Wearing:
90 Suit
Armed with:
Wind and Fire Wheels
Objective: Be present at/Speak at Tribunal Station with
Laertia Io
Half hour prior...
Syd Celsius floated through the passages of Laertia's Gozanti Cruiser, wearing her blue and gold catsuit. Laertia Io was alone in a bacta tank, sleeping soundly in the adcanced medbay, though the low lighting highlighted dozens of scars. Syd found her asleep there sometimes, as more and more details of her medical condition became apparent. Not wanting to disturb her after having docked with the cruiser on her armored Star Courier she had let herself wander the ship. She had been expected, after all.
Laertia's private Quarters were sparse and bare as Syd entered, save for her freshly cleaned street armor, spiky black biker leathers, and the weapons that would be going with her. The glossy black, curved hilt Lightsaber she was often spotted with rested next to it.
An ornate looking pistol of Mandalorian origin--she could not be sure unless she studied it more closely. Was Laertia Mandalorian, then? She didn't seem to follow the Resol'Nare...
Syd's hand glided over her jacket, not touching it. It had been with her a long time clearly, and was quite personal to her. That's why Syd didn't touch it. But she couldn't resist being near it...
Eventually though she departed, though it was clear she was dissatisfied with the small, unsatisfying snippets. She hungered for something more substantial, like when she had first dueled her at the Silver Rest.
She never explained where she got the ship. Syd didn't ask. The interior had been styled as a sparse castle. Dark green banners depicting a Black Great Helm with the symbol of the Jedi Order at its center of its forehead hung from walls and rafters. The armory was guarded on both sides by ceremonial faceted suits of Black Matrix Armor as Syd floated towards it, then into the armory itself.
You could often tell much of someone by their choice of weaponry.
Syd's opinion was reinforced...Laertia fething
hated subtlety.
Vibroshields. Knives. Garrotes. Maces. Axes. Anatomy maps of 007 different humanoid species. Run downs of all parts to Mandalorian Armor, all posted on the walls next to diagrams displaying the average speeds most humanoids move in heavy armor or swing heavy weapons in battle. It was exhaustively detailed, compiled over years of research.
Syd grew fascinated as she reached the Lightsabers mounted on the farthest wall.
Her gold chromium covered hands reached out to touch a
weathered dual vented Lightsaber that she rarely ever saw Laertia use these days. Most times she used that strange black bladed Lightsaber. The one Syd found her eyes sliding to in curiosity more and more. She had heard that they existed. But they were usually all in Darksaber replicas...
one of which was right next to the dual vented model. The
Lightsaber destined to have a meeting with
Ryv
was mounted a little farther from the first two, a noticeable patina to the hilt, heavily weathered.
Syd noticed the dust on the first two blades. They hadn't been cleaned deliberately...everything else was polished. Her hands glided over the two blades, but never touching them.
But when her eyes fell on the
Lightsaber Spear she let her curiosity get the better of her.
The silvery object was collapsed, a dark blue lens mounted at the end of the pommel. Her hand reached out, despite feeling the intense chill that surrounded its aura. This didn't look like something Laertia would have built...its craftsmanship seemed more ceremonial than anything...
She touched it...and instantly went numb everywhere, flesh on her body wriggling violently as icicles began to form on the rippling flesh on her face. Her fingers were frozen to the spear, and Syd was forced to pry her fingers away from the silvery spear, hand clenching it now covered in ice.
Syd finally got free of the arcane weapon, pig like metallic squeals of agony escaping her throat. The magic on it had completely bypassed her suit defenses.
Her flesh wriggled on her body disgustingly for a few seconds before settling back onto the proper latch points of the skeleton. Carefully prying the remaining icicles from her face, Syd regarded the weapon with new found alarm, and refused to get closer to it...
Her eyes then slid to something sealed in Nullification Resin, with a plate at the bottom of the resin encasement that was magnetized to a tall pedestal with a red circle around it.
Another Dual Vented Lightsaber with scorch marks near the secondary emitters.
Syd floated to it. Upon closer inspection she stopped, realizing it was rigged with det charges that had been modified with multiple anti-handling measures across the encasement. Nothing lethal--Laertia wasn't stupid. Sonic stun variants.
She's afraid of it the Force Spawn noted.
Syd winced, felt Laertia close off their bond as a nightmare started for her. Laertia seemed to do it unconsciously, but even so, Syd never got more than snippets of Laertia's life before meeting her. Laertia shared things piecemeal, in passing. Syd did the same. Each knew as much as they wanted the other to know. It was strange. Like a long distance relationship...except up close.
Syd accidentally hit a nearby switch on a stand, and the wall where the Lightsabers were mounted parted, revealing a gallery of armors behind transparisteel casings.
She spotted the display containing the
silvery Power Armor Laertia had used at Yurb and Nar Kreeta, heavily damaged and with clear signs of unfinished repairs. That it had remained functional even to the very last moments before total structural and power failure was testament to the quality of its construction. But as high as the protection it provided was, it commanded an equally high price to repair it. Next to it was a smaller, more form fitting armor.
The same one Laertia would wear at Dantooine. She walked through the entire gallery, biting her lower lip.
Where does she get these wonderful toys? the Jedi wondered.
The more she saw, the more curious she grew.
And in case it isn't clear, everything hyperlinked is a
massive Chekhov's
Gun
She tensed. Laertia was starting to wake up. It was a long flight back to the Med Bay, but she reached it just as Laertia staggered out of the tank in pitch black undergarments, heading over to the decontamination shower nearby to wash the remaining bacta off, closing the curtain and teleporting her wet garments into a nearby bin.
"Was asleep a little longer than I intended. Sorry..." Laertia called out to her as she began washing the bacta off.
"The care of your brain is important. No need to apologize..." Syd assured her.
"Laertia..." Syd trailed. "Must we go to this meeting on Tribunal Station? I fear we are merely screaming into the wind."
"If we don't try, we don't deserve to have anyone listen to us. Not going would be tantamount to conceeding to
Coren Starchaser
and
I do not concede."
Syd sighed as Laertia finished washing the bacta off her and drying.
"You have problems with this..." Laertia noted.
"I...I believe in what you are doing Laertia, its just..." Syd stopped unable to find the words at that instant.
"What?" Laertia asked, stepping out of the shower in fresh gray undergarments. Her eye and arm having been disinfected by a decontamination field sweeping the wall where her mechanical eye and arm rested. Syd heard an audible click as she mounted her slim, glossy black arm to its cybernetic mount surgically implanted where her organic left arm used to be. She tested its hidden arm blade, which popped out with a Logan-Worthy snikt then retracted it, installing her cyber eye a moment later.
"Laertia...we could be wrong on this. Have you ever thought of that?"
"Yes..." Laertia admitted. "Many times...but the Bryn'adul don't want to conquer and control peoples. They want to destroy them. Some of the more naive among the Silver Jedi actually think they can re-educate them..."
"Only because no one supports full on reprogramming..." Syd muttered. "It works...sometimes..."
Laertia raised the brow above her cybernetic eye but dismissed the odd feeling a second later.
"Impractical. Timewaster. Best to just kill 'em..." Laertia remarked, heading out of the Medbay. "Most of them are guilty of genocide already..."
"Yeah..." Syd agreed, hiding the sudden flare of pain from within and keeping it from her voice. "I guess you are right..."
Syd followed Laertia out of the Medbay.
"Y'know...I came across your armory. While you were asleep..." Syd admitted as they came to Laertia's quarters.
Syd waited outside while Laertia dressed.
"And?" Laertia asked from inside.
"Those two Lightsabers...the ones at the center...I noticed you haven't cleaned those. Every other weapon in there is dusted. But...not those..."
"They carry bad memories, despite their effectiveness. I keep them because their usefulness outweighs the squick I now experience using them."
Syd decided to do something dangerous.
"Same story with me and that
white armor." she admitted quietly...
Things for both of them went silent for after that. They both knew they wouldn't get anything else from the other.
Present.
The Shadow Bride docked with the ramshackle station, setting off all kinds of red flags with station scans of the terrifying number of heavy weapons it was armed with. Syd And Laertia exited the craft, right as Ryv started speaking. Dividing lines seem to have already been set up. Syd instantly felt eyes on them as they both entered. And why wouldn't they? They had been actively opposing Coren and a vast majority of their peers for days, now, speaking to anyone who would listen.
Upon hearing
Karn Syndulla
speak Syd openly albeit subtly scoffed at his words.
"Made for us? We merely see what you choose not to..." Syd spoke, her and the cyborg dressed like a biker showing up like flares in the Force. One, the endless blaze of summer, the other an icier presence like snow over buildings.
"We are not evil. We are not misguided. But we refuse to ignore the Bryn'adul's Force Wound creating nature. While this debate goes on, They have likely begun slaughtering another world. Your refugee crisis ticks up ever so slightly..." Syd said, her chromium covered body reflecting the mistrustful and apprehensive stares of those staring at her. Despite her beauty it was clear something was...off...like a figure in an oil painting painted to exacting perfection suddenly able to move.
Laertia was unsettling to other Jedi for a different reason...it was because whether it was NJO or Silver Jedi, she stuck out like a sore thumb, gray eyes shifting about.
"We didn't come here to disrupt...but we will not be slandered as evil or misguided, and we certainly won't tolerate 'solutions' being discussed to force us to agree with the rest of you. Certainly not behind our backs. And what options would be on the table exactly, if we didn't want to comply before this action on Dantooine is to occur? Censure? Imprisonment? Your 'choice' doesn't sound like much of a choice to me. It sounds more like 'Shut the hell up'. I refuse to shut up about this..." Syd told the Jedi flatly before turning to Coren.
"We could all be fighting those murdering brutes right now. But here we are, stuck in another office meeting with a chairman who isn't even CEO anymore..."