Phrik Puns are the Lowest Form of Humor (Fringe Dominion of Valhalla)

[Ashin Varanin]

Valhalla -- heavily overpopulated, with a population bias toward men, and a militaristic, superstitious, quasi-meritocratic caste system -- had long been a major recruitment centre for the Fringe. A few regrettable lapses were all in the past. More to the point, Valhalla was Fringe territory's major source of phrik, and the mines and refineries couldn't be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Protectorate hands...or the cybernetic assimilation manipulators of the Children of Darzu. The technobeast hive mind had been making trouble farther into the Unknown Regions, but never this far Coreward.

Objective: Take control of the phrik mines from the more or less indestructible cyborg hive mind.

[member="Lucianus Adair"] [member="Jared Ovmar"] [member="Josiah Denko"] [member="Vrag"] [member="Elias Truden"] [member="Coren Starchaser"] [member="November Sinclair"] [member="Dûvain"] [member="Valik"] [member="Soliael Devin Talith"] [member="Crystal"] [member="Nickolas Imura"] [member="Lucien Cordel"] [member="Serian Loria"] [member="Carré Inirial"] [member="Anaya Fen"] [member="Spencer Jacobs"] [member="Dissero"]

 

[Not Ordo]

The epic form of the great ship dropped from hyperspace and hung unmoving for a long moment. Helmetus looked out the viewport and nodded.

"It is time COMMANDER Rod." He said giving an on the spot promotion to the man, "This will be our display of power today. These fringe people will be the first to witness the greatness of Darth Ka'Helmetus galatic emporer."

He turned to his crew.

"Call in the rest of the fleet and prepare for battle operations and have Lord-General Meridius prepare for ground combat."

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Cyborgs. Lovely.

If there was one thing he wasn't going to learn, it was to affect droids and mechanical objects. Nope, Coren Starchaser could do that with his hands, and wouldn't need the Force to do that. Draining the life from living things? Supposedly that with resisting powers used against him were his bread and butter at one point. Probably why he kept members of the Krath Brotherhood and Sith religion from murderizing each other.

There was a lot of work to be done, and he was following the Chimeara into battle aboard his own ship. Having just worked on his lightsaber, and debating what his next move with sabers was going to be, he checked the radio. Dawn Treader and Warbird Wing were flying sorties.

One day he'd hop back into a fighter, but now? He was doing more good here, especially in the absence of Kelly.

They were here for the phrik, though, and that meant the ground. Nodding to himself, he set his course into the landing paths of the shuttles.

He could at least trap-hunt for people, even if he couldn't do massive damage while attacking from stealth.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darthka Helmetus"]

Inexorably, the Chimaera turned to face its newfound rival. Word of this vagabond command ship had reached the Fringe intelligence services after its fifth or sixth appearance at a random world. Its capabilities were unknown, but its length and girth were undeniable.

"Battle stations. Shields up. Red alert. Reverse the polarity."

Ashin's eyes narrowed fractionally as she engaged the commpad in her command throne's arm. "Unidentified vessel, this is Grand Admiral Ashin Varanin aboard the Star Destroyer Chimaera. Identify yourself and state your purpose."

 

[Crystal]

Crystal was aboard the Grand Admiral’s ship, in quarters awaiting the ship’s arrival at it’s destination. Her headache had not improved much, even with her inhibitor bracelet on to remove the temptation and instinct to call upon the Force at will. However, it did not prevent her from being able to cut down machines.

This was not her first visit to phrik mines. She’d had similar objectives in her early days in the Crusade…. that seemed like so long ago now. The Princess shook her head gently to try and shake off the thought, and any others that were not immediately pressing. What she needed was for the galaxy to finish its period and get back to normal.

When the ship went on alert, the Sith sighed and closed her eyes. If she put any more pressure on her temples she’d end up squishing her hands into her skull. Still, the pressure didn’t lessen any. And that did not make the Princess a happy camper.

 

[Not Ordo]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

"Lord Helmetus a warship is coming about."

"Class?" he said his voice noticeably deepened by his helmet's speakers.

"Heavy cruiser, Star destroyer configuration, sir." the comm officer replied, "Receiving transmission my lord."

"Put it through."

"Unidentified vessel, this is Grand Admiral Ashin Varanin aboard the Star Destroyer Chimaera. Identify yourself and state your purpose." The woman's voice said with an air of being used to obeisance.

Helmetus grinned begind his faceplate and spoke his response with equal directness.

"This is Emporer Darth Ka'Helmetus of the Imperial One, and I have come to subjugate this world as it should be, as it once was, as it shall now be again." he lifted his wee chin and apoke again, "stand down and no harm will come to you."

 

[Arage Bao]

Stab, cut, slash, vault and punch. Succession of moves that landed me behind the spiked apparition of technological death and destruction, still ain’t sure what the feth these thing were - Seren tried to tell me, Darzu blababla, mechu-deru blablabla, technobeasts whatever - the only point I needed to know was that if their shet touched my skin? I was pretty much dead on arrival.

Good thing the Force was acting wonky, not only for us, for them too. Meant that the conversion rate wasn’t what it used to be, enough time to get in there and slice out the bad parts if needed. Better not to get cut period, but ya can’t get everything always.

Cut off the head, thing slumped to the ground before suddenly whirling around and trying to ‘hug’ me. Backpedaled and almost hit another thing, dropped to the ground and rolled away.

This ain’t going well.

[member="Seren Ordavo"]

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Coren was watching the landing zone. Touching his ship down, he went in back to grab his weapons, an orange lightsaber, representing the crystals from his now defunct homeworld, single-shot energy rifle with expanded scope and his sawed off scatter gun. Not the most silent of weapons for someone who made a point to work from stealth and to weaken an enemy and take it for all it was worth than kill one. But here? With the droid hive mind? He was going to need to do a bit more business.

Saber on his belt, and shotgun strung over his right shoulder, he checked his armor, a light version of Scout Trooper armor, compliments of the Dawn Treader and Warbird Wing, he nodded. This felt familiar. He had been finding himself lately, especially on the war path with the Fringe. It was one of those things, being in combat made him feel... right again? That was probably for the best. He was a smuggler, a military contractor, explorer, and a scavenger. He worked outside the law in all those former lives, to varying degrees.

Neutral Good to True Neutral, is where he'd sit.

Sure, he used the Dark Side, and was starting to feel the powers of draining life from others return, that along with sensing objects and where he needed to go, things were fitting again.

“Starchaser on the ground, where is the action?”

Simple, he'd find a party to work with, be their eyes and ears. Being able to pick off the techno beasts from a distance would be smart.

[member="Nui Akona"] [member="Seren Ordavo"]

 

[Vrag]

When she had said she'd kill for a dip in the warm waters of Cloud City, the Knight had been more than serious. The Force, however, liked to take things annoyingly literally, and landed her ass in the middle of a bloodbath.

Typical, the woman thought grimly and nearly fell flat in her rushed attempt at a dodge. Damn, those things were fast.

She would just have to be faster, then. Vrag rolled to the side to avoid being curbstomped by the looming beast, than vaulted back on her feet and severed one of its limbs with a well-timed strike. She was never more glad to be accustomed to full-body armor, because a single cut from one of this babies could have you keeling over in a matter of seconds, followed quickly by a gruesome death.

It wouldn't be pretty, and it certainly wasn't the way she wanted to go. She ground her teeth and narrowly sidestepped another slash made at her by the wounded monstrosity, retaliating with a thrust of her own. Shiak, and the beast was down.

No time to linger, though. They were everywhere.

Funtimes!

[member="Nui Akona"] | [member="Seren Ordavo"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darthka Helmetus"]

Ashin made a strangled sort of sound.

"I see. Then I regret to inform you, Darth Ka'helmetus, that a state of war will exist between your...empire and the Fringe Confederation in approximately five minutes. I strongly advise not being here for the commencement of hostilities."

 

[Moira Skaldi]

A planet full of phrik - no pun is intended! -? Check. Addendum: A planet full of phrik currently overrun by a cyborg hivemind bent on assimilating anything that came its way? Check.


Two reasons that were enough for Moira Skaldi, paperclip maximiser and probably insane cyborg, to take an interest in Valhalla. And so Ms. Skaldi decided to take a break from looting planets and show up to join the mayhem, kill hostile alchemised cyborgs and take their loot. When you thought about it, there were a number of similarities between her and the Children of Darzu. Though the way they had come into being was different, both were assimilationist, manipulative, cyborg intelligences hellbent on purging or 'upgrading' anything that came their way. So it was a bit like a religious war between competing groups of machine zealots.


Undoubtedly, Ms. Skaldi would not appreciate the comparison because she was so much more 'advanced'. Hubris is always a good characteristic for a would-be supervillain, as is hypocrisy. Doubtless Moira would not like being described that way either, but then her sense of humour could use some improvement. In any case, a heavily armoured transport ship disgourged a small elite group of HRDs, with Moira leading them.


Technobeasts soon obliged them with their presence, in a blaze of purple light Moira's lightsabre sprang into existence - thank you, Lady Kyros, the gift and the lessons are most appreciated - to be joined by the bark of bolters as the death machines opened fire. Violence and purging ensued, abominations were torn asunder, cut to pieces and so on and so forth. Where possible an attempt would be made to disable technobeasts with ion weapons. And so the dispassionate, merciless purging began.

 

[Matreya]

Damien stood with arms crossed over his chest, eyes skyward, taking in the lush colors of the sun rise. It had been a long time since he was last on the planet; Val'halla being where he nearly died facing Rave Merrill. Since, he had moved the center for JAC to Tera Lush, and had vacated all locales to his lessers.

Slowly bringing his view down, he looked around. Much had changed. Lives were lost, and the hive mind he had faced recently had begun to dominate the planet. Bringing his hands from his pockets, he stared at the crevice where the Holocron he and his allies had claimed still remained hidden - he would need to bring it to the Fringe council soon. It had simply been a bit difficult with his business being driven from the brink.

Turning on his heel, Damien passed the ruins of his old headquarters and moved along a walk way over looking a heavily populated street below, as he headed to find someone in charge that could direct him to a task that would aid his people.

Maybe he would bring the headquarters back soon enough.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darthka Helmetus"]

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Ting.

"Chimaera to Imperial One. Your grace period has elapsed. A state of war now exists between you and the Fringe Confederation." She turned to the officer beside her. "Captain Engel, open fire."

The equivalent of a good nine hundred guns roared to life, accompanied by energy torpedo projectors. The entire Star Destroyer trembled.

 

[Not Ordo]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

"Angle deflector shields, all forward." He said as the clock ticked down, "Fire the twin V-200 ion cannons."

"Aye sir!" Commander Rod said as the star destroyer unloaded on Helmetus' vessel.

The ship rocked as if hit by a small planetoid spilling Helmetus onto the deck like a kicked child. His face shield flew up and he cursed in four languages that he didn't even know.

"Unload on that schutta." He said in his high voice from the deck. "Launch two squadrons of fighters and bombers. I want that woman on her knees so I can look her in the eye when I kill her."

 

[Darth Athora]

Jala was in a hard rush to prepare for her first mission with the Fringe Confederacy. This was her chance to impress the more veteran members and she was going to make her first impression an impressive one. Impressed yet?

The mere concept of outcasts and misfits banding together to form their own government. It's surprising it hasn't imploded upon itself really considering it's origins. The one possible reason they've kept it together for this long? Freedom. As a jensaarai, regarding their history of being hunted down and killed by both Jedi and Sith, freedom was a breath of fresh air.

But, back to the task at hand.

Now, Jala had no true combat experience when it came to dogfights. Sure, she has experienced simulators and all but that wasn't anything like the real thing. But, that's what pushed Jala to do this. So, with her coolth suit tucked under her flight suit, Jala approached the hangar bay, picked out her ride, and prepared for war.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

Soliael stood wearing his full armor, the armor of the Crusader.

Not many would recognize him like this, not many would even really care. They would think him one of the many hundreds of Moross Followers who joined the Fringe as of late. It didn't really matter to him of course, he wasn't here to get recognized or to speak with anyone. He was simply here to finish his favor to Amorella.

To help the Fringe.

He could have stayed at home, he could have been with a very pregnant Kira, but she had understood.

Amorella had asked him to do this however, and it was true that he did owe the Fringe at least a little bit. They had taken in his people without much of a clamor, and they had always been his friends, or at least friendly. He smiled slightly, and then took a few steps forward, his hand falling onto his lightsaber on his hip.

There was work to be done.

 

[Arage Bao]

[member="Vrag"] | [member="Seren Ordavo"]

Managed to finally end one of the things, but it seemed like there was a whole mess of ‘em creeping up from somewhere. Almost as if they had some kind of colony that was constantly churning out new ones for our killing pleasure. That being said, I wasn’t entirely sure how the feth they were still operational.

Technobeasts, mechu-deru creations… the Force? They shouldn’t be working, or at least not as well as they were currently operating. Then one of ‘em almost cut my head in half, and I realized this might not be the time to spend thinking on semantics, I dropped to the ground and kicked the feet from under the beast.

Cut off his head and went over to the new ones, this job wasn’t done yet. Not even close to done.

 

[Matreya]

Damien pulled his scarlet hood from his head, his robes billowing behind him in a short burst of wind, caused by opening a door to a lower street where the wind traveled much easier than the top where he had vacated. Reaching his hand to the saber at his hip, he stayed ready for the battle soon to come - there would be no avoiding it the Force whispered to him. As he moved from the hall he had been in before, Damien crouched tapped a Comlink on his wrist, and spoke, "Fringer's, I am going to attempt to bring us some aid. If I am able, I will bring the REX droids left on the planet under the Fringe control once more. If you see a robot hound, don't kill it just yet."

Dropping his hand to the ground, Damien hooked his holopad to a nearby junction box, and began typing furiously. He knew very little about Technobeast when it came down to it, other than they were dangerous as they could turn organic life into the hybrids he had faced recently. But with luck he would be able to turn a few of the droids that had been captured by the planet to the Fringe's side once again. It was nowhere near the amount that had once been active from his company, as there were not that many on the planet to begin with, but who knew. He was hoping for at least 10.

Activating a worm program that would tunnel into the nearby broadcasting antenna, he dropped the holopad where it was, spun mid crouch, activated Kallig's saber as he rose. The result was the nearest Technobeast, of a group consisting of roughly 6, having its head impaled beneath the chin. Jerking his weapon free, Damien hurled a Force Push that knocked the others back a moment. Glancing back at the progress of his program, he sighed internally, it would be a while before it was finished, but hopefully with its completion he could broadcast the message telling the droids there new targets.

 

[Darth Athora]

Jala climbed into her chosen starfighter and got herself situated. The controls were similar to the simulations so she was already familiar with what to do. With the flick of the switch, the dashboard lit up with dim colors. Her soft, light blue eyes scanned the dashboard as the engine of the starfighter purred. Her hands worked the various switches, knobs, and buttons as she prepared for takeoff.

She was just waiting for the order.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Darthka Helmetus"]

Thirty Malos-class gunships spilled from the Chimaera's hangar in quartets. Yes, for the mathematically inclined, that means the final flight was two ships, not four. So just mostly quartets. The gunships weren't the best anti-fighter platforms around, but they carried a goodly number of warheads, and they had two rear-facing laser cannons for when fighters inevitably settled in behind them. All in all, a fairly even fight at the moment. Too even for Ashin's taste.

She wasn't much for telepathic finesse, but there'd been a time when she had the range to be a decent battle meditator. She reached out across the intervening space and touched the mind of Darth Ka'Helmetus.

Who and what are you?