Objective: 1.1
Participants: [member="Metis Athena Elpis"]
Enemies: Silver Intelligence Service Operatives overseeing clearinghouse
The jedi master felt the brush of the force, a tingle along the back of her neck before she slipped through one of the rooms. Mining droid parts strewn across the floor, some piled in corners and different crates but she stopped feeling something at the back of her eye. A ping in the force when she turned her head and didn't move or crouch bringing a hand up as her saber activated. The snap hiss of the blade appearing with a pale blue glow when a silver blade impacted and came out of the shadows. She turned her head while looking up at the ceiling and the small tube that served for some of the mining droid carts to move on an automated system.
She could make out her face and a technique like that was trained, to overwhelm a detection field and get within. Her eyes roaming over the one in front of her as she took in the blade. Silver and white from the core with a small fluctuation, a result of the process used to create it which meant it was a zirchonian fire crystal.... something the silver jedi had gotten to give them distinctive silver blades. Her outfit was older, black robes with tattered sections where electronics had been. Image disguisers that had been made for them by... Her eyes darted up to where the mask was. It wasn't there.. she had been looking for the gilded durasteel...
...and found nothing, dark skin that was taunt over high cheekbone.... the one side of her face flawless as her nose and lips remained intact like someone didn't want to mar them. Her cheek, her throat and her head were flayed... burned. Exposed muscles and bone that gleamed white where the hutt would have tortured her. That was why she had known and felt the familiar sensation of her. "Ruby." The name came out and she could practically see a sneer on her face as the muscles twitched and sh caught the clear synthflesh on her face. Her lips curled up to exposed flawlessly white teeth... her eyes gleamed with rage and fire but it wasn't golden like using the darkside.
"AHHHHHHH." Her scream tore through her throat finally and she was on the ground. The force swirling around her with more murderess intent but her rage came out finally and she shouted. "Jedi." She sneered more standing there and planting her feet but she jumped back up the hole catching an outcropping of metal as she moved into another tunnel and the jedi master could feel her moving quickly. SHe turned back to look at her padawan and deactivated the blade as her eyes flicked around and she couldn't feel the woman. "This might not be good." The situation had went up another notch and she was moving as the saber deactivated.
The movement through the room into another chamber that let her overlook a central section of the mine, rows of raised platforms that had been given chairs. A central platform hovering with someone she hadn't been expecting. "Rae." She said it low and imagined that the humanoid could and already knew they were there. She was taking in the crowd around and some of the guards as the older model armor that had been presented and given to combat scenarios by Jorus and Noah once upon a time. She didn't speak yet to Metris but motioned for her to remain quiet and out of sight there as she listened at the edge of her hear in the chamber.
"The Silver Jedi have come here." Her voice was deep, Rae had been within the Silver SHadows when the Harbringer existed. A singular leader who decided their morality and Connor was less then ideal as he jumped from light to dark. She was one of the few who had become SIS when Sor-Jan and Sorel worked to rescue the shadows from becoming dark jedi. She hadn't seen them and wondered what had happened... the
SIS agents had disappeared, abandoned when SOrel had been run out of the silver jedi and went into self imposed exile for trusting them. She could still command a room though. "We expected this as they encroached more and more and have even brought their own gangs to fight."
Her hand came as she pulled out a few of the hostages from the ship, not entirely worried about it but she was moving around smashing a fist into one of them. The humanoid had never said what she was but she was tall.. almost impossibly tall and muscled. A former mandalorians they had recruited when Strider had come around and helped them out. Heavily muscled and wearing a tank top she circled around with the guards giving some indication they worked for her. Restraining one of the others who tried to move as the crack of bone and sound of flesh meeting flash came. The jedi masters senses were enhanced and the metallic tinge of blood came into the air.
One of the hostages screamed before Rae stood over them and kicked the woman in the stomach off of the platform. Her hand darting out to try and hold her onto the platform. The crunch of bone as a boot came down onto her hand.. the scream that ripped out into the room and snickered from some of the others. She didn't see this ending well as the woman was lifted up with one hand. "But it is not a matter, we the ones they abandoned are barely even thought about here." The jedi master had been wondering who was in charge... the small reports of gangs on here made it seem chaotic. Clearing houses required organization, power and work to make it a place you want to go.
She set a small tracker on the tunnel but was backing away and motioned for Metris to follow her as she slid a comlink out... who could she contact that was old enough to remember the SIS and what they could do. She looked towards Metris with a look. "The SIS, silver intelligence services that rose from the ashes Connor left of the silver shadows.. one of their previous incarnations. Sor-Jan, Sorel and Myself worked to turn them into a proper intelligence service that didn't corrupt its members to the darkside. It worked for a time but when Valae ousted Sorel with Arisa they were abandoned, left in the cold and...." and they knew how to disappear and fight back.
She thought of something moving her hands and left the comlink there for a moment when she started pulling up information from the chevron pad. "THey have been using some of the old accounts for operations." She hadn't thought about them, they had been left open for investigators and added to with interest thanks to Danger and her advanced intergalactic banking system. The best offers from the economic watch circle that could invest and improve what came from the accounts. The jedi master looked at Metris. "They were highly trained spies who aided and worked with the jedi who were sent to exterminate the darkside. They needed to be able to be dangerous but also smart."
Which as she thought about it could explain a lot before she was looking around. If you were an abandoned intelligence outfit trained to infiltrate, gather information and control operations... a clearinghouse was ideal. People came in and out, assets you wanted to keep could be bought and controlled... the pirate and slaver fleet they had in the asteroid field. The intelligence of the planet would also be ideal and handling the hutts while they might not have some of the jedi shadows. Those ones had remained in the temples of the Silver jedi and just gone back to being sentinels with no council.... they still were dangerous and knew who to hire.
"We need to report this but few to none here would remember them or how dangerous they could be." There was also the training, they had taught them at least the ones who could feel the force to detect its use to see and look past concealment techniques like a disciple of twilight or make false chambers and lure in force users. Counter intelligence operations to face spies and assassins from groups like the sith or the iron empire, the dominion even themselves as one of the main tests was for operatives to try and sneak around the temples with the jedi shadows on patrol. Matsu motioned for Metris though as she could see the chamber clearing out.
"We need to get down there and try to rescue the hostages but this kicked itself up and explains a lot." She crouched looking over it and waited until everyone was out of the chamber... Rae had remained behind and the platform moved towards the center of it connecting to a larger platform as gravity fluctuations came from the open air. "An anti grav field... or gravity wells to make it harder for a jedi to navigate and get there without being seen." It was smart and the gravity would add resistance and warping to shots that went through it. Slugs would be better but susceptible to the field and she imagined a sound dampening screen was easy enough to have there.
She could see Ruby waiting there in the distance and a laugh issueing from the womans chest. It was deeper and when you were a mountain of muscle and flesh... you dind't worry about a lot. "A clearing house is based on the threat provided by the person in charge.. you trust them to be able to find buyers for the products you brought to them. You trust in their ability to keep the neutral ground on the station so gangs do not fight...." She was trying to think how to explain more of it but kept her eyes fixed on the pair when she brushed a hand along the top of her saber knowing a fight would be coming eventually and the hostages there on the platform she were scared and crying well... time to get creative.