Let The Hunt...Begin

[Voices of The Deep]

Like a damaged reel of videotape, a broken record spinning feebly over the fissure with ugly static warbling, sunrise for the shadows arrived with repetition capable of deadening even the brightest eyes into some dim, docile, sheep-like compliance, twilight a shade pulled at predictable, timed intervals and condemned to be hatefully rejected by the destroyer for what it was, what it meant. Squabbling dogs nibbling their ticks, jockeying for position, rutting to produce piss-soaked replicas of themselves, they had no power here, and likewise she could only suffer them while slaughtering or torturing the odd, meaningless clone that wandered too close, rather than vaporize life in a vicious snake of teeth from which a thousand tiny soldiers, the insects, would emerge to swallow everything, the crippled victims negligible substitutes that failed even in their rawest screams and pleas and rages to provide anything worthwhile for her other than bland sustenance.

Even had she possessed the mental capacity to muse consciously on all this destructive nonsense, there would be no means to such an end. What did everyone now a days have but their planets, their dominions, their skittish fear and inevitable extinction? Winter was nothing, said nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing and so now played the part spectacularly, trudging aimlessly through the muck with her mind a misty, vapid haze, no memories and no conviction, the blackflies, the worshippers, huddled between her broad shoulders and along her spine, bunched together in the thick fur and inactive as if tired and cold. The alarming amount of blood crusting on her cheeks and chest - Her blood, incidentally -


Skull was pounding, its brain reeling with sloshes she could almost in her madness experience, and she halted to consider the possibilities. the violence in her seemingly exhausted and content to merely survive.

What happened to her...last thing she remembered she had been flying over Kashyyyk in attempts to get back to her fleet but...she had been shot down by an unknown force...

A dark force.

And as the frosty haired woman looked over her shoulder at the wreckage of her ship Winter narrowed her icy optics and scoffed...either she had been shot down by the planets defenses without warning.

Or Winter was being hunted...


Either way, she needed to put distance between herself and the crash site.

And with that in mind. Winter placed a hand over her mid section and stumbled through the thick canopy.

She would overcome this...in the end. She always did.


[member="Darth Ophidia"]
[member="Xan"]
[member="Rusty"]
[member="Jericho"]
[member="Filius Stellarum"]

 

[Darth Ophidia]

A plume of smoke, a ship crunched like the flimsiplast of a failing and frustrated scribe, something moved in the bush, but the watcher could not make out the origins of the movement perfectly; she was still too far away. Her eyes turned down to the holo-image of how the ship had once looked before being shot down. Indeed, it was the one she was after. There was still much work to be done.

Darth Ophidia, Sith Assassin and servant of the Dark Lord. lowered her binoculars and placed them in their plastic case, fixed to the side of the swoopbike. From the back of her swoopbike, she took a metallic orb in her hands. Her fingers buried themselves in the small grooves of the orb sides and she gave it a twist. With a click, the orb-shaped droid booted up with a series of clicks and hums. It became lighter and lighter until it slipped out of her grasp and floated on its own.

"Investigate the wreckage, look for life-forms, living or dead and report back to me. Something has moved from the wreck, if you see it, you will alert me. Now go."

Her gloved fingers patted the probe-droid's underbelly and it took off with a swoosh. The Sith Lord then turned her attention to the thick, surrounding bush. Her hands flexed, two fingers travelled up to the visor of her helmet and pushed it down. With a click and sigh of pressured air, her helm was fastened over her face, covering her features. As usual, she took measures to prevent herself from being immediately detected. Her presence in the Force was subdued and scattered, making her extremely hard to pinpoint, or at all notice.

Leaning forward, she gripped the steering of the vehicle between her legs. It quivered beneath her as she looked over the gauges and flicked off a pair of switches that kept it from moving around. Her foot pressed a paddle, shifting it into gear; her hand turned the throttle, and the swoopbike took off. She rocketed along the top of the hill, on which she had been perched in observation, heading down to possibly intercept her target in escape. While not going near the full speed of the machine, it was certainly fast, and fairly quiet.

It was time to begin the hunt.

[member="Lady Sovereign"]

 

[Rusty]

The trees were huge.

That was Rusty's overwhelming impression of the forest world. The trees here were on a scale that nowhere else in the galaxy could hope to match. It was absurd how huge they were. Lucky for him, they made the perfect vantage point.

The Shard was laying prone on one of the larger branches, examining the crash site through Olga's scope. The massive rifle was one her tripod, anchored firmly into the sturdy wood. The rangefinder said the target was about 1800 meters away. That was a long shot for most rifles. For Olga, it was just another Tuesday.

Whoever had shot the ship down had planned this out. The anonymous tip gave coordinates for the crash site, almost to within 50 meters. There was no bounty, per se, but the tip had pointed out that if one had some weapons systems one wished to test, this target would be ideal. Whether or not she was actually a Darksider like the message said, Rusty didn't care. That would have made it sweeter, but he needed data, and any old Force User would do.

He lined the crosshairs up on the right side of the stumbling woman's hip and squeezed the trigger. It would take less than a second for the massive 17mm slug to cover the distance, but that was a long time in a situation like this, and it would take three seconds before Olga would be ready to fire again. If it hit as intended, the shot could potentially cut her in half. If it missed, he might be in trouble.

Here's hoping the first shot did the trick.

[member="Darth Ophidia"]
[member="Lady Sovereign"]

 

[Voices of The Deep]

The memories...endlessly ringing within the woman's ears as she sloshed through the muck of the planet...her wounds were already becoming noticeable...adrenaline had worn off and now she was starting to feel the ache that emanated from her mid section. Pain may of been temporary...but it was still pain. Ignoring it was difficult...the signals sent to the brain to inform it that the body was in trouble was something that very few could simply 'ignore' or 'get over'. How many times she had seen mortally wounded foes stand to their feet and run around as if they had not be stabbed through the chest with a lightsabre...such a feat was god-like in her eyes. Winter may of been strong, but not even she could deny the will of her physical needs. Positive and negative. She was no monk...no jedi master. And her title as 'Queen' meant nothing in the lower recesses here.

And as Winter made her way deeper into the forest, she stumbled and lost her balance a few times...leaning into a few trees in attempts to stabilize herself. Taking deep, steady breaths...remaining still for several moments before pushing herself off the tree and continuing onward.

But just as she moved...the moment she took that first step. A blast of energy sounded besides her, just where she had previously stood.

Shock rippled through the womans spine as she threw herself to the side and covered her face from the heat...twisting her neck and seeing that the scarring on the tree had come from a blaster of some kind.

Winter looked over her shoulder and into the far distance...tall trees and mountains decorating land as far as the eye could see...It impossible to figure out where the shot came from.

She needed to move...now.

Wasting little time, Winter made haste and headed towards the thickets part of the jungle she could see...hopefully obscuring the vision of those who were hunting her.


Hopefully, it would buy her some time.



[member="Rusty"]
[member="Darth Ophidia"]