A meeting in the Shadows...

[RC 212]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Coren Starchaser"]

Location: Red Shift Cantina.


The bar was quiet today as was the secret base of the Underground. Much was ado in the Galaxy. Major players were at play, the One Sith had slowed down a bit, but the Republic itself was no match for them. The Galactic Alliance had supposedly been infiltrated by the enemy, the Silver Jedi were as usual in a nuetral sort of flux.

Truth was another ajor power was emerging in the galaxy. The First Order, and no doubt in due time they would find themselves with hoards upon hordes of enemies upon the dorstep of the free people. Vassara had watched, waited, desperately hoped for someone to take up the mantle against the enemy. But it was lack luster at most.

She was a Gambler, A warden and many other things. Thus she loved to gamble and now she was about to propose the wildest gamble everm with solid stakes. To strike right at the heart of the enemy, to plunge into the heart of Darkness and inflict a wound so powerfull, even the Sith would know fear...

A simple message was drawn up and sent out over mostly unused encrypted channels of the holonet. It was adressed to the only two folks she had the most trust in in this galaxy and it read:

​

Greetings gentelmen. This is Captain Raxis, and I'm requesting your urgent presence at the Red Shift. I have a plan, but it's going to need a lot of help. Lets saddle up again.​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Starchaser was… away. He was not quite in the Alliance space, he was not quite… anywhere, he was between worlds, as was typical for someone like him. The fact that a message made it through scanners to find him, and that Porter even pushed it forward, and Starchaser figured he might as well take a look.

A call to get to Red Shift?

He had plans. The Alliance was still mostly intact, it was the damned New Jedi Order, something he and Nemo Ven argued at length about during the infancy of the Alliance, that was the problem. Like all Jedi Orders, they opted to let the Sith run rampant rather than do anything. Which was why Coren was doing his thing. Working like the Underground, but also striking like the Rebel Alliance, he was organizing teams to strike. The Alliance dealt a huge blow on Coruscant herself, to the Sith, and they were running the gauntlet at any world they could hit.

Sith were going to bleed. But this message? Red Shift was a safe spot, anyone that was in the Alliance there would know what Coren was working on, and that was a good thing. He changed his flight path, pulling out of hyperspace and jumping back in.

[member="Vassara Raxis"]
[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Coren Starchaser"] [member="Vassara Raxis"]

Retirement hadn't stuck. Blame the Sith cult setting up shop a stone's throw from Jorus' biggest secret. So when the call came in, Jorus answered. The D'Lessio exited hyperspace over Rebellion Actual. The Gypsymoth slipped out of the little cutter and crossed the intervening space to nestle into the familiar hangar bay. Jorus tossed a nod and a word to half a dozen old hands; he'd been here about once a month for the past while.

Some people claimed the Red Shift had a smell, but as far as Jorus was concerned, it didn't any more than his ships or his home did. He grabbed a mug of lum and plopped down opposite Vassara Raxis. Ahh, Raxis. He'd gotten a black mark in the Republic Jedi's books for helping her get her head on straight after she'd borked the Jawa. No regrets, but she still had her moments as a wild card. She still wasn't the darkest asset in the far-flung, decentralized Underground, not by a long shot.

"How've you been, Captain Raxis? Been way too long." At least a couple years, if he remembered right.

 

[RC 212]

[member="Jorus Merrill"] [member="Coren Starchaser"]

He was an old face and a sight for sore eyes. Vassara's worn expression cracked into a mischievous grin when she laid eyes upon him. Jorus was somewhat of a legend. She would of course be eternally thankful for much of the guidance he had provided her in the early stages of her self development.

"Jorus you salty space dog. Nice to see you made it. How has retirement been treating you?"

Vassara kicked back her chair a smidgen and uncorked a flask from her belt. With one fluid motion she slammed back a shot and set it upon the dull steel table. Now they were just waiting for Corren, and she would pitch her idea.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

It wouldn’t take long for Steve McQueen Coren Starchaser to report to Rebellion Actual. Was one of his parts of call, and stored a ship of his, the ShortFin, his stealth job, in an executive hangar that he used to hold his X-Wing. The Tachyon Rising was what he was aboard today, always testing the ship, and he was used to moving her like a pair of old shoes. When he arrived at Actual, the transmitted his code and landed.

It woudn’t be long before the spacer extraordinaire arrived to where Jorus and Vass were. Running a hand through his hair, he stepped into the bar, and immediately noticed to two pilots. Now this was a trio, wasn’t it?

"Call when I'm on the far side of the galaxy, I see how it is." Wasn't a bad trip at all, but he had to say something.

[member="Vassara Raxis"]
[member="Jorus Merrill"]

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Vassara Raxis"] [member="Coren Starchaser"]

"Retirement was decent, right up until someone made some noise they shouldn't have." That was a long story, and there wasn't a soul who was cleared to know some of the details. "Bottom line, too many Sith, not enough free space."

Jorus looked up as Coren joined them. "Hey, complain all you like, Starchaser. I was in the Rishi Maze."

A lie, and he didn't much care if Coren picked up on it, because that was a joke. Just needling a man who had to rank among the three best instinctive astrogators in the 'verse. They'd collaborated from time to time, and Coren was as close to being a trusted member of the Underground as anyone got. Between trilateral cells and flat command structure, the closest anyone came to being crucial wasn't much next to the autocrats you'd get in, say, the Republic.

"So Captain Raxis. What's got your knickers in a twist, and what can we do about it?"

 

[RC 212]

[member="Coren Starchaser"] [member="Jorus Merrill"]

Vassara smirked at the joke. Jorus, lost? The very notion itself was absurd. She looked over at Coren, and then back at Jorus. This was going to be quite the bombshell.

"The Sith. Their force users are learning and appearing at a rapid rate. Almost too rapid. We could run raids and forge alliances against their military might but the truth is it all boils down to the Sith force using base. They are the spine, sword and armor of the dark wall that is slowly encroaching."

Vassara produced a small datapad, laying it on the table and pressing the button on the screen. A small holoprojection flared to life. It was the Sith Temple on coruscant. Desecrated, now a place of darkness surrounded by gardens of dead plants and ruins.

"I'm aware of the Coalitions coming together against them. I'm also aware of the Alliance striking a bow at Coruscant. As the Underground we have a different role to play. While the kings and queens of the galaxy play out their arguments in turbolaser cannons and tanks we can strike a blow that is crippling. I'm proposing a full scale mobilization of all our contacts, focused on one mission. Destroy the Sith Libraries and cripple the knowledge readily available to them."

She took another sip of her Canteen and continued.

"We strike with a small to medium team of trusted agents, knock a death knell into the Sith Temple on Coruscant and open up the shadow front. A crusade, light versus dark, no massive armies. Just us, striking one Sith Tempe after another, sowing massive disruption among their ranks and Morale. It will be a long Campaign and we need volunteers."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

[member="Coren Starchaser"] [member="Vassara Raxis"]

"We don't have the resources to hit Coruscant on that scale, and the Galactic Alliance recently blew up the Sith temple there. That said, we've had some success with smaller-scale raids there, and we've got a well-entrenched irregular network on the planet. We've got options for a strike, but it has to be targeted and precise. Because we could call in every contact and marker we know, and how many of them would show up, commit, put their lives on the line? Not very fething many.

"That said, you're right on the money when it comes to the Sith. We need to ramp up pressure on them specifically. Our main obstacle is that a lot of their temples and academies' locations are secret. Of the ones we know about -- higher-profile places, or facilities that were abandoned during the Netherworld cataclysm -- most are either well defended...or got hit recently. Someone else has the same idea as you, and I'm pretty sure it's Ashin Varanin. She's running with a hybrid of a private military contractor and a Dark Jedi army, an outfit called Ke'dem. One of our people -- you know Alec Rekali? -- dropped me a line about Ke'dem hitting some places in that neck of the woods, former Mando territory. Apparently Varanin's on the warpath again, something family-related I gather. Ke'dem's raided Sith academies and temples on Crina, Mayferria, Erida, and that's just the ones we know about. Turns out the One Sith have made a lot of people really, really angry. Now, Varanin's nominally Underground, more peripheral than anything, but I've gotten enough hints to confirm it. She's hitting every peripheral location she can find, working her way inward.

"Which is why I think we need to hit the peripheral temples hard too. So we need more intel. We need to know where these temples and academies are, and for that we need a source. Willing or unwilling. I know we don't spend an awful lot of time with Sith, but anyone got any useful contacts? Or know anyone worth kidnapping who might know where these places are?"