THE WHISPER OF A WEAPON
LIGHT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
OBJECTIVE TWO | HEART OF THE BEAST | STRIKE TEAM SKYWALKER
LIGHT THINKS IT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING
BUT IT IS WRONG
NO MATTER HOW FAST LIGHT TRAVELS,
IT FINDS DARKNESS HAS ALWAYS GOT THERE FIRST.
AND IS WAITING FOR IT.
ARE YOU READY TO DIE
Urgent shouts — sounded like instructions — tremoured through the earth and rock that enclosed the Jedi who’d managed to make it so far without being noticed. Somehow, she’d managed to withstand the pull of violence that beckoned her. From the opening of the underground passageway, confrontation pulled aside counterparts of Strike team Skywalker and distracted them from their focus. One after the other, deadly matches were made. How busy it would have been then, for Strike team Skywalker, if Kenobi weren’t providing a distraction. Without a doubt, those that were crawling underground would have been irrecoverably overwhelmed.
Worries about
would-haves, or
what might have beens had no place in the present, and Ishida refocused on her task. Like others under
Zaka
’s leadership, her objective was the destruction of the superweapon. If the Horde got it first — the idea died at the base of her skull. Intolerance for that future forced her forward. A shiver worked deeper and deeper into her spine the further she navigated into the caves.
With her hand pressed against the cave’s cool stone, she let it guide her to its weak points. Letting the whispers of shatterpoint draw her to where it was weakening, and where the Maw was working at reducing the natural fortification of the crust to unearth something unholy.
The sounds of work were louder now, unmistakable. Sounds that drove a spike through her gut. Sounds that could only mean the weapon had been discovered. And not by the Jedi first. She sucked in a sharp breath and hissed it out at the unsettling realization that sprawled ahead of her. Tens and tens of bodies, a fraction of a horde, converged on a single point and concentrated their efforts on thinning the rock enough to break through.
They had to be destroyed.
Ishida pressed forward, so far undetected. She’d gone to some length to conceal herself, even so far as trading in her traditional white armour for black — more appropriate for slinking around in the darkness. And it was..so, so dark. An Arkanian’s ability to see in unideal lighting conditions would have been a good partnership right about now. And it would reduce the sting along her eyelids from the rounds of poison starting to saturate the halls.
Somehow, the throes of vile sithspawn’s attention were split. Both between their work, and another sort of magnetic draw. They’d been positioned as a barrier, firing at the opening Ishida travelled through (for there was no other at this juncture). It tore her apart not to withdraw her blade and deflect the shots, but they weren’t at her yet. They were all at another who was drawing their focus, deflecting as Ishida used the chaos to push deeper into their midst.
The weapon. The whisper of the weapon was all that mattered. And while she didn’t speak its language, the network of connected and disconnected lines that reinforced the cavern’s structure guided her well enough.
She was behind the first row of the firing squad when a bright, electric luminescence snapped out. White-hot crackling skittered through the cave in a flash of power, sparking up and around its intended targets. It was effective, and the outline of the boy she’d partnered with on Krayiss glowed with residual tendrils, keeping the dark space aglow from his core outward.
Beneath her rebreather, the jaws of a Bryn’dûl, she grinned at the display and pushed herself against the wall to avoid being crispened. It proved an excellent distraction, even if it was just temporary. It let her slip even further into the distracted horde as they crumpled, groaning back to struggle and rise.
But then an even larger shadow muscled its way forward, splitting the sea of spawn, with a purple sabre lighting the dim space in its ominous glow to meet Okkeus’ blue. Ishida frowned.
“Come on Dainlei.” Ishida urged soundlessly, just a buzz of her vocal cords.
“Hey Jedi, over here! The Maw are still coming and I need your help!”
Beneath her mask, her mouth drew into a thin line. Disappointed.
Her disappointment didn’t stop the horde from firing. And, pressed against the wall, Ishida weighed her options. Dainlei could continue to draw attention to himself and continue fighting until he was either exhausted or bested. The longer he survived, the longer the sithspawn were distracted from the task of breaking through to the weapon beneath. The longer the weapon remained harmless and dormant. The longer it could wait until she shattered it.
But he asked for help.
And now she was hesitating.
And hesitation was defeat.
With a self-berating groan at her indecision, the Ashina heir’s sabre activated into the side of the nearest sithspawn who was belching out salvo in the direction of the Jedi Knight. Her position put her behind the giant shadow that outweighed the horde, and even further from Okkeus. She was within the horde of workers who’d collected for the ambush.
The one she’d struck first gasped beneath its mask, fogging up its ventilator and dropping to the muck. Her blade deactivated before she moved to the next one, doing her best to make herself obscure and untraceable as white hummed on and off from one lethal strike to another.
NJO | SKYWALKERS/GROUNDCRAWLERS |
Okkeus Dainlei
|
Zaka
|
Iris Arani
|
Kai Bamarri
|
Silas Westgard
| Jorah zos Darnus
BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW |
Darth Kalyptos
|
Thalia Senn
|
Darth Vow
| Dimitri Voltura |
Darth Ptolemis
Haro Harend
that warned Xarielle to get down, clearly, she had wandered too close to something. She was quick to duck down and maneuver around the fight.
