https://youtu.be/3AGhN4GCwKE
Location: FIV
Concordia
Objective: Onward to victory!
Allies: The First Order | [member="Kou'ha Escala"] | [member="Rolf Amsel"] | [member="The Major"] | [member="Robogeber"] | [member="Val Kordova"]
Enemies: The Outer Rim Coalition | The Galactic Alliance | Spirited Teens | Scruff-Bearers | Grandeur-Deluded Beskar Jockeys | Space Calamari | Vindicators |
Bees! | [member="Kaine Australis"]
Natasi watched [member="The Major"]'s apparent unraveling with mounting concern, but her diplomatic skills kept her face impassive, the only reaction being a slight bur growing divot beginning in her eyebrows. When the Director thrust her jacket at the Grand Moff, Natasi instinctively took it.
"Of course, Director, I will," said Natasi, bowing her head to examine the jacket.
"I will keep it safe for -- " Natasi looked up; Sybil Shepard was gone.
She stood and went to the door. She would kill two mynocks with one blaster bolt. Natasi went back into her study -- locking the door behind her -- and went to the simulated fireplace. The screen she had consulted before, when not in use, displayed a lovely landscape painting of Herevan Hold, but the screen itself was always in use as its other function. She touched a certain place on the frame, and the panel swung open to reveal a safe. She input the code and opened the door, revealing a copy of her last will and testament, a key to Hervan Place and another to Breakriver, and an SE-44 blaster pistol. The latter she removed and tucked into her jacket and, after replacing the blaster with [member="The Major"]'s coat, folded with care and attention, she shut and locked the safe again, returned the panel to its rightful place, and moved to unlock the door.
Natasi, now armed, felt a little better about the situation. If the brutes attempting to board the ship came for her, she had no intention of going quietly. She tested her sight with the blaster as she sat at the head of the table, squinting down the barrel as she aimed at the door. She was ready. She was
ready. She was --
The door opened and Natasi very nearly shot [member="Val Kordova"] in the face. The safety precluded the gun going off, but Natasi had the good grace to place the gun on the table and hold her hand up in apology.
"Oh! I am sorry, Special Agent Kordova," Natasi said after the woman identified herself. "Come in. Come -- lock the door." Natasi stood and went over to the woman, looking at the blast vest Kordova had brought. After a moment of hesitation, Natasi took it.
"I am grateful you came prepared, Special Agent. I'm not sure why they've come, but we would be fools to rule out that they've come -- at the risk of sounding immodest -- for me."
The Grand Moff went back to her seat and picked up her blaster, tucking it into a strap on her new vest.
"Look at this," she said, pointing at the monitors.
"Of course it would be the Mandalorians attacking a diplomatic vessel. It's not hard to imagine them being perplexed at notions of international law when you consider that it's said most of them can't even read." She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"I suspect their most advanced methods of communication is banging rocks -- " Her voice dropped off unexpectedly, pointed insult turning to a pregnant silence. She stared, inscrutable, at the screen, her dark eyes lidding heavily, unmoving but for her fingertip, tapping against the wooden surface of the table.
Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap.
"Of course," she said a moment later.
"Special Agent Kordova. We have places to be. Come with me." The Grand Moff didn't wait for an agreement or an acknowledgment. She was out of her seat before she had finished the sentence, rounding the table towards the door, which she unlocked and pushed through almost immediately.
"It seems the boarding is, for the moment at least, fairly self-contained," the Grand Moff observed as she boarded the turbolift. "If we can make it, we can override the electrical system." By this point, Natasi was unaware that her sentences made no sense; she was thinking a mile a minute, trying to remember something from distant past.
"They'll know it. They'll know it. They have to know it," she muttered as she jammed a key.
"Were you present during the Ssi-Ruuk occupation of Dosuun, Special Agent?" asked Natasi as she knotted her hands anxiously, staring at the display as she willed the turbolift to go faster. They were running out of time.
"I was in the Underground," Natasi went on.
"In Avalonia. The scales were everywhere in the city. They were terrifying; their sense of hearing and movement was truly astonishing. We lost countless people until we developed a method of communication was totally silent. Laser designators, which we pulsed at each other, using a code we developed. It's... it's bloody brilliant, is what it is. Simple. Easy to understand. Not officially part of our communications protocols, but there are veterans of the siege all over the armed forces. It's worth trying anyway."
Natasi burst out onto the deck as the turbolift doors opened, her blaster at the ready, but so far they had yet to run into any hostiles. Perhaps they were lost. Unlike the foreign interlopers, Natasi knew the
Concordia like the back of her hand; for instance, she knew its name, its designation, and all the modifications that had been required to make space for the secret it held in its bowels: the Sith meditation sphere. Natasi was intimately involved in the ship's design and construction; the only one living who might know more detail was Admiral [member="Avicus DuSang"].
If only he were here now, Natasi mused thoughtfully. It wasn't that [member="Kou'ha Escala"] was not a capable officer -- quite the opposite -- but she didn't know if he had the proper gifts to utilize the meditation sphere to full effect. The opportunity to talk him through it hadn't come up quite yet.
She hoped fervently that Escala would live to have that conversation and many more. The thought of his death struck her more than she thought it might, for they had only been serving together for a short period of time. But he was a dedicated, conscientious officer, and much too young to die. Her tension was relieved almost immediately upon entering the emergency bridge when Escala was there, bloodied but alive and in command.
"Captain Escala," Natasi said as she swept in and approached him. "I'm relieved to see you on your feet." Her hand touched his arm, squeezed reassuringly.
"We'll have time for a debriefing later, but for now -- Captain, forgive me, but I need you to do something immediately and not ask questions until after. I need direct control over the ship's external lighting controls."
Again, Natasi Fortan did not wait for a response; instead, the Grand Moff went to the panel, examining the switches and dials.
"Ah -- here." She adjusted some of the controls, then examined the display showing the lighting configuration on
Concordia's exterior. After taking a deep breath, she began adjusting the lights. As one, the external lights -- floodlights, running lights, headlights -- began to pulse as one. It was unmistakably a pattern, but whether anyone would recognize it was another thing altogether. The Grand Moff repeated the general distress code alternated with a request for confirmation, then repeated it, then repeated it again.
"Come on," she whispered almost to herself as she looked out the viewport at the distant First Order forces. By the tenth time she had pulsed the code with no response, Natasi was beginning to lose hope.
"Someone. Please."
grenades or two, nets. feathers, etc etc
