Checking the gates

[Damian Starchaser]

Whelp Damian said it might not be the Darkside, and yet here was a historicaly darkside cult that he'd tangled with previously. Damian nodded at what Lanter had said. He never tried to prejudge a situation but if it looks like a bantha and smells like a bantha, and tastes like a bantha... its probably not a grox.

And of course there was still another issue to be dealt with. Damian stepped forward and gave his watch a tap. "You know you make a bad impression," he said with narrow eyes, "when you have men waiting in ambush." Lifeform scanners really were the best, they could even see through some forms of cloaking at close ranges. "You're skulking around an active crime scene with men waiting in hiding. Have them come out and reveal themselves, all of them."

Damians hand reached down to his lightsaber prepared to quickdraw should the ambushers come out swinging.

[member="Lanter Kells"] | [member="Ivlyn Mecetti"] | [member="Sav Elko"]

 

[Brooke Waters]

She knew she had heard that order before. The blonde bit her lip as she looked up from her terminal and grabbed her stun baton from her bag. They were a … yeah. Kells was just confirming. A dark side group. That was the whole reason she had been sent here. Her teacher had heard from one of his colleagues that there was something up out this way. Probably why the call went out to grab a few other Jedi.

Biting her lip, she looked over at Damian. “Aren’t y’know, the fact that they’re dark side, the rot?” She whispered.

Oh right, active crime scene. Good thing she had a reason to be here. And was logging everything. Her teacher wanted to hook her up with iBorg but… she opted away from it. It was just a matter of keeping a recording device on her commlink running. After she turned it on, which she totally did. You know, now.

Simple.

[member="Lanter Kells"]
[member="Ivlyn Mecetti"]
[member="Damian Starchaser"]

 

[Ivlyn Mecetti]

[SIZE=11pt]”I do not think you understand the intensity of our issue, my friend. Your Jedi are most likely dead. It is be-” Ivlyn was going to say more, but then she found herself cut off by Master Rolla.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]”What the Duchess means, I believe, is that we simply do not know, but it is best to fear the worst. This is what happens when you deal with a centuries old assassin who wants to continue the old ways, even when it goes against the interests of the entire Tapani Federation.” Rolla said, looking to Ivlyn.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]”We believe that our foe - the former Primarch, Yukaris - has amassed enough dissidents to become a major thorn in the Mecrosa Order’s side. Between our duties as a militarized Force order and intelligence agency, the pirate problem that popped up, and the Primarch, we are stretched thin…. Not too thin, but thin enough to make combating him difficult.” Ivlyn spoke up.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]”We were not waiting in ambush - we were watching the temple with a small amount of adepts in the chance that we had the opportunity to apprehend either dissidents or people who would take advantage of the abandoned temple and its hidden archives - and I will not expose underaged students to a dangerous Force-sensitive with his hand on a lightsaber. They are simply here to learn about field operations. We did not expect them to actually have to perform a field operation, however, or have their lives threatened by a Jedi.” Ivlyn said, in a voice that carried the tension of the moment. Her voice was sharp as a monomolecular blade, and defiant against death as the most endless of immortals.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]”Duchess, it would do best not to agitate the Jedi any further. As you said, his hand is on his lightsaber.” Rolla said over their telepathic communications.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]”I will try, Master Rolla. I cannot be certain that I will succeed, but I will try.” She replied.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]”Considering that I fought alongside the Galactic Alliance at Byss, leading the Mecrosa Order into battle, I do not believe fighting would be a good idea. It would only sour relations between the Tapani Federation - a Galactic Alliance member-state that still has strong support for full independence, as well as the reintroduction of Fondor into the Freeworlds Region - and the Galactic Alliance itself. Let us be smart here, yes?” Ivlyn asked, wanting to avoid a battle, and hoping to calm tensions a little.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Ivlyn looked to [member="Sav Elko"], and gave a soft sigh. She inhaled deeply, and her left palm went flat. She didn’t pull on her helmet just yet. An opening appeared in her left gauntlet, unperceivable to most people unless they were looking for it on her living carapace. ”We do not wish to fight you. Our primary mandate at the moment is to insure peaceful co-existence, and the continued survival of the Tapani Federation’s only domestic Force Order.” Ivlyn said.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt][member="Sav Elko"][/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt][member="Lanter Kells"][/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt][member="Damian Starchaser"][/SIZE]

 

[Damian Starchaser]

A fast talker hosting a talk show on average spoke at a pace of a hundred forty five to a hundred sixy words a minute. In normally conversation the words a minute a person spoke is reduced to a hundred ten to a hundred and fifty. A person giving a speech however generally slows their speech even more to emphasis the deliberate nature of their talking points. The woman in front of Damian spoke three hundred and twenty two words, not counting whoever she was conversing with or the pause for mental communication that meant around three minutes. Three minutes while her men stayed hidden watching. If Damian was a cop he'd have shot her already.

The average person typed at forty words a minute with the speediest being able to get to around a hundred and sixty five. Damian only needed nine words. In the three minutes it was easy for the Jedi to reach to his watch, ignoring the monologue he found typical of Sith and Darksiders and other undesirables, and typed a quick distress call onto the encrypted line. Jedi in Distress. Surrounded. Mecrosa. Uncooperative. Chance for Violence.

“You have thirty seconds to comply,” Damian said sharply raising his voice for all of the ‘acolytes’ in hiding to hear. “If you come in peace then have your men come out of hiding with their hands visible and any weapons holstered.” Damian took a step forward, "Twenty five seconds."

[member="Lanter Kells"] | [member="Sav Elko"] | [member="Ivlyn Mecetti"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Ivlyn Mecetti"] [member="Sav Elko"] [member="Damian Starchaser"]

"Now, lady, I'm no expert, but what I am is curious. You committed an awful lot of resources to a long operation that you didn't expect to go anywhere. You say your people are students, but students can't make themselves totally undetectable to Jedi Knights. And you'll happily bring them to a mission where they might have to fight a centuries-old assassin - but one Jedi putting his hand on his lightsaber is suddenly too much to handle.

"I know your type, lady. High-handed grandstanding won't get you too far in the Alliance, which is where we are. And considering how much pain the last version of the Mecrosa helped bring around here, I seriously doubt bringing you in for some questions will piss off the whole sector."

 

[Brooke Waters]

Savannah wasn’t sure what she could do. All she knew was that she was here because her teacher said she should go. But then again, Kells was here to help with that. Plus he had the lightsaber. Savannah was with her group, she as making sure that she was keeping an eye on everything. Assassins? She didn’t like the sound of that. Maybe the Inquisitors did but not her boss.

“Dead? That sounds like what an assassin would say.” She wanted to sound brave, but she understood a bit about what was going. “If you are chasing someone in the Alliance, why not contact the New Jedi Order?” That was a bit more serious.

She looked between her team. Threatened? She didn’t think so. They were guarding. Their structure was under siege by assassins hiding in the Force. She looked at them, reaching out in the Force, trying to feel them, knowing there was going to be a time where they reached the Force, and it canceled the power. Watching Damian, she nodded.

Maybe he could feel it? She couldn’t send a thought in the Force, not one that said hey, watch them, they’ll trip soon.

[member="Lanter Kells"]
[member="Damian Starchaser"]
[member="Ivlyn Mecetti"]

 

[Jack-ei]

Jack-ei didn't often find himself skulking around old Jedi temples. He found their particular brand of religion distasteful, the other side however.. still distasteful. He was spawned on a distant and often forgotten world where most are born force dead. He like that. Dead. Dead on the inside. Word travels fast about Jedi disappearing, especially when they run from it. What could be so bad as to make an entire temple flee? Such infamy was something the Sociph desperately wanted to have. What better way to do it that to track down the very thing causing the trouble? He arrived around the time the second "apprentice" went missing. They might not have evacuated yet, but scared Jedi still gossip about as much as anyone else. The third apprentice he couldn't take credit for, but the fourth? That one was his, and he couldn't help but feel he had drastically annoyed something by doing so.

He was lucky he was fast, the door opened and figures stood outside. More Jedi. They were talking to others that had recently arrived. What were they saying? Curious creatures these things, so different. He strode forward, his steps making no sound in the old corridors. Right on the edge of the door is where he crouched down and turned his head. They were here for something, something important. And it wasn't him. He just had to know.

[member="Sav Elko"]
[member="Lanter Kells"]
[member="Damian Starchaser"]
[member="Ivlyn Mecetti"]

 

[Willard Jamaane]

[member="Damian Starchaser"] [member="Sav Elko"] [member="Ivlyn Mecetti"]

"Excuse me," said Willard Jamaane. "I couldn't help but overhear."

Fortunately, he'd left Maurice on his Santhe Challenger, at the nearest spaceport.

"I'm Will Jamaane." He kept his voice level, soothing, trustworthy. "I'd like to offer my services as a neutral mediator. It's clear that you have at least a few goals in common. Maybe we can find a way to make things simpler than they are."

He leaned against the railing of the front steps, more or less between the two aggrieved parties.

"Would you be willing to let me settle the waters?"

 

[Ivlyn Mecetti]

Ivlyn’s hand suddenly shot out. Rather than grabbing a weapon, however, many would see her wrist wrapped around that of a black haired young man’s. Ivlyn looked to him, squeezing harder until he winced and let go of his lightfoil handle. He jerked, but didn’t seem to be able to free his hand until she released him, despite being larger and more muscular than her.

”Relax, cousin. It will all be fine.” Ivlyn said softly, trying to fulfill her role as Knight Superior of the mission, and of the people here. Considering her... Unique skillset, Ivlyn was entrusted with more responsibility than the usual knight. Ivlyn head shot to the voice of [member="Willard Jamaane"], and quirked her head.

”Perhaps. We appreciate the identification. What are you doing here, however? This is an abandoned temple…” Ivlyn said, quirking her head at the man.

[member="Sav Elko"]
[member="Lanter Kells"]
[member="Damian Starchaser"]
[member="Willard Jamaane"]