Heretic Station [Knights Obsidian]

[Ian Sade]

Full engines ignited...

"Correct sir... what scattered reports I was able to piece together indicate she were likely transported to the assaulting orbital station" He reported to the holographic image torso of the Viceroy just right of the fighter's HUD.

Sade had commandeered the general's fighter and was just now cresting the upper atmosphere. This craft was equipped far better then the transport he had been shot down in, with early warning counter measure sensor arrays. He had dodged two hommers already.

"I'm not entirely sure if we can assume that sir..." Sade's thought on the possibility that a clone of what had ailed Castagne before it joined the CIS was directly behind this, or could possibly be someone they overlooked that had been a sleeper apprentice to the sith witch Darth Rigor. It although made tactical sense to treat such an attack on Castagne under that proxy.

Still, actual confirmation and full disclosure as to exactly who/what were responsible for the attacks had to be fully assessed. The parties responsible for these attacks had to be found and terminated at the source. Sade was ICI, one of Castan's higher ranking intelligence officers. He had been a young 19 year old Lieutenant in the Castan Marines when Castagne had been in an almost similar but more blood curling civil war during Darth Rigor's first incursion on the system. It had come unexpected and swift. Swift retribution from none other than Darth Rigor herself when she were exposed.

Rigor had come under the guise and name of a Karla Linnet Deepgaze... a young and beautiful talented bio-research engineer that had been indoctrinated into the IBI, catching the attention of a then young and virile Tarssin Destat, head cabinet member of Castan's High Council. It were almost two decades before Castagne had joined the folds of the CIS.
Castagne had at the time the most advanced bio-weapon research agenda and it were spearheaded by none other than Karla Stargazer.

As it may, Tarssin were taken by the young woman... she were intelligent, sharp minded and at par with Tarssin in every complimentary way. And she were leggy, which by the way had first caught his attention.
Tarssin fell in love with Karla. Loved her enough to take her as his wife, and with his influence, helped her advance to Director of Castagne's military bio-weapons research/development.

Karla returned her love to Tarssin bt giving him a daughter...supposedly.
It weren't till that young daughter by the name of Karlie reached the age of 10 that Karla (her mom) was discovered to have an entirely different agenda concerning both her daughter and the fate of Castagne.

Sade didn't know all the details, but he had enough experience in that civil war to know that Darth Rigor or who now followed her footnotes were no an entity to take lightly.
If it were some kind of resurrection or an apprentice that had finally emerged, then this war was going to be quite costly and quite a mess to clean up afterwards...if Castagne survived.

"General Boriskno is still at ground zero, sir...
He's taking charge of what's left of the security detail there. He doesn't expect any more direct bombardment there, but will hold position till relief troops get there. Right now all available ground troops are engaging what has been reported as the undead." He said as the atmosphere gave way to open space...and a lot of laser fire from every which way.

Sade were himself heading to the identified offensive orbiting platform...the Heretic Station as it were now somehow named.

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera, in spite of knowing the clones were not actually [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] and in spite of knowing they would kill her if given a tenth of a chance, felt that unpleasant feeling she had felt when her shapeshifting processor had been deactivated, albeit greatly, greatly muted in comparison to naturally made organics. Savagery that she typically indulged in with anyone else felt shameful being used to cut down someone who looked like Karlie. Vera's stomach turned at the idea she might feel this way whenever she killed anyone. Vera had never thought she would genuinely dislike engaging in such barbarism. But it was all to get to Karlie, not fodder with her appearance. Vera slashed however with a more restrained fury, but no less devastating, blood sliding off her white blade, leg and fist smashing bone as she berzerked her way past the Karlie clones, totally absorbed with drawing all the aggression to her and killing as many as possible so [member="Scherezade deWinter"] and [member="Kurenai Yumi"] would not have to kill quite so many, her dress and skin covered in clone blood as she sliced. All for Karlie. All for Karlie--

The sound of a gasp, one that matched the audio files she had on record for Karlie's voice, made her wheel around and stare into a turbolift, causing her to nearly miss a parry and only defeating her opponent at the last second with a whirling backstab before refocusing on Karlie, completely covered in blood., so soaked in it, it dribbled from her hair.

"Miss Destat..." Vera said in a darker contralto than her 'Vera' voice, the pitch altered to throw off any attempts to match them by ear or otherwise. "It is a pleasure to see you alive, Karlie. Every time we meet I seem to be chopping up something related to you.

Her joy at finding Karlie alive was cut short when she saw a clone leap for her. She had been distracted, had not noticed the clone lunge at Karlie due to her joy.

The biot was unable to disguise the raw fear on her face at the thought of Karlie dying as she leapt in front of the scalpel to bodily block it. She received a massive gash to her face that clipped part of the torso, blinding her with her own white blood and barely catching the clone's second attempt at Karlie's face with slippery, blood covered hands to angrily reverse the attack and snap the animalistic clone's neck.

Vera, self conscious, slowly turned to face Karlie, revealing the gash on her face and stomach that gave off electrical sparks.

"We have to s-s-stoooooppp the pylons from being fired at Castagne." Vera explained, glitching in her speech as the underlay on her dress slowly went to work. The cat was out of the bag now, and there was no point in "Rom-Jin" pretending she wasn't artificial.

She only hoped the security on this place confused Karlie for her mother when it came to accessing the the pylon controls...the reinforcements didn't look defeated, winded certainly, but far from broken.

"Are you hurt?" The biot asked, trying to hide the concern in its voice and not quite succeeding. It could not afford to let Karlie know what she was, not yet. It was enough that Karlie knew "Rom" was an android. Vera could only pray that Karlie, distracted by the blood and violence, did not make the next logical leap, the leap that the android knew was so easy to make:

If Nine kept an android in her service, who is to say she did not have more than one?

Regardless, they needed to stop Rigor.


OOC: back after an entirely too long absence.

 

[Scherezade deWinter]

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Wearing: Armor | Pathfinder Boots | The Forgemaster's Ring | Ring of Stasis | Sofitor
Wielding: 10 Czerka knives | 2 Nastirci Combat Knives | Copero's Wail | Fire and Smoke (lightsabers) | Combat Gauntlets | Knight Obsidian Sword | 2 TOTT-001 Arc Light Blaster | 2 Dissuader K-30 Pistols with Glitter Bullets
Tags: [member="Kurenai Yumi"] [member="Trajan"] [member="Krystal Estain"] [member="Vera Mina"] [member="Darth Ayesh"] [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"]

Scherezade looked to the newcomer, [member="Darth Ayesh"], immediately inhaling the scent of her blood, even from afar. She recognized the Chiss within it, but the other stuff… Not a chance. And no time to focus on it or ask right there and then. Still, she was not about to turn away a very welcome ally in this fight.

The pretty lady (Vera) said she'd never had bantha wings, and Scherezade made a mental note to make sure to invite her as well as the rest of them gathered there to a place after this whole mess of a thing was over and done with.

And then came the shrieking.

She recognized the blonde off whom the clones had ben stamped. Thankfully, there had been no deep friendly relationship formed between her and Karlie, which meant that that there was little confusion as the group set forth to destroy the clones. Later, later Scherezade would find the original and apologize to her, but for now, she was set on murder and mayhem.

Scherezade followed the other ladies, letting them do the killing as they pleased. But anyone that had not been finished off, anyone that had made it passed them – those were hers. And the Blood Hound took much delight as she raised her hands, not bothering with her more than a dozen blades now as instead she called to the blood of the clones, calls the blood cells to her, to push through their arteries and veins, to heed her call. The clones she'd attacked were screaming, yelling, ugly bruises forming on every piece of skin they had exposed to the air, and beneath their armor too. More and more pressure the Blood Hound applied, until at last the bruises could no longer contain the blood that was leaving their bodies, and it began to spray out, coming out of every orifice and every pore in the skin, leaving nothing behind but a gnarly mess.

Another and another, they all fell to her, and she bathed in the blood as it splattered all over her.

It was by pure luck that Scherezade had needed to breathe just as she did. Just as @Karly Lynn Destat entered, with more clones on her heel. I was that single inhale that let her Blood Hound nose know – that was the real one. Or at least, not one of the clones batch as the others.

"Duck!" Scherezade screamed as she sent a knife hurling at a clone that had come up behind the original blonde. There hadn't been time to pull that one's blood out.

Turning her attention to [member="Kurenai Yumi"] the hot lady, the Sithling nodded.

They'd all done a good job.

They were all alive.

The two ladies (Vera & Karlie) seemed to know each other. The former had even said they needed to stop the pylons from being fired.

"If they're being fired from this ship," she said to them, eyebrows raised, and despite being completely drenched in the blood of the Karlie clones, a childish smile was on her lips, "How about we just sink the station? I've always dreamed of destroying a ship's reactor to bits and pieces!"

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Mini laser scalpel still in hand, she waved it at them (Karlie clones) like one would scoot away at flies.
Only these were not flies and had no reflex to fly away from anyone, more so from their standard, Karlie. Rather, they seemed to be swarming over to her, like a hive to their queen. Bonkers!
Waving that laser scalpel only verified that she, among the many likes of her were the real one. The only one squealing like a school girl suddenly being surrounded by bees drawn to the honey pot.

One...two angry bees found themselves swatted.
No, not by our frantic blonde, no.
The first and closest clone to our damsel in distress, who by the way couldn't have gotten any closer to our Karlie if she were aiming to kiss her; stopped dead in it's tracks... with a blade suddenly protruding out of its mouth.
"Gasp...What the-?" Yes, that clone received a well deserved skull ornament, compliments of that wayward girl Sherade-something-or-other. Hell if Karlie could remember her name at that given moment. But that blade, if it were really meant for the clone or had been a lucky throw, had pierced it's skull and would have come out of it's mouth if it weren't for the hilt stopping it from totally going through.

Getting back to the second clone; it were not at all daunted by the fact that her replicant predecessor just met it's demise just shy of arms reach to Karlie, took up the slack without so much as a misstep. They were after all no different than hive organisms despite nearly having the same appearance (but no way equal to) as the real McCoy (Karlie).
One could argue the fact as to why that wicked mother chose to replicate them in that fashion. Rigor's obsession with her daughter? Or perhaps the fact that such creations in the likeness of her daughter were a trigger mechanism for them to swarm around and capture Karlie?
They had been designed to both fight as hive organisms and swarm the queen per say (Karlie) onto death.
Whatever the case, Darth Rigor had this all planned or at least mulled around it for some time. The clones were like a swarm. Attack all those whom intruded the hive, this being Heretic Station by the way, and retrieve whom they were instinctively programmed to recognize as Karlie.

Now as for this second clone who now had a clear and unobstructed line of sight to Karlie, since the first clone got dropped due to a massive hemorrhaging headache, compliments of [member="Scherezade deWinter"]; got it's head snapped like a dry twig.
All the while our blonde futilely, and all too ineffectively mind you, was still waving her laser scalpel. She had not even grazed one.

But blueberry...the one Karlie had come to consider friend, had been. Rom-Jin (played by Vera Mina) were very much drenched in blood and some other kind of goo..white colored. But the blonde hadn't picked up on who's blood was red or white, as Rom had both on her person. It took a moment for Karlie to regain her senses, lest her composure. One must recall that the girl had not a few moments earlier, been strapped down on an exam table with mommy dearest ready to dissect her with the same scalpel she still bared in hand. Hey, it were the only weapon Karlie could get her hands on in the lab...cut the girl a break.
As it somehow turned out, and one must thank Scherezade deWinter for that announcement of imminent station compromise, her mother Darth Rigor suddenly let her go. But but, not without first snipping a locket of her daughter's hair first.

The mayhem still surrounding Karlie and Rom-Jim in that narrow passage seemed for the moment distant..like a background dream that played out in silence.
It then hit Karlie, upon looking into Rom's deep ocean blues...
"V..Vera..." she stammered.
Yes, stuttered much like Rom had done upon her finally reaching Karlie.

"V...Vera...
She's.... she's dead!" Karlie finally got those words out, blurry eyed and full of tears.

She couldn't see much at all at the moment and pressed herself embracing Rom in grief. It were now all hitting her, as she were no longer struggling for another minute of life. She remembered Rom from her time spent on Castle Morpheus. Karlie had more than twice broken trust with this woman and each and every time Rom let it go, keeping Karlie's feeble attempts from reaching her master's ears. In short, what had taken place between them (all the mishaps), Ron kept it to herself. As such, Karlie developed trust and respect for this fighter.
Having Rom here come to her rescue brought back everything...even the loss of her Vera. Her Vera...
Poor Vera whom she had witnessed trying to ward off the goons that had come for her at the Destat Estates.. only to be caught in an explosion and subsequent cave in.
Oh Vera...how I loved you so...She silently sobbed to herself.

And so Karlie sobbed, in Rom's arms, as the background in surreal silence kept churning about like that of a tempest storm, or nuts and berries in a blender... never minding the blood drenched armor she were pressing herself upon, and whatever that white goo still flowing from somewhere. All that mattered was sharing her grief with the only other person that ever knew Vera. Of course the goo didn't seem to sting her, so it certainly weren't some kind of biological agent to be worried about...if at all she even came to mind it at the moment.

But Rom, a soldier, at most remained reserved...unmoved by the news Karlie were relaying about their mutual associate Vera. It were understandable to the blonde, even in her state that Rom were a soldier and emotions for the Chiss during the heat of battle could ill be afforded.
So she cried for the both of them, for Rom-Jin were a warrior and tears for the fallen would be shed when all the blood had stopped flowing.
Karlie understood this, for she had seen Rom in her form...seen her decimate the battle droids she had ordered to subdue Rom. The blueberry had literally sliced and diced nearly 70% of Karlie's active droids in that transport, before Karlie's empathy for even droids called for quarter...she surrendered to Rom. It had all been in an attempt to escape. escape from the people who were truly trying to help her. Only at the time Karlie were uncertain of their motive. She were proven they were trustworthy.
Now Karlie held Rom tightly...if even for that brief moment. But as the background silence finally broke into an all out chaos of slashing metal blades, blaster bolts and smoke, Rom's words finally sank in.
The station...this station had to stop sending pylons down to her beloved Castagne.
Rom needed...her?
But what could she do?

The Karlie clones... the goons...the incidents of recognition within Darth Rigor's labs discovered the last few months, all seemed to connect. They were all keyed somehow to Karlie. She seemed to have some kind of free pass, good and bad...mostly bad really, to a lot of this automanecrosis...all these living dead arising.

"What?...what are you saying?..." Karlie were a bit slow here at comprehending Rom's theory and possible course of action she and Karlie could implement. In fact, as she were about to touch upon comprehending Rom's meaning and plan, Karlie took to finally notice that the white goo was actually oozing out of Rom herself.
"Huh?.." This was weird.
She blinked trice to clear her blurry eyes. Didn't Chiss have red blood cells... like..her?

"Gasp!.." A ghostly white veil seemed to overcome her complexion a moment. It were one of revelation. This was no Chiss. What the frack was it then? For a second, her instincts were to pull away. This were no red blooded woman!
But that were only a reflex reaction...one of confusion and of fear... one she quickly overcame for one fault does not define the many good deeds of a person..or thing.
This was still Rom-Jin...her friend.

And Rom were oozing ...

...oozing white substance...no doubt a kind of blood, she presumed. Of course it were blood, you idiot (Karlie), she had to tell herself. Red, white...what difference should it make...Rom were bleeding.
"No no no..." She recognized one of the serious wounds it were emanating from, even on someone or something like Rom-Jin.

Rom had gotten hurt, injured in the course of saving her.
The sounds of mayhem and carnage returned tenfold. Karlie pulled herself back to reality...to the now.

The two had somehow moved...
Rom had moved them along with the other two women fighting their way through...
"Scherezade..." Karlie then remembered, voicing the girl's name so as not to forget it again. Yes, that were the girl's name. My how she had...grown..matured. Maybe off the spirits too. Last time she had run into the girl...she were a drunken mess.
As for the others fighting alongside her... Hell if Karlie knew.
Still, they were here on her side, fighting alongside Scherezade and Rom. She would have to know their names.
Just now was not a good time to ask.

"Rom, wait..." Karlie halted her from continuing to lead her down the corridor. Hell if she knew where Rom and the rest were heading. All she knew right now was to stop Rom from oozing all of that white fluid..or blood.

"I can cauterize that wound for you..." Yes, she could do that. Karlie was a bio-engineer. Of course she knew anatomy..had to study the human body. Ok, so no telling what Rom was as she were no Chiss...not inside she weren't. Still, all tissues, living or not, cauterized.
Karlie once more drew forth the mini laser scalpel.

"Let me help you...for once." She needed to help Rom, for she could no longer help her Vera. Her Vera was dead...crushed under the rubble of her estate home.
Karlie was no fighter. Not in the same sense as Rom she weren't. But she had skills nevertheless and that was knowing how tissue functioned and how it could be manipulated. She could stop Rom's oozing of that white fluid. She were certain she could, before Rom would loose too much of it.















[member="Scherezade deWinter"] / [member="Vera Mina"] as Rom-Jin / [member="Darth Ayesh"]

 

[Madalena Antares]

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Location: Capital Outskirts
Wearing: Obsidian Strike Armor
Wielding: Dyntech Power Staff | Yrkaa Sidearm
Tags: [member="Ian Sade"] [member="Lyra Laurs"] [member="Vytal Noctura"] [member="Taramaz Laurs"] [member="Keva"] [member="Boriskno Fel Set"]

The situation on Castagne was messier than what Madalena was used to dealing with, and the fact that it was her sister inside the space station above orbit did not soothe her worries. But she was in her position because she was a professional, and she would not let her concerns affect her performance in any way. She could do nothing for those who were above orbit. She could do everything for those planetside.

She heard the orders sent, saw the ships above their heads moving into position. That entire part of the planet was about to go up in flames. Just as they all wanted it to.

It was time to venture into the city itself.

Despite the hard work of the Knights Obsidian that had been dispatched to the planet, the cities were beginning to fill with the undead as well. It was still a trickle at present, and Madalena's team had little trouble using their flamethrowers on the dead that tried to turn them dead as well, but it was still an unsettling sight.

The fight, while not overly hard, did take long. Loner than Madalena had wanted it to take. By the time they had made the few kilometers required to get to the mansion, positively each and every person in the group was sweating and panting, hard. There were no updates about the orders she'd given in the meantime, though she could hear the sounds form not too far off in the distant.

The planet was officially a war zone now.

When approached by the man ([member="Taramaz Laurs"]) Madalena nodded, recognizing the name. "Knight Commander Madalena Antares," she replied, and motioned to the rest of the squad. There were various Knights Obsidian there. If any of them wanted to introduce themselves, they could.

Leaning against the wall, the Knight Commander tried to contact [member="Ian Sade"] again. "Sade, do you copy?" she asked, pressing all the fancy buttons that she didn't know whether would help or not, "Sade, we're at the Mansion's gates," she sent.

"I'm giving him 180 seconds," she breathed as she looked at Laurs and her team, "then we're going in, regardless of what happens. Executors, set up the watch – any sign of trouble on the mansion grounds, we're going in."

Flicking her comlnk open again, she contacted the Chiss, [member="Keva"], and the Mandragora, [member="Vytal Noctura"], "Any updates?"

 

[Vytal Noctura]

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Location: Capital Outskirts | Outfit: Straps (Maskless) | Weaponry: Midnight's Kiss & Spear​

The warble of engines grew louder and in mere seconds a dropship hovered near the Knight Commander's position. A pale woman hung out of one side, her grip firmly on a handle overhead to keep from toppling right out of the aerial craft. "Fortifications are being overwhelmed along the city wall," the Nightsister responded over the commlink channel. "If we do not end the siege soon, the city will be lost. Should we set down to pick you up, or can we support you from the air?"

Vytal had taken possession of the ship overheard in all its battered, mud-caked glory from the field where it had crashed. Its pilot was barely hanging on, but the magick would sustain him for a time. Hopefully long enough for proper treatment. Lyra had been brought aboard as instructed, and the Nightsister only hoped their lofty vantage point shaved off enough time to join the rest in time.

As she stood there, her thoughts strayed to a ritual that might help... if not end the undead control, perhaps weaken them. It was possible. It could also be dangerous to those in the city. Or... Vytal's eyes flicked out toward the field of spires. There was another option, but it too would be incredibly dangerous to innocent civilians. Perhaps even catastrophic, but then letting the undead run rampant in the city would not end any better.

Tag: [member="Madalena Antares"] | Taramaz Laurs | Lyra Laurs​

 

[Ian Sade]

He throttled up, punching the fighter's drives as an array of laser bolts from the station's defensive batteries hammered his way.
They had zeroed in on him, much like many of Castan's fighters which had disappeared off the grid...had apparently been shot down.

Sade vectored off extreme axis, pushing the envelopes of what his fighter could compensate in elevated G-forces as he attempted to get near the station. Seemed the station's defenses were tuned to the fighter, like it were anticipating, had gauged it's weaknesses and strengths...concentrating a lot of fire power on keeping it's strengths at bay.
Two badly failed attempts at a direct approach proved futile with him barely avoiding getting pummeled.

How in Heaven's sake was the station able to calculate and home in on the spectrum of his fighter's abilities?
"This is freakin impossible!"
Then it clicked. It started to reason as to why many of Castagne's interceptors and attack ships had been wasted trying to bring down the station. Sade were deducing Castagne's military matrix had been compromised prior to this attack on the system. Whomever it were had pri-inside track data on all their fighter designs and air superiority. Superiority that had been reduced to nothing more than annoying flies buzzing about a bug zapper.

He once more broke off his attack, vectoring his fighter around and cut into the main Castan fighter group channel...

"Star Delta Open Transition..." He blurted out the primary overriding command orders...

"Offensive station has compromised all Castan designed attack ships.
Repeat...all fighter groups pull back on direct assaults to station. Fighter designs matrix have been compromised. Resort to long range battery assaults.
Repeat....." and so on and so on Sade went on the horn, calling back all Castan fighter groups trying to engage the station up front and close.

He had figured out as to why Castan defense forces were being targeted and shot down more readily than allied CIS fighters. It weren't because those allies were better pilots. it were that the station knew every nuances of Castan fighter technology and abilities.

Sade had yet to realize that the key person responsible for this was one of Castan's own defense ministry designers...Karla Linset Destat...aka Darth Rigor.

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera was half scared that [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] had it all figured out when she started saying her name, only to cry she was dead seconds later, running into her bloody arms. The biot, unfamiliar with comforting someone in grief (And enjoying causing such an emotion far more than ending it) hugged Karlie back but said nothing, trying to figure out how to come back magically from the dead for her. She had been fighting pretty fiercely the last that they had met. But there were only so many she could get as a Lawyer. The blast had caused the rubble to fall on her and burn her alive...Karlie caught up to her as Vera lead the way to the pylon section, her grief at her civil identity's apparant demise gratifying the biot's homicidal ego, and delighted on eventually finding a way to "magically" come back from the dead.

"This station will continue to launch pylons at the surface unless we cut them off now. Your DNA is the most similar to the actual Darth Rigor on this station. At least, that's what I suspect. I want to try your dna on the biometric locks. Maybe we can force a shutdown...Karlie--?"

Karlie had realized the source of the white blood while borderline snuggling Vera and pulled away. Vera did not attempt to stop her. She was as willing to throw Rom-Jin under the bus as her pilot guise if it meant Karlie never put two and two together. Still...for a second...it 'almost' hurt the biot beyond physical injury when Karlie recoiled, the scientist in her realizing the truth. It was jarring to see the discovery and horror play out on her face and then...understanding.

Karllie made Vera's evil heart leap into her throat when she got out the tool after a few moments of Vera silently leading her onward to the launch bay for the death controlling machinery. Rigor's ability to control dead flesh was like her mother's ability to craft and control living flesh in a weird way.

Vera began to genuinely wonder what that would be like, as Karlie put the tool to her face to help recover from the damage faster.

Vera had an innate lust for death and destruction. She created it. Reveled in it. But could not control it. That was Rigor's purview.

What might such a powerful control over such an fundamental of existence do to someone mentally? Vera could not imagine what the ability to control such large quantities ties of dead flesh could be useful for. Even Vera knew she could dance in the blood and gore so long. If she could not figure out what to do, and she was a murderous android for whom a day without slaughter was like a day without sunshine...could Rigor have ever had any better luck figuring out what to do with such power?

Why did the android doubt so heavily on that last bit?

"Thank you Karlie..." the android spoke as her face was sealed. The dress would take care of the rest.

"Where we are going...it is likely very dangerous...stick close to me..." the bloody biot warned her...her X-Ray vision scanning the walls, more convinced than ever, given the dilapidated state of this place, Rigor did not care if it fell or not. It had been refurbished enough to fight. Enough to fight, to delay with wave after wave of fodder but not built to win. But what was Rigor's game? Why was Karlie not Atrisian Sushi by now? Why did the hot dogs Karlie inexplicably enjoyed to Vera's continued mortification come in packages of eight but the buns in packages of ten? How big a load of bullchit was Karlie willing to buy on Vera's survival? The biot wasn't sure how much her just wearing something revealing could shut down Karlie's brain.

She spotted a fading directory sign leading to the bombardment chamber and signalled Karlie and any others to follow. The biometric lock showed in the form of a thumb scanner.

"If worse comes to worse we can always blast the damn thing..." Vera assured her.

[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

She had surgical skills...only that she hadn't applied them since her internship following her Castan Marine boot camp training.
Karlie had vied to become an IBI investigator, serving in the better of Castagne's executive branches. That required her to first complete her bio-med studies which for some reason or other came easy for her. She then attained a doctorate degree in almost half the time it took for any of the top 10 of any given class. She was after all her mother's protege.

But to serve in the IBI meant that she not only had to have a high IQ and train for 6 months with Marine boots, she also had to intern at the University Hospital.
There she tended to small lacerations, bruised knees and broken bones in the pediatric ward, but was on stand by in the main emergency room. She assisted with a few speeder crashes and the like. The Castan military machine at the time had no conflicts to speak of, other than an occasional accident during training and she handled a few of those pretty well. But for the most part, she hadn't come up to a full size war or assault like it were taking place now.

This were all too real now.

Her eyes, or its eyes, were as she remembered. Was Rom really feeling pain? It appeared so as Karlie cauterized the living flesh on the biot. The creature were indeed feeling the laser scalpel. Karlie did her best to maintain her nerves and steady her breath and ultimately her hand.
But nervous or not, she had to work fast. Time were not at all on their side, nor on Castagne's. The pylons had to be stopped. It were what the biot wanted to do...Rom...Rom-Jin. The thing was more than a biot It were fighting for Castagne..fighting for her, even.
The precious seconds she were manipulating the laser scalpel were not only concentrated on what she were doing, but replaying memories of months past.
Rom-Jin.
Karlie took a deep breath.
Yes...it were Rom-Jin...and they, or at least, She connected with it...had considered her friend.

"Gasp!" Karlie quickly opened her eyes. She had momentarily drifted thinking of her previous experience with Rom. Why would she think differently of her now, just because it were not created by Berkana (God) but by...hell if Karlie knew really...

"Just a few more seconds..." Karlie fought not only against time, but of burning flesh before her hand. That, and coupled with whatever that white fluidwas...blood?...she could only assume. This were a living breathing war machine... Rom-Jin.
No wonder it/she/whatever, had dispatched nearly all the battle droids in that transport so effortlessly months ago. Rom was a weapon!
Yet...
Yet Rom as Karlie now recounted had kept that incident, that promise not to report it to her owner Nine Lives and kept that incident between themselves. In the following blink of an eye, it were settled. This were the very same Rom-Jin she had come to think and called friend. So what she/it/whatever was not human. Rom was Rom to her no matter what it was. After all, despite her thinking it were a blueberry, she had still taken to Rom as a friend.

As soon as Karlie got the deep lacerations closed up, Rom sprung back into action.
"Wai-.." She were about to shout before reality brought her back to the now.
"Oh, Ok..." the deranged carbon copies of her look-alike had broken through the line. Ron were not waiting, she were done getting patched up for now.

"Yes... yes, I understand..." Karlie nodded to Rom's insisting they were to get to the main control room.
The biot had a legitimate hunch that Karlie's biometrics were similar to that of Darth Rigor.
Rom and the surviving groups of Obsedian knights this far into the station's hub were fighting like a maelstrom cutting through thick and thin of carcasses made up of clones and the undead.

Torsos...body parts, a leg, an arm..heads even of rancid clones flew this way and that, dead and some still squirming about like lumps of gnarled and butchered flesh..all puddling the hallways, slippery blood and fluids...lest not forget the blood art on the walls and ceilings.

Again, blood, hair, an arm... a freakin arm..like her arm flew past Karlie's head before she ducked in time. Ron were slicing and dicing through her copies with extreme prejudice with Karlie cowering behind. There was little the blonde could really do, unless she had a blaster or thermal detonator in hand. What were swinging about were energy sabers and the like. The few blasters that had been severed from the assailants were for the most part NOT ONE intact!

"Kryton..." Karlie cussed as she quickly dropped a promising looking blaster. It was not. Besides it were drenched in slime and blood too.
It was no good. The knights and Rom were dismembering everyone and everything. It were best she stay close to Rom as the biot had suggested.

It took a while, with many of her clones having to be dismembered for them to get through, but they finally got to where supposedly the main control hub was.
"Huh?..seriously?" Karlie looked at the security panel. Rom had guessed right. It were biometric based.
How old was this station? Thumb print scanner... did they still used them?...she were taken back at the lack of tech at the panel compared to the rest of this forsaken hell station.

"Oh!...right!" Karlie quickly put her thumb on the crystaline screen, after another prompt from Rom.
"Shoot!..." She pulled her hand away as she felt something prick through. "Son-of-a-queen!..." The freaking plate had taken a small sample of her blood. Damn it, she should have known!

"Ahhhk..." She were then quickly pulled away from the panel and opening of the blast doors by no other than Rom, who shoved the blonde behind her.
Sure enough as the durasteel doors stated to part, blaster fire from the inside grazed down the same corridor they had just fought through.

Smoke, the smell of ionization and charred flesh filled the antechamber they were holding ground in. Karlie could see a knight..two knights falling as their armor gave way to heavy repeaters from the inside. But just as fire were coming out of the control room, offensive front line fire were returned. Karlie made herself as small as possible once again cowering behind one of the main support columns, just arms reach from Rom. It were difficult to say if Karlie at that time thought of her own end or not, as for what seemed like eternity, the exchange of batteries had not at all subsided. But in fact it was. What was coming out of the control room was diminishing with the knights and Rom not letting up for a second.
But that second soon passed and Karlie found herself amid the advancing knights storming the control room.
There was little left of resistance and those were soon squelched.

"Cough..cough..." The air was still thick with smoldering bodies and what-not.

Karlie had remained close to Rom and as the station's ventilation were still working, the smoke filled room slowly revealed it's interior.

"Yes..cough...cough...I see it." Karlie came up to Rom who were standing by the main controls that seemed to be launching the pylons and control most of the defensive systems of the station. And it were somehow all too familiar like from a dream. Karlie had never actually dreamed it or seen it before, but she felt the familiarity of it...knew somehow despite the complexity of the controls to override them, the right sequence-

Almost, but no.

-Error-​

"Wait...wait...I know this system..." Karlie held up her hand for her to try again leaning over the ever changing control configurations. There was only one individual that could navigate through what looked like a mind twisting projected controls and that individual had most likely high tailed it off the station already...Darth Rigor.

But there was another...Karlie.
The games she had played with her mother...or likely the games her mother played with her, in a candid means of training her daughter.
It were like a memory coordination game... only it were with tunes...songs.

Karlie followed the sequence of the ever changing controls until she picked up on the lead. Then she dove in with what she remembered as a child, playing the random tone and light game against her mom. It had been fun and full of laughter with lots of hugs and kisses back when. But now it were real...

-Error-​

"Oh for the love of GOD...Come on!!" Karlie swipped her hand to clear the display...only it weren't one to reboot. It kept on with the random patterns.

A few more rounds of blaster fire were once more exchanged behind her before she started to concentrate again and think back to the game her mother taught her to play...
The barrage of laser bolts hitting and smoking up the control room again alerted her that more goons had been dispatched to re-enforce this location. The knights were once more returning fire..just now, they were on the inside and the assailants were trying to storm the control room and retake it again.

Nothing like working under pressure to get a girl thinking straight...

ta da na ma fa to ma de ma... so the random song and flashing lights swirled through her memories. Karlie took to the tune and immersed herself in the changing controls. Red became ta, da became yellow...ma green..etc...

It took but a few notes to finally remember the random tune from her memory before the control panel seemed to suddenly freeze. Only it didn't freeze. Not to an observer it didn't, only in Karlie's mind.
It were not changing as she hit the controls in what was a complex random code.

-System shutdown completed- ​

Immediately the random control screen stabilized for real, halting it's random graphics with the station stopping its deployment of pylons.
Karlie let out a brief exhale of relief.

And brief it were just, as it were not all over yet. The Karlie clones and goons hadn't been stopped. They had one mission on this station and that were to fight till they expired.




[member="Vera Mina"] / [member="Scherezade deWinter"] /

 

[The Amalgam]

Wearing: Resistance Epidermis

Armed with: Skin Shears (Purple, Double Bladed Lightsaber)

With: Darth Rigor

Objective: Board The Castle Morpheus and steal the blood of Nine Lives (Defeat Nine Lives)


The Amalgam smiled as she piloted her X-70B Phantom through the chaos of the space battle, having departed Heretic Station soon after Rigor had returned with only a lock of hair from [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] . This greatly amused The Shi'ido.

"Oooo, you lost your nerve..." the witch teased the Sith Lord.

"A lock of hair is more than what is necessary. Dissecting her would have been counterproductive." Rigor explained stoically. "If I fail with the copy, then I dissect her."

"Such a perfectly logical answer. Convenient."

The Amalgam felt herself gagging suddenly. It was not hard enough to cut off her air supply but it was enough to cause her to struggle to breathe. In shock she turned. Rigor held her hand clutched in a claw grip. "Your magic is powerful, but not entirely insurmountable." Rigor stated. "I will find a way to break it completely. And when I do, it will be your turn to tolerate my taunts."

The Amalgam called on her own connection to the darkness to fight away the weak choke attempt--and in the process almost crashed into a CIS starfighter. The Amalgam barely evaded it in time.

"Scared of dying?" Rigor asked.

The Amalgam did not dare confess any fear to Rigor. The Sith Lord had proven herself not full restrained by the tainted, enchanted body the Amalgam had provided for her. It must have taken an inhuman will to overcome the restraints even as much as she did. But mere will would not defeat the enchantments entirely.

"Scared of admitting you like Karlie, even a little?"

"I don't have the luxury of loving anyone. And neither do you. Not in this business. You're gonna have to choose love or the biz. You can't have both. If your 'daughters' are smart they will kill you without hesitation." Rigor replied in a dull, uninterested manner. "Best thing you could ever do for them is drop dead."

The Amalgam tightened her grip on the piloting controls as The Castle Morpheus came into view. It was blocking the impact of the pylons with its own armor and shields, a Saotome Envoy and a Saotome Light Frieghter running point defense around it. They wouldn't detect the Phantom. Not until it was too late.

The Amalgam piloted slowly to the landing bay, which had its forcefields active. She cut the Whisperthrust engines and powered up the laser cannons, opening fire on the hangar field emitters. Then gunned the engines forward, cutting them just in time, right as the ship entered the bay as the emergency shutters closed it off, but not before it sucked out a number of Morpheus Knights. She set the ship down.

They both wordlessly got out their weapons. For the Amalgam, it was her preferred weapon of choice, a double bladed lightsaber that emitted purple blades. For Rigor, a pair of guard shotos emitting red ones.

"Stealthy approach?" Rigor asked, adjusting her all white combat suit.

They already know we are here. Our best chance is to make our way to the bridge." The Amalgam answered crisply. "Hell, maybe she'll accept my challenge..."

"More bodies, the merrier, if not..." Rigor commented.

"That's the attitude that 'I' always prefer to keep..." The Shi'ido replied affably as they both exited the craft. The Amalgam's blades snapped on.

Knowing the ship cameras were watching, the Amalgam held out her hands.

"NINE LIVES!" The changeling yelled. "A most bitter harvest has arrived! I know you are watching! I have with me Darth Rigor! No doubt you know what this woman does...you have been seeing it on Castagne after all! We start killing here, your pawns become hers! I know how you broke. when it happened to your son...I was there, that night, watching you...you really want a repeat of that, on this ship?!"

The Amalgam smiled as she felt the rage of the thought Vampire and then the cold logic of her suggestion. It really was her best option.

"Give her a few..." The Amalgam assured Rigor.

After five minutes, the ornate, Atrisian Gothic doors swung open. Nine Lives was in her knight obsidian armor, her sword out.

"What the hell do you want?" Nine demanded, in her deep contralto, towering over both at her seven foot height.

"Oh, a little song, a little dance, a licensed superhero's head, on a lance..." the Amalgam answered playfully. (Pale Moonlight: 007 XP)

"We want your blood..." Rigor said bluntly.

"My blood?!" Nine snapped, confused but guarding with her katana, which had a dragon head pommel.

"Don't you see?" The Amalgam said. "This isn't about Castagne, Nine. It's about you. You think I care about trying to conquer some planet by zombie saturation? It's been done, before. Who do you think helped spread The Melida Virus?"

The Amalgam smirked, feeding off of Nine's growing fury and horror.

"It was you..." Nine trailed. "You are the one...you are the one directly responsible for the death of the son of [member="Darth Metus"] ."


The Amalgam actually took a bow. "But of course..."

"You..." Nine staggered back, horrified beyond words at The Shi'ido's callousness.

"You...you murdering MONSTER!" Nine shouted demonically. "You were behind it all!"

The Amalgam stepped forward, her near impossible beauty completely revolting to Nine now, due to the heart it hid.

"Says the hypocrite who lets her daughter eat the homeless. Yes, you pathetic little worm. It was me." The Amalgam said with a savage grin on her face. "I was the one who put the vampire hunters on your scent months before you woke up. I was the one who provided them the necessary intelligence to ambush your ex-girlfriend [member="Sawa Ike"] and get her and [member="Maple Harte"] to travel to Atrisia and reveal the exact route to this ship, as I had constructed a psychological profile of her and realized she would never allow you to be harmed. From there, it was a simple matter to tempt the remnants of Rigor's cult on Castagne and get me a cover identity in The IBI, right under the nose of poor [member="Ian Sade"] . Acquiring the data and samples was relatively easy...though I knew not to steal the secrets to Castagne's military power until the last minute, in order to prevent them realizing there was a compromise until it was too late."

"But...murdering all those people! Those are cities! Families! Children!" Nine shouted, dark rage gripping her.

"None of whom I give a flying feth about..." The Amalgam replied coldly, lightning arching "The only thing I didn't plan on was Karlie also being at Melida. Oh, if she had died there she would have screwed the whole plan up, y'know?"

It was Rigor's turn to be all but shaking with rage at The Amalgam. "Oh, I am going to have to invent a whole new way to kill you when I am free..." Rigor growled.

"Yawn..." replied the Shi'ido, who waved her off dismissively before turning back to an irate Nine with that vicious smirk. "Then there was the matter of muddying the waters while infiltration of CIS Intelligence over Karlie, as well as pulling her assistants strings to implicate her, and yet more deception to actually be one of her interrogators."

"Too flawless." Nine replied in suspicion.

"Is it? The Unholy Spirit has long been fascinated by your tale, Nine Lives. The power to consume thought, emotion...it is much how we who worship The Unholy Spirit condense the knowledge of others into ourselves for a more eternal nourishment...We studied you, your tale, your story, to make our attempts at knowledge tearing nearly impossible to break...thanks!" The Amalgam joked suddenly, to both Rigor and Nine's annoyance and fist clenching fury.

Nine advanced. "Did you have a profile on me as well?"

The Amalgam and Rigor circled her. Under the mask, Nine's teeth were clenched at The Amalgam's unremitting evil.

The Amalgam slowly, playfully spun her staff as she prepared to attack.

"Of course dear. Who do you think originally prompted you to join the CIS when you were still just a vampire vagrant? It was me. I visited you as you slept. Whispered things to your subconscious. Adding little insecurities and phobias and paranoias where convenient."

Nine's grip on her sword went white knuckled from homicidal hatred. The Amalgam's grin grew wider.

"Oh, I knew all too well your guilt complex wouldn't let you do anything less than try to go and see if you could help, just as I knew your history of trying to cure diseases would not allow you to rest until you found out who was responsible. After I chased down the shuttle carrying you to the Dark Zone and shot it down, I took a sample of your blood for testing."

"Those things could have torn me apart! Your plan would have been screwed if they had eaten me!" Nine roared, looking for the opening. Rigor was still, like a rock, only giving a death glare at The Woman who had brought her back, sparing inly an indifferent glance to the vampire. Rigor clearly didn't give two chits about her.

"Please, I was covering you with a Nightstinger. Not enough to let you think you were getting help, but just enough to give you a little wiggle room...and enough time for your allies to really help you. I didn't plan on you getting to what was left of Darth Phyre on Kashyyk before I did, but I was able to improvise there as well. She's actually doing a marvelous job of weeding out the weaklings in the organization."

"If my blood is so damned important why only take a sample?"

"She had to see how your immune system was adapting after awakening in an era you are seperated from by thousands of years." Rigor guessed out loud, the scientist in her deducing it as a bored afterthought, unconsciously spinning one of her guard shotos, waiting for the tension to break. Nine's sword had gone into attack position, raised high. The Amalgam's eyes had gone sulphur, her staff slowly spinning around her body faster. Only Rigor was still. Still as a corpse.

"Taking your blood prematurely, before it had a chance to be fully exposed to modern strains of disease may have yielded undesirable results." Rigor continued. "But now that you've passed whatever threshold the witch has deemed acceptable, Vampire, its time to collect."

"...So you needed a sample you could compare it to...in case you needed to recreate an earlier strain. And in order to keep me where you could locate and keep track of me at all times, you subconsciously influenced me to want to nearly always be aboard The Morpheus. In order to make The Morpheus go where you want...you engineer a crisis you know will force me to act. And then you board in the chaos while everyone is getting slaughtered out there because of you, everyone so obsessed with stopping the living dead from overrunning Castagne...and creating a wave of death and slaughter in The Force that will travel outward..." Nine trailed.

"Bravo, Nine! See? You catch on. Eventually." The Amalgam smiled.

Nine noticed the Pylons had stopped firing. Rigor grew paranoid. She knew instinctively they had used Karlie to shut them down and stop firing Pylons in the direction of the Morpheus. But it had been too perfectly timed. If The Amalgam had influenced Nine towards certain action, did that mean she may have unconsciously influenced Rigor, got into her head also? Or had she simply predicted Rigor would get cold feet, tell Karlie how to escape, but probably knowing she would try and save Castagne. Was that also why she had the flawed clones of her daughter and herself programmed so imperfectly?

Either way, this witch had earned a death so painful, Rigor was currently stretching the limits of both her scientific and dark side related knowledge of how to best inflict it.

Nine at that moment chose to attack, she sprang forward, her yell mimicking the roar of a Rancor. The Amalgam zipped forward at the same time. Rigor attacked also. The duel was on.

The Vampire and the Shi'ido and the sith met their blades all at once, Nine giving ground at the ferocious speed of the Shapeshifter's staff twirls, Rigor striking whenever the Amalgam backed off. Nine dimmed the light around them to almost nothing using the magic of her blade but the sabers still provided enough of a glow to track. The Amalgam snarled and multiple bolts of purple lightning erupted from her hand to where she sensed Nine was but the vampire had already moved forward, swiping at her belly. She partially connected, opening her stomach and revealing corrupted, yellowing muscle, and black blood that was like ink.

The Amalgam snarled and back handed Nine away, slipping into a Force rage and doubling her assault, forcing Nine to retreat and parry, noting Rigor seemed to be holding back. Did she hope Nine would kill her, and free her of this burden?

Nine was more than willing to oblige. And then it would be time to give Rigor an old school skullcracking.

Nine had studied the Amalgam since Atrisia, collected tissue samples. This...thing...had weaknesses.

Nine patiently fought away her power assaults with the staff, the muscle swollen freak staring at her with blood thirsty black eyes, and drew on her Makashi to do so, though the Amalgam was no joke. Nine was genuinely fighting for her life, her natural speed extremely difficult to match. The Shi'ido made it look like art, despite the savagery. Nine however, had been in fights that were pretty much were the last fifteen minutes of any sword fighting holo. The Amalgam inevitably made a mistake. Just because you can attack something quickly does not mean you should. Her swipe went fast but too wide and Nine saw an opening. Something amber glinted in her hand and she drove it into the Shi'ido's ribs, snapping it off.

A toxic reaction from a spike made of nullification resin quickly spread throughout the Amalgam's body, causing it to began a slow, but inevitable decaying process. It was also making it hard to move, the rage even circulating the poison faster. She dropped to the ground, puking black blood. Nine brought her sword down...

...only to be blocked by Rigor's tonfas.

"Brave. But foolish..." Nine snarled.

"Nothing personal, fangs..." Rigor growled back hurling her away from her slave master....

Meanwhile...


As soon as the doors to Pylon control had opened Vera and whoever had followed were fighting off the swarms of tall, undead knights. A very large majority of Rigor's forces were concentrated here. Vera saw the Pylons being loaded in great racks, and then launched in modified torpedo tubes. Many came to meet her and others in battle, but Vera's only concern was protecting Karlie long enough to reach the pylon control hub. She would kill any who got near, her pattern of attack a graceful, if mechanical dance with a white katana as the siege on the control room commenced, the CIS forces killing everything that wasn't them. What she did not slice, she broke or shot, gore spilling every where--

Her systems registered immense damage as a lightsaber sliced off her arm, spilling white blood everywhere. She still had her katana however and adjusted her attack pattern, spins and kicks becoming tighter. But this was a lot of blaster fire to dodge, and it was inevitable some parts of her were blasted off. Shots hit her in the torso, nicked her face on the side, shearing off the masquer and exposing the white muscle and purpleish veins. Vera still fought brutally, until her sword slipped from her hand. Her pistol came out, killing fifteen with burst fire. She stuck near Karlie as close as she dared. But what the clones lacked in skill their numbers made up for. Vera had never killed this many in one sitting. It was a revelation really.

A vibrosword lopped off her other arm and Vera switched to emergency combat protocols, using her legs to deliver bone crushing blows, leaping and driving her knees into a clone's face. Her improvised death by kicking and spinning and jumping until a Karlie clone that just happened to have a shotgun managed to fire at just the right time. Vera was blown backward to the ground. What was left of her teeth gripped a dropped shoto and flung it at the shooter.

The console shut down...and just in time too. While there were no more enemies in their immediate vicinity, both Vera and the dress were quite damaged, and the repairs were occuring only slowly. She was out of commission at the moment...


[member="Scherezade deWinter"]

 

[Ian Sade]

He were coming in hot...too hot in his commandeered SCX-3 (Boriskno Fel's), as the Morpheous' shield on one of her quarter decks had given way, or so his HUD suddenly displayed. It were a split second do or die decision. He fired his fighter's micro-jump thrusters that instantly propelled him through the open dropped shield. It were going to be close. Close like splitting hair. But not the entry, but the breaking... the deceleration after the micro boost jump.
No doubt a hard landing, if he didn't plow straight trough the hull of the Morpheous on the other side.

Ian had been chasing a ghost ship. How close to its tail he were, were only a gamble. But one of the Morpheous bay shield had abruptly dropped and both visually and instrumental he picked up that there were neither incoming nor deploying crafts for that to have taken place. It only meant that whatever had nearly collided with his fighter was now infiltrating the capital ship of [member="Nine Lives"].

A few minutes ago...

Ian had called for the Castan fighter squadrons from both naval and marines to cease their direct attacks on the alien station. He had determined that somehow, Castagne's tactical military data-banks on their fighters had been compromised. How and who, he cursed their souls. He'd find the means somehow when and if he'd survive this crisis. But for now, all they could do were to leave the assault on the station to the CIS, as their systems hadn't been compromised. It made sense now as to why Castagne's elite fighter groups were at a loss. Whomever had planned this campaign had done their homework...had infiltrated Castan high security somehow from the inside. His primary guess had been on that decrepit witch @Darth Rigor.

"Bah!..." he gritted his teeth and vectored over to another pylon. He had blasted 3 already and the Castan fighter groups were now doing the same. It were all they could do, as in the direct assault to the station was futile. The batteries had their number.

It were between those few harrowing moments of intense space battle that a warning flashed on his HUD, imminent mass collision. Of course there were numerous warnings of tone locks and what-not throughout the battle that aided a pilot from becoming stardust. But this one were of a mass collision to starboard. he instinctively vectored to port, only whatever it were, were not.
The mass detected was non existant, he could not see it.
Cloaked.
It flashed in his brain even before that thought were complete. Instantly he completed the loop continuing port-side till he were back at 180 degrees. the mass was there for an instant on his warning HUD then disappeared again. It were definitely a cloaked ship, most definitely.
And at the true line of sight, not 300 kilometers distant was the capital ship Castle Morpheus.
Ian gunned straight for it. Whatever it were that was headed that way cloaked, he'd follow...or second guess follow it through to the Morpheus.
And it were unclear to him whether it were friend or foe.

Present moment...

Ian must have been a meter or less ahead of whatever it were that entered the bay, as he had micro-burst fired his fighter's thrusters so as to not miss that opening. Yes, the Castan CSX had micro-burst technology enabling this particular model to jump momentarily. It were a defensive design of the craft more than offensive. It greatly aided the craft in jumping out of the way of direct fire...if a pilot were well trained in its use. Ian had been...that is, he had been a while back.

It were as to why he crashed it on to the deck. Not intentional really, but out of necessity and a gamble. Despite his fighter's emergency retro thrusters engaging, it were not enough. There was little room in that vast hangar for a fighter popping out of a micro-burst. One of the craft 's landing skid dug into the deck and snapped off, which of course was what one would expect at that velocity. Nevertheless the fighter's nose was then pulled down into the deck and that caused the ship to begin it's wonderful spark light show... to tumble and roll, nose to tail to nose again to CRASH!! ...plow into some ordinances or whatever was awaiting to be picked up on the deck by the Morpheous active squadrons.

Poodoo!...lights out for our hero.

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

The smoke, the sirens, the warning lights...

Karlie were a mess, disheveled, shocked, her ears ringing still from the battle. The girl slumped over the console. It were over. She had managed to stop the pylons. Oh thank Berkana.
Karie slithered down onto her knees, exhausted.

The multitude of cycling warning lights continued with the deafening sirens and alarms. But no more laser fire. No more blasters going off this way and that. No more screams.
"Gasp!" Karlie's eyes flashed open as she realized Rom-Jin were no longer hovering like a cloak, a heavy shield about her. The cyborg or whatever Ron was had protected her, fought for her, had covered her.

Karlie waved her hand to dissipate some of the lingering smoke still lingering about. She spun around still on her knees, searching for her friend. Red, yellow...white blood or coolant whatever it was, had spattered everywhere and on everything, including her. It were then as she crawled on the floor searching as to where her protector was that she realized she were pretty much drenched with it all.

"Gasp... Oh no...no..." She caught sight of the drenched red locks of hair on the floor, just a meter away through the smoke. It were Rom and she came up upon her features. her eyes were starring blankly toward her through the drenched locks of hair.
"Rom....oh Rom..." Karlie parted those locks gently wiping all the muck of red and white blood...interesting they didn't mix to become pink though...

It were then that she realized Rom's arms were GONE!
For a split second she sprang back in both fear and disgust. She had never seen or been so close to a dismembered body of a friend or anyone close to her. It were shocking. But this was her friend.
"Oh my God..." Her better part of her overcame the horror and she shuffled herself back on over to her downed friend.
The alarms, the smoke, the flashing lights little by little subsided. Even the ringing in her ears seemed to subdue. It were getting clearer, the air as the station's filtration system finally caught up to the exchange of air.

There were signs that maybe not all of the bots functions had seized. There were still some fluids spurting out of the severed limbs. Karlie's hand were shaking as she felt around Rom's features, neck and torso... She could feel the small mummers of something still working inside the bot.
"Eeew..." She caught sight of an arm, a severed Karlie clone's arm..then a head before she picked out Rom's own severed arm among the carcasses on the floor.

Feet..boots...Obsidian boots were still shuffling about. The air had cleared and Karlie looked up. The knights both coming in and those whom were still alive were tending to their own. No one was interested nor cared for her Rom. Karlie closed her tearful eyes shaking her head. Such waste, such carnage and death. She had never been in a battle like this. hell, she had never been in any battle. She had trained for it but this was all too real and too harsh. The fallen would never know the sacrifice they gave had been successful or not. It were up to the living, the survivors, the comrades that fought side by side to remember and know. had Karlie fought side by side?
No.
No she were not worthy to be Rom's fellow comrade. But she were Rom's friend and loved the bot, whatever was left of it for the sacrifice it made to protect her.
All Karlie could do besides gently caress her fallen friend's features was to reach over and get her friend's arm and place it by her side-
...er, no wait...
Karlie realized it were a left arm as it didn't look right on Rom's right.

"You Ok?..." A voice from one of the knights after a strong hand landing on her shoulder asked.

Karlie looked up with tearful eyes...out of focus mind you, and simply nodded.

"Gather what you can, we're evacuating the station. It's defenses have powered down after it stopped its bombardments on the system.
The fleet's getting ready to scuttle it into the star.
Vacate! Understand?!" The knight shouted giving her a few good pats on the shoulder before moving off.

"Vacate..." Karlie managed to repeat, nodding her head. It were in her training to acknowledge such orders while under duress. It assured both the commander and the subordinate that there was no confusion as to what was given.

Karlie pressed the severed arm closer to Rom's torso.
She then looked around the carnage for the other arm, finding it not too far and went over to retrieve it.

"What are you doing?..leave it..it's done." Another knight urged her, as Karlie felt the knight's grip on her forearm, getting her to her feet.
"Let go!" Karlie struggled, trying to free herself from the grip.

"Don't be stupid. This station's done for and so is that bot. Now we didn't die here for nothing, if you're going to remain here and die."

"She's was my friend. I'm not leaving her here. I'll carry her out."

The knight sneered looking over the fallen carcass of the biot, before finally releasing his grip on Karlie. The knight seemed to understand...after all the red haired Chiss or whatever it really were had fought gallantly till the end. If it were a living being, then it would have deserved to not be left behind.

"Fine. I'll help you with it. But we go now!"

"Wait..wait..." Karlie nearly slipped on the blood soaked floor before she snatched up Rom's left arm.

"Seriously?...Dumb bl-
Gah..." As much as the knight wanted to, he didn't say it. Rather he went over to pick up the torso, which of course the right arm stayed on the floor.
"Come on!" he shouted, prompting Karlie to place the arm she had in hand on Rom's abdomen and picked up the other and did same. Then she, with great difficulty and only slipping on her butt twice, managed to finally pick up the biot's legs and did her best in keeping up with the knight in heading to an evacuation craft.

It were hard..tiring and occasionally having to stop to pick up an arm here and there that slipped off the body, but they managed to get to one of the hangars . It were as a mad rush to get out as it had been in. Karlie could see what the other obsidian knight meant about the fleet readying to scuttle the station. There were now several large capital ships that were now drawing closer to the station as the shield and defensive batteries had ceased.

"Tractor beams?" she asked.
"They're going to tow the station?"

"Yea, and if we don't get into a transport, we'll be taking a short trip to the star with it. Now move it!"

~ ~ ~​

Karlie had found a few compresses..some barely used and some she ripped open from the many med kits spewed on board the transport. She wiped Rom's features and tucked her hair as presentable as she could, before she placed a kiss to the biot's forehead with her hand.
Karlie then zipped up the body bag, as the craft cleared the station's hangar.
She were seated on one of the troop benches..not all the knights would return and there was plenty of bench space. Her only diversion from the hermetically sealed black body bag were to look out the port glass to Castagne, her beloved world...Vera had died there, trying to protect her, like Rom did on the station.

She started to weep in her cupped hands, turning back to Rom in the sealed bag. Karlie had placed the severed arms and what-nots that had been Roms. Even the saber she had retrieved was inside the bag, as was the only thing she could place of hers that she had..the small surgical laser. It wasn't much, but it were all that she had to give to Rom. Karlie had used it to seal up the original gashes on Rom's beautiful face. That was before Rom had been butchered..had died for her.

Karlie's mom had done this. Vera and Rom, along with thousands if not more had died by her mother's hand.
How could she still feel something for that witch?
How were it that she could feel something still? Were she as crazy as her mother?

Maybe..

Yes, she was her mother wasn't she?.....sister.

Daughter sister? if that wasn't crazy, then what was?

NO!
No she were no killer. Not at all like her mother/sister.

Karlie wiped her tears and gently placed her hand on the body bag.
"I'm so sorry Rom-Jin
I'll never forget you...you were my friend."

 

[Nine Lives]

This Rigor wasn't some by the numbers fencer. She was patient. Calculating. Never struck unless she saw an opening. Defended most of her strikes. Nine realized she was dealing with a Soresu practioner.

Nine hated Soresu. Soresu frustrated her like nothing else. She had never gotten the hang of it. Her style perferred an exchange of blows. But there could be no exchange of blows when one is wasting their time striking a rock. Which is exactly what Rigor was...a rock.

The darkness in Rigor was not like it had been in Nine's mother, when a then-human Nine had slain her. This...this was different.

Rigor's darkness was the darkness of abandonment. Of betrayal. Not of others towards her, but her towards others. It was a dispassionate treachery born from what it believed was necessity. Nine almost pitied her.

Almost.

The Vampire dashed forward, hands erupting with psychic stun energy that manifested as purple lightning. It ground against Rigor's blades and the Vampire used her sword to darken the area.

Rigor closed her eyes, moved forward as everything seemed to go silent. She could not hear Nine.

But she could sense the presence of dead or dying tissue from the wounds Nine had gotten moving the ship in the way of the Pylons.

Rigor wheeled with her blade, catching Nine's Katana. With her other she slashed at Nine's torso but the Vampire reacted faster and whipped her free hand up to Rigor's jaw, uppercutting her and sending her flying to the ground away from her. (Shoryuken: 50 XP)

The Vampire leapt epically, her sword pointing downward to hit Rigor as she dropped. The Sith rolled out of the way, force pushing Nine into a wall, and the vampire thudded painfully as she impacted.

Rigor hurled both her lightsabers at her, forcing Nine to roll out of the way of the spinning tonfas. She guarded with her katana, Rigor catching her own blades. The Amalgam had managed to right herself and was against the hull of her yacht, her face starting to show signs of decay. She hurled coils of purple lightning to distract Nine, making her grind the deadly energy with her sword while Rigor struck, succeeding in inflicting a wound on the side, while the Amalgam's lightning hit her.

Nine screamed as the blast connected, the enraged Shi'ido about to light her up again when her lightning was intercepted by Rigor's blades.

"I will handle this. You're poisoned, remember."

The slowly rotting Shi'ido gave her the middle finger, which rotted and fell off due to the poison in her system. The Amalgam tried with the other finger...and that fell off too.

The rotting witch sighed, gestured for Rigor to hurry it up, right as her nose started to decay.

Rigor turned her attention to Nine.

"Melida wasn't my idea. I hadn't been in control of that strain for years. I made it to try and alter whatever causes me to accumulate pain."

"Here's an idea. You don't seem to like this rotting freak. Help me smash her skull in. I'll forget I saw you, honest." Nine growled darkly.

"Generous, but I don't really have a say in the matter..." Rigor replied, closing her eyes.

Red tinged, translucent constructs of Rigor appeared all around Nine. Nine tried to force jump but one caught her and pulled her down.

That's when the pummeling started. Rigor partly thought of [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] as she beat Nine unconscious, then to a pulp with the red constructs.

Her daughter hated her, her husband hated her, she was enslaved to a witch, and her family's world burned on her account.

Rigor was not a happy camper.

"Excellent." The Amalgam sneered as she felt Nine Lives black out from being beaten half to death. "Now let's grab some of her children...this body needs repairs.

"I'm not here to cater to your spite." Rigor snapped hatefully. "We're leaving. We have what we came for."

"I say when we leave--" the Amalgam growled, made nasally by a decayed nose.

The ship of [member="Ian Sade"] crashed through the hangar, partially denting the hull of The Amalgam's yacht. This caused a screetch of displeasure as his fighter skidded to a halt, setting off all sorts of alarms.

"My yacht!" the Amalgam screeched, starting to head over to the fighter to give whoever had crashed a once over with her blades, only to be Force pulled by an enraged Rigor into to the Sith Lord's waiting grasp.

"We are DONE HERE!" Rigor shouted, having once more temporarily over come the witch's magic through pure unbridled hatred.

"Errr...okay..." The Amalgam said, deciding now was definitely not the time for an argument.

Rigor dropped her and force pulled an unconscious, bloodied Nine to her grasp. They both got in the yacht, and the damaged ship soon departed.

The Knights, forbidden by Nine from interfering finally entered the bay minutes later, after clearing wreckage across the decks.

"Get a medical capsule, immediately!" The head Knight, Jerri shouted as he came to Ian's fighter and saw he was still alive...

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Debri.

The irregular bumps, trembles and pelting were no longer from laser fire, but from the debri that were resonating about the hull of the transport. Karlie sat there in silence..or as near isolation a ride to a landing bay as it can get on a return trip following a battle. Were she lucky? Were she?
many Castan marines along with what came from the CIS had lost their lives in this senseless altercation. What had it all been for? Had her mother actually planned this decades ago?

"No...this one's with me.." Karlie shook her head when an Obsidian Knight making his rounds came about as to the wounded and dead. He had asked if Karlie knew who it were that were among the dead beside her. Karlie put her hand on the bag, shaking her head. This fallen warrior were with her.

Still, the question remained...the dead must be accounted for.
"Rom-Jin... warrior ...faith-" She started to choke up before she caught herself. Karlie looked up at the knight, straight in his eyes. " Faithful...brave, unselfish warrior under Nine Lives of Castle Morpheus. Rom-Jin were my my friend."

The knight placed a hand upon his chest before bringing it up to place a kiss upon it, then delivered it to the form that were Rom inside the bag. A silent prayer perhaps to the war gods, Karlie could only assume. She believed in the One God, Berkana, but understood and felt the power of the knight's prayer nevertheless in her own chest. Karlie nodded, lowering her head before the knight spoke to her.
"We stood ground together upon the 2nd entry assault before separating." He then said before he took a moment to look over the blonde.
"You must be the Karlie she were there for."

"Berkana..." Karlie looked up with eyes full of tears and nodded.
"She came for me, yes..." were all she could reply, as her emotions were beyond her immediate domain. It were genuine grief. Grief for Rom, grief for Vera, grief that her mother had killed her only friends.
With a pat on Karlie's shoulder, the knight moved on.

Karlie placed her hand on the body again, now almost wrapping herself like a ceremonial blanket...or that of a grieving friend fallen in battle. The closeness to Rom were the same, a few mils, the thickness of the body bag.

~ ~ ~​

​

The fleet were set on scuttling the station into the system's star. Karlie's transport with the surviving Obsidian knights and wounded were heading back toward one of the CIS destroyers. Karlie were spent and weren't in any mood to argue with the transporter's pilot as to her desired destination. It mattered little to her right now. All she knew were that where she went, Rom would go. She would get Rom back down to Castagne, that much she were adamant about. Karlie were set on giving both Rom and Vera the proper funeral service.... full honors.

She were sitting there next to Rom, looking out starboard a moment, as the transporter rolled to align itself with the CIS Ship's landing bay. It were on an approach pattern, 4th returning transport in line to be given clearance. There were other transports, like the one she were in, apparently carrying same... many wounded and retrieved fallen before them. It were what was delaying them from immediately docking. The transports were taking longer to unload the wounded and the fallen. Karlie bore witness to the tragedy and cost of war. Up to this point, it had all been theory, training and a kind of detachment from the realities of war. This before her were real, the death s and the loss of loved ones and friends, real. So many had come, so many had fallen never to breathe the air of their beloved worlds...

The station, the Heretic station as she had come to know came into view as her transport awaited it's turn to dock.
Karlie could make out one of the destroyers as Castan. it were among the few others that were leading the station away from Castagne. Her eyes made trail the direction...her planet's star. They were towing the station to scuttle it into the star. The pelting of debri against the transporter's hull came and went as she watched the station distant itself , getting smaller and smaller as it were being towed away.
She couldn't wish it burn in hell, for there were still many of the CIS fallen within whom had not been retrieved. Many allied bodies had been broken within the station, literally into many pieces. She couldn't wish them to burn in Hell, no.
Besides, it were the Castan sun, not hell... but light everlasting. A gift from Berkana, when She created the heavens and the earth.

She turned away from the diminishing station in the distance and returned to Rom's body.
"I wish I had known you more. I know we could have been good friends. You would have like the Castan sun on your skin, for it is warm. It always seems to bring me a smile. I know it would have made you smile too.
And the sea, Rom...the sea is as gentle and most times of the year as warm as the sun. Well almost. But sun and sea both together makes for a wondrous day.
I love the sea... I love the sun, I love the warm sands of the almost endless beaches.
I... gulp....
I wish we could have walked upon those beaches together. Wish we could have laid on the warm sands under the Castan sun. You would have like that, Rom. I know Vera liked it.
I will always remember you, you know. Remember you and Vera, always..."

The transporter suddenly were enveloped by light...they had finally entered the hangar.
Karlie stood up as the craft made contact with the deck. She were standing by her friend and would not leave her sight till she had Rom on the next available transport to Castagne.

 

[Ian Sade]

...on the smoldering deck of Castle Morpheus.

The silence upon his ascension to consciousness were like that of a man coming up from the deep to surface up to a stormy sea.
The roar of the fires, the alarms, sirens and men shouting to get some control of the hangar again suddenly came upon him like a wave crashing upon the rocks. Sade felt a tug, then a hand... shouts. No, words..command. Whatever they were, they were incoherent still, and his first reaction were to draw his weapon.
It were a futile attempt at best as Sade had no means of knowing whether he were right side or upside even.
The blaster were knocked out of his hand before he realized it. He were upside down. But it made no difference as he had drawn/reacted by instinct.

He would have been dead, if these were enemies. They were not, for he weren't dropped when his harness released.
It were as he were being pulled out of his wreckage that his brain started to put the puzzles together. That and the insignia on on of the personnel's armor.
Obsidian.

"Alright...
Alright!" Sade shouted, over the background noise to one of the knights.

"I'm Ok..." He then remembered where he had micro-jumped the SCX-3 to. He had made it to the deck of the Morpheus...somewhat. Well, that somewhat was still good, as he could have easily punched through the other side and come out shredded. No one micro-jumped to a hangar and were ever able to be identified other than by DNA stains.

"The craft!..." Sade tried to get up. Of course, his body had still to catch up to his will. For the moment, he couldn't and slipped back on his butt. The Morpheus knight were checking his person over.
"I followed the ship from the station..." He looked about the wrecked interior of the hangar...fires, deck teams using suppression foam...but no ship. Not the one he tried following inside, as he could remember it.
It were unique and nothing like anything here that were still intact.

"It left before we got to you."

"Left?...what do you mean, left? Who was on it? It came from the station!"

"Nine Lives... she was taken."

Sade had to reboot, do a double take as it sounded insane. How could the matriarch of this castle be taken ?..How were it possible for anyone to take Nine away with all of her forces on this fortress?

"Taken?...from here?" How could this be possible, if Nine had a formidable garrison of her own?
"Where were you?!" Sade went on to grab hold of the knight's lapel, as he forced his way off his butt.

"It were her orders. We could not interfere with the fight."

"Fight? Who were she fighting?" he steadied his self on his feet. His head still fighting him as his balance perception seemed to be still angled.

"A witch of some kind...her name has come up several times before, the Amalgam." he extended out his hand to stabilize Sade a moment.
"...and a sith mistress...a Darth Rigor." the knight then recalled. Sade's face dropped.
The knight's eyes wavered from Sade, as he knew this Castan could not understand the discipline it took not to engage his mistress' enemies.

No.
No, Sade could not understand.
It weren't the Castan way to let their beloved leaders fight such battles on their own, no matter the adversary. He himself would have disobeyed Tarssin's orders if it had been the same scenario, and deal with the consequences later. But this were Castle Morpheus and not Castagne.
But that were not what churned like a twister in his stomach. It were that name; Darth Rigor. The scourge of Castan's past had truly come to full circle again it seemed. Yes, Sade knew of her. He had been a young Lieutenant in the Castan Navy when that sith whore, first struck his beloved Castagne, plunging it into a near civil war.
And that sith was no other than Karlie's mother.

"Rigor...
So it's true then..." He didn't have to spell it out fully. His mind could well wrap around it fully now.

If Rigor had left the station, then she had to have left with her daughter Karlie.
But why...why would she come for Nine also?

"This fight..." If there had been some exchange of blows or blades...
Blades most likely, as Sade envisioned Nine with her katana. He never noticed Nine without. Chances were it were light-saber resistance to some degree, as records indicated Rigor preferred sabers. This fight could have lasted a good minute, if not more.

"...this fight between your Lady and this Rigor..." He didn't even bother inquiring about the Amalgam. Sade knew of her, as Nine had shared this with him. This Amalgam were only a tool for Rigor, and Castagne were not on the Amalgam's sight. This Amalgam were after something else by which only Rigor could provide her with.
Nine?
The Amalgam had wanted Nine all along. All this was for Nine? The attack on Castagne was to ultimately capture Nine then.

"My Lady had taken on both these two nemesis." the knight reminded him. "... and still we were forbidden to engage. It was my Lady's will."

Sade shook his head. He understood, but could not agree. This would not of been his way. Sade hadn't fully come to realize the differences between their two cultures. Although he had developed some trust and certainly respect for Nine. But this fight she just had was pure madness. How could her own knights obey such a command?

"Sigh...whatever... " He truly were at a loss.
"Tell me; you, someone, anyone here had the common sense to at least plant a tracking beacon-" Sade didn't need to finish.

The knight shook his head, no.
"They were Nine Live's orders."

Sade spoke no more, could do nothing at the moment but move away from the man and look out the bay.
Orders were orders here, he guessed.Out among the tapestry of stars he could see remnants of fighters and laser fire out in the distance expanse. Most likely they were on clean up duty... thinning out the orbiting battle debris so as to have it all incinerate upon forced re-entry.

"Orders..." he repeated to himself, still unable to wrap his head around the fight, they allowed Nine's adversary win.
The ship he had chased from the Heretic Station to here had long jumped, with both Nine and Karlie, Sade came to figure. But with no tracking beacon, there were no way possible to know where that ship were heading. And it didn't matter if it's trajectory were recorded, if even they did that on the Morpheus. The ship would re-angle several times. It were what he would do as standard procedure, even in peaceful times.

"Sir?... " The knight at this point had no immediate orders as to contingency plans in case Nine were defeated and captured, as the case seemed to stand.

Sade remained there looking out the void of space...thinking...figuring...calculating...
It suddenly made sense. The Amalgam had used Karlie as bait to hook Rigor. The Amalgam then helped Rigor capture Karlie so that Rigor would help the Amalgam capture Nine.
All this had been for Nine.
So it were as how the sith mind worked. Plans within plans...no matter how long it took or the amount of resources laid to waste.
Berkana, he so despised these siths...

Sade finally turned to the Morpheus Knight, gauging him over a minute. This knight were among one of the many here to be reckoned with. Shame that Nine didn't tap into their full potential...she would still be here and so would Karlie...maybe.

"We're getting your Lady back!" He then said. Sade's eyes had conviction. As thus, the Morpheus knight saw this and came to full attention.
Sade knew that he alone couldn't find Karlie. And he couldn't tap into Castagne's already taxed forces..they were still engaged in cleaning up the walking dead planet side.
But here were an entire army, an assembly of knights he figured could well rival his best marines...and they were currently on a holding pattern.
Then there were those androids...

Sade were not one to sit anything out.
"Who's left that follows Nine Lives in command?"

 

[Vera Mina]

Eventually the time came for "Rom's remains to be taken from Karlie Lynn Destat and to be transported to Castagne for funeral rites.

A special shuttle had been called specifically for this. The body bag that contained her (which sloshed around on the inside as it was moved in a horrifically nauseating manner.) was treated as respectfully as possible, especially given the circumstances and who the person in question had been friends with.

That being said, the Morgue it was sent to had immediately contacted The IBI upon receiving the body, once it was determined it wasn't truly organic. After all, no intelligence agency could resist the chance to examine what seemed to be a military grade android.

Samples had been cut from the skin, muscles, and skeleton, as well as blood samples. Parts of the dress had been x-rayed. The skull had been left alone. That required a more delicate operation to try and retrieve what appeared to be the processors within the brain.

The basic schematics had been scanned but it was no more than a cursory analysis at best.

The Mortician, a young male Castagne man with tanned skin and dark hair in a black labcoat had never seen anything like it. He had tended to some bad bodies and such but this poor creature had been torn apart in her final duel, vicious gashes everywhere. The dress was remarkably intact however. He had cleaned the gore off the body and then stashed it in one of the corpse storage chambers. He had sent the samples with a protocol droid ahead of time.

He had not been near the worst hit areas...he lived in the countryside. But his wife had been in the city when the pylons hit. She had been confirmed dead for hours. He had just gotten her body into a chamber in fact. That's two women whose troubles were over. He'd spent the next hour drinking in his office.

It wasn't until he had nearly fallen asleep that he had heard a clattering. He pulled out an old laser pistol, still stumbling drunk, in mourning still, and clutching a photo of his now dead wife. Had the IBI unit just arrived?

It was dark in the storage unit area as he crept in, and realized Rom's unit had been opened. Kicked open.

From the inside.

Realizing he was in an old school horror scenario rapidly raised his adrenaline. He started panicking, twisting around in the dark.

A dark blue, muscular, yet feminine hand caught the arm holding the pistol and he froze, slowly turning to face red eyes in the dark and white, grinning teeth, partly covered by crimson hair.

The drunk mortician went pale when he saw the beautiful woman's skin start to wriggle everywhere like their were rats underneath.

The previous battle had taxed it greatly. It needed to feed now or it would start to mutate.

It grabbed him by the throat, forcing him against the wall. His blood was full of poison. But her body could process that out. It was for the best. If she mutated no one would be safe.

Her jaw begin to the elongate along with the rest of her arms and legs. The Mortician was too terrified to even scream. Her skin still would not stop wriggling like a hive for maggots.

Her teeth begin to sharpen as the mutations went further. He was now deathly white.

Red eyes caught the photo he was holding. That of a young, pretty blond woman not unlike her Karlie.

The near ravenous beast had a sliver of something approaching pity.

"Tell meeeee..." the beast hissed. Its blue skin was starting to turn black.

"Do you wish to ssssssurvive my emmmbraaacee...?"

"Yes." The Mortician's response was a whisper.

"Good..." the mutating biot said. Minutes from losing complete self control. "Where do you keeeeeep the bloood...."

He wordlessly pointed to a cabinet where the blood drained from fresh corpses for disposal was kept.

He was dropped to the ground, in shock as it ripped open the doors and ravenously tore into bags of blood, engorging itself...it was in poor condition and she did not obtain as much nourishment as she otherwise might have from a live body. But it had bought her a few hours. She was starting to recognize Castagne writing and realized if she killed anyone here and it was discovered she had killed them, it would make it impossible to be with Karlie in this guise.

Her flesh stopped wriggling as the mutations reversed themselves.

She exited the storage area. The Mortician was still where she had dropped him, still in frozen, pale shock. She only smirked at him a little.

"If anyone asks...tell them someone broke in dear. Make up whatever story you like..." The Biot encouraged, slipping the the gloves and boots off the severed limbs it had regrown, slipping them on and fleeing.

When the IBI agents arrived a half hour later, they found the mortician catatonic from shock and unable to remember anything or even mutter anything intelligible. He just wordlessly pointed to the storage chamber where he had kept the corpse. There was no sign of Karlie's dead friend.

However, despite having made her escape the biot knew the next few hours trying to make it off Castagne would be a source of headache, not the least of which that it was cut off from support. To say nothing of the samples surely on their way to IBI intelligence.

It went for a route into the deeper city. With the heavy damage the city sustained, there was bound to be some place too dangerous for Organics to go willingly. At least she could find some place private...

Meanwhile...

At Ian's question of who was the current highest ranking officer aboard, the single most advanced Android Nine Lives had, more advanced then Vera herself due to having no electronic or mechanical parts whatsoever lurched into the hangar, limping, heavily damaged. Most of its skin burned off, half its skeleton exposed near the face, leaking bright red glowing blood as it lurched forward to the gathering. Castle Morpheus had sustained Massive bombardment that had tanked sixty percent of the pylons fired from Heretic station. It had been a costly sacrifice.

"I am the highest ranking member aboard..." the biot gurgled. "Castle Morpheus sustained heavy damage. All systems are compromised. Forty five percent of the crew are dead. We lost many of our knights. One of the pylons pierced our hull and we had to resort to disruptors to prevent the reanimation of our dead. Repair drones and astromechs could barely dislodge it. And given Rigor's own necromantic skill, Mother could not bare the possibility of having to cut down her own if she brought us to aid her and Rigor killed and reanimated us to fight Nine." The creature explained, its blood loss ceasing, muscles knitting themselves back together and flesh and hair regrowing. But it still looked half mutilated.

"Nine is not a fool however. She knows The Amalgam has espionage training. Bugs would be too obvious. Nine enchanted herself however. The Amalgam has expertise in magic, but Nine is gambling on the idea she is not as familiar with Atrisian Shinobi Magic as she is with Dathomir systems..."

The wounds had fully sealed and it was clear that the tissue of the artificial creature was capable of mimicking clothing, for it resembled an extremely curvy, if athletic woman with very brown skin and dark hair tied in a bun, wearing a skintight yellow and black leotard with matching gloves and boots.

"An enchanted parchment Nine left us indicates they may be headed to the Dagobah System. But we have another problem. The Amalgam has her own defenders. Highly skilled Special Ops soldiers known as The Moon Marines known to scout and shadow her movements. If Dagobah is a stronghold you can be certain she will be heavily guarded..." The Biot trailed, blinking brown eyes at him.

"Our hyperdrive barely made it through intact. It will be hours, days even before the Ship A.I. determines it will be safe for a hyperdrive jump. We are stuck in your system for the time being."

One of the knights handed him a datapad. It contained more recently obtained intel.

"She has two arch-enemies. One of them is a bounty hunter named Maple Harte. The other is a traveling magician by the name of Laertia Io. Both are extremely deadly ex-Jedi Shadows. You might want to locate them. They'll want in on this."

"That's about the best we can do for now, I'm afraid. The ship is just in no condition to conduct the search at the moment." The Android explained, not giving her name. "We must tend to your injuries however. Come with us."

 

[Ian Sade]

The ICI agent's hologram flickered, barely keeping itself intact.

Sade was transmitting from one of the local hubs in the hangar. His injuries still unattended to, despite the Morpheus' stand in commander's offer to have his wounds addressed. The Colonel had priorities and first in line were to make contact with the Viceroy, Karlie's father.

Ian Sade 's apology in not being able to infiltrate the Heretic station's defenses, were understood by Tarssin. The Viceroy along with his standing cabinet had received enough intelligence report from the field of the security hack that had targeted their defenses and offenses. It had been an inside job, a sleeper virus that had been seeded over a decade ago by none other than Darth Rigor's minions, if not herself.

The only positive news by which Tarssin Destat had for Sade was that his daughter Karlie had been reported and confirmed to be in safe custody and on route back to Castagne. This took a bit of the edge off the Colonel, for he had never failed Tarssin when it came to his daughter.
"Good.
Now about the security breech. Sir we-" But before he could finish, Tarssin cut him off.

"That's not our immediate concern at this point in time, Colonel. General Boriskno Fel Set has been put to the task of Burnwipe as we speak. " Of course it were all Tarssin spoke of this matter for they were transmitting openly, despite the frequency being coded and scrambled.

"I understand."
Sade nevertheless were not relieved, for the fact remained that a sleeper virus within their military infrastructure should have been unearthed. How in Hell's Inferno had such a virus been able to worm itself through so many upgrades and system diagnostics through the years...?

It were assumed all communications and electronic devices were compromised. What stood to be understood between the two men were just catchphrases like Burnwipe that lead to contingency operations. Burnwipe meant that everything electronic and attached programs would be burned, trashed and new unadulterated hardware and programs would be implemented, started from scratch.
This however would put Castagne itself under extreme vulnerability till the new systems came up. Castane's military and defenses would be more vulnerable than before for they would be under contingency operations, meaning all units, battalions and military would have to locally operate without central command.

"I understand." he repeated again.
Sade's head dropped a moment, in despair. His hologram still flickering.

Sade knew it put Castagne in a vulnerable position among the chaotic galaxy. Sure they had formed an agreement with the CIS and Castagne currently stood as one of their states. But the underlying element was that it were a sith that stood over the CIS and this sith according to Castan Intelligence had a silent pact with TSE. Of all the sectors and systems the CIS unduly pressed through in the name of freedom, not one TSE system were touched. Then of course the intelligence gathered on an impending conglomerate, a galaxy split in two, by none other than the two sith emperors...
Castagne could ill afford to be this vulnerable.

"Colonel, the clean up process down here are currently underway and in an exponentially positive turn since the bombardments have ceased. Your main objective right now is to locate this abomination and it's creator (Rigor and The Amalgam).
This plague that has been eating at our side must be eradicated." Tarssin said, meaning his ex-wife.
Of course, Tarssin knew if it were indeed a resurrected Rigor and not just a cheap knockoff doppelganger, then it were more than his Colonel could handle. The Colonel would need help, most likely from him.

Tarssin had been warned by Nine Lives about The Amalgam and of the possible resurrection of Rigor. And yes, he still possessed the Graverobber's end, as Nine had suspected and hoped. It were well hidden, but easy enough for him to retrieve it. It could be their last resort.. their only resort, if they were to end it once and for all.

Tarssin silently cussed his self for not totally decimating Karla when he had been given that moment. But his heart, his hand wavered even as he plunged the crimson blade through her abdomen. It had been the hardest thing he had ever done. The instant it seared through her body he deactivated it, with his beloved falling to her knees, but not before he caught her in his arms.
Hindsight, he should have continued to run the blade up her torso, through her heart and split her in two. But his heart could only have bared to end her life, not destroy the very temple (Karla) he still loved. Yes, his heart felt no pain like it did the moment his blade ran her through. As his beloved's last breath exhaled in his arms, he had contemplated reactivating the Graverobber's End through his own heart, it pained him so. But Karla's last uttered breath were of their daughter 'Karlie...' before life left her temple.
Tarssin held his beloved dead in his arms. Tears burned down his features and there they found him, hours later...still on his knees, with the body of Rigor held preciously in his arms...

Big mistake.
Following one's heart always leads to disaster.

Deep inside Tarssin knew he should have decimated her body into a million pieces with the Graverobber's End, then and set it all ablaze in a plasma furnace while exorcising Rigor's damned spirit from the flames as the priests had urged him to do.
But at the time he could not come to destroy her temple as such. Tarssin had never stopped loving Karla. If it weren't for his strong will overcoming his heart, he would have fallen into her darkness. His sacrifice for Castagne were to end what he loved dearly. It wasn't to say that Tarssin hadn't exhausted all avenues in trying to save his beloved Karla from becoming Rigor. But upon final realization that Rigor could never be, nor really never was his Karla, he thrust the Graverobber in a final confrontational duel into her abdomen (yes, like Qui-Gon received). Only Tarssin never completed the full act of decimating Rigor's current body with the blade as he were instructed.
What later followed in a private and secluded funeral rite, was the cremation of her temple (body) in a traditional Castan funeral pyre. He cremated her as he would have if Karla had died as his beloved wife and loving mother of their daughter.

Tarssin never shared this with anyone but the force entity that had given him the means to end Rigor at the time...the one whom had given him the means with the Graverobber's End. Sade, nor anyone on Castagne knew how Rigor's body had been disposed of.

Here he was now, over a decade later and paying the price of his love for that sith witch.
And of the years his own daughter suffered? That too his personal price in his own living hell.
But he could not change the past, only secure the presence. This Rigor, whether it were the resurrection of his once beloved or not; it had to be destroyed once and for all.

A minute had passed unbeknownst even to Tarssin as he recalled in memory that day, that hour, that very minute he thrust that saber into the woman he loved. Realizing he had a moment, Tarssin's focus came back to Sade.
"You look worst for wear up there, Colonel... what's our friend's status?" Tarssin were speaking of Castle Morpheus, namely their Ally Nine Lives .

"My person's still fully operable, sir." he replied of his condition, despite the pain in his head and neck.
"Nine Lives..." Sade almost bit his lip. His second failure.
"She's been taken...." His hologram continued to flicker, as Castle Morpheus' crew struggled with getting the ship back into full operation.

Taking a deep breath, Sade then paraphrased the fats as he knew it, as he had received it from Nine's top cyborg which had now assumed command of Castle Morpheus. Tarssin's only true ally (Nine Lives) had been taken by no other than whatever this Rigor abomination was and the witch called The Amalgam .

There was no arguing that Tarssin was disappointing in learning this.
Still, there was some spark of hope that Nine had not been killed for she were taken. That meant her captures had other plans.
"This Maple Harte ...." Tarssin's hologram were seen looking down and over to his left a moment before turning his attention back to Sade.
"...she's this Amalgam's nemesis you say..."Tarssin's attention were certainly on some data he were looking over to his left.

"It's what I have been able to gather at the moment sir..." Sade were meaning that he personally wasn't positive if the facts he were given were viable.

" Well, seems this Miss Harte does exist... " Tarssins brow were lifted. He seemed to have something on this Maple heart that he were reading over.
"...and same of this Laertia Io ."

"What are your orders, sir?"

"Follow your leads, Colonel."

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Karlie watched as both Castan SDs and that of the Confederate coalition guided the culprit attack platform into the Castan sun. They had towed it from Castagne using several tractor beams from the destroyers, getting it close enough for the star's gravity to take hold of it and draw it down to consume it entirely.
It had been a tactical decision to scuttle it into the system's star as the station most likely harbored biological compounds and unknown viral weaponry. The reanimation of the dead by which it had used to attach Castagne attributed to that very fact.
The decision to incinerate it had been a unanimous decision by both Castagne's Cabinetry and that of the Vicelord Darth Metus.

She were monitoring the doomed platform from her office at the IBI bureau. It were being rendered in hologram just above her desk. Tear streaks were running down again, taking the same path as the previous tears. But these tears were not for the station, rather they were for the two most distinguished women-...er wait, only one was human-
Karlie paused a moment.
Oh Hell that! Rom was more human than most humans!
She grieved her two best friends, two of the most beautiful distinguished women she knew! It didn't matter that Rom Jin was a biot. Rom was just a heartbreak loss as her Vera. Both had always watched out for her despite her being very difficult to deal with..in the beginning.

Her tears were justified and she remained watching the platform by which it were ominously named Heretic Station get pulled into Castagne's sun's atmosphere the corona, lighting the station like it were a blinding flare-

"Oh shiet!" Karlie's wet soaked eyes bugged out for a minute as THAT was a solar flare rising up from the star.
Her eyes immediately went over the data and up came the alerts to Castagne to expect some momentary power surges. It had been calculated that it would most likely draw up a solar flare due to the station's own gravity well., as she now read the data and alerts.
"Whew.." She were relieved. For a minute she thought 'What else could happen?!', as Castagne and everyone already had been through enough, not to mention her loss of two besties...best of best friends.
Still, many on Castagne including the coalition, the many that came to their aid from the Confederacy had taken on many losses. She were not alone.

The sun flare looked like an arm that had reached up and grabbed the glowing fiery station and dragged it down to inferno hell where it belonged.
It was finally over. At least this phase of the ordeal. The ensuing clean ups were still underway and it would most likely go on for another few weeks before all of the damage the station, her freakin mother-

Berkana (God) why didn't- sigh- why couldn't she hate her mother like she could and should? Why, why?!... It was torment. Torment in light of the fact that Vera and Rom, not to mention the hordes of Castans died on account of that witch! Why did she feel for that horrid woman like she did? Were it because she were now alone again? Alone without her Vera. Alone without her friend Rom...
No.
No it weren't that.
Karlie had no real hate in her heart. Not enough anger to want anyone dead. She suddenly realized this in liu of the fact of the current events that had transpired around her and directly affecting her.

The hologram before her came to it's conclusion...the Heretic Station had burned up even before it got anywhere near the surface of the Castan sun. It had particle-ized to become light itself when it plunged through the sun's atmosphere.
The Castan SDs along with the Confederacy ships that had towed it, had remained in distant orbit recording what she were seeing in her office. They were now returning.
Karlie flicked off the hologram...it were over.

Beep Beep
Her office com sounded off.

Karlie ignored it. She weren't in any mood, let alone in a mental state to answer..whom ever it was.

Beep Beep
It went off again.
Karlie ignored it, closing her eyes thinking of how both Vera and Rom sacrificed their lives in protecting her. Vera had been blown up during her kidnapping and Rom-
No, no, she couldn't do this. Couldn't think as to how both had died. and they had died because of her...because of a mother she just couldn't come to hate enough to wish her dead, again.

"Momy..." a faint murmur escaped her, before-

Beep Beep Beep Beep
Seriously, again?... she thought.
This is an emergency brake through... It announced.

"Uhg... fine" Why couldn't they just leave her alone? "What is it?!"

"Miss Lynn, please report to the IBI coroner's office. STAT." A female voice, announced.

"I'm busy!" Karlie grunted back.

"Miss Lynn, report to the office NOW!"

Whoa!
WTF, did this fluzzy know who she were addressing?! 'NOW', she were told 'Now'?!?...whomever it were were demanding she report to the coroner 'NOW'?
What in all of heaven could be so important as to disturb a grieving woman? Karlie had already gotten word from her father, upon her landing back planet side that Ian was on the Castle Morpheus...so what could be so important at this moment that she HAD to go to the coroner's office, for Palpy's sake?!

"Who is this? What's your operating number?!" Karlie irately asked. ( )

~ ~ ~ ~​

Down at the IBI forensic security office.... er, 40 minutes later as to allot for refresher break...eye, face touch up etc...

"Ok.... what am I supposed to be looking at, that pulled me off an important case?" Hey, the morons didn't have privi of her cases anyway. Besides, she didn't want to be here, not even be here at the bureau with all her friends dead. Ok, so Boriskno and sade were still reported alive. But wouldn't they? Those two yahoos never got killed.

"A moment Agent Lynn... " one of the bureau's officers who had lead her to the hologram display initiated the recordings.
"The multi holovid cam recordings have been pieced together in a string, to show optimal viewing." He went on to explain. Karlie rolled her eyes. How long was this going to take? Karlie knew she should have left the building once she let her father know she were safe.
"That's Hyue Greet..." the officer started to point out. Was this guy serious? Karlie had nearly lived down here for 3 months during her internship, dissecting cadavers- Sigh... well, she didn't want to think about that now.

"Yes yes, our Forensic Pathologist, I know who he is..." Karlie sighed, already impatient as to why in the hell they needed her here. Didn't these morons know she were going to go over the findings on the reanimated dead when she got back on track...maybe tomorrow or next week. Berkana she needed to clear her head, go and sleep for awhile, escape to her bungalow and just be.

"Wait,.... back it up a sec-" Karlie waved her hand through the hologram, backing the scene up a few seconds.
"That's...that's my friend Rom Jin's drawer-" She could read the display.

"Gasp...
Oh my God!" Her mouth dropped, both from shock and exhilaration, but not before jumping back as the hologram was high def. Whatever form her previously though dead biot friend Ron had taken now... although disgusting... it nevertheless pinned her focus on the creature.

"YES!!" Karlie were so fixated on the biot having regenerated...yes, she knew about regeneration... she missed poor Hyue wetting his trousers and making a puddle on the floor as the biot were about to chew the man's face off.
"Ewww!" She didn't see that coming, as the biot was about to-..to...shoot, what was the biot gona do...eat the guy?...seriously?
Ok, well maybe it needed substance, she started to figure...you know, proteins to help it regenerate? Still, poor poor Hyue, Karlie were getting a bit distraught as to what she figured was going to happen. Like, the poor man didn't deserve to be eaten alive like that...but hey, who were she to judge? Maybe she could live with that.
Uhm, yes...yes, she'd have too. Rom was her friend after all.

"Shiet!" Karlie turned away, eyes tightly shut so as not to witness the atrocity.

A second goes by..then nearly a minute as the scene continues to play out in front of tightly closed eyes Karlie....cupping her ears too, by the way.

"Ahem...Miss Lynn." The IBI officer nudged her to remove a hand from her ear.

"Is...is it over?" She asked, not daring to look.

"Uhm.... Corroner Greet wasn't harmed, Miss Lynn."

"Huh, what?" One eye peeped open.
"No?" A bit of dissapointment in her voice. Not that she wanted the poor man dead, but she had already written him off in her mind as a goner for sure.
"Oh...good.
I mean, YAY for Hyue then..." Descent recovery on her part, little fist pump added. "Ahem.." They weren't buying it nor were interested if Hyue had gotten his face bitten off or not.

The biot, er rather the regenerating Rom, was at the scene of gobbling up the blood samples, when she did dare open her eyes to look. Hyue was sitting on the wet floor with his back against the freezer boxes seemingly in shock. Yep, Karlie then caught the urine puddle he were sitting on, before moving back over to the creature feasting on the blood bags.

"Oooo, that's nasty. Would have opted for some fresh stuff... But okay, lets get to the end here" Karlie waved her hand through the hologram fast forwarding it. Karlie wanted to know where Rom, of the regenerating Rom was currently.
"W...where is the rest? Where did she go?" the hologram ended with the creature leaving the forensic labs.

"She, Miss Lynn?" The officer curiously asked her. Had he missed something which indicated it were not a psychotic looking military android regenerating? Yes, he were IBI and had privi of such tech knowledge...almost as much as Karlie. Although he were a moron in her eyes.

"Yes, she, it, whatever! Where did she go?" Karlie demanded.

"We lost track of it-" And so on and so on with his lame excuse as to him, nor the bureau knew where the biot had escaped to.

"Ugh...
Why?..." Karlie threw up her hands as she started to part company. "Why, am I always surrounded by morons?"
And with that she left the coroner's office. She were going to track down her friend, despite her coming back like she did. Still, it were Rom Jin, her friend. So what she were a cyborg that drank the blood of the dead? Karlie figured they'd work it through some how. Well, mostly on her part..

"Ugh....disgusting..." She said out loud as she left the building entirely. Yes, she'd have to somehow work through this portion of her friend's unorthodox palate.



Vera Mina