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Rurik charged forward, channeling the way of the Vornskr in each vicious swipe of the saber. The Shaper attacked back in a dervish, a dance all his own in Makashi. In keeping the Shaper wholly occupied in his assault, moving with frigid brutality in each blow trained on the man. A swipe reared toward his thigh and Rurik raised the blade to deflect it, pulling the ire away from his form the argent gaze bared down unto Arctus. He used the respite to utilize his able hand, the sole organic vessel by which he could channel the force.
And he willed the telekinetic fury to rip him away from the Lord Executor so that Kainan's trickery could fully reap the whirlwind, his automaton servants now aiming down the sights of their master. A perfect stroke to begin the engagement by the Knights, to not only negate any level of threat the droids brought but to an even reversal.
He then willed his grip in the force around one of the droids, grasping it through the ethereal will before closing the splayed hand into a fist, crushing the metal in on itself. Holding the ball of scrap suspended in the air he flung it in the direction of the Sith before following the projectile with a surge forward his own, to lunge his argent blade toward the abdomen of the Shaper. Anything to throw him from his spot, jostle his concentration. Such was Rurik's doctrine, to make the Sith uncertain of their own power and ability in the battle, compounded more so as he channeled Vaapad to utilize the Darkness against them all the same.
Inferno pierced flesh when she seared the abomination. Elpsis could feel the sheering heat when the flames encroached upon them. Already she could feel her armour being singed. But she did not fear the flames. She was a part of them. But there was no time for a moment of elation. The abomination was wounded, but the iron grip around her throat did not falter. Blood dripped from her trapezius, and her wound hurt. And she had made the abomination mad.
Elpsis' lightsabre had probably not penetrated deeply enough to strike anything truly vital...but many beings would relent for a bit and be in grievous pain after a lightsabre strike. However, the creature did not keep purchase upon her throat and arise, it hurled her like a ragdoll. This was no simple beast of the sort that was regularly churned out by Sith laboratories en masse.
Elpsis had been trained by her mother. Said training had involved a lot of ragdolling - and a lot of breaking. Siobhan was not the type to pull her punches when sparring with her daughter. All this meant was that she was used to immense blunt force trauma.
And so she braced herself when she was flung through the air. All the same, it hurt like hell when she was slammed into a wall and landed hard on the ground. She heard and felt cracking inside her chest, the tell-tale sign of broken ribs. For a moment, she was out, feeling disorientated and stunned. Blood dripped down her forehead. If her helmet had had a visor, it would have been painted scarlet.
White-hot pain shot through her chest and shoulder. Get up. Pain was weakness leaving the body, as her mother liked to say. Her blade was close, but she had lost purchase on it. It hurt to move her head or move her arm much, but she rallied. For now, the bug-like creatures seemed to have been deterred by her wave of fire, but this would not last.
Milky-white eyes focused on her quarry, in all its feral glory. There was pain, but she grabbed ahold of her rifle, the Advanced Dual Weapon System. With its ergonomic design, she did not need to use both hands to wield it. She squeezed the trigger and fired a burst of high-calibre slugthrower rounds - each with enough kinetic force to mess up foes in tanky armour. Driven by her will and her power, scalding flames swept towards the Sithspawn woman.
xxx
The turbolift's door had closed, and it shot upward. The last thing Nyssa had seen were flames shooting in all directions. Her jaw tightened. Her sulfuric yellow eyes burnt with anger.
"Uh, ma'am," Tahoka said a bit timidly, as if afraid the Pureblood would direct her fury towards her.
"The GA goons better be worth it," Nyssa spat coldly. "Or I'll make them regret their cowardice."
"Me, too," Rhea affirmed.
"The mission first. So let's focus on getting there, shall we?" Vagt grunted rhetorically.
"And getting out," Nuroch muttered to himself.
Nyssa shot the Bothan an icy glare, but said nothing as professionalism took her. She gazed at Zhaleh, seeing the burn marks. Shikoba was tending to them with and the Qadiri had countered the burns with her ice magic. "You up for it, Bear?"
"I'm fit to fight, ma'am." Her voice sounded pained, but resolute.
"You're in pain. Channel it into anger - into power," the Pureblood declared. "All of you, stick close to your battle sibling. Kill anything that gets in our way."
Shikoba had closed her eyes. They flared when she opened them. "I sense creatures. Many. They have our scent."
"Good," Rhea spoke grimly, blade ready.
"Squid boy," Nyssa addressed Nuroch, "you can mess with their minds." It was a statement, not a question. Or rather an order. He nodded curtly.
"I'll hit them with a barrier," Diona added.
"Fire." That was Celaena, the Eldorai pyromancer of the squad. Reverence stoically loaded a fresh power pack into her repeating blaster, while Sienn levelled her rifle at the door. The turbolift came to a halt, the doors opened and the mayhem began.
Moirai leaped backwards, just in time to avoid the two tables that were intending to strike her. The impact sent the metal frames crumpling into each other, but before gravity could drag them down, they were hung in the air. The Zabrak flickered her hand and sent the metal mass straight at Sardun.
It resulted in very little, as the Lord’s sheer momentum saw it knocked away as he lunged towards her with his hammer. A weapon that Moirai hadn’t fought against commonly, but one that always made for an interesting fight when wielded by one who knew how to use it effectively.
Though she was more of a scalpel, compared to Sardun’s hammer.
As he closed in, swinging his weapon down from above. Moirai deftly dodged to the side, body pirouetting around his side. Through the momentum, she swung her blades against the golden armour. It did little, not even a scratch, but it didn’t deter the masked Sith.
No, she was looking for the chinks in the armour.
“Those that follow the Light are puppets, being pulled along like little marionettes. And it’ll string along your body even as it's decomposing.”
Moirai attempted another few slashes of her blades, while dodging the swings and slams aimed in her direction. Only when one got close to crushing her leg, did she flip backwards and create some distance.
In that moment though she felt something, almost like screams coming from the planet below. Moirai had no line of communication down there, no way knowing what had happened. But she could feel it.
Death and destruction.
And the Dark Side swelled within it.
“You forget, Lord of Light. Shadows are cast because of light. So what does that make of your little crusade, hm?” Moirai shifted into a stance, ready for whatever his next attack would be. “As long as Light remains, it will always be met with Darkness. Until we spread across the galaxy, conflict will always arise.”
Masters San Tekka and Asmundr Varobalder
joined minds. Both were living conduits for the light. Dawn's glow stretched across the Central District, preparing to do battle with the dark. Hope briefly flickered through the hearts of the besieged Galactic Alliance ranks. Then a metal leviathan carved its way out of hyperspace above them. The Behemoth opened its gaping maw, and rained down fiery destruction from its dreadnought arsenal. Just like the images of Thyferra.
He felt their light wane even as the hope they drew upon began slipping away. Already weakened city shields could only sustain so much before the relentless bombardment began to penetrate, cutting indiscriminately through those unfortunate enough to stand outside a protective barrier or other cover. Many innocents were still cut off from evacuation by either side, or had been convinced to stay and fight for their home. Some remained believing the Alliance evacuation was their last best chance at escaping the hellscape Ziost had quickly become. None were completely spared.
Look to the Force and you will find each other again.
Zark knew that the devastation would impact Asmundr even more. Prosperity's Oracle was extremely empathic. So much senseless death and grief. So much reckless hate. Everything seemed lost. Their crusade destined to become just another one of history's echoes. Master San Tekka would not accept it. The Force had raised him from perdition for a reason. All of this was happening for a reason. His trust in the Force was absolute. His faith in the Light could not be shaken.
"Jedi are a promise."
If he could not draw on hope, the Jedi Master would draw on resolve. All around them Galactic Alliance marines and New Imperial stormtroopers held their ground even in the face of annihilation. Belief in their cause and love for their comrades drove them to unbelievable heroics as well as unimaginable acts of sacrifice. He allowed the hate and despair and horrific loss around them to fade away and hoped his words provided Asmundr with enough comfort to do so as well. The very planet would break before their crusade.
STAND AS ONE, his thoughts boomed out into the city like a thunderclap, FOR THE ALLIANCE.
So deep in meditation that they were nearly one mind, Zark barely needed to explain his plan. Just before the ritual storm conjured by Taeli Raaf
crashed against their aura of harmony the two Jedi Masters reached out and pushed with all their strength. Breaking such powerful Sith sorcery on a world vergent with the darkside had always been a faint hope. Redirecting that ritual however...maybe even setting the storm on a near enough collision course with the Sith dreadnought keeping station in the upper atmosphere...that he believed was within their power. (Sith Dominance)
The Day of Eradication had come and gone. But, much to the chagrin of the Sith Empire, it happened long before the present moment. It wasn’t the coming of the Behemoth that sealed the fate of the people of New Adasta, nor was it the sudden and inexplicable revelation that played through the ranks of the Sith-Imperial army. Those events were merely proverbial icing on the cake of destruction and desolation. The event that consigned the peoples of Ziost to damnation was perpetrated by none other than Lord Vulcanus themselves. It was by their decree that the City of New Adasta was put to the torch. The orbital platforms turned the metropolis’ streets into an unadulterated hellscape, where pathways were stitched with impact craters and scattered remnants of those once loyal to the Empire entire. However, when the Graug were unleashed, the scenario became all the more harrowing.
Those Sith-wrought aberrations tore through enemy combatants and loyalists alike. They cared not from whence the blood flowed, so long as an orgy of violence accompanied it. It was something that the populace had only seen in state-issued propaganda, where the weakness was purged from a planet’s surface - should they defy the coming of the Sith and their Empire. But, the people were loyal subjects. While many would consider them to be nothing more than zealots and ‘printed’ personalities, they were still innocent people that lived beneath the Sith-Imperial banner. They were to be defended by these monsters - yet - here they were, being slaughtered in droves for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
With both of those aspects coupled together, there were admittedly few who could continue to believe that this iteration of the Sith Empire were the rightful rulers of Ziost. Those that remained behind had their beliefs shattered in the face of such an unrivalled atrocity, leaving them as nothing more than broken shells; hollowed out by the revelation. Their lives were torn asunder in ways that they couldn’t have imagined. Everything they had built over their many years of service was destroyed and scattered to the winds before their very eyes. Even those blinded by consistent half-baked lies couldn’t deny the truth when they bore witness to the madness themselves. They were living reminders of the evils that unfolded during the Day of Eradication, and they were tired of fighting for a lost cause.
During the initial phases of the Alliance’s occupation of the City, there was resistance. However, it never grew larger than handfuls of malcontents still believing in the merits of their programmed insanity. Despite the untold destruction that was wrought, these people still fervently believed that the Alliance was the cause. The Alliance was at fault! Without them, such an unrivalled act of Genocide would’ve never transpired. While some would consider that to be true, everyone else knew it was false. The Alliance wasn’t the one to pull the trigger or command the Graug. They were the ones fighting for the people - putting aside their personal safety to ensure their survival in the face of this unbridled chaos.
The enforced perception of the Alliance and their Marines, brought about by senseless tirades of monotonous fearmongering, was shattered at that very moment.
The people never saw the Alliance as their saviours. They were still an invading military force and were kept at arm’s length with looks of disgust and distrust. However, those citizens weren’t in a position to refuse the services that these Invaders sought to render, free of charge. These Marines offered to break bread with these people and share what supplies they had. They even treated the sick and healed the wounded without asking for anything in return. It grew ever-harder to see these Invaders as hostile, as they kept putting themselves out there to help those affected by the battle. Perhaps, some thought, that these Devils weren’t bad after all. They seemingly cared about the people their war with the Sith affected, and they didn’t care if they were seen as nothing more than zealots or clones. To the marines of the Alliance? They were simply people in need of assistance, nothing more - nothing less.
It seemed that the Sith Empire was the only one that wanted that difference to be made abundantly clear. They were merely cattle to be fed to the slaughterhouse to keep the wheels of their seemingly inexhaustible war machine turning. Thus, it wasn’t surprising that those ‘preachers’ were struck down in the streets. The Sith Empire demanded that they fight - but what had their loyalty bought them? New Adasta was nothing more than a ruin, now. Hundreds upon thousands were dead. Their fervent commitment bought them nothing but agony and grief. At least, with the Alliance, they offered to feed what remained of their families, sheltered them, and made a promise to get them as far away from the fighting as they could.
At least with the Alliance, there was a promise and possibility of a future.
"The capacitor's fried," Captain Moina Kale stated as she threw her hydrospanner to the ground. In the wake of the Sith Imperial shelling that began carpeting the Outer Districts, the Major tasked her and her team of Combat Engineers with the seemingly impossible. There was no way they could've fully repaired the shield generator's damage during the First Battle of Ziost. A magnetically-accelerated round cracked the planet's crust near the People's Tower base that sent a kinetic shockwave through the foundations. While the supports held out in the end, stopping the Tower from cascading down, the delicate circuitry in the generator couldn't take the stress.
"I'm going to need to get a duplicator and a nano-forge down here. There's no way I can restore full power without a week, but at least with some new components - I can bring this hunk-of-junk back online." She was tired and stressed. The fatigue of war was a heavy burden to bear, and through her voice alone - one could tell that it was starting to whittle down her patience. And, to be true, who could blame her? Her Company alone logged almost an entire month of reconstruction and fortification as they reshaped New Adasta in the face of a renewed Sith assault. Many sleepless nights were spent hacking away at the ground with their entrenching tools. They made trenches for their fellow troopers or excavated the landscape to free up the roads for evacuation transports.
That wasn't even mentioning the amount of jury-rigging and modifications they made to the various articles of Sith-Imperial tech. Moina couldn't even remember how many times she had to splice a dozen connectors to a single junction to make a turret thrum with artificial life. Let alone have those very same turrets open fire against the enemy.
Captain Kale slapped the generator's exposed housing with a meaty slap. There would be no lasting damage to the massive device, but the woman wanted to vent her frustrations. All that deed had given her was a stinging sensation in her unarmoured palm and the feeling of tears welling up behind her eyes. The fatigue was starting to get to her, and Torken's cups of ReCaf weren't enough to keep her edge anymore. She had to dive into her rations and select something with a bit more potency. The Major disliked the notion of his Combat Engineers shooting themselves up with stims. Still, there was no other choice in this scenario. The man wanted the generator fixed on the double, and she was the only capable Combat Engineer within the District.
Thus, the woman withdrew a small phial from a pouch lashed around her armoured waist. It was filled with a colourless solution that resembled water in its most pure form. She shook it thrice out of habit before inserting it into a slot beneath her breastplate's gorget. The automated housing greedily accepted the phial and swiftly drained the container of its contents. It only took a second, but as the Captain blinked twice - a fresh burst of chemical energy flowed into her veins. The armour's autoinjector retracted as the phial's contents were discharged into the woman's bloodstream. While she could feel a dull ache behind her eyes, the fatigue that threatened to steal her away from her task melted away.
As the stimulant's chemical compounds took hold, two Combat Engineer's entered the chamber carrying a small duplicator and the requested nanoforge. They stared at their Captain for a moment as they noticed her pupils were dilated, and the venomous edge of fatigue was all but vanquished. They knew what she had done, and they knew that the Major wouldn't be impressed with her if he learned what happened. But, they also understood the gravity of their situation. With the Sith Empire shelling the Outer Districts, it was only a matter of time before their bombardment moved towards the City's centre.
They needed every edge they could get to get this generator back up and running.
So, as they placed down their requisition goods, the two Combat Engineers nodded gravely and followed their Captain's example. They were her assistants in this endeavour, and it wouldn't do for them to trail behind their Commanding Officer on such a time-sensitive matter. When their eyes, too, were dilated, the Marines began their work. They used whatever tools they had on hand to replace the cracked housings, shattered connectors, and fused circuits. It took nearly an hour, but the shield generator was repaired. At least to a point where they could turn it on and hope for the best. Anything more than that would require constant vigilance and even more repairs requiring at least a week of downtime.
With a weary smile, the Captain stood to her felt and palmed the activation terminal. The generator spat violently as power cycled through the newly installed components, causing the trio of Combat Engineers to take a step backwards. One wrong connection and the entire circuit array would be fried, likely resulting in either the room being washed with deadly radiation or exploding in their faces. Thankfully, neither eventuality came to pass. A steady thrum of active electronics soon replaced the violent cycle of awakening. The shield generator was working, and Captain Kale felt as if a heavy burden fell from her shoulders. As she activated the projection emitters, the woman keyed her comms.
The sound of power filled the background as she contacted the Major, informing the man of their success. However, as the shield bubble began to expand and stretch out across the ruined landscape - the battle outside had taken a turn for the worse…
Billowing tails of scorched ozone spilled from the Recon Walker’s primary weapon. Sergeant Kolm couldn’t remember how many times he put his vehicle through its paces, let alone how many rounds he fired at the enemy. Despite all of the punishment the Recon Walker was put through, the damned thing kept him and the rest of his Squad in the fight. They were on the City’s outskirts when the Sith Empire suddenly manifested and were some of the first Alliance forces to engage the enemy. After nearly an hour of constant harassment, as there was little his squadron of Recon Walkers could do against enemy armour and artillery.
Sergeant Kolm’s grenade hopper ran dry. He expended every single one of his Walker’s grenades in the hopes of defeating the enemy. Yet, they kept coming. No matter how many Sith Imperial troopers were laid low or blown to smithereens - their numbers were seemingly endless. What made matters worse was that many of the Soldier’s started to look and even act the same. It was like they were facing an entire army of cloned soldiers who were programmed to repeat themselves in the grandest of fashions. Something was wrong, and Sergeant Kolm’s skin began to prickle. Almost by reflex alone, the man reached up to the side of his helmet. He then activated the anti-telepathic defences built into the helmet’s framework.
The Sith were renowned for utilizing rituals to combat their many enemies. So, it wouldn’t be entirely uncharacteristic of them to telepathically invade the Alliance Defenders’ minds and force them to battle non-existent soldiers. However, as his mind began to fill with the subtle static pulse, the Sergeant didn’t find the battlefield before him empty as he expected. In truth, the battlefield before him was still rife with Sith Imperial forces advancing towards him with weapons raised. That meant something else was afoot. There were no Sith Commanders to be seen directing the movements of their troops…
As the Sith themselves were absent from the battlefield, that meant there was something else at play here. But, for the life of him, Sergeant Kolm couldn’t figure it out.
During this moment of temporary confusion, a Sith Imperial trooper got the drop on the mounted Alliance Marine. They raised their rifle and fired at the exposed rider. However, as the Sergeant expected his life to flash before his very eyes - the man found himself unharmed. He blinked, stupified by what transpired. The damned Sith Trooper had him dead to rights after his mind was thrown elsewhere; he should’ve been dead! Yet, here he was - still breathing and astride his mechanical steed. Without even thinking, the Sergeant drew his sidearm and fired a few shots into the armoured chest of his would-be killer. As the particle bolts struck true, the image of the Sith Trooper vanished into thin air, leaving behind nothing more than a smoking remote - with a fused projection matrix.
The Sith Empire deployed a veritable legion of droids and drones to the surface of Ziost whilst they sought to overtake the City with darkened skies and sinister lightning.
The Marine Sergeant was dumbstruck. Every preparation they had made to fight the Sith Empire on even terms was suddenly undone by the magic of impossibility. Not only were the veritable legion of Sith Troopers nothing more than droids and holograms, but their vehicles were unmanned drones as well. They should’ve seen it coming, especially with all the advanced hardware built into their arms and armour… but through some unseen sleight of hand… the Sith Empire pulled a fast one on them. The man couldn’t believe it—every fibre in his being fought against the sheer insanity that unfolded before his very eyes.
While he may have been gripped by despair at the sight of his fallen comrades, the Sergeant was of sound mind and body. There was nothing to indicate that he was hallucinating or losing his mind. But…
The thought was stolen from his mind as his attention was directed upwards. Yet another impossibility found itself unfolding before his very eyes, as a Sith Imperial warship the size of a small city suddenly manifested within the planet’s atmosphere. While unseen by the Sergeant and his Squad, a small beacon allowed the massive warship to bypass all known conventions of hyperspace travel and anchor itself above the City. With mass shadows and gravity wells, conventional hyperdrives would’ve forced the massive warship to translate back into realspace in the midst of the orbital battle. That meant they disengaged their safeties to perform such an impossible task.
As the sight etched itself into the Sergeant’s brain, he began to wonder if that Star Dreadnought had the requisite repulsorlift capabilities to sustain itself in the atmosphere. If not, then they were about to be crushed to death by the terminal descent of a Super Star Destroyer. He laughed, then. It seemed that the Sith Empire was not only unwilling to fight the Alliance face-to-face, but they’d sacrifice a warship of that size to kill a single Regiment and a Battalion? He almost felt honoured. Even more so when the rolling darkness that threatened to envelop New Adasta and bath its surface with lightning - found itself attracted to the newly arrived warship.
“You cowards!” Kolm bellowed mockingly as the battlefield before him fell eerily silent. The distant sound of strained engines was drowned out by the deafening crack of ritualized thunder. If the planet’s gravity didn’t claim the Behemoth, the summoned storm seemed like a worthy contender to land the killing blow. Regardless of what happened, Kolm kept shouting and laughing.
“You spineless, gu-”
His words were cut suddenly short by a distant flash of green. The Behemoth II - the supposed flagship of the Sith Imperial armada, opened fire against the seemingly defenceless City of New Adasta. The planet’s surface was once again stitched with plasmatic cannonade as the orbiting warship’s turbolasers opened fire. Sergeant Kolm, a Veteran of the Stygian Campaign and a friend to many of his Subordinates, was atomized in nuclear hellfire as the first volley tore through the Outskirts of the City.
Milo Harnan’s eyes widened in abject horror. The man had seen many bombardments in his short career as an Alliance Marine. Still, he never had the distinct pleasure of being caught on the receiving end. He couldn’t fathom the untold destruction that swept across the ashen tundra. Nor could he even comprehend the ever-rising death toll, as the tortured ground around and within New Adasta was turned to brittle glass. There was nothing that could be done to save those that populated the Outer Districts from the bombardment. The traps that the Alliance had laid were butchered with relative ease, as many of the rigged structures were either vaporized or sundered by the plasmatic cannonade. Even the buried minefields were atomized by the power of the Warship’s turbolasers.
But, in decimating the City once more, the Sith Empire sealed the fate of those that still occupied its walls. The resistance movement that the preachers and their kin sought to invigorate was all for naught, as the roving warbands of Sith militia were turned to dust. While they screamed to the high heavens, citing their day of eradication had come - their words fell on deaf ears. The people huddled in the Starport watched on in horror as what remained of their lives was put to the torch once more. In the span of a month, New Adasta was bombarded twice by the Sith Empire. It seemed that not only were they desperate in the face of adversity, but they knew that their time had come.
The sick man of the Galaxy was finally becoming aware of their end and sought to take everyone they could with them before giving in to their rotten foundations.
While the outskirts and the Outer Districts suffered the most damage, it was only through the power of a projected deflector screen that safeguarded the Central and Inner Districts from the worst of the bombardment. The shield’s corona flared as more and more turbolaser fire was directed towards the newly projected barrier, seeking to punch through the barrier with everything it had. Yet, despite the massive warships listing fury, the shield held its proverbial ground. Unseen to the Alliance Marine, there were even pockets of allied resistance situated throughout the City - melded together by an invisible guiding hand. They utilized their powers over reality to reinforce the curved deflector screen with whatever strength they could spare. Some had even taken to defending their allies, or the scattered survivors of the non-evacuated citizens, with their mastery over the aether that bound all living things together.
It was a harrowing sight to behold, but the Alliance refused to give in. They had a job to do, and the Seventh Regiment wouldn’t give in to such terrible odds so easily. Sure, the Sith Empire’s initial advances were all but negated, thanks to some underhanded trickery, but with their Warship anchored above the City? They were now a credible threat that could be defied. Every moment that the shield held meant that Alliance reinforcements could arrive and turn the tide in their favour. The battle was far from lost. Even significantly reduced as they were, these Veterans of the Stygian Campaign were more than a match for whatever forces the Sith Empire could bring to bear. When that thought drifted through Milo’s mind, the man’s teeth clenched together - hard.
The Sith would pay for their cowardice, the Marine vowed.
As the initial salvos began to fade into memory, the Behemoth gave birth to a veritable swarm of dropships - spilling from countless hangar bays like hungry, iron children. Not only did they seek to force the Alliance into hiding, but they sought to sacrifice even more of their own in the hopes of claiming a pyrrhic victory. Milo’s hands wrapped tightly around his service weapon as the realization took hold. Those dropships were small enough to pass through the deflector shield, as the barrier wasn’t outfitted with a concussion barrier - but they wouldn’t pass through unscathed. The crackling energy of the ray-shielding alone would fry their circuits and undoubtedly cause many of those transports to become improvised kinetic weaponry. Once their systems failed, they’d become a danger to anything that was caught in the descent trajectory.
What made things worse was that most of those dropships sought to pile into the decimated landscape - where the Alliance was still reeling from the sudden arrival and subsequent bombardment issued by the Behemoth. It seemed that they wanted to rout the Devils of the Core from their holes like nothing more than common vermin. Should that eventuality come to pass, as Milo expected it would, the Sith Empire would march on the Central District with whatever forces made it through the deflector screen. As the relief ships hadn’t arrived yet - everyone within the Starport and the Central District thereafter was in danger.
The Sith seemingly didn’t care about their people. If they did, they wouldn’t have saturated the surface with nuclear hellfire for the second time - let alone sought to arm them as soldier’s to fight the Alliance garrison. Thus, if and when the Sith reached the Starport - it was likely they’d all be put to the sword, as they accepted aid from the enemy and were considered enemies of the Empire. Like the people in the Outer Districts, those within the Starport would likely be butchered. Every man, woman, and screaming child. All for the sake of victory in the face of adversity. Milo’s teeth clenched harder. He couldn’t let that happen. These people depended on him - and the might of the Alliance as well - to see them through this madness.
With his resolve restored and blood boiling with unbridled hatred, the Alliance Marine joined the rest of his Squad nearby. Together, they would move out to the fortifications that surrounded the Central District and dig in.
If the Sith Empire wanted a fight - they would get one.
Tycho’s heart stopped for the briefest of moments. Despite every contingency they had carefully planned for, the Major never thought the Sith Empire would be bold enough to sacrifice one of their Flagship’s to slay their opposition. The damned thing was too big to operate effectively in Ziost’s atmosphere. Had it been stationed in high orbit, where the gravity fields weren’t as strong - then the Ship might’ve been saved. However, in what the Sith Empire undoubtedly believed was a masterful play - they doomed every living soul aboard that warship to wipe out what amounted to a single Legion of combined enemy combatants. It was a waste of resources on their part, but that didn’t stop the shock value from taking hold.
In truth, while the Alderaanian was nearly heartbroken about how casually the last month’s worth of preparations were cast aside by the Sith Empire - the man felt vindicated knowing that it wouldn’t all be in vain. The rest of the Galaxy would see them as big damned heroes, as they tangoed with a Star Dreadnought with nothing but the armour on their backs and the weapons in their fists. Who else could reap such a tally on the battlefield? While it was doubtful that the men and women of the Seventh Mechanized would live to see the warship’s destruction, they would greet their ancestors with a smile - knowing the glorious legacy their unit would leave behind.
Knowing that the shield would hold, for the time being, the Major took one last look over the holo-table before him. The outlook was grim. His Regiment was decimated, and much of New Adasta was turned to glass. The only safe assets he had at his disposal were those that resided within the shield. Which amounted to several armoured walkers, a few recon variants, several artillery pieces and a Juggernaut or two - alongside several Battalions and a few understrength Companies of battle-hardened Marines. It wasn’t much when all things were told, but they were reinforced by countless fortifications and converted emplacements. Their demise was likely all but inevitable at this moment, but at least they would go down fighting and make the Sith pay for every stolen inch.
As his eyes drank in the details of the situation, Tycho knew that there was little good he could do here. The enemy was coming to wipe them out. With most of their defences within the Outer Districts glassed or compromised, it was pointless to oversee the battle from the Strategy Centre.
“I want all of you,” the Major began. The surrounding Adjutants stopped what they were doing and looked up at their Commander, seeking to listen to the man’s every word. “To arm yourself from the coming assault. The Sith Empire’s coming, and I will not stand idly by while our brothers and sisters put their lives on the line for us. I want you to communicate our status to whatever surviving forces we’ve got in the City. Tell them to converge on the Central District by any means necessary. We’ll hold the line until those people are safe.”
Tycho’s words echoed within the silence. They were a grim reminder of their duty, as the livelihood of those non-combatants was paramount. They were the future of the worlds that were in the clutches of the Sith Empire. Through the Seventh Mechanized’s sacrifice, there was a chance that the seeds of rebellion could be sown. That the survivors would spread their message across the Empire entire and render the half-baked lies of their propaganda as nothing more than desperate vitriol. Despite everything falling apart around him, Tycho knew that there was still a glimmer of hope on this battlefield worth fighting for.
With his dark words sinking in, the Major moved away from the holo-table to collect his things. The man’s helmet, recently repaired from the First Battle of Ziost, swiftly found itself placed upon the Major’s crown. His one-remaining eye was soon bathed in the false fire-light of his visor, seeking to drown his sight in the screed of transferred data. Fighting against the small measure of nausea, Tycho then armed himself for battle. He clamped a single pistol to his thigh and slung his service rifle around an armoured pauldron. While his weaponry was potent enough by itself, the collection of particle blaster, grenades and knives wouldn’t be enough to stave off the fury of a Star Dreadnought.
He smiled, then. It was a grim reflection of the thoughts that raced through his mind. A part of the man simply wished to surrender the City to give the Sith Empire the meaningless Victory their atrocities bought. But, it was unlikely they’d be given quarter or leave of the City. With how they’ve responded to the occupying garrison, it was doubtful they’d even consider taking any prisoners. Instead, any captives would likely be shot in the back and left to rot on the brittle glass. That was an ignoble end, Tycho rationalized. The Seventh wouldn’t surrender the City, not while there was still a Marine standing - or while there were people safeguarded in the Starport.
No, instead, Tycho knew that his fellow soldiers would fight until the end. They didn’t care what the outcome would be, as they knew they were dead from the moment the Behemoth anchored itself above the New Adasta. But, as the Sith Empire was actually sending Soldiers down this time - the Major and his fellow Soldiers silently vowed to water the ashen tundra with their blood. Every inch would be paid for in oceans of Sith Imperial blood, be they zealots of ‘printed’ warriors.
With his resolve strengthened, the Major marched out of the Strategy Centre and navigated towards the frontlines. As the man exited the People’s Tower, his senses were assailed by the flurry of activity transpiring before him. The handful of aforementioned artillery pieces turned their weapons skywards and began targeting the massive warship. Their guns were capable of punching through the erected barrier, as the generator was programmed to keep objects from damaging the City - rather than restricting New Adasta’s defences. Deafening thunder-cracks of sustained turbolasers and ion cannons bathed their surroundings in the twinned sensations of light and sound.
The weapons that those artillery pieces brought to bear were accompanied by a small selection of mass-drivers - as they spat their various warheads at superluminal velocities.
What the Seventh brought to bear against the distant and listing Star Dreadnought wouldn’t be enough to destroy the vessel through sustained bombardment. However, it was their hope that with a concentration of their firepower - they’d be able to punch a small hole in the warship’s shields. From there, who knew what would transpire? A lucky round might penetrate a torpedo magazine and cause a cascading chain detonation throughout the entirety of the warship. The potentials were limitless as the future was made before their very eyes.
As the Major approached the first line of defences, the man saluted several pieces of mechanized armour and their crews that were arrayed nearby. Their turrets were directed towards the skies and the dropships seeking to make planetfall thereafter. They began opening fire with everything that was well-within effective weapons range. Every shot they made towards the heavens held the possibility of snatching a victory from the jaws of certain defeat. The more transports and dropships they destroyed meant that the ranks of their opposition would be thinned, evening the odds that were stacked against the combined allied forces.
After what seemed like an eternity, Tycho finally reached the frontlines. There, the man was greeted by the surviving Marines of his Regiment. They were battered and bloody, with few amongst their new having soiled themselves in the face of such indomitable adversity. While many of their faces bore thin-lipped smiles, the Major could see the fire burning behind their eyes. While the situation was far from ideal, this was what they volunteered for. The Sith Empire had committed one genocide after another and bore no signs of stopping. They needed to be punished for their crimes against life itself, and the Marines of the Seventh recognized their position in that cosmic cycle.
They were the survivors of the countless genocides that the Sith Empire reaped amongst the Core Worlds during the previous Galactic Alliance’s downfall. In a way, these mud-caked warriors were the Avenging Sons and Daughters of the Galaxy, rendered into the material realm by crude material. Their souls, seen through their visors and eyes, were luminous. They wouldn’t back down from this fight - even if it cost them their lives. Everything they had done led them to this glorious moment. And Tycho? He couldn’t be more proud. These men and women were bound together by a single purpose and were emboldened by the presence of their Commander. Further enhancing their resolve, the People’s Tower seemed to shimmer beneath the heat-haze of the erected shield.
“The beacon is lit,” Tycho said, as his eyes were drawn away from his fellow comrades. It was then that he was overcome by a strange sensation. The elation of pride still lingered within his breast, but the venomous tendrils of anticipation found themselves melting away. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the Major felt at peace. Like, the horrors of the battlefield were swept away in favour of Harmony’s kiss. The Force was with them, Tycho mouthed as tears began to well behind his eyes. They weren’t abandoned and condemned to die, alone and forgotten. The Force would remember them, for despite the odds being horribly stacked against them, the cause of the Alliance and their allies was righteous.
“And the Jedi have answered,” a voice nearby intoned. The Major swivelled about as the figure spoke, only to be greeted by a half-dressed figure with ritualized tattoos inscribed across his olive flesh. The man was a Jedi, one of the few that remained within the City after the First Battle of Ziost. Like many of his comrades, the man was last seen within the Starport boundaries - tending to the wounded and rendering aid where they could. What made this man different from the others who were in the City, or the Starport, was that he held a banner in an outstretched hand. The azure fabric and the Golden Starbird embroidered on the surface danced slowly in the gentle breeze.
Seemingly woven into the fabric, the light that radiated from the People’s Tower was reflected within the banner itself. Tycho was taken aback at the sight. Not only the mystical nature of the flag itself but the sudden arrival of the Jedi too. The man figured that the Jedi would remain within the bounds of the Starport until the people of New Adasta were saved. But, it seemed that he was proven wrong - as a portion of the Jedi’s might was marshalled and ordered to join the frontlines. “Who are you?” The Major asked.
The tattooed Jedi smiled warmly. “I am Aramis Sunstrider, and I am here to fight by your side, Major Dune.”
As the bombardment from the Behemoth II begins, the People's Tower deflector shield activates - shielding the Inner and Central Districts from the nuclear hellfire. Several Squads, Platoons and Companies of the 7th Mechanized Regiment that were situated outside the Shield were vaporized or have been buried beneath the rubble.
Alliance forces within the shield bubble dig in as the Behemoth II deploys dropship and continues the bombardment. As the shield allows for defensive fire, the artillery pieces take aim at the partially-wounded Star Dreadnought and seek to punch a hole through its deflectors. The deafening fireworks are joined by several AA emplacements and AA tanks, but their targets are the dropships.
Any drop ship that tries to force its way through the shield would likely suffer from a dangerous energy feedback as the untamed energies would clash with their activated shields; likely causing them to lose power and become improvised projectiles.
As the Behemoth II's lost an engine due to the atmospheric engagement and doesn't have an extensive repulsorlift engine suite to support atmospheric flight, it's likely that the massive warship is trapped in the planet's gravity well. To add further insult to injury, the conjured Sith Stormfront's also attacking the Star Dreadnought due to its proximity to the City - likely hammering the shields.
The beacon's lit and radiates across the Central District of New Adasta. [Source.] With grim determination, underpinned by the righteousness of their cause - the Seventh Mechanized digs in alongside their Jedi allies and prepares to fight, until the bitter end.
The crackling galvanic bolts of the raging storm the electromancer had cast into existence filled the room, her senses primed as she drank in the simmering Dark Side energy. However, such intoxicating power also began to emanate from an unexpected source, that of the male Jedi before her, his expression twisted in raw, fiery anger as she was lifted into the air before a sudden sensation of overwhelming pressure overcame her body. The Sister gave a soft gasp, immediately working to counteract his manifestation of Crush via an omnidirectional telekinetic counterforce. However, the electromancer could already sense that she had been forced into the Jedi’s trap, locked into a battle of wills against an enraged enemy who sought to shield the woman he was with, perhaps out of love or duty. The agonizing sensation of bones snapping, then shattering elicited a series of ear-splitting screams from her lips. Her left arm had suffered the most severe damage, having been rendered into a mangled mash of bone, meat, and armor under the weight of the assault. The bones in her chest had cracked as well, blood coughed into her helmet’s visor which briefly obstructed her vision before she gave the mental command for it to eject from her skull, revealing her pale features to the Jedi as blood streamed from her pointed ears.
Through it all, the horn on her forehead had remained intact, in effect acting as an anchor that had kept her skull from fully compressing in on itself.
It was only now that she felt the weight of her Father’s disappointment, his gentle, baritone voice now a stern, chastising boom, rebuking her for not only weakness, but also for entertaining the individualistic notion that she could face the Jedi on her own and emerge unscathed. She had come to the Prosperity to prove herself to herself, embarking on a vainglorious quest for ego, in spite of the fact that her Father had not rejected her for the humiliation she had suffered on Korriban. No, she had not come to serve his will. Instead, she had succumbed into the weakness that had seen to the fall of many ancient Sith Orders and Empires, just as it would lead to the fall of the Tenth.
It had only taken a mangled arm for her to see the wisdom of his teachings.
Perhaps now that she was on the edge of death, fighting for her life against a pair of bloodthirsty Jedi, she could see clarity where previously, ego had clouded her judgement.
TWO OPFOR PERSONNEL ENTERING VICINITY...
ARMED AND DANGEROUS...
POTENTIAL THIRD OPFOR... ELIMINATE ARMED PERSONNEL AND DISPOSE OF DETRITUS...
The HRD bided her time carefully, allowing the flashbang's timed mechanism to go off and give a false sense of ease to the two armed troopers. Her primary ocular operating lens came retrofitted with protection against flashbangs and other stun grenades designed to blind regular soldiers and field agents, leaving her free to push through most ambush scenarios and turn the element of surprise against enemies of the order. Perched above in a hole peering from the next floor, she waited ever silently and patiently. The flashbang went off in a sharp but contained blast, filling the dark entrance with smoke as the pair of armed soldiers trickled in cautiously checking corners. One of them moved to check the comm technicians body for life signs, eyes darting around before signalling his partner to move further down the smoke-filled room. In that precious moment of doubt and quiet dread, the only sounds filling the dead and hollow ruin was the sound of the comm technicians comm link echoing and repeating the ghostly send help message.
They knew that familiar tone, a voice that the HRD had heard and looked into their eyes as they bled out into Helgards virgin white snow. Like many before her and many after her, the woman had stared lifelessly into Asa's cold eyes as the replica put her down as she did many before the Bakuran and after. The cripple, however, had the audacity and bravery to spit in the servant of the Imperators face even as she faced death's door. Was it hatred Asa had felt? Or simply satisfaction? Her own programming had never enabled her to know real emotion. Emotion was merely imitated but never felt; it was what made her and the rest of the children of the ERIS project so successful as killers and envoys of COMPNOR. And yet, as she stood in the ruins of burning Sausfellond, all Asa had felt was pure unadulterated hatred for the Bakuran and the air she breathed.
She studied the pair below as she toyed with the knife in her hand, calculating the success rate of jumping into the smoke and dispatching the hapless duo before dealing with the woman. Asa wouldn't be as sloppy or false in her error margin to let the Bakuran live. Not this time. She should've shot her in the head, not leave her to bleed out in the snow. Just as the two came below her, she descended upon the pair and landed in the hazy smoke that swamped the room. The first soldier jumped back and lunged with his bayonet. The HRD stepped back, allowing the soldier to take the blow and then lunged in and struck him in the throat with her fist. For a moment, it seemed to the other soldier that his friend had hit the assailant. Still, the soldier fell to the floor gagging, his face reddening, the rifle falling from limp fingers, and he began clawing at his throat, desperately trying to force air into his ruined windpipe. His face had gone almost purple. The HRD turned her attention to the other soldier, who's roars of defiance soon turned to screams of agony that echoed through the smoke.
"You have an interesting proclivity for surviving, it seems."
Silence followed but was promptly shattered by a familiar but cold emotionless voice. She emerged from the dark confines of the ruin with a bloodied knife and a blank expression as she came face to face with the Bakuran once more; she cleaned the blood with a tissue from her coat before slipping the knife back in its sheath before speaking with a blank but almost mocking tone.
"Tell me, when we left you to crawl through the snow like a cripple, what broke first? your mind or body?"
Funny how the topic didn’t seem to creep up the moment Julian handed this unnamed civilian in a Sith city a blaster. Trust, gods he hoped it’d go a long way. The titan was still whirring loudly in his chest, an input he installed in its core system that helped him feel more human. Despite all the metal and synthetic bits about him. He’d do whatever he could for just an inch of his former humanity. “I don-” Hazel's words were cut off as shots zoomed past her broken helmet. She was afraid, actually - fear was a word that could even describe what the junior medic was going through at that moment. She couldn’t help her mind from tunneling into despair as her patron saint’s Shock and Anxiety extended their hands to her. Holding her against their chest. Keeping her tethered into that dark hole. All she could think of was how sorry she was for everything she'd done back home. How she wanted so badly to apologize to her parents for all her wrongdoings...she was just another scrappy kid trying to get by, grow into herself. Why else did she enlist? She just wanted another chance to remind herself, make them proud. Make herself proud.
“Doc...doc I c-can’t.” She huffed, clutching her chest before stopping to take a shot at a charging Sith Legionnaire.
She missed.
“Doc! I c-can’t keep r-ru-running.” Hazel doubled over, tears streaming down her face, her throat felt like it was being lit up in flames. Her stomach couldn’t hold anymore, peeling the helm off her head, she doubled over onto her knees and emptied onto the city streets. “I ca-can’t.” Her body vibrated violently, bile clung to her lips. “It’s ok kid, you got this…” Julian knelt down, wiping her face and boosting her back up. That stampede was still coming, they didn't care about sore lungs and a bit of vomit.
Hazel staggered onto her feet with the doctor’s help, taking a glance into his eyes for a moment noticing they were no longer white...seems the effects of his Zero Out had worn off. Yet even after his question he just kept pushing along with her and their civilian comrade. “Are you ok?” She managed, she nudged at her hood while they huddled behind some rubble. Their Civilian friend seemed to be handling himself with such precision despite the iron rod being held up against his body with gauze and a prayer. Julian only nodded, she knew he wasn’t ok. His mind played their last night together in a loop. He’d finally been formally introduced to the crew as their field medic, managing to scrape by with zero special ops experience - he wanted to thank his skill for that.
The Watchman were a scrappy group that opened their arms to him despite what they knew about his personal life. He remembered the night before setting off on their mission to Ziost so vividly. They shared some beers, some laughs, Briggs told him stories about his fiance that made her eyes blaze with such fire. He remembered their voices, their sense of humor, even the awful smell that came from Rogue’s lunch he was so adamant about eating when they landed. Julian remembered it all...so crystal clear. They were her family and he’d hoped one day to settle into their ranks...to share stories, some beers, joke about sandwhi- He didn’t want to think about her...he didn’t want to think about them now. They were just specs whisked away into the breeze.
“We’ll take a sec here then, catch yer breath. Hey bud, let’s keep these boys back bes' we can, alright?” Julian snapped himself back into the present. Finding a place just a few kilometers away from the Carlaci troopers and the legionaries that were gunning each other down. Blasters met bodies, detaching limbs from their torsos. Sprays of blood shot out from arteries. Coating the streets in a multi-color array of blood, fuel, and hatred. The trio slumped behind that makeshift barrier for cover, allowing Hazel to catch their breath and hopefully her bearings. Poor kid was shaking so bad she could probably send a shock through the ground that would rattle the earth the same as those lasers had done before. “Here bud, yer gonna need these,” Julian grumbled, turning towards the Chiss man and handing him a few magazines of ammo from his pack, trusting him with their lives...for now. His hand slipped into his hip pack soon after, stuffing a black vial between his teeth and placings it beside him. If anything were to happen..he’d meet the devil’s kiss. No questions asked.
Julian pulled that trusted owl from his shoulder strap, propping the rifle on the pile of debris where they had just set up. The medic lowered his body, prone now, wanting nothing more than to become one with the ground as he steadied his breathing. His synthetic optic swapped into its inferred sight, registering the heat signature emanating off the marching troopers. Two small breaths in, out through his nose. His titan kept up its steady beats when he sucked in one final breath, sending two bullets powered from his pain into two troopers helmets. He inhaled, watching their helmets crack and bloom into pink dust. Two down, eight more to go on his reload. One by one he watched helms shaved off bodies, chests burst into flames from those high caliber rounds. It was a good thing he couldn’t feel the recoil of his rifle sending shocks into his shoulder, though a part of him wanted to feel the pain it warranted, he didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t. Julian wiped his tear-stained face, shoving his hand into his pack to pull out and jam another magazine into his rifle. This was catharsis, this was the only grieving he’d be allowed himself for now.
“Hazel..keep breathing’ kid.” He turned to glance at the junior medic who had thankfully found a few moments of calm in this destruction. “You good there, bud?” He turned towards the armed civilian, thrusting his diagnostic palm to touch his bare arm and get a quick read - when his HUD started to flash with angry warnings.
[Diagnostic Report]
[Stimulant Levels: HIGH - Critical]
[Heart Rate: 175]
[Blood Pressure: HIGH - Critical]
Julian nearly panicked but kept his words calm and steady enough for Hazel to hear. “Hazel...how much did you give him?” He could see from the corner of his eye how responsive he was under pressure yet how absolutely drugged out of his mind he was. At least one of them was having a good time. “Uh...you said to give him everything we had.” Hazel looked towards the medic shrugging, she opened up her pack and showed him the empty alchemical chamber. “Y-you gave him combat stims, nerve blockers.....oh gods...we need to get moving again. This guy's heart is gonna burst in his chest with how much chit is in’im.” He didn’t show his disappointment and fear, it wasn’t her fault, she was under pressure and she did exactly what he asked of her. They were now on an even tighter rope, racing to get to the transports only a few kilometers away and make sure they got there without this civilian's heart exploding in his chest.
[external systems - :ONLINE:]
[incoming feed....]
[Diagnostic Report]
[Major Noel Strasza]
[Heart Rate: 190]
[Blood Pressure: HIGH]
[Interal Damage: Moderate]
[External Damage: Critical]
[System Power: 25%]
Before he could even move, that feed rushed through his HUD, sending the doc staggering back onto his knees. Hazel crawled over to the Medic, she got the same feed in her Datapad, but no one else's. Julian tapped his com, taking a shaky breath while his body worked in autopilot getting himself against the slab of rubble shielding them. <”M-m-m Strasza..Th-this is Lieutenant Qar…”> Hazel looked at him wide-eyed, mouthing, “Is...is?” He shrugged at her, opening up that comlink once more as he slung his weapon over his shoulder. If these were her final moments, he wasn’t going to worry about formalities. <”Noel...it-it’s Jules..listen darlin’ - I...I....dunno where you are, but Hazel and I are gonna find you...we-we’re gonna make sure you and the boys get home. I love you Stars...”>
He found himself swaying on his feet in the seconds after he had asked such a simple question... one he couldn't recall. The words echoed so distantly, hollowed, sacred even, in the state they left his tangling tongue in. The ponderance of question sank its teeth into the grooves of his brain, picking away at the curves and surfing the edges to itch incessantly. He was frozen as the thundering drum in his chest ramped up to serve as the musical bass line to the harmony forming itself before his eyes. The chiss froze, turning his gaze skyward to the pillars of smoky dancers and glistening shields raised in defense. Glowing orbs glitched in his skull, beset by the chemicals the junior medic had injected him with in those moments of choking panic as a noose tightened around their necks. "It's beautiful..."he remarked softly, succumbing to the colors swirling before his eyes.
Every movement an impossible, sharding gyration orchestrated by the former, coalescing in his greater consciousness impermanently. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know who he was. His kaleidoscopic eyes turned down to the hands he opened before him, admiring the cracking, veinous patterns forming across his burning, green flesh. Words etched themselves into shapes morphing themselves into bleeding lines of pulsating, harmonizing color. The inward curl of his fingers to his palm smeared the glowing pink stains from their pads into the lines, revealing sacred orders cast from what he could not grasp; some sentient being beyond his presence was speaking to him. The writings across his skin captivated him for the moment, causing him to sway backward against the purple bleeding wall to his flank and take reprieve to pull his coat sleeve further up his arm to read them all.
"uoY doogereht, dub?"
A disturbance sent a rippling shockwave across the glassy panes he viewed, forcing his vision to flicker out slowly, losing focus. It was dark. Then it wasn't. A blink- a mere fragment of a lost second in reality- had passed him by in an eternity. The soldier lifted his gaze, following the flow of the scaled serpent that wound out in intangible space to touch him. He followed the flickering, dancing patterns across its hide, admiring the way the fires closing on them churned across every plane of its body. The serpentine limb was not connected to a man, he discovered soon, but rather an idea. The idea so many of his mortal kin had held for ages. The black-clad embodiment of Death- the Reaper- stood before him, accompanying and guiding him through this ethereal experience. The chiss man reached up to his own forehead, placing the rippling surfaces of his neon-painted fingers against the center of his crown. "I was wondering when you would arrive."He said in broken Basic, slurring the echoing syllables of his words together into a barely cohesive expression of awareness.
He looked beyond the Reaper Julian Qar
, and to the blazing, decimated cityscape. The structures spiraling up in defiance of natural formations swayed with the billing thunder of the music he alone appreciated in those moments and he soon found himself rocking in slow rhythm along with them, drifting his weight from the left to the right in slow, slow cadence. He could taste them, those colors, each as incomprehensible as the last, and as bountiful as the next. They reached for him, extending their kind, greedily little hands when he felt lost. Those, those would be his guide.
Or were they the temptation?
He was unsure if he was sure and unsure of that uncertainty in the same paradoxical moment.
The chiss glimpsed then the flashing vibrancy of white in his hand. The only purity in this molten hellscape his distorted, malfunctioning mind had painted. His infrared eyes situated themselves on the weapon's edge, taking in the flashing golden hues cast by the dancing lines projected through the hazy sky."I understand, now."He stated plainly, his voice just as warbled and uneven as it had been previously. This was Hell. He had died there, on that broken street, and become something far, far more. He was no longer a man.
He was god.
It was by his whim and will that those besetting this undulating nightmare were to be purged. Purge. That fleeting thought caught on the rocks of his psyche, snagging where the others had not before. The collective streams had poured through the brook so effortlessly without a problem, but that one, it caught. It made his brain itch, a gesture soothed with the raising of his free hand to rake nails back through his scalp. The sensation of such a bodily thing made him weak in the knees instantaneously and he struggled to keep himself upright and unwavering in the face of it. Four long minutes, the chiss stood there in silence, scratching his fingers through his hair. This wasn't his body. This isn't his body. But why did he feel it? His brow furrowed at the concepts he wrestled with.
Purge. Purge. Purge.
That word. That notion. It nagged at him, filling his glowing veins with newfound charge and forcing him to turn his gaze to the woman trembling on the ground by his boots. The Reaper, of course, had brought An Angel with him. That only made sense. They were both to judge the weight of his soul before deciding what it was to do with him. This, it was all a test."I understand,now,"he repeated his words from earlier as a liquid poured from the glistening droplets forming in his yellow hair. It glowed blue in the palm he moved to catch it in, snapping his hand with inhuman reflex back before the sweat could strike the ground between his boots.
Purge. Purge. Purge.
He sighed softly, tucking the glowing white object beneath his arm, and reaching up to the collar of the coat nestled over his shoulders. His skin was fire. He was fire. It was all fire and it had welcomed him to its depths, washing away his mortal shell to leave him as nothing but a drifting swirl in the maelstrom of endless color. The fabric shed from his body, humming against the ground behind him and exposing the roughly carved scar of prison numbers etched into his hide along the back of his neck. His reach for the glowing white was interrupted with the overwhelming and rather sudden crash of demonic sounds breaking through the harmony of the world around him.
Demons. All of them.
He rocked back, fixing one of many eyes through the narrow slat afforded by his place of solace, and witnessed them. Churning voids of undisturbed, smoky black. There was a cluster of them, a pack, moving in a disjointed cacophony that unsettled him deeply. Purge. Purge. Purge. He latched onto that concept, at last, sinking his teeth into it just as it bit into him. "I'll earn my place, yet."The fifth-plane traversing chiss uttered towards those with him as he brought the glowing white to the forefront of his limitless sight. His hands moved with deftness and familiarity he could not understand, checking the weapon briefly for any hitches.
And without warning, Mazakah stepped from behind cover and opened fire on the tide of smoke-shrouded demons.
The flashing brilliance of the fire he wielded flared across his eyes, scattering his sight in thirty different directions as it blinded him, cured him, and blinded him again faster than he could process the blindness at all. The void forms buckled, barely registering he had been there at all, splitting and breaking off into numerous parts he snapped his trail of plasma to.
The untold amounts of stimulants coursing through his veins amped his reflexes higher than he ever could have imagined while sober. But here, in this world where he was to be tested as the crownless god, it felt natural. He approached them swiftly, kicking at the lingering tendrils of inky smoke that coiled from their forms, ensuring they were unmoving before he dropped his now empty, useless weapon and chose one of theirs. Instantly, the boxy form filled to the brim with colors bled from his hands, revealing the effect his presence had on such a thing. It was sanctified in an instant, now under his command. That's what he could do.
That's what he would do.
The chiss racked the bolt of the slugthrower back, chambering a round before he crouched to rummage through the dead demons for other items of value. Cylindrical tubes he felt a distant call to urged him to claim them- shouting at him in brilliant song. He palmed them, tucking them to his belt, and rose, tasting devil on the wind long before he spotted them. But he was exposed where he stood and instead pushed off his lagging boot, walking unsteadily to pin himself in the safe petals of a flowering building to his right. Another haphazard group of empty black rushed by, fanning out in defensive, scouring positions.
He understood them.
He didn't know why.
He could see their movements before they made them.
A snap turn dropped him to a knee and he swung his slugthrower to his right, flexing his index finger and unleashing an entirely new melody into the greater piece. His melody. The ink-painted foe buckled as it rounded the corner, spewing hissing streams of white all over the warping street he knelt on. More of them followed and he repeated his song, grinning from ear to ear all the while.
OBJ :// PURGE THEWICKED ALLIES | THE REAPER | THE ANGEL FOES | DEMONS
Location: Ziost Orbit -----> New Adasta Objective: Medivac Allies: GA and friends Opposition: TSE With:Allyson Locke Engaging:Irina Volkov
Allyson was in trouble, in need of help likeyesterday, but the first series of surviving troop pods had already landed, in “blue” zones controlled by the GA in and around New Adasta. From the relative safety of these friendly landing zones, Skytroopers unloaded from their pods and began to filter through the city, ferrying supplies and medical droids to triages servicing Alliance troops and civilians.
Handfuls of Jedi Healers from the Silver Circle moved on the ground, beginning to work with field medics and physicians to stabilize their most critical patients and prepare them for immediate evac. Those unable to move on their own were gingerly transferred to rescue pods to be placed under temporary stasis.
Jyoti emerged with the second and last series of pods, accompanied by two companies of Berserkers, a half a dozen Silver Shadows, and sections of Gnat Runner light tanks for fire support. Unlike the Skytroopers and Silver Circle, the veteran Jedi Shadow and her cadre of anti-FU specialists were there for direct action right on the frontlines.
<Velvet to Safety. I made it in one piece, sit tight, we’re homing in on your beacon.>
In contrast to speaking softly while aboard the Nightshade, she had to practically shout the message into Starlight. The so called blue zones were starting to trend purple as the Sith Empire began their renewed offensive, the cacophony of blaster fire and artillery shells almost deafening. She finally donned her helmet to drown out the chaos with active noise canceling.
Following a quick situation update with a resident junior GA officer, Jyoti was back in the air leading the charge toward Allyson and her surrounded troops, flitting over the ruined city with a flutter pack. Her Shadow counterparts relied on more conventional repulsor packs, while the Berserkers enjoyed integrated flight systems on the power armor. The Gnat Runners that accompanied them possessed no flight capabilities at all, but the peculiar spiderlike vehicles had the ability to quickly swing and skim from building to building without touching the ground.
Zipping through the skies, Jyoti was able to converge on Allyson’s location within a matter of minutes. Looking down, it was actually worse than she had originally imagined. Her friend was now stuck in enemy territory as battle lines had quickly shifted with the arrival of Sith reinforcements. Well equipped Sith partisan militias led the charge, followed up by Sith regulars who had just landed on the city. Unlike the rabble assaulting her now, Jyoti could see these were real soldiers moving with tanks and heavy weapons.
If they couldn’t dislodge the GA defenders from the building, then they would simply level it.
<Safety, we’re here, but you have soldiers with rockets and armor on the way. I’ll try to cut them off.>
One by one, the Jedi and soldiers began to dive on the Sith partisans and soldiers below, first releasing a combination of stunning sonic and slider grenades. The earsplitting sounds of the sonic emitters caused partisans, soldiers, and Sith alike to stop in their tracks while they suddenly found themselves slipping around and weapons clattering to the ground. The sliders had reduced friction as they activated their force fields, so it was like everyone affected was coated in a slippery film where they could barely walk or hold anything. They were essentially neutered while being pummeled with ion and stun blasts from the marauding Beserkers.
Tankers, somewhat shielded from the effects in their sealed hover vehicles, quickly reacted, gunners taking aim at the flying Silvers.
Without hesitation, Jyoti sped toward the lead tank, spiraling and juking through air to avoid collision with the angry red bolts. When she came so close that she could no longer easily avoid the shots, she activated Sitara, whipping the silver blade of light around her to deflect the blaster shots back to sender. The third bolt deflected impacted right into the secondary turret, exploding as internal energy cells were ruptured.
The anti-infantry turret was dead, but the whole tank remained functional, so the Echani followed up by landing straight on the top of the damaged vehicle, slamming her fist into the hull. While made of tough composites and metals, the hull at the impact point cracked and shattered like glass. Inside, she could feel the lives of the crewmates within instantly snuffed out existence as the surface of the interior compartments spalled and the resulting fragments shredded them apart. The tank started to drift listlessly with no driver.
Her first kills.
It never got easier. Fighting was practically an Echani’s love language, and the muscle memory of countless battles allowed her move with no thought, but the guilt of taking a life still remained. Even though she knew the Sith around her would never hesitate to do the same to her and those she loved.
Such wasted potential.
There was literally no time to reflect, as a screaming Sith Knight pounced her with an empowered mace.
On to the next kill.
Summary of Actions:
-Silver soldiers and Jedi land, and begin dispensing medical aid and preparing patients for evac. -Jyoti arrives at Allyson's location and flanks the incoming Sith soldiers and partisans with an airborne assault.
The two Jedi hurried down the hallway, racing their way towards Aaran.
His presence was close, he could feel it. Two people were currently engaging him. No, not people. Acolytes. Sith padawans, basically. He could work with half-Sith. Wouldn't be that difficult of a fight.
Up ahead he spotted Aaran. One of the Acoyltes had just ignited their second blade to their lightsaber. Some doubled-bladed action? This was just getting better and better. After a small bit of trash talking the Acolytes finally attacked. One sliced for the throat, while the other went for the legs.
Then Aaran slightly ducked.
He now jumped over the top of the knight, heading directly towards the two Acoyltes. Once his feet touched the ground, his lightsaber ignited. No longer was the yellow blade there, yet replaced with his old saber. The one that reminded him of what it truly meant to be a Jedi.
A light blue blade shot upward, catching the high striking blade. The pearl white blade below colliding the other. It was just as if Okkeus swapped places with the knight. Perfect.
"Well hello there."
All four blades sparked energy off of one another, heating up the small area between the trio. He stared down the masks of the Acolytes as the heat intensified. It reminded him of when he constantly wore a helmet, concealing his identity. Only now did he realize how much of a coward it made him. True warriors stood for what they believe in, and did so with honor.
But now? They were past honorable.
"I heard y'all talking trash about my friend Aaran. The talker, eh? So what does that mean? Aaran is the talker, that makes Auteme the healer. That only leaves one thing for me..."
The pressure from the oncoming blades increased. The Acolytes were fighting hard, trying to through him off guard. But he held steady with his blades. Slowly he began to twist the center of the hilt. At the right moment, the two sabers would split, sending the Sith flying forward. It was perfect.
Slowly, his eyes started to shine a brighter blue. Energy was building up throughout his body. Static power was built up during the fight, and he was preparing to release it. Small sparks of electricity began to bounce on his fingertips, dancing across his blades. As he looked up, he saw his reflection in the Acoylets' masks. What they would see is lighting sparks moving along his body. They would see their end.
Martin the Nuetralizer sighed as Isacc got torn apart by Noel Strasza
. He had been brave but just too damaged. He had however, managed to hold the cyborg off for the precious seconds needed for The Arena to complete the ritual. The Magic she had inacted would be self sustaining at this point...no Sith Imperial or their allies would be harmed by the toxic fumes pouring through the streets endlessly now. A massive portion of the city was ablaze from the destroyed underground Gas Pocket.
The city sized ship above them, the very image of Sith Dominance , rained down their own Battle Droids, which played enough of a distraction for the Nuetralizers that Martin knew it was time to retreat now.
"DREAMBOAT!" The Arena cried out, Force Pulling Isacc's skull towards her in horror while other wardroids engaged the cyborg. Martin didn't stop to see if they were successful or not. He signalled the surviving Nuetralizer's to form up with the Witch and retreat. And retreat they did, Using their remaining weapons to great effect as the reinforcements of DECEASED Erskine Barran
suddenly had to deal with the hassle of the Droids and other terrors launched from the Behemoth, The Arena fried any Blue Heart Soldier that shot at her, deflecting with her single bladed Red Lightsaber. They made a running retreat using the wrecks and overturned buildings for cover.
Martin fired his Cryonic Laser only to have it short out due to his damaged state, out came the fifty caliber pistol, whose bullets were discharged into a single, heavily armed Stormtrooper carrying Ion Grenades.
The Arena grew more aggressive and vengeful as she held Isacc's skull, viciously hacking into enemy soldiers even as she retreated with the other Nuetralizers. She focused her Dark Magic, whispering as an invisibility field enveloped her and the surviving group.
Martin and the other Nuetralizers immediately ceased firing, making sure to move with The Arena, whose flesh shuddered and melted before reforming everywhere as they moved down a street, ducking as the panicked Alliance and NIO soldiers sprayed wildly, trying to hit the silent and now totally invisible Nuetralizers.
Martin however was still unwilling to give up Erskine Barran totally. The Advanced Model's signal was still active, and he silently transmitted for it to try again with Barran.
The Arena hand signalled them to follow her down another street, towards where friendly lines were, at least, what friendly lines the newly deployed legionnaires from The Behemoth were setting up to try and fight the NIO even now in this polluted and murdered hellscape.
The survivors of the Bombardment couldn't afford to stop. Not until they had gotten well beyond Erskine's reinforcements locking heads now with the Sith. That happened when they found the burned out ruins of a home close to friendly defensive lines.
The damaged Nuetralizers and the Witch gathered inside, the invisibility spells effects ending.
Martin began transmitting what troop locations and strength of enemy forces he could in a Burst Signal to the Behemoth. The Arena sulked, stroking Isacc's skull, though she gave a whoop of joy as she found a beheaded Nuetralizer in the basement.
The Witch whispered foul, dark and unnatural words as she held Isacc's severed head above the headless body, the magic melding muscle and circuitry back together, until Isacc's photoreceptors blinked on.
"Sherbet? Is that you, my civilian-murdering muse?" Isacc asked.
"Of course it is, my chrome dreamboat. Such a big strong murder-bot, rushing that big, nasty cyborg to defend me..." The Arena purred. "How I long for my magics to entwine with your circuits..."
"How I long for us to cut off their limbs in the shade of an apple tree..." Isacc replied, taking her hand as sexy saxophone music played in the background OOC.
"...and then drain the tree of its life force afterward, drinking in its suffering as it dies." The Arena cooed, running a finger under his skeletal jaw, as he stood up "Kiss me, my My Concussion Carbine Companion."
"I don't have lips."
"That's never been a hindrance to me..." The Arena cooed, pulling his head towards hers...
Only to be interrupted by a weapon being dropped to the ground. Both turned.
Martin and the other Nuetralizers were staring, jaws agape.
"Somebody bleach my fething processors..." Martin said in a mix horror and revulsion at what his restored brother was cavorting with.
"If I was a human, I'd hurl!" Hudson The Nuetralizer exclaimed.
"Oh c'mon, she likes to kill just like we do, so whats the problem?" Isacc complained.
"We're on a mission!"
"Really, Skullhead, you should learn to mix work with pleasure. You'll blow a circuit being so high strung..." The Arena replied with a smirk.
"We just got nuked from orbit! It was the only way the Sith could be sure! And you wanna fraternize?!" Hudson exclaimed.
"YOLO." Isacc replied.
"Twice, in your case, Dreamboat..." The Arena gushed.
"Or so it seems..." Isacc replied playfully.
"Bro...I...I think you might need a little maintenance..." Martin said worriedly.
"You are only jealous of our superior homicidal tendencies!" Isacc replied scornfully, pointing a finger accusingly. "You may have been made in a factory, same as the rest of us, but you're too high strung for this war, Martin. Hell...you were probably too high strung for the damn factory..." (They're gonna make me a Major for this: 90 XP)
"Are you gonna follow orders, or am I gonna declare you defective?" Martin asked.
"I'll follow orders." Isacc grumbled.
"Good. Now focus on the mission. We need to coordinate starfighter and troop movements..."
"I can help with that..." The Arena said, somehow instantly snapping to business. She got out a knife and opened her palm, drawing a series of complex runes in white blood on the floor and then standing on it.
Her flesh bulged and shuddered everywhere, involuntary, metallic, pig like squeals erupting from her throat as her flesh and muscles and blood tore away from the skeleton, which remained standing, shaking and twitching in a silent scream, the flesh and blood that tore away deforming and losing any indicator that it had ever covered a humanoid, devolving knto a writhing, bulging like rats blob of flesh, which began breaking apart, each chunk writhing and leaking white blood as they each grew into a copy of each of the Witches who had been slain earlier in the Bombardment.
The ritual completed, the blood flowing up and covering the skeleton, which transformed into sickly pale flesh that eventually molded itself back into The Arena's seductive Twi'lek appearance.
Every Nuetralizer except Isacc was pointing their weapons at the smirking, resurrected witches.
"Force Multiplier." The Arena explained. "They'll triple our scouting capability."
"Tell me, Witch, who among you is actually the original?" Martin wondered.
"Does it matter?" The Arena asked.
"Vile Monsters." The bandana wearing Nuetralizer snarled. "Alright, lower your weapons. Get these freaks in the Battlefield. I'm assuming you'll use telepathy, and relay target coordinates?"
The Arena nodded. She silently commanded the Witches, each a manifestation of one of the evil personalities living inside of her. Martin felt as close as his processors could come to Nausea as a copy of the Zabrak Witch that had hit on him earlier passed by him with a wink.
"We should shoot these fething things!" Hudson exclaimed, creeped out beyond words.
"Not yet. We still have the mission. Keep close to the Arena, and no engagements unless absolutely necessary. We're pretty much out of ammo and most of us are full of holes.
The Arena held out her hand to Isacc, and the Murder bot daintily took it as she whispered the invisibility spell like the rest of her manifestations did, leading him upward to do some stealth scouting...
"Say, Skullhead..." The Arena called out to Martin. "Didn't you sic one of the liquid ones on Barran--?"
"Yep..." Martin answered.
Meanwhile...
Erskine had caught the Nanite Assassin Droid by surprise getting hit in the face. Her programming recorded all of it, including how quickly he reacted and how accurate he was for future engagements, already divising countermeasures, watching, blending into the environment as she recorded his fighting style as he engaged her brothers, studying his fighting patterns. Fast. Vicious. Relentless. Quantum level calculation began to divise counter measures. Must be patient, in defense, but equally ruthless when pressed. If on the offense, always strike for places that will kill automatically.
Her face and chest repaired after a while of spying him and she began to follow Barran, slaughtering a Stormtrooper that dropped from the sky on his jetpack, taking up a Sith Tremor Sword from a fallen Witch of The Amalgam's cult, who the Stormtroopers had resorted to destroying the Witch with severe, overwhelming amounts of blaster fire, cutting down a few more Stormtroopers forced to engage attacking Sith Droids at close range, before retreating behind cover to follow Barran and assassinate him, and possibly his cyborg friend if she decided to interfere. She ghosted him using every stealth infiltration technique in her database, including shifting the surface of her body to match the color and texture of the surrounding environment, keeping far away to decide the best attack before striking. If possible at all, he must be killed by surprise.
She made sure to stay behind him, though she kept in mind his friend as she closed in as quietly as possible from behind driving her sword in a fast upward vertical slice for his torso as the Nanite Nuetralizer in the form of a young woman in black biker leathers launched her attempt to kill Erskine instantly, prepared to counter his reflexes, having already calculated dozens of possible close range responses a target of such consummate lethality would surely employ and prepared to counter and defend against all of it. The first attack would likely fail, but the battle would slowly turn against him once he realized there were no vital organs to destroy, or power sources to cut...
The Advanced Model's design was as practically alien as it got, a product of forbidden research in Laminanium and Nanotechnology. It was a glimpse of the future. And that glimpse wanted to be the last thing Erskine or his friend might ever see...
(The Advanced Model Nuetralizer is now engaged in pvp with Erskine Barran)
Objective: Revenge Location: The Ruins of outer New Adasta Allies: TSE Enemies: NIO / GA Tags: Tulan Kor
"Demons, huh?" A half shattered Legionnaire helmet dropped back beside it's dead owner. Shot dead, it seemed. Sniper? Yeah, given how the rest looked. Jim didn't know who these demons were supposed to be, but they seemed to be systematically picking off what was left of the Sith in the city. Well, before the reinforcements came down at least. The man turned his gaze upward, frowning at the blackened sky. They'd get theirs soon enough. Right now, all he wanted to do was split open the heads of whatever Alliance or New Imperial forces he came across.
The blaster rifle was at least still serviceable. He holstered the blaster before lifting up the rifle, checking it over. Not a shot spent. Probably one of the first taken down. Or some scared kid who wasn't prepared for this kind of violence.
Hard to tell with what was left of their head.
For now, following the carnage would do. Whoever the Demons were, or however many were left, he'd find them soon enough.
He found it endlessly amusing that for whatever reason. Sith tended to always mistake restraint for weakness. When in fact true mastery of one's power involved being able to control it. But, he had yet to meet any true Sith who was not in some kind of perpetual temper tantrum or was not some kind of deluded megalomaniac. And these three budding Acolytes that surrounded him seemed to be on the path to joining the rest of the Sith.
He found it hilarious that Alina stated she wanted to try to be better than that. Yet here she was. Doing the same old tricks as her masters. And when both blades lunged at him. He felt no fear. Simply ducking downward as he allowed Okkeus to sail over him. His own footwork allowing him to shift out of the way, reversing his position with the reinforcing Knight. Taking him out of the danger zone. The devastating one-two combo of Okkeus' dramatic entrance and Auteme's push hopefully enough to unbalance the Sangir's assault.
He would let Okkeus handle those two for now. The recently converted Jedi would not feel any words or mental comments through their mental link. But instead, just a surge of nothing but Faith. Pure and simple. He had complete confidence that Okkeus was up to the task of fighting Alina. His gaze switched to Alisteri, the one who had yet to draw his saber. The one who could still stand down and save himself. "And now the odds are against you." He offered, holding out a hand, palm flat and facing the last Acolyte in a halting gesture. "I beat your friend while half dead. Okkeus and Auteme are my peers. Kisaku is one of my best students. You victory is unlikely. Please stand down. I've no desire to hurt you. But I will strike you down if you proceed on this path."
He let Alina live before He could have ended her life but decided on mercy. And now in doing so, he put everyone on Prosperity in danger. It was a rather frustrating situation to be in. But he would still offer the chance. The opportunity to resolve things peacefully. For there to be no further bloodshed here. Give them the chance to walk away.
Even if deep down he knew they would simply continue to act the way they did as soon as they left his sight.
At first, there was surprise. Not just for the Major, but for all of the 67th as they descended onto the ruined landscape. After such a brutal bombardment, they expected only to find the dead and dying. Broken and defeated. They were dreading it, in truth. Men, women, slaughtered indifferently. Blasted apart into unrecognizable chunks. They steeled their hearts as best they could, but they couldn't stop the feeling of disgust for what they'd been a part of.
That changed as what they expected to be no resistance was anything but. The survivors weren't broken. Chipped, perhaps, but tempered. And angry. The first wave of the numerous landers were gone before they even reached the ground. Blown apart by the survivors weapons and anger. The shield. Several more were caught in that blast. Hell, even from behind another of the Alliance's ships had started to open fire on them.
By the time the remaining ships finally landed, they were only a third of what had been sent out.
Death and adrenaline quickly outweighed the disgust they felt. They couldn't afford to feel bad, or sorry, or anything of the sort. Regret was going to get them killed. They came out blasting, tanks and walkers were dropped, gunships were used to blast apart the remaining resistance that they could see. Their hearts hardened completely to the atrocities committed.
They needed to fight, and with that grim determination they would.
"The ships small, but it's going down! Shield have been breached! The Negotiator that's been targeting our engines is going down, ma'am!"Too late. The second engine was already destroyed, leaving the Behemoth with nothing truly keeping it up. It started a slow decent, but that would only grow faster by the minute until the Super Star Destroyer crashed into the city below. Crushing and killing anyone beneath it, and likely being destroyed itself. Were they planning to sacrifice what remained just to bring this ship down?
The Admiral let out a sigh. In truth, there was little she could do to stop the massive ship from crashing down. The ship could go down shooting at least, but should the ship be evacuated? The battlefield signaled to retreat? Well, perhaps not. In an odd twist of fate the Behemoth stopped it's decent. Somewhat. The front of the ship seemed to be impacted by something. A storm?
The Sith's storm sent up by the Jedi!? From her position in the observatory she could see the crackling of lightning overloading all manner of cannons and parts of the front. As if things couldn't get worse. Now it was more like they were sinking, falling to the ground engine first. No, that was it.
"Prepare the hyperdrive for a microjump, just outside the gravity well."
"M.. Ma'am!? Even if that worked, the front of the ship is completely disabled. Anyone caught there when we leave atmosphere.. They'll just be sucked out!"
Her cold red eyes turned to the man, unflinching and unphased. "Did I stutter?"
"N.. No ma'am. It will be done as soon as the hyperdrive core is cooled enough." The Hyperdrive of the Behemoth II needed time to recharge. It already overloaded the engines when in use, but at least this way they could get into atmosphere. They wouldn't be able to move, but it was better than nothing. Certainly better than crashing.
The ship slowly began to pick up speed as it dropped closer and closer to the surface. Just before it hit, it disappeared. The resulting wave as the ship was propelled into hyperspace rocked the already damaged surface, sending many of the still flying 67th landers straight into the ground where they detonated.
A much more broken Behemoth appeared above atmosphere. The front, damaged by the storm already, didn't survive hyperspace. A large chunk was simply missing. Alarms blared through the bridge. People were thrown about, even the Admiral found herself pushing up from the holodesk where the battlefield had been displayed. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead.
It worked, but at what cost?
"Get those alarms shut down and resume firing on the enemy fleet, immediately! Seal off all damaged parts of the Behemoth and begin repairs. Launch interceptors for the enemy fighters. We're far from finished!" For once her usually calm voice was more frantic. She stood up, wiping the blood from the cut on her forehead before fixing her hair and her uniform.
The Behemoth wasn't going to move again, but the half of it's cannons that remained began to open fire on any New Imperial or Alliance ship within range. The rest of the fleet began to move, slowly shifting their positions to better support the Super Star Destroyer. They weren't done yet.
A BARRAN WASTELAND - Wrath of the Stormchaser VII (Footfalls in the Smoky Mist)
Meditatively breathing, Barran had come to a slow, measured walk around the rubble of the crumbling city suburbs as the billowing smoke and dust kicked up from the wind obscured his form as much as that of others, though the one useful tool everyone (including his adversaries) had was their hearing; the running around was decreasing the Brigadier-General's chances of getting the drop on his foes, so the thrill of the rampage needed to be shelved until the circumstances favoured it. Lord Erskine also needed to rest for the sake of his back, his lungs and his ribcage; knowing his energies, his wit, and his quick reactions would be the deciding factor of whether he would survive to fight again, Barran would acquiesce to the urgent outcries of his own body, acting against his own mind's so-called better judgement and slowing to a poised, tip-toeing advance.
This entirely new state of flow, as laborious as it was, was yielding a new perspective on Barran's inherent hearing abilities; though it was fair to say his eardrums had seen better days by his age, and despite the years of gunfire and explosions compounding the extent of his mild hearing-loss, Erskine could still hear Strasza ripping, tearing and smashing through everything in her path, along with the unmistakable sounds of metallic footfalls in different spots all around their location. However, some of the newest additions to the small crowd of footfall-cadences sounded human, hard heel-to-toe pacing with the ill-advised certainty of Sith-Imperial troopers, foes with better reflexes but shoddier accuracy than their AI-driven colleagues, and especially in the smoky mist that Ziost's winds blew from one cloud of dust to the next. Adrenaline does the damnedest things in times like this, so it does.... But it gives me life, as the Imperator has! More!
Stopping on the spot as two pairs of boots walked by him, he'd have to wait for them to start quietly discussing,"Sith-Imperial scum!", before he could tell if they were friend or foe. Remaining still until the other replied,'Oh, what I would give to have five minutes alone with the Sith freak who ordered that orbital strike. General Treicolt would have me tried for war-crimes..', with no sign of forced baiting-portrayal to be heard in the other's voice. With no other choice but to get the drop on his allies before their enemies did, and no other choice but to sneak so as not to compromise his position to the same enemies who were still unable to locate him, the Lord-Commander followed the unknown allied riflemen, matching the cadence of the shorter one so he could both close the distance and maintain his soft footfalls in the process.
'Halt.... Which faction? An' don't even think about lying, there's a Vibrosword pointed directly at the back of your neck-'
'-Galactic Alliance, 104th Marine Raiders.', the taller one said, hoping beyond all reason that Erskine was a friendly. To their relief, the muffled sound of sheathing metal was heard soon after, though the taller marine from Treicolt's Wolfpack thought he recognised the accent. Taking this moment of depressurizing silence to continue, the larger marine asked,'Are you - General Barran? You sound Galidraani, sir. And here's the thing, General Treicolt is our commander, and I know we were supposed to link up with the Blue-Hearts before.... Well, you know, but I'll be honest with you; we need help getting back to our unit.', as the pair turned to see the face of one who approached from the dust.
'Sorry to relieve and disappoint you in one fell swoop, but.... You're looking at him. I'm Brigadier-General Barran, but I can't help you. There is a reason why I'm still whispering, an' I assure you it's not to save my voice for singing,"Operatic classics". So keep low, move east, and resort to hand-signals until you reach your commander; I have a message that I wish for you to pass on to Marynard personally, and I need you both alive to successfully pass on that message. "Can't make it to the rendezvous, I need to find Irveric Tavlar when I'm done here.", good luck-'
'-Don't shoot, we're genuinely here to help.', muttered a voice from the west, making a point of moving more silently than the lost grunts had been, though it became quite obvious why soon after their apparel had become visible. They were soldiers of the Galactic Alliance also, but wearing gear centred around hi-tech observation, as opposed to the advanced stormtrooper armour-variation and heavy-hitting loadouts of the marines; after they had Lord Erksine behind them, the first newcomers had trained the sights of their weapons on the other (soon-to-be disappointed) newcomers until their faction's insignia had become visible on the four forward-observing friendlies.
'They're with Eclipse Team, sir. From the 76th Pathfinder Regiment, you're safe for now - but we gotta go. Was an honour seeing you in your element, sir. May the force guide you and Lord Tal both.'
A BARRAN WASTELAND - Wrath of the Stormchaser VIII (Fairbairns of the Fallen)
'-So, in other words, Vullen more-urgently needs to get you lot into the inner-city. Much safer that way, now go. Don't rely on those optics too hard, trust me; if tank operators can get blindsided with them on, then so can you.... Good luck out there.'
Leaving the Pathfinders to link back up with Suri's remnants, Barran approached the fading clunks of Behemoth-sent droids still on the lookout and walking away from his position; stomping completely in the wrong direction, bumbling off in search for combative survivors or those too far gone to be taken prisoner. A fight that Lord Erskine didn't need to engage in, but if it made him safer in the long run, then Erskine was all too happy to oblige the extension of his life-expectancy, even if his actions all but shortened it to just seconds-impending for a just a short while. In a series of wide, sideswiping swings from backhand to forehand from each and every droid's blindspot, the Stormchaser would take their squad apart in increments of three or four droids at a time, backhand or forehand slicing at their heads in the off chance one of them could've been another Nuetralizer. These are definitely not the Amalgam's droids! Starting to lose my patience here, an' ah'm no for letting grievances fester today.
Just as the Lord-Commander was beginning to make his way towards Cyborg-Major's position, he noticed he was back by wrecked AT-HAs that Noel had hijacked before the orbital bombardment; and not five paces away from the last beheaded droid, propped up against a burned out APC, was the open-eyed, bled-out corpse of Second-Leftenant Myles. Sporting a maniacal grin in death, much like the mutual-friend they (like Gowrie) were both seeking retribution for, the stalwart Cataphract commander had died with an ammo-dumped SA-35 in his hands, with his trusty officers' issue blaster-pistol and bloodied Vibroknife lying next to his bloodsoaked right leg. Barran's heartache was already at it's peak, so seeing Leftenant Myles' lifeless body only served to intensify that adrenal fury that was burning from within his soul.
Clenching his jaw with a bitterness he'd never known before, Erskine knelt down to pick up the Vibroknife, cleaning Myles' trusty Fairbairn and checking his reflection before the image of another was seen approaching from behind him. They saw the Lord-Commander staring at them through the reflection of the cleanest part of the blade, and stopped as their rich feminine voice rang out through the dust like a midnight clock-bell ruining a quaint, resting village's sleeping calmness; mechanical, but still expressing human colloquial inflection well enough to leave no doubt as to who (or what) was standing behind the Lord-Commander at the time.'It was me who stopped his heart in the end.', the advanced Nuetralizer drawled in an uncaring tone, though she did not know that Lord Erskine didn't react to such talk, he would only use it as fuel for the swelling blaze in his mind, fanning the flames with each second spent channelling that rage into something useful.
'Well good for you, Chantelle. I'm sure the,"Gals", are going to love hearing that their - dear pal - couldn't even instil a fleeting dread in the non-com she was executing at the time.', the Brigadier-General shot back, smirking in the face that watched his every move instead of gauging her face for telegraphing-tells or offended-bites. Almost like the droid somehow knew how quick some of his strikes could be, every potential drop of intel pertaining to his skill in swordsmanship (as far as the Lord-Commander knew) could only have been yielded from first-hand CQC opponents in previous New-Imperial campaigns. And by that point, Barran had only once retained the rare pleasure of encountering the Nuetralizers before, recalling Generis as the place where Lord Erskine advanced on his biggest lifetime rival for the first time.
'You can call me anything you please, it makes no difference to me. Now draw your sword, Erskine!'
These machines had been studying the Lord-Commander for all that time, searching their limited database for traditional swordfighting styles or techniques that many within the Galaxy had abandoned for newer swordfighting guilds or the study of Jedi/Sith arts; but what they hadn't taken into account was that it wasn't just the gift of supremely-trained swordsmanship that drove the Vibrosword to-and-fro so successfully in Barran's hand, but the tactician within being smart with the overall success of his time spent wielding it. Whether the Amalgam had given the Advanced Nuetralizer enough time to study her opponent would be up to the Advanced Nuetralizer herself, as the true extend of the Brigadier-General's proficiency in sword-duelling had been kept as private as it was with every other Galidraani officer who'd learned their overall craft within the private confines of Sandhurst. Which classic shall ah use first? Prodding and feinting t'gauge it's defensive habits.... Ah'll start aff wae Mare-style.
'Aw'right then, jus' try an' keep up. For if you fail here, my blade kisses your commander's throat soon after.... This is a promise, Mz. Anything You Please.'
Ziost Academy | The Aftermath. Zaavik Dagoth | closed
The Jedi had come with purging fire.
Why?
They spoke of hate. And murder. And evil. They accused her of these things as they-- . . .
She wondered if they ever bothered to look in the mirror.
She hated them.
A noise caught in her chest as she fell to her knees, the battle scarred remains of the Academy gates in pieces around her. Dust coated the crumbled space in a thick layer, turning the once vibrant place into a wash of melancholy gray. She swallowed against her dry tongue and took in a shaky breath. There were no sparks of life within the abandoned structure.
Jedi were heartless creatures.
Her fingers coiled into the debris around her. Her vision blurred. The space became assaulted with the sudden noises of a pained animal, rickashaying off the structure in a chilling echo.
It took her a moment to recognize the noise came from her. It took another breath for her to feel the dirt press against her face. Her grief overruled her, breaking her down and curling her up.
Why did she care?
What did she expect?
Twenty-four lives had been saved that day because of her treason, and it still didn't feel like enough.
Repulsorengines roared as three Sith-Imperial TIEs flew overhead. Zaavik dove forward, landing shoulder first against a slanted bit of war-rubble, and ideally out of sensor view of the passing aircraft. His head followed their pass with a high arc, eyes settling on the horizon as they grew smaller against the sky. Zaavik remained behind cover until he could no longer hear the bellow of their engines.
Once he was certain they hadn't noticed him, he brought one hand up and vaulted over his cover. Boots crunched into the dirt and grime beneath, the toe of the left knocking against something hard. The sensation drew his gaze; a corpse of the GADF color. The face, or what was left of it, was beyond any attempt of identification. A quick tug snapped the tags from around his neck, which Zaavik quickly pocketed.
There was a ripple in the force, a phantasmal lead that'd he'd unwittingly facilitated. Yet again he found it tugging him along, even now in almost direct opposition to what he should have been doing. Here was Golden Starbird Recipient Zaavik Dagoth, War Hero of the Alliance, and Shadow of the New Jedi Council, blatantly defying orders. Few people familiar with him beyond name would be surprised, but it certainly wasn't a good look.
Not like that that had ever stopped him from doing anything.
The distinct sound of a footstep suddenly overtook every other sensation as a precognitive sense of danger washed over him. Emerald plasma ignited, elbow bent, and crimson clashed over his shoulder with defensive viridescence. He whirled, sending strikes forward as he advanced. An opening presented itself, and one upwards strike sundered both the assailant's hands at the wrists. The followthrough sent the greenish blade sinking into the cest, incinerating the heart with the contained heat of a sun.
As his eyes met his assailant's, he finally actually noticed the person before him, rather than the red, glowing danger. Zeltron, female, about his age. The look on her face was unbearable as she experienced her last agonizing moment of life. Zaavik avoided her gaze and brought his foot upwards as she fell to her knees. His boot pressed against her upper breast and collar bone, forcing the now limp cadaver from his blade and slumping onto the floor with an extension of his knee.
He looked down past the wisps of smoke that rose from the hole in her chest. Like him, so very young, but unlike him, so very dead. She'd thrown any immunity their shared youth might have offered when she assumed the intent to kill. The lifeless, pinkish irises stared at him, aimless and devoid of intent, yet still staring right at him. He averted his gaze sharply, squeezing his eyes closed with a closed-mouth grimace.
It took a moment for him to muster the strength to unfreeze himself, but he eventually managed to press on. It was far from the first life he'd taken, but as if adhering to some intangible, alien logic, it had managed to affect him. Perhaps the look on her face reminded him of the Senator. Maybe it was the turbulent ripple he followed leaking some kind of secondhand aguish into his shred of empathic capability. It was morbid in the context of only just taking a life, but he wondered if he was losing his grip.
This is a real bad time to get soft, he thought to himself. Any life lost was a tragedy, but it was the unfortunate reality of war that death is callous, sudden, and brushed aside unceremoniously. At least until the battle was over. Many cried in outrage at these realities, others sought to minimize their existence entirely. Few of them were had ever been present to witness them. Fewer of them were forced to be haunted by the fact that they were the last thing some people would ever see. Those who had to live with both, fewer than Hutt's teeth they were, yet still somehow naive.
Zaavik envied them, those whose spectacles would not allow them to stare into that abyss. It had gone beyond staring, or the staring back commonly associated with it. It was now a listless drifting in that abyss, indifference as a sail. A slow and insidious usurper was apathy. Altruism's throne in Zaavik's heart had never had a legitimate claim to oppose it until now. For as long as it could last, the only thing keeping the seats as they were was spurn and stubbornness.
A noise like something dying caught his attention as he had trekked deeper. The spectral sensation reverberated the sound in a sense beyond the real. He shifted course toward it, skulking through what remained of an atrium. The sound continued, sounding more human the closer he came. Emerging from behind a shred of metal and stone now unrecognizable, he was greeted to the sight of a familiar, red-headed figure curled into the dirt.
Zaavik stood a mere two meters away, devoid of any verbal sentiment. An empathetic grimace seized his features, but he didn't say anything. What was he supposed to say? He could easily cut her down now, taking advantage of her vulnerable state. Yet, he didn't, or more accurately couldn't. Not even apathy could drive him to snuff someone out in the literal fetal position. But, truthfully, it went beyond that in its own inexplicable way. Anti-climax to their menagerie of encounter aside, it just didn't feel right.
Even with all this consideration, he said nothing.
A familiar presence washed over her, their energy burning like an inferno inside the force. She sat up with a gasp, the eyes of Zaavik Dagoth emerging from the wreckage that had undone her.
"What are you doing here?" She accused, her words harsh with sudden embarrassment.
She knew what her Master would have said if she had found her like this. Her peers. Her instructors-- The weakness was seeping out of her eyes and she couldn't stop it. At some point it had all just become too much.
Something in this place made the slivers of stress exploded into cracks. She could feel it-- The wild edges to her thoughts that she didn't care to reign in. Was that the darkness, or was it her? She didn't care anymore. She had had enough.
The distant sounds of the invasion echoed over to them, the ground vibrating under her hands. She hastily wiped the moisture from her face, smearing around the dirt and dust of a battle she hadn't even fought. She was painfully aware of the lit saber at his side, the vulnerability of the moment sending adrenaline pulsing through her. Sweat joined the snot on her upper lip.
"They got to you, didn't they." A set of blood shot eyes leveled on him, the sky blue swimming with betrayal. She forced in a breath, trying to relax her seizing diaphragm and maintain an ounce of dignity. She raised her chin.
A good question. One Zaavik wouldn't be able to truthfully answer himself, even if he took the time to consider it. He stared blankly down at Aradia, dour and unblinking. The only sound apart from the distant fighting was the undulating hum of the emerald death he held in his left hand. Neck twisting one side to the other, he looked around with a sharp ejection of air from his nostrils.
Another group of aircraft soared overhead, kicking up dirt and dust with an accompanying gust of wind. Stray hairs that had escaped his tie and the unzipped brim of his jacket over the strike suit all fluttered in tow. Several steps closed to distance, deliberate pace conflicted between assault and concern. Plasmatic blade crackled against dust particles in the air.
The surging green at his side was now close enough to project its glow across the diminished Sith's face. If ever there was a time to strike, it would be now. A loud, sudden droning of the saber in motion reverberated through the space around them. A sudden fizzle and the sound went silent as the blade disappeared, leaving only empty, dusty air before an unactivated hilt.
A harsh click followed, the apparatus returned to his belt coupling. Before her eyes manifested a cortosine, aluminiferous hand, fingers outstretched in offer. "Get up," he said with sincere, yet somehow still begrudging empathy. The source of the mysterious despair he'd picked up on was now clear. Aradia's sullen display was far too similar to a reflection.
Sith or not, enough exposure had proven to him that she was human, all too human. In some respect, they all were. Few had chosen alternatives to malice when put before him. Time after time she had opted not to kill him, as he'd done for her. Zaavik had lost track of the score by this point. This was either breaking even or giving her a debt. Assuming they hadn't yet gotten past the murderous friction, that was.
Aradia could feel the tension in the Force as he considered it. Killing her. The air felt electrified as her very life hung in the balance. She didn't care. For a moment, a painful spell, she was ready for death.
She wouldn't of resisted. The loss of all the wars had compounded on her thin shoulders. She no longer saw any light at the end of any tunnel. She only saw the struggle of her past and the hopelessness of this never ending war. She felt incapable. She was done.
The crackle of his saber bit through the moisture of the air. She squeezed her eyes closed, braced for the blow that never came.
"Get up."
Her eyes snapped open. She balked in confusion at the hand leveled before her. "What?"
"Come on, get up," he repeated.
It was not the response she expected from the Jedi that had been her most passionate adversary for the better part of a year. They maimed each other-- hated each other. One cease fire for the sake of survival changed nothing. And yet he had put his saber away. She hadn't even considered taking hers out.
Common sense screamed in the back of her mind, but in the forefront was this nameless ache that anchored her in place. She took the hand, her body coiled in anticipation as she rose to her feet.
"Don't look at me like that." Her words were tight, biting back the display of emotion he had stumbled into. She was too distraught to blush, but she did possess the sudden urge to knock him on his butt and make their embarrassment mutual. She had never shown him anything but anger before.
Zaavik's hand clasped around hers as he pulled upwards. The size difference briefly accentuated as his metallic extremities enclosed hers almost entirely. As soon as she was on her feet, Zaavik wasted no time having his hand abscond back to his side. In and out, the hand made an odd phantom-gripping motion inflecting his uneasy feeling for physical contact. The gesture was what it was regardless, and he'd bottle any further articulation for the apprehensive sensation.
A vague gesture was mirrored with either hand, fingers stretching out pacifistically at his sides, palms flashing outward for a moment. Afterwards, they'd slither into either jacket pocked as his azure regard drifted to the floor. He'd scan over the surrounding area, in part due to paranoia, and otherwise out of a lack of verbal sentiment to offer. After a moment, his gaze would return, now devoid of the prying expression he'd accosted her with previously.
"Yeah, I gathered that much." He'd instinctively shield his mind as the image of the lifeless gaze of the opposing Zeltron manifested in his memory. Yet another group of TIE screamed overhead. Sith or Imperial? He didn't bother to look up to find out. Nor when a second pass came in the opposite direction, even lower this time. A third managed to pull his gaze toward the sky. "We should probably move," he suggested in a vacuous, aimless tone. He walked stiffly, moving to a covered area away from the atrium without giving time for protest or obliging acknowledgment.
Aradia stared at the ghost of a boy in front of her, hardly recognizing him without the anger and vindication drawing lines across his face. His expression was smooth. Blank.
Unresponsive to the war zone around them.
Her own pain caught in her throat. Stood there, stunned as he turned to hurry them out. "...That's it?" She chased at his heel, debris kicking up. "That's all you're going to say? You figured? There are bodies in there, Zaavrik. Kids. Our age. And they sent you back to--"
Bombs landed close by, their earsplitting explosion masking her scream. The ground shook violently, bringing down a rain of dust. It brought her to her knees. She clamped down tight and cradled her head, her elbows digging painfully into her shins. Fear pulsed through her chest. The rapid sound of her heart blocked out all else.
She might just get her wish after all, came the bitter sentiment. They could die here and neither side would blink.
The sound was deafening, though the impact only manifested a flinch. Forearm rose to shield eyes from dust and debris as he squinted against the current. Stepping against it, he begrudgingly took Aradia by the arm and pulled her upward, moving them both deeper into cover as an unidentified ship burst into flames overhead and careened down somewhere beyond view.
As soon as a sufficient roof loomed overhead, he released her and spun around to face her. "This is why I said we should move," he quipped with dissatisfaction, face now peppered with war-dust. "-And no one sent me here. I should be elsewhere, but- You know what? It doesn't matter. But yes, that's it, I figured. We aren't kids Aradia, especially not when we take up arms. I'm not here for moral debates, I gave that up on Bastion."
He shook his head, an indecipherable expression on his dirt-mired face. "I was looking for you," he confessed plainly. He followed the trail most potent in the force, as he assumed was its will. Why else would it be so blatant on the air? "What happened to you?" he demanded. "You're usually so stubborn you'd suffocate if I told you to breathe, but you were just about to let me kill you back there. For what?" If every moment meant something, as he'd been taught, this one was a particularly agitating puzzle.
Was it empathy? A dogged search for meaning in this chaos? He intentionally ignored the harder questions.
Emotion bit across her expression, a fierce scowl turning to a sudden tremble on a dime. She was losing it. Everything felt so far away and yet so loud. She wanted to scream. She wanted to burn things. She wanted to curl up and cry and never leave her bed again.
His question brought a laugh bubbling to her lips, half crazed and half tormented.
"Exactly. For. What?"
The words hung in the air, nonsensical. Her eyes bugged as if it was all obvious. It wasn't.
"I'm a traitor. You know that? I snuck some kids out of here before the jedi hit the gates--" A distant collusion echoed to them, joining the cacophony all around them. "And for what?" She gestured at the deadly destruction of the Academy around them.
"You're back! It doesn't matter what I do-- You're always back! You won't stop until every single one of us are dead. And for what? Those students at the academy didn't chose to fight. Not like you. You came to their home and their owners put weapons in their hands and turned them into flesh shields. And I-
"I can't stop it. No matter how much power I take in-- don't look at me with like that-- don't you think I fear the darkness too? But you won't stop, you never stop!" She bellowed, fire jetting harmlessly out from her hands.
The corruption billowed off her, dominating the once complex harmony that had been her energy. Everything was off about her. The pure note of hope was gone --smothered-- as she poured out her heart to him for the first time.
"Make them stop." Tears carved clean paths down her cheeks. She stepped towards, imploring. Desperation gleamed in her still blue gaze.
A slight blench recoiled from the insistent, imploring tears. He grimaced, one eye squeezing shut as was his signature uncomfortable mannerism. "Don't do that," he protested weakly. It was definitely empathy, he could see it now. "I can't either," he conceded. "Either way you look at it, it's young people forced into war. It's not good, or right, it's war. It's reality. I can't declare the war to be over. I can't force the Empire to evacuate acolytes rather than arm them, nor can I tell the Alliance to call off the Stygian Campaign."
Zaavik took a disarming half-step backward. "We're cogs, Aradia. From my order's blood machine to yours, that's all we are. We have no say in any of this. It's an extension of a conflict as old as time itself, you know that. It's up there with the absolutes of the universe, like time or death." He sighed, shoulder sinking with exhale, leaving him looking a diminished shell of his usual headstrong carriage.
"I don't know what you want me to do," he protested softly. "You always decline my help, and now you're practically begging me? To do what? You're a traitor now, you say, and I can offer you the same thing I offered on Bastion in that case... -but I doubt that's your idea of help in this scenario." The corners of his mouth tightened into a flat purse as the outward edges of lips curled in.
"I'm just one person- Don't look at me like that."
"I'm not running away to be some jedi," she dismissed in distaste. She looked away and wrapped her arms around herself, the motion tight and desperate.
His reasoning brought her no comfort. Life brought her no pleasure. The reality they lived in was stark. Harsh. Bleak. It was no wonder Kaalia Pavanos had tried to remove her from the front lines when the first signs of strain had shown. Aradia should have listened to her. Her old master really had had her best interests at heart.
Unlike the Empire.
But she still needed the heartless system. The Empire gave her resources-- instructors-- bases to rest and reset. It took more from her than she could spare, but without it... she had nothing. She couldn't leave.
She wasn't half as free as she thought she was.
She turned back to him sharply, a guttural noise pulling from her chest.
"So we don't do it. We don't go out there. We don't fight. What's there left anyways? It's just dirt. Bombed dirt. Is that really worth dying for? For once, let's think for ourselves.
Features flickered, widening with an affronted expression for a brief moment. "Yeah, I didn't think so." That much had been made clear on Bastion. A great Jedi once declared that 'No one's ever really gone.' There were people much more qualified to analyze the real meaning of that than he. Though, admittedly he sometimes wondered what it really meant. Did it apply to Sith as well? No one meant no one, didn't it? Then again, even those among the greatest Jedi could be wrong.
Comms chatter crackled to life to the piece in his ear. Several voices relayed information, spouted orders, rambled off codes in the Alliance's specific military vernacular. Only one stood out: 'Nox is MIA.' Hearing them acknowledge his callsign sent a chill down his spine. So they'd finally noticed his absence, as was the inevitable. Though, he doubted significant suspicions would arise, at least not yet. It was war, chaos on its purest form. But, should he stick around much longer, he'd have an abundant level of explaining to do.
A finger pressed the side of the earpiece, temporarily silencing the device. There was still time to figure this out. Enough to even, perhaps, convince her what the right path was. If she still had the capacity for this much grief, the light hadn't entirely flickered out just yet. It was massively hypocritical to give her a second, third, fourth, countless unnumbered chance when he'd neglected to give it to others. Bastra, Zoltan Street, among others. All snuffed after singular wrongdoing, singular slights.
His head recoiled at an angle, brow furrowing with the narrowing of both eyes. So that's what it was? He hadn't expected such a request, although truthfully he felt fewer reservations than he believed he probably should have. "What are you-?" Hemming and hawing ensued, the inquiry devolving into a silent glare, filled in equal parts with consideration and suspicion. His comm device began to sound off again, this time attempting to address him directly, but somehow he could hardly hear it.
Her eyes widen slightly, betraying the shock she clamped down on. She hadn't expected him to agree. She expected resistance, scorn, or the end of the cease fire that apparently still held firm.
Even at war.
Despite the patterns of their past, his palms remained empty of weapons. Even more unsettling was his gaze. It was empty-- void of the hatred she knew all too well. She almost didn't know what to do without it. The damaged walls rattled with the sounds of another impact. She grimaced and shied back, her torso sliding down the wall and to the ground. The hall was poorly lit. The only light poured in from the shattered opening they had scooted through.
Another boom rattled the world; the disruption was normal now. She flinched all the same, her nerves clearly raw. All the while he... he stood there... numb and unaffected. A chill grew up her spine as she observed him.
She knew him as a boy full of fire-- spunk-- he blistered with emotions that bleed out of him like a raging river. They were his fuel, like they were hers. Now he was barely more than a husk. She had seen this phenomena before in others. Fallen others.
He wasn't calm, he was checked out.
"I get it, you know. What you're feeling. Or what you're not." She looked away from him and tucked her knees up.
Zaavik's eyes narrowed indignantly. "What, is this a therapy session now?" A hypocritical rebuke coming from him. His habit of well-intentioned hypocrisy was well observed by this point, but now, rather than well-intentioned, it tasted more of defiant phlegmatics. After a few steps, arms crossed over his chest, he sat on the remains of what was once a wall, or some other architectural feature. Impossible to really tell at this point.
"I'm just tired," he said. As if all dissent to her gesture had suddenly deflated from him along with the sigh that had preceded it. "There's always fighting. I'm always fighting, you know?" Dual sapphires gazed vacantly down at his boots over the dirt. Memories of the last decade flashed, all drowned in scapes of war and strife. Always fighting, as a child, and now in the earliest years of manhood. All of them flooded the force-presence of his vicinity, murking the mental space.
Suddenly, his throat opened to emanate a strange noise. A strange laughter unfitting to the atmosphere. "No, no-" he rebuked with feigned amusement. "I see what this is," he added, waving his hand dismissively. "Don't do that," he accused. "Clever, I'll hand it to you, but you're not going to get anything out of me that way." Either hand gripped tight around his knees, leaning forward with pressure on his heels. "Don't try to play me like that."
Her face softened in confusion, her intentions quickly misconstrued to the very damn thing he had done to her. Typical. "What-... oh feck off. I couldn't care less what side of the force you use. It's all the same; we all use it the same."
Another vibration violently shook the ground under them, sending down a wave of dust from ceilings. Her expression tightened at the timely accusation of her point. Would this structure hold? Or should they take their chances back in the open air? She didn't have answers. She curled in tighter, trying to ignore the hole that throbbed subtly inside her chest.
Was that corruption? Or just pain? It was hard to tell them apart anymore. She looked up to the husk of a boy mirroring her stance.
"I don't want anything from you," Her expression closed off. The rare hand she had extended was pulled back just as fast. Always a bad idea.
"Go for all I care. I'm sure the endless fighting is doomed without you."
A rebuke spat from his lips in Zeltron, a hidden insult. "That's not what I meant- You- Whatever, forget it." Even in the vaguest kind of confiding, friction reared its ugly head. A smaller extension of the larger conflict, or the manifestation of deeper a contention?
"You asked me to stay!" he protested. Standing up, he loomed overhead, raising his voice further. "You dig around in my head, think you can tell me how I feel, then what? Just tell me to delta!?" As the ground shook again, he stood, feet planted, unwavering. "Don't give me that, you want nothing from me, you asked me. I'm trying to oblige, not play games. So, what?"
Unshielded minds left sensations and emotions thick on the air. Intentions, however, clouded. As was the nature of the dark side."You want help with that gaping sensation in your chest? You just tryin' ta' bait me into striking you? Or you really want me to go like you didn't just cry for help? What?"
"I don't know!" She screamed, her tension exploding into a burst onto her feet. Her shoulders had grown tighter as he stood-- raising his voice and looming over her. It had transported her backwards. Suddenly she was small. Helpless. Chained down with no control over who she was.
Even as a slave she had felt trapped. Nothing had changed, yet everything about her was different. She shoved him back, buying herself space to breathe. If he was expecting an abrupt fight, he would be left cold. She took another step back, her fingers dragging frantically through her hair. Her energy was erratic, out of her own control.
"I don't know," she near sobbed, yanking on her roots in an attempt to ground herself. It didn't work. The ground rumbled. The corruption pulled insistantly at her core. The Jedi's eyes bore into her. Beyond them both was death. Mindless, heartless death.
She couldn't bare it. Who in their right mind could?
"You're the only one on this godforsaken world that wants me alive. I just thought we-"might understand each other. Her fingers went limp in her hair as she realized how foolish that sounded.
"Forget it." She moved to shove past him, her cheeks red with an emotion she couldn't place.
"You don't know!?" he shouted back, even after she'd devolved to diminished sobbing in reply. "I didn't have to pick your sorry ass up out of the dirt, you know? The least you could do is not be so damn difficult!" On the verge of a more potent conniption, he was beginning to question why he even bothered. Was there really any point in trying to help someone that appeared so unwilling? Had he the space for self-analysis, he might have realized he hadn't really been acting very different. It was always more convenient to ignore those realities.
The indignation over his visage swirled into a squinting focus, slightly slacked jawed in heed. The tail end of the sentiment didn't manifest on lips, though from the vague empathic tinge of intent, it was all at once deciphered nonetheless. "Hey-" he manufactured a time-buying response as he processed everything in his head. No longer shouting, intonations aimlessly hesitant. "I'm not trying-"
A half step back. Hems and haws gasped and sputtered in protest before she made impact. "Wait-" was all he managed to articulate before she shoved past. Spinning with the momentum, he quickly hissed in a sentiment of impatience in his own language. Reaching out, he snatched for her arm with both reproach and guidance. "Hey!" he cried. Once the followthrough had spun her around, both hands would retreat away, each in a pacifistic palm-showing gesture. A half step back accentuated his unthreatening stance.
The very brief staredown felt like an hour. "Look, I'm-" He made noise with his throat and tongue that inflected begrudgingness. "Sorry." The involuntary scratching to the back of his head betrayed the scowl locked intentionally on his face. "I understand," he affirmed in a muffled continuation. "But you need to use your words instead of getting all scrappy," he added suddenly, sharply, trying to maintain the ill-mannered blase facade.
Another lingering silence stagnated betwixt them. A nebulous gesture toward an unimportant direction, conflicted and unsure manifested before he crossed his arms. A defensive stance as if retracting the movements altogether. "I'm sorry," he muttered again, defeated.
"I tried using my words, you called it a therapy session," she snuffed back, indignant and strangely bruised about it all. Her chest heaved with heavy emotion, the moment feeling so out of control. How did they get here? Their dynamic was a like a pendulum, swinging erratically from one spectrum to another.
She wrapped her arms around herself, finally turning to face him in full. A lingering silence drifted between them. Her lips pulled into a purse as she studied his posture... his words... his very being seemed to be retracting again. Her own frustration snuffed out, something akin to guilt flickering through her.
"I'm sorry,"
"Yeah, me--"
The structure vibrated again, a tile from the ceiling dropping between them. Aradia jerked back with a gasp, the world around them whipping back to her attention. "Feth, they're going to flatten this place," she hissed, frustrated.
"Come one, there's durasteel rooms deeper in. We'll be safer there," She offered, gesturing deeper into the rumbled unknown.
One couldn't help but wonder why these durasteel shelters weren't crowded. Empty shells denied their usefulness by order of Sith Eternalism. Though, it wasn't as if there were many still living or planetside to make use of them anyway. The bland, featureless housing around them shook with every note in the bombardment meeting Ziost's surface.
It evoked anxiety for those beyond. If it was half as rough as it felt, there's no telling who was still kicking. Part of him wanted to turn, run into the rain of hell to do what he could. It would likely be his death, but the sense of duty still nagged the back of his mind nevertheless. Instead, he was stuck here in the bowels of a Sith Academy, in an empty durasteel box struggling to hold fast against the chaos above.
Empty, aside from her. Whether that was comforting or immensely disconcerting, he couldn't yet place. Somehow he figured the prospect of killing him wasn't entirely off the table for her. He was already here, risking neck and going pseudo-AWOL, and for what? To reaffirm that someone still had good in them just to inevitably fail on a solution again? To get to the bottom of what happened in an escape pod lost in space?
It was beyond frustrating, as internal uncertainties often were. Eternal recurrence had struck again, leaving the two of them more or less trapped in yet another non-ideal space. This time, it was arguably his fault, given that he shouldn't have even been here in the first place. Dust absconded from the walls with another tremor, forcing wisps of particles to dance around the stagnant shelter.
Knowing that he'd topple over eventually with Ziost's constant quaking, he shambled his way to a seat. Every moment anticipated accostation from the earpiece, but none came. How bad was it out there, really? The disturbance in the force that loss of life begets didn't feel any worse than usual, but surely that couldn't be right? Eyes drifted to the ceiling, wandering around like searching for something on the featureless steel.
The rumbling of tremors and long-muffled remnants of explosion soundwaves were but white noise for several minutes. "Bhesj! Are they trying to glass the place or what?" He made a face as a particularly jarring convulsion of the surface vibrated the chamber like a botched hyperspace emergence. Indistinct cursing in his alien tongue followed with a wince. It could have been worse, he could be topside right now. Instead, he'd defied instruction to follow the lead of that infatuating agitating thread. The phantasmal lead attached as a side effect of dual efforts for survival.
"So, uh-" A sudden boom and quaver forced him to pause, gritting his teeth with a hiss as he held on until it subsided, keeping words on the tip of his tongue. "I dunno, chit, are you good? You were-" he suddenly exclaimed a sound of displeasure. "Valle ke'dem, yeah, that's probably a stupid question, isn't it?" His head leaned down and turned into his fingers, floating above his elbow's perch on the armrest. Audible scratching of nails on scalp echoed curiously. "It's probably not as bad as you think it is, though. What you said earlier? About people wanting you alive? It's easy to feel that way, I know better than anyone probably, but it's never as bad as you think."
Aradia's features contorted in dry bitterness. "Easy for you to say, your side is winning."
She avoided the question about her emotional state, heat hitting her cheeks. That wasn't meant for him to see. That wasn't meant for anyone to see-- it was a weakness. She could hear her Master's voice in her ear. Caring was only going to get in the way of her progress. She could see the countless ways it had weakened her over the battles. She felt the cracks it was driving into her mind. War was not a place for empathy. Her conscious was going to get her killed.
Jend-Ro Quill
's talisman had left its mark on the sithling. In more ways than she understood.
She slid into the metal bench across from him, a small ball of fire providing light and faint warmth as they waited out the bombing in the depths of the fallen Academy.
"The only way this ends is if one side is eradicated," she stated, letting the emotions bleed from her voice. She stared blankly at the flames, the colors dancing across her vision.
Saber Seven let out a sigh of relief as he managed to get his ship stable. Relief misplaced. Several shots impacted on his shields, though thankfully not breaking through. Leon boosted away before his opponent could fire off more, though she was still behind him. After a rocky several moments as the chase began again, the Jedi began to calm himself again. He slipped into the semi-trance once more, allowing the Force to guide his actions. Now, he could feel what the other pilot was doing as she was doing it. It wasn't perfect, but it made reacting a breeze.
Leon had refused to close his eyes this time. He couldn't give in completely, lest he see the flow of the dead again. Last time he'd tried to channel the dead had nearly killed him, and he'd had nightmares of what he'd seen most nights since. But the power he'd held, how fast he'd been... Maybe if he could let them go after a few moments, he could use it to turn the fight and escape before the spirits overwhelmed him. Dread pooled in his chest as he closed his eyes.
It didn't take long for him to find the flow of spirits. as he continued unconsciously reacting to the fight, the Jedi reached out, calling the spirits to him. It was certainly more difficult than it had been on Brentaal. There weren't nearly as many spirits here, nor were they dead because of one cause. Civilians, Sith-Imperials, New Imperials, and Alliance soldiers were conflicting, even in death. Their pain and fury nearly forced Leon out, but the Near-knight continued to call them to him. Slowly, the Stream of death surrounding his fighter grew to a river. They groaned and roared, but Leon channeled the Force to make them stay in line.
With their hate, anger, and terror flowing through him, Leon struggled to maintain a grasp on himself. They were nothing like the millions of dead civilians on Brentaal. But as long as he could, the Force was with him. The Jedi willed the Dark emotions to bend to his will, to enhance both his reflexes and his telepathy. It wasn't very Jedi-like, but dammit, he needed this. Saber Seven could feel what his enemy was doing before she did it. Her unshielded thoughts were open to him now, revealing each move she intended to make.
Leon stopped his X-wing in a sharp turn, smashing himself against the seat's straps. With his ship now facing the Sith-Imperial's Leon reactivated his engines, rocketing towards his foe. The Alliance vessel opened fire, it's pilot using his boosted senses to aim for the canopy of his enemy as the two ships hurtled towards each other. The ship's four Ion cannons and four blaster cannons flared to life.
A cold stream ran over the pilot's booted feet, though he didn't notice it. Even as he drifted dangerously close to the Dark, the spirits reached to bring him down stream...
B A S T A R D
NEW IMPERIAL ORDER
BATTLE GROUP 'ENIGMA'
173rd LEGION | FOURTH COMPANY | TAKA GROUP
ZIOST Armour | Rifle | Pistol | Sohei| Hammer | Grenades
Company Strength: 91/100
In the ensuing minutes, all Silas had seen in his visor was screaming troopers trapped in their dropships, attempting escape before they were cut down. Whether by vibroswords, as was typical for the ilk of the 173rd, or a blaster or slug. The cause of death meant little to the 2nd Lieutenant, as long as the Legionnaires were unmoving, he was content.
The head of the gravity hammer caved in the sealed ramp door of a once primed vessel. Its repulsors and engines caved in, and sputtering out smoke and sparks thanks to Silas' hammer. Again he struck, and on the third strike, the blast door flew inwards. The first of the legionnaires that awaited him within were cut down, unmoving. And in place of swinging his hammer, Silas abandoned it entirely. Jetpack activating, he threw himself into the shuttle, his vibrosword drawn from its place on his hip to carve through the interior. Neck joints, elbows, shoulders, knee joints, Silas perceived them all in a moment, and he acted.
When he was done, scorch marks adorned his torso where blaster bolts had found their mark. Unperturbed, he marched out o the lopsided dropship. What met him was a similar sight all throughout the hangar. What dropships that hadn't been able to escape the onslaught were slaughtered. Whether directly by the more patriotic and zealous of the stormtroopers, or by indirect detonations of thermal detonators destroying them from within.
"Captain Griff, the Hangar is secure," Silas said as he lowered, grasping the sizable hammer with a single hand. The Osseus Exoskeleton strengthened him in the way that seemed almost inhuman. In it, he could face any Force user, he felt. In his mind, he only needed that final test of doing it himself. "Taka Group, going in." Once closing out the channel frequency to his superior, Silas herded those of his platoon down one of multiple corridors that led out of the hangar.
Lining the walls, the combined platoons stacked together. At the head of the stack, down the corridor, the Myrmidons were already engaged with responding security forces. With how many they had slain on the ship, Silas had already deduced that there were limited numbers left. Whether it was true or not, he'd come to find out the further into the ship he went. "Taka Group, with me, we'll take the Bridge Deck." Favouring one side of the corridor, he nodded to the First Lieutenant. "They won't expect a Bridge assault," Silas uttered before taking off, hammer in hand.
The Myrmidons were fast moving, never wasting a moment to contemplate where to go. They simply did. Whether they knew the true path to the Bridge or not, made no difference. They merely had to get to the centre of the ship, where the bridges tended to be located. Then it was all a matter of going up and down in levels. Adorned with their jetpacks and... Hammers, they needn't worry about taking the turbolifts.
Abruptly, he was thrown to the ground. His head crashed into the floor, thanks to the helmets padding the pain was fleeting, but still he saw stars. Blinking away the dizziness, the sight of scrambling Sith Imperials met his sight, and when he shot a glance over his shoulder to his own men, he saw the same. "What was that?" He groaned. The fastest of them were already exchanging fire with the enemy, dragging others into side corridors and storage rooms for cover.
"<< Lieu-skrrzt-ant. Statu-skrrzt- report? >>"
The rough voice of Griff snapped him out of the ruminations that were starting to plague him.
"<< Proceeding to objective. What happened? >>"
Planting a heavy hand, he pushed himself up from the floor. The hallway ahead clearing up as the Sith Legionnaires abandoned the intersection. Stumbling forwards, he stooped down to collect the gravity hammer.
"<< The -skrrzt-moth u-skrtz-ed >>"
Silas remained silent, trying to piece together the words. Distance had grown to be too much for their short range comms to effectively communicate.
"Lieutenant, over here!" Jerking his head in the direction of the voice, he saw the Myrmidon peering out a viewport. And as he approached, he quickly saw the blackness of space. Below them, Ziost. Further down the hallway, a console, and he rushed over, his digits scrambling over the displays controls to get any shred of information he could. "Only a few more levels," he said.
"We've got a turbolift over here!"
"Force the doors open."
The trooper, armed with solely a vibrosword and blaster shrugged, and Silas reached for his hammer again, before another Myrmidon swung and crushed the doors. The telltale sound of a repulsor generator active as the obstacle crumpled beneath the sheer power of the strike. "Let's move," Silas said, digits curling around the shaft of the hammer again before stepping into the open turbolift shaft. Peering down first, he could see nothing save for the dimly lit ground, and then he looked up, and saw only black. The bottom of the lift.
Without waiting, Silas stepped into the turbolift shaft, heading straight for the Command Deck.
It didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late. The rag-doll recovered and leveraged something unseen. The weapon in the woman’s hands was entirely machine, unregistered on the emotional spectrum. Like a blind spot, or a void, in their vision. Other than the sheer kinetic force that peppered through its exposed limbs. Peachy and inky flesh was torn asunder from the onslaught, and they dipped low –– to all fours –– to race out side-to-side to avoid being completely shredded by the slugthrower.
Blood and sweat poured from various gaps in their anatomy, quickly covering in shadows of black while they sought reprieve behind an extended leg of a parked ship. The flames were still a tunnel of incredible light and heat it wanted to avoid. This opposition, it concluded, was the source of the flames. Or at least a source of incredible nuisance.
A low growl quivered at the back of its throat, and large talons tore into the landing gear it had been hiding behind. Amplified by the Force, its muscles strained to tear a large chunk of metal from the extension, using the momentum from ripping it apart to swing it around and toward the fallen phoenix.
Using the metal as a shield, it took this opportunity to race after it, looking to pounce once more on its prey while the destabilized starfighter behind it started to quiver –– threatening to topple.
