Public A Cold Day on Ilum

[Hawk Hinata]

Hawk and the world around him seemed to move in slow motion as computer consoles erupted into flames, couplings became uncoupled, and gases began to vent into the cockpit.
The battle had been a trap and their force too small once the trap had been sprung. He didn't know how many had managed to escape, if any. It had all happened so fast.

"I know the forward deflector is down R4," Hawk yelled as his droid screeched its warning. "Programme the hyper drive, we can't do anything more here and we won't last much longer if we stay."

The little droid plugged itself into the navi-computer as Hawk activated the fire containment systems and rerouted power to the hyperdrive. He turned the ship just in time and two bolts of laser cannon fire crashed into their still-operational rear deflector.

"Any time now R4 or we're toast," Hawk urged, but no sooner than had he spoken an electrical surge swept through the ship and blasted the droid from its station. The little droid screeched and then fell silent.

The force tingled in Hawk's mind even before the missile lock claxon began to sound. There was no choice now, it would take him too long to finish manually calculating their hyperspace jump, and they had run out of time. Taking a deep breath, Hawk closed his eyes and engaged the hyperdrive.

Hyperspace enveloped The Phoenix, but right away Hawk could tell that something was wrong. The ship was glowing and parts of it were simply gone one moment and restored the next. The Jedi had never experienced this phenomenon before, but he was pretty sure he did not want to be dematerialised and reformed in any case. Hawk pulled the lever to make an emergency exit from hyperspace, and for a moment nothing happened, but then the vortex of hyperspace dissolved in the viewer and he was faced with a rapidly approaching icy planet.

"R4, full reverse thrusters..." Hawk began before the stinging recollection of his fallen droid hit him.

He dashed between consoles at speed, but no systems responded to his touch. The Phoenix had nothing left to give. Hawk strapped himself into his seat as the surface of the planet came up to meet him. The approach was too fast. He knew it already, and yet...The Phoenix impacted the ice jarring Hawk's teeth, but the ship did not explode. Instead the ice gave way revealing that it was a relatively thin sheet covering a large cavern. Still The Phoenix rocketed forward, destroying ancient spelethem pillars as it went. Eventually the ship came to a jarring halt causing Hawk to bash his head violently and lose consciousness. Ice and snow fell in a deluge to burry the ship, and then all was darkness...except a single small light blinking on the bulkhead. The distress beacon signalling his plight on Ilum to anyone in range.
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From the Journal of Jedi Master Hawk Hinata - Volume I: 'The smallest of lights can dispel the darkest of fears, and kindle the greatest of hopes.'

 

[Maja Fiore]

TAG: Hawk Hinata | Teyla Sal-Soren | Liam Du'Cal

The Darkness had been overwhelming.

She and her fellow Lotus Knights had been lurking on the borders of Sith Space to assess the situation of war. And that situation had turned truly dire for all parties involved. It was turning the Galaxy into a flaming, Dark mess.

The Light had no choice but to get involved to try and quell that wave.

The Destrier was making its way back to Confederate Space to relay the information Maja and her colleagues have gathered to Gerwald Lechner . Maja sighed for what was probably the fiftieth time in the course of their travels.

Patience really was not a virtue for the redhead.

She looked over to her friends.
"How long do you think this war will continue?" she asked Liam and Teyla. She was growing weary of all the turmoil that floated through the Galaxy.

A few minutes later, DIANA's voice hailed them.
"I'm picking up a distress signal on the surface of Ilum. What would be your course of action?" the android asked.
Maja raised her eyebrows in question to her fellow Knights before answering DIANA.
"Reroute to Ilum. Let's see who's in trouble." she said.

It did not take long for the Destrier to set down on the icy surface. Disembarking, Maja wrapped a cloak tighter around her already warmly dresssed body while looking around.
"You guys see anything?" she asked before looking down at the tracker that was giving the location of the distress beacon. It didn't tell her much - not in this weather.

 

[Liam Du'Cal]

TAG: Maja Fiore | Teyla Sal-Soren | Hawk Hinata



There was always the slight twinge of guilt whenever Liam would get away from Naboo and not take his Squire. She was a bright girl, polite enough, willing to listen and learn, but she was naïve to the ways of the world - any world for that matter. Liam was still working on unconditioning the poor girl from the lies and misleading information she had been fed her whole life about the Force and the people who were able to connect with it. Some days were better than most, and lately the Knight just...needed to get away.

So to be offered the opportunity to do just that? Well, circumstances hadn't been ideal, but Liam had jumped at the opportunity. Not only was his Squire not even close to trained well enough for a fight of any kind, but traversing around, away from the safe haven she had deemed Naboo? Well, suffice to say this was a good means to get away.

He had never been one to fuss about hard work, or if a job got to be too difficult, so really there hadn't been any issues on this trip at all. At least nothing more than the constant sighs from Maja. "You'll run out of air eventually you know..." he had warned her teasingly, but hadn't quipped up about it much more than that. They were all eager to get back with the information they had found it seemed...though apparently such fancies would be pushed aside for the time being when they were not only informed about a distress signal but had all agreed to check it out.

Liam had followed Maja from within the confines of the Destrier, only glancing back at his sister Teyla to make sure she was alright before his focus moved forward again. "No," the Knight answered with a shake of his head, though his brow creased afterwards. The comm that opened up made him pause and instinctively his hand went to his still belted lightsaber. "But, it seems we're not alone in checking things out." he added with a frown. "Keep your guard up." they didn't know who or what was watching them, after all.

 

[Hawk Hinata]

Slowly Hawk raised a hand to his head as he sat up, a groan that echoed in his bones escaped him. The Jedi Master couldn't remember the last time his whole body had ached in such uniformed agreement. A patch of sticky dampness indicated a cut that had already began to heal...how long had he been unconscious?

With a thrum of power, the cockpit was illuminated by the light-blue glow of Hawk's lightsaber. His fingers danced uselessly across the unresponsive console before him. Main power was down and the backups appeared to be fried as well.
Hawk knelt beside his silent R4 droid and pulled open its maintenance panel. The droid's power cells had been overloaded but the rest of his systems appeared to have been protected from the surge, an easy fix for another time.

There was a staleness to the air that did not bode well. The air recycling system was clearly offline along with the rest of the ship, but having landed he should be able to get fresh air into the vessel by opening the cargo bay door. Of course he was going to have to open it manually.
Picking over the debris, Hawk made his way to the cargo hatch and activated the manual release.

The cargo bay door groaned and shuddered before lifting a few feet. A wave of ice and snow slid into the cargo bay from under it.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Hawk sighed to himself as he extended his senses beyond his ship and felt the tons of ice and snow pressing down upon it.

 

[Audren Sykes]

:Tremors in the Deep:

Ilum was a cold planet. It was almost exclusively snow and ice on the surface with frequent windstorms, which kicked up even more snow and ice. As a result of the forbidding landscape - and at the consistent suggestion of Force Users of old - there were no real settlements on-planet. Someone who crash-landed on the planet would have to be extremely lucky to survive, let alone be rescued. One was far more likely to freeze or starve to death.

The planet was also one of those where lightsaber-grade crystals could be found. Significant damage had been done to the planet during the days of the Empire but it was still worthwhile to venture here if looking for a new lightsaber crystal. There were other planets too, such as Jedha or the Adgean system, but both of those had their own dangers. The Adgean system was technically un-governed space, but was bordered by the Sith Empire on one side and the Bryn'adul on the other. Jedha was under the aegis of the current Galactic Alliance but had largely been tapped out of the crystals centuries ago; no doubt some could still be found but it would take significant time. That left Ilum.

The Sephi had been to Ilum before and to a degree knew where he was going. Within an hour of arriving he was through the Temple and well on his way to the Crystal Caves; meanwhile his ship was mostly-buried due to flurries. While he had a vague idea of the crystal he was looking for he kept an open mind. It was just as well, what with the power of the Force Nexus pressing in on him. Visions appeared, appearing translucent to his trained senses, and passed on. It was quite possible they were echos of the past and future but could also be pure imagination and hallucination. They would be remembered and analyzed later, now was not the time.

Audren was passing through a smaller cavern when he felt it. A second before the quaking began he crouched and shifted his eyes to the ceiling. The quaking quite predictably shook some stalactites loose and those posed a danger to whomever was beneath them. There were not many however, and a shoulder roll forward took him out of danger. With the fall of the stalactites came several crystals. Most shattered on the floor, and while some survived none of them felt right. As the Master determined this through the Force he could sense an echo of what had happened further above. He didn't think the cause of the quake had broken into the caves themselves but it was indeed near them. And with it was a stirring in the Force...a sensitive was there and this was unlikely to have been an intentional crash.

As much as he wanted to continue his search for a crystal the Sephi carried a responsibility to others as well. He altered his direction slightly and headed towards where he judged the origin to be.
​

Initial Tags : Hawk Hinata A ARS VAMI Maja Fiore Liam Du'Cal

 

[Hawk Hinata]

There seemed little chance that Hawk was going to be able to dig himself out. He was going to need to try to restore power and either use the engines to shake and melt his way out, or if it came to it, use the weapons to blast a path to the surface.
A wave of dizziness swept over him as he descended into the bowels of the ship and he shot out a hand to steady himself against a bulkhead. The pain in his head was a dull but constant ache, and with every breath the air inside The Phoenix became more and more poisonous. Hawk pulled the force into himself to deal with the pain and nausia, he could accelerate his healing process and even stave off the effects of oxygen deprivation for a time.
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Hawk's movements had become lumbering and he found it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. Every few seconds he would take a short sharp intake of foul tasting air, never quite filling his lungs and never satisfying his need for oxygen. Sweat trickled into his eyes despite the plummeting temperature in the ship causing his fingers to become numb.
Hawk's gasping breaths became more frequent and less and less effective. Only the force kept his mind active even as his vision blurred. Excruciatingly slowly the Jedi Master dragged himself between relays and couplings, reconnecting where he could and bypassing where necessary.
Finally, Hawk connected the last relay and a faint shudder of life coursed through the vessel. Auxiliary power was restored and Hawk fell back against the frozen hull of the ship as a wave of blessed fresh warm air hit him. There was still a long way to go, for all he knew the engines could be beyond repair, but with the immediate risks to his life dealt with, Hawk took a few well deserved minutes to rest and enjoy the simple pleasure of breathing.

 

[Hawk Hinata]

A few minutes of deep meditative breathing restored him to a reasonable semblance of his normal self. The wound upon his head had knitted itself together under the healing influence of the force; the deeper tissue damage now resembling several weeks of healing rather than a few hours.
Hawk patted the hull of The Phoenix affectionately, the old freighter had not let him down yet. The Jedi's attention now turned back towards his R4 unit; he had spare power cells and he would need the droid to help with engine repairs.

"Beep bop boop bop," the droid cheerfully chirped as Hawk reactivated it.

"Yes, and I'm glad you're alright as well," Hawk smiled and patted it's domed head. "We need to get the engines..."

Hawk cut off as the ship suddenly lurched and knocked him from his feet. It seemed that whatever land they had come to rest upon was not entirely stable. After a second the ship stopped moving again, but neither Hawk nor R4 moved. Instead they listened. Tiny creaks and crunches could be heard as the strain of holding the ship up cracked the ice upon which it sat.

"I don't think we have time for engines," Hawk commented, and as he did so an almighty crack echoed through the ship as the ice gave way.

This time Hawk was ready and maintained his footing. The Jedi Master stretched his arms out to either side and closed his eyes. The sound of R4 screeching as he rolled down the ship was lost to him and a crease developed upon his forehead as he concentrated. The ship began to level out, and then, it's descent slowed. Hawk's brow furrowed further and his eyebrows lofted high as he turned his hands to face upwards. The ship stopped. Debris of ice and snow fell all around the ship, filling the gap beneath it. Thousands of tons that had sat on top of them now flowed to feather the ground beneath, until very gently Hawk lowered his arms and The Phoenix came to rest once more.

Reassured that they were not going to fall further, Hawk returned to the cargo bay. The cargo bay doors had been torn off by the force of their fall, however it seemed now that he would be able to exit into the cavern beyond, perhaps even make his way back to the surface.

Maja Fiore
Audren Sykes
Liam Du'Cal
A ARS VAMI