Déjà Vu? This Isn't the Matrix! [Lords of the Fringe Dominion of Karfeddion]

[Arage Bao]

[member="Tal"]

Wasn’t much for the bluster, truth to be told I was dang tired. Ain’t a fething droid that can just keep going and going, if they got an oil change and maybe some recharging every once in a while. So I leaned against the back of the chair, feet perched up on the table, cigarette between the lips.

Puffed some smoke out here and there, just cruising. Listening to the background chatter and wonder if there was something to dr--

Back that up.

I opened one eye and located the source of my immense discomfort. He had just stormed into the den and was widely waving his hands around while screaming something, at first I didn’t get it quite. Perhaps my ears dialed it all down when people thought it necessary to start bellowing from the top of their lungs when ya were only a few metres away.

‘THE FRINGE IS COMING.’

Well… feth.

There goes my holiday again.

 

[Onith Trill]

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

As Saul Tevere road throughout the spaceport yelling "THE FRINGE IS COMING, THE FRINGE IS COMING." I was busy getting off of my dropship, leading a squad of TA-1's. They'd all been with me at Porchello, so they were eager to get some payback on the Undergound, not that we really knew any of them where there. Intel suggested their might have been a few operatives, but not a dedicated cell like Porchello was. But then again, apocalpse, rapture, if intel dropped the ball he wouldn't have faulted them for it.

Most of he people I see running around are just that. People. Ordinary fellows and ladies that weren't going to interfere with a squadron of battle droids running around. Some cowered, some ran, but those who didn't engage didn't find themselves under-fire. Only the security and mercs who picked up got shot at, and they got shot at quick. There would be no distractions and I headed for the inner offices of the Karfeddion Spaceport. Fringe rule would ensure stability of this system. One way or another.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Tal"]

While the droids were loading off I was still puffing some smoke, people all around had calmed down by that point, they were softly murmuring between themselves until one of ‘em finally got the courage to walk over to my table, cap in his hands he was shifting on his boots.

Guy wasn’t all that articulate it seemed, but I gave ‘im some time to figure out what it was that he wanted to say.

‘W-what should we do?’

Feth.

Last thing I wanted was this, looked around and saw. What? Hope? Determination? A will to fight? Feck, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Merill should waltz in here right now, or maybe Flint.

One of ‘em good guys.

I am just a guy with a shifty moral compass who does the right thing every once in a while, was only in the Underground because I liked to stick it to the Fringe.

Seems they were set on it though, no use to dissuade them. So I stood up, took my new shotgun and gave him one of my shrugs.

‘Everyone who has a gun or anything else, follow me. The rest? Go home or pack your bags and leave.’

Then I walked outta the den.

 

[Onith Trill]

Security doesn't pose too much a problem. They're employed to handle smaller threats, abolitionists who come in, disgruntled customers on the verge of fighting, stop the occasional slave runaway. Not deal with a real military squadron, even if we are droids. Our surgical advance isn't held up much, till I see a blonde headed guy with something between scruffle and a beard come out with a familiar looking shotgun. That woman at Porchello had one of those, and made quite a few problem.

"Defensive positions." I yell, and the TA-1's scatter. While we're scattering and I'm yelling I lay down a few shots at [member="Khaleel Malvern"], trying to take him down early. I don't what's coming through that door though, could be another dozen folk with the same weaponry. Could be worse. Could just be a few bar-goers who didn't know what the hell they were getting into. Could be empty. But I can't bet on that. So down into cover I go after the first three shots, and wait for my buddies to lay down some cover fire.

Show me what you got cowboy, I'm ready to play.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Ashin drummed her fingers on the control panel of her command throne until the Chimaera's captain shot her a Look. There should have been something -- some convoy making a break for it, some OP patrol force come to take a swing at her for her temerity. Something.

But for all the chaos wrought across the galaxy by this past week, space was quiet over Karfeddion. The whole system seemed tired, broken, unable to gather its strength to resist. Maybe that was her imagination, or maybe the warped Force was sending her insight. Either way, she wasn't on speaking terms with her instincts just now, so constant readiness was the order of the day. She had a battle group standing by outside the system in case someone took the bait; that would have to be enough.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Tal"]

Moment the bastards came in sight I raised the shotgun and shot, I was never all that keen on force magics and all that crap. So while all other specialist nutballs were pretty much fethed right now in a fight? I was doing just fine with my revolver and shotgun.

Cheated here and there, just a bit faster in the reflexes, increasing muscle strength for just that little less of recoil. I paid for it though, even the smallest increases gave me migraines like ya wouldn’t believe.

Anyway, they had been yelling Fringe and then droids at us for a lot, so I hadn’t been prepared. Shotgun threw out an EMP thing, ya. I like ‘em EMPs, and I probably got a few more from which that came from.

Piezoelectric. Five meter killzone, ten meter headaches.

Managed to dodge the last two, first one hit me in the shoulder. Had some duraplast there, padding, nothing too fancy. Couldn’t be taking much more than where that came from, so I scrambled towards one of ‘em walls over there.

Guys behind me followed suit, the ones that had followed. Shooting out makeshift weaponry, revolvers, shotguns, whatever the thugs had been able to get there hands on.

As on the previous planet, this was a delaying procedure.

We ain’t expecting to win it in a straight fight.

We never do.

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

"Well, just because the Force doesn't work worth a damn doesn't mean I can't study!" Eyes rolled, and she flopped into a vacant chair on the bridge of the Chimaera, slinging legs over one arm and dropping her shoulders against the other laying the datapad on her torso, while she clicked her fingers out in the open space in front of the chair. "Gotta be ready, Adas. Always gotta be ready."

She hadn't seen her closest companion since the Force had gone all weird. Adas could cloak, and it seemed that he was permanently so, now. She felt a nose bump up against the back of her hand and that hand turned over, seeking to scratch the dog behind the ears. A low, gruffing, pleased sounded blipped out of the barkspawn. She picked up the 'pad with her other hand, and scrolled with her thumb while hazel eyes worked through text and diagrams. Eventually she withdrew the one hand from Adas and grasped the 'pad with it, too.

"I just hope all this study isn't for nothing," she said, that last word maybe a little more sarcastic than she intended, a little louder than she meant to voice it. "I mean, what if it never works the same again?" Her head lolled back towards the command throne, "Maybe you could teach me to shoot, Papa. That would be useful."

A soft yip came from the invisible barkspawn.

"Adas agrees, don't you Adas?"

She reached out and gave the canine another scritch.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs"]

Ashin stood. "Captain Engel, you have the conn."

"Yes, ma'am."

As Engel, a man she'd known for decades, settled into the command throne, Ashin crossed the bridge (heh) to where her daughter slouched with that invisible dog. "If the Force stops working reliably in a permanent way," she said, "we'll continue being us. And we'll get a good laugh out of watching people who've spent their whole lives learning the Force and nothing else. And maybe we'll figure out how to fix it. You want more shooting practice? I think we can do more shooting practice."

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Coren nodded when he heard the call back on the radio. And that was when he heard the thunder. Lucky for him, it was all friendly. “You heard the Admiral, stay in the safe zone on the firing screen, we'll land after they're hit.” He ordered to the landing crafts before lifting his craft off the floor of the hangar.

“Keep your eyes open for that side we can't hit. And for the love of anything, don't do unnecessary damage to the spaceport. That goes for the droid units as well!” He was the combat craft leader and would be doing his best to send flares and distract any AA missiles, but the shields on the crafts would have to hold on their own. He knew that the Dawn Treader was around and that meant Jared was in the area. Probably ready to jump into the system to intercept anything that was coming their way.

Feeling the shudder of his ship as they entered atmosphere, Coren nodded. “I'll touch down quickly, you all get out, get to your target, secure that space port.” He ordered as he looked over his shoulder. Right, droids. He hated making deliveries. But this was a fun one, after all.

Moving from thrust to repulsor, he brought his ship in low, beneath the building height and opened the gangway, deploying the droids. When the last was out, he started checking for targetting solutions.

“Any word on anything running, Chimera ?” He contacted [member="Ashin Varanin"] again.

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

A slow grin spread on her upside-down face.

"I'd love more shooting practice," she shifted into a properly seated position and leaned against the arm closest to [member="Ashin Varanin"], propping her head up against a fist, "really, I just..."

She blew a deflating breath out between her pursed lips, the act making a short, motoring sound.

"...I wanna help, I wanna be useful, Papa," that fist unfurled, and fingers obscured half her mouth, making her next words a little muffled when she looked up through eyelashes, "and Force only knows what I'll do if I get bored."

There was that grin again.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Coren Starchaser"] would receive a tasking directive from Captain Engel, indicating a potential Omega Protectorate monitoring satellite in the outer system. Disable and capture if possible, destroy if necessary.

[member="Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs"]
"Boredom is the worst of all things. It ranks pretty high on my list of things I don't want for you. The list includes...well, for one, not threatening me on my bridge. Let's go get you un-bored. Captain Engel, I'll have my earbud comm; please let me know if anything happens."

She adjourned, with her entirely-too-precocious thirteen-year-old daughter, to the firing range. The good one, by Ibaris' standards, the one where the heavier ammunition got tested. Acid rounds, discarding sabot, MANPAC electrified net shot, that kind of thing.

"What exactly do you want to learn? 'Shooting' is sort of a broad discipline."

 

[Coren Starchaser]

So the Protectorate still had satellites out herE? That was interesting. And well, the native Corellia happened to hear what the man who probably did more than stare at goats did. Secure and capture, huh?

W ell he did have the tractor beams for it. And only limited cargo space.

"Fighter escort wouldn't go unwanted, if I'm doing captures." He called to the command ship, making for space on his ship. The advanced targeting system began pointing out the targets. Verbal commands were so nice.

 

[Hira Mitsae]

House Vandron

'And you are sure this will work?'

'I get that question a lot.'

'That is not an answer.'

'No, it isn't.'

It was clear that the old Lord of Vandron was a man who was used to getting things his way, but these days his patience was being tested in the most cruel of ways. First his alliances had fallen one by one as power shifts in the structure appeared, then his foes revealed themselves to be more cunning than expected and less of them had fallen. When his wife had been taken by the Rapture? Well, things had been on an all-time low for the patriarch.

Those opponents and rivals of him had somehow engineered some demands, loans called back, payments forestalled. The point was that in this chaotic environment Lord Vandron had found himself to be poor and creditless, with a huge estate to govern and not enough people to allow it proper.

This was where Darrell incidentally came in.

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

"Everything, obviously, but..." sure, the thought had her all kinds of giddy, and yet everything was still pretty broad. About as broad as it got. "...hmm."

She supported one elbow while the fist was at her mouth, teeth working unconsciously at the end of the thumb, considering her answer. What exactly did she want to learn? It wasn't like she hadn't spent inordinate amounts of time flirting with the subject, especially after being in not one, but two situations recently where people were shooting and getting shot, and being able to do not much about it.

"Accuracy, Papa," she said coolly after several moments of silence, trying to sound smart about it, "and effectiveness."

But still... she wrapped her arms around herself.

"I want to be..." how did she put this into words? Mortality had been weighing heavily on her still-growing mind, what with the disappearances and all. Soon, the words came quiet, "...I want to be able to make you worry less about me. I want to... I want you to be able to know that I'll be okay when you're gone. When Ma's gone."

Tears began to prick at her eyes, which made her cheeks start to pink. An awkward, one-note laugh tumbled out of her as she looked with an unfocused stare down the range.

"I guess that's not a very exact answer."

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Allyson Locke]

Spencer remained on hand incase something did happen out in space. Her job here was to meditate and help boost the moral of the forces and help Ashin organize and see things she couldn't see otherwise. She was valuable in that aspect, seeing things that couldn't be seen otherwise. A finger trailed her cheek as the marks that were on her lover and her daughter wandered farther from her.

Curious, she stood from the mediation mat and followed using her special affinity with sense to find them. Their time together, Ibaris and Ashin was rare from her knowledge. Ashin busy with securing freedom and the like. Knowing this, Spencer remained uninvolved and watched from a far. A part of her mind twitched as she stood in the viewing room with her arms folded across her chest.

Ashin would take her here and knowing Ibaris it wouldn't be the last time she set foot in this range. A hand gracefully covered half her face as she prayed to the Force.

[member="Ashin Varanin"] [member="Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs"] [member="Spencer Jacobs"]

"Well, there's no such thing as effectiveness, not when it comes to making a single standard. Running straight at your enemy spraying automatic fire from an E-11 is effective; so is a single headshot. So is staying clear of your enemy and poisoning him from ten parsecs away. So is glassing his homeworld. Don't think that personal violence is the most effective skillset for keeping yourself safe. Now that you're growing up, I'll do my best to make sure you're conversant in all of them -- not so you can meet any challenge at any level, but so that you'll know enough about them to choose what works best for you. There's no such thing as a perfect combatant, Ibbie."

Meanwhile, [member="Coren Starchaser"] was dispatched a quartet of gunships as escorts.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Malik Rodarch"] | [member="Seren Ordavo"]

I was more the guy who perched on the roof and picked people off that way, could see Mullet - that panther thing running around and making names for himself, sheesh. The thing had racked up more kills than any one of us, might have to get myself a pet too. ​

Could be cool.​

Anyway, no tank-mode for me today. I jumped off from the roof, landed on top a guy and pivot blade lashed out. Throat cut and I was off, dancing across the enemies, cut here, slash there, blood all over the place. Earned my fair share of pain, wounds and blood too, but that’s what happens when ya have learned to use the breath too much.​

We weren’t nearly done here.​

 

[Onith Trill]

Two of my buddies go down from a shot of EMP, and I start feeling a little fuzzy. Targeting computer isn't quite working right. Photoreceptor's a bit hazy. Silently I wonder to myself why everyone in the galaxy seems to have EMP equipment when I come to town, but oh well. Sometimes it's not about the cards you've got or the cards he's got but how you play 'em. As I see a bunch of other bargoers come from behind the shotgun-toting smuggler I figure most of the civilians have rallied behind him. Which meant one important thing.

They weren't civilians anymore.

Pulling up my gun as I come over cover I fire not my blaster but the under-barrel, a grenade launcher. A BTI-Hex Grenade is launched out of it as I fall back into cover. A couple of other droids follow suit, sending frag grenades as well. If the smuggler was going to show all of his cards, hell, I'll show him all of mine.

[member="Khaleel Malvern"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Nui Akona"]

I'm fairly sure he climbed up on that roof just so he could jump off and stab things on the way down.

A guard's shockprod settled into Seren's hand just as the guard's skull settled into the ground. It settled a little more when he stepped on it -- the skull, not the shockprod.

He'd stumbled into the antechamber of what could only be described as a breeding pit. Guards weren't the only ones who's just died, and he was entirely fine with that. The shockprod flared to life, and Seren moved on.

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

She rubbed at her eyes a bit, nodding, glad that things just moved right along.

"I know," she glanced at her Papa, allowing an honest-to-goodness smile, "so can we start with something really fun?"

Fun was still pretty high on her list of wants. She'd take it where she could get it. Of course, the definition of 'fun' is flavoured differently for every individual, and it was fair to say that her parents had a pretty good handle on what her definition of 'fun' consisted of.

"Your idea of fun, or mine, is okay."

[member="Ashin Varanin"]