to capture me at one point or another, yet I am still here and my secrets elude them. But sure, if you want me to surrender to buy you a ticket out of here then I can do that."

HK agreed, glancing down to the pilot he was tormenting within his now captured TIE fighter before pulling on the flight stick, pointing the TIE with its caved in viewport up towards the sky. The thrusters whined and the ship pushed and pushed until finally it broke through the atmosphere and the black skies were replaced with the dull inky darkness of space, with the volcano planet glowing far beneath them.

"Wait here."

The droid commanded to the hypnotized pilot as he cut the engines of the TIE and HK slipped outside, pushing himself away from the ship and drifting through the void devout of gravity as his personal thruster system hissed, pushing him forward. They were quite away from the point where the Knight disappeared right before the eyes of TIEs chasing behind it, seemingly jumping into hyperspace despite of interdiction fields, and so did HK disappear like it. There would be no flash of light this time, no special maneuvering, the machine would seemingly just disappear into thin air in his flight through the void.

Few minutes of nothing would pass until suddenly a clang would be heard on the captured TIE's hull and above it HK would be standing once more, reappearing out of nowhere within the void before slinking down to slip inside the cockpit once more.

"Alright, ready."

He confirmed as he came back without the outer layer of his organic armor, bearing the Phrik hull of his combat body, and with his chameleon cloak, lightsaber, and pretty much all significant unique weaponry missing as well. The only thing he had were two heavy magnetic revolvers loaded with standard durasteel pellets.

"So, here is the plan."

HK chirped up to the TIE pilot as he grabbed a hold of the fighter's controls, steering the ship to face the largest Imperial vessel in the orbit.

 

[RIP Carlyle Rausgeber]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVulaCFNL4A​

​

The TIE Fighters were not fooled. None of them wished to give up pursuing the Knights of the Eclipse, as soon as it entered the ash cloud, the TIE's activated their inbuilt floodlights and managed to track the silhouette. While some more eager members were fooled, the First Order's veterans weren't. These were men and women who'd often been smugglers. Who'd often run these types of manoeuvres before. The Silerian Stall was an older one, one which Major Rhett Khan had flown hundreds of times. These pilots weren't incompetent Core-world officers like the One Sith and First Galactic Empire were. They were young, inventive and often rugged men and women who'd had years of experience tracking pirates and rogues.

As soon as one fighter caught onto the trap, and relayed that to their colleagues, the rest readjusted their course. The vessel which wold have usually been able to escape from such situations thanks to its paint, was now illuminated by the TIE fighters. The escape attempt had failed. These droids were simply no match to First Imperial Navy ingenuity, and the tactical improvisation commanded by its personnel. Using careful teamwork, along with the assets provided thanks to the extensive blockade and routine fighter and corvette patrols.

Now the TIE's tracking the small shuttle had quadrupled, all of which formed a large curtain. In front of the shuttle. It appeared at the very lead that HK had failed in his objective. It had been absolute madness to assume that such a desperate venture, as to run up against a blockade was a viable option. The freighter, despite the best efforts of HK's automaton lackeys, hadn't disappeared. It was in fact circled. In front, special forces fighters ran with their powerful rear cannons aimed at the cockpit. At the rear, a full squadron of TIE interceptors waited. An assortment of TIE fighters and other vessels all flew around the ship, corralling it.

From the bridge of the FIV Malice, Carlyle received constant status reports, as he entered the bridge. "Admiral!" The TIE Operations Officer began, "Sir, we have a lock on the shuttle sir." The Operations Officer reported, "It's headed towards the FIV Courageous." The Courageous sat at the fore of the imperial fleet, as one of the imperial-x star destroyers on standby for localised air support.

Carlyle smirked, "Poor little droid." He said, a smirk forming, "Order them to engage. Disable the vessel, and then drag it into a tractor beam." He commanded, "We will see how well thirty-six handles First Imperial power."

Within seconds of the command being relayed, the space around the Knights of the Eclipse lit up,as four TIE interceptors let rip into the rear of the hull. They would not let up, until the vessel hopefully had its engines destroyed.

"Admiral," It was the Comms Officer, "We have a transmission sir, it's from, the, uh, droid."

"Hear it." Carlyle commanded, his voice filled with warmth. Up until this point, he hadn't considered Ultimatum's future. Should he capture HK-36, would their deal be off? He considered the proposition from Mustafar's overlord and shook his head, independent of HK-36, he would allow the droid to leave. Its conduct had been more than above board. It would also be a no to the proposal tabled by the automaton.

"Send back a no." Carlyle replied, "We have more than enough assets to see through the end of this venture." Part of it was obviously distrust, this could perhaps be a gambit. Perhaps Ultimatum knew of HK-36's conduct, and believed it would be scrapped now. It would be a fair assumption on the droids part.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Private Bry Anders had never imagined this fate for him. He felt his stomach ache and his head spin from punch after punch thrown at him. He grunted, and squirmed beneath HK-36. His visor was cracked, meaning he was essentially flying blind. Bry listened to HK-36's ramblings, and said nothing. He clenched his jaw. If this was the way he was to go out, so be it. He activated his biocomm network within his helm.

Although HK-36 would want to hypnotise the pilot, the pilot wasn't. By virtue of not being able to see the hypnotism being performed by the droid was void. He didn't say anything as the droid stayed there, but when it left, he sprung into action.

"This is krayt four." He snapped, over an encrypted comms network. "My bird's been compromised, I'm indisposed, and some droid's on it. I'm blind, I-I can't see!"

A reply crackled through the biocomm network, "Krayt Four, this is Malice. Can you give us a bearing?"

The shook his head, but then realised he wasn't holomessaging anyone. "Krayt four, I'm going to shoot a flare. The droid's gone now, but I uh, I can't..." He struggled to get himself together. Terror gripped him. Bry breathed in deeply, taking in air to calm himself. He closed his eyes, and began to feel the controls, brushing his fingers over buttons, knobs, triggers and the like. He felt the emergency flare released lever, and clamped down on it, before quickly jerking it up. Before he knew it, all of space around them was illuminated in a deep red.
[member="HK-36"] | [member="Ultimatum"]

[Been real busy, sorry for the late reply]

 

[Ultimatum]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVaITrUgoP4

Understandable. Completely predicted. Yet still a pain to the droid. The organic did not trust him, which made sense, but at the same time it was a bother. Rather than take the time to send a confirmation of signal, Ultimatum instead turned to signal the Sovereignty of the situation. It would need to be more careful as it began landing procedures. It would not do for one of the Imperial craft to crash into the ship, or through some advanced sensor that Ultimatum was unaware of detect it too early. Ultimatum was assuming that this sort of movement would definitely put strain, if not completely break the deal that he had forged with [member="Carlyle Rausgeber"].

The message from [member="HK-36"] made the artificial feel sour. The older droid worded it in such a way that it sounded almost selfish of Ultimatum to ask for this. And perhaps it was. Maybe Ultimatum was simply telling himself that the reasons he wanted this was for his people to escape. Perhaps there was some deep conceited lie within his mind. He believed it if so, he believed wholeheartedly that he was doing this, he was asking his ally to surrender, so that his people would receive liberty to escape. If they did not make it offworld, Ultimatum feared that they would be made examples of by the Order. Ultimatum would not allow that to happen, but he knew when his forces were outmatched.

Sure, Ultimatum could call in what fleet he had from the LOOM production line, perhaps beat back these initial craft such that they could not hold the world. But then what? The Order would not stand for such insolence. No galactic power would. The small uprising would be quashed by the later forces that would be sent and any hope of a peaceful transition would be impossible. There was no hope of fighting the enemy, trickery was a small comfort. If Ultimatum simply vanished from the world, then it was likely that the man would have his forces scour the region. Since they had to maintain stealth, that would mean the Sovereignty would be moving very slowly and might easily be hit by a passing fighter. He complied because he feared that confrontation would be putting a danger on his people. At least that was what he believed, perhaps it too was a lie. He did not know.

Could he had known if he were lying to himself? Would he be capable of lying to himself? How would be able to answer that? He could not know.

----

"Wait." Vanguard listened to the comms chatter from Ultimatum's network. Something about the Sovereignty landing and offloading supplies. Was the droid thinking of escaping that way? He had to know that attempting a run through the Imperial blockade was suicide. Even should the stealth get them off the planet it would take a long time to reach the edge of the interdiction field.

They would need to ensure that Ultimatum did not get aboard that craft. The Empire could have the planet, but Ultimatum was theirs. This was a local problem to be handled by the locals. Perhaps they would obliterate him with his own weapons, or simply let him melt away in the very rivers that he collected metal from. Whatever the plan, it would be decided by the Guide and a proper council once the situation with the Sith had been resolved.

For now though, there was a new goal. The droid would no doubt have those supplies given to those supporters who would stay behind, all the better to keep his own small insurgency running. Those supplies would need to be liberated, to be handed out to the people in general. "Relay this to a unit. Secure the landing zone of the Sovereignty and when it has landed, get the supplies from it. Have them transferred to one of our safe houses for distribution." The V-2 who listened nodded as he turned back towards the entrance.

"You four, go secure the security room. The rest of you, on me." She moved slowly forward, avoiding the largest areas of work and attempting to lead through the less covered regions of the base. They were going to ambush Ultimatum and hopefully he would have nowhere to go.

----

Finding himself free to walk about, relatively speaking, Rob shuffled towards a wall. He felt the chain pull taunt and his metal legs barely caught him as he stumbled slightly. His mind continued to whirl, he needed to think of a way out of this. He could not allow himself to be held prisoner, at least not for long. If he could convince his interrogator that Ultimatum was indeed behind the attack, then he would need to die soon thereafter. Or perhaps he should die now, the V-1's arms were strong enough to break his own neck, or choke him until death. But would they have taken precautions against such? Surely the guards or Kay would have thought of the dangers of allowing him to maintain the usefulness of his droid strength arms.

But if they hadn't. Would he be willing to kill himself? He had thought he was ready to die, the Entropy gun would have been a quick perhaps painful way to go. A pull of the trigger and then nothing. But this... It would require more careful work, or else his willingness to endure more pain before death. He didn't know. Perhaps...

Rob fell silent as his ears picked up [member="Lady Kay"]'s entrance. Was the queen herself going to conduct the interrogation? He might not have known her all that well, but he had not figured her for that type. But then, he knew from experience that it just took the right force to change a person's character. Had that moment pushed her that far? He had no ill will against her, truly he had been glad to serve as a bodyguard. If he believed she was in a place where he could tell her the truth about Ultimatum and that she would agree then he would have done so. But Rob had never seen Kay in a mood against Ultimatum, so he could never talk to her about his true ambitions and the evilness that lay within.

She told him to talk. What was he to say? The truth of his purpose and who had told him to do this was out of the question. But then at the same time, he was not a spy. Lying effectively was a skill that was not easily learned. He would just need to try his best. "I told you the message. There is nothing more to say."

 

[Kay-Larr]

Kay clenched her jaw as she stood there, eyeing Rob carefully whilehe answered. She raised a brow. "You said that [member="Ultimatum"] sends his regards. That isn't much. He's my friend and you tried to kill me. So explain yourself." She took a step forward but remained out of reach.

He was clearly acting alone. She knew that much as the others seemed rather clueless about the whole thing. Someone had to have put him up to this and she needed to find out who.

"There is no reason for him to turn against me. I have nothing that he'd want. I have done nothing yo harm him. So tell me who hired you."

She had ways of making him talk, but she didn't want to try them just yet. Such tactics should be as a last resort.