Weekend Treasure Hunt Infinity: At Last We Will Have Revenge (Open to All)

[Stardust Solus Skirae]

http://starwarsrp.net/topic/95969-raxis-rancor-company/?hl=%2Brancor+%2Bcompany
With co-ri shields
Allies-all mandalorians

The true test of battle was not on ground, but in closed spaces where one must aim carefully and react quickly to changing conditions

A single squad of the rancor company was under her command

The group listened as they quickly got up and going

"Get the shields now meet me at the boarding deck when everyone is ready you have five "

With that she moved quickly towards the boarding deck, she had all she needed two westar 35s, both Sabers and of course her blade nova alomg with her battlemaster armor" I hope this turns out fun" she said as she secured her helmet the back forming to her lekku to keep them safe for attack, she stood at the boarding deck the men came running up quickly shields ready and everyone armed

"Alright men I know your usually under grays command but this is important, we are attack a large vessel that we need to capture that could potentially be useful to the war effort, minute we land I want shields covering put exit and move forward slowly, now everyone board!"

With that a salute was given them everyone started piling in as stardust slowly entered looking around d, [member="Gray Raxis"] had quite the company here, she was proud to say these men earned their title

The torpedo launched, where it would land would be determined

 

[Sal Katarn]

Velok's Maw

I snorted behind my helmet at the Jedi's wry remark. "No plan survives first contact with the enemy anyway, sir."

Couldn't remember where I'd heard that line, but I thought it sounded good.

The doors slid closed behind us with a sense of finality. The external oxygen and nitrogen levels in my suits readout rose. At first, I thought the creeping sensation dragging my gut toward the floor came from the pressurization of the airlock chamber, but it drew on despite the atmospheric levels stabilizing. I glanced around and saw the rest of us hunching, or shifting nervously like pre-assault jitters.

"Kriff," someone muttered.

The pressure grew, oppressive and crushing, like a slowly tightening fist around my heart.

The interior doors hissed aside and I heard a shambling from within. The front runner nearly got me, fingers reaching toward me before the door had finished opening. I saw his eyes, glassy and sightless. Something glowed behind them like green fire. He wore dark robes that were rent and torn in several places. Fingernails scratched at the collar of my armor, as if he'd tear through the duraplast. If I were anyone else I would've stood there stupefied at the pure insanity of it. Lucky for me, the doctors in Research and Development gave me a few advantages over ordinary humans. A synthetic neural web ran through my body in the place of organic nerves. They called it a response improvement package - Rimpack for short.

Cutting out the techno babble? Any professional athlete would kill for my reaction time.

The barrel of my hard sound carbine jabbed the man in the stomach hard enough to break a rib. I pulled the trigger. Condensed sound waves blasted the cultist's organs with enough pressure to turn them all to jelly. Only instead of dropping to the ground and coughing blood, the man kept clawing at my neck with my fingernails, like he hadn't even felt it.

Bwop!

Pink mist, grey matter and bone shards flew everywhere. The corpse collapsed. I glanced sideways at the smoking barrel of the Jedi's blaster, then back at the body.

"What the hell was that?"

Dallows pointed at the thing's left arm, which hung on to the rest of the bicep by only a few shreds of muscle. "Cut with some sort of blade. Looks like we aren't the first ones here."

My eyes tracked up from the corpse to stare at a corridor filled with more walking bodies. They shambled toward us, staring out at nothing with sightless eyes.

"Engaging."

Our death rattle carbines screamed away, one or two got their brains scrambled and went down from the sonic blasts. The rest kept coming, their bodies like broken jars leaking liquified viscera. One basically fell on top of me, teeth gnashing at gaps in my armor. I shoved the walking corpse away from me so hard that it slammed against the opposite wall. My rifle stock came up and caved in the thing's face. It didn't get back up.

I let go of my carbine and let it hang from its sling while I unsheathed a vibroknife. The sense of dread hadn't stopped growing, like an ulcer in my gut.

The laser swords Jedi carried made a lot of sense to me at that moment.

"Anytime you want to pitch in," grunted Sergeant Kiens. He hadn't been looking at the Marshall when he said it - too busy bayoneting a hostile through the eye socket - but I think it was implied.

Some of us are more professional than others.

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"].

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Stardust Raxis"] [member="Gray Raxis"] [member="Cole Dagos"] [member="Gilamar Skirata"] [member="Draco Vereen"]

Apart from the intense, layered defensive fire, the boarding torpedoes faced the aforementioned uncanny turbolasers. The old ship's capital guns traversed and roared with bizarre precision. A Mandalorian boarding torpedo was a very small ship. The Sith turbolaser crews didn't appear fazed in the slightest. In short order, heavy fire would crash into the torpedo wave.

A lone turbolaser battery's strike, if aimed by the Force, could wreak havoc on a dropship formation with a single barrage. This situation was comparable. Old weapons snarled to life. Their internal circuits didn't respond as readily or reliably as their maneuvering gimbals. One by one, a few of the battlecruiser's heavy turrets began to go silent.

Long before then, however, the boarding torpedo situation would have been resolved in one way or another. The tough little ships were meant to shrug off defensive fire, not concerted, Force-targeted, capital-scale bombardment.

Anyone who'd expected a cakewalk was to be sorely disappointed.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

VELOK'S MAW​

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"] and [member="Raph Thule"]​

​

This place was known for intermittent cultist infestations in moderate numbers; they always came back. They'd been here in numbers when the Sith came through. For every undead Darksider who assaulted the Galactic Alliance forces, another man's worth of dismembered parts lay scattered on the rocks. They weren't clean cuts. Swords, polearms, razor-sharp projectiles, terrible force.

Luck and good technology were on the side of the Alliance. Some confluence of constructive interference, spurred by Thule's carbine, roared down a certain tunnel and stunned everything in its path. Undead shattered. Beyond them, the living roared in pain, then were silent.

A quick advance would find half a dozen Massassi, eight feet tall when standing, curled up unconscious and bleeding from their ears. Past them, one might start to hear two voices. Two men of middle age, shouting at each other as if in agony.

"...dwomut’hask, grotthu!"

A scream of pain and defiance. "Kotsatul nu itsuyajak, kuskutaral’ariyanjat!"

"Tashajak'ata!"

They were clearly occupied, focused. At the heart of Velok's Maw, one hung from iron hooks, bleeding. The other stood facing him, a dripping knife in hand. Both men had a...distinct aesthetic.

Their shouts resonated in the Force. Perhaps [member="Ayden Cater"] and [member="Draco Vereen"], among others, might hear an echo of their words.

 

[Ayden Cater]

"Whatever form of intelligent life thought up this muddled mess of a language?" The AI's avatar made a frustrated face and 'flopped' backwards onto a 'chair'. It wasn't at all required of it to maintain processes used for visual display, but there was something oddly comforting in 'going through the motions', as the phrase went. Certain electroneural pathways operated best when used tangentially by non-applicable processes such as visual display; an odd quirk of basing the template of an artificial intelligence off of an organic neural web. As a result, the AI's chosen avatar, a middle-aged woman with long, straight hair, paced around a lounge that looked suspiciously like one of Coruscant's more popular fringe bars; the sorts where professionals and high education-types went to pretend they had a daredevil bone in their body.

She, a self-chosen gender label given that the brain used in her creation belonged to a Human female, sighed and started pouring over several screens of text. Languages were complex, of that few sound sentients would disagree. Rules and morphology, physiological implementations and sociological deviations meant that a language could radically evolve in as little as half a century. She was left with the task of attempting to back-trace and learn a language that had not been widely spoken for millennia. In one corner of her cycling-thought matrix, the AI was aware of the Alliance's stance and position regarding the Sith threat. She could have taken a few seconds to peer back into the system and check on the battle, but found little need. She'd already created a complex three-dimensional model of the system through an amalgamation of ship sensor data. She had even spotted the few odd Mandalorian ships that the Alliance forces had initially failed to notice. If there was one force that could be easily predicted, it was the Mandalorians. They'd charge in and attempt a boarding action. No sensor data existed to give her sufficient grounds for high-probability extrapolated theory-crafting, and that would have been boring. This... this was far more challenging.

So the AI took hours, poured through the available databanks and cross-referenced everything four-times over before moving on. Eventually she hit upon a record of an incident on Zeltros several years previous. It was then that she realized exactly why this information seemed, against all logic, familiar. She'd been the one to transmit the raw data and had received the roughly translated piece back. Dizz gave a smile to herself and started shutting down unnecessary processes for retasking. 'Wonoksh sith'saarai Massassi. Wonoksh taral'ari Massassi.' According to the translation of one Ashin Varanin, it wasn't a great deal of help in and of itself. She didn't even have the courtesy of directly, or indirectly, translating it to Basic. Instead they simply traded one script for another. Still, it was enough of a start for preliminary work. After a few months, Dizz had turned up a few leads hinting at a connection to an ancient Sith language used by the Massassi.

Unfortunately, other matters took over, and Ayden never did manage to make more of the translation. And with his absence, she'd have to do so instead. That meant some measure of outsourcing. She'd need to connect to any freely available databanks on the ancient language. Korriban was an obvious starting point, though Dizz saw no reason to focus solely there. She also sent out probes to Naboo, Ossus, Tython, and Coruscant. However, the probe she sent to a world near the edges of Mandalorian space was of the most interest to her. Obroa-skai was a noted library world, and as it wasn't quite of a popular network hub like Coruscant was, it meant she'd have a better signal to dig through the available databanks. As a matter of thoroughness, she also cataloged any users that might be tangentially related to her searches; perhaps she could back-trace their works to find something more use... Oh ho. Now that was interesting... There was someone else who appeared interested in the Sith language...

Quickly spinning a fabricated ID for herself, Dizz entered the network as 'Duîhr'.

//Duîhr: I need some help.
//Duîhr: I'm working on a translation matrix for the Sith language.
//Duîhr: Any chance you'd be interested?

While that request hung in the air, Dizz continued metaphysically devouring the available databanks. Linguistic studies were never too high on her list of studies and interests after her creation, but she found their study to be grossly engaging. Perhaps she'd have to see about putting this work to future use... but for now, she had the ID of a Sith battlecruiser to crack.

[member="Niysha"]

 

[Niysha]

Having spent literally days studying the language of her Order without interruption, Niysha was a bit...consumed. Her single-minded obsession had turned from unwise to actively self-destructive. All of the files she'd copied from Obroa-skai occupied the massive web of holos she'd set up in her private quarters on her master's ship, the Eidolon. A fitting name for either of them at this point; Ignus considered himself an ideal, and Niysha had become a phantom even amid a hundred crewmen. When she could manage to get time to herself away from Leos, she studied. She cross-referenced. And, occasionally, she discussed with other experts.

It was unlikely that anyone she was speaking to was actually Sith. Niysha had kept herself anonymous for that exact reason. No need to go scaring the intellectuals, or worse, getting their hopes up that she might know more than she did. Frankly, Niysha's understanding of Sith was so incomplete that she wasn't confident to take up anyone's questions on the subject. One of the holos she'd been playing with was a chatroom full of "experts" who were debating (in Basic) the various caveats and translations of a specific text, "Dzwolderriphan'ajakjontuwin." Within an hour, Niysha had discerned that none of them had a clue what the hell they were talking about, and had endeavored to correct them.

Apparently this had drawn someone's attention, because she got a message from one "Duîhr."

Niysha raised an eyebrow, her attention fully turned to the chat holo. With two taps, she minimized the (dozens of) texts she had open and brought the chat window into the foreground. Her fingers danced along her datapad with a surprising amount of skill for the allegedly blind. It was almost as if, with a lack of ability to distinguish color and thus an inability to read books, Miraluka tended to teach and read through computers. She sent a response within moments.

//Occulus: There are a few on the holonet.
//Occulus: I take it you're looking for something more specific?

Honestly, Niysha hadn't been in this group very long at all. She had no idea if this Duîhr was a regular or not. She seemed more prone to proper punctuation than most of them, though, so that was probably a decent indicator. Most of the older Sith texts had been translated already, but the galaxy was a huge place. The prospect of something new to play with that the rest of these idiots scholars hadn't touched yet was ever so slightly exciting.
[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Azimuth Industries]

Eidolon

Bing.

A haunted gaze swiveled to stare dispiteously at the new text scrawling across one of ten data screens surrounding the terminal. Ni'gel let out a long, weary sigh.

Once I was chief accountant for a Sith Lord, you know.

Now he just worked in their IT department.

A cursory read would have raised an eyebrow, but he did not have eyebrows. He had skull ridges, which did not rise. Ni'gel began logging the new information. Perhaps that nosy second cousin of his might find something to do with it.

He heaved another despondent sigh.

[member="Niysha"] | [member="Pollux"] | [member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Lok Xiangu]

He heard the call, no doubt, and he was planning on going in and help out. This was a job for his adopted father, but that would take literal days for the Akaan to arrive at the Polis Massa system; however, the Munin youngster could get there much faster than his dad or the other Mandalorians stationed in Mandalorian Space. Clan Munin had some influence within the Kathol Outback as they had several warriors committing to helping out the Underground as Vilaz helped out the rebellion organization against the Sith, the Black Rose, and other factions that were on Jorus Merrill's red list.

"This is Lok Munin. I'll be leading on behalf of my dad as I can get my shebs at Polis Massa quicker than him. We won't be effective as him, but I'm certain we can manage ourselves. I'll see y'all at Polis Massa, vode," the youngster said to his senior Mandalorians in a secured transmission. With that being said and done, he would then address to the Munin clansmens that were within Kathol territory. "I'm pretty sure y'all heard got that message from Gilamar, right? Well, we're going in and I'll be leading y'all whether you like it or not. So get your armor and guns ready, get on a ship, and punch in coordinates that we've been given." He ended the private transmission sent to those of his father's clan within the Kathol Sector and begin punching in the coordinates to Polis Massa as he was always on his ship and smoking spice whenever there wasn't something exciting for him to do.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't consume any drugs during this voyage given how important this mission was; but that didn't mean he couldn't get a drink or two from the booze he had.

Just so long as he didn't get drunk, then all was fine.

[member="Draco Vereen"], [member="Verz Horak"], [member="Cole Dagos"], [member="Ordo"], [member="Gilamar Skirata"], [member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Gilamar Skirata]

In the hanger of The Roost Gil's Besu'liik lumbered forward. On the edge of the shield that kept them from getting sucked into space he saw in the distance flashes of lights. Almost at the same time his coms began to explode.

"What the hell is that?"

"Are those Protectorate ships?"

"Haven't seen those in a while"

"Sir, we have three known Alliance Destroyer-class ships and one unknown signature."

"Yeah, that one came in a little too close for comfort"

Gil cursed under his breath and sealed his suit and helmet before making the final step out of the hangar. The old engines of his droid roared to life over his aural sensor and he was flung into the fray.

"Just make sure they don't fire on us, figure out why they're here. But this ship is ours!"

"Where is Shukalar?" He pushed the controls forward, speeding up the droid. He looked up, or what he assumed was up, at the battle overhead. Turbolasers ripped through the fighters and Gunships. Luckily it seemed most of the fight was towards the Engines where the Alliance ships had dropped and assaulted. A strange Sith Fighter squadron pulled off and made their target the also old droid their target. With a smirk and a robotic howl Gil and his Besu'liik went to work.

The giant claws ripped through wings and cockpits and his shockwave generator rods blasted in an arc following the head of the droid as it moved left to right. Probably something that would have gotten a lone rider killed in a real dogfight, but whatever was keeping these pilots alive and these ships functional was old. Very old.

And he didn't like ghost stories.

-------------------------------------

Aboard The Roost

The acting captain was flustered at the sheer amount of goings on in the bridge. Coms were blowing up as fighters logged kills and got killed and the four other ships under his command were giving status report after status report.

"This is Captain Kells of the Mandalorian Battleship The Roost. Alliance battlegroup please respond."

[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Ayden Cater]

[member="Niysha"]

Dizz considered her response for the moment. She didn't exactly know who it was she was speaking to. There were a number of unmapped variables... Rather than fall down that line of extrapolated thinking, she instead decided to move forward.

//Duîhr: You mean the three-credit bin matrices?
//Duîhr: No, I'm working on putting together one from scratch.
//Duîhr: Probably not the best idea, since it's kinda time-sensitive.
//Duîhr: But you know... challenges like that are fun.

With that, a brief data burst was sent containing scans of the original script on the orb taken from Zeltros, as well as the rough translation provided by Ashin Varanin.

//Duîhr: This is my starting point.
//Duîhr: I also have a transponder ID that might be being broadcast in the same language, or a dialect thereof.
//Duîhr: Back to the starting point though, as best I can translate, the text reads: The perfect truth shall free the Massassi. The Lord Protector shall free the Massassi.

Elsewhere, back in the Polis Massa system, the task force continued its assault but found disturbingly little progress being made. Despite being ancient, the ship's shields were still incredibly formidable. New sensor pings alerted the captain of the Star of Corellia of the Mandalorians that had slinked out of some corner. Her captain was an older man, old enough to have been at Eriadu years and years ago when the Mandalorians tried to pull a fast one on the Protectorate while it was fending off a surprise attack from the Fringe Confederacy. That sort of cowardice and betrayal, at a time when they were supposed to have been the Protectorate's allies, had stuck with him and left him with a very negative view of the Mandalorians as a whole. At his order, the ship responded to the query with a simple acknowledgement signal.

[member="Gilamar Skirata"]

 

[Naast'ika Laaran]

Naast'ika Laaran fell from Hyperspace into realspace somewhere not incredibly far from a very, very, very big ship.

His crew had gone missing somewhere, so he was, more or less, entirely without adult supervision.

Naast'ika chirped happily as he began racing towards the rogue flagship.

 

[Arla Ordo]

Allies: Mandalorians [member="Cole Dagos"] [member="Verz Horak"] [member="Draco Vereen"] [member="Gilamar Skirata"] [member="Ordo"] [member="Stardust Raxis"] [member="Ronan Vizsla"] and anyone else I forgot.
Object - the enemy
Attitude - Off into the breach we go once more...
Location - traveling...

She had been on Alderaan for a time now, scouting out land, and training Alderaan forces. They were improving, becoming slightly more aggressive than the Alderaan forces that had existed in the annuls of time.

And she had time to meet some of the extended family, so odd to think of them as extended. Above Alderaan now the Shukalar called for them to load up, and so with all her equipment, and a few other little things she was picking up, ya know grenades, and missiles, sharp vibro knife, made sure her pistol was ready, and looked at a rifle, just in case...she could say she was prepared for most anything.

She knew it was be a bit before they engaged the enemy so she found a place to stow her gear until it was time, whether it was five minutes or an hour. She stood stretching before the locker in her, exercise clothes.

 

[Niysha]

Aaaand new data. The sheer number of tabs screens Niysha's holonet browser had open was beginning to explode. Once again, she maximized this new information, setting it alongside what she already had open. The books she was looking through could wait. For the moment? New puzzle. Something unknown to wrap her mind around and grapple with until she had exhausted all possible options.

Hm...

"Wonoksh (sith'saarai/sith'ajak) Massassi. Wonoksh taral'ari Massassi."

Niysha would have blinked if she had eyes. First of all, it was...a very rough translation. Whoever had written this wasn't speaking the most contemporary translations of Sith. It was probably a very old dialect, or - judging by the subject usage - Massassi. They weren't known for being terribly intelligent, so most of their writing tended to be less complex than traditional Sith. Unfortunately, it also left a lot more room for vagueness.

//Occulus: That looks more like prophecy than historical record.
//Occulus: Those old guys sure were fond of their prophetic nonsense.
//Occulus: Still, it's strange that it's in Massassi.

Double-check the translation. "Lord protector" was one way of translating it, sure. Other translations included "he who protects the Lord," and "protector of the Lord," which were connotatively not the same thing. "Sith" was, unfortunately, the single most difficult word to translate to Basic. It could mean half a dozen things depending on context, and the context of this prophecy was largely lost with its...interesting translation.

Niysha took a minute or two to look at it, and brought up one of the many cheat sheets she'd compiled while translating from Obroa-skai's library. Read, reference, translate. Create possible outcomes. Perfect truth. Supreme truth. True perfection. Actually...subject/object order would mean that saraai and ajak, truth and doctrine, would be the object of the modifier "sith." She made a couple more edits...

//Occulus: Lord Protector sounds spot-on.
//Occulus: I think that's some kind of public figure from Corellia or something?
//Occulus: But I think you have the rest backwards.
//Occulus: Subject-object order would translate as "doctrine of perfection" or "doctrine of supremacy."
//Occulus: Same with truth. "Truth of supremacy" sounds more viable.

[member="Ayden Cater"]

 

[Jairus Starvald]

Polis Massa

There were other Mandalorians in the system.

A Vizsla, a Rekali, a Skirata and even a Betna. Four, a squad of bounty hunters having grouped together to face bigger threats than they could have alone. They shared their skills with each other - the Vizsla was a sapper and engineer (also had a nasty righty, but that was a story for a different time), the Rekali a pilot, Betna a tracker and the Skirata was always there to talk the talk, before the others would start punching.

Gotta try to be diplomatic, eh?

They stood grouped together, closely, one of 'em holding a datapad while the others looked over his shoulder. It was the Betna, you saw it by the sigil on his shoulder.

Whispers in Mando'a, frantically, while sometimes glancing through the viewport and at the explosions in the night sky. They didn't gesture, but they were concerned.

"Another job, yes.​

Much money I wager here.​

I can provide some."​

​

The Thirriken's little feet ticked against the steel of the floor as he walked up. They looked at him, down at him, then at each other once again.​

​

"Your money's been good so far, bird." The Skirata mumbled, before glancing at the viewport again. "Whatcha wanna do?"​

​

"There, to look up close.​

Where it's from, I want to know.​

Bring me, the pay's good."​

​

The Vizsla snorted, before taking back the datapad and making it disappear amidst his equipment.​

​

"Boys, we all know we are taking the job. Let's go."​

​

And go they went.​

 

[Aeshi Tillian]

Kark this. Aeshi snapped out a stream of curses in a mangled group of languages as blaster fire suddenly erupted across through space. Turbolasers, dropships, and fighters all screamed between the suddenly dizzying array of ships in the system. Her sensor array was picking more readings than she could count and their registries was moving too fast to move.

But one thing was clear. The Galactic Alliance had arrived along with a Mandalorian fleet. A fighter exploded not far away, showering the StarDream with debris, rocking the freighter back and forth from the impact. It threw Aeshi out of her chair and onto the floor, drawing blood from where her lips decided to give the durasteel floor a kiss. She sat up, wiping the blood off with her sleeve, racing through possibilities.

They couldn't fly back away from the massive battleship. There was simply too much fire- it would cut the ship apart without a second glance, regardless of which side it came from.

"Eru!" She called, dragging herself back into her seat, dabbing at her lip, "Reroute weapons power to the shield and prep SLaM."

Far as she could tell, they only had one option left to them. Make a run into the devil's jaw and then out the other side. She wasn't getting life signs from the Polis Massans anymore. Not that it meant they were dead, but the sensors were being overwhelmed. This time, she buckled herself in, swiveling to the power routers, moving power from the guns to the shields, watching as its strength jumped.

Then the entire ship shuddered. Alerts went off across the cockpit, and she spun around, trying to keep track of them.

"Guns disabled, power dropping to sixty percent," she read off automatically, recalculating. They'd be hard pressed even to make it to the other side. They needed cover until she could manage some impromptu repairs. "SLAM still operational. We're going for it. Eru, whose turbolaser was it?"

The tall avian studied the damage redoubts, trying to reconstruct the path from the sensor logs.

"Looks like Mandalorian, captain," Eru said, blinking slowly.

"Well, send them the bill," Aeshi added with an odd smile. Then she shoved the throttle forward and flipped the SLAM activator. The small freighter shot forward, aiming straight for the masssive warship and she pushed it down. Or not really down, simply a reorientation of her standard reference point, as she aimed to get the ship in the shadow of the far more massive warship.

Seconds passed, dragging on to minutes. Aeshi bit her lip, face paler than death, as the massive ship passed over the viewport, casting the cockpit into sudden gloom. Almost an eclipse - one that would have been more beautiful were it not because they were underneath a terrifying ship of death.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Zark San Tekka]

GALACTIC ALLIANCE

Spoiler

[member="Aeron Kreelan"] [member="Ayden Cater"] [member="Cathul Thuku"] [member="Astarii Saren"] [member="Veino Garn"] @Karen Roberts [member="HK-36"] [member="Tiland Kortun"] [member="Aerion Ivelisse"] [member="Vance Caydence"]
Rogue One/CO – Commander [member="Asmus Janes"] “Slick”
Rogue Two – Flight Officer [member="Aedan Lochlan"] “Beardface” [OCC LOA]
Rogue Three – Vacant
Rogue Four – Vacant
Rogue Five – Lieutenant [member="Loske Matson"] [OCC LOA]
Rogue Six – Flight Officier [member="Cal Sedaire"]
Rogue Seven - Lieutenant [member="Choli Vyn"] “Smalls”
Rogue Eight – Flight Officer [member="Vale Endriss"] "Eight Ball"
Rogue Nine/XO –
Rogue Ten – Vacant
Rogue Eleven – Vacant
Rogue Twelve – Flight Officer [member="Lucius Varad"] “Songbird”
Rogue Thirteen – Flight Officer [member="Allyson Locke"] “Lucky”
Rogue Fourteen – Lieutenant [member="Owen Holst"] “Pie”

Captain's Quarters, Unyielding-class Command Cruiser ANS Rebel's Hope
Hyperspace, Sluis Sector, Outer Rim
Federation Border Patrol

If it hadn't been for the alarm chirping the current Sullust standard , Captain Pulsar would have lost all sense of time upon opening his eyes. It was an easy thing to happen, out here in the black. Especially on the tail end of a long, quiet patrol out on the edge of nowhere. The Kathol Outback was by no means a safe place, Zark knew having lived and operated there himself for years as a treasure hunter and then a privateer, and patrols of the galactic southern border of Alliance territory was always a tense affair. But for the most part, this run had been more or less routine, which was a more than welcome change of pace considering how much action the Hope had seen lately. He was due on the bridge for second watch in a half hour, enough time to bathe, dress, check his messages, and maybe catch up on a little paperwork before he had to head to the turbolift.

He had made it through the shower and was standing in front of his mirror debating for the dozenth time that week whether or not to cave under the pressure of Commander Stazi's withering glare each morning and shave his beard when the personal comm link next to his cot began to buzz insistently. Relieved at being spared the choice for now, he activated the comm link as he began to dress.

"Pulsar here, go ahead."

"Distress calls coming in from the Polis Massa system, Captain," the voice was that of a young ensign, not one of his old boys but one of the officers the Alliance academies had spit out, "A Corellian task force is en route as well as an Omega Pyre detachment, they're requesting support from all local units."

"Polis Massa?" Zark echoed aloud, Dren. "I'm on my way up. Have helm drop us into realspace at their earliest convenience and begin navigational calculations, and inform the Commander we'll need him back on the bridge."

The Captain had been to the system before, and if that ill fated venture were any indication at all it would appear the Hope's peaceful patrol was at an end.


Bridge, ANS Rebel's Hope
Hyperspace, En Route to Polis Massa

"Did you say Polis Massa?" Arix had asked him on the lift ride up to the bridge, the cyborg third officer and Jedi Padawan unnervingly prescient and already waiting in the tube as Zark had boarded, still buckling his belt.

"Yes."

"That means..." Arix trailed off, and although the young man was covered in a life support suite, the way he tilted his visor when he looked at the Captain expressed all the emotion necessary.

"Yes."

"Velok's Maw..." the Padawan said aloud just before the turbolift doors opened, and Zark shuddered in spite of himself, "Dren."

The two of them stepped out onto the upper tier of the carrier's bridge, and an even more irate looking than usual Commander Mazik Stazi stood directly before them, glowering. It appeared as though he had been glowering for some time at the turbolift door, simply waiting for their arrival. Mazik had had first watch today, and apparently the callback had come just as he had been about to sleep.

"Glad you're here, Commander," Zark said in a chipper tone just as the furious duros opened his mouth to speak or, more likely, yell, "We've been re-tasked, some sort of mass distress call coming from-what the hell is that?"

Behind the executive officer, projected up from forward pit of the bridge, was a holo-representation of the massive Itsukusk relayed to them by the Corellians.

"If I had to hazard a guess," the Commander grunted, "I'd say the general source of distress. Our techs say they've never seen anything like it."

"She's beautiful, whatever she is," Zark murmured, the archaeologist and historian in him admiring the ancient design and craftsmanship, "A work of art."

"This 'work of art' is currently terrorizing Polis Massa."

"In an academic sense, of course," the Captain winced at Mazik's rebuttal, remembering his priorities, "Very well then, beat to quarters, Mr. Stazi."

"All hands, action stations! Set alert status throughout the ship!"

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

Thankful for the plates on the back of the vanguard armor, he transitioned to the melee role as soon as it was obvious that putting holes in dead things wouldn't suffice. With the carbine gripped to the back of his plated armor, he unclipped the shaft of the lightsaber not unlike the way a janitor might greet the broom handle as it was pulled from the hooks on a wall. A burdensome heavy thing, but a necessary one. Ever since his failure, he couldn't look at these objects as anything more than weapons of war. But war never seemed to end.

The hum of the sabre vibrated softly in the poorly lit cavern as men waged battle against undead things. He hadn't heard the taunt of the Sergeant, the implication that the Marshall hadn't be involved, as he was already past him and moving towards what remained of the charging horde. A drop of the shoulder with a slice that ran parallel to the ground and the ability to move was all but removed from the enemy. An upswing of the saber cleaved another from hip to shoulder and with a spin, he let loose a hard force push that urged it's way down the length of the corridor. Things brought to life, dancing and groaning, fell over like dominoes pregnant with reluctance towards moving once more.

But that was simply to the turn in the cavern. The place was likely filled to the brim with this sort, gruesome and horrible figures of decay, chewed up and masticated by the darkside of the force, only to be propelled forward on the whims of some unknown master. As the Marshall pushed forward, he was greeted with the sight of cowering beings. Large, gangling, and curled into pools of their own fear and excrement. Muttering words that not many could understand. Gabe had never held to the old language, as it had never been all too important to Reverance. A Sith by affiliation only, the traditions and old ways were merely things to hold him back. The utterance of that language fell upon his deaf ears, alien to the meaning, as he led the pack forward.

The narrow cavern passages opened up to a large chasm, voices echoing from the center. An argument, or as close to one as he could make, was given substance and body by the presence of two figures at odds. One in chains, another who might have put him there. With a clench of his hand, his grip tightened around the lightsaber, he held it aimed to the side and towards the ground. The darkside of the force was strong within this place, far more than the superficial notions that embedded the surface of the asteroid. Here it was palpable, weeping from the slick rocky walls and outcroppings. Whether that was blood or simply condensation, it was difficult to tell in the poor ambient lighting. But the aura could not be subdued...

"Drop the knife!" He didn't know why the words came out. They simply did. It would have behooved them to simply pounce upon unsuspecting enemy.

[member="Jorus Merrill"] | [member="Raph Thule"]

 

[Naast'ika Laaran]

Naast'ika Laaran raced through the void, dragging himself forward at ever increasing velocity by generating a gravitational singularity a short distance ahead of his beaked prow. Four Dovin Basal-like organs pulsed with life as the bio-corvette's massive heart pounded away in his 'reactor room'. Ahead of him, Naast'ika's numerous senses detected the cold, silent mass of asteroids drifting through the void, a handful of large metal ships dancing through the drifting chunks of rock and iron, and something much, much larger that lumbered along in spite of it all.

Naast'ika had no eyes and did not see like the little-ones saw. Naast'ika's awareness was entirely three-dimensional. He saw all around himself, above, below, and behind included. And he did not simply see the flat illusion that one got from taking multiple images and layering them. Naast'ika saw objects as three-dimensional constructs that moved along the void. He saw all sides of them at once and, to a limited extent, could see what was within those objects. Radiation emissions, thermal bleeding, electromagnetic fields, and even the tug of gravity... All these things, his senses perceived. He felt the pull of gravity as one would feel a touch upon their skin. He heard the waves of rippling radiation moving through the void like lesser beings heard the vibrating waves of sound moving through air. He both felt the impact of particles upon him and smelled their composition as they touched him. He felt the tingle of electromagnetic fields as they tickled his skin and could perceive both its closeness, direction, and orientation.

Naast'ika perceived a universe more rich and vibrant than those born of planetary life could typically concieve... And he chirped with excitement as he felt the subtle pull of the massive ship's gravitational field. He had never encountered such a huge ship before, and Naast'ika had every intention of playing with it.

More happy chirping echoed through his unoccupied bridge as Naast'ika detected barrages of Turbolasers racing back and forth between the massive ship and the lesser creations that chased and flanked it. Naast'ika wasn't sure where his crew had wondered off to, but he wasn't worried about them. They were good, strong Vod and would find him if they needed him.

For now... He would play.

Naast'ika raced towards the chaos of activity in an otherwise boring Expanse of space, approaching the massive ship in a curving, non-direct path. Moving directly towards an enemy made you an easy target. That was a lesson he had learned from his crew...

 

[Jorus Merrill]

VELOK'S MAW​

[member="Gabriel Sionoma"] [member="Raph Thule"]​

The torturer whirled, revealing a high brow, strong nose, red skin, yellow eyes, and the cheek/chin tendrils of a Sith Pureblood. Gaze never leaving Sionoma, he slammed the knife into the other Sith's belly with a careless backhand. His cloak flared, revealing a sword that matched the gothic dagger; he drew it with a straightforward motion. Lightning ran down the blade. Beside him, the other Sith sagged in his chains, blood pooling beneath him on the stone.

A torrent of lightning slashed out at Sionoma, Thule, and the others.

THE SHIP​

​

[member="Naast'ika Laaran"] @Zark @Aeshi Tillian [member="Tai Fa"] [member="Arla Balor"] [member="Cole Dagos"] [member="Verz Horak"] [member="Draco Vereen"] [member="Gilamar Skirata"] [member="Ordo"] [member="Stardust Raxis"] [member="Ronan Vizsla"] [member="Lok Munin"] [member="Aeron Kreelan"]​

The ship's weapons focused, mainly, on the boarding craft, though the battlecruiser returned serious attention in the direction of the ships that had just crippled her engines.

Despite withering fire, the bulk of the Mandalorian boarding craft would make it through the shields, either via flickering gaps or by using their specialized equipment. From there, it would be a simple enough matter to board.

At which point, they would find themselves in an ancient nightmare.

The interior of the vessel was designed for beings much larger than humans, at least eight feet tall. Those beings stood ready to oppose the Mandalorians: armored Massassi, bearing lanvaroks. Storms of razor-sharp alchemical discs could shear through Mandalorian body gloves, and if an eight-foot Massassi hit you with an alchemical halberd, no amount of beskar'gam would save you from internal trauma on a grand scale. Those who called battle glorious would see much glory in this particular fight.

​

THE PUZZLE​

[member="Niysha"] [member="Ayden Cater"] @Ni'gel​

​

A vision touched Niysha's mind as she comprehended the full meaning(s) of the prophecy. She glimpsed the Itsukusk in battle at Polis Massa, the Sith and Massassi who crowded its halls, and the two Sith Lords -- one torturing the other -- in Velok's Maw. The vision centered on the tortured man, hanging from chains in a cave with a knife in his gut.

"The Protector Lord will save them, many of them against their will. He must. There is a higher truth than that which they have known. And there is no place for them in this time, not without the truth he can bring them. He shall set his face as steel-"

Lightning flared and the vision ended.

 

[Niysha]

There were those who listened to the Force, and those who used it as a megaphone. It should have been obvious which category most Miraluka tended to fall into. Niysha often undersold her own Force abilities, simply because they were an extension of her natural abilities. An acolyte getting visions of prophecy was exceedingly uncommon, especially when said visions were this clear. Niysha's Sight was partially overwhelmed and partially extended, the electrical signals of her holonet projections fading from view for several seconds. Words didn't fill her ears so much as her mind, and sights too clear to come from even her honed vision played before her. It was, in summary, a very unnerving experience.

A Sith didn't thank the Force. Niysha had even less reason to than most. That shit hurt.

After a few seconds of overstimulation, Niysha sat back up and placed her fingers on her response screen...then stopped and considered for a long moment. Her contact didn't know they were talking to a Force-user. Outright saying she had a vision of prophecy would be a little unbelievable. She'd need to wrap it in a way that the person on the other end of the line would be able to accept. The fact that this information was meant for Duîhr wasn't lost on her, but she'd need to think of a way to lie to get the vision to the one who needed it without being questioned too much.

Hm...

//Occulus: Alright, I just found a clipping from that prophecy.
//Occulus: Obroa-skai is damn handy for this sort of thing.
//Occulus: Got some kind of image attached to it.
//Occulus: Some chained guy in a cave getting tortured with a knife in his belly.
//Occulus: Text as follows:

"The Protector Lord will save them, many of them against their will. He must. There is a higher truth than that which they have known. And there is no place for them in this time, not without the truth he can bring them. He shall set his face as steel-"

She paused a moment to create the illusion of hesitation.

//Occulus: This is heavy stuff. Are you sure you know what you're getting into?

[member="Ayden Cater"]