The Sacred Garden - GA T2 Dom of Seltos and Lohopa II

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Lagging back, he suddenly realized how extensive this particular gang was. Maybe not all that large, but spread out. Where he thought he might have found the head, he would come find that it was simply another scale along the long back of the Tunnel Snake Parade. Releasing the throttle, he came to a stop near where one of the Justicars had crashed.

Clicking on the display of the reconnaissance assist, he was given a vision of the two assailants as they attacked the young man. Gabe knew he was too far to help immediately but he didn't really care. Cutting the throttle on, the swoop bike wailed as the engines went from zero to nothing in the span of a second. But as soon as he had arrived, the battle was over.

A steeled gaze lookrf out from beneath the shroud of the Phantasm cloak, hiding the image of the Marshal. As it slowly faded away, his countenance came to view, hazel eyes looking towards the son of an old friend.

"The leader is a hard one to find..." He stated calmly, lifting his wrist to his mouth.

::Converge on them from the sides. If you follow them from a direct rear attack, they will split off again.::

Eyes drifted to the snakes that were left on the black top. Letting out a chuckle, he shook his head. "Seems you inherited your fathers knack got the less...delicate approach." Not that he could talk much, given his typical tendencies of acting more like a hammer than a human. In fact, one could even argue he was being a right and proper hypocrite.

The phantasm cloak reactivated as he powered the engines back on. "You misplaced your bike. You need a ride or can you manage on your own?"

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"] | [member="Rebel Sunka"] ​

 

[Ugohr Poof]

Objective: A Temple Raised
Loation: Seltos
Allies: GA and friends
Post: 20/25

After he got the local officials to sign the resulting insurance policy, he stashed the signed contract insde his suitcase and began to go to the construction site to check on his younglings. So he got around to chase his younglings in the construction site, only to find them grouped around a hole being bored in the lowermost level, facing the nearby street. Probably about the temple's connections with the utility grid. Speaking of connections with the utilities, the younglings were asking questions to the Gungan about once he arrive on location, where the first utility tunnel was being bored into the ground. Said tunnel was for the sewers... the electrical wires were also brought close to the place since the electrical wires were perhaps for another hole but assuredly smaller. Maybe other utilities were being planned but for other ends. So the question of utilities intrigued several of those younglings, some of whom never saw a construction site in their lives.

"Master, what are those pipes and wires for?" a youngling asked.

"Theysa for electricity, HoloNet connections, natural gas, water respectively..."

 

[Zark San Tekka]

Knowledge forbidden?​

Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord​

Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know?​

Can it be death?​

- Paradise Lost​

​

​

Sommin City Outskirts
Seltos, Mid Rim

You should not be here, Master Voidstalker, the thoughts filtered into the Jedi Master's stream of consciousness faintly, as though coming from somewhere far away, None of you are prepared for what lies at the heart of these woods. If you seek to aid in this matter, gather the other members of your Order and set up a perimeter around the city limits. This is going to get worse before it gets better.

High above on a clifftop overlooking the modest frontier capital's skyline, a lone figure crouched, cloaked in brown robes. Jedi Knight Zark Pulsar hoped the last part of his message had gotten through, as Jacen had receded from his line of sight before he had finished broadcasting his thoughts. And yet he did not wait for a possible response, while the Knight did not know [member="Jacen Voidstalker"] personally, as a Master it was entirely possible that his mastery of thought projection exceeded even Zark's, trained though he was in the ascetic ways of the sages of old. Over and over again, he prayed fervently that he was leaping at shadows, and come morning the MedCorps healers would discover it was merely a local strain of a particularly hard to identify, yet wholly mundane disease.

He merely had to reach out with his senses all around him to tell that that had been a false hope.

"You communed with the spirits or whatever the hell it is you needed to do, yet?" the sudden crashing of human movement through the underbrush would have sent a baseliner scrambling for the weapon, but Zark had sensed his...unexpected travelling companion's approach already. Not for the first time, he found himself cursing the stubborn nature of Corellians as, despite his dire warnings toward the other Jedi on the planet, he was reminded that he also had to babysit the Alliance Pathfinder, likely laboring under the misapprehension that he was the protector in their present circumstances, who would not allow the ranking officer of the Hereafter off his own ship completely unescorted. Any other man would have found himself cooling off in the brig while the Commodore went down alone anyway, and yet he had Colonel Hal Varik went back a long ways, to even before his days as a lowly Captain in the Navy, when he had been a corsair in the Alliance Merchant Fleet.

"Just about," he said at last, not glancing back as he gave the city he was sworn now to protect or die trying.

"Good," Hal grunted, tapping his fingers against his helmet to indicate his comm package, "I just got off the link with the XO, who just spoke to Doc [member="Oros"] from the MedCorps expedition. He says this thing just breached their containment gear, they've never seen anything like it. He's recommending a planetary quarantine until they can establish new safety protocols."

"Tell him to do it, and keep me apprised," rolling his eyes at the lackadaisical salute Hal mockingly threw his way as he turned to leave, he called out, "And tell him we may be dropping out of contact soon."

"Yeah, you said that on the shuttle too," Hal said after pausing to consider the naval officer's last words, "You still haven't explained how exactly. The comm equipment on the Hereafter should be strong enough to reach anywhere in this whole gorram forest. Are we headed underground or something?"

Zark remained silent for a long moment, and then said, "Yes. From a certain point of view."

Feeling somehow even less clear than he already had been on the meaning of the Jedi's words, Hal shook his head as he stalked off through the woods to relay the Commodore's orders.

Attempting to assuage his guilt at dissembling, the historic scholar reminded himself that the myth of the Underworld was a core part of the Colonel's own culture. The cryptic accounts of Corellian Hell were among the closest descriptions Zark could think of to what may very well possibly await them at the end of their journey. And yet, in his estimation there was no one else more equipped to solve this mystery than he, and if he did not risk everything to try, then the consequences could very well doom every living soul on Seltos to be cursed with this festering Rot.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"]

"I'm fine that you." The reply was unnecessarily curt. Gabriel meant well but his first were pointing out his failure and a comparison with Jacen. People who knew Jacen in a way that Trextan had never been given the opportunity to commonly did the latter. How could he have so many similarities when Jacen had never been there? When they had walked such different paths?

He reached the closest bike. The handle bars were twisted beyond use.

"Maybe," he was forced to add with a shrug. In a moment of frustration he reached out with his left hand and pulled the next bike to him. This one had some scrapes, but otherwise seemed sound. It started up immediately.

"Right," he said, trying to galvanise his focus. "Which way is the main body?"

 

[Wedge Draav]

Location: Lohopa II
Objective: Engage Enemy Fighters
Allies: GA Pilots
Enemies: Previously mentioned enemy fighters


Wedge had been engaged- without much incident. He made a few runs on a few enemy fighters, but failed to get any kills. In fact, it would have been his first kill. And as he locked in on the enemy fighter, bobbing and weaving, and he predicted the path in which his bolts were going to impact. He could hear the squirt-like noise from the inside of his X-wing already. He could feel the rush of endorphin and adrenaline surging through his body. He was finally going to get his first kill, on a real mission- fighting a real, credible threat.

And then, he got the order to pull back.

He took the communicator away from his mouth and cursed himself. What made it worse, was the fact that he made the grave mistake of looking up. As sentimental as he was, he hung a picture of his Chiss girlfriend. Stupid red-eyed harlot was smiling at him. Probably smiling while she was screwing that officer, too. He reached up and tried to throw it out the window, out of instinct. The picture, however, clunked against the glass. Because Wedge, in his brief moment of anger, forgot that he was both in space, and vacuum sealed in the cockpit of his fighter. Needless to say, Wedge wasn't having a good day. Or month, really. Having your girlfriend of two years cheat on you with someone who was taller, better looking, made more money, was in better shape, and higher ranking- really put a damper on Wedge's self esteem, morale, and general overall happiness.

That, and the fact that he was going to finally get that sweet first pilot-to-pilot combat kill, was cut short due to some 'surrender'. Wedge turned off his communicator and started to curse just about every single curse word that he knew.

 

[Ugohr Poof]

Objective: A Temple Raised
Loation: Seltos
Allies: GA and friends
Post: 21/25

"Issa might seem bizarre, but issa possible dat yousa might be called upon for resolving even disputes as mundane as municipal ordinances. Theysa regulate construction and other services usually"

"Why call upon Jedi to go solve municipal ordinance problems?"

"Understandably wesa called more often for municipal problems in large cities dan in smaller cities"

Obviously Ugohr was more familiar with ground-based construction sites than the younglings were. He would have never, ever, realized that he was raising a different type of Jedi even when not accounting for economics. While, of course, he knew that municipal infrastructure and ordinances could often get in the way, he wanted to train Jedi other than as Force-using spec-ops or bounty hunters. Speaking of municipal ordinances, that explained why the holes were bored at that set of depths: usually it has to do with the below-ground depth of existing infrastructure. And also how much greenery is required around the temple's premises and the width of the sidewalks.

 

[Oros]

When clouds appear, wise men put on their cloaks; ​

When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand; ​

When the sun sets, who doth not look for night? ​

- Richard III​

​

​

NJO MedCorps Emergency Command Post
Several Kilometers Above Sommin City
Seltos, Mid Rim

As the Celegian Jedi Knight and leader of the Alliance's humanitarian expedition to the planet's surface struggled to maintain some semblance of calm and order in what served as an impromptu operational control center for what remained of the now joint GA and Sacred Lotus venture. All the while, Oros could not stop replaying the sequence of events that had led them to this moment in his 'mind's eye', as the humanoids would put it. Frustration had slowly boiled over into alarm as the mysterious local pathogen had resisted even their extremely sophisticated methods of detection and identification. Even in the most advanced stages, the obviously suffering and often crazed patients would register as in a perfect state of health. It was as if their bodies were not only simply rebelling against them, but the strange, almost fungal growths that appeared in these end stages appeared for all intents and purposes to be spontaneous, rapid mutation on a mass scale. As preposterous as that notion seemed from a medical perspective.

The doctor and Jedi healer was convinced that there was something they had missed, some unknown factor that they were not taking into account. That left two possibilities, either they weren't looking in the right place, or they simply didn't possess the technology to understand this extranormal phenomenon at all. The Celegian had been in the process of attempting to rule out the first scenario when the truly unthinkable had occurred. One of the Jedi healers had started experiencing symptoms despite observing full containment suit protocols. The first patient with Force training, they had not been prepared for how differently the disease...the phenomenon would react to such a variable. Within a matter of minutes, the growths had begun visibly spreading, far more quickly than any timetable they had documented thus far. While the Knight had initially agreed to isolation protocols, it was not long before she had become acutely irrational and delusional.

Eventually, the Knight...the patient, had broken out of isolation, and the rest of the expedition, himself included...had been forced to put her down.

Although an act of self-defense in an extreme situation, the guilt of that decision still haunted Oros' thoughts, threatening to destabilize his all too necessary calm. Not long after, when the second member of the expedition, a borderline doctor, had been infected through his suit, the Jedi Knight had ordered an evacuation of all offworld personnel to their current location, floating in isolation inside the lifeboat that Commander Bashir of the Hereafter had sent down in a quick thinking stroke of minor genius that had quite probably saved all their lives, at least for the moment. While they couldn't violate the planetary quarantine Oros had been forced to issue, the Mon Cal executive officer had ordered his engineers to slave a sail barge they had recently confiscated for hauling illegal cargo while on patrol. It had been piloted remotely down to its present location above the city, and the uninfected personnel had been ferried to it via their shuttle.

So far, the only thing that had seemed to slow the spread of this contagion down was distance. But with something this unpredictable, could they ever be certain enough, even if they continued to present no symptoms, that they were not somehow carriers? Whatever this was, it could not be allowed to leave Seltos, and so they were inextricably tied to the fate of this world. Oros had told the native doctors that they would not abandon them, that they were simply trying to buy more time to develop a solution, but he had been able to sense in their expressions that they had not believed him. The Jedi hadn't the heart to tell them it was also because they would have no choice, that if Sommin City died the Jedi would die with them.

For the first time in his medical career, the two hundred and fifty year old invertebrate did not know what to do next.

 

[Rhen Qel-Droma]

Continuing on, the Corellian Green Jedi would review the small valley river that trasversed before him. Taking his satchel, he swung it forward, allowing the sack to open. While he was no healer, he was to a degree, a scientist. Collecting samples for the Circle of Healers would be his token assistance. There was much to be studied on the corruption of this world and how it came to be.

Only learning how deep the toxicity went and its process were they able to start the cleansing process. It wasn't just a matter of cleaning the water. No, the soil, the wildlife, the Force. Everything was connected.

Without further ado, Rhen began to collect his various samples. Some of the water, some of the planets. Even some of the dead wildlife he managed to come across. All throughout, he made the careful notation on what he found in his datapad.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

I have seen the dark universe yawning​

Where the black planets roll without aim,​

Where they roll in their horror unheeded,​

Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.​

- Nemesis​

​

​

The Forest Heart
Seltos, Mid Rim


"Down," Zark's voice was disturbingly calm, albeit loud enough for Hal Varik to hear over roaring of of blaster fire and the supernatural screams of pain and rage all around them.

The Pathfinder dropped instinctively, and a split second later a tightly coiled blaster bolt bellowed forth from his Jedi companion's marine issue heavy blaster pistol, practically vaporizing the upper half of a twisted, mutated woodland predator that had been charging the Colonel's flank. Just as quickly, Hal was up again, arcing his carbine as he resumed fire in a suppression pattern meant to buy the both of them some much needed time and distance from the creatures that now swarmed all around them. With a deft twirl the Jedi Knight beside him holstered the heavy blaster at his hip before sending his free hand cutting across the air in front of him in a claw like motion. As one, the first line of attacking beasts were sent hurling into the deep dark of the dense and now twisted woodland beyond.

All the while, the Commodore held his molten orange saber aloft in his main hand, its glow serving as both torch and beacon that helped Hal to see and to keep track of his friend and companion's whereabouts. It also served as a last line of defense for the two uninfected surrounded by a forest of Rot, several beasts that had managed to make it far too close for comfort lay now at their feet, their corpses bisected by a killing saber slash. Still, more came on, ferociously attempting to repel these interlopers from what could only be the source of this nightmare. They were on the right track, Colonel Varik had realized, but their task now seemed more impossible to him than ever. The ranks of these apparently assimilated abominations of the natural order seemed endless, and although both he and the Jedi beside him had been trained to reach sometimes superhuman limits, eventually they would simply be ground down by exhaustion. Already, Hal was starting to feel it, the consequences of sustained adrenaline.

"This isn't working!" he shouted to the Jedi, "We need to do something or we'll both die out here!"

"I'm working on it," at first Hal had thought Zark couldn't hear him, it had taken him so long to respond, "Keep them off me as best you can!"

It was only then that the Colonel had realized that his companion's expression was somewhat unfocused, far too blank for even a Jedi under such extreme circumstances. It was as if he wasn't entirely there, that a not insignificant portion of his focus was entirely elsewhere. Varik redoubled his efforts on keeping their foes at bay, hurling the last of his thermal detonators to add to several of the localized forest fires all around them. They were lucky it was the off season, or his use of incendiaries surrounded by woodland would have had them all washed away in raging flames by now. As it was, the planetary government could bring him up on charges of reckless endangerment both it and he still existed in the morning.

"Alliance."

Zark did not seem to raise his voice, and yet the word seemed to thunder from his lips, causing Hal's ears to ache even through the aural dampeners of his visored helmet and for the creatures' advance to momentarily halt in its tracks. But it was the pulse of light that surged through the Jedi Knight's saber in that same moment that truly seemed to have an effect on them. Uttering cries of unnatural agony and rage, the enemy all around them were forced to retreat from wherever the light of the blade touched. Although the core of Seltos was not molten and so could not unlock the infused saber crystal's true potential, its unique nature and qualities caused the confinement beam of the energy sword to flicker and lick out like flames.

"What the actual hell?" Hal managed to say at last.

"We don't have much time," Zark grunted, the strain obvious in his voice as the hand the bore it already began to tremble slightly under the apparent weight of it, "This is about as hard as it looks."

Before Varik could respond, the Commodore was continuing on their path through the woods. Around them, a ring of creatures stalked the shifting outer edges of the light's reach, snarling in fury as they found no way to penetrate the mobile zone of temporary respite. At a loss for anything else to say, the Corellian special forces officer followed wordlessly for a while, focusing on keeping up with the Knight's brisk pace so as not to fall behind and die horribly. He was just about to open his mouth to voice one of about a thousand different questions that were racing through his mind by this point, when just as suddenly as Zark had taken off did he stop, almost causing Hal to bump into him.

"We're close," the Commodore said, wincing in apparent discomfort, "Very close."

"Close to what?" Hal hissed, all sense of frivolity gone from his tone as he began for the first time to seriously regret his dedicated loyalty to his friends.

"Close to that."

The forest suddenly gave way to a clearing, at the center of which was a gnarled and blackened but still quite massive tree, at one point perhaps simply a particularly impressive example of the native flora, but now warped beyond all recognition as anything natural at all. There seemed to be a crack running through it that widened at the base, and although the Colonel had long believed himself no longer capable of being surprised that day, to his astoundment and deep unsettlement, he found that inside the tree, he could see what looked like stars. And yet, their light was not like the light of Zark's saber, or any light Hal had ever beheld before. The twinkling of this impossible starfield seemed to somehow radiate a sense of incomprehensible malice.

"What is that?" the Pathfinder asked, completely out of his element.

"A tear," Zark answered, as if that explained everything, "The only way to stop all this is to close it. I think."

"You think, huh?" Hal repeated, shaking his head, "Alright then, how do we do that?"

"We don't. I do, from the inside," as they both had begun to cautiously approach the heart tree, the perverted wildlife all around them went into a frenzy of madness and frustration. Several of them took running charges into the light, before scampering back to beyond its edges yelping as their pelts began to smoke, "You stay here, and take this."

He held out the lightsaber to the Corellian beside him.

"You're going in there?" Varik stepped out in front of the Commodore, "Okay, forget how crazy that idea sounds. Won't you, like, need that?"

"Whatever I face on the other side won't be killed by any blade," Zark explained, an edge of impatience creeping into his voice, "If it can even be killed at all. Besides, I think you'll need it more."

Hal glanced around them nervously, suddenly realizing the implications of the Jedi leaving him behind in the heart of these twisted woods.

"But I'm no Jedi," he protested.

"I've charged it enough that it should last a while yet after I'm gone," the Commodore explained, "If I'm successful, it should be enough that by the time it runs out, you won't need it. If not..."

"If not I am going to die in a way too horrible to imagine?" Hal finished for him.

"You're the one who demanded to come along," Zark shrugged helplessly, a look of apologetic sorrow on his features.

"Fair enough. Next time use your words, though," Hal clapped the Jedi on the back, and stepped out of his way.

Gingerly holding the hilt of the Jedi's blade out far in front of him as if it were a live grenade, Hal glanced back from his vigil against the slavering, wretched looking mutants that circled the slowly dimming protective zone. With almost no hesitation, the Jedi Knight stepped forward to the edge of the starfield. Pushing his cybernetic forearm through testingly, even the Commodore's supernatural senses had no time to react to being unceremoniously enveloped in tendrils of manifest darkness. Contouring to his outline, Zark could hear his Corellian companion cry out briefly as the Pathfinder witnessed his brief struggles against the encroaching portal, but then that sound and all others were drowned out was the black enveloped him hungrily before rippling back to its former state, leaving no trace of the Jedi at all.

"Well," Hal said at last, alone in what was quite possibly the most dangerous place on the planet with a brilliantly glowing lightsaber that nonetheless grew dimmer each moment, "This sucks."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

The leader of the Tunnel Snakes could curse all that he wanted. He knew the truth of the matter. Blaming his men allowed him to vent, but if he'd wanted to work with professionals he should have kept clean and stayed in finance. Maybe if he was caught he could get clean whilst behind bars and try and start again? He knew enough people to forge new papers when released and start again.

A screech of more bikes interrupted his train of thought. More riders bearing down on them. The alliance hadn't just send law enforcement, they had sent Jedi. The bikers around him broke in all directions and he gave the throttle everything it had to give.

Yet one of the riders stayed on his tail, slowly edging up to fly alongside him. This Jedi was barely even a grown up. The handcannon Trextan drew was enough to convince him that he meant business.

The leader of the swoop gang eased off and brought his bike to rest on the outskirts of town. He flicked off the power and brought his hands up behind his head.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

Tear down the pylons​

My deaf moons​

Sing and burn​

And orbit me​

​

I am older than music​

What I bring is light​

What I bring is a star​

What I bring is​

An ancient sea​

- 36 Lessons of Vivec​

​

​

Location Unknown

"Hello?"

The sound of his voice did not travel very far. The darkness all around him seemed to swallow it up, just as it robbed him the use of any of his other senses. The Jedi Knight had spoken mostly just to discern whether or not he was still alive, so jarring were his surroundings compared to where he had just been what seemed like mere moments ago. Vaguely, Zark felt the sensation of standing on something, though he held no frame of reference for its texture or geography. Even whether he stood on a flat plane or an incline seemed to escape his discernment, a curious and deeply unsettling sensation that made the thought of stepping forward a precarious one. Not to mention he wasn't entirely sure there was anything to step forward to at all. Whatever he had expected, this was not it.

Was this how he was to die? Slowly, without stimuli, fully aware but incapable of altering the course of his fate? It did not seem like a particularly appealing way to go.

Come.

The voice did not communicate telepathically so much as it forced its way into its mind. As it did so, the Jedi brushed up momentarily against an incomprehensibly alien kind of consciousness, and all sense of control over the balance of his emotions fled from him as the terror came flooding in. Even coming face to face with the entity that had started him on this journey in orbit above Atrisia, the terror from beyond, had not elicited so much fear in him as he felt now. What hope did he have to challenge something so overwhelmingly other in its own domain, what hope did he have at all? Not for the first time, but certainly so far to the greatest effect, the monumental weight of his cause drained the strength right out of him.

Come, the words shot through him again like psychic daggers, and if only to spare himself further torment of it, Zark struggled to comply.

At first it took some effort to even discern his own relative orientation enough to decide which way was the correct way to move his legs, but a few practicing circular motions made with each leg both demonstrated to the Jedi that movement was indeed possibly, and provided him with some geometric framework with which to work with. He began walking forward, if it could even be called that, and as he did so he began to believe he could discern the sensation of climbing some sort of steps. Although perhaps that was simply what walking anywhere felt like in this extranormal environment. Faintly in the distance, and what seemed like above him somehow, he began to see a faint light source ahead, nonetheless a stark beacon in the otherwise featureless landscape.

Slowly he grew closer, until the dim light from above now illuminated enough around him for him to make out black wispy stairs that led up to what was definitely a leveled out platform above of the same seemingly solid black smoke. All around the platform was void, the only other feature the source of the light shining down like a pale star in an otherwise empty field of night sky. The closer he came to the platform, the more the laws of euclidean geometry seemed to reassert themselves, until he stepped up onto the level surface and fully felt once more a sense of himself as standing upright. No sooner had he taken a few steps toward the center that coils of smoke began to rapidly grow from the same substance that currently bore him aloft, forcing him towards the center lest he risk discovering the consequences of direct exposure.

As the smoke coiled up it began to coalesce all around him into shapes that were vaguely humanoid, yet they had no faces or features, and appeared as facsimiles of Zark's own appearance at best, rippling with the black mist that somehow gave them substance. Every few seconds, they seemed to disappear and reappear several centimeters, as if somehow out of phase and skipping like a corrupted holorecording.

Jedi.

The piercing, incorporeal voice sounded again, and it to his senses within the Force it seemed to emanate from all of the figures at once. It repeated this word over and over, as the figures stalked slowly towards him, hemming him in further until he stood at the center of the platform. Finally, with nowhere left to go, the Jedi Knight reached out to call the backup lightsaber he kept on the rear of his belt into his hands. The burning yellow of the blade he had constructed on the local praxeum near his homeworld of Dubrillion for his Knighthood trials seemed to dim from the moment it touched the strange darkness all around them. He lashed out with a cry of battle in an attempt to keep the still chanting figures at bay, his blade cutting through one only for it to pause momentarily and then reform out of endless smoke.

As they closed in, the yellow of his blade began to flicker until it died, his very surroundings having somehow managed to drain the considerable power reserves of the blade. With a final cry, Zark reached out toward the light as the humanoid shapes enveloped him in an embrace that covered him with shadow that rippled and undulated until it finally receded down into the the smoky platform leaving no trace of the Jedi behind. Slowly, the pale light above begin to dim, until it shone with an unnatural brightness and the smoke burst forth once more up onto the platform, whirling up into a humanoid form until it faded away, and the Commodore was standing on the platform once more.

What have you done? the voice called out in fury, shadow rising up around him into figures once more, but this time they kept their distance, Tell us.

"It profits me nothing to give you my secrets," Zark replied, after he was finished gasping in what served for air here, "I will not."

We could take them from you.

Finally regaining some of his composure after the thoroughly unpleasant experience of being obliterated, the Jedi Knight stared at the shadow standing the closest to him with a challenging look in his eyes.

"Are you certain?" he said, "You've been wrong before."

The shadows paused and turned their heads in unison as if to look at one another.

We must know.

"An answer for an answer," Zark called out. The shadows turned again to look at each other, "Come on, even ones such as you must comprehend the idea of a deal. An answer for an answer. First me, then you."

We accept, the shadows answered finally, Ask.

"What do you want with us? With where I come from?" Zark asked, struggling in the moment to figure out the most efficient ways to obtain information that could keep him alive and Seltos safe, "You eat stars. What could we possibly be to you?"

The shadows paused as if to consider.

You are all made of stars.

The Commodore grimaced. Vague, unhelpful, and deeply troubling. Not exactly off to the greatest start.

Now you will explain.

Instead of speaking, the Jedi simply lifted some of his mental barriers, knowing that the invasive entity or entities or whatever it was he was dealing with exactly would hungrily devour the information with little regard for the human's privacy. Somehow it felt even worse than he had been expecting, and the bar had been set extremely low.

Sabotage, the voice hissed out in frustration, phasing excitedly, You poisoned the well. Clever little meat.

Deeper within the recesses of his mind, behind mental defenses still active, Zark admitted to himself that the shadows gave him far too much credit. He had been hoping that there would be a link or connection to sever somehow, but the Jedi Knight had been thinking far more literally. The darkness apparently had selected him as strong enough candidate for establishing a more permanent gateway, as he had been the first to reach their portal, but Zark's experience above Atrisia had corrupted his own connection to his home. The door the shadows had opened was now doomed to wither and die, as its connection to Zark had driven it further away, and not closer, to Seltos' wavelength of reality.

"Now me," Zark said.

You presume much, the shadows hissed, What more could you possibly have to feed us?

"You may know much, but your knowledge is not infinite," the Jedi pressed on, doing his best to remain unperturbed, "Otherwise you would have anticipated my trap. Don't you wish to know who is truly responsible for your failure here today? The source of the corruption? I believe it to be a threat to us both."

Nothing threatens the Palestar.

"Are you certain?" Zark asked again.

The shadows paused, and looked at one another once more.


The Forest Heart
Seltos, Mid Rim

The protective glow of the molten orange saber had practically faded to nothing, and just a few meters away in every direction, slavering beasts of nightmare snapped at its edges. Eager to get to the uninfected Corellian who still bore it aloft, Hal was too exhausted anymore to be terrified, but still in no way looking forward to the grisly nature of the fate that was now no longer very far away now. The Pathfinder was finally to the point where he began to see the merits of attempting to wield the energy blade along with his carbine in a last stand rather than go down meekly when the time finally came, when as one the beasts around him howled this time in apparent agony.

The unnatural keening would never fade from his memory until the end of his days, but then again neither would the immense feeling of relief that followed as the monstrous wildlife staggered off back into the woods in every direction as if mortally wounded. A few seconds after they had done so, the last licks of molten flame emanating from the blade fizzled and died, and Hal Varik was standing alone in the middle of an empty clearing in the middle of a mundane forest holding a lightsaber. All around was silence, save for the sound of the still raging fires in the distance that were the consequences of his thermal detonators.

And although at first he though he was imagining it, there seemed to a faint sound coming from the tree still standing in the middle of the clearing. As Hal cautiously approached it, saber still held aloft in his hand and far away from his person, he saw that the strange star field was gone, in its place a the gnarled bark of a tree heart. When he stopped again, a few meters away, the Colonel heard the sound again, and to his horror realized it sounded like the faint echoes of a person's voice coming from within.

As precisely as he could given the limitations of his baseline coordination, Hal wielded the lightsaber to cut a light crevasse in the outer layer of the tree's bark. As soon as he did so, more wood burst and splintered out violently, as if under telekinetic assault, and a stunned Colonel Varik pulled a gasping Jedi Knight out of the ruin of the tree.