Private Where is she?

[Valery Noble]

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Tag: Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon Corazona von Ascania

Even before her shuttle had crashed into the forest, Kahlil knew that something was wrong. Their bond linked them together even far across the stars, and when one half was in mortal peril, the other would always know. The crash itself had caused her tremendous pain, leaving her body cut and broken. But none of it compared to what she had to endure after the crash.

He knew.

But with Valery held in captivity and weakened in the Force through both her physical state and the Force-nullifying metal restraints, it would not be easy to find her. Her last known location was the world she crashed on, from where she had been able to send out a weak signal. It was enough to draw the Jedi there, and the smoke plumes and fire that still wreaked havoc on the forest made it easy to find the crash site.

Buried deep into the dirt there, was the shuttle — or well, what remained of it. The metal hull was deformed by both the impact and heat altering the metallic structure, and none of the windows had survived. What little shards still remained inside, were all stained red by blood. The ground around the impact zone was very similar, with a blood trail leading away from the busted door.

It stopped somewhere nearby, where it formed a puddle, and forced into the grass just by its side, was Valery's wedding ring.

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil stood within the field, his gaze just staring at the fallen ship. He'd felt it. Pain, fear, worry, defiance. Then nothing. Not death, he'd still be able to feel her even if she'd died. It was something worse that happened. His eyes paused as he stepped over towards the one shimmering object not part of the wreck. His jaw clenched as he took up the ring. Stared at it in his palm. The Force rippled and shook the very ground as he stood.

"Someone took her."

His voice was calm. Decades of training for keeping his emotions in check saw to that. Not that he was. The Force revealed just how he was feeling.

"Someone took my wife."

Capris Halcyon | Corazona von Ascania | Valery Noble

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

A few paces behind the Jedi Master, Cora looked on at Kahlil. Everything about his outward appearance was calm—his posture, even his voice was measured and collected.

The Force raged around him in a contrastingly violent maelstrom. Cora took a moment to appreciate that, because she shared in his hurt, in his anguish, in his fear. Very near and dear to Cora's heart, Valery had gradually taken on something of a maternal role to her Padawan. Only now did she even realize that.

It became alarmingly clear how much Valery met to her—to them—when they followed a trail of blood from the twisted metal remains of her ship to a partially dried puddle of crusted over crimson, and no Valery.

One step forwards. Then another, until she was flanking Kahlil. A hand tentatively rested on his shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze. Cora bit her lower lip. There were a hundred things one could say in condolence, all of them empty.

"We will find her."

Her voice was soft, but there was no delicate quiver in her tone. Only determination, sheer belief that they would find Valery because she couldn't handle the possibility of her not coming home.

"You know better than we do just how strong she is." A glance to Capris, then back to Kahlil.

"Wherever she is, she can hold out until we find her."

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Capris had never been good with subtlety. Especially not when it came to masking white-hot anger coursing through every vein in her body.

Valery was gone, and with her every last bit of emotional regulation Capris had on tap. Suffice to say, the kid wasn't handling this onslaught of bad news all too well.

Kahlil, of course, reeled that in to some effect. His composure. restraint. What Valery and him had was far beyond any stakes she could claim. Her loss in no way measured up to his and yet..

Another, more adolescent part of her just wanted to rage. To be allowed the excuse to haphazardly throw things, and scream, and hate everything and everyone for the simple sin of existing within her proximity. She'd just found a semblance of a family after years spent on autopilot. Her claws were sunk deep, and she wasn't about to let go.

And the fuming anger alive in her eyes made that fact very clear.

"And we will find her." Capris stressed, words injected with a cold kind of distance. As if she really meant to say, we'll find her and obliterate anyone who so much as gets in our way.

Kahlil Noble Valery Noble Corazona von Ascania

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil let out a heavy sigh before finally glancing towards the Padawans. He smiled the same old smile he always did, but for once his eyes betrayed the fury he was doing his best to let go of. His grip around the ring in his palm tightened before he slipped it into his pocket.

"I'm glad you're both here. .. What do we do next? I'm in no position to decide our path."

Valery Noble | Capris Halcyon | Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

At Kahlil's smile, Cora held back a frown. Even with a jungle backdrop, it felt almost as if she were back in the aristocratic courts of Ukatis, where brutal emotions hid behind pleasant expressions. Perhaps Kahlil wasn't putting on a facade, but simply dealing with the devastating loss of Valery in his own way.

Though the three of them barely spoke, there was a palpable undercurrent of violent emotions thrumming in the Force.

Pacing back to the crash site, Cora stooped down and inspected the jagged glass of a smashed viewport. A few stray hairs had snagged into a crystalline shard, and the Padawan felt her chest tighten uncomfortably as she cradled them in her hand. Her eyes flared, her jaw set, her breathing quickened all at the same time while a wave of nausea seemed to roll through not only her stomach, but over every nerve in her body.

It took some effort for her to stand again, and Cora sucked in a heavy breath as she sought Capris' gaze. Fuming anger met shock and sorrow.

The blonde bit her lip, then turned to Kahlil.

"We figure out if there are any clues here that can lead us to her." Cora's head cocked to the side, back to the gnarled remains of Valery's ship, and she knelt down again.

"Perhaps we can salvage an on-board recording device. It may give us a hint as to what caused the crash, or what happened directly after."

Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon Valery Noble

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Cora's gaze was the only thing to break Capris out of whatever revenge plot she had going. Right, she had to get her head in the game. Dark musing could be saved for later.

"Yeah-" The padawan voiced her own weak agreement to Cora's proposal, clearing her throat of any residual emotion. "Find the arsehole who did this."

With a full reignition of her resolve, the kid wasted no time fishing through the remains of Valery's ship. Her grimace only deepened the more she unearthed, booting bloodied scrap metal out the way until..

"Shit- " The girl froze, honing in a pile like a blood-hound. "Found something." With almost surgical care, Capris removed the black box from what remained of the cockpit, tossing the recorder over to Kahlil after a heavy moment of reluctance.

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Corazona von Ascania

 

[Valery Noble]

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Tag: Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon Corazona von Ascania

As they entered the cockpit together, the Jedi were met with a scene straight out of a horror story. Twisted beams and plates of metal, coated in blood and soot obstructed their paths, while shattered glass held remains of Valery's hair and clothing, as well as her blood. The looming danger of secondary explosions lingered in the Force, but was unlikely to phase the focused Jedi.

Together, they began to dig through cockpit remains but it wasn't until Capris found the black box that perhaps some of that tension faded. Built to survive the worst kinds of crashes, it still seemed to be intact and in its coding would be the last moments of this shuttle, and the last moments of Valery before she was taken.

But the black box was not the only place where these memories were stored.

Through the Force, each Jedi would feel echoes of those final moments beating against their minds - Valery's pain and fear like it was written in stone. But gifted to look into the past, Capris would almost hear a whisper in the back of her mind, drawing her into those currents of pain with rising intensity. They grew louder the longer she stood inside the cockpit, and perhaps even blocked out the crackling of their communication devices.

<This is Captain Seger. I received a distress call but saw a ship leaving the system. Is anybody still down there?>

 

[Kahlil Noble]

<This is Captain Seger. I received a distress call but saw a ship leaving the system. Is anybody still down there?>

Kahlil took the signal. His head wasn't clear. Not in the slightest. But the Padawan's seemed to know what to do. He should be overseeing them, yet he couldn't think clear. The damage, the fact he couldn't feel Valery. Someone planned a trap. Someone trapped her and got her before he could even arrive by her side. He always could get to her side. And for the first time he couldn't. His grip tightened on his com.

<This is Jedi Master Kahlil Noble. Did you get a reading on that ship?>

Valery Noble | Corazona von Ascania | Capris Halcyon

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Walking through the cockpit was worse than any scene Cora had seen in a horror holo. Worse than some points of Exegol, even. There had been a battle to fight there, hope to cling to.

The eerie silence of the cockpit almost seemed to echo around them. This battle had already been lost, and now they struggled with what to do in the aftermath.

Cora paced carefully among twisted metal, broken glass, and cracked plastoid. Pieces of Valery—her hair, her blood, scraps of cloth—were strewn about them like grisly decorations. In that way, she was almost a little bit closer to them here. Echoes of her pain and panic could be felt as they ghosted through the Force like some sort of macabre record of her final moments aboard the ship.

The Padawan found herself in front of what remained of the ship's main console. Carefully, she flattened both hands against its gnarled surface, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

The briefest thread of energy sparked behind her eyes, then fell away. Nothing. Cora frowned as she opened her eyes. Unlike other Jedi, she was not gifted in psychometry, and could not glean much of a history from objects when touched.

The crackling of the comm caused her head to snap in Kahlil's direction, eyes wide. She wavered between him and Capris, unsure of what to do in the moment.

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

In one fluid motion, she drew in a loaded breath and rose back to her feet. This sucked. Majorly. And things certainly weren't made any better by the fact Kahlil had all but mentally checked out.

So in the absence of rational thought, Capris simply made headway into the cockpit. Sidestepping every length of mangled debris in her mission to find something. Anything. She knew full well she was toying with her own limits. That this wasn't exactly the safest or most advisable way to trigger her psychometry but…

That's when things went from bad to worse.

She could feel it. Drumming against her skull. Violent and painful. Hopeless and panicked. Captain Seger's words were lost as Capris's senses became otherwise occupied. An aggressive onslaught of memories causing her body to seize. To disconnect.

To feel..

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Corazona von Ascania

 

[Valery Noble]

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Tag: Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon Corazona von Ascania

Despite overwhelming emotions lashing out through the Force, the Jedi persisted, and as a result, one mind sensitive to the past was drawn into its endless currents. When Capris' eyes opened, a brief flash of darkness was replaced by a blue sky and rising plumes of smoke all around her. Unbearable pain surged through her chest, but she could not feel her legs anymore.

Her gaze was a red haze, but even through this bloodied, distorted view of the world, she could see the face of a man, his hair as wild as his eyes, and his lips twitched up into an insidious grin. He approached with a spear in his hand, and all she could feel was Valery's fear.

She couldn't run, she couldn't get away.

Another flash of darkness shifted her into the next shard of Valery's memory, as he stood towering over her broken body with his spear raised, before forcing it down through her hand, nailing it to the grass. Screams of agony seemed to echo on forever in Capris' mind, but this pain was more than just physical. Something far more important to her had been taken away.

The next moment, Valery was brought to an Alliance ship - an X-wing, and a small group of fighters took her away to a nearby system.

But even this despair did not break her vision, and after darkness clouded her sight once more, she woke up to the rattling of chains in a dark cell. She was alone, her body burning from pain, and the crying of a dying people plagued her mind, showing her glimpses of what was to come. However, in all of this suffering, one thing remained clear - Valery was still alive and fighting to survive.

Meanwhile, Cora and Kahlil remained in the present, and answered the call of the captain who reached out to them. <Jedi?> He sounded surprised to find them all the way out here in the outer rim. <We did, and it was an Alliance fighter with a security signature. I don't know why it was out here, and why other ships joined it. But they jumped out of the system together.> There was a pause then, before his voice came through once more.

<I doubt they would have come from far. They were all small-craft and I detected no larger vessels.>

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Small ships? Multiple?

Kahlil's grip on the com tightened to the point it started to crack. He was angry. He knew he was angry. Knew he shouldn't be if he wanted to handle this properly. Yet he couldn't help himself in the slightest.

<Trace their signals, if you can. I want to know where they jumped to.>

Valery Noble | Capris Halcyon | Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Only a few steps away, Capris stiffened and seized. Alarmed, Cora reached out with a hand, then paused. The other Padawan was gifted—or cursed, depending on how you saw it—with the ability to glean memories from an object. If she was sensing something now, something that could help lead them to Valery, Cora didn't want to disturb her.

She withdrew to Kahlil's side instead, brow furrowing as they listened to the Captain's words crackle over the comm. Gently, Cora pressed her hand briefly to Kahlil's, trying to ease his grip where it threatened to crush the device.

"Captain, were you able to glean any information from the other ships? Their origins, who they're registered to, anything at all?”

Even a simple model number of description of the ships that had intercepted Valery could be useful. She hoped, at least.

Waiting was hard. Cora bit her lower lip, hoping that Captain Seger could prove helpful, and that whatever Capris was seeing would help lead them to her Master.

Blue eyes flickered up to the sky as if the answers were written there. Cora's time with the Jedi was dwindling rapidly. She didn't know what she would do if they couldn't recover Valery before her wedding.

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon

 

[Capris Halcyon]

Feth.

It was the last coherent thought before her world blurred, pitched from one end of Valery’s memory to the other like a ragdoll. Just limp and helpless as she took a backseat to the literal beatdown of the millennium.

Staggering back to reality, one hand latched onto the other, nursing a wound that only existed within the confines of her mind. It took her a moment to shake the pain, tethering back to reality with slow controlled breaths, eyes screwed shut in some vain attempt to block out.. well everything. A small, suppressed sob hacked at her chest, partially from pain and partially from the knowledge it wasn’t her pain.

Valery was alive and fighting tooth and nail to stay that way. Whatever small consolation it was, Capris would fight too.

“I know who she's with.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Capris strangled back the emotion that threatened to spill from her voice. Icing back into some semblance of level-headedness. No way in hell could she let Kahlil in on the full extent of what she saw.

Valery Noble Kahlil Noble Corazona von Ascania

 

[Valery Noble]

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Tag: Kahlil Noble Capris Halcyon Corazona von Ascania

There was a pause.

Even without the Force and just by listening to them, Captain Seger understood something terrible had happened. Something he wouldn't be able to comprehend from where he was. But he knew enough about the Jedi to know that it was uncommon for them to come across like this, with anger flooding their voices.

<All the other ships were Alliance registry too, and shared similarities with the lead ship. I don't know what ship types, but the lead ship was an X-wing. I picked up on traces of its engines from having to transition between space and atmospheric flight.> Considering how far away they were from Alliance space, it still just made no sense to him at all. Indoumodo was in Wild Space, so were they just investigating the crash as well? Or were they stolen?

Opening his comms again, the captain continued, <I detected your ship on the surface, so I'll transmit everything I found to you. With that information, I'm sure you'll be able to find them. Let me know if I can do anything else.> He sat back in his chair and let out a sigh before signaling his crew to do what he had promised.

But as this information flooded the Bastion's systems, Capris felt one last tremor through the Force. An image of a long-abandoned fortress flashed through her mind, and paired with the data they had received from Captain Seger, the path to Valery had been cleared.

 

[Kahlil Noble]

Kahlil turned his gaze to Capris. Watched her for a moment. He should be worried. He should. He cleared his throat, nodding his head. She knew where they were. They had the ships, that meant they had a path to follow. And they would.

"Let's get going, then."

Corazona von Ascania | Capris Halcyon | Valery Noble