No Jedi Left Behind [Jedi/Sith and allies]

[Cambria Zadira]

Top of train car
Engaging [member="Darth Thuyrn"]
________________________

As the Sith Slaver snapped his lightwhip aggressively to move Cambria back, she continued to keep herself between the cloaked darksider and where the other Jedi were breaking into the train cars to free the captives.

The Sith's exotic weapon crackled in at the Twi'lek's flank, striking high, low, and in between all at once. It was the nature of the Lightship and why it was so challenging and deadly in an expert handler's hands. He certainly had skill.

The Guardian pivoted around to defend herself, filling the air with sparks and ozone as well as flying shards of the Kaiburr Crystal as the Jedi Knight blocked with the short blade and used the long in an attempt to cut away one of the flying strands.

A small smirk graced her naturally berry-colored lips when one of the flying discs from a Massassi nearly took out their master, but that didn't last long as Cambria's danger sense flared. A moment later the metal roof suddenly began to peel back and off, coming like a buzzsaw towards her.

The Twi'lek Jedi did the only thing possible and launched herself up and into a high somersault, riding the wind currents generated by the speeding railcrawler like a leaf on the wind until her lithe yet muscled body came down upon another car some back. Though, of course the landing wasn't perfect and booted feet slipped on the wet surface sending the exotic beauty towards the edge...

Fingers reached out with nails screeching along the metal until they found purchase with the Jedi's body dangling off the side precariously. Using the Force, Cambria swung herself onto the connecting platform in between two cars and heaved a sigh of relief.

Spoiler

I am going to bow out of this thread due to time constraints and muse. Thank you for the tussle.

 

[Darth Thuyrn]

That was one adversary neutralized.

But there were more Jedi to deal with.

Scanning the skies, his keen eyes spotted one of the Jedi hovercars moving in close to try and load the sprung slaves and prisoners into the back. Blood boiling with indignation, the Sith Lord burst into a full sprint towards the car, leaping several meters away high into the air to come down on the very back of the hovercar. A deft kick sent one of the intruding Jedi careening over the edge and down past the conveyax railway. Light-whip activated, the Sith Lord twirled his weapon around him in a vicious spiral that carved large chunks from everything around it.

Bits of the hovercar and its occupants spun out into the darkness and the rain. A final swing of his weapon through the front engine sealed their fate, the Sith managing to leap free of the doomed vehicle just before it began to tip down towards the ground.

He landed on the back of another car and began his gruesome dance of death once more.

[member="Coren Starchaser"] | [member="Tiland Kortun"] | [member="Cotan Sar'andor"] | [member="Cambria Zadira"]​

[member="Boo Heavenshield"] | [member="Riley Reese"] | [member="Abigail Meredydd"] | [member="Théodred Heavenshield"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

The fact that there were SIth here was not a good thing. But it also meant Coren could do what he was trained for. Hunting the Sith down and removing them. There were Sith on the train, but there were more outside, and that was where the darkness was. He reached out to the Jedi in the area, and could feel [member="Cambria Zadira"] having to take a step back.

Not good. Meant he was needed elsewhere. Reaching to [member="Tiland Kortun"], the other Master, and definitely the better choice for leading students, Coren called out. Could feel Cambria. Need you to get the prisoners off this train.” He looked to one of the Knights with him. “Watch the students. Save the prisoners.” And with that there was the telltale snap-pop of space being folded.

He was on top and could feel the dark side again. He saw the airspeeder moving and knew that was not a good way. Reaching out in the Force, he did his best to try to hit the ejector seats. And he saw the saber. A deep breath, Coren started running towards the next car, and using the Force, propelled himself forward. Hitting the top of the car, he swung the dark end of his lightsaber pike around to try to catch the Sith in the side of the head.

“Enough.”

[member="Darth Thuyrn"]

 

[Shade of Decay]

"Pitiful."

The word hung in the air between the pair; as Jace resignedly hung his head once more, Tsisaar stood straight again. And it, with the condescending tone it had been delivered with, summed up Tsisaar's every thought on the Jedi in front of him; he was weak. He was foolish. He was barely even fit for a play-thing, certainly not as an enemy. He was an utter wretch, that was wasting space in the galaxy when he should've been destroyed long ago.

He was, absolutely, pitiful.

The Sith stepped back, still cradling Jace's lightsaber in his hands. He could feel the Force swirling around the man; weak, hard to grasp, but still there, even despite the drugs. Jace's laboured breathing filled in the sound that had died out as their conversation dried up; outside, Tsisaar could hear the sounds of battle, sense the presence of Jedi. His eyes narrowed, and he looked down at Jace again.

"Try harder, boy," he growled, his tone just as cold and menacing as it was back on Coruscant. "Even if you should break out of your restraints, even if you should somehow be lucky enough to get past me and escape, you're nothing. You're no Sith, you're no Jedi." He glanced at the lightsaber one last time, before tossing it down in between himself and the trapped man.

"You're just the same frightened child I met on that farming planet, so long ago."

[member="Jace Khel"]

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

Location: On a prison train
Nearby: Jerek Zenduu
Gear: Lightsaber | 6 x Shiva Knives | Kervanos | Svalinn | Fate's Dance | Murr Earings |

The pink-haired Jedi Knight wanted to groan and laugh at the same time, and she didn't really want to but there was no way to stop the soft sound of amusement that escaped her lips as she shook her head. "Jokes like that should really be locked away," Ok, so that was bad, even she had to admit that. Luckily Jerek's other suggestion was a good one, they weren't here to trade quips and show off...not just cause he was winning that particular battle. "I guess I'll check the other end then, shout out of you spot anything."

It was a little bit disconcerting, the way the prisoners in their cells just stared straight ahead, almost zombielike in their focus. If Asaraa hadn't known better she'd have thought that they were all meditating, deep in a trance, only she'd been around enough meditators in the temples of her youth to know what they felt like. There was a brightness, a pulse of power in the force that was so familiar in a Jedi temple, but none of that was present here. The people in the train though, they were different, almost muted, as if they weren't really there. It was...something off here, the pink-haired Jedi's brow furrowed as her pace slowed, head tilting from side to side, eyes dancing across the restrained Jedi, not really understanding, comprehending what was wrong with them.

"Asaraa? I think they're drugged."

It was like a light had turned on on top of her head, realisation dawning on her as she span around on one foot, staring back up the length of the train in horror as her gaze settled on the boy. To be captured was one thing, something that every Jedi, everyone who chose to take a stand in the galaxy had to live with every time they stepped out into the galaxy. However this was something different, to lose your mind, your ability to reason, that was a horror beyond all horrors. She took a step back towards Jerek, the footsteps echoing around the cabin for a moment before she froze, watching the young man comforting an even younger Padawan. There was something poignant, heartbreaking about the scene, no-one as young as that girl should be made to feel like that, the abject misery which seemed to flow from her, like a fog that seemed to fill the cabin. Turning away from the scene her fist flashed out, slamming into the metal of the wall as she sucked in a deep breath and let it out. "Nothing, just more of the same cells...and some even more secure ones, like vaults or something."

More than anything Asaraa wanted one of the sith jailors to be here right now, a target for her frustration, but that wasn't going to help anybody. What would help them is getting them off this train...and that wasn't going to happen while they were still moving. "You'd think the designers would include some kind of emergency release, in case they need to abandon the train..." her voice trailed off as she realised the foolishness of what she was saying. "I don't wanna just pull the drugs until we can get a medic in to look at them and make sure it won't have any adverse side-effects but, if we need to bail out of here fast we may not have a choice." There were controls on the walls, the flashing lights indicating that they were still active at least. Turning the Knight bit down on her lip as she examined them, there didn't look like there was a wake people up gradually button so...her fingers came up as she started tapping at buttons, maybe she could unlock the cells at least, that'd be a good first step in helping to get everyone out of here.

 

[Jerek Zenduu]

Location: The Train
Equipment: Jedi Padawan robes, Lightsaber, Hololink, Utility Belt
Nearby: [member="Asaraa Vaashe"]
Objective: Find the key to opening up

(Post Soundtrack: Glass House by Red)​

"So, Kasari, where are you from originally?" the boy asked as he worked on the locking mechanism, trying to distract himself as much as the young Jedi girl. The lock didn't seem to have any openings to insert a key or physical medium, so he was attacking its exterior instead with a small blade tool to open up the inside. He glanced into the cell from time to time, hoping that Kasari would respond, but he was met with only quiet.

Jerek was often happy with quiet, but he knew Kasari didn't need quiet today.

"Well, I'm from Ossus, or at least, that's where I spent most of my years training with the Jedi," Jerek went on. He had managed to score around the edge of the faceplate, and was working the blade into the material. The effort was tedious with a static blade, and the padawan made a mental note to find a vibroknife to add to his utility belt instead. "Oh, you should have seen it, it was a really beautiful place when I was there. I mean, the temple was typical Jedi architecture, all stuffy and archaic, but there was a lot of green fields around it. And then there was a forest, with lots of places for training, or having fun, or getting in trouble."

Jerek gave the Zabrak girl a knowing grin, hoping to catch her eyes. She was still looking down, her cheeks damp. His heart twinged with sympathy at her ordeal, something he had never experienced himself, but felt he could relate to regardless. He had known what it was like to feel powerless as something you loved was ripped away. The boy couldn't make it any easier for her, but he could try to get her out faster, and he focused on his work.

The faceplate came off, and suddenly Jerek was looking at the mechanism's inner workings. The lock was electronic, because of course it was, but he brightened a little at the sight of it. He wasn't a mechanic or anything, but he had worked on the insides of his own starfighter enough to know a little bit about circuits and wiring. Tracing them in the air with his tool, the boy found some of the more identifiable parts, a control board with circuitry that led to several other parts, as well as a single input that came from what looked like a power supply. Yet as he moved to cut off that input, he felt something that gave him pause. Investigating a little further, Jerek found another set of circuitry from the power supply, looping back to another device that had looked like it was simply part of the locking mechanic.

He had to hand it to the lock's designer, they weren't stupid enough to make it easy.

"Have you been with Master Qardin for a long time, Kasari?" Jerek asked, giving him something else to focus on as he considered the puzzle before him. He had switched from a metal tool to a non-conductive plasteel one, and was probing the circuitry for an angle of approach. A little tinkering with his starfighter had hardly prepared him for a challenge like this one. "I used to train Master Beck. He was pretty stern, but I learned a lot from him, too. He was kind and loyal, too, he'd do just about anything to protect someone. I'm sure your master is the same way."

"Master Qardin is really funny." The words were just a murmur, but they were music to Jerek's ears. He glanced at the girl inside the cell, she still wasn't looking his way, but she was talking. That was enough for now. "He tells jokes, really bad ones, too, but they still make me laugh. I don't know why, I guess—" the padawan saw her glance in the direction of Qardin's cage, "—I guess because I like being his padawan."

Jerek smiled as Kasari finally met his eyes again. Before he could say anything in response, there was an audible tone, and the door to her cell disengaged, the lights on the control board inside the locking mechanism changing in response. Beside him, and all around, the other cages reported the same lights on their untouched locks. He pushed the door open, reaching across the narrow divide to the girl, putting a hand on hers, grasping it. She seemed reluctant, so he drew her across the gulf, and Kasari stepped free from the cell. He expected her to be happy, but instead the girl started to cry, wrapping her arms around Jerek in a desperate embrace.

"Oh hey, you're alright," the confused teen said to her. He returned the embrace for a moment, before noticing the adjacent cells were also reporting open. Grabbing her shoulders lightly, he pulled them apart and gestured to the others, "Look, everyone else's cell is open, too. We should get the rest of them free, huh?"

Kasari nodded and the two of them quickly went to work, opening other cages and coaxing out the forlorn Jedi inside. Kasari was soon joined by her friends, who helped other able-bodied prisoners free, before they began to tackle the drugged adults. As they approached the middle, Jerek met Asaraa again, and he grinned at her. "Thanks. Whatever you did got the cells opened, because I know I sure didn't do anything here."

When the last Jedi was freed, Jerek stood back and surveyed their handiwork. A couple dozen or so prisoners stood crowded in the car's narrow walkway, many of them able to stand and walk with guidance, but little else. He hadn't expected the prisoners to be this helpless, even the assistance they could have recruited from the younger padawans left lucid was needed to keep the older Jedi from harm. A hellish task lay before them, and the baffled youth was quick to voice his concern, "Did we have a plan to get everyone out of here? How's that going to work now?"

 

[Lance Claw]

Location: On the train....funny i thought i was still in the city prison.
Objective: find out what happened, change hair and eye colour quickly
with: [member="Asaraa Vaashe"] l [member="Jerek Zenduu"]
Gear: in opposite cell which was opened

Lance looked up as the door to his cell opened and the cell door across him opened revealing the gear he had come in. He needed to get it without being seen. He tried reaching out with the force but there was something stopping him. Didn't take him long to realise he had been drugged. He began the slow process of pushing out the toxins using force heal. The more he flushed the easier it became to continue flushing it and eventually he could stand up as he looked around again beginning to feel movement. He was.....wait he was on a train how did that happen. The drugs must have dulled more than just his force senses but all of them. But he was back now as he force dashed into the next cell placing on his weapons. He hadn't come in any kind of armour thankfully but he did have his weapons back.

Before he stepped out to meet his rescuers he did a quick change to his look making his hair blue and his eyes blue as well hiding his vampire features as well as his normal ones so that his 'rescuers' didn't kill him on the spot. He stepped out blade drawn flames flickering down it's length as the crystal helped him regain some of his force stamina back. He saw a pink haired girl or teenager he really couldn't tell the drugs still flushing from his system and a teenage boy. He rather decidedly asked "Jedi or Sith?" If they said Jedi he would lower his blade tip and look around some more.

 

[Darth Thuyrn]

Danger flashed in his mind, and Thuryn dropped into a crouch as a lightsaber piked sailed right through where his head used to be. Snarling in response to the Jedi's declaration, Thuryn ignited his light-whip and sliced another grievous canyon through the airspeeder beneath him, virtually scything it right in two. Repulsing away from the doomed speeder, Thuryn leaped onto the top of the moving train as best as he could, the slick surface causing him to stumble and latch on for purchase as the wind whipped past his hairless cranium.

"Ah, Starchaser! The Emperor will reward me greatly if I bring him your head!"

Igniting his light-whip again, the Pau'an Sith Lord turned about and snapped his vicious weapon towards the Jedi Master, aiming primarily for his face and arms as to deprive him of sight and weapons respectively. With his purpose truly clear, Thuryn was wholly fixated on Starchaser.

Intent on his death.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

Location: On a prison train
Nearby: [member="Jerek Zenduu"] | [member="Lance Claw"]
Gear: Lightsaber | 6 x Shiva Knives | Kervanos | Svalinn | Fate's Dance | Murr Earings |

This was...new, it certainly was the last thing that Asaraa had been expecting. One of the prisoners, the prisoners they'd just freed no less, had somehow managed to get his hands on a sword, a sword which ended up pointing at Asaraa and Jerek now. This was totally not how she had expected the rescue mission to turn out, the prisoners were supposed to be grateful to them, not turn on them with weapons drawn. Still after everything they'd been through Asaraa couldn't blame them too much for reacting with hostility. Still, with a waving flaming sword bouncing around in front of her...it was probably best not to risk anything too much. The girl took a deep breath, stepping forward and to the side, just inching in front of Jerek, enough to be able to cover him if the situation went bad as she reached out to touch the force. She didn't want to do anything with it, hoped it wouldn't come to that but, just in case things went badly she wanted to be prepared.

"Do we look like Sith?" So maybe she was a little put out by that question, who wouldn't be but still, the girl let out her breath, turning to glance over her shoulder. "Kasari, can you get the others, gather them all together at the back of the carriage please?" She could see the other prisoners all starting to gather together, all of them still a little confused and unsure of themselves. Whoever had chosen those drugs had really done a good job, if she ever got her hands on them...Asaraa let out a deep breath, letting the tense uncertainty go as she glanced back at the blue-haired man threatening them. "Look, I get you're scared and confused, but I promise, we're the good guys and now we need to find a way to get all these people off a speeding train and out to safety before the Sith realise what's going on." As the man's blade pulled back, the pink-haired Jedi gave him a quick smile before squeezing past, pulling open the carriage door as she glanced down, teeth working nervously at the soft flesh of her lower lip before turning to Jerek. "You know, I don't think we've got a lot of options here. I don't really wanna try fighting our way up to the engine, too much chance someone gets behind us and goes for them so...we detach the carriage. We can slow down and abandon the train here, see if we can get out or we can call in a lift to get all of them out of here, or find some transport and get them out of here ourselves."

 

[Jerek Zenduu]

Location: The Train
Equipment: Jedi Padawan robes, Lightsaber, Hololink, Utility Belt
Nearby: [member="Asaraa Vaashe"], [member="Lance Claw"]
Objective: Properly detach to start the escape

(Post Soundtrack: Break Out by Cryoshell)​

Jerek should have been examining the issue ahead of them, the immediate dilemma of how to get the dozen or so newly-freed Jedi off the train. It was going to require a discrete approach, the Jedi had not come exactly equipped to handle anything more than an average rescue mission, they weren't in the general habit of pulling off many train jobs —perhaps this was an incentive for the Jedi to gain more experience with crime. Instead, he was ruminating over their accomplishment, even this small bit of manumission felt like a gigantic victory to the padawan. He was giddy at the buzz it gave him, finding him distracted for the problem solving he was usually so good at, his mind periodically circling back to their achievement.

The snap-hiss of a lightsaber being ignited brought his mind quickly back to focus.

He whirled, drawing his own lightsaber in an instinctive motion and setting his finger on the activation key. Yet it was stayed by the voice of the pink-haired knight standing next to him, speaking calmly to one of the freed Jedi now holding a Force-imbued steel blade. Jerek could sense the confusion inside the man, the same wary fear that Kasari had expressed only minutes before of whether Asaraa and he were Jedi or Sith. Good or evil. These truths seemed timeless and unwavering, a unifying theme that united an otherwise disparate and fractious galaxy. Truths that were only so on their surface, too complex for the galaxy as a whole to rely upon these distinctions, but today they were simple enough for a traumatized little girl and a blade-wielding man.

The boy felt his breath let go as the blade lowered, relief flooding over him at the confrontation's quick resolution, and he re-clipped his lightsaber to his utility belt. Part of him was gratified that the Jedi could resolve their uncertainty so easily, that any fear of the unknown could be reasoned with and assessed rationally, any situation de-escalated without leaping first to conclusions. A far cry from the efforts of the Sith on display today, the Jedi before him would not have been imprisoned if this were the case. A Sith Empire that merely banished the Jedi, instead of rounding them up like cattle, would not have necessitated such a daring rescue on the part of those here today.

Which brought Jerek back to the bigger obstacle at about the same time that Asaraa was. He nodded to her, glad to be in the same frame of mind, with his more prepared now to address the actual problem. One that the knight seemed to have a solution to. "Detaching the carriage is a good idea," he mused aloud, "But do you know how to decouple a train car?"

He chuckled haplessly at his own question, not sure how to answer it himself. Moving to the door at the front of the car, the boy pulled it open, feeling the wind rippling at his robes as it whipped into the car with turbulent force. He had to brace on the frame of a nearby cell, peering out to the landscape they rushed towards at hurtling speeds, feeling the rush of speed as he did in his starfighter. It was like a shot of energy directly to his system, giving Jerek the fortitude to attack the train's coupling mechanism.

Like the cell locks before, the padawan scoped out the mechanism from all sides, looking to see what may have been built into the train already to facilitate his course of action. A lever or button of some kind, even if it wasn't exactly obvious. Jerek wasn't expecting one to say "push here," but the operators of this train had to have some way to decouple the cars. But like the cell locks before, whoever had designed the train had taken the care to make the latch release non-obvious, perhaps one that required a key or tool that only the train's engineers carried.

It took a moment for Jerek to register the hand touching his shoulder as he crouched near the car's coupling, looking up to see Asaraa standing beside him. She was holding out her lightsaber to him, and he stared at it for a second. Suddenly the notion came to him, and the boy's cheeks reddened in embarrassment. Of course, he was a Jedi. The motion that had come to him instinctively in the confrontation before had somehow eluded him now, but with a word of thanks to the older girl, he pulled out his lightsaber and ignited its blade.

The green shaft of light was almost translucent against the ground below as Jerek lowered the blade and swept it across the coupling mechanism. He felt some resistance due to the density of the metal, but his lightsaber encountered no real obstacles as it cut through, severing the carriage, and all of its followers, from the cars and train engine ahead.

Jerek felt the change immediately, and he lurched forward, gripping the edge of the car's decking to keep from plunging over the side as the car's speed began to slow. The boy's hair whipped across his eyes as he pushed himself back up, his lightsaber blade hissing as it retracted into its hilt, and the boy turned back to the car's occupants before looking at Asaraa. "So, that's done, we should probably call that lift now. Eventually someone on that train is going to figure out that they're missing a few cars. I don't think I want to stick around to see what these cells are like from the inside."

 

[Lance Claw]

Location: so trains huh, so much fun
Objective: Time to bug out
with: [member="Asaraa Vaashe"] l [member="Jerek Zenduu"]
Gear: currently on me or so I hope

Lance blinked a few more times lowering his weapon but keeping the flames going shedding light within the train car. "Sorry about that, they drugged me harder than I had originally suspected. I thought I was in the City still. Must have been in the water or something." He shook his head free of the final remnants of the drugs looking around as he heard someone activate their light sabre and the screech of metal as they came free of the main train. He looked over to see the boy had cut the coupling.

"Trust me you don't wanna be inside those cells. Not a lot of fun but we need a way out right just give me a second then." As he walked back to the next car seeing it was mostly empty he heated the sword to cut a hole in the roof. After doing that he had to make sure no one else would see what he was about to it as they might try stopping him. As he lifted his sword skywards a flaming ball of blue and white shot into the sky detonating in a small explosion above him.

He then walked back onto the train car and began helping people up. "My people will be here in a few minutes help me move these people off the car so they can collect us. Trust me they are the good guys." As he continued to help people for the next few minutes he spotted an older looking Imperial Dropship Transport landed on the whole he cut in the trains roof, it had blue and white markings all over it. He waved as several men in Azure Imperium Armour dropped through the roof as they also began grabbing people and helping them aboard.

As the last people were being taken on board Lance heard a noise for the most back car of the train. He turned to the pink hair woman and the boy quickly saying "Get these people out of here my men will take you back to one of our carriers in low orbit from there the captain will return you to where you need to be. Just tell him the paladin commands it he will follow unquestioningly." As more noises were made. Sounding much like the way his dad sounded which meant a lot to him.

As the dropship was lifting off they would see him beginning to fight off several figures each time he made a pass at one of the figures they only got faster and faster. It would be a short and gruesome battle for any who found the aftermath with a lot of blood splashed along all the cars and their entrances. However once they arrived at the back they would find part of the car missing around the spot where a door may have been as clearly whoever had won had gotten away.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

This was not going the way he had been hoping. The Jedi were scattered, but several cars were ready to move. And he could feel the loses coming to his people. Eyeing the newcomer, [member="Darth Thuyrn"], Starchaser shook his head. "You won't leave with him." He said, confidence oozing in his speech. That was because they had gotten to the point where it was time to go. he could hear the calls coming up. Shuttles were moving, and some of the corvettes were moving, but he was getting calls that Sith reinforcements were coming.

It was now or never.

Falling into the Force, the Jedi Master looked at his opponent. "Can you fly?" He asked before unleashing a blast, in another universe, someone would call it a nova. Not of Force Light, but of luminous energy mixed with a kinetic blast, intent to push the Sith back off the top of the car. That was a signal, and shuttles were moving, U-Wings and other transports.

Last call, Jedi. Leaving! he called to all who he could connect with as he slapped his comlink to signal the retreat. Take those you could and get them on ships. It was time to get to space. A partial loss, but they wouldn't stop until the Jedi were all rescued.