To Gramos [Ask]

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

There was only one response to that. Her robe fell off her body and onto the floor.

Snap-hiss.

A crimson light protruded from her left hand. She didn't say anything. Her actions spoke louder. Spinning the Lightsaber in her hand, Darth Ayra stalked towards Rave Merrill.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

Entropy hissed from its sheath, a mottled single-edged blade with a hilt of terentatek horn and the scales of monsters. The left-foot-forward stance she took was fluid, mobile; at her size, a hundred twenty pounds and five foot five, she was used to having to withdraw and attack, withdraw and attack, more quickly than her opponent. Her blade was songsteel, light enough to keep up with a sabre. Her stance and two-handed grip, if Ayra recognized them, came straight from traditional Atrisian sword combat, quite close to Shii-Cho. Stance and grip held elements, too, of Dathomiri arts. Her right hand was a Yuuzhan Vong shaper hand, miniature biotech tools outlined under fingernails and skin, specialized but durable enough to handle monstrosities. Controlled, purposeful anger stilled her mind, put her in a state of flow -- focus without obsession, awareness without distraction, relaxation without lassitude. Fighting-sight, simplest of the rare Aing-Tii arts, let her touch the future just slightly, just enough to amplify intuition.

She waited for Ayra's attack.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Rave's opponent was a Lightsaber specialist; a real master of all the Lightsaber forms, their marks of contact and the various variants that came with them. She wore a combat vest, so in comparison to her own opponent, Ayra wasn't as equipped. Still, she had no choice in the matter. She was a Sith and was confronted with the same woman who hurt someone she was rather fond of; and to top it off, they had threatened to kill her as well.

As soon as heard the name Rave Merrill, Darth Ayra planned to use, abuse and then murder her when she was done. So it wasn't like this could be avoided. Ayra did not recognize the form that Rave adopted, nor the equipment she wielded. But Djem So could be recognized.

When the Sith Lord moved close to Rave, entered a flurry of strikes that were reminiscent of a helicopter rotating it's blades; a consistent spin designed to wear down Rave by overpowering her. Hatred festered within Ayra as she slashed and slashed and slashed. It would continue growing the longer the fight lasted.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

That eighty pound differential came into play here, in several ways, and Rave switched to the classic Ataru she'd used since the age of six. Drey was heavy for her height, by a good bit; Rave was wiry, not especially strong. She had spent her combat career evading, avoiding, ducking, using quick footwork. When Drey's relentless assault got too close, Rave met the lightsabre with Entropy, not in firm blocks but in glancing parries that let the sabre through to slash edges from Rave's hair and shipsuit. Acrid odors and wisps of smoke floated through the air of the hangar. They had room, but not a lot. The crew kept its distance, but two hundred anti-boarding droids guarded every access shaft and corridor leading away from the hangar, as well as everything above and below for two decks. Armed with omnidirectional arrays of paralysis beams that ignored lightsabre deflection, armor, and shields -- as well as powerful sonic weapons -- they were identical to the armored droids Alicia had faced on the Scion.

Except this ship had many times more security droids, and no other boarders on which to focus. Getting out of the hangar would not be possible unless Drey defeated Rave -- or ran away in that Niathal.

This boiled down to Master against Master, blade against blade, and nothing more. Which was the way it should be.

Her strategy, such as it was for the moment, boiled down to very good timing and subtle evasion. She could stand against Dray blade-to-blade if necessary, but it would tire her more quickly than her bulkier opponent. But if she kept avoiding this dynamic tree-chopping Djem So assault continue, if she managed to survive against it without resorting to gauche flips and pirouettes, Dray would tire herself out sooner rather than later.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Crimson lights streaked across the hangar bay as Lightsaber clashed on Songsteel. Yellow, predatory eyes glanced in all directions whilst the red lightning tore into floor and cleaved the wind of a Hammer-B LAC. Registration of Ataru came naturally to the Sith Lord. Drawing her form backwards, Darth Ayra rotated her Lightsaber into Soresu to deflect any wild slashes whilst she recovered from her previous onslaught.

Hop. Hop. Her eyes averted from Rave to her surroundings. People she did not recognize nor have time to register their race, as she hopped backwards to give herself room. She only read a few things. The same droids she confronted on the Hazard Beauty were there. There was enough crew, alongside a master level opponent, to overwhelm her should the call be given; and this time, there were nobody else for these mechanical monsters to target except for her.

Yet, they had not advanced. If the roles were reversed, Ayra would of surely given the order for those droids to stun her enemy or for the crew to gang her. This told the Sith Lord that either her enemy were confident in her abilities to defeat Ayra without assistance from droid or crew; she had something that Ayra did not that would guaranteed victory; or she had a sense of honor that when she said, "I'm going to kill you" she meant every word.

Coming out of Soresu, the Sith Lord adopted a Niman stance to wave her hand to the cleaved piece of wing off the Hammer-B LAC she had caught in her flurry of strikes. Waving her hand towards Rave with the Force holding the metal, Ayra directed it towards Rave like a projectile.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]
The wing of a Hammer-B qualified as vestigial, barely more than a short strut with a laser cannon. That cannon had some mass to it, though, enough that it would tire her to slow or stop the improvised projectile, but Drey had chosen the angle well; Rave was, at this particular moment, low on options for evasion. The tip of her sword drew a quick rune in midair, and a perfunctory shield sprang up around her, a bubble of green light. The amputated wing rushed at her, slammed into the shield, drove shield and Nightsister back against a bulkhead with enough force to pop a rivet or two. It nearly drove the wind from her lungs. The shield shattered an instant later, the wing hit the deck, and Rave found her feet.

She spun Entropy one-handed, Vong biot clicking gently, and her raised her left. Her combat-focused Force manifestations were fairly basic, by all accounts -- strong, but simple. Shields, lightning, a few Nightsister tricks. She likewise ranked as 'competent but not exceptional' in most melee arts. All of these were things that Drey was certain to have faced a hundred times, faced and overcome. And if there was one thing Rave had gleaned from her experience, it was that those who tried to play the enemy's game generally left themselves open. That was appropriate sometimes, for various reasons, but today she opted against it.

Because warrior she might be, cursed with an old woman's memories since childhood, raised to battle of this kind or that, but at heart she was an alchemist above all. A forgemaster.

Halfway between them, the glowing stump of the LAC's wing felt its master's touch. Glowing metal elongated toward Ayra in a yellow-red whip, sweeping at waist height, spraying spark-showers and globules of molten durasteel. It wouldn't do a thing to the hangar, the ships, or the droids, but Ayra wore little of protective value.

Rave expected, for the most part, one of two responses. A Force-push to scatter the metal toward her -- for which she was prepared as only a forgemaster could be -- or a leap above the whip of glowing metal that protruded from the landing craft. Should Ayra leap, she'd be the target of a quick, hard burst of lightning in midair.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Ayra felt the tug of the dark side vibrate through her petite, yet muscular frame, as she prepared herself to enter a Force Speed and begin another flurry of strikes. She was ruthless, merciless and in a situation such as this, she consider Rave Merrill her prey and she the predator on the hunt. Yellow, predatory eyes twisted in their malevolence as the beast within her rose, sniffing the air and set itself ready to claim the praise and reward she was due for her service to Darth Pandeima; the same woman that Rave had once faced in Kaggath, and from Ayra understood from her Sith Master's explanation, cheated to win the confrontation.

They followed the movement of Rave's outstretched hand to the same wing she had cleaved in half during her frenzy upon the Nightsister and subsequently used as a projectile, only to met by the green luminescence of a shield erupting over Rave's body and saving her from being torn in half or sustaining an injury from the subsequent impact off the star ships hull. In a state of awe and shock, Ayra saw the wing transform itself into a glowing orange. In it's own fury, the molten whipped towards the Sith Lord.

The force had told her split seconds before Rave had lifted and brandished the new creation at her opponent. It had a way of warning a Force-sensitive of impending danger to them. Enough time to lift her Lightsaber defensively, for she didn't know what Rave was about to do. Darth Ayra wasn't rewarded with precognition. The gesture was short lived, however, when it became apparent that molten metal was coming towards her body.

Instinctively she allowed the force to below out of her body in a wave, with it as the epicenter. The magnitude of the energy sent from her body was enormous. If someone was inches from her as the wave was emitted, then it was known for that person to have been disintegrated by the energy alone. A yard or two and the impact would break bones, alongside the combined impact when they came back to Earth. At this range, however, it was likely that Rave would come up with some form of defense to stop the Force Wave; and it's use in this situation was not for offensive purposes. It was designed to send the pieces of molten away from her and her exposed arms, face and lower stomach, which had become exposed due to the black t-vest Ayra wore and subsequently forgot to set right in the heat of battle.

A nearby Hammer-B LAC was overturned by the Force Wave due to Ayra's vicinity to it. Falling onto it's side, forcing crew members and droids to scatter in the face of death or destruction. Her yellow eyes lifted after the instinctive move, forcing her to buckle off the black combat boots she wore due to being thrown off balance. But she wouldn't allow Rave to move out of her sight. Gaining a position on her opponent, they soon averted to the Hammer-B LAC that had just fallen over. Her eyes were set on the warhead tucked in the warhead launcher. The Force came to her once more and unleashed itself in the form of Force Lightning.

Her objective was to ignite the warhead and allow chaos to ensue in the hangar bay. She was Sith and thought herself the master of things chaotic and destructive. Darth Ayra did not care for the Lethewalker, it's crew, droids, compliments or Rave Merrill. She wanted the later maimed, broken and then presented to Pandeima within the day. As the missile launched, Ayra rolled along her neck and shoulders back onto her feet and turned her Lightsaber back on, returning to train her eyes and it on her enemy.

 

[Velok the Younger]

Another shield snapped to life, for the moment necessary to blunt the Force repulse and catch the glowing metal. Rave set her feet and her mental stance.

Because [member="Alicia Drey"] had just made, in Rave's moderately expert opinion, the worst tactical choice imaginable. Not that she could have known.

Hammer-B LACs carried, primarily in the Fringe's case and exclusively in the Lethewalker's case, long-range anti-capital HELIX warheads. When Drey's lightning seared its way into the warheads, then, the fuel ignited. A mindboggling noise filled the hangar, carrying with it billowing smoke. The droids at the handful of exits could see through it, of course, but Rave and Ayra would have to rely on instinct.

When Dray hit the warheads with lighting, the fuel ignited, but only the fuel. Because HELIX warheads were fifty-megaton thermonuclear weapons, and the requisite neutron flux was not active; nuclear weapons didn't just 'go off' like that.

A Hammer-B LAC carried twelve. Some significant fraction of six hundred megatons' worth of tritium comprised the majority of that smoke that filled everything. Elsewhere, blast doors and environmental seals were closing, to protect the crews that had all left some time ago, but this hangar was depreciating in value rapidly. Rave contemplated breath control, but there was a good chance they were already dead, and the hard radiation was only the beginning. This was fallout, unbelievably concentrated; it would accumulate in their clothes, their hair, their pores. Keeping it from her lungs wouldn't make much difference.

To Drey, the hard radiation would be warmth, hot air, no different from what she'd expected of the explosion. To Drey, the crew's trepidation would be no different from what she'd expected from the explosion. And Rave's mental defenses were iron-hard, and had been for decades; Drey would get nothing from her.

Rave stumbled, catching herself on the nearest surface - Drey's shuttle, the only one ready to fly - and her hand twinged; maybe she'd cut it, or maybe the radiation was already doing its work. Sustained exposure would give them burns, but every scientist's instinct she had indicated that they were both already dead.

Emerald lightning slashed out through the smoke, instinct-targeted, and closed around Drey from multiple vectors, like claws.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Suffice to say, that was unexpected. As soon as she felt the explosion occur, Ayra knew she had made a grave mistake. Alarm bells mixed with the sound created by the HELIX missile rung inside the cranium of the Sith Lord. The heat was insufferable. Tears welled in her eyes at the pain and she wanted to scream and cry out. Only the hatred that coursed through her veins made her continued. That was the thing about Sith. The longer a battle raged the worse their hatred grew; sustaining them, pushing them to continue fighting like the beast they were to become in the alignment to the dark side of the force.

But hatred wasn't going to save her from the douses of radiation that were now exposed to the room; and the concussion wave of the HELIX exploding had knocked Ayra back into the Lethewalker's shuttle bay doors. She felt wet at the back of her head and made the accurate assumption that she had cut it. As she struggled to her feet off the wall, a shot of green, a tingling in the force and Ayra's crimson light rose to meet the shot of lightning. But it was too powerful. Exploding along the Lightsaber in her hand as force met weapon, Ayra once more found herself rebounding into the wall behind her. Bouncing off the hull and onto her front, she laid still, Lightsaber off. Deadly still.

Fires raged, the hangar bay had been severally damaged and Ayra wouldn't be surprised if the vacuum of space had been exposed by the explosion. On the floor, Darth Ayra's force signature faded. Rave would feel it disappearing. Her Niathal had been sealed from the outside. Breaking in would damage the hull, exposing it to space.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

The lightning claws, which continued to spray from Rave's left hand, had been designed to keep Ayra's location in sight as much as lock down her location. A brutal heat continued to assault Rave, her ooglith cloaker peeling away from her ritually scarred face and body. The cloaker was dying, irradiated. It slithered out from under her breast band and the shipsuit, which she wore with sleeves knotted at the waist. Hot air hit her skin, but she had walked in the Dark Forge of Aza'zoth, and spent a significant portion of her life hammering metal on an anvil; she was used to the heat, even harmful heat. But losing the cloaker meant her vacuum resistance would be nil should the hangar's field go down and expose the place to hard black.

She kept up the encircling, assaulting lightning even as Ayra's Force presence vanished. No stranger to presence-concealing arts herself, she opted to take no chances. She fully intended to electrocute Ayra into cinders.

She remained beside Ayra's starship.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Agony. Suffering. Pain. Her teeth gritted subconsciously against the pain, as if the subconscious would not betray it's master and subsequently allow the woman that was tearing her asunder to hear the same scream had emitted from the lips of another woman Rave had once made suffer the same fate. Defeat. Ayra's body shook in the lightning current, tearing aware the physical vessel that was her body. Tears appeared across arm and part of her vest had been disintegrated in the emerald vortex, alongside one of her boots and part of her leggings. The only source of cool was the Lightsaber in her hand. Everything else was on fire. An inferno that had engulfed it's host.

Memories drifted...

A sense of bewilderment. Scorching heat from the sun above. Alicia lifted her gaze at the foot of the temple's entrance. Kalist VI held no source of vegetation or water on it's planet surface. To say it was barren was an understatement. Not that the little girl who was stood at the mouth of the sandstone building knew or understood that. At the young age of four, Alicia Drey didn't pretend to know much or why she was here. But she knew how. A man had visited her Father on Chandrila. They had conversed throughout the night, she knew. The next day, her Mother not in sight, the man introduced himself.

"Hello Alicia," he said. "I am Mendacium and I have come to take you home."
"But I am home," she had said.
"Not yet."

Her gaze lowered away from the Kalist star. Sweat perspired along the young girls frame. The shovel provided to her by Mendacium laid rested on the ground, beside the small pile of sand she had managed to dig up before giving up and returning to the state of depression that had claimed her. She longed to return to Chandrila, back home to Hanna City. To see her friends, her Father and her Mother. "You have until sun down," she remembered. "When night falls here, it becomes very cold. Too cold to stay outside. But you cannot come inside until you have dug a hole bigger and taller than you and the spade. Do you understand Alicia?"

She had said yes. Fear gripped her. Or was it something else? She didn't understand. But the giant bald man that was Mendacium seemed sincere in his threat. "I hate this heat," she moaned, before picking up the shovel and returning back to digging...

...pain soon claimed her reality.​

​

The wreckage of a Hammer-B LAC crumpled in on itself. Rave felt a the rise of the dark side crunch the metal in itself. Found her emerald lightning engulfed in the Force Bubble. Ayra laid still. The taste of blood was on her mouth. Smells of scorched skin filled her nostrils. She wanted to be violently sick. Her hands blistered in her exposure to the radiation. Hatred sustained her. Forced her to rise to her feet. To maintain the Force Bubble that had absorbed the remaining currents of lightning emitting from Rave Merrill's outstretched hand. Her yellow eyes did not fall to her injuries. They were set on Merrill. Malevolent in her glare, Ayra continued to watch her enemy.

The Force Bubble surrounding the Sith Lord was the beginning of a Force Maelstrom. Darth Ayra would never reached the magnitude of the Maelstrom once unleashed by Darth Sidious, which had destroyed an entire fleet or the raw power of Darth Malgus. Not in the condition she found herself in. This was desperate. Her last and yet very powerful ace in the hole. One that had saved her at the hands of the Mandalorians she had fought on Aeten II in Darth Voracitos's botched operation to steal stygium crystals. The crumpled remnants of the Hammer-B LAC that had suffered at the hands of Ayra's anger rose in the Force Bubble, joining the douse of radiation that were joining it alongside flame and sorts. Clots of blood from the tears Rave had made with her lighting- and there were several across her arms, legs, stomach, neck, neck and face- also rose in red bubbles in a fluid, watery effect.

How long had Darth Ayra spent under that burning, scorching star on Kalist VI under Mendacium? She was unsure. Years. Perhaps a decade. She swayed on her feet, off balance. But she remained stood. Had too this through. For herself and for Pandeima, her crush. Force Maelstrom at the beginning collected surrounding debris and anything lethal, radiation for example, in a Force Bubble before the user ignited the bubble with Force Lightning and exploded the immediate area in an avalanche of projectiles of fallen debris, the energies that the bubble had collected before hand and the raw hatred in the form of Force Lightning.

There was nothing else keeping up Ayra now. Sincere hatred for her opponent was all it was and Rave Merrill was the source of it all. The Niathal-class transport her brother had sold her opponent looked inviting.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

As massive waves of everything collected for what would surely be a massive Force explosion -- a very bad idea in a room with one hundred thirty two more fifty-megaton nuclear warheads -- Rave stepped behind the Niathal that she stood beside, Ayra's ship. The LAC was twice the size of that shuttle, a big subcapital combat ship. Crushing it, lifting it, would have been close to impossible at the best of times, let alone igniting things with lightning and generating massive shockwaves. Deadly this radiation might be, but Rave could still muster a smile as her opponent completed the process of tiring herself out irrevocably.

The massive wave of debris ran into the shuttle, and Rave hopped back to keep the ship from running into her as it skidded on the deck. The Maelstrom wrapped around the shuttle and continued on in an eyeblink. Entropy met the Force shockwave portion of it, sheared through the wavefront. The blade was designed to resist overt Force effects; the wavefront broke in front of her, spread out to either side.

Meanwhile, the Force maelstrom ran into what was directly behind Ayra -- the force field that barred the light frigate's hangar aperture. Splash damage struck the two field generators; they shorted out in an instant.

And the hangar's atmosphere, with hundreds of megatons' worth of tritium vapor, smoke, and light debris, vanished out the hangar in a matter of seconds. Hard radiation and now hard vacuum, and the rest of the ship was heavily blocked off. And Ayra, having recently hit the hangar's door field, was still pretty fething close to the edge.

Then again, Rave was too, with Ayra's shuttle between her and that edge. By long spacer training, she exhaled. None of the other ships in here were powered up; none of the ships in here were small enough to get sucked out.

Plastered to the nose of Ayra's ship, she had about two seconds to avoid death -- and an enemy who was pretty much right there, if hard vacuum hadn't claimed her.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Rage incarnate. Finally she screamed. The beast inside her roared with her, using her own vocal cords to emit a mighty roar that only a Sith Lord could muster in the face of all her hatred and rage. The radiation that had plagued her body joined the radiation in the surrounding air in an avalanche of Force energy that Darth Ayra ignited with Force Lightning. Almost like her rage had transformed her environment into the Force Bubble and cleansed her of the toxins within created via the HELIX warhead, all thanks to the beginning of the Force Maelstrom and it's subsequent Force Bubble.

Her eyes illuminated in the explosion as the Lethewalker's hangar was decimated, culminating thanks to the HELIX warhead's previous detonation; the Force Maelstrom that Darth Ayra had summoned in her moment of unadulterated rage and pushed on by the brink of death; and the explosions of another nearby HELIX missile that had been caught by the Maelstrom's explosive wave. All thanks to the two women that had faced each other off. The vacuum of space soon claimed Ayra and she was sucked out of the hangar bay alongside a piece of Niathal that had been torn off in the explosions.

The Maelstrom had disconnected the landing ramps on Ayra's own Niathal and through a combination of HELIX, force and spacial power, it too joined it's master in the void as the vacuum also claimed what was left of it. She hoped Rave had died in that explosion. Sincerely. But that was it for now. Lowering her hand to the pistol cord found on her utility belt, which she was thankful for still being there, Ayra aimed the fiber cord onto the hull of her Niathal-class transport and through her brute strength thanks to years of digging holes on Kalist VI, as well as an assortment of Sith Marauder and body building training, the Sith Lord found herself on the hull of her ship by dragging herself onto it.

She punched the access panel that would open the Niathal's door, fell through thanks to aerobatics, strength and a hard fall down into ships floor. The ships emergency beacons rung a siren as they closed the door just after Ayra fell through them and was violently sick all over the floor, which joined the clots of blood that were emerging from the red, torn crevices of her skin. As the Niathal drifted adrift on a downwards away from what was left of the Leathewalker, it's owner fainted on the floor. Cleansed of the radiation thanks to the Force Bubble of the Maelstrom that had absorbed it in the ensuing attack; and alive thanks to her sincere hatred for Rave Merrill, coupled with her own training, force potential and luck.

Death was still a possibility, however. She was badly injured and had already lost a lot of blood. Concussed due to the impacts sustained on the Leathewalker's walls. Torn to shreds by Rave's lightning; and expose to space, as she had just been, would have an effect as well; and then, of course, there was Rave Merrill and the Leathewalker itself, which had lost it's hangar, but not it's crew, perhaps not it's master and certainly not it's weapon systems.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]


Rave remained on the nose of the Niathal as it disengaged from the frigate and floated away. Eyes shut against the cold, she focused entirely on using her mastery of matter manipulation and temperature control to protect herself, temporarily, from hard vacuum. Depressurization and vicious cold bugged out her eyes, popped her ears -- and the radiation burns were already problematic.

But unlike her opponent, Rave hadn't wasted all her strength on massive area-of-effect, throwing a fifty-metre starship around, and cleansing her entire body of tritium. So far Rave had used some lightning, a couple of short-term shields, and a touch of alchemy. Radiation poisoned she might be, but she still had an awful lot of endurance left.

She sensed Ayra faint inside the shuttle, and knew that her strategy from the first moment had paid off -- Ayra had worn herself out irrevocably, played her final card, then played her other final card. Entropy drifted gently as she released to draw her other weapon; the Lonesome Gun barked twice, and the Niathal's front viewscreen shattered. A plume of crystallizing air almost shoved her away, but she got a hand on the edge, pulled herself inside, and tumbled through the cockpit onto the deck. A safety hatch separated the cockpit from the rest of the shuttle, and the hatch closed behind her. The cockpit was now hard vacuum.

Shivering, she pulled herself to her feet and looked down the hallway at the unconscious Ayra. The lights dimmed and died as the Lethewalker's ion cannons slammed into the drifting Niathal.

"Just you, me, and the dark," she muttered through numb lips.

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] | [member="Enigma"] |

Ayra stirred. The taste of her vomit mixed with blood filled her mouth. She spat out and allowed saliva to join the yellow, red mess that was at the foot of the Niathal's door. Banging. Something shattering. She mustered her reserves to move onto her ass, lean her aching back against the door and lowered blistered hand to the disruptor pistol that hung on her hip, off her utility belt. Standard issue gear for a Sith Marauder trained by Mendacium was a Lightsaber, Saberstaff, two disruptor pistols, two combat knives and then the general gear you found on a force-sensitive, such as the pistol cord she had used to save her life. She didn't know if the other pistol, normally found strapped to her left leg was there or the combat knives, one on her belt, the other strapped to her right leg either.

The vacuum of space nearly pulled her up from her sitting position when Rave burst into the hallway. Ayra was surprised at the woman's tenacity; and she was sure that the woman would be as equally surprised at Ayra's resolve and resourcefulness. Force powers depleted as she was, alongside her very serious injuries, the Sith Lord rose her disruptor pistol in the cramped hallway that only had Darth Ayra and Rave Merrill inside of it. The ion energy that engulfed the Niathal had sealed the doors leading into the cockpit, which was inaccessible anyway due to the vacuum, as well as the cargo bay that Ayra had converted to serve as her bedroom. They were going no where.

They were trapped together in that cramped hallway, submerged in darkness; one ready to cleave the head off the other with Entropy, for stealing the Sith Abattar that hung in the locker inside the cargo bay; and the other holding a disruptor pistol held up in her general direction, ready to unload a full clip of ammunition into Rave Merrill with a weapon that couldn't be deflected, and in the environment they found themselves in, was currently unavoidable.

An Mexican stand off for the ages.

Her free hand fell to the Raxor I that hung on her utility belt. A distress beacon that only one person in the entire galaxy would receive was activated by Ayra's thumb pressing onto the consoles center button and holding it down for five seconds to do so. A hoarse whisper emitted from the darkness to Rave Merrill. "We're both trapped. I don't miss. You know what this is? Of course you do. Drop your weapon, get on the ground or we're both going into space. At this range, with this weapon, I'll tear more holes than this bulkhead can handle. We'll be fethed."

"If you're going to kill me then I'll be taking you with me, Rave Merrill." She spat the woman's name with venom.

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

Rave would have preferred her voice to be clearer, but the cold had left her lips numb. Her voice echoed oddly in the dark; maybe it was just the corridor.

"Let me describe the gun that's pointed at you right now. I say 'gun' -- that's kind of a loose description. It's one of the most powerful alchemical weapons ever created. If you die by this gun, that death is permanent. No tricks, no Transfer Essence, no midi-chlorian tactics, no binding your soul to a location or an item.

"Go ahead and shoot me if you've got the nerve."

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

Ayra gingerly lifted her free hand to move the hair out of her eyes. She could barely make out Rave in the dark, but she could see her silhouette. Her voice remained raspy, like she hadn't drunk water in days. "Then I'll explain this weapon. It's a disruptor pistol. It isn't fancy like yours, but it does the job. I start pulling the trigger with this thing and I am going to put so many holes in your body that even if you shoot me with that gun, we're both going to die. I'll put one right in between your eyes, your heart and to be sure I'll disintegrate every other piece of you before I die."

"You might want to kill me Rave, but I will definitely kill you if you use that thing on me. I'll take you down with me, no problem; and I'll do it because you fethed with someone I'm in love with. Guess what? She's on her way now. You're not getting off this ship and the way I left your Frigate I doubt you'll be able to get out of here before she comes too."

"You're cornered with a Sith who doesn't care if you kill her, but cares a lot of she's kills you. You're on a boat that is dead in the water with a ship that is heavily damaged and wouldn't put up much of a fight against the fire power she's going to bring with her. You might have depleted me of the force, for a while; torn my body apart; and burned me with your weapons, but I've won and you've lost."

She cocked the trigger backwards. Now Rave knew she was serious. If her words or the sound of the trigger being cocked backwards didn't tell her, then Ayra's eyes would. They were full of hatred and when someone was that angry with another, then they weren't thinking about their future or if they were going to get out alive. They didn't care anymore. "I won't ask again. Drop your weapon and get on the floor or both of us are going to meet our creator. I mean it Merrill. Put it down or I'm going to kill you."

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Alicia Drey"]

"Do it."

 

[Darth Ayra]

| [member="Rave Merrill"] |

"You do it."

 

[Onrai]

And into the system came Circe in her newest ship - a Kressh-class frigate. Always to the rescue, she was - particularly when such things involved her apprentice and one of the few things the dark duo had that was a 'prize' of a sort from Jorus Merrill. The four hundred meter long frigate - the largest any civilian could own, apparently - launched its fighters, along with a pair of Tyderium-class hyperspace tugs and an Archer-class Gunship. The fighters and gunship moved towards the Lethewalker, the tugs aiming their tractor beams at the crippled vessel as they prepared to haul it away - they only needed a brief moment to recharge their hyperdrives. While the main guns of the Kressh were aimed at the light frigate, some were also aimed at the Niathal in the event that backup showed up. The Kressh she was on was practically hair-triggered to make a random hyperspace jump, and in the event that the two Tyderiums were attacked, their linked systems - to prevent their tractor beams from tearing the shuttle in half - would both jump them to the same place, albeit a random and unknown destination that could be the center of a star for all they knew.

"And so it comes to this. Two women, both of whom I know quite well, trapped on a gutted ship. I know you're there, Rave - your Force signature is rather exceedingly familiar. As is yours, my apprentice... Now, here's how this game's going to be played. The Niathal is critically damaged. Even if only one of you are still alive, which your Force presences seem to indicate isn't the case, no one is getting saved until we tow the ship to our repair facility, which won't take that long once we're underway. Once we get the ship inside of an atmospheric area, both of you will be escorted out. I have no desire to cause more bloodshed than necessary - but Rave, don't think what you've done to me is going to be so quickly forgotten. Nonetheless, you'll be treated well for the woman who stole my property."

[member="Rave Merrill"] [member="Alicia Drey"]