Hallowed Ground, The Blood-Knight Marches.

[Orphen]

" A Crushing Boom... Resounded through the Galaxy that Day... "​

Orphen remembered staring in disbelief when he read the news that the great and powerful five planets which composed Corellea had been subjected to their own absolute apocalypse, the great and powerful nations throughout the course of history been a beacon of the human race, and one of the most powerful military worlds in the galaxy. Their power was unrivaled when it came to naval force, and many of their more beautiful species, such as the Selonian and many others became rare species over night, on the brink of extension. Such a devastating loss only meant that the Sith would forever-more hold a tighter grip on the Republic of which Orphen was eternally employed... Though, the damage could be mitigated... if resources on the planets could be obtained in any meaningful amount ... ... ... The Sith, though their resources were expansive, the manpower it would take to watch over five entire worlds worth of land would be extremely costly, and as the planets had effectively been wiped out, meaning there was no threat from the ground, then any threat which came form the outside would likely be scavengers, which would require minimal effort to police, and even then, Orphen highly doubted that their eyes would be particularly keen, and even then, he was a Jedi...

Orphen's stand in master had given him permission to leave in search of essential materials in for him to further his own studies in chosen fields, if only his master had known where he had actually intended to go, perhaps the master would have answered differently, but such was the greatness of being an Epicanthix... no-one in the Jedi temple knew of his intentions, one of the reasons he was more often up under a wthe larger watchful eye, but, eventually the radars and tracking devices of the Republic would run out of range, and he always thought it was better to ask forgiveness than permission at the end of the day, this trip alone would make him a stronger, more versatile force, combined with a borrowed industrial repulsarlift platform, solely for the recovery of the heavier materials which he would inevitably need for the things he needed.

The lights of hyperspace flew by Orphen as he passed the hundreds of thousands of stars in the sky, noting that the constellations would change as he changed his position in the universe, having changed into wearing his civilian clothing before he left so not to be immediately recognizable as a Jedi, contrarily his light-sabers ever remained at his back under his coat as per normal. Instead only showing the two nabooian heavy blaster pistols at his sides. The unmarked interceptor came in low for a landing, so it seemed, for the first time, Orphen got to see up close what a destroyed planet looked like, gazing into the decrepit world his eyes opened wide with wonder, sadness, and a degree of despair... some of the fires on the surface of the planets still seemed to be burning brightly, the nuclear fuel from some of the grander star-ships had more then likely chain reacted among some of the larger ship-yards. Though, it just so happened that, it was just some of those shipyards that Orphen would be visiting, more specifically the smaller commercial ones which dabbled more in star-fighters than those of capital ships.

Careening down and moving to land in the wreckage of an abandoned light ship building yard, Orphen pulled out his datapad, looking for any live wireless signatures nearby, though the limited power of his radar among the disturbances seemed to be unable to find anything. The slicer got down from the cockpit of his ship, vaulting from the top and landing on his feet, his pilots breathing mask across his face just in case the atmospheric conditions got worse, he figured he would need air, even if it was just for the few moments he might be in hazardous material. Looking around for any traces of life, but seeing nothing... Orphen saw blaster gas veins smoking out like geysers from cracks in the earth where some of the larger destroyed ships lay. Moving around the side to grab the repulsar-lift platform, he set the wireless digital signal to ensure that it followed him, as he began to move deeper and deeper into the complex. Dead bodies sprawled out around him, charred from the initial heat transference of the impact, and no doubt shattered by the shock wave...

Yet all the while, Orphen's over analytic mind ran the numbers of everything that crossed his range of vision, the theoretical heat transference rates of calculated volumes of blaster gas as they erupted from the ground, calculating their speed and acceleration as well as his own. The velocity of a falling piece of metal which finally caved in and fell from its position with the gust of the moving repulsar platform. The energy transference of each of his own footprints with every step that he took, calculating the wavelength and the numeric decibel value of precisely how loud they were on the composite dura-steel material he tred on... nothing was beyond his calculations, his life, was a world of numbers, ever flashing by the forefront of his mind against his very will faster than he could consciously recognize as more and more equations fluttered past his mind.

His eyes like a magpie, searching through the wreckage for anything he could be able to use, a powercell/core here, loose material there, various quantum computer drives. All of it was valuable, so long it was relatively intact.

[member="Enigma"]

 

[Onrai]

[member="Orphen"]

He was not the only one interested, though.

With Emeritus Industries having been forced out of Hypori, but with many workers employed, the majority of them were being shipped via transport to the world of Raxus Prime. For what purpose? To help strip away the layers of scrap and expose the treasures she knew were underneath. Circe's knowledge of the planet's history meant that she knew quite well there were the remains of Xim the Despot's palace, along with ancient technology likely never before seen in the history of the galaxy. A shame that it had found itself immolated in the sludge and scrap of many thousands of years of wrecking.

Her vessel landed on the planet's surface, in a small clearing excavated from the scrap that covered the planet. The first of the workers met her, and she immediately noticed the smile in his eye - that he was glad to have work to do.

"Miss, we've cleared a single square kilometer of the planet of rubble and have finally reached the planet's surface. The overall exterior layer of the planet appears to be a good half-kilometer or so thick. The metal we've managed to melt down, and we've sent it over to the other foundries. One down, 273,472,184 more to go."

 

[Orphen]

[member="Enigma"]

Orphen continued to move his way through the wreckage, drawing one of his light-sabers and pressing the button, his orange blade erected with a violent 'crack-hiss' the synthetic crystal in the hilt of the blade, giving it its power created a fine beam, with no particularly outstanding qualities other than its physical form. The blade hummed lowly as Orphen approached some of the wreckage, looking at the wing of a broken starship as Orphen used the shoto lightsaber to carve off pieces of the Titanium reinforced Alusteel which composed the hulls of these ships would be more than useful in the creation of droids and components which Orphen had intended, though he would have to melt the metal down slowly and cast it within various molds, but such could be done in time... Piece by piece the steel was stacked until he had accumulated most of the destroyed BTL-Y wing's functional hull, which would be more than enough material for what he needed at the moment. Taking the materials back, he deposited them in the back of his ship before taking another load. The leg work was the worst of it all, Orphen attempted to read the patterns of the blaster gas geysers which continued to explode up from the ground, especially in the distance, the planet little more than an inferno world, the air filled with carbon and ash... The second load would be piled in filling most of the room in his ship that he had set aside for raw materials, it was now looking for the specifics which interested the junior Jedi, and it wasn't star-ships which were going to fit the bill.

He needed Droids...

Walking through the facility, past the hangers and into some of the other work bays and assemply lines, it was here that he was going to find the things that he needed, so long as the power cores and batteries had not exploded due to the massive impact of the foreign object... But, small things were often more difficult to break, though it was more than likely that any fighter or star-ship in this area had suffered damage beyond the point of functionality, things like speeders and light craft were more than likely in working order, though they would have been banged up a bit. There would be little to no reason they would not be functional. Having to use his lightsaber again to cleave through a blocked entrance-way, the rubble shashing into the ground with a low grumbling as Orphen loostened the larger stone. Closing his eyes and focusing on his connection to the force, he breathed, clearing his mind and reaching deep within him for the power that he needed. He had been taught a couple of things from his surrogate tutors in the Jedi Temple, but very little to make himself combat ready... Exhaling one last time, Orphen filled his lungs, and when he did he opened his eyes with resolve and exerted his focus on the rubble before him, feeling his mind coil around the pieces of rubble, exerting just enough force to lift them slowly, rotate them around and place them to one side of the door with a soft 'thud.' letting go of his breath, Orphen panted, the rubble being heavier than what he was used to lifting, he walked through into the assembly area, just in time to see through the shattered windows a vessel beginning to land... Putting his light-saber away behind him and drawing one of his blaster pistols he continued to move into the room. Looking around for precisely the things he needed.

The room was expansive, there were speeders, armoured vehicles, and a small collection of droids of varying kinds which bought a smile to Orphen's lips, each and every one of them he wanted to rip to pieces and strip them for the parts that he would need. So, he had to get to work... though with the threat of an invader, it removed his ability to use his light-saber as a welding tool until he could confirm that the people upon the vessel were not threats... or even worse, Sith... Tactically, Orphen should have been moving toward his own ship, with the intend of fleeing as fast as he could, slamming on the hyper-drive as soon as he was able to do so in such an effort so that he would not be able to be made... but this mission was important to him, it was worth the risk of having to deal with a few unsavory types and maybe needing to get his hands a little dirty for the parts he needs. He could identify some of the vehicles in the room from dossiers he had read within the Jedi Temple, and with that information came their layouts, he knew what they were, and how they could be destroyed... Enemies would not risk a fight in this room due to the amount of blaster gas which could be ignited from the weaponry around them... which made Orphen feel a little more safe.

"Now... where did that R-unit go?"

Orphen spoke to himself, moving across the room to the speeder bikes and the R-units, stripping the Bikes of their power cores, blaster cannons and anything else which could be helpful, especially their repulsar-lift pads... which would be entirely necessary in the machines he intended to make... His smile widened as he quickly and elegantly Moved two busted R-units onto his levitating platform, knowing that he had almost got everything he had come for. The amount of utility within the basic R-unit was exquisite, and were jackpots for scavengers like himself, from their dura-steel alloy frame to their computer and finally the Swiss army knife of functionality they provided had the components needed to make most things... Bringing his finger to his head, he massaged either side of his temples, setting in a course for the platform to return the parts to the ship while he continued to search through the rubble...

With a running step he jumped onto the front of one of the grounded hover-tanks, taking long strides up to reach its center, and looked around at the rest of the construction yard. It seemed that the warehouse was relatively fully stocked. It was a shame that this particular branch of the world was one of the more basic factories, as it seemed that there was not particularly anything state of the art going on. Sure, there were the usual upgrades, but there was nothing juicy which would really make Orphen Salivate. The jet-bikes seemed to have a couple of intact light-deflector shields, which would be handy, they were better than nothing, the blaster emplacements so long as they were not bent or warped could also be made use of, any more repulsar-lift pads he could get his hands on would be appreciated, though, he had probably filled up 60 percent of his cargo hold with the two trips he had already made... This was going to be a long day... and he could not help but notice that the ship which had landed had been down for a couple of minutes now... meaning that he could be in for company any second...

"What am I going to do...?"

Orphen Spoke aloud, enjoying the light sound of his own voice, using the scanner on his visor to analyze the room with some of its functions, moving on to a thermal sensor to pick up on the locations of any blaster gas pockets, as well as any guests which may be heading in his direction... leaping down from his placement, and moving towards the hover bikes, as they seemed to be his next target for scrounging...

------------------------------------------------------------

Attained so Far:

• A 'lot' of Titanium-Alusteel Alloy
• R-Units x2
• Repulsar-lift pads x 10
• Power Cores x2
• Light Deflector Shields x2
• Light Blaster Canons x4

 

[Onrai]

[member="Orphen"]

"I suppose that depends on you." A blonde woman behind him smiled, hearing him talking to himself. "You know, salvaging's a dangerous line of work. I'm hardly one to discourage an individual like you from making money carving these pieces of scrap up and using their metal for your own purposes... But then again, I do much of that myself. Perhaps we could work together, hmm?"

Who knew how this would turn out?

 

[Orphen]

[member="Enigma"] seemed to almost come out of nowhere, though he had given them some time, the woman didn't seem to be hiding her force signature, though, why would she? she was on a sith planet and here the rules were hers to make, though Orphen was too new to the Jedi to be able to hide himself from her, and even if he did have the proper training, the feeling he got from her was like standing against a great mist, where everything became uncertain for miles in every direction, such a presence could only be possessed by a master, or a very powerful crusader for the dark side, perhaps a sorcerer, as Orphen had read that the presence of a Sorcerer was something which would become immediately apparent in the force, though, perhaps because he was in doubt, that ruled out that singular option. Were it not for the visor he wore, his eyes would have given away his moments worth of surprise and fear as she had appeared by him... though he supposed that was a fitting response to meeting with a Sith. Deciding not to act in hostility, he listened to the woman's words, remembering that here he was not Orphen Han Sathariel, he was Blood-Knight, if they traveled galactic north from here there were a few planets that knew that name as a menace who sliced through their systems like a heated blade through butter...

The woman seemed to be classically attractive, but, not the kind of thing that he would usually go for in a woman, being evil was probably the biggest of the turn offs.

Smiling to her as she spoke of harsh professions, he could not help but think of a witty retort...

" On this planet? I would have thought it to be worse to be a Jedi... So, as far as lucky breaks go, I guess I hit the jackpot on that one... And I'm sure we could, without an inventory to this place I have no idea what these guys've got, I mean, I'm running around here blind looking for a diamond in the rough, but so far, while the stuff I've managed to grab is useful, a few R-7's which aren't in bad nick, but I'd like to find something a little nicer, more powerful... I'm not looking for profit, just materials... I'm a slicer, I go by the callsign Blood-knight known more to the hutts and the cartels though, so I'm just looking to upgrade my arsenal more than scrap the place for money, but i figure, Corellia was one of the greatest planets in the core, so, where's the special stuff? "

He smiled a coy smile, knowing full well that he was not able to hide his force signature from the woman, she would be able to sense him as clear as day being a force sensitive, though, as to what alignment and his intentions here, that would be harder for the woman, so Orphen was content that he was as safe as any Hutt trader would be in this area of the world. It was not unknown that the Hutts had been in the pockets of the One sith for a little while, and if she checked his call-sign would check out, some rather unsavory companies having been punished by his prowess behind a data-pad and a slicing spike. Orphen began to walk over to the bikes, taking a tool from his bag and removing the blaster cannon frame from the machine, throwing it onto his pile, he knew EXACTLY what that was going to, but, of all his inventions it would take some time to make. Cocking his head to a side, the woman had mentioned about being here for the same reason, which piqued his interest.

"Now, I'm not a fool, I saw the ship you landed in, and small players don't travel in ships like that... so, if we're helping each other in the mean time, why are you here? There must be something that has you down here, now that we're helping each other, there would be no harm in telling me what you're after, right?

From here Orphen could not help but look to the blaster gas vents, knowing full well that she would be avoiding them effortlessly, though it was hard to stomach, he was not in a position to be able to take this woman in a fight, or even attempt to kill her here in a way which would not cost him his own life, sure, he could lead her to a blaster gas pocket, rig a dirty bomb and blow 2 miles of correllia off the map, but he would die in the process, and there was no way if he left only to turn around to do it he would not get caught or obliterated trying to exit the area, the best he could do was use this woman in order to help him as much as he possibly could attain the goals he had set out to accomplish, she was more powerful than him by a hundred fold, and that meant she was a hundred times more useful, she would be able to find the rarities in this junk heap, things he would be able to use, powerful personal shields, armour, rare materials, if she was powerful in the force, she might be able to sense out these things, or at least sense out a means to be able to attain them.

"There should be a manifest around here somewhere, though, I bet that if there was anything special in this place, it would more than likely be deeper into the facility, and that's where the blaster gas vents get bad... but, with you here, we might stand a better chance at navigating them."

He said with a smile... on his own he would be way too weary to go down into those hell pits, but, with a sith beside him, and one with an aura as strong as hers, his courage increased with his ego.

 

[Onrai]

[member="Orphen"]

"We'd need to find the cockpit of whatever vessel this scrap came from." She nodded. "That's the only way we'll determine exactly what came with this - and what we need to be on the lookout for." It was a treasure map, in a way - she had to admit that such was most intriguing. She never did figure herself as a treasure hunter, after all.

She was merely an innovator.

 

[Orphen]

[member="Enigma"]

Orphen tilted his head to the side as the woman answered almost nothing of what he had originally said, that and the fact that she seemed to believe they were in some sort of ship, rather than a ship-yard where they were made was something else altogether. All in all, Orphen thought the woman was a queer one. Orphen used his skills in Mechu Deru to attempt to discern what precisely was on the woman's person, though, whatever he found he would not be terribly impressed, whether he discovered a light saber, a blaster, various others or something foreign entirely, what he did discover was that the woman's body structure was not entirely human, there were chemical compounds picked up by his visor which should not be in a known organic, though there were a couple of species registered which would trigger such a sighting it was the density of her skeletal structure which began to give her away. At least a part of this woman was force sensitive, Orphen had heard little about the Vahla, as they were not totally well known, but the Jedi had come across them before, and, having skimmed through a large sum of the Jedi Archive's history, he had the cliff-notes stored in his head... The rest of her seemed relitively normal other than a strange wave signature that seemed to radiate about her, though, as she was force sensitive, it only made sense that it would be something of the like which was messing with his scanners.

"Yeah, it will take a lot of parts to get these things up and running again, the Astromech droids I picked up are irrepairable, though it's the interiors which I'm after, I can reporpose them into custom hardware, maybe make a couple of drones out of them, though... I was looking for something Juicy..."

Orphen stretched out with his Mechu Deru, looking for something which would work, reaching out with his broad technopathic mind and attempting to find something, only to have something ping on the edge of his senses... Using his visor he turned to it sighting what seemed to be an old control panel with a body beside it, no doubt one of the unfortunate souls who had still been here during the planetary crash. Orphen ran over, giving a spry hop over the things in his path before he looked to the machine, grabbing a make-shift pry bar from the wreckage and ripping off one of the panels before sticking his head in the hole, keeping alert to the woman behind him. Reaching in his bag for tools he took a blade, as well as some insulated gloves and the power pack from his pistol, hooking them up to the machine as a temporary power source... Taking a minute, the monitor sprang to life, damaged, and on low power, but workable for the mean time... heavy blaster pistols could fire upwards on 600 shots before recharging, they would be able to power a monitor for a few minutes...

"Got it! lets see what they have here then shall we? "

Orphen spoke, beginning to rifle through the system, using his slicing Datapad to sweep through what meager defenses the machine had with sophisticated ease.

"Correleans really needed to update their security... though, this isn't exactly mandal motors, so, what do you expect i guess... aha! it seems there was something juicy here after all... They had a shipment of pyronium... that's not something that you see every day... But... It seems to be deeper in the facility... ... ...damn... "

Orphen saw exactly where it was being held, and the blaster gas pent up in that area was an explosion waiting to happen... So he looked toward the woman...

"Neither of us are gonna be able to grab it on our own... and that stuff is worth... a 'lot' of money... what say we work together and grab it? I could open any blast doors in the way, from the ship you flew in on, you seem to be Sith... you're not exactly hiding it... So, depending on how strong you are, you could help protect us from the blaster gas wells... ... ....

whaddya say?"

 

[Orphen]

It became after a long awkward silence that the woman had little interest in following Orphen into the belly of the beast, which made things hard for him, looking around for a time, before moving to investigate what his options were, he moved to ward the openings where the blaster gasses were exiting from. The woman he was sure would not have been that much of a help anyways, though she was surely strong enough to help with her level of control of the force, but, it simply meant that Orphen would have to find another way into the depths of the maze. Looking at the map more closely, it seemed to him that getting out of there would be far easier than getting in, there was a service elevator, that, if he tried really hard, he might be able to get running again, so long as it had not colapsed or something of the like. So, with that, he began to move, kicking off to a run toward the location he needed to get to, opening the service elevator, it showed instantly that the contraption had no power, but, the power was not necissarily needed, when one was skilled in the arts of Mechu Deru, the manipulation of machines often came easily, but, it would be getting down that was the problem. Taking out one of his heavy pistols, he attached one of the grappling hooks and fired it for the opposite wall, hoping that he was not about to hit one of the blaster gas veins which were burning brightly, then, taking the full weight on the line slowly, began to repel himself down into the depths of the area.

Once he arrived at the bottom, he could tell that this place was dangerous, and he needed to act quickly, least he disturb everything here. Running into the area, keeping a close eye on everything around him, as well as the geysers which flared up with the potent and volatile plasma, Orphen zig zagged through the area to find what he came for. Pyronium was a material which was more than useful when it came to application, and he was more than likely going to use it for a particular future project, though the name of it was yet to be determined. Looking through the various ingots, it wasn't long until he found the one he was looking for, there was a small mound of the material, glowing lightly and changing colours as the temperatures of this floor assaulted them with their radiance. Taking one of the ingots heavily, the material seemed to be not too heavy, but not too light either, placing the first in his shoulder bag, like a brick of gold, Orphen began to collect more of them, filling his bag and carrying a total of ten alltogether, which was more than enough to use as an alloy, seeing as the ingots here were purified for commercial use or sale.

Running to the opening of the elevator, there was an explosion in the distance, as a vein og the blaster gas had erupted, and fire began to spread throughout the halls, it seemed this place was going up, not much he could do about it though, jumping into the elevator, Orphen focused on his connection with the force, and linked it to the elevator, slowly, but surely, the systems began to flare to life, giving this lift, one more ride before it fell into the abyss of the blaster gas beginning to chain react under his feet. Riding it up as high as he could, the doors cracked open as Orphen was beginning to strain with the weight of the transportation, as well as the amount of metal he was carrying. Jumping out of the elevator as the doors opened and he lost control, the lift fell down the chute to its demise, almost taking the jedi with it. Standing back up and groaning, this was nowhere near the amount of the material he would have been able to attain with the aid of Circe, but, in stark contrast, at least it was all his. Though, another explosion that shook the place kicked some sense into the jedi, almost falling to the ground again as he attempted to get to his feet. Standing up, he knew now that he needed to leave.

Throwing his bag on the repulsarlift pad, he was relieved of the weight, and began to run for the location of his ship, as the rays of plasma began to break through the floor. It seems that this place was about to go up, but, Orphen had time, there were a few more key chan reactions to go before the rest of this place simply exploded. So, one foot after the other, Orphen broke into a sprint, using what little he knew of Ataru to reinforce his movements in order to move faster and more consistently. Once he reached his ship, he threw the hoverpad and the metals into the back without a care, probably breaking something, but, he needed to get out of there... fast. Running around to the cockpit, Orphen got ready for take-off, charging his ship through its processes as fast as he could before it finally pulled from the groun, ignited its engines, and was finally off, escaping gravity and pulling free, as, within minutes, there was yet another explosion on the surface of the planet... he wondered if the sith had managed to escape, though, frankly he didn't care.

it would be one less sith.

[fin.]