Private Family Outing

[Melissa Bloodscrawl]

Wearing: This

Armed With: Bloodscrawl Lightsaber

With: Nathan Bloodscrawl

Aboard: Atrisian Pathfinder

Objective: Investigate other planets in the core as fallback points.



Note: Set before the Invasion of Coruscant.

Melissa Bloodscrawl's black stilettos clicked on the floor of the relatively small cruiser making a lazy journey towards the world of Lujo, an lush world of unspoiled islands and oceans, begging to be made defensible by the ambitious.

She was heading to the research lab where her adopted brother was busy crafting something.

In the weeks after his marriage to Vera Mina, Nathan had slowly gotten used to having a family he traveled with. Had slowly gotten used to having a family to even go home to.

Melissa Bloodscrawl's heart had broken for him as her databases slowly comprehended the depth of his pain and the weight of his failures. So she did her best to take care of little annoyances. Easy when she was essentially one of his bodyguards.

Melissa walked into the lab, her telltale heel clicks immediately alerting Nathan to her presence as he worked at the table with the parts to a lightsaber placed in order around it next to the after action reports from the Sith's successful defilement of Tython. Melissa knew it still bothered him.

"Hi Nathan!" Melissa called out. "Burning your eyes out on the little details?"

"No more than usual..." Nathan replied stoically as he set the bright red Kyber into the crystal chamber. "Hello, Melissa. I hope you are in good spirits."

"I'm always in good spirits around you, my dear sibling..." Melissa replied with a warm smile. "A new lightsaber..."

"Yes. But for you, not me." Nathan replied as he finished it, handing it to her.

Melissa spun it around in digitally guided hands, flicking it's all crimson to the very core blade, admiring it for a second before shutting it off.

"I'll use it well... where's 'Leena and 'Linda?" Melissa asked.

"Sparring..." Nathan answered. "Lorna is visiting today."

"Wonderful! When can we expect her?" Melissa asked, her anticipation rising by the second.

"One hour after we arrive at Lujo." Nathan answered. "It'll be a breather."

Melissa nodded. To be a Bloodscrawl was to be almost constantly busy doing something. It was the only way to really deserve the genuine down time you do receive, according to the Family philosophy.

"Does the Alliance have much presence there?"

The Alliance is relocating it's government to Fondor according to all intel reports." Nathan answered. "Coruscant is going to be evacuated. I doubt they have much interest at the moment in Lujo. Perfect time to assess the planet while we sight see."

"Y'know, there's going to be a ton of people who will want to execute you for treason, right? When all of this is said and done?" The Android asked as he stood up.

"Yeah. I try not to think about it." Nathan replied.

"It's so ironic: You're fully Organic and yet people would treat you like a Humanoid Abomination just as they would me, should my nature as a killer android be discovered."

That's why we're going to look for as little trouble as possible while we're there..." Nathan assured. "Today really is mostly just going sightseeing..."

"It'll be good for you..." Melissa trailed, pulling the papers from the desk.

"As long as you don't work on the side. Let a secretary handle this. Chit, let a Protocol Droid handle this." Melissa advised.

"I guess...."

Melissa beamed, pinched his check affectionately.

"Cheer up! It pays to be an optimist."

"I'll try..." he answered back, managing a very small smile for her.

"I'll go check on the others. And get out of this lab and eat..." She half pleaded. Nathan really did work too much. It would break him if he wasn't careful.

"I will, Melissa."

She smiled again, hugged him and headed out of the lab with her new weapon, walking dark blue durasteel passages with art deco type light fixtures. On the Atrisian Pathfinder, Melissa and her family were the most advanced androids on the ship at all times. Anything else were servant, combat droids or Clan Li-Ves Psy-Pires sworn to secrecy, the latter of which were not aboard.

She took a Turbolift to the lower deck, which contained the living quarters for Nathan and his whole family to stay whenever they were aboard, as well as recreational facilities to pass the time. As a ship it retained all it's formidable defenses, but it's interior was converted into a permanent Mobile Fortress. They didn't always stay here, and rarely all at once.

This was an exception. Today they could all be a family, together.

Melissa stopped by the Dueling Chamber and spotted Meleena Bloodscrawl and Melinda Bloodscrawl dueling with BWE Energy Rapiers that both had a silver color. Meleena moved in a catsuit of golden metallic armor weave. Melinda had morphed her body to resemble something similar.

The fencing was blinding, their movements a blur. It lasted thirty seconds before it resulted in a tie, the points of their blades ending at the neck of the other.

"Drat. Tenth tie in a row!" Melinda complained.

"We should take it as a compliment to one another's skill..." Meleena suggested.

"But I want to get better!" Melinda giggled before they both noticed Melissa.

"Sister! Welcome! Are we almost to Lujo?" Melinda, coded to be the youngest of Nathan's "Sisters", asked.

"Almost. About a half day or so..." Melissa assured. "What do you two want to do once we get there?"

"I want to go swimming. I've never gone swimming." Meleena noted calmly.

"I want to watch all the creatures on the beach. We're going to a beach, right?" Melinda asked.

"I think so." Melissa answered with a shrug. "We'll have fun finding out..."

"Would you care to join us?" Meleena asked.

Melissa shook her head.

"I have an appointment with an upgrade station." She replied. "Lorna's coming. She bringing guests herself."

"Who?" Melinda asked.

"Sorry, can't tell you just yet." Melissa said. "But this family outing is more important today than others. Because we are trying to show another Family the way forward."

The other two of her beloved siblings thought on this but nodded afterwards.

Melissa departed with one last smile and headed to the upgrade station in her personal quarters, modeled to be both spacious be and luxurious. She had chosen an all pink color scheme to the room and the furniture, stripped off her clothes and headed to the upgrade bed where the Droid auto surgical station would provide her with what she requested.

Melissa lay on the table, and the surgical laser opened one section of her forehead, a mechanical bonesaw, cutting open a section of her matte gray skull and revealing her silvery brain beneath.

A purple, micro-processor type device was inserted deep into the brain tissue, her neurons instantly interfacing with it and uploading her with its running programs.

Surgical needles controlled by mechanical arms descended, lodging in her throat, and hands, injecting a Vong based Mutagen into her. Her flesh shuddered violently be as it processed the new genetic and cybernetic upgrades...

(Plasmid Acquisition Theme Plays)

(New upgrades acquired!)

Upgrade: PSYCHIC AUGMENTER

Spoiler

Special Implant that allows Melissa to potentially psychically influence organics in a manner similar to Force Persuasion. Can be upgraded

Upgrade: FINGER SPEAR GENE ALTERATION

Spoiler

Mutates Melissa's nails to double as the tips to bio organic armor piercing darts whose tissue and means of growth are housed in Melissa's fingers

Upgrade: FIRESPITTER

Spoiler

Mutates Melissa's throat to produce a highly flammable enzyme that ignites on contact with air and behaves like napalm on surfaces. Thirty seconds required behind each use.

Melissa rose from the table after her wounds were healed, dressed in a different outfit , and headed back out to check on their guest, Moya Virtu, once an associate of Nathan's daughter. Now a friend to Nathan himself.

Moya was reclined in a humble domicile of all wood furniture with an earth tone paint scheme to the walls. Moya and the sisters were only somewhat acquainted, but Melissa was starting to like Moya. She had been more of a stabilizing influence on her organic sibling than he would admit.

"Moya!" Melissa called out as Moya allowed her entry. "Are you enjoying your stay?"

"Of course! It's a nice ship. Quiet. Peaceful..."

Moya looked around. "It's something me and Laertia worked towards..."

The old pain crossed her face. Moya would never, ever get over Laertia's total corruption.

Melissa quickly tried to change topics.

"So, what are you gonna do at Lujo?"

"Enjoy the sun...try not to think too hard...." Moya answered uneasily.

"And I hope you enjoy it..." Melissa said, trying to be nice. "Is there anything you require to make your stay more pleasant?"

"That's nice of you, Melissa, but I'm fine..." Moya assured gently. "It's just good to be among friends."

"I agree." Melissa said, saying goodbye and heading out...


Later on...


The Star Galleon at last arrived and for the first half hour, it drifted at the edge of Lujo's system.

Melissa was on the bridge when the primitive, binary distress call had come, and then their scans noted a curious transmission silence on other bands. No sign of Sith vessels, but that meant nothing.

Melissa had immediately volunteered to go investigate the surface, advising Nathan to keep the ship ready to jump out of system at a moment's notice. She had taken few weapons, smuggling the lightsaber inside her body as she taken a simple Lambda shuttle, determined to figure out just what was already hard at work disrupting their vacation...

 

[Melissa Bloodscrawl]

Melissa ran scans. No military ships in orbit, no ships in orbit at all. Yet even from orbit, she could see massive fires consuming half of an entire large island and that binary distress call sounded once again and this time she was able to pinpoint it. To her utter lack of surprise, it was coming from the burning Island and she immediately set a course for it.

As soon as she entered the Atmosphere, her scanners picked up a weapons launch. An Ion missile streaked towards her and she aimed her weapons right at it, firing in controlled precise bursts.

One of the Shuttles laser bolts managed to hit it and it detonated, but the radius of the ion blast was way, WAY larger than anticipated. Every electronic in the shuttle went dead and the Ion wave was so powerful that it actually overwhelmed her own organic systems, causing her skin to bubble and sag disgustingly off the bone everywhere, silver blood leaking out of her eyes and mouth as the shuttle tumbled from the sky as it violently crashed into the ground...

Hours later.

The smoking wreck was very furtively approached by a silver Protocol Droid. The fires had at last gone out, and the temperature had dropped enough to safely approach the wreck. It had crashed on a beach, whose tide had helped in dousing the flames relatively quickly. It was midday.

The Droid, with a stylized male face, poked through the wreckage, coming across a strange horror of a corpse his sensors couldn't make heads or tails of. Burnt to a crisp, with strange, bunched up skin exposing silver bones, and still leaking silver blood, sparks occasionally erupting from it's exposed, smoking innards.

The Droid dragged the twisted body away from the warped cockpit, across the beach and into a hidden cave in the cliffs near the beach. The tide washed away the Droid's footprints

"Master, I have found something!" The Droid said as it dragged the burnt, soggy, and disgusting mess behind it.

The seventeen year old boy in the shadows watched as he lifted up the bleeding corpse and deposited it on an old, rusty autopsy table next to another mutilated corpse in a white catsuit leaking white blood on a different table.

"Is it one of them?!" The Teenage asked, coming out in greasy engineer coveralls, of fair skin and completely disheveled, with sharp features and stubble.

"No. This appears to be something entirely different..." The Droid answered.

The teenager got out a scanner from nearby desk drawer and ran it over the bleeding corpse.

"These...these readings don't make any sense..." he muttered. "The hell is going on?"

He looked at the corpse.

"Whatever it is, it's not human...any more than the other corpse is..." he muttered. "Could you salvage any electronics from the wreck to build us a better transmitter?"

"I'm afraid not, Master, total loss..."

"Than how is the corpse even intact enough for you to bring to me?"

"Master, I suspect that these remains are that of some sort of Bio-Droid, possibly even a Vong Biot."

"That's not coincidence. Only high end militaries get stuff like that," the teen said more to himself than the Droid, before turning to it.

"Keep trying to boost the signal on your equipment. We almost got through..." He said, covering both corpses with separate pieces of old tarp, then he headed into a separate part of the cave where his emergency sleeping bag lay...

He had been here for days. He was tired, hungry, and not thinking straight. He was grasping for clues as to the predicament on the island. And he was at the end of his rope.

He waited for over an hour, listening to it fly off before he felt comfortable shutting his eyes. He had no weapons.

As he started to go to sleep he heard the whine overhead of a combat shuttle over the shoreline. The Droid had gotten away just in time...

Four hours later...

The young engineer was awoken by the sounds of scuffling.

"GH-007, is that you?" The Engineer asked in a whisper, getting up, heading into the dusty old workshop and hidden med bay...and finding the corpse his Droid had recovered missing. His Droid was standing in the corner, inactive.

His blood went cold when he saw movement in the corner of his left eye, and a soggy, shattered hand sickeningly clamped down on his neck with beastly strength, pinning him to the cave wall. He started shrieking as the shredded, mangled android with a completely exposed skull examined him with milky white damaged eyes.

"AHHH! PLEASE! WAIT! I DIDN'T KNOW! I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE ALIVE!" he shrieked.

"Who are you?" it asked in a metallic hiss through shredded lips.

"I'm Cerei Darkstrake..." Cerei answered, shivering at the horrific thing that had a death grip on his throat. "What the hell are you?"

(Cutaway of The Predator taking off his mask in front of Dutch)

"A very pissed off Android." Melissa said with damaged vocal chords. "That missile that shot me down...did you have anything to do with that?"

"No! I dunno who did that! Probably the freaks burning the Island down! They're crazy!" he sputtered in terror.

"Who?" Melissa hissed.

"They wear hooded purple robes, and they show no mercy to anyone they capture. They killed my parents!" Cerei said, terror sweat covering his face.

"...stay here..." it said after a moment, releasing him as it went to leave the cave and investigate where the missile had been fired from, fists clenched...

 

[Melissa Bloodscrawl]

The mutilated Android walked the beach and into the thick, dense, tropical woodlands, leaving dead pieces of tissue behind in the tide, staggering and ungainly as she reached into her now sparking, exposed innards and pulled out the Lightsaber Nathan had created, and testing it, finding it to be undamaged. The crash had badly damaged her otherwise, temporarily knocked out her regenerative abilities, which were only barely starting to kick in. To say she was extremely vulnerable in her current state would have been like saying water was wet.

In the dense underbrush, more of her systems began to get restored. Most of it was tactical and melee combat, but her joints and muscles were totaled in their current state and she realized she would have to resort to stealth if she wanted to take down anyone at all.

Her memory databases kicked in and she remembered the precise quadrant of the Island where the Missile had come and began setting a path towards it. She never stopped looking anything less than disgusting the entire way through, and local unfamiliar animals all ran at the very scent of her as she carefully and quietly shambled through the tropical forest looking like a particularly badly decomposed zombie.

She came across a relatively small, Anti-Air outpost, fitted with the same type of Ion Pulse Missiles that had brought down her own vessel. The people in the hooded purple robes were manning the site all armed with cheap looking blaster rifles and grenades, and she saw a lone dagger pinned to a log in a seat, the area splattered with blood. A slaughter had happened recently.

Melissa knew that trying to use any of her internal combat systems in such a damaged state could lead to catastrophic malfunction, and even trying to fight with the lightsaber she had was tactical suicide: Her muscles and bones were still too compromised from the crash...she'd be a sitting duck even in such tight quarters. But she needed these men dead now. Otherwise, any ships her family sent after her would be vulnerable...

She would have to be smart, find the most optimal method of taking them out one by one. She crept toward the dagger and grabbed it silently ducking back into the brush, making her way to the nearest hooded man, crouching and her shredded arm grabbed him, and pulled him down, the dagger sinking into the back of his skull and killing him instantly as she dragged him away.

The second guard bought it when she managed to distract him with a tossed rock, downing him as he was nearby a small sensor tower by tossing the knife into his heart from behind, quickly staggering to him and picking up his Pistol , though she wouldn't use it yet, instead taking her new knife back and moving onto her next target, dragging the body behind a nearby large rock and heading to her next target, who was busy setting up a small mobile turret...right next to the fourth and last guard.

Melissa hid behind a supply crate, deciding to listen.

"Soon we will have all we need to revive our goddess..." one said. "It's been such a long search...I can hardly believe we are at the finish..."

"I wonder how she shall reward us..." the other said. "She was always said to be very generous to her worshippers..."

Melissa crept slowly, quietly to them, knife ready, stunned she was up against actual Ersethy Cultists.

Her targeting database plotted a path for her knife swipe as she got within range, and she swiped it across the spine of one and into the neck of the other, spraying blood. Both were dead before they hit the ground.

Melissa looked at them, then went to the terminal controlling the nearby missiles, and in seconds the console was hacked showing her a network of linked systems.

She set coordinates, reprogrammed the friend/foe ID system, and fired all the missiles at her location at other missile sites hidden across the island. The screen showed each blinking out until none were left, each blink out proceeded by a loud boom in the distance.

She proceeded to begin nabbing a few more weapons off the corpses before going to the sensor tower.

She began pulling open panels, using equipment from a nearby repair kit to fuse and repurpose internal parts to turn it into an adhoc transmitter sending a distress signal in a primitive dot-dash type code to her family's ship computer, informing them of the situation, warning them to stay back until she fully assessed the situation.

The Transmission sent back told her to stand by for clone reinforcements.

Her Memory database fixed itself a tad more and she realized she had brought an Impervium Strongbox on the shuttle with her...but her memory system hadn't repaired itself enough to tell her what was in it.

She left the site, deciding to head back where she crashed, hoping that Impervium Strongbox had survived...

She made sure the crash site was clear before she approached, scanning the whole area before drawing her pistol as she approached the surf, still horrifyingly burnt and torn up from the crash, and carefully headed to the shuttle and began searching the burning wreckage, amazed she had survived the crash, and began going through the deck section, particularly the cargo area and soon found the strongbox under a panel, dented, covered in soot, but otherwise serviceable.

She quickly removed the box and hefted it with her partially repaired arms and carried it back to the hidden shore cave, finding the teenage engineer in a catatonic state of fright, and he only withdrew from her into a corner as she entered, tossing the Strongbox and her pilfered weapons into the section of the cave where he had been sleeping.

She opened it and found a biotech tool kit and a standard repair kit alongside a spare armor suit, a comlink, and immediately began injecting herself with nutrients and regenerative enzymes tailored to her model as she began repairing herself faster, the terrible damage to her body quickly reversing itself back to its full undamaged state, before slipping on a skintight tan armor with an almost nylon texture, strapping her weapons and pilfered holsters to it before venturing back to face the teen, whose terror only increased at the sight of her.

Melissa sighed. He had seen her without her gorgeous looks. He would always see that first now...

"I'm not your enemy..." she said quietly but clearly. "I only want to know what is going on here...

Meanwhile...


Nathan Bloodscrawl sat back at the transmission played out on his screen, Moya beside him, along with the rest of his family. He immediately knew waiting wasn't going to be possible...too much was happening. Guests would be arriving soon. He wasn't going to cancel everything just because a planet was under attack.

And he had no intention of the family sitting it out precisely because it was an attack from Ersethy Cultists.

"What do you suggest?" He asked Moya and the Others.

"Send in the Clones. We got some in this region right? A jump in an Acclamator away from reaching Lujo..." Meleena suggested.

"Send in the Pyros while you're at it..." Moya added. "It sounds like it's a trash fire..."

"This doesn't feel right. We should be down there, helping her ourselves," Melinda said.

"Normally, I would agree. But we also have to be wary of the Alliance. If they come to investigate, and find us there, it will bring questions we ain't ready to answer..." Nathan said. "Sending the Kytrand army en masse is risky. A small squad will be deployed, and hand picked...and deployed from a less high profile vessel..."

He turned to them in his seat. "Put the word out. The Army's very best..."

All of them nodded and left to arrange the key details of the Operation, while Nathan traced her comlink...